Page 33 of Deathless
Rori’s fatiguetook over soon after that, so Torr and I left the room to let her sleep. But that didn’t mean either of us felt better about the situation.
“Something’s happened to her,” he said, pacing the living room downstairs. He was a pacer when he was worried. I was trying to calm my nerves by cleaning my machetes.
“The Rori I know would not have let those cultists get away. It’s the whole reason she’s out here! She’s fucking bloodthirsty for them.”
“I agree,” I said with a pass of a whetstone over my blade. “But I’m not sure what we should do now.”
Torr stopped pacing and stared at the ceiling as he sighed heavily. “I’m not sure either.”
A few seconds of silence passed while I finished my first blade and picked up my second. “How was everything here while we were gone?”
His shoulders tensed and he rubbed his jaw. “Something happened here too. But...I don’t know if I should tell her about it. Especially if she’s got gaps in her memory.” He started pacing again. “If it seems like she’s there when she’s actually not, who am I really talking to?”
“Fuck.” I dropped my machete and my tools on the coffee table. “You make it sound like she’s...”
“Possessed,” he finished for me. “Like Tezca and Astarte have animal vessels. What if...”
“No.” I shook my head. “Dude, she can’t be. She would never let that happen.”
“I’ll bet that’s the real reason why she was having all those dreams,” Torr went on. “To make her sleep-deprived and weaker. To break her down so she would be easier to control.”
Fuck me, that was horrifying. It all stemmed back to the night that we rescued Hudson. Their deity must have touched Rori the moment she spaced out.
And had its claws in her ever since.
“Has Tezca said anything to you?” Torr asked. “About how to stop it? How to help her?”
“Not a word,” I said with an apologetic shake of my head.
Torr dropped into an armchair like he couldn’t handle pacing anymore.
“Want to tell me what happened?” I asked after a few moments of depressing silence.
Torr rubbed a hand over his hair, his gaze staring at nothing. “We had a situation with the Bull. I’ve got him locked in the basement.” His eyes flicked over to me. “How was the Saint on the trip?”
I shrugged. “Fine. His normal, weird-ass self. What’d the Bull do?”
“Tried to leave without anybody noticing. Got all cagey when I started asking questions.” Torr rubbed his chin. “I think he was going to the Sisterhood to give them information about us.”
“Why?” I asked, my gut roiling with disgust. “Why would he keep any kind of loyalty to them?”
“Dunno. Maybe they have some leverage over him.”
“Rori would want his head on a spike,” I growled. “And rightly so.”
“The real Rori would, yeah.” He nodded grimly before pointing to the ceiling. “But I’m not entirely sure Rori is up there.”
“You’re the VP, you can act in her stead,” I reminded him. “And maybe if this Dark Mother has one less minion doing her bidding, it will weaken her hold on Rori.”
Torr drummed his fingers on the armrest. “I’m hesitant to do this without Rori’s input. Or if she really is not in control, someone’s opinion that I trust.”
“You trust mine?”
Torr drummed his fingertips some more. “You want to come talk to him and see what you think? He denied everything to me, but maybe he’ll talk to a fellow ex-gladiator.”
“We were never close in the pit, but sure.”
I sheathed my weapons on my belt, which drew a raised eyebrow from Torr.
