Exaltation (Insight #11)(93)

It was a call to battle.

Benjamin laughed. “That’s right. She knows about you now. Someone let the cat out of the bag. If I were you I would leave her be. I bet she has a dagger waiting on you.”

Rydell and Dagen were gone at that instant. Fury was all Rydell knew when he saw his car outside of Newberry’s house.

“She’s on the porch,” Dagen said.

They charged past her and through all the witches who had descended on the house and were going over every stitch of property there. Discarding what was useless and removing what was. Rydell was going for Berries. He was going to kill him, destroy him piece by piece for even thinking of coming near Raven and Jamison.

In the front room Rydell found Jamison and a few others. Berries was pinned to the wall with vim; his eyes were rolled back in his head.

Just because Rydell couldn’t hold it in he slammed a blow of energy at him. Berries gasped as Rydell heard bones break, then Berries hung his head as if he were being crucified.

“I’m going to have to heal that now,” Jamison said as he looked over his shoulder at Rydell. The slight smirk he had told Rydell he had done exactly what he’d wanted to do.

“Why would you heal a man I’m going to kill?” Rydell said in a dark, cold tone.

“Can’t. Not in the obvious way,” Jamison said.

“What happened?” Dagen demanded. Jamison moved his head side to side as he glared at Berries.

“My phone rang. I answered it and heard him breaking my daughter’s heart. Calling her a black widow…though the part about you plotting to kill her before she killed you was surely the point where I actually heard her soul weep.”

Rydell swallowed anxiously.

Jamison turned to face Rydell. “I’m over this because I knew about Newberry a while back. That you were pulling his strings. This is new to her.”

“Does she know anything about the five kills? Does she know about her fate?”

“Deep down every soul knows their fate. She’s seventeen. She’s too young to know,” Jamison said evenly. Even after all this, he wasn’t ready for her to know, to truly understand. She only had a few years left before all of this consumed her life, before her mortal life would be far behind her. He wanted her to savor that time.

“Is it me or you?” Rydell asked in a gruff tone.

Jamison furrowed his brow. He was surprised Rydell had figured it out, surprised he had not come to him with it before now.

“Me or you,” Jamison said with a sigh. “King, do you understand the five kills?”

“No. It’s BS. Change should come without slaughter.”

“Agreed,” Jamison said and crossed his arms. “The five are to fall so the king will be weakened. It’s calculated to bring him down from his pedestal.”

“How did you break away? How can I break away?”

Hearing Rydell say that eased Jamison. It meant he wanted to, and wanting to was the first step to making a real change—getting him and Raven exactly where they needed to be to survive this Rapture when the time came.

Jamison’s gaze moved over Rydell. “Are you not a notch above mortal now?”

“I didn’t want her intoxicated with the emotion,” Rydell admitted.

“So you stopped feeding.”

“After Revelin tried to kill me, yes.”

“Seems like you would want to feed more if that were the case,” Jamison said.

“Do you know if it is you or me? Or someone else? What if we brought him down on our own?”

“No, I don’t.”

Jamison stared endlessly into him, trying to see if he saw some flicker of recognition in Rydell’s stare.

“The five that fall need to fall for they are evil and feed the sovereign—sounds to me like you stopped doing that.”

“Are you saying he’s clear?” Dagen asked.

“Not my say.”

“And who the f*ck is it?” Dagen yelled.

“The soul of balance that rises,” Jamison said with a glance to Rydell. “You’re raw. Exaltation suits you. It’s unmistakable in your essence, and she is born of bliss. Do you not see how that is not balance?”

“Listen to me,” Rydell said, stepping up. “I don’t give a f*ck who shares her soul. He’s lost my respect.”

“And what has he done to you beyond existing?” Jamison asked.

“He doesn’t f*cking exist as far as I’m concerned. There is no way in f*cking hell he has not sensed all the danger my men put her in over the years, all this recent bullshit my men are now protecting her from. Where the f*ck is he? What kind of man is he? Just to let her and her guardians handle it? Is that his game? He parties somewhere then when it’s all said and done he takes his throne? Sounds like a selfish f*ck to me.”

Jamison nearly twitched a smile. “I suppose we should hope he has a good reason.”

Rydell narrowed his hard gaze. “How much time do we have to find a way to bring Revelin down?”

“No one knows that either. Right now we have to weather the storm and find a way to let Raven be Raven.”

“What does he have to do with this?” Dagen asked with a nod to Berries.

“Nothing. He just let it all out. The evidence he had is a joke, anyone could mock it. Our books of shadows are restored and spells to bring fire to the copies are made.”