Sweet Reckoning
Page 16

Marna beamed up at him.
“It’ll be okay,” he said to her. He sounded strong and sure.
He sounded in love.
CHAPTER SIX
LIE DETECTOR
Like every other night in the hotels, I couldn’t sleep well. I spent a lot of time begging for peace and clarity, and now I had the Marna situation on my mind, too. I couldn’t think too hard about losing her. I just couldn’t. I wanted so badly to talk to Kai about it, but for all I knew he was flanked by whisperers at any given time.
I wanted to cry with relief that night when I received a text from my father.
Where are you?
I gave him the name of the hotel and the city: Marietta, Georgia.
I waited, but he didn’t respond. After an hour I was starting to get worried, and considered leaving the hotel in case someone else had gotten ahold of my father’s phone. Just as I was shoving stuff into my bag, I heard a familiar, gritty voice in my head.
Greetings, daughter of Belial.
I’d gotten good at controlling my reactions, even while my innards liquefied with fright.
Azael, I responded telepathically.
He peered down at me, his heavy feline features fixed in an intense glare. My pulse slowed as I watched our spirit ally, but my nerves were still shot as I waited to hear his news.
You will have Nephilim visitors. Be careful what you say.
Neph visitors? Oh, heck no. I shoved the last of my things into the bag and ran to the door as Azael flew away. I lost my cool, letting out a scream when I swung the door open and found two people standing there—a young girl with dark, slicked-back hair, and a blond man with sharp cheekbones and icy eyes. Both had black badges at their sternums.
“Going somewhere?” the girl asked in a high-pitched voice, her accent replacing w sounds with v’s and rolling her r’s. Her identity hit me with a sickening slap.
Caterina. Daughter of Jezebet, the Duke of Lies.
I fought to control my breathing. Caterina may have looked young and harmless, but I knew better. Up close, the evil glint in her eyes made my stomach turn. She had no idea I’d been hiding under the dock on Duke Melchom’s private island. She had no idea I had witnessed the part she’d played in the death of Flynn. She was the one who’d told the Dukes he was lying.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“We aren’t here to hurt you.” The man’s accent was thick and European, sounding something like Russian to my untrained ear.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I am Marek, son of Shax. From Czech Republic.” Son of the Duke of Theft. I held the shoulder strap of my bag a little tighter as he continued. “And this is Caterina, daughter of Jezebet, from Romania.”
He smiled warmly. She didn’t.
“What do you guys want?” I asked again.
I had to be careful, just as Azael had said. Caterina could sense lies and she was absolutely no friend to fellow Neph.
“We just want to talk,” Marek said, never losing the pleasant smile. “May we come in?”
I remembered back to last week when I’d seen Dad in L.A. He’d mentioned looking into the possibility of the son of Shax being an ally. That made me feel slightly better . . . but only a smidge. For a possible ally, he didn’t keep very good company.
“I was just leaving. We can talk outside.”
The last thing I wanted was to be stuck in a room with them. I felt the light weight of the knife in my pocket, though I didn’t like the two-against-one odds.
They crowded the doorway, but I pushed my way out. The door was almost closed behind me when Caterina slapped her tiny palm to my chest.
“We prefer to speak in the room,” she said.
I smacked her hand away on instinct and yanked the door shut.
“Sorry, but I prefer to speak outside.”
“You are not sorry,” she scoffed.
Dang it. Stupid lie detector. I’d have to watch every word I said around her.
“Fine. I’m not sorry.”
“It’s all right, Caterina.” Marek smiled at me. “You can hardly blame her for being cautious, yes?”
He gave her a look that said something along the lines of Chill out, you’re scaring her. She rolled her eyes and started moving to the exit door down the hall. She looked like a soldier the way she marched in her black pants and stiff button-up white shirt.
“Come on then,” she called brusquely.
Marek shot me an apologetic glance and waved a hand out for me to go next. I went, looking over my shoulder at him several times with distrust. I had the hilt inside my bag since I was wearing shorts, and I wasn’t letting his stealthy hands anywhere near it.
When I slowed near the door, Marek bumped me from behind and I let out a little screech, turning on him. He kept his hands on my back to steady himself, and I had to shove him away with an elbow.
“My apologies,” he said, all innocence. He slipped his hands into his pockets and nodded down at the paper outside someone’s hotel-room door. The caption was about a huge pawnshop robbery in Atlanta. “The headline caught my attention.”
Not knowing whether or not to believe him, I pulled the bag around from my back to my chest as I pushed through the doors. I felt the shape of the hilt through the bottom of the bag and breathed a sigh of relief.
Outside it was dark, but the air still held the heaviness of the day’s heat and humidity. I didn’t walk to my car, opting instead to stand in a patch of grass at the side of the hotel, away from prying eyes. I faced them with my stance wide, sliding the book bag onto both shoulders in case I had to fight, which I prayed I wouldn’t.