Tenants and Tyrants (Book 5 of The Warden series) (24 page)

42

Cori knew she had no time to get Danato or Ethan. She had to stop Jill. She had to prevent a murder suicide. She ran back to the prison cursing her heels the whole way. Once inside the warmed facility she ripped them off her feet and headed to the elevators. Not trusting the slow machines, and assuming that Jill was already ascending slowly in one, she chose the stairs.

It was a calculated risk to assume that she could run up six flights of stairs before the elevator made it to the top, even with a few minutes head start, but the elevators really were that slow.

Half way up she realized she was thankful for Belus’s persistent training. She still wasn’t as fast as Ethan, but she was making good time. She reached the top floor and shot out of the stair well prepared for a fight.

She only caught a glimpse of the two guards Danato had posted outside of the elemental level before heading to the entrance. She could see blood pooling beneath both of them, and they didn’t appear to be breathing. She shoved that concern to the back of her mind. She couldn’t save them now.

The key pad by the door had a hole in it. It was still smoking. She might have arrived just in time, or a few seconds too late. The door was barely open. She pushed through and scanned the scene to find Jill.

The guards were all at their posts on the main stage observatory. They were only beginning to notice the danger in the room. Cori could see the back of Jill’s head. Her weapon of choice in hand, with a shiny silencer.

At the end of her muzzle was the beautifully built Paul Hirem. His eyes were locked on her with a proud sadness. He was a soldier and understood what a good death was, and this would be a good death. A relief from this existence. An extinguishing of pain.

Cori couldn’t allow it. She understood the pain and sorrow that brought this woman to brandish her weapon at her lover, but she couldn’t let it happen. There was always a way. If there was a will, there was a way, and Cori was never without will.

Efrat was nearby observing the meeting. He made no attempts to stop the interaction. He seemed sad and proud to see Jill there. He gave her a nod, as if he approved her noble act.

Cori knew this was what Jill wanted. She knew it was what Hirem wanted. She could feel everything that Jill felt for Hirem. The love inside of her was as deep as her love for Ethan.

At that moment, Cori couldn’t tell the difference between her lover and Jill’s. Hirem may as well have been Ethan standing there with a gun in his face. All of her instincts screamed for her to stop it. Don’t let him die. Save him.

So she did just that.

Cori barreled into Jill as ungracefully as a drunken epileptic, but it did the trick. She dove forward. The gun went off, but it missed Hirem completely. As they landed, the gun slid from Jill’s hand.

Jill lay sprawled beneath her reaching after the gun. She screamed in agony. Hirem looked down at the gun. The pride was gone and only sadness remained.

Jill looked up at Cori as she gained her footing enough to remove herself from her body. She was angry, but Cori was still glad that she had stopped her from doing it. “You stupid, bitch!” Jill yelled.

“Jill, I’m so sorry I couldn’t let you…” Jill’s head whipped back and Cori flinched at the feeling of liquid splattering her face. When she recovered she saw blood pooling beneath Jill’s head from an unseen hole. The tiny dot on her forehead seemed to grow in severity the more Cori stared at it.

Cori wiped her mouth and found blood there. Jill’s blood.

“Jill,” she said her name like she imagined the woman might just rise up and shake off the wound. The vacant eyes looking back at her told her it wouldn’t happen, but her mind wouldn’t accept it yet.

Her hands matched her flummoxed mind. She reached out to scoop up Jill’s head and cradle it, but she stopped for fear that it might cause her pain to be moved. She wanted to clasp the wound to prevent blood loss, but the little part of her that was still demanding to hang onto hope, knew what she would feel if she did. There would be no question then.

Cori pushed her anger in front of her pain, and turned to face the cause of it. General Clark was still holding out his pistol as if he intended to take a second shot if necessary. His men were at ease behind him. They were no more shocked by this than if he had stepped on a bug. Clark was no less pleased than if he had shot a ten point buck.

Cori felt her mouth open, but it took a moment to understand the many levels of objection. “I stopped her!” She felt herself trying to yell, but her anger was adding more depth and enunciation to her vocal chords than volume. “She was unarmed! You didn’t have to shoot her!” She saw movement from the corner of her eye.

“You son of a bitch!” Hirem hadn’t bothered to use his ice magic on the general. He picked up the gun that had slid from Jill’s hands and charged the General.

“Paul, no!” Cori screamed at him, but he knew what he was doing. He knew what he wanted to come from his attack.

The bullet was loud. Cori hadn’t remembered hearing the bullet that killed Jill.

Hirem bucked backwards, and landed with a sickening thud on the floor. The shot to his chest left him a few labored last breaths. “Hirem!” Cori scrambled to his side. She knew that this wasn’t Ethan. She knew this wasn’t her lover, but it didn’t matter. She felt what Jill had felt for him. She felt the pain of his loss as she would have felt it.

She took his hand in hers. A layer of frost developed encasing their hands. She was crying, but the tears froze to her cheeks before they could slide off. “Paul,” she whimpered. “She loved you so much. She had to free you.”

Hirem may not have understood how she knew that, or why she was so emotionally invested, but he gave her the slightest of nods before his eyes lolled back. Cori felt the cold diminish and the frost and ice started to melt. She fell on his chest and wept. It took several moments of sheer strength to remind herself that she didn’t want to die with him.

Cori raised her head and screamed. It wasn’t so much anger and pain, as a war cry—a promise of revenge. Including Efrat in a previous time line, she had now seen General Clark kill three people, and she wouldn’t allow it to go unchecked.

She was up and turning toward him almost before she could walk, but it didn’t matter. She intended a full on fist fight with the murderous bastard. She was going to use every last bit of Belus’s tutelage against this one man. She wanted to strangle him with her bare hands. She wanted him dead.

She hadn’t anticipated Efrat’s interception. She barely made it three steps before his arm wrapped around her waist, stopping her advancement. She fought against him as he dragged her back. She could see General Clark’s smile mocking her as he holstered his gun and crossed his arms. He waited patiently for her to regain her freedom and attack.

Efrat struggled to hold her at first, but eventually he wrenched her arm behind her back and pressed her to a wall with his hip. She ground her teeth and screamed at the audacity of him stopping her from avenging his friend’s death.

“Let me go!” Her throat was feeling the pain of too much emotion being voiced so she let her words out slow with as much threat as she could throw at a man that didn’t fear her in the least. “Let me kill him!”

“No.” She could feel his breath on her neck, and the prickling in his fingers. “He will kill you. Without a second thought.”

“Danato—“

Efrat pressed up against her so hard she could feel his hip bone in her back. “He isn’t here to save you! I am, so shut-up and trust me.” She gave up her resistance and he relaxed against her. “You listen to me before they break this up. Clark is too dangerous for you to take on. So just hoist up your pretty skirt and leave. Don’t say anything, just walk out.”

“Do you need some assistance?” Clark called over to Cori.

“Revenge is best served cold.” He brushed his lips against her ear.

Efrat moved away from her before the guards could pull him off her. She resituated herself before she turned to face him. “No,” she said simply before walking toward the door.

When the guards didn’t move from her path, she didn’t look to Clark. She continued to face the direction she wanted to go in hopes that they would part eventually, but they didn’t.

In her rush to satisfy her retaliation, it hadn’t really occurred to her that Clark might kill her for it. Nor did it occur to her that he might kill her even if she didn’t retaliate.

“Mrs. Pierce is it?” Clark chimed. His steps were slow, but threatening simply by their approach. “We should probably talk about what just happened here, don’t you think?”

Cori turned to him glancing at Efrat. He was watching carefully, but keeping his distance. “General I don’t think I’m in any condition to talk. I’m tired, stressed, and frankly I’m wearing an evening gown. Perhaps we should take this up later with Danato.”

“Yes, I imagine he will be getting involved, but my concern right now is for you.”

Cori’s eyes danced between his. She had faced every manner of being in the prison, but she had never felt so threatened, as she did in front of this human. “I assume you aren’t concerned about my emotional wellbeing.”

“No, your physical wellbeing.”

“Am I in some sort of danger, General Clark?”

Clark’s twisted smile let her know, that he knew, she knew, what he knew—which was essentially that veiled threats are fun. “My concern lies with your hands.”

Cori looked down at her blood soaked hands. She could only imagine what her face looked like. “This isn’t my blood,” she said without the ire she wanted to.

“No, that isn’t where my concern lies either. You have now been touched by two of my elementals, and you don’t seem to be in any pain. Your hand should be dropping fingers as we speak.”

Cori didn’t know what to say to that. She hadn’t taken any care to hide her newly discovered abilities. She should have known Clark might be interested in that power. Given his obsession with finding new weapons, she imagined that mistake might have graver consequences than attacking him.

She shrugged. “I guess we’ll have to run some tests or something. I’ll let Danato know.” Clark smirked again at the mention of Danato. He liked this game. “It’s not like I can give you any answers now. I’m overwrought by witnessing two attempted murders and two…executions. I’m not used to seeing so much blood. In fact, I really think a may need to vomit. So, if I may General, I would like to postpone this discussion until tomorrow.”

Clark didn’t like the sound of that, but he was at least considering it. He must have been weighing the consequences of dealing with Danato on her death, versus dealing with Danato on the other two deaths.

She on the other hand was considering fighting versus sobbing like a baby to get out of there.

Cori had always thought of herself as tough. Strong willed may have been more apt, but definitely someone resilient enough to fight for what she believed in. At that moment, she believed that General Clark should die a painful death—preferably at her hands, but she had no way of accomplishing it. Even if she could summon Efrat or Hirem’s powers on command through the rings, she was still vastly outnumbered.

It wasn’t often that she gave into her logic over her emotion, but Efrat was right. She needed to get out of there. What happened after that was still being debated in her unconscious mind, but survival was the only concern she had at this moment. “I should probably go tell the dock supervisor that Jill won’t be making it out tonight. He gets so irritated when his empty boxes go out late.”

Clark eyed her sensing the underlying suggestion that someone might be looking for Jill or herself. He stepped forward. It wasn’t a threatening move, but she saw the soldiers tense and raise their guns at a target behind her. She assumed Efrat had repositioned. At least he was still playing the part of the good bad guy for now.

Clark shot back a confused look at him before speaking. “It’s a shame what’s happened here tonight.” He sighed giving her a somber expression. “Jill was an intruder. I have very clear instructions on how to deal with intruders.”

“We could have wiped her mind,” Cori declared boldly, but her bravado immediately shrank as she realized the stupidity of arguing with a man that already had a body count of two. “Couldn’t we have?” She looked to the General pleading for her answer to be right. Her eyes were watering from fear, but she let her face show sadness. A tearful woman can’t be nearly as much menace to him as an angry vengeful one.

“I’m afraid not. She knew Hirem. She was here to kill him. You saw that with your own eyes. This was no accidental hiker. This was a planned murder. It was a necessary death.”

“I just hate to see…” Cori gagged somewhat unintentionally, but she let it work for her. “…the blood.”

Clark looked her over. He knew enough of what he saw to not trust her, but she must have looked as blanched as she felt. “I’m sorry about that. I wasn’t aware that you were so close with
Paul
, or was that just the blood.”

Cori glanced back at his body. “I just…” She couldn’t take back the degree of sympathy she directed at Hirem.

“You saw him attack me. It was a legitimate reason to kill him. You can vouch for that, can’t you? That’s what we can tell Danato tomorrow, right?”