Linda Howard Inferno

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I ve seen copies of the statement she gave afterward. It matches his, and neither is possible, given what
we know of the timetable. I estimate he was engaged with the fire for at least half an hour. That was an
eternity, in terms of survival.
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He should have been overwhelmed. He should have spent so much energy trying to control the fire that
he couldn t maintain the bubble. He s the hero type, Cael said contemptuously. He d sacrifice himself
to save the people in the hotel.This should have worked. His people wouldn t have been suspicious.
They would have expected him to do the brave and honorable thing. The woman has to be the key. She
has to be gifted. He linked with her, and she fed him power.
She isn t Raintree, said Ruben. She has to be a stray, but they aren t that powerful. If there had been
several of them, maybe there would have been enough energy for him to hold back the fire. He doubted
it, though. After all, there had been four powerful Ansara, linked together, feeding it. As powerful as
Dante undoubtedly was, adding the power of one stray, even a strong one, would be like adding a cup of
water to a full bathtub.
Follow your own logic, Cael said sharply. Strays aren t that powerful, therefore she can t be a stray.
She isn t Raintree, Ruben insisted.
Or she isn tofficial Raintree. Cael didn t use the word illegitimate. The old Dranir had recognized him
as his son, but that hadn t given Cael precedence over Judah, even though he was the elder. The injustice
had always eaten at him, like a corrosive acid. Everyone around Cael had learned never to suggest that
maybe Judah was Dranir because of his power, not his birthright.
She d have to be of the royal bloodline to have enough power for him to hold the fire for that long
against four of us, said Ruben dubiously, because that was impossible. The birth of a royal was taken far
too seriously for one to go unnoticed. They were simply too powerful.
So maybe she is. Even if the split occurred a thousand years ago, the inherited power would be
undiminished.
As genetic dominants, even if a member of one of the clans bred with a human which they often
did the offspring were completely either Ansara or Raintree. The royal families of both clans were the
most powerful of the gifted, which was how they d become royal in the first place; as dominants, their
power was passed down intact. To Ruben s way of thinking, that only reinforced his argument that, no
matter what, a royal birth wouldn t go unnoticed for any length of time, certainly not for a millennium.
Regardless of what she is, where is she now?
At his house. He took her there last night, and she s still there.
Cael was silent, so Ruben simply waited while his cousin ran that through his convoluted brain.
Okay, Cael said abruptly. She has to be the key. Wherever it comes from, her power is strong
enough that he held the four of you to a draw. But that s in the past. You can t use fire again without the
bastard getting suspicious, so you ll have to think of something else that ll either look accidental or can t
be linked to us. I don t care how you do it, just do it. The next time I hear your voice, you d better be
telling me that Dante Raintree is dead. And while you re at it, kill the woman, too.
Cael slammed down the phone. Ruben replaced the receiver more slowly, then pinched the bridge of his
nose. Tactically, killing the royal Raintrees first was smart. If you cut off the head of a snake, taking care
of the body was easy. The comparison wasn t completely accurate, because any Raintree was a force to
be reckoned with, but so were the Ansara. With the royals all dead, the advantage would be theirs and
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the outcome inevitable.
The mistake they d made two hundred years ago was in not taking care of the royal family first, a
mistake that had had disastrous results. As a clan, the Ansara had almost been destroyed. The survivors
had been banished to their Caribbean island, where most of them remained. But they had used those two
hundred years to secretly rebuild in strength, and now they were strong enough to once more engage
their enemy. Cael thought so, anyway, and so did Ruben. Only Judah had held them back, preaching
caution. Judah was abanker, for God s sake; what did he know about taking risks?
Discontent in the Ansara ranks had been growing for years, and it had reached the crisis point. The
Raintree had to die, and so did Judah. Cael would never let him live, even in exile.
Ruben s power was substantial. Because of that, and because he was Cael s cousin, he d been given the
task of eliminating the most powerful Raintree of all a task made more difficult because Cael insisted
the death look accidental. The last thing he wanted was all the Raintree swarming to the homeplace to
protect it. The power of Sanctuary was almost mystical. How much of it was real and how much of it
was perceived, Ruben didn t know and didn t care.
The plan was simple: kill the royals, breach the protective shields around Sanctuary and take the
homeplace. After that, the rest of the Raintree would be considerably weakened. Destroying them would
be child s play.
Not destroying the Ansara homeplace two centuries ago, not destroying every member of the clan, was
the mistake the Raintree had made. The Ansara wouldn t return the favor.
Ruben sat for a long time, deep in thought. Getting to Raintree would be easier if he was distracted. He
and the woman, Lorna Clay, were evidently lovers; otherwise, why take her home with him? She would
be the easier of the two to take out, anyway and if she were obviously the target rather than Raintree,
that wouldn t raise the clan s alarm.
Cael s idea had been a good one: kill the woman.
Chapter 14
Monday afternoon
What happens if you die? Lorna asked him, scowling as, car keys in hand, he opened the door to the
garage. What if you have a blowout and drive off the side of the mountain? What if you have a
pulmonary embolism? What if a chicken-hauler has brake failure and flattens that little roller skate you
call a car? Am I stuck here? Does your little curse, or whatever, hold me here even if you re dead or
unconscious? [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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