Faith of the Divine Inferno by Leslie Thompson (e textbook reader txt) 📕

could be almost any of our women,” Bres muttered thoughtfully. “What was her name?”
That was something Shaw wouldn’t give. “I don’t remember.”
“You allowed the woman to know you well enough that she placed a powerful protective mark upon your arm,” Bres murmured thoughtfully. “You would have certainly bedded her. Even our women are not so frivolous as to mark a man she had lain with once and never granted him her name.”
“It was a short relationship that happened ten years ago. I don’t remember her name,” Shaw insisted. Bres seethed at him for a long moment. Behind him, Baja and Kootch became tense with suppressed action. They expected Bres to order them to do violence, and were preparing to carry it out. Kootch looked especially excited by the prospect. A small, cruel smile curved his thin lips and darkened his eyes.
“Bring them along,” Bres finally said. He stood and flounced out of the room as Kootch and Baja advanced on us.


Chapter 14

Shaw and I walked side by side with Kootch up front and Baja behind. We were being led through the small house and out the back door, across the back yard and into the surrounding forest. The moon was setting fast and would soon leave the landscape in the shroud of deep darkness that marked the last hours before dawn. Shaw was increasingly more nervous as the boundaries of thick trees loomed ever closer, and I could not fault him for it. Across the centuries, forests have been convenient and likely places to commit murder because the foliage suppresses the anguished cries of the doomed, and the brush makes for good concealment of unmarked graves.
Shaw talked to conceal his fear from our captors and to brace his courage. It was annoying, but it was better than listening to the man beg and barter for his life. Knowing that if he could get Kootch and Baja to see him as a person rather than a victim they might be more reluctant to kill him, Shaw engaged the men in idle conversation. His tone was calm and even, as if he was talking to friends about mundane things like the weather or the rising price of gas. But neither of them acknowledged him with a word or look. Either through genetics, upbringing, or some twisted combination of both, those men were badly broken in a way that made their work for Bres an easy thing, and therefore immune to the humanity of others.
Shaw recognized this quickly and he fell silent for a few minutes before turning his attention to me. It made sense for him to talk to me I suppose. As far as he knew, I could meet the same fate he did, and there was comfort in the knowledge that perhaps he would not go alone. Mortals often bonded deeply with those they shared crises with and it made it possible for whole communities to bind together and survive terrible catastrophes and fight to the last man in a siege.
“So, you’re an assassin,” he said in an odd tone. I couldn’t tell if the comment was a hopeful one or accusatory, so I refused to take it as an insult the words implied.
“No,” I grunted as I stumbled over a root. I had been an assassin in other lives, but I had no intention of becoming one as Rebecca Calden.
We were into the forest now and it was far darker than in the open. Walking here would be treacherous and running could prove crippling. There was little chance of making an escape here even if the opportunity presented itself. I resigned myself to our journey and tried not to think of what might lie ahead.
“You’re former military then.”
“Nope.” The army was something I never joined. In previous lifetimes, my gender was prohibited from engaging in military endeavors, and I had no desire to endure the discomforts required to disguise my natural endowments and pass as a male. However, service was now possible for me in this modern world, but I am too accustomed to fighting alone to adjust my strategies to include whole groups.
“Then why does this guy think that you are capable of killing Ryerson?” Shaw was exasperated. To his mind, I am very young, untrained, and otherwise unprepared for this kind of task.
“Killing doesn’t require special training, any idiot with enough fear or rage can do it. You’re a cop, you know this,” I told him.
“Not if you’re murdering a family member or you’re a street punk shooting rivals or random bystanders,” he agreed. “But you were sent after a specific target with… specialized skills.” Shaw was verbally dancing around the fact that Ryerson had defied laws of nature and physics as he understood them. “You were expected to take Ryerson out like a professional.”
“I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Does it have something to do with the fact that these people think you’re immortal?”
Well I guess Shaw hadn’t missed that comment after all. I was relieved by his phrasing though; it meant that he didn’t believe it.
“Probably. I imagine that an inability to die would make for an effective murderer.” I shrugged.
“What gave Bres the idea that you cannot die?” Now that was a question I could give an honest answer.
“My unusual eye color made him believe that I am immortal,” I said.
“Your eyes are naturally purple?” he asked, astonished. “I thought that was from contacts.”
“Nope, it’s all me.”
“Shut up,” Kootch snarled at us. He stopped walking when we reached a small shed huddled among a stand of pine trees and blooming shrubs. I eyed it warily, thinking that it resembled the quaint little cottages described in children’s tales right before the wicked witch shows up to eat them. He pulled open the door while Baja shoved us inside and clicked on a flashlight. The yellow beam showed a wooden door that served a storm cellar leading underground. That is unusual. While tornados and powerful storm systems do occur in Georgia, none of them really require this kid of protective measure, not like the Midwest region of the United States. So storm cellars are rare here.
Kootch pulled the door open with movements that showed no sign of the pain he should have been suffering from the stab wound I had given him. I wondered about this, thinking it was strange that Bres would care enough about the skanky redneck to ease his pain and heal his wounds. But there he was, whole and hale, and I was glad I had noticed it before I knew a fight was unavoidable.
“In you go,” Kootch snapped, waving us toward the earthen steps leading downward. Shaw had finally reached the point where he was unwilling to cooperate. He shook his head in stubborn refusal and he pulled me by my arm to stand close to him. His free hand groped at his side as he searched for a weapon that wasn’t there. Kootch sighed in disgust and pulled his gun from where he kept it at the small of his back. “Man, I don’t wanna have to shoot a cop. That’ll cause me more trouble than you’re worth. Just get into the hole.”
“You aren’t putting us down there,” Shaw insisted. He took a step back toward the door and then another, pulling me along with him. Baja let out a curse and in one smooth move, he grasped Shaw by the back of his neck and threw him into the hole. I followed close behind, not because Baja tossed me in too, but because Shaw’s grip on my arm tightened by reflex when the bigger man grabbed him and he didn’t let go.
When I managed to lift myself off of the floor, Shaw was groaning and sitting up. The stairs had been longer than those found in most storm cellars and we had hit them about halfway down. I was sore from the resulting tumble, and I thought it was a minor miracle that I hadn’t broken my neck.
We were in a large underground room with beautiful, exotic wood lining the walls and the floor with old carpeting and priceless tapestries decorating the place to make it feel like something other than a hole in the ground. There were simple tables set up everywhere, with lush potted plants and pretty jars filled with phosphorous liquids. Uncut jewels gleamed in small piles here and there, along with gold coins and bolts of expensive fabrics. By all appearances, Bres was a hoarder and I doubted that this stuff represented even the least of what he had stashed in other places. How did I know he had other stashes? Like myself, Bres is a creature gifted with a long life and it makes us paranoid about thieves. It’s easier to keep most of your stuff over the years if you spread it around a bit.
I stood up and offered Shaw a hand, staring ahead as I did so. Our immediate area was shrouded in thin shadows with a light flowing out from the other end of the room. I felt Shaw take my hand and I braced myself to take his weight as he pulled himself to his feet, keeping my eyes on the bug-shit faerie humming merrily about the plants. Baja and Kootch finished whatever they were doing and tramped down the stairs with their big feet clattering on the boards.
“Come forward now,” Bres said happily, gesturing with both hands. Shaw’s fingers tightened nervously around mine and he refused to move. Baja and Kootch brushed past us, casting irritated glances over their shoulders as they went by. At least they left us alone to flank their boss at the tables. “Don’t linger there, come here now.”
I’d had enough of this. I found myself thinking about Bres’ earlier comment that if a person has enough holes in them, they’ll eventually die. I wondered if that applied to faeries as well. I contemplated the assorted odds and ends on Bres’ table and quickly realized that none of them would serve as a decent weapon. It didn’t matter; there was more than one way to skin a cat and I know most of them.
“Don’t.” Shaw stopped me from getting closer with a hiss. “There’s nothing good happening here.”
“How do you know?” I asked. As far as I could see, Bres was only talking to his plants. It was a little screwy, but not dangerous.
Shaw shuddered as if his skin was trying to leap off of his body, and he made a gagging noise. Afraid that he was about to be sick, I took a few steps away from him so that I wouldn’t get it on me. “I just know,” he told me in a thick voice.
“Don’t make me come and get you. I promise that you will not like it if that happens.” Bres’ voice was low and menacing, like the sound a large predatory animal makes before it bites your head off. I pried my hand from Shaw’s and went where I was told. Let him find out what Bres could do the