Redemption Song (Daniel Faust #2)(89)

I shook my head. “It’s hidden, but it’s not somewhere you can find it. Trust me on this one.”





Forty-Three

We had made a little detour on our way out to the Silk Ranch.

Two blocks away from Lauren’s house, with sirens wailing in the distance, Caitlin pulled her car to the side of the road. The Wardriver rolled up, and Pixie leaned out the driver’s-side window. She held out a small burlap bag, but didn’t toss it to me.

“I still have questions about what we did here tonight,” Pixie said. “About this whole mess.”

“I know,” I told her.

“One question,” she said. “One question, and I want the honest truth.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Were we the good guys tonight?”

I had to think about that one. Finally, I nodded.

“As good as it gets, Pix. As good as it gets. You can only expect so much, you know. We’re only human.”

She chewed that over, decided she could swallow it, and tossed me the bag.

Back in Vegas, the crowd in front of Winter parted like they knew we were coming, and every door opened wide without a word being said, all the way down to the cellar. The Conduit waited for us, still and silent, beside a single burning candle.

“You did it,” Sitri’s voice said with the Conduit’s lips. “You actually did it.”

“We did it,” I said, standing at Caitlin’s side.

“So you say. But now, the proof.”

The Conduit pulled back its soiled robes. It hooked its fingers against the center of its mottled chest and pulled. Leathery skin tore and bones cracked like dry twigs as the creature slowly ripped open its own chest.

What lay beneath the muscle and bone was a starless void.

I stared into that vastness, deeper than space and infinitely more bleak, and my blood turned to ice. The Conduit’s lips curled into a broken smile.

“Choose, Daniel Faust. Wear the ring, and become humanity’s champion, or sacrifice it for your heart’s desire. I won’t stop you. In fact, if you keep it, I’ll even let you walk out of here alive. You would be an interesting opponent.”

I looked to Caitlin, but she shook her head.

“It has to be your choice,” she said. “Yours alone.”

I weighed the ring in my hand. Two futures, neither of them certain, both liable to end in disaster. I didn’t need magic to look down the road and see what was coming: trouble brewing, blood on my hands, and a shadow dogging my heels. Same as it ever was.

It might be nice to be a hero for once in my life. To fight for a cause, to have something to really believe in. For all Sullivan’s empty talk about redemption, here was the real thing being handed to me for free. A shot at making up for the wreckage of my life. A shot at being a better man. A shot at forgiveness.

It’d be a good way to paint targets over every single person I loved, too.

I held Solomon’s ring up to the candlelight. I knew what I’d decide. I guess I’d known all along.

“Nah, you keep it,” I said, and tossed the ring into the void. It tumbled and spun away, lost in that eternal dark.

The Conduit hissed as it shoved its rib cage back together, the bones crackling as they knitted and sealed. Caitlin squeezed my hand.

“You win,” I said to Sitri. “Happy now?”

“Happy, yes, but you’re mistaken. Tell me, what do you think the purpose of my little game was?”

I shrugged. “There were only two possible outcomes. One, see if I’d take the bait and put the ring on, and distract you from being bored for a while. Two, surrender the ring and take a weapon against you off the table. Either way, you won.”

“The game wasn’t to amuse me,” Sitri said. The Conduit raised its arm, pointing a bony finger at Caitlin. “It was to prove to me that you might be worthy of her.”

“I didn’t know what he was up to until last night,” she told me. “My father’s sense of humor can be…trying.”

“Wait,” I said, looking between them. “What? Father?”

“The most exemplary warrior of the Choir of Lust,” Sitri said as the Conduit’s blind gaze drifted toward Caitlin. “Besides me, of course. Making her my hound simply wasn’t enough. I had to adopt her. I have other children, true, and they shower me in gifts and pretty words…but none of them ever brought me angel wings.”

“It’s not public knowledge,” Caitlin said. “The court wouldn’t react well to it given my low birth, but we agreed it was time to tell you. Besides, you’d figure it out eventually. You’re clever that way.”

I arched my eyebrow at her. “Anything else you want to tell me?”

“Yes,” she said and lifted my hand, gently kissing the curl of my fingers. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” I whispered, and I knew I’d throw away a thousand chances at redemption just to hear her say those words again.

“Your work isn’t done tonight,” Sitri said. “You’d best be off. And Daniel?”

I tilted my head.

“We’ll play again soon,” he said, and the Conduit stepped back into the darkness, its golden chains rattling against the frozen stone.

Caitlin and I walked upstairs together, side by side. Her hand brushed my hip, rubbing against the odd bulge in my pocket.