Siege of Shadows (Effigies #2)(56)

“Don’t tell me you’re into me,” I said, disgusted at the thought. “I mean, you’re not a bad-looking guy, but the sociopath thing is kind of a turnoff.”

Vasily smirked. “Don’t worry. I would never take what Aidan clearly wanted. We used to be such close friends, after all. I wonder if it’s your innocence that intrigues him.”

Both Rhys and I stiffened, but I didn’t check to see if his face was flushing like mine. My skin was too hot. Otherwise I would have asked how he’d even surmised something so—

Ridiculous. Was it ridiculous? Or obvious?

I swallowed the lump in my throat and focused. This was supposed to be an interrogation.

“I brought her.” Brendan folded his arms over his chest. “Now talk.”

“No offense, but I was never that interested in her, to be honest.” Vasily shrugged. “I just wanted to confirm . . . her beauty . . . with my own eyes.” Opening one eye, he added, “You are beautiful, Maia. I understand now why Rhys almost murdered me to protect you.”

I hadn’t realized my shoulders were raised up so high. Without looking back at Rhys, I relaxed them. “You just wanted to see me? Why don’t I believe you?”

Blood spurted out of his mouth with a cough. “I just like to confirm things myself is all.”

“So do I.” Brendan positioned himself on Vasily’s right side, bearing down on him as if the blood didn’t bother him at all. I stayed at the foot of the table. “Now tell me—or if you’d like to think of it this way, tell her—who ordered you to free Saul last April?”

A light, speckled mustache, darker than the strands on his head, lined the top of Vasily’s thin upper lip. Both lips were pale and cracked, aching for water. Maybe they’d been starving him. “Saul did. Or haven’t you figured that out?”

“But it’s not just Saul, is it?” Rhys stalked up to us. “You take orders from Blackwell. Always have.”

“Not always.” Vasily let his head fall to the side, but his catlike eyes stayed on Rhys. “Once upon a time, I took orders from you, friend. Though I wasn’t the only one.”

I could feel Rhys go rigid behind me.

I had to fight the urge to react. Vasily was trying to take control of the interrogation, flip it to his favor. I wasn’t about to let him win. “Did you know? We’ve been seeing your old friends around lately. From Fisk-Hoffman in Greenland. Some of them can do some pretty interesting things now.”

Vasily’s eyelid twitched from the blood slipping onto his long lashes. “Is that so?” he asked, but unlike Rhys, he was not in the least bit surprised that they hadn’t died in the fire that took the facility. If they were Saul’s soldiers, then even without the powers, so was he.

My frown deepened. “Was it Saul who ordered Jessie to attack us last night? Or someone within the Sect?”

Vasily stretched his pale lips as wide as they would go the second he heard the name. “Jessie?” Vasily rolled his head to the other side, his arms squirming just a little beneath the leather straps, as if her name had given them life again. “So you had a little reunion without me. I’m sorry I missed it. And she used to have such a crush on you too. Did she give you that?”

He flicked his chin up, and by the time I turned, Rhys’s fingers had already instinctively gone to his cast.

“Classic Jessie.” Vasily began coughing, but the fit didn’t deter him from taunting his old friend. “You should have known how vicious she’d be, Aidan. You were the one who taught her how to survive down there. You taught us all.” The saliva smearing Vasily’s white teeth glinted underneath the overhead lights. “You should never feel ashamed of what you did, friend. You were wonderful.”

“Who in the Sect is working with you? I need names!” As Brendan’s voice rocketed across the walls and up the ceiling, Rhys and I froze, helplessly staring at each other for different reasons. For Rhys, the horror of a tightly woven secret beginning to unravel rooted him to the spot.

For me, it was the horror of the secret itself.

Brendan considered him silently. Then, with an impatient sigh, he pulled out his cell phone and began clicking.

“Who are you calling?” I hissed, but he answered by flipping over the phone and showing Vasily the face on the screen.

It was the ID photo of a young woman with sunken eyes, her sallow skin almost matching the pallor of her wispy, pale blond hair, which was tied in a strict ponytail at the base of her neck.

And for the first time since I’d met him in that little town in Quebec, Vasily’s features softened. His grin unraveled; his lips sagged as deeply as the woman’s miserable expression.

“You recognize her, don’t you?” Stepping closer, Brendan held the phone to his face so he wouldn’t mistake her.

Vasily turned his head. The waver in his eyes was a foreign sight to me, all the malicious glee evaporating in that moment. The fading blue of his pupils mimicked the dead eyes of the woman he refused to look at.

“She was an agent of the Sect,” Brendan continued. “A top agent. And yet even her superiors knew there was something not quite right with her. Look at her.”

He grabbed Vasily’s chin and forced him to see her, flinching only slightly when Vasily sputtered out blood in a series of angry hacks.