Redemption Song (Daniel Faust #2)(13)

I’d been down this road before. Cops, gangsters, or the lords of hell, it’s always the same song and dance. “Do my dirty work, or I’ll take away everything you care about.” I was getting pretty goddamned sick of this game, but with Caitlin in the balance there was only one way to play it.

“Name it,” I snapped.

“There is a local priest,” the Conduit said, “named Maximilian Alvarez. A recent transplant to his new parish, he is already beloved by his congregation and by all accounts a good and noble man. The prince would like you to murder him.”

“What’s he done?”

The Conduit smiled. “Nothing. Nothing at all. He is the model of an innocent soul. Nonetheless, for reasons of his own, Prince Sitri would like this man dead. And he would like you to do it. Don’t ask why. Just kill the priest.”

“I’m nobody’s hit man,” I said. “And I’ve never pulled the trigger on anybody without a damn good reason.”

The Conduit’s mutilated face turned from me to Caitlin and back again.

“Kill this man,” it said, “and the two of you can be together. Is that not a good enough reason?”

I didn’t have anything to say to that.

Caitlin let go of my hand. It fell and hung there, limp and useless at my side. I didn’t have the strength to curl it into a fist.

“I only speak the truth,” the Conduit said and stepped back into the darkness. The shadows swallowed it whole, leaving nothing but the fading stench of roadkill and the distant rattling of golden chains.

I knew someday Caitlin and I might hit a breaking point, something that was an inch too far for one of us to take. I just didn’t think it’d be tonight. I wasn’t one of the good guys. I’d stolen, lied, swindled, and yeah, I’d left a few cold bodies in my wake, but there were things I’d do and things I wouldn’t. It wasn’t a code of honor, nothing so romantic, just some basic rules that kept what was left of my tattered conscience from eating me alive. I’d never killed anyone who didn’t have it coming, and I wasn’t starting tonight.

She knew it, too. Caitlin stared into the candle’s flickering flame, looking lost. We grappled for words, but she was the first to finally speak.

“He’s making a point,” she said.

“He’s full of shit, is what he is.” She glared at me, but I didn’t care. I was too angry to play nice. “He’s f*cking with us, Cait. Making us dance like puppets just because he can. Now me? I expect that shit, but you deserve better. You work your fingers to the f*cking bone for that *, and you deserve better.”

“Daniel,” she said softly, “if my prince gave me the order, to slay that priest, do you know what I would say?”

I shook my head.

“I would ask how painful the death should be, and how the corpse should be displayed. I don’t care that he’s innocent. When it’s a matter of serving my prince, my court, my people, I simply. Do. Not. Care. That’s who I am. You do care. You’re a crusader at heart, much as you try to bury it in bitterness, and your wrath is reserved for the deserving. You could push yourself to do this thing, for our sake, but you’d hate yourself afterward and always. That’s who you are. He’s making a point.”

She turned and walked up the staircase, leaving the lonely candle behind.





Seven

I followed her, fumbling for words. “Let me sleep on it,” I told her. It was the best I could do, the best thing I could come up with that wasn’t a bald-faced lie.

She walked through the black labyrinth like a mourner. Cries of pleasure and pain echoed from the honeycombed chambers, chased by faint laughter.

“Will tomorrow make a difference, Daniel? And if you do gather the nerve to do this thing, what then? How long before you resent me for it? How long before you hate me?”

“Caitlin!” I snapped, my voice like a gunshot in the dark. She stopped in her tracks, whirling to face me.

“Give me three days,” I told her. “Please. Before you toss flowers on our casket. Three days.”

She shook her head but didn’t turn away.

“Are you thinking you’re going to find an angle? Outsmart my prince somehow? You’re a born trickster, Daniel, but he was pulling strings centuries before you were born. He plans for everything. Whatever game you intend to play, he’s already won.”

“Funny,” I said. “Right before he died, Tony Vance told me the exact same thing about Lauren Carmichael. And as I recall, we kicked her ass. Together.”

Caitlin gave me the ghost of a smile.

“Three days,” she said, pointing up the corridor. “Now go. The exit’s that way. Call me when you’ve done…whatever it is you think you’re going to do.”

“You’re not coming? I can give you a ride home.”

She shook her head. “I need to hurt someone tonight. I’d rather it not be you.”

I didn’t leave right away. Honestly, I didn’t have anywhere to go. I found an empty alcove with a padded leather bench and sat down, resting my head against the wall, bathed in the golden neon light.

I’d bought three days, but what was I going to do with them? This wasn’t a multiple-choice quiz. I could either kill the priest and keep my relationship intact, or keep my integrity and lose Caitlin. Heads you win, tails I lose, I thought, closing my eyes.