Lure of the Wicked Part 33

He looked away again, and it seemed as if his shoulders weren't as broad as she'd remembered. Not as strong. He seemed leaner, thinner than she thought. Was her memory wrong?

Was it skewed by her years spent raised among men built like brick walls?

Quietly he pulled a drapery cord from its moorings.

Naomi's anger turned to an avalanche of fear. "Daddy, no."

"Have you ever wanted something so badly," he asked as he coiled the rope around his arm in precise increments, "that you'd stop at nothing to get it?"

She shook her head as tears of fury, of terror, overwhelmed her speech.

"Then you get it." Slowly he crossed the study once more. Retraced his steps. He didn't look at her again, pa.s.sed her as if she were the ghost. "And it's everything you'd hoped, everything you'd dreamed, and everything . . . you dreaded."

"No."

His voice dropped to a whisper. "And still you suffer it. Gladly. Every day a torture and a joy."

Naomi reached out to seize his shoulder. Sobbed a broken curse as her hand slid through it, flesh through smoke.

He paused, uncoiling the silken cord. "Then it's gone," he said quietly. "Just gone."

Naomi staggered backward. Her legs slammed into the settee and she sprawled. Helpless. "Daddy, don't. Don't do this."

The rope gleamed in the light as he tossed it high. It found the rafter, curled over it with ease. "What else was I supposed to do? My family's honor was ruined. My reputation tarnished. Her creditors were calling every day."

Tears crystallized, spilled over in acid grief. "You had me," Naomi said bitterly. Her hands clenched in her lap, but she couldn't look away. Couldn't do anything but watch as long, deft fingers twisted and knotted. As he coiled drapery cord into a thin noose.

"She wanted you."

Naomi's head jerked. "No, she didn't."

"She's a fickle woman. She wanted you to spite me, but I wouldn't have it. So I gave you away in secret. She got everything else."

"No." She lurched to her feet as her father stepped onto the chair he'd placed by the desk. The fire crackled, spitting sparks onto the slate floor around it.

It glittered wildly in his face. Caught the dead sheen of his eyes as he tugged the rope. Tested its hold.

Her breath shuddered in her chest. "Daddy, don't."

"I'm sorry, pet." Slowly, mechanically, Katsu Is.h.i.+kawa slid the noose over his head. Tightened it behind his neck. "There is honor to consider."

"There was me to consider," she shouted. She lunged for his waist, his jacket, anything, and only swore viciously as he gave way like smoke. As he leaned out and sent the chair flying into her legs.

It hurt. The wood slammed into her s.h.i.+ns and sent her staggering, hobbling. Pain ricocheted from wood and bone.

But she couldn't touch him.

Couldn't do anything but scream in bottled rage and horror as his body jerked like a twisted marionette on the edge of the rope and danced a final, twitching dance.

For a long moment, she couldn't breathe. Couldn't move.

Thump, thump. His feet hit the desk in a slow, rhythmic swing.

Naomi crumpled to the floor.

Thump, thump.

"Daddy?"

Her heart slammed into her stomach. Nausea gathered, sharp and fast.

"Daddy, Nanny says it's time for supper."

She turned, suddenly feeling as if she were made of lead. Her blood filled with it, slowing her. Freezing her in place, unable to call out, to warn the little girl who pushed open the study door.

Her hair gleamed in the firelight, as black as her father's and gathered into two pigtails, each wrapped with pink ribbon. Her skirt hung neatly pressed, her blouse frilly and so tiny. She wore saddle shoes in pink and white and cradled a small horse doll in one hand.

She'd loved that doll.

"Daddy?" Her voice wavered. Her little feet tripped over the carpet, and Naomi struggled to break the terror of memory. To wrench herself from the dream shattering her heart.

But it didn't fade.

Instead, as the little girl sat on the carpet and watched her father swing, Naomi reached out. Her fingers trembled desperately as she hovered one hand over the tiny child's glossy black hair.

The scream of the nanny threw the house into chaos.

Naomi flinched.

"This isn't your fault."

A broken sound, at least partly a laugh, tore from her chest.

"Naomi." Blue-violet eyes met hers. So wide, bright with unshed tears. Her young, childish voice resonated, matured eerily from her bow-shaped mouth. "This isn't your fault." She reached out to stroke a tiny hand over Naomi's cheek. It pa.s.sed through.

Naomi shot to her feet, spun and screamed in rage, in fear, as her father's purple, bloated face swung inches from hers. Back and forth. "This isn't your fault," he wheezed, slowly spinning.

The cord creaked. Thump, thump.

"No." Naomi backed away. She pa.s.sed through a figure wrapped in silk and expensive perfume. Trails of ghostly color clung to her face, skeins of a fragrance that haunted her dreams, her skin. Naomi staggered.

Abigail turned in a frothy sea of peach lace and cream, her smile sad. "This wasn't ever your fault."

Naomi shook her head, over and over, a high, keening wail locked behind her teeth. "No," she sobbed, the word a broken sound of understanding. "No. It's yours. All of it, it's all your fault, the both of you."

The corpse's smile turned ghastly. "There is honor to consider."

"There was still so much I had to have," Abigail said lightly.

"And you lost it all," Naomi whispered. She scrubbed at her face, furiously dashed her tears aside. "You lost honor when you abandoned your child to become a killer. When you used me like some sort of revenge."

The corpse's skin mottled.

Naomi flung a finger at Abigail, sharp accusation. "You. You lost everything. You threw it all away, hoping to find some miraculous fountain of youth, and now it's too late. Nothing of you lives on. Nothing."

Both specters stared at her. Watched her in brutal silence.

And five-year-old Naomi Is.h.i.+kawa watched her from the floor, her eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with too much awareness.

Too much knowing.

So many untapped tears.

It'd be years until one man would break through that dam. A standstill decades long.

Naomi swallowed hard, and remembered what she'd forgotten. What she'd always known. "Your mistakes aren't my fault," she whispered. "You're right. But I can fix what is my fault, and f.u.c.k you, I will not be the twisted, lonely woman my parents made me."

"Oh, sweetie-"

"You have to go," the little girl said solemnly, cutting off Abigail's trilling laugh. "You have to go back before it's too late." Boots tromped through the halls, echoed shouts and sirens piercing the ghostly solitude. Within moments, emergency technicians poured into the study, a regulated wash of chaos.

Naomi shook her head. "How?"

Somberly the little girl with Naomi's own face moved around the adults. She pressed herself to the fringe and watched the corpse of her father hit the ground. Crumple bonelessly, bloated face jiggling. Mottled.

Dead.

"I don't know," she said.

A hot tear trickled down Naomi's cheek. The girl glanced at her. Followed the tear as it dripped from her chin and splashed over Naomi's hand.

The girl's mouth curved down. "How do you know where you belong?"

Naomi closed her eyes. She fisted her hands tightly, nails biting into the callused edge of her palms and struggled to remember.

To forget.

Warm brown eyes met hers in the dark recesses of her mind. A dimpled smile tugged at her heart.

Phin. She belonged there. At least for the moment, at least for the time it would take to say good-bye.

More than she'd ever done for anyone else.

"You just know," Naomi whispered. Shuddering, she took a deep breath.

And smelled chlorine.

Tears streamed over her cheeks as she opened her eyes. Tears of regret, bottled grief so long capped and filled to the breaking point that it raged from her now. Warm water battered at her, crimson currents swirled until the tub looked like a pool of steaming blood. Wordless, sobbing with the weight of it, with the unfairness of it all, Naomi clung to Gemma's lifeless body as anguish poured from that forgotten place deep inside.

That place Naomi had sworn didn't exist.

Steady hands bracketed her shoulders. "I know," Jessie murmured against her hair. "Let it out. It's okay. It's going to be okay."

Maybe it would be. Someday.

A high-pitched whine sliced the air into auditory shreds. Overhead the speakers turned over into a quiet hum. "This is Phin Clarke, Carson."

His voice echoed from wall to wall. Battered at her grief. He was steady. So calm.

"I know you're in this building somewhere. You're holding innocent people hostage. Let them get out before the fire spreads, and I'll give you what you want."

Naomi sucked in a hard, shuddering breath as Lillian sobbed at the edge of the tub.

"That was unexpected," Jessie said slowly.

Gently, her heart aching with it, Naomi forced herself to let go of the woman who'd seen in her something Naomi still couldn't. She didn't know what. Maybe she'd learn, one day.

But not today.

She watched Gemma's pale body drift across the bloodied current. Watched as, shoulders shaking, Lillian wrapped her arms around the lifeless corpse of her wife.

Gemma had loved the water. Naomi didn't know how she knew that, but she did. There was solace in the water.

Solace in the fountain.

It simmered deep inside. A golden current, a whisper. How do you know where you belong?

"That's because," she said on a low, resigned sound of frustration, "Phin is an idiot. Put them somewhere safe, Jessie. I need my gun."

"I will. What are you going to do?"

Naomi climbed out of the tub, her skin crawling with the knowledge that she wore Gemma's blood. Like a banner. A battle standard. "Go after him before he gets killed," she said.

Another voice cracked across the hall. "No! You can't do that."

Naomi turned. Slowly. Rage dragged bleeding furrows across her heart as she met Agatha's snapping gaze from across the floor. The woman had been bound tightly, her features pale and bruised underneath a sheen of sweat. Beside her, two other witches watched in silent accusation. Hatred.

Resignation, she didn't know. She didn't care. Naomi's eyes narrowed. "Watch me."

"Don't be so stupid," Agatha hissed, struggling against the ropes. "You are the fountain, you can't-"

"I'm the only f.u.c.king one able to end this."

"You selfish-"

"By the sanctions of the Holy Order of St. Dominic," Naomi cut in grimly, checking the cartridge in her borrowed gun, "you are hereby accused and proven to be a witch."

Jessie swore behind her, a sharp crescendo in a sea of sudden mutterings. The old words didn't carry any power, but years of persecution levied a weight that reverberated.