Page 114 of Hellbound

Paul hesitated. “I’ve got damage control to do.”

“I think we should talk about this now,” Tori said as she hovered in the foyer. “Because I don’t understand why you’re upset. Marian killed an Argent, just like you wanted.”

Marian wanted to be put into a medically induced coma, but she didn’t trust herself to speak, so she kept quiet.

Vale slowly turned around, his aristocratic features sharpened further by anger.

“Very well. The point of killing Verinne was to eliminate all Argent in one fell swoop. Instead of one fell swoop, we now have only one dead Argent, and no element of surprise. Paul is confident no one else in attendance tonight was on Verinne’s payroll, but I would stake my entire fortune on her taking up the offensive because she is certainly going to notice a ‘demon’ and her number one investor are gone.”

Tori stepped forward. “But you made Marian kill him!”

“He saw her power,” Vale seethed. “He could not be allowed to leave. And now we know for certain Marian can kill them.”

Tori hesitated. “I just … are we sure that was the best judgment? That was very public.”

The acrimony in Vale’s side-eye was the stuff of nightmares. “You do not speak to me about judgment. You nearly traded Marian to an abomination for pennies.”

Tori’s face crumpled. “And I’m going to regret making that deal for the rest of my life.” She looked at Marian, despondent. “Know that if you ever forgive me, I’ll still never forgive myself. I’m just trying to survive and keep the people I love alive in a world that seems determined to destroy us.”

Her eyes narrowed as she pointed an accusatory finger at a statuesque Vale.

“But you need to give Marian a break. Look at her. She hasn’t stopped shaking since we got in the car. She just watched her stepdad die.”

Suffocating silence fell over the room as Vale step toward the traveler. “She can handle this.”

“She shouldn’t have to!” Tori shouted back.

Marian’s head throbbed. All she wanted was for this conversation to end. “It’s OK. I’m OK. I just …” Speaking was suddenly so arduous. Every word out of her mouth felt clumsy. Wrong.

“Marian,” Tori rounded on her, pleading. “Even if you could lie to me, I’d never believe that. You’re not OK. None of us could possibly be OK. Paul’s indentured to a god from another world, and you’ve been putting yourself to death to fetch trash from what we thought was Hell. Hell, Marian. That’s so messed up.” Tori’s ire found Vale again. “And don’t think I missed what Stellan said before he died. He was talking about me and the other Gifted, wasn’t he? The ‘light.’ That’s where our stupid little powers come from. From them.”

Some of the anger bled from Vale’s eyes.

“Yes.”

Tori rocked back on her pointed heels as she pressed a palm to her forehead. “Please, I just want …” The moon glow pouring in from the skylights made the unshed tears in her eyes shine. Her voice broke. “What am I saying? We’re just cards in a hand to you.”

Before Marian could pull herself together and come up with some paltry consolation, Tori fled upstairs.

Marian slumped against the banister. Rusty instincts compelled her to follow Tori, but what could she possibly say in her state to help? There emerged the very real feeling that her mind would buckle and break tonight under the weight of what she’d seen and done.

Slow footfalls behind her made her skin prickle.

“How could you know what I’d dug up on Daniel?” Marian said as Vale approached, her voice a dry rasp. “I never made my findings public.”

Vale didn’t respond, and every second of silence strengthened Marian’s desire to claw out of her own skin.

“You need to rest,” he said at last, his tone softening.

“I don’t want your fucking coddling. I want you to respect me enough to tell me the truth. I’m done begging for it.” A flare of anger brought the snarl to her lips. Marian trudged up the first few steps, knuckles white where she gripped the banister. “And if you can’t be honest with me, then at least be honest with Tori. If you don’t tell her about her mom, then I will.”

Then Marian flew up the stairs without looking back.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Despite Vale’s insistence, rest eluded Marian that night, and solitude gave her no respite from the memory of the evening at the Getty. She slept in short stretches, waking every hour on the dot sweating and gasping in the aftermath of wretched dreams—all featuring variations of Stellan and Daniel dying in new, grotesque ways. Of grown men weeping.

Now they had one dead Argent and no alibi, according to Paul, who looked more haggard than she’d ever seen him as he spent the next morning on the phone coordinating with what Marian assumed was the fragmented network of coconspirators and informants.