Burn(31)

Nelson’s face was suddenly angry, very angry. Malcolm got a terrible feeling in his stomach and silently adjusted his sleeves.

“I took enough of that from my dad,” Nelson said. He hooked his index finger in his mouth and showed him an empty tooth socket that Malcolm’s tongue had recently visited. “That’s what the last person who called me a fruit did. I promised myself no one would ever do it again.”

“Well, now, that’s a pretty speech,” said the Mountie, “but I’m the one with the gun. I can take as many of your teeth as I want to.”

Quick as he could—which was very quick, as he’d been trained for this, as he’d nearly been trained for only this—Malcolm shunted the blades from his sleeves to his hands, and before the Mountie even saw what was happening, Malcolm swung his arm out in a single arc.

Efficient. Exact. His arm was already back down at his side as if nothing had happened.

The Mountie blinked in surprise and put the palm of his flashlight hand up to his neck. The light accidentally illuminated the blood now spurting from the incision Malcolm had made in his jugular. It pulsed with the beat of the Mountie’s heart, letting out a little spray every time that muscle contracted.

“You fffff . . .” the Mountie said, swinging the gun toward Malcolm. But he never made a shot, and they never knew what the “f” was going to stand for—nothing good, probably—because the Mountie slumped to his knees, dropping the gun. The flashlight lit the sprays of bright red being flung onto the snow and onto Malcolm’s pant legs. The Mountie made a terrible swallowing noise and fell, face-first, between Malcolm’s feet.

Then all there was to hear was the snowfall, which was silent as a breath, and nothing to see but the shadows across Nelson’s horrified face.

“Can’t they go any faster!” Agent Dernovich shouted at the RCMP Security Service vehicle ahead of them, an unmarked Oldsmobile, just like theirs; did all Secret Service drive Oldsmobiles? Did criminals know to be on constant lookout for them?

The RCMP had granted them use of a helicopter to get out here, but the snow was so bad, the pilot would only land back at base, leaving them an hour’s drive to the border.

“They’re Canadian,” Agent Woolf said, face still in her notebook. “I would trust them to know the fastest safe speed in snowfall.”

“I grew up in the Cascades, Agent. I know a thing or two about driving in snow.” He only just stopped himself from smacking the horn in anger. “The boy will be long gone by the time we get there.”

“The RCMP said he was going to detain them until we arrived.”

“And no one’s heard from him since.”

“It’s practically a blizzard, Paul,” she nearly snapped, then looked as surprised as he was that she’d used his first name. “Sorry. Agent Dernovich.”

“Not a problem.” Agent Dernovich scowled. “Veronica.”

Her voice was innocent as a lamb’s. “Is it the Polish spelling? Pol?”

“No. Dernovich is Croatian. I’m named after my father’s brother who died in the Great War.”

“All wars are great if you’re in them.”

“Do you have anything helpful to say, Agent Woolf?”

“I mean no disrespect,” she said. “My mind is elsewhere.”

“No kidding your mind is elsewhere. You’ve hardly looked up from that page for the last two days. Those runes aren’t going to tell you anything different.”

“Yes, but . . .”

“But what? But what, Veronica?”

She blew out a thoughtful breath. “The Mitera Thea won’t speak to us.”

“She won’t speak to anyone. We’ve only gotten written responses out of her, even though we’ve been clear on the possible ramif—”

“Let me finish.”

She said it so calmly, he was surprised into silence.

“What if she sent the assassin herself?” she said.

“That’s our whole working theory, Woolf!”

“Not as Mitera Thea, not as a representative of all Believers, but as herself. One person, acting independently.”

“What difference could that possibly make?”

“The Believers are riven with sects. Sects that compete for primacy. We’ve always known that the current Mitera Thea is from a sect that relies heavily on prophecy.” She raised a hand to ward off his interruption. “Which is how this investigation first started, yes, you don’t need to tell me. Now, prophecy is usually vague nonsense. Worded so broadly it could mean nearly anything. Anytime anything does happen, the prophecy can be pretty much made to fit in retrospect.”

Dernovich finally butted in. “So how is that helpful in the middle of a Canadian blizzard when we’re on our way at a frigging snail’s pace to apprehend what might be the assassin we’re looking for. Who is maybe a teenage boy. God, just saying it out loud makes me hear how crazy you people are.”

She pressed on, wincing slightly, as if she were politely ignoring a fart. “If the Mitera Thea wanted to hide something from us, she’d simply call diplomatic immunity and that would be that, but if she wanted to hide it from other Believers, what would she do?”

“Leaving aside the question of why she’d want to do that, you tell me.”