Ultimate Weapon (McClouds & Friends #6)(72)

Amazingly, tonight she would have gladly traded the quiet for noise and distraction. Even a howling tantrum. Just to block it out.

Tough shit for her. Rachel needed the sleep, and Tam was on her own, eyes burning, stomach cramping. Watching the shovelfuls of dirt showering down on Mamma and Irina’s wide open eyes.

The memories gave her a crazy sense of double vision. Two realities, superimposed upon each other, one hardly more or less real than the other. The room was warm, but goosebumps prickled over her skin from the cold of that other room, in Titograd, sixteen years ago.

She’d sat on the sagging bed, the faded brocade counterpane cold against her bottom. Wearing only a whorish red silk chemise. All she needed, for his purposes, Stengl had said. She had nothing else to wear. No shoes, no coat. Her breath misted before her rhythmically. The frigid air froze the inside of her nose with each breath.

She wished she knew how to stop breathing. She had tried.

The window of the hotel room was wide open. She’d opened it herself. Snow blew in.

Seconds ticked by on the gold-plated travel clock by the bed. The room was locked, the windows covered by wrought iron bars she could not dislodge. Her fingertips were raw from trying. Snowflakes fluttered and swirled down onto the carpet. They did not melt. Tick, tick, tick.

She sat, and shuddered, waiting for Stengl to come back and want…what he always wanted.

Wondering if she’d have time to freeze to death first.

Tam pulled herself forcibly back into awareness of her present surroundings, shaking with remembered cold. Vaguely angry at herself for falling so deep into the bottomless pit of memory. Irresponsible and stupid, whether it was involuntary or not. She got up, padded over to the thermostat and turned it up. Fuck the cold.

Tam lay down and pulled the blanket over herself. She laid her hand on Rachel’s bony little back, feeling the soft rise and fall of breathing.

Comforted by the heat, the life vibrating from the little girl.

She was not looking forward to explaining to Rachel that she had to go away for a few days. Thank God for Erin, who had agreed to look after her, and Sveti, too, who had offered to stick around and help, bless her. But it was going to be a bad scene no matter what.

She was exhausted, but still buzzing. Probably the fallout from that drug.

Janos’s final offer had rattled her. How did he pull it off? Her most closely guarded, painful secrets, and hey, presto—he just plucked them right out of her head and dangled them in her face. So casually.

Scenes from the past had been playing in her head ever since Janos had pronounced Stengl’s name. Complete with full sensory detail.

She was fifteen again, a grief-stricken victim. A helpless toy for anyone who wanted to play with her. And they had. Oh, they had, back in the bad old days. Before she’d learned to turn the tables on them.

She’d had feelers out over the globe, searching for Stengl, that sociopathic son of a bitch, for years. She wanted to snag him before he reached the relative safe haven of the war crimes tribunal.

Oh, yes. She wanted to kill him herself, by hand, at close range. One last attempt to appease the restless ghosts that haunted her sleep.

Revenge. The one lure she absolutely could not resist.

She wondered where Janos was. She’d deliberately refrained from looking to the right or left as she left the ballroom. She didn’t want to risk catching his eye and start blushing like an idiot. Or worse yet, sobbing, or screaming. The messed-up hair, the wild stare, the smeared makeup, that was enough fuel for gossip among her friends as it was.

He had not left. Of that, she was sure. He was near, watching her.

On impulse, she slid out of bed and padded barefoot over to the door. She left her hand on the handle for minutes, trying to identify this bright, buzzing feeling. Fear…or anticipation.

She opened the door, and was unsurprised to see him there. A sorcerer like him could see right through the walls. He’d seen through the ones in her mind, after all. And they were thicker.

They stared at each other. She was incapable of speech.

He broke the silence. “It’s cold,” he said, glancing past her to the tiny lump Rachel made on the king sized bed. “Let me come in. You can close the door, to keep the room warm for the child. We must talk.”

Tam suppressed the impulse to say something cutting. She let him in, closed the door after him and positioned herself with her back to the narrow blade of light that came out the bathroom door to study his face and still remain an enigmatic silhouette herself.

The attempt was useless. She couldn’t read him. His face was a hard, chiseled mask highlighted by sharp-cut shadows.

She gestured for him to follow her into the bathroom. “Keep your voice down,” she whispered. “Rachel’s a light sleeper. She’s exhausted from staying up hours past her bedtime, but she’s capable of screaming for an hour if she wakes up. And I just can’t face it right now.”

He nodded, and followed her into the small, luxurious black marble bathroom. They stared at each other, immobile, but the energy between them was dynamic, swirling. Like the wary circling of duelers.

She could smell his scent. Feel his heat.

“You’ll go with me,” he said. It was not a question.

She shut her eyes, swallowed. “Congratulations, Janos,” she said. “You found the right string to yank. I’ll go on one condition, though.”

“Name it.”