“That's good,” Hutchinson slurred his words slightly, thick with the New England accent he normally kept filtered to a minimum. “It's good that you're sorry.” He gave a slight laugh. “Oh, Christa, talking about this while I'm full of drugs is probably not the best of times to do this.”
Ukiah stepped back so he could see into the room, despite the hard look from the guard. Hutchinson lay in the bed, clustered with monitors and IV stands. Christa was in a wheelchair beside the bed, dressed in a matching hospital gown. Two battered souls, betrayed by those they loved and trusted.
“I had to see that you were okay.” Christa gazed at his good hand as if she wanted to take it, but lacked the courage to.
“Why?”
“I never really stopped loving you,” she whispered. “But I suppose that I didn't love you enough. There was this void that I thought the Temple's mission could fill, the sense I was important for me, not my money. I was so stupid. It was all lies. It was always about the money and not me.”
“To me, it was never the money.” Hutchinson shushed Christa as she started to sob. “I know there's no forgive and forget, but we two both really could use a friend to get us through tomorrow. I have to deal with losing my hand, and you're going to jail, but it would be good to know that when the chips are down, there's someone who will be there.”
“You're willing toâ?” She stopped short of asking him to define what relationship he meant.
And battered, Hutchinson protected his heart, but still reached out his good hand, saying, “I'm willing to.”
She clasped his hand and kissed it. “Thank you.”
“Cub?”
Rennie called from downstairs.
“In a minute or two, I'm going to be holding a puppy.”
Wondering if Hutchinson and Christa's new alliance was truly a good thing for Hutchinson, Ukiah took the stairs down to the lobby instead of waiting for an elevator. Certainly, the agent had suffered immensely out of his love for Christa, but was winning her back really a reward? Perhaps.
Kittanning greeted him with a squeal of happiness and settled into his arms.
“How's your partner?”
“Healing.”
“Did he go for it?”
Ukiah looked at Rennie in confusion and then realized that the Pack leader must have sensed his thoughts on the way into the hospital. “Yes, Max did. We're moving the agency.”
“So you're going to be looking for a house with a white picket fence?”
“Eventually.” Ukiah shouldered Kittanning.
“What first?”
Ukiah waited until they were out into the parking garage, with new sounds and smells to distract Kittanning, then said, “We've only destroyed two of the four Ae. Ice has the other two, and he's gone into hiding. We need to find him, before he tries for Kittanning or, worse, realizes that he doesn't need him to make Loo-ae work.”
Bitter rage flared through Rennie at the mention of the cult, quickly controlled for Kittanning's sake. Last night when the Pack caught up with Ukiah and realized he'd been with a woman, they had been aggravated at him. After they made Ukiah share his memoriesâa la Pack mind meld styleâthe annoyance became a full parental outrage aimed at the cult. Core was lucky that he was already dead.
“Are you going to tell Indigo about this Ping?”
“I already have. All the cult members knew where Core was and what he was doing last night. It wouldn't have been fair to let her find out from one of them.”
“And?”
“She says that it's frightening how often she finds herself in alignment with the Pack.”
Rennie laughed. “She wanted to kill the bastard?”
“Something like that.”
Rennie glanced back at the hospital. “Does Hutchinson's woman know where the rendezvous is?”
“She's turning state's evidence and willing to cooperate fully, but Core didn't trust her. Indigo hopes to piece together
an address from what Socket . . . Christa might have overheard and general observation.”
“The men will start dying soon without the Blissfire.”
“I know.”
Core had died instantly in the crash. Hash had drowned, not from Ukiah throwing him from the boat, but in an attempt to evade capture by river patrol. Ironically, only the female cultists had died on the island; one had tried to pull Du-ae out of the fire, and the other had been shot resisting arrest. That left five menâDongle, Io, and three othersâin custody but they would start dying within days.
And so would Parity, if the Ontongard didn't turn him into a Get first.
The Butler Fire Department found no trace of cult members at Eden Court beyond the two men in the driveway; one dead of a snapped neck while the other had a butter knife sunk through his windpipe. Bear and Hellena had scoured the smoking rubble early in the morning, slipping in under the police's noses. They verified that all the Gets in the wine cellar had been freed before the fire.
Depending on what those cultists knew and what the Ontongard could learn, it might be a race to find Ice first, with the fate of all mankind in the balance.