Basilisk (The Korsak Brothers #2)(76)

“Thanks for the lessons in that. They’ve been invaluable.” I continued to grin as I took a bite of the biscuit.

The moment that had descended on my yesterday hadn’t been the best of my life—not the worst, thanks to the Institute—but not the best either. This one was—this was the best moment I’d had. At peace with my family . . . where I belonged.

And then Peter called and turned the moment into a memory. Memories are good too, but they’re only shadows of moments—a sepia photograph of what you saw, heard, felt. Once a moment is gone, you don’t get it back.

Peter’s cell phone rang again.

I was really beginning to hate that son of a bitch.





Chapter 13


“You’re alive, Michael. Good. It’s difficult to keep punishing you if you let a simple building falling on your traitorous head take you out of the game.”

I sat on the edge of the bed and wished Peter were there so I could shove the cheap phone down his throat. As for his calling me traitorous, I didn’t ask him what he meant. I knew—as did Stefan and Saul now that I’d come clean. Peter wanted to punish me because he’d learned of the cure. “It’s even harder to punish me, Peter, when you keep running away. You wouldn’t be afraid of me, would you?”

“In the outside world for three years and you haven’t learned how to play a game yet. It’s rather sad how you’ve wasted your freedom. I feel sad for you, Michael. I honestly do.”

Peter hadn’t felt sad in his life and while he knew the meaning of honesty, he was incapable of it. “What do you want, Peter? I’m done with following you around. I don’t have to. There are other people out there who want to catch up with you more than I do. I’ll let Raynor do what he does best and maybe I’ll go on vacation. Hawaii. I’ve always wanted to see a volcano.”

He laughed. “Raynor. The Institute’s invisible pet pit bull. None of us knew he existed until you escaped, and suddenly he was at the new one we were moved to all the time. Checking up on Bellucci, who, as it turned out, did rather need some checking up on, didn’t he? Too bad, so sad, but Bellucci didn’t learn what Raynor constantly told him about lax security.” His voice hardened. “But that’s all over now. Turn on your TV or your laptop. Find a cable news channel. You might see my bright smiling face. Do it now, Michael. The games are over. Next time I see you, it’ll be in Heaven.”

The phone clicked and went silent in my ear. I tossed it onto the bed and took the remote from the bedside table that not only turned on the TV but also slid back the entertainment center doors. I was not going back to a thirty-eight-dollar-a-night motel as long as I lived.

“What’d the bastard want now?” Stefan growled, joining me in front of the TV.

“I think to tell me it’s time to meet at the OK Corral. He’s ready for the showdown.” I cycled through several news stations until I found what Peter had wanted me to see. In Eugene, Oregon, more than a thousand blackbirds had fallen from the sky, stone dead. The screen showed people milling about and looking in confusion at the carpet of iridescent black that covered their streets and yards. Only one person didn’t seem puzzled. There was only a short glimpse of him before the camera panned elsewhere, but it was Peter. He was waving before pointing at the sky with his finger and pulling an imaginary trigger. It was Wendy’s work. Fly away, birds. Fly away no more.

“Eugene.” Stefan started to rub his hand over his jaw and stopped, remembering in time the lacework of cuts and scrapes that crossed his face.

“Wait.” I studied him, concentrated, and then said, “Okay, you’re good now. You can even shave if you want.”

He ran his hand lightly across his face, then harder before moving into the bathroom to check the mirror. “They’re gone. I can’t tell they were there at all. That’s . . . Damn, Misha. Unbelievable.”

I had done it. I’d healed without touching . . . as Wendy killed without touching. That made our chances of survival better, and made me feel more like her, a hundred times the freak I had been seconds ago. But I could deal with being a freak if it meant I was able to live through this.

“If I can heal a blind, evil-tempered hundred-year-old turtle, a few scrapes are no problem. How’d it feel?” I asked. I was curious. I knew what it felt like when I healed myself with my new accelerated ability, but I didn’t know what it was like for someone else.

“It tingled some, and weirdly enough, I knew it was you. I could feel the, I don’t know, the Misha of you. It was better than a tetanus shot in the ass, that’s for sure.” He turned away from the mirror.

“I can fix your leg too. Bone takes forever to work with, but give me a few days and you won’t limp in the winter anymore.”

“Hell, kid, I never cared about that.” And because he was who he was and it had been for me, he hadn’t, but I did. It would be a Jericho memory I could bury forever: the one of him shooting my brother to take me back to Hell.

“We’ll see. And don’t call me kid.” I turned off the TV. “They’re in Eugene, or they were.”

“They’re going to Cascade Falls. They’d know that was where you were living. Raynor would’ve told Bellucci and God knows Bellucci would’ve told them anything they wanted before he died. And if Peter wants to punish you. . . .”