Chapter 22

  The convoy rolled to a halt two blocks from the Mystic waterfront, engines dying one by one until silence pressed in. Fog curled off the river—thick, salt-bitten, and restless— swallowing the edges of the old shipyard until the world shrank to a handful of dim lamps and the gleam of wet asphalt.

  Richard cut the Range Rover’s engine and leaned forward on the wheel, gaze locked. “There.”

  I followed his eyes. The safehouse hunched at the end of the block: a rotting three-story clapboard, windows covered from the inside with black plastic that puffed with the draft. A single light glowed in the top floor, bright enough to show two motionless figures. Steve.

  Martha.

  The journal in my coat pulsed against my ribs, urgent as a heartbeat. A Vatican SUV door slammed, and someone stumbled out.

  Nina.

  Her coat was torn, her lip split, one eye already bruising purple. She steadied herself on the car and raised both hands like she expected someone to shoot before she got a word out.

  Richard was out of the Range Rover in a second, weapon drawn. “How—”

  “Don’t.” Her voice was raw, ragged. “Don’t point that at me. Not after—” She swallowed hard, then jabbed a shaking hand toward the crew spilling out of the car behind her. “Not after they roughed me up. Not after I came back.” Her eyes shone wet, defiant. “I’m sorry.”

  The Templars froze in place, cross tattoos at their throats stark in the fog. Their hands hovered near their weapons. And there were plenty: short-barreled carbines fitted with suppressors, sidearms in thigh holsters, knives sheathed low for quick draw. A few had heavier packs with breaching gear—fiber-optic scopes, bolt cutters, door charges.

  But threaded among the modern steel were older things, stranger things. Silver-inlaid blades in black scabbards. Ash-wood batons banded with copper sigils. A portable reliquary the size of a lunchbox, strapped to one soldier’s back with leather belts—inside, faint chanting leaked like static. Another cradled a compact crossbow loaded with bolts tipped in obsidian glass. Their formation was military, precise—but spiked with superstition and centuries of Vatican paranoia.

  I shoved open the Range Rover door, boots crunching grit. Rage burned so hot in my chest it nearly choked me. “You were with him. With Corwin.” My voice came out like gravel. God, I was pissed at her—betrayal stung worse than the winter air—but seeing the bruises, the way she winced, it twisted the fury sideways. Whatever she’d done, it wasn’t cool. Not by a mile. The Templars roughing her up? Totally out of line. Even I had limits.

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  Nina’s eyes met mine, glossy with shame. “I thought he had a plan. That he was keeping the worst of it contained. I told myself helping him meant saving people. But he—he used me. I was wrong. And I’m sorry.”

  The bruise on her cheek looked like penance inked in flesh. Richard’s voice was stone. “You betrayed us.”

  “I betrayed him, too,” she snapped, fierce despite her shaking. “If I hadn’t, I’d still be in that house. I broke when I realized what he wanted the Warrens for..”

  Silence pressed in. Even the fog seemed to pause.

  Then a click of hinges. The rear door of the Range Rover swung wide.

  Elizabeth stepped out, red hair catching the fog’s light like embers. She moved past me without a glance, without hurry—her steps were sovereign, inevitable.

  In a blur she was on Nina, one hand clamped around her throat. With effortless strength she lifted her clear off the ground. Nina’s boots kicked uselessly, fingers clawing at the pale hand crushing her windpipe.

  The air changed. Heat rolled outward from Elizabeth like the blast of a furnace door opening. Flames whispered across her arms, tendrils of fire that licked the fog and turned it molten gold. Soldiers recoiled, weapons half-raised but useless—who shoots at a myth come to life?

  Nina’s eyes bulged; her face went scarlet. A sound scraped from her throat, a strangled plea that barely registered.

  Elizabeth tilted her head, studying her prey the way a queen studies a supplicant. The flames surged higher, bright enough to paint the wet pavement in writhing shadows.

  Then—just as sudden—Elizabeth released her.

  Nina crumpled to the ground, hacking, clutching her throat, lungs heaving like a drowning swimmer. Her fingers scrabbled at the gravel, then she forced her head up, eyes wild and bloodshot.

  “Elizabeth—” The word was shredded glass. “She said… my ancestor said… at the lake…” Her chest convulsed, but she pushed through, every syllable costing her. “The river still remembers her fire”

  Her body sagged, trembling, like the message itself had torn through her.

  Elizabeth smoothed the front of her gown as though nothing had happened, turned on her heel, and strode back toward the Range Rover. She didn’t look at Nina. Didn’t look at me.

  “I think she understands her current role,” she said crisply, sliding back into the car. The night seemed to close in around the words.

  Candy stepped forward from the alley, crossbow in hand, gaze level. “She’s either lying or bleeding truth. But we don’t have time to debate it. Those people in that house”—she tilted her head at the lit window—“are family. If she can help, we use her.”

  Richard’s jaw ticked. For a long moment, I thought he’d order Nina bound. Instead, he let the pistol fall back to his side.

  “Fine,” he said coldly. “One chance. Don’t waste it.”

  Nina nodded once, pressing her sleeve against her split lip. She wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  Richard turned back to the team, voice sharp as a drawn blade. “We split. Decoys west— draw the guards into the open. Candy takes the alley. Sadie and I go up the fire escape.” His gaze swept the men, their weapons, the reliquary, the crossbows, the heavy packs of breaching charges. “Use everything you have. No mistakes.”

  The safehouse loomed. Two shadows waited above. And the river’s fog thickened around us, like the world itself holding its breath.