Redemption Song (Daniel Faust #2)(44)
She held up her hand.
“Don’t. Daniel, just…don’t. Don’t say three more days, because in three days you’ll come back and ask for three more. My prince had a point to make. He made it.”
My heart sank. The worst part, the worst part of this whole damn mess, was seeing the disappointment in her eyes. Knowing I put it there.
“So is this—”
She shook her head.
“Don’t say goodbye.” Caitlin’s voice almost broke. Almost. “No. I won’t say it either. I don’t want to say it. I won’t do it. But this isn’t working. I’ve been pacing the floors, trying to puzzle it out, but all I find is the same brick wall. I want to be with you. I just don’t know how. As it stands, my prince has forbidden it. I can’t rebel against him—”
I reached out, as if to touch her, then froze. My hand just hung there in the air between us, awkward and useless.
“And I’m not asking you to,” I said. “I wouldn’t. You know that. I’m just asking for a little faith. Don’t count me out, Cait. I’m always at my best when my back’s against the wall.”
She smiled. Her eyes were still sad, but she smiled.
“I know,” she said. “So I’m not saying goodbye. Only goodnight.”
She closed the door and left me standing in an empty hall.
? ? ?
When you’re flush and lucky, the Vegas Strip at night is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. When you’re down and out, though, all those beautiful lights are like bullets aimed at your heart. I moved like a ghost through the tourist crowds, anonymous and alone.
If I’d done what Sitri wanted and put Father Alvarez in the ground, none of this would have happened. I’d have Caitlin, my home, my car, my cash…and I’d hate myself forever. Instead, I kept my principles and lost everything else.
The demon prince must have known I’d refuse him, and he’d led me into a tangled maze. Sullivan was a lunatic chasing an impossible dream, building his plans around an ancient manuscript that couldn’t be real. Lauren aimed to snatch a dead serial killer from the jaws of hell. Trying to follow their schemes was like reading a map printed on a slice of Swiss cheese: I knew I could understand it, if only I had the whole picture instead of bits and pieces.
The end result? They’d burned me to the ground, and I was no closer to untangling this riddle than when I started. Worse than when I started, even, since I’d managed to get Alvarez—the only decent, innocent man in this whole sordid mess—kidnapped and held hostage by a pack of lunatics.
A fat tourist in a Hawaiian shirt shouldered past me, babbling into his cell phone.
“It’s called the Martingale system,” he said, ranting like he’d just discovered gold in the desert. “It’s the perfect system, you literally can’t lose!”
I rolled my eyes. The Martingale’s just as much a sucker bet today as it was three hundred years ago. The idea is, you double your bet every time you lose a hand, so that when you win you’re suddenly square again. Which works great, if you’ve got infinite amounts of cash to lose, or some guarantee you won’t hit a losing streak that breaks you. Half the tourists in Vegas think they’ve got all the answers, when they’re just making the same bad decisions over and over again, thinking something different will happen this time.
I stopped in my tracks.
“Sitri, you magnificent bastard,” I said. A guy handing out laminated cards on the corner, his orange shirt emblazoned with QUALITY ESCORTS TO YOUR ROOM, gave me a funny look.
It was my pride that did me in. Happened every time. I was so determined not to be anyone’s pawn, so aggressively opposed to the idea of doing Sitri’s bidding, that I did the exact opposite. I could have just ignored his command. Instead, I sought out Alvarez, tried to save him from the Redemption Choir, and kicked off this whole chain of disasters. Worse, I kept doubling down, stubbornly committed to my course like a fly bouncing off a window when there was an opening just two inches away.
Sitri played chess. I was playing checkers, a dope amateur whose every move showed from a mile away. Sullivan’s boys had thrown the Molotovs and the bullets, but it was Sitri walking me into their line of fire, punishing me for my stupid moves.
That was the key. I hadn’t fallen on my face because I disobeyed Sitri’s command. I fell on my face because I was playing the wrong game. And how many times had I been told that Sitri loved games? The solution was in my face the entire time.
You don’t want blind obedience, I thought. That wasn’t the point in the first place. You knew I wouldn’t kill Alvarez. It was never even on the table. No, you want a challenger. You want someone to surprise you for a change.
I waved down a taxi.
The crowds at Winter churned like one beast with three hundred minds, writhing under the icy strobes. I cut through them, a laser-guided knife aimed for the back corridor. At the end of the line, the leather-draped guard made no motion to open the door for me.
“The hound,” he hissed, his voice muffled and rattling behind his gas mask, “has rescinded your invitation.”
His beefy hand lingered near the machete dangling on his belt. I squared my stance and stared hard into the opaque lenses of his mask.
“I want you to listen very carefully,” I said, “and understand what I’m about to tell you. Over the past two nights I have been swung at, shot at, nearly burned to death, and whipped with a cane. I have lost everything I own, my relationship is falling to pieces, and I may have gotten an innocent priest killed. I am tired, I am aching, and I am well beyond the point of taking shit from anyone.”