Page 94 of Saint of the Shadows

“I have something that you need to do,” Vincent said.

“Give the rodent a name?” Marisol asked.

“No.” He turned the handle of the vault with the glowing blue window. Clouds rolled out of the open room of frozen conquistadors as liquid nitrogen met the air. Vincent entered the vault. Marisol followed him, brow knit with confusion.

Held by the cable wound tightly around him, Ruthven shivered in an empty glass tank. Vincent hadn’t frozen him yet. Vincent guided Marisol’s hand to a lever. “When you pull this, it will start the cryostasis process.”

“You don’t have to do this!” Ruthven interjected between chattering teeth. Actually, Vincent had to. Ruthven would tear up a traditionalprison, and it wasn’t like he could face execution. His judgment would come in the future under Vincent’s watchful eye.

“I hope you had a good look at your eternity.” Vincent tipped his head toward the iced-over beef jerky in human form, the others. “Perhaps not an eternity, but it’s been 500 years. Could be 500 more.” In dark warrior-mode, steely and aloof, Vincent verged on cruel.

Marisol gripped the lever. “Every day, you should think of her.” Vengeance didn’t direct her hand, her love for Annie did. “I know I will.”

Ruthven spat, “Your friend was no saint. She sold me secrets just to keep her lab open. You’ll be cleaning up her little B’Lee mess long after I’m gone.”

“We always said, ‘People over ambition.’” That info stopped Ruthven’s shivering. Marisol added, “Whatever she did, she did it to help people.”

“You think I’m the only one you should worry about? More will come, and they won’t be as nice as I am!”

“They will reveal themselves in due time,” Vincent said. He gestured for Marisol to pull the lever.

Ruthven laughed. “Charlie says, ‘Hi.’”

“Do it,” Vincent ordered with a sneer.

“For Annie,” Marisol whispered before cranking the lever.

Ruthven howled, but the sizzling liquid nitrogen muted him in a microsecond. The process mummified his face, freezing it into a scream. Vincent welded the tank shut. There were four full tanks. Four that waited for the day their immortal lives would end.

On the other side of the vault, Vincent turned the handle close. Marisol watched the mouse gobble a pile of alfalfa pellets.

“She might need something rawer and meatier,” Vincent said, putting a hand on Marisol’s shoulder.

“The mouse is a she?” She nibbled at her lip. That really wasn’t the question she wanted to ask. She breathed and just went for it. “Who’s Charlie?”

“As far as I know? Nonsense.” He crossed his arms. Marisol studied his demeanor, searching for a tick or subtle smile—a clear sign of a truth or lie. But his attention seemed zoned out. She got nothing from her dark warrior.

She focused back on the mouse. “We should call her A.J. Figured we should honor her. It’s all we have left of Annie’s work. That and whatever she gave to Ruthven.”

“She gave only fragments of information. Ruthven happened to turn the shared half-formula into B’Lee. All the world knows that Ruthven dealt designer heroin. And as far as the lab attack is concerned, the media already ditched the gang retaliation story. They say Ruthven had it out for me. With what I gleaned, he only planned to stealsome research to sell to the highest bidder, but he hadn’t expected to run into you two so late at night.”

“Annie is the most brilliant person I know. If this truth gets out, people will see Ruthven’s grimy little hands on her accomplishments.”

“No one will ever find out.”

She leaned her head against his shoulder. “Can we build a better world with a lie?” She expected Vincent to answer with something sage that offered little comfort.

“It doesn’t have to be a lie. We can consult her files, her notes.” A glint flickered in his irises, like his internal switch flipped from warrior to lover.

Her worry unwound itself from her body. She playfully smacked him in the shoulder. “You took them!”

“I’d prefer to say, ‘Stored for safekeeping.’”

“We could make the serum. Give it to A.J. Maybe it could work like the Fountain. Maybe it could rev—”

Vincent winced. “I’ve learned not to hope too much.”

Marisol held his smooth hands in hers. She imagined both becoming wrinkled and liver spotted. And perfect. “But we can hope a little bit.”

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