The blue-eyed man lowered the body to the floor. Then, incredibly, horribly, he reached for the knife that’d fallen free during the struggle.
‘‘No!’’ Leah surged forward when she saw his intent. ‘‘Don’t!’’
‘‘It’d be better if you don’t watch,’’ he said without looking at her. A muscle pulsed at his jaw, and his face was tight with something that might’ve been remorse, might’ve been repugnance, but neither of those emotions made sense. It wasn’t like anyone was forcing him to . . .
Cut. Itchy’s. Heart. Out.
Leah knew she should run, or better yet, slap a set of cuffs on Blue Eyes and call for backup. But she didn’t move. Couldn’t move.
Once he was finished with the heart, he went to work on the head, hacking grimly through Itchy’s neck and spinal cord with the rapidly dulling knife, gagging once or twice. The earthy, tangy scent of blood hung thick in the air, and the dark wetness soaked his robes and coated his hands to the elbows, and he looked miserable as he stood and looked down at the mutilated body. Then he spoke a word that made no sense and sounded like a cat urping a hairball.
And the body burst into flame—not normal fire, but a greenish purple flame that twisted with black and shed no heat. It looked like sickness. Like evil. And Leah couldn’t stop staring at it.
The fire burned for a few seconds, then flashed so high she had to close her eyes and turn away, shielding herself. When the light dimmed she looked back to find that the body was gone, as was the gore that’d splashed the hallway and walls only moments earlier. Blue Eyes was clean of blood. But the deed he’d just done was written on his face, and in his eyes when he turned to her.
When their gazes connected, electricity seared through her as it had that morning when she’d zapped Mr. Coffee, only so much stronger. Something shifted inside her, realigning the universe and leaving everything just a little bit different than it had been before.
‘‘Are you okay?’’ he asked, his voice a harsh rasp, as though he’d been through seven kinds of hell getting to her. Only that didn’t make any sense. He’d been in the house all along, hadn’t he? He was one of them, had turned on them for some reason. That was the only way he fit into the ‘‘enemy of the 2012ers’’ theory on the terrorist attack that’d killed Vince.
But she hadn’t heard his footsteps, Leah realized, her brain spinning perilously close to panic. He’d appeared out of nowhere, out of thin air. And she’d made a carving knife fly. The body and blood spatter had disappeared.
Even stranger—and more dangerous—golden heat kindled in her core, and a lurching twist of raw lust threatened to overshadow her better judgment. She was dangerously attracted to this man. This murderer who’d butchered her informant in front of her and acted like it’d been the right thing to do. She wanted to be with him, felt like she already had, already knew what it would feel like.
‘‘Wh-what’s going on?’’ Her voice shook on the question, but she didn’t care.
He stared at her for a long moment, as though weighing an enormous decision. Then he held out his hand to her. ‘‘Come on. I’ll show you.’’
His sleeve fell back to reveal four symbols tattooed in stark relief on his forearm, symbols that should’ve meant nothing to her but seemed familiar, as though forgotten memories were struggling to break through some invisible barrier. She stared at the marks, then at him, then asked in a whisper, ‘‘Did you kill my brother?’’
He shook his head slowly. ‘‘I had nothing to do with Matty’s death.’’
She froze, gut twisting. ‘‘How did you know his name?’’
‘‘A private investigator told me.’’ He kept his hand outstretched. ‘‘I’ll explain everything. I promise.’’
And though she knew she absolutely, positively shouldn’t trust him, shouldn’t go anywhere with him, what was her other option? There were things going on here that made no sense, that weren’t going to lend themselves to Internet searches and policework. She owed it to the dead to follow through. And damn, she wanted to go with him, wanted him, though that made the least sense of all.
Knowing it was probably a very bad decision, she nodded. ‘‘Okay, start talking. If I like what I’m hearing, I’ll let you show me whatever you want to show me.’’
‘‘It doesn’t work that way.’’ He crossed the distance between them and took her arm. ‘‘I’m sorry.’’
She pulled back instinctively. ‘‘Sorry for— Aaah!’’ The question devolved to a scream as the world disappeared and they lunged upward, catapulting through a thick gray mist as though they were at the end of a yo-yo that’d just reversed course. She was still screaming as they jolted sideways, then down, and the mist blinked out of existence, leaving them suspended in a glass-ceilinged, circular room that bore way too much of a resemblance to the ritual chamber in the Survivor2012 compound.
Leah’s brain took a snapshot in the second they hovered. Eight blue-robed figures were seated in a loose circle below them, with wooden bowls perched in their laps. She recognized one of the women and the black-robed man who knelt before the carved stone altar. They had accompanied Blue Eyes to the 2012ers’ compound; Black Robe was the one who’d shot Vince.
A smaller, older guy in jeans and a T-shirt stood near an open door. He was the first one to notice them, his attention jerking to the ceiling and his mouth going round in shock. Then the yo-yo string snapped, and Leah and Blue Eyes fell right in the middle of the circle.
He landed first and then Leah hit, driving the breath from both of them. They just lay there for a few heartbeats, staring at each other. Then reality returned— unreality returned?—and she scrambled off him, her heart jackrabbiting and her breath whistling in her lungs as she tried to suck in enough oxygen to get her brain back online.
‘‘Holy shit,’’ she whispered, looking around the glassed-in room to the night beyond, where high rock walls and a faint glow of dusk suggested she’d skipped a couple of time zones in the blink of an eye. Or traveled through time. Or both.
She felt Blue Eyes move up behind her, and knew it was him without turning to look because of the fine warmth that vibrated across her skin. ‘‘Easy, Blondie,’’ he murmured next to her ear. ‘‘Don’t freak-out on me.’’
‘‘Cops don’t freak.’’ But she was damn close to it as she looked at the blue robes and realized not one of them had moved. Black Robe hadn’t twitched either. In fact, none of them had responded to her and Blue Eyes’s arrival except the older guy near the door, who was doing a good impression of a guppy.
The expression quickly morphed to that of a pissed-off guppy when the guy closed his mouth, glared at her rescuer, and snapped, ‘‘We discussed this.’’
Blue Eyes set his jaw and got big. ‘‘The choice is made, winikin. Deal with it.’’
‘‘Wait a minute!’’ Leah turned on him, heart pounding, feeling like she’d stepped out of her own life and into someone else’s. ‘‘What discussion? What choice?’’
Before Blue Eyes could respond—if he was even intending to—the other nine people, the ones sitting on the floor like they’d been frozen there, snapped out of it, all simultaneously drawing convulsive breaths and coming back to life as though someone had thrown a switch.
The ones in the blue robes looked dazed as shit, shaking their heads and staring around as if they’d been someplace else and were happy to be back. In contrast, Black Robe, older and tougher and seeming just as pissed off as the guppy, shot to his feet, glanced at Leah, and immediately looked like he wanted to kill someone. Again.
He was maybe a few years younger than Jox, and had a Last of the Mohicans thing going on, with a skull trim, hawk nose, and eyes that would’ve done any predator proud. He looked scary as hell, in a don’t-want-to-meet-him -in-a-dark-alley-without-backup way. But when he crossed the room and got in Blue Eyes’s face, the two men seemed evenly matched in brawn and charisma. And pissed-offedness.