Kate Daniels 03 - Magic Strikes

a hurry.”
    “How bad?”
    “They made her do some really sick shit.” Derek shrugged. “Some of it might have been for a purpose, but some . . . They made her torture other rakshasas who needed punishment. I don’t know if the rites were actually meant to unlock anything. I think they just got off on watching her pervert herself. She decided she couldn’t take it anymore.”
    “Only there’s no way out,” I said.
    “Yeah. She asked me for help. I told her I’d help her, but alone I wouldn’t be enough. It would have to be a trade for the Pack to be involved. She agreed to tell us everything about the rakshasas and the Diamond. She said some mysterious guy made a deal with them. They’re supposed to get the Wolf Diamond and use it against the Pack. She’d tell us all about it if we got her out.” He sighed. “Most of the rest you already know. I went to Jim with it, and he said no and cut me off. I went to Saiman to steal the tickets, gave you the note, arranged for the transport, and headed to the spot to pick her up. When I got there, they were waiting for me. At least I put up a good fight.”
    “Was she there?”
    He nodded.
    “What did she do?”
    “She watched,” he said.
    “Didn’t try to help? Didn’t protest?”
    He shook his head.
    “Tell me about the beating.”
    “They jumped me, four on one. I had two shards in me with the first punch. Then there was more of them. Cesare, the big one with tattoos, supervised it. His ink slides off his body and twists into snakes with several heads. When they bite, it burns like ice. Not much to tell. I fought. I lost. It hurt.”
    Cesare was going to die.
    “You’re going after the girl?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.
    “As soon as I’m strong enough. Shouldn’t be long now. Doc says that the virus in my body was suppressed but it still multiplied while the shards were embedded. Now I’m healing at a record rate. I’ll be on my feet in a few hours.”
    “You understand that she doesn’t love you?” I kept my voice calm.
    “I know that.” He swallowed. “For the final rite, she has to eat a human child. She’ll do it because she is weak and then there will be no turning back.”
    “If your roles were reversed, she wouldn’t do the same for you. She’s using you.”
    “It doesn’t matter what she does. It only matters what I do.”
    He quoted me. Nice. Hard to argue with your own words.
    I dreaded what I had to say next, but it needed to be said. “Rescuing her won’t resurrect your sisters.”
    He winced. “I was weak back then. I couldn’t do anything. I tried, but I couldn’t. I’m stronger now.”
    And there it was. Four years of being trapped in a house with a loup father who raped, tortured, and ate his children one by one, with Derek powerless to do anything about it. He saw his sisters in Livie’s face. He couldn’t let go any more than I could let go of my blood debts. He would persist until the rakshasas killed him.
     
     
    THE INVALID DECIDED HE WANTED TO BE MOBILE and I lent him my shoulder. Together we managed the trip to the kitchen, where Jim, Dali, Doolittle, and Raphael were eating little chocolate cookies. Dali was nursing another cup of coffee next to Jim.
    Across the table, Raphael was playing with a steak knife. The good doctor on his right looked like a man who’d run to Marathon and then was told he had to run back. He saw Derek and his eyes bulged. “So help me God, I shall have to kill you myself, boy. What are you doing out of bed?”
    Derek grinned. Dali winced. Doolittle’s eyes bulged a bit more. Jim remained stoic and Raphael just smiled.
    I deposited Derek into a chair. “Why is it that you always gather in the kitchen?”
    Dali shrugged. “That’s where the food is.”
    Jim glanced at me. “We must get the Diamond.”
    “Agreed. The Diamond is too dangerous to the Pack. The rakshasas intend to use it as a weapon against you.” I stole a cookie from the stash. “We have to get the Diamond. And Cesare’s head.”
    They looked at me.
    “Why the head?” Doolittle asked.
    “Because it’s easy to carry and I can torture it for a long time.” And I didn’t just say it out loud, did I? I checked their faces. Yep, I did.
    “How do you torture a head?” Dali asked.
    “You resurrect it and make it relive its death.”
    Jim cleared his throat. “We can’t steal the Diamond and we can’t buy it.”
    “The only way to get it is through the Games,” Raphael said.