Marked For Death: A Dark Urban Fantasy Novel Becca Blake (fiction novels to read .txt) 📖

“Your death will help me sleep at night.”

“Orion, wait!” I grabbed his arms. “I have more questions. You can’t kill him yet.”

“He won’t kill me. Not today, anyway.”

An explosion pulsed outward and threw us both back.

When we stood back up, Jay Maki was gone.

Chapter Fifteen

The stifling hotel room Orion brought us back to was too small, too quiet, and too full of unspoken resentment between the three of us. I flopped down on the firm mattress and snatched the TV remote from the nightstand, hoping that falling asleep to some stupid cartoons would help keep my mind off of everything that had happened.

As I flipped through the channels, I found that watching TV was a poor distraction. The events at the church had already made national news, and nearly every channel was covering their take on what happened in Omaha. I gave up on my search for mind-numbing cartoons and settled on one of the news programs.

“Plain and simple, this was a terrorist attack,” the news anchor said.

Across the table from him, a psychologist voiced her disagreement. She referenced her recent book on the psychology of cults—non-magical ones, of course—and pointed out that this wouldn’t be the first instance of a cult leader convincing his followers to commit mass suicide.

I ignored their uninformed commentary as I watched the video of the aftermath. Images of the church flashed across the screen as cell phone footage played on a loop. None of the survivors were able to explain how they’d gotten there or what had happened that evening, so the media pundits assumed that they’d been drugged for compliance. A few of those who seemed to have broken memories of the evening spoke to reporters about a green fire and a demon who wanted to kill them.

“Just ignore it,” Orion said as he collapsed on the small couch in the corner of the room. “The public will invent plenty of theories to explain away what happened tonight. They’ll move on to something else soon enough.”

The anchor assured viewers that the survivors’ accounts were nothing more than drug-induced hallucinations, and that the police hadn’t yet found any evidence to confirm anything other than a fire.

Still, the survivors who had memories of the night knew what they saw. When victims of demonic or magical attacks made it out alive, most were too afraid to discuss their experiences openly on national television like this. They knew no one would take their claims seriously.

There would always be conspiracy theorists who believed the survivors and decried the government for ignoring demonic threats, but even when they stumbled on the truth they weren’t exactly considered credible.

“Turn that crap off.” Jacob rolled over and covered his head with a pillow.

If I had more energy, I might have argued with him, just for the sake of it. But I didn’t want to hear any more of this, either, so I turned the TV off and tossed the remote aside. I was so tired, in a way that went beyond needing sleep. The exhaustion seeped into every part of my being, but I knew sleep would elude me if I tried. There were too many thoughts running through my head. Too many fears for the future and concerns about the past.

For all of my reckless decisions over the last twenty-four hours, I was left with far too many questions that seemed to have no answers.

None anyone would give me, anyway.

I closed my hand around the cloth holding the emerald, just to make sure it was still in my bag. I had to find a way to destroy the gem, and until I did, I couldn’t leave it unattended. The Council—and Orion, apparently—couldn’t be trusted with it.

I looked at him as he lay back on the couch with his arm over his eyes, and wondered if I would ever see him the same way again. Even if he had just been following orders from the Council, he was willing to stand aside and allow innocents to burn. How could I ever forget that? Or forgive it?

I still wanted to believe he was the good man I thought I knew, but I wasn’t sure that was possible anymore.

“You still haven’t given me that explanation you promised,” I said.

With a heavy sigh, Orion sat up and rubbed his forehead. “I was hoping this could wait until tomorrow.”

“It can’t.” No matter how tired I was, there was no way I was getting any sleep.

“Can you fill me in on the details later?” Jacob groaned, his voice muffled by the pillow. “My head is killing me. I can’t even see straight.”

My first thought was to be furious with him—how could he not care about everything we’d seen? But with all that had happened, I’d forgotten that he was supposed to be at home recovering from a possible concussion this whole time. It had been a rough day, and he’d gotten knocked around a lot. It was no wonder he just wanted to get some rest.

Orion gestured to the door, and I followed him out to the parking lot. The night had gotten chilly, so I pulled my leather jacket tight across my chest as I followed him to his truck. He opened the tailgate for us to sit on, then grabbed two beers from the cooler he kept up front.

“There’s a lot you need to understand before we go back to Haygrove.” He passed me a bottle.

Part of me didn’t even want to listen to whatever he had to say. No explanation would make up for what he’d been planning to let Maki do back at the church. But he was family. No matter how angry I was, I had to at least hear him out.

I took the drink and lifted myself onto the tailgate next to him. “I’m not going back to Haygrove.”

“You know what will happen to you if you run away,” he said.

“I do.” The Council would label me an Oathbreaker,