Dangerous Creatures

CHAPTER 20 The Divine Wings of Tragedy

Even through the double glass, the black-painted brick, and the exposed steel girders of Nox’s suite, he could still hear the thump and whine of Sirene’s house music.

The DJ was going wild, mashing up iconic Caster and Mortal music; listening to his remixes, you would think Madonna was a Siren herself.

She’s not, but she could have been.

Nox stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows of his private office, looking down at the empty stage. It was his war room, his command central. Nox was more comfortable here than anywhere else in the world. The main floor of the club threatened too many perilous potential reunions.

Too many Ravenwoods to watch out for. Too many Incubuses in one place. That’s not even counting the Darkborns.

He hardly even dared set foot in his apartment now, not since the Vexes had started showing up.

Nox loosened the skinny retro tie that hung around his neck.

As he watched, the roadies wheeled the drum kit offstage. It was done. One cog connected to the next, like he was an engineer instead of an entrepreneur. Nox should’ve considered the night a victory, which was a rare pleasure. Something he hadn’t felt since the fateful game at Suffer. When the very first cog began to turn…

They never learn. Don’t bet against the house.

His mind flickered to the image of a certain blond, with a certain pink stripe and a knack for trouble.

She was more than he’d imagined. He wondered if she remembered him. He didn’t know if he wanted her to or not. It had been a long, long time.

Don’t get attached. You’re almost there. You could finally get Abraham Ravenwood off your back if you deliver the hybrid and the Siren.

The thought made him ill, so he thought about something else.

Anything.

The club. The crowd. The band.

So many powerful problems.

A troubled Necromancer. An Illusionist with a secret. An Incubus marked for death. A Darkborn in hiding. A Siren with a past.

His money was on the Siren.

She’d taken them all on—if by her attitude alone—and she’d do it again. Nobody could rein her in. Except for the sister. The sister seemed to be an exception to the rule.

Just as his sister had been for him.

It was interesting, really. Family, as a concept. When it worked—which wasn’t often, in the Caster world—the bond was like no other Binding in the universe.

And these two have the bond, he thought. The Siren and the Thaumaturge, if he’d read the younger girl’s powers correctly. It was almost sad to watch. Nox was well aware of what some of his business associates would do with that kind of information. And with the leverage it afforded them.

Especially the Ravenwoods.

In terms of his associates and clients, the Ravenwoods were the worst. Some families were like that. You didn’t reign for four hundred years as one of the most powerful families in the supernatural universe without developing a certain coldness, an indifference to suffering, Mortal and Caster alike.

The whole thing was really a shame. The little Siren was starting to grow on him. It would be a terrible waste to let anything happen to her.

What choice do I have?

The Incubus was another story. Nox disliked anything remotely Mortal, and this one was stinking of it. It wasn’t his fault; it was how he was raised.

Still, that didn’t stop Nox from wondering how it would all play out. He was trapped, just another one of Abraham Ravenwood’s pawns.

Nox let his eyes flicker over to the cigar box on his desk.

No. I need to stay out of it.

There was no reason to get drawn into a battle that wasn’t his to fight.

Nox pushed himself away from the window and went to sit at his desk. He leaned back in his chair, averting his eyes from the fireplace that lit the central part of his underground office.

The overstuffed chairs in front of the hearth sat empty, the way they always did. Nox never sat that close to the fire. He didn’t like fire. He didn’t like the things he saw when he looked into it: terrible things, wondrous things, images that tormented him in his sleep.

It was his gift, and his curse, like the old storybooks said. He could see the world, everything around him, and everyone. How it ended, and when, and why. How they ended, and when, and why.

Unless it involved him.

Lennox Gates was gifted with Sight and cursed with blindness—or vice versa, depending on how you looked at it.

Blindness could be a gift. His Sight had always felt more like the curse.

But when does power not feel like pain? His mother used to say it to him when he was a little boy. He’d always found it to be true.

She hadn’t been wrong yet.

The fire beckoned.

Nox tried to pull himself away, but it was too late. The flames had taken hold of him. His eyes traveled down to the blue root of the fire itself.

The blue divided itself into strands of light that moved together and apart, again and again, until they formed shapes instead of lines, and pictures instead of light.

Nox was nearly overcome by the smell of burning flesh.

That, and the screaming. A girl.

The girl. The Siren.

The screaming was too much for Nox. It was a kind of ceaseless sobbing—a pure expression of death.

It gave him chills.

Nox could hear her but he couldn’t see her.

He pushed and the billows of smoke parted, as if he’d walked through them.

In a way, he had.

There she was, surrounded by fire and pinned by a burning beam of wood. Probably the splintered support of a now-fallen ceiling.

Now the screaming became distinct words, familiar words.

Ancient words.

By the will of the Gods

By the will of the Gods

I see everything that happens

On the known earth.

I know you see this, Nox.

I know you see me, right now.

You told me you could, remember?

Don’t just sit there.

Do something.

Help me.

Save me!

The smoke stung his eyes, and he tried to keep looking at her, but he knew it wouldn’t last. The room was caving in around her.

Soon she’d—

Soon the screaming would stop.

So would the vision.

The dead left no stories to tell.

At least, not the way Nox saw them.

Fire, he thought.

She dies by fire.

He saw a fleeting succession of images, one after another. A wooden staircase. Flames, reaching into the heavens. The sky.

Then the wood began to crash around him, and the sobbing was muffled, and with a sudden shock, Nox realized he knew exactly where she was.

Nox found himself standing next to the fireplace, his hand resting on the mantel. Strange. He didn’t usually move during a vision. He always dreaded putting Necro into that state himself. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to regularly lose control of his body.

Abandoning your own flesh was practically begging for someone else to take it for a spin.

Nox didn’t like it, even for a minute.

He looked up from the grate, where the carved mantelpiece rose into a ceremonial coat of arms over the center of the stone hearth.

He traced the emblem of his house with his fingers. A bird and a snake, flying directly toward each other. It was the same emblem he’d seen in the last moment of his vision, carved into the burning wood.

The same wood he was touching now. It was a repeating pattern, carved at least once in nearly every room, throughout the paneled walls of Sirene.

It’s possible that the Siren is going to die in this very club, he thought with a pang.

A pang of what? Guilt? Remorse? Curiosity?

She will die. By fire.

His last thought scared him: Because of me.

It was the most likely scenario.

Nox couldn’t be sure; he could never see his own future. But if she were to die in this room, it would probably be at his hand.

It was the way the Wheel of Fate was rolling. There was nothing he could do to stop it….

For the first time in his entire life, Lennox Gates found himself wondering if he could be wrong.

Or if he just wanted to be.