Her expression wasn’t quite so smug any longer. In fact, she seemed confused, her eyes darting over his face as if she were looking for some sign that he was going to expire at any second. Drayce leaned across the table toward her, still grinning. “Was it that I grabbed the poisoned ball, or did you poison them both so I’d die no matter what?”
A bright flush darkened her cheeks as she jerked backward in the booth. Oh, he’d definitely hit the nail on the head with that guess. She’d been sure he was going to die no matter what he’d chosen. That was just nasty.
“Guess it really wasn’t fair, was it? But I lived. The Dead God doesn’t want me. We get our meeting with Yash Magar.”
Her upper lip curled into a sneer as she barked something that didn’t sound like it was healthy for any of them. Luckily, Vale was there to translate in her own way.
“Shit!” she swore as she pulled a long knife from the sheath at her hip. Rayne slid out of the booth, ducking his head low as he reached for his own hidden weapons.
The loud chunk of a shotgun round being chambered echoed through the bar. Drayce looked up to see the shirtless bartender leaping over the bar with a sawed-off shotgun in hand. What the fuck! This was not the kind of friendly service a person was supposed to get at a brothel.
People who’d been loitering about, sipping drinks, were now rushing them with weapons in hand. Guess they all worked for Nanu and Yash. Just fucking fantastic. Drayce started to reach for his gun, but the quarters were too close and he was worried about clipping Rayne. Instead, he grabbed a chair leg and spun, slamming it into one man’s face. His would-be attacker went down hard and the chair didn’t break.
With his unexpected weapon, Drayce shoved the chair into another man’s ample gut and then brought it up to hit the asshole’s chin. He flipped backward, landing hard on his spine.
“We need to get out of here!” Rayne shouted.
Drayce spared a quick glance around, his heart hammering and his unhappy stomach forgotten. Breakfast and lunch would have to wait. More people were beginning to enter the bar. A mix of men and women in uniforms as well as some scantily dressed as if they’d just fallen out of their beds.
Nope, this was not his kind of fight. Soldiers and assassins were one thing. Unarmed prostitutes still rubbing the sleep from their eyes were something completely different.
Drayce moved into the lead, still deftly waving his chair about to knock people from his path. Rayne and Vale were close on his heels. Vale’s gun went off a few times, and there were answering cries. More offerings for the Dead God, unfortunately, but he couldn’t help being glad he wasn’t among them.
He dropped the chair in the lobby and burst out the front doors. He hesitated for only a moment, unsure of which way to run, but Vale solved the problem by racing right past him. With a roll of his eyes, Drayce followed her down the street and into the bright afternoon sunlight.
Pounding footsteps followed, and the chase was on. Waffles were looking a long way off, and he was not excited about Caelan discovering exactly how he’d screwed up this meeting.
In his defense, Nanu really had tried to kill him first.
SIXTEEN
Caelan Talos
They never made it to the Purple Lotus Hotel.
A few blocks from the café overlooking the gate, Caelan caught a whiff of the same scent that had lingered in the High Aspect’s office. He lifted a hand and rubbed his fingers together like he’d done earlier. The air felt sticky and gritty once again. He hadn’t thought much of it when they stood before the High Aspect, but it took on new meaning now.
“I think she’s close,” Caelan said in a low voice as he dropped his hand to his side.
“How do you know?”
“Because I can feel her power. Taste it on my tongue.”
Eno grunted. “Really? What does it taste like?”
“Old blood,” Caelan whispered. He could taste it, smell it. The dirty, copperish tang hung like a heavy cloud low in the air now, while everywhere else in Temit seemed crisp and clean with the barest hint of snow.
A dry wind whipped down the street, pulling his cloak about his body and teasing his hair, but it did nothing to remove the scent from the air. There was no other real sense of her or her power. Just the heaviness of the blood, as if the ghosts of thousands of kills followed her.
They continued cautiously along the winding, narrow stone road until it opened into what looked to be a city park. Except instead of green trees, rolling green hills, and flower gardens, there were colorful stone paths and dry waterways filled with worn stones and even some smooth basins. No plant life softened the space, but stone statues and other works of art filled the space and snagged the eye. Abstract sculptures were set against long, slender-limbed women in a graceful dance.