The Enchanter Heir (The Heir Chronicles #4)

Jonah drew his knees up to his chin and wrapped his arms around them, his body shuddering with grief.

Hearing, once again, the whispers that followed him everywhere. That’s Jonah Kinlock. He killed his own sister. And ever since, he’d told himself: Stay away from the innocent. The best you can do is deliver peace to the afflicted and justice to the guilty. You have the killing touch.

Jonah turned his attention back to Emma. She lay still, eyes closed, barely breathing, that creepy, blissful smile still on her face. Her left hand lay across her stomach, the nails cut short, like a child’s, her fingers callused at the tips. She had guitar player’s hands—sinewy and strong, like his own. He gripped them between his gloved hands, as if he could hold her in the world somehow.

Stubbornly, she clung to life, breaths shivering in and out of her, tears still seeping from the corners of her eyes. As long as she’s crying, she’s alive.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, praying to the merciful gods who had never heard him before. Hoping for the most potent, head-spinning drug of them all—and knowing he wouldn’t get it.

Forgiveness.

Instead, he watched helplessly as the color slowly bled from Emma’s face. As her breathing slowed, became fainter and fainter until he could no longer hear it. Now, when he pressed his gloved fingers against her throat, he felt no pulse.

She was dead. The realization hit him like a knife to the gut. Though he was out of Nightshade, he was still killing Thorn Hill survivors.

“She wasn’t supposed to be here,” Jonah muttered to the indifferent world, his stomach roiling with sick self-loathing.

His life was an endless loop of disaster and regret, a phonograph needle stuck on a sad song. A decade of killing, and he still hadn’t shed the enchanter’s curse: Empathy. Jonah heard cars pulling into the driveway, doors slamming, feet crunching on gravel. A voice in his head spoke up—some primal plea for survival that wouldn’t be stilled. Reinforcements are coming. If you’re still here, you’ll have to riff them, too.

He decided to leave the same way he came in—through the basement. He was barely around the corner and down the basement stairs when he heard the back door opening and somebody calling, “Rachel?”

As he passed through the workshop, he took one of the SG guitars. He knew he shouldn’t do it, he knew it was stealing, but he also knew that it was the only way he’d ever hear Emma’s sweet music again.

Chapter Twenty-four

Down by the River

Kenzie pulled off the headphones, draping them around his neck, and took another bite of his spring roll. “If one person survived, there must be others.”

“You’ve already researched that,” Jonah said. “Greenwood was our best prospect.”

“He’s the best prospect that we know of now,” Kenzie said. “Doesn’t mean he’s the only one.”

Jonah snorted. “Don’t try to lie to me, Kenzie. You should know better than that.”

Emma’s bloodless face floated before Jonah’s eyes. He’d told Kenzie the whole story . . . except for the part about Emma. He rarely kept secrets from Kenzie, but this one cut too close to the bone after what had happened to Marcy at Thorn Hill.

When Jonah had returned from Greenwood’s, he’d thrown his clothes into the incinerator, showered in the hottest water he could stand, and treated his wounds as best he could. In the time it took to do that, he’d received four increasingly worried texts from Kenzie. Despite his weariness, Jonah knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway, so he’d walked over to Safe Harbor and given his brother the bad news. Seemed like he was doing a lot of that these days.

Kenzie’s voice broke into his thoughts. “What about Rowan DeVries?”

“What about him?”

“He may have some leads that we don’t know about.”

“He doesn’t know any more than we do. That’s how we all ended up at Greenwood’s.”

“We don’t know what he knows,” Kenzie argued. “You didn’t really have a chance to search the house. He did. He might have come away with something useful. Plus his father was in the thick of it, back in the day. Anyway . . . we each have a piece of the puzzle. Maybe it would look like something if we put them together.”

“You’re saying we should partner up with him?” Jonah leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “Don’t you think that the fact that I riffed his younger sister might cause a little tension?”

“He doesn’t know that. I’m saying that as soon as he puts anything online, I can get at it,” Kenzie said. “That’s what I do.”

“It doesn’t matter how well you do your job, if I blow it up,” Jonah said.

Kenzie snorted his disgust. “Tell me again how you picked a bloodbath from all of your other options? Oh, wait—you had no other options.” He nudged the take-out carton toward Jonah. “Aren’t you going to eat any of this? Mango curry is your favorite.”

“I’ve had enough,” Jonah said.

“You haven’t had any,” Kenzie said. When Jonah didn’t respond, he added, “Fine, fair warning, the curry’s mine.”

“Be my guest,” Jonah said.

Splat!

Jonah looked up to see that Kenzie had flung the carton of curry against the sterile white wall. The bright yellow sauce ran down in long streaks toward a heap of shrimp and vegetables at the bottom.

Jonah swung around to look at his brother. “What the hell?” he said.

Kenzie eyed the mess critically. “Adds a little color, don’t you think? I’m calling it Curry Paintball on Marshmallow Fluff.”

When Jonah made as if to get up and get a rag, Kenzie gripped his arm. “No,” he said. “Every time there’s a mess, you don’t have to clean it up.”

“Would you quit trying to make me feel better about this?” Jonah snapped.

“Would you quit holding yourself to a higher standard than you do me?” Kenzie snapped back. Shoving himself back from his keyboard, he swiveled toward Jonah, leaning forward, his hands on his knees. “Do you have to be the superhero all the time? Do you have to fix things all the time? We’re supposed to be partners, and it’s really condescending, if you want to know the truth.”

Kenzie’s pain and bitterness slammed into Jonah, leaving him nothing to say.

“Isn’t it amazing, what little Kenzie Kinlock is able to accomplish, given his disabilities,” Kenzie said. His hair was beginning to halo around his head, which was always a bad sign. “Why, he can look up an address! And then his big brother Jonah can take that information and save the world.

He cannot fail, because then little Kenzie will be disappointed. After all, he did his job.”

Blue flame flickered over Kenzie’s hands and arms, and he gripped the arms of the wheelchair to keep them from flailing.

“Kenzie,” Jonah said, “you’re burning.”

“Damn right I am,” Kenzie said. “Has it occurred to you that you’re more likely to fail because what you’re doing is harder than what I’m doing?” He rolled his eyes. “I know I get extra credit for being disabled and all, but I actually enjoy being in the digital world, because there, I’m usually the most capable person in the room. Everyone else is disabled, compared to me. But you—what you’ve done for Nightshade, what you did tonight . . . it’s totally contrary to your nature. You’re a walking contradiction—a deadly predator who suffers every time he makes a kill. And yet you keep going out there.”

“It’s not because I’m brave,” Jonah said, his voice catching. “And it’s not for fear of disappointing you. It’s not because I want to be a hero. I’m working this plan because I don’t want to live in a world without you. I don’t even want to think about it.”

“Then don’t,” Kenzie said bluntly. “Do what I do. Now is now. Now is all we have. We can write our own music, and dance to it while we can, or we can start writing our eulogies. I’d rather have a go at life, so there’s something to talk about once we’re gone.”

The Kinlocks stared at each other for a long moment. Gradually, Kenzie’s flames dwindled and died, leaving his usual faint tremor behind.

Abruptly, Jonah rose, crossed to the closet, and pulled out Kenzie’s jacket. “Let’s go out,” he said. “Let’s do it,” Kenzie said. “Are we gonna find ourselves some wimmin?”

“It’s three in the morning,” Jonah said. “We probably want to avoid any ‘wimmen’ still walking around at this hour. And the usual rules apply. You have to promise to wear the headphones and let me know if you feel the fireworks coming on so I can toss you in the river.”

Jonah pulled on his leather gloves and wrestled Kenzie into his coat. “Here.” He handed a knit cap to his brother. When Kenzie made a face, Jonah was unsympathetic. “It’s been a while since you’ve been out. It’s cold out now.” He put on his own jacket while Kenzie navigated to the door.

“Hang on a sec. I’ll make sure the coast is clear.” Jonah scanned the empty corridor. “We’re good.” He pushed Kenzie out into the hallway, shutting the door behind them. They rolled down the corridor to the back stairway.

“Okay . . . arms inside the chair.” Jonah picked Kenzie up, chair and all, and carried him down the stairs.

Out on the street, they threaded their way through the dwindling crowds in the Warehouse District, headed for the river. The cold air revived Jonah somewhat, freshening his memory of events on the east side and reminding him that Lilith was hunting him. That shades seemed to be hanging out, more and more, in the area around the Anchorage.

Now that they were outside, Kenzie used the motor function on his wheelchair, laughing as he bumped over the brick pavement. Jonah took hold of the handles again as they descended the steep slope on St. Clair, rattled across the Rapid tracks, and turned onto the walkway at Settlers Landing.