What has happened before will happen again. Fucking writs.
“There’s no question that our luck has sucked since I broke the prophecy,” Strike continued. “Given everything that’s happened over the past couple of weeks, I think that the gods are giving me—giving us—a chance to make up for my having not fulfilled the thirteenth prophecy when I was supposed to.” He paused, voice cracking with renewed regret. “I think maybe the sun god chose Anna as a Triad mage because the gods needed her to deliver the message, and wanted to be sure that I would pay attention.” He shifted his tired, hollow gaze to Dez. “Which is where you come in.”
“No,” he said hoarsely. “Don’t.”
But Strike kept going. “I want you to be my successor and—if it turns out to be the only way to keep Lord Vulture trapped in the underworld—my executioner.”
“Hell, no!” Dez shot to his feet and faced Strike with his hands balled into fists. His shout was echoed by a bellow from Nate, cries from Jade and Alexis, and various other shocked noises. But it was Reese’s softly indrawn breath that cut through him; she was trying very hard not to cry.
Strike stayed leaning hip-shot against the couch, waiting for the furor to die down. When it did, he said, “Setting aside the prophecies for a second, my sickness, whatever the hell it is, has driven home the need for me to name an heir, if you will.”
“Not me,” Dez said flatly. Dear gods, please not me. Not when he and Reese finally had something going right for them after all these years.
“Then who?”
“Nate,” he said immediately, preferring this debate to the other one, because how was a guy supposed to argue an execution with his own potential victim? He continued: “Michael or Brandt would work. Hell, why stick with a patriarchy? Choose Leah or Alexis. Someone who knows the current system, who knows how you run things and how to keep things on an even keel for the next twelve months.”
“I’ve been doing the even-keel thing, and it’s not working. We’ve become a reactionary force, moving in to fix shit after the fact—sometimes way too long after. We need someone who’s going to go out and find the fight, kick ass, take names, shake things up.”
“Shaking things up,” Reese said softly, with a broken little hiccup in her voice. “The western compass quadrant, the one associated with the star demon, represented the ability to transform and shake things up.”
“Reese, no.” He caught her hand in his. “No.” But she wouldn’t look at him.
Leah said, “We read back through all the info we collected on you, back when we were trying to figure out whose side you were on.” She paused. “From a former narc to a former gangbanger, I have to admit, you were a hell of a rey. Under your command, the Cobras expanded their territory and operations, even dabbling in some legit businesses. The local mob wannabes fizzled and died out, the crime and death rates went down slightly in the areas you controlled, and the per capita incomes went up.”
“Great,” Dez grated. “I was a better criminal than Hood. Give me a fucking cookie. Not the Nightkeepers.”
But Reese cleared her throat and said, “She’s right. You made the Cobras into something better than they were. Even Fallon admitted it.”
“That doesn’t mean I’d make the Nightkeepers better.”
“I’m not asking you to,” Strike countered. “I’m asking you to take the team that’s already been built and use them to win the end-time war.”
Leah’s voice flattened, and some of her deeply hidden emotions broke through as she said, “Gangs are essentially urban armies.”
Strike added, “You’re ruthless, ambitious, arrogant, and don’t give much of a shit about anybody’s rules but your own, and even those are flexible when it comes down to doing what it takes to win. You’re a warlord, and we’re headed into war.”
“Jesus.” I don’t want to be that guy. I promised not to be. “You’re acting like naming a successor is the only issue here. What about the prophecies? What about Iago?”
Strike’s tired eyes bore into his. “This is the serpents’ solstice. All the signs point to this being your time.”
“What fucking signs?”
It was Lucius who said, “Aside from you and Iago being the only two people left on the plane who have the potential to wield the serpent staff? Well, the Hopi believe that their snake dance will call a great white god wearing a crimson cape, who will turn back the apocalypse and allow the earth to enter a new age. And if you consider the whole ‘what has happened before’ doctrine, it seems significant that the last time a Triad was summoned, the peccary bloodline lost the throne to the jaguars. Add to that the fact that the sun god basically sacrificed one third of the Triad magic to send you a spirit guide and get you back on track . . .” He shook his head, dispirited. “Yeah. The signs suggest a power transfer.”
Dez couldn’t think. He couldn’t fucking breathe. “Are you ordering me on my oath to do this?”
“Take a few hours and think about it,” Strike said, which wasn’t really an answer. He included Reese in his look. “Both of you. We’ll meet back here at noon, and go from there.” And with that, they were dismissed whether they liked it or not. King’s orders.
Strike watched Dez struggle inwardly for a second before the other man snapped off a nod, and tugged Reese away. She went with him, shell-shocked, yet gutting it out because she’d be damned if she’d lose it in public. Strike knew the type; he lived with a prime example.
If the parallel was as close as he thought, she would . . . yep, there it went: the pause in the hallway, the short, intense conversation. He even knew the script, such as it was: Dez would want to be on his own to process the shock, but he’d push her to come with him, not wanting her to be alone. He wouldn’t do it right, though, or she would see the well-intentioned lie. There it was now—the small shove, the head shake, and then the two of them moving off in different directions to nurse their wounds so later they could present a united front in public.
Or—hello—maybe you’re projecting all of that, and they’re going to meet back up in his suite in five for some raunchy, desperate, “We’ve got less than thirty-six hours before everything goes to hell so screw the other stuff and let’s get it on” sex.
“What are you thinking?” Leah said, rising from the sofa to sit beside him on its arm, close enough that he could answer in an undertone.
“That the fun is only half over,” he said wryly, not because any of this was a joke, but because if he didn’t keep his head in a semi-normal place, he would explode. He was barely hanging on as it was, trying to deal with logistics, grief, anger, and despair—his, hers, and more to come—with a brain that felt like oatmeal. Exhaling, he turned toward the others. Their faces—some looking up at him in disbelief, others looking away, angry or tearful—pretty much encapsulated everything he was feeling. He’d been trying to deal with it all since he had awakened in the middle of the night, finally understanding what the dreams were trying to tell him about the thirteenth prophecy: that he was his own greatest sacrifice. And the prophecies needed to be fulfilled.
Alexis scowled. “This is a trick, right? You’re testing his loyalties.”
“I wish. No, this is for real.”
Beside her, Nate shook his head, letting a rare flash of grief show through his normally controlled exterior. “I’m sorry, man. I wish . . .”
“Yeah.” Strike had to push the word past the huge lump in his throat. “Ditto.”
“Isn’t there anything else we could try?” That came from Patience.
“If you’ve got a suggestion, I’m all ears. Doesn’t matter how far-fetched, I’ll try anything at this point, because the pisser of this thing is that we don’t know what’s going on. Hell, it could be a new talent trying to come through and doing damage in the process. It could be Kulkulkan trying to find a way to communicate without using a skyroad. It could be . . . Shit, I don’t know. Lots of things other than fatal. But there are the prophecies to consider.”