“I’m not a fool. In hand to hand battle, I never could best you. Which is why I had to arrange thistête-à-tête.” Marius shook his head. “I won’t free you until you listen to what I have to say. And you will listen carefully, Gabriel. I came back from the grave to convey this message.”
“Devil take your message.” Rage incinerated Gabriel’s composure. “And speaking of the grave—why in damnation aren’t you in one?”
Marius sighed. “I suppose there’s no getting around history. I’ll have to start from the beginning. But I warn you: we may have little time.”
“I don’t need your warning, you backstabbing blighter. You’re the Spectre, aren’t you?” Gabriel was on his feet in a second, forced to shuffle his manacled feet as he advanced toward his former friend. “All along, it wasyou. For years, I lived with the guilt of your death. But there’s no blood on my hands, is there? It’s all dripping from yours!”
Marius withdrew a pistol from his pocket. Aimed it at Gabriel’s heart. “Come any closer, and I’ll be forced to kill you. I don’t want to, but I’ll do it.”
“Damn you to hell,” Gabriel snarled.
“Sit down. In that chair.” Marius motioned with his gun.
Chest heaving, Gabriel forced himself to comply.Get in control. Find a way out of here.
“One move and I will put a bullet through your heart,” Marius said. “Understand?”
I’m going to rip you from limb to limb.It required all his inner resources, but Gabriel gave a terse nod. He would bide his time.
“Since you brought it up, we’ll start with that last mission. From the start, I tried to talk Octavian out of it, but he wouldn’t listen. Hardheaded bastard, he was.”
“Is that why you slit his throat?” Gabriel said through his teeth.
“I tried to hand Octavian my resignation,” Marius continued as if Gabriel hadn’t spoken. “By that time, I’d had more than enough of espionage and all the ugliness it entailed. But Octavian wouldn’t have it. He reminded me of what I owed him, how he’d plucked me from poverty, the pile of shite I’d sprung from, and made a blooming gentleman of me.” Marius’ lips twisted. “He convinced me to do this one last mission. To put my neck, and those of my fellow agents, on the line because of his obsession with capturing the Almighty Spectre. And I did it—because I could never bloody say no to the man. He was a master of manipulation, our mentor.”
Don’t listen to Marius. He’s a lying bastard. What does he want?
“The night of the mission, everything went wrong. It was a trap. I escaped by the skin of my teeth, and I waited for three days at our agreed upon meeting place in Rouen. When no one showed, I knew you’d all been captured.” Marius’ bronzed features were harsh in the dimness. “I’ll be honest: I was tempted to run. To let Octavian think that he’d lost all of us that night and to start a new life, free of him at last. But I couldn’t.”
“Why should I believe anything you say?” Gabriel bit out.
“Because I came back for you and the others when that was the last bloody thing I wanted to do,” Marius said tightly. “Like a madman, I argued with myself—and was damn pissed with the side of me that won. But I couldn’t leave you in the hands of the Spectre, knowing what the bastard was capable of.”
“Loyal to a fault.” Gabriel’s voice dripped with sarcasm even as his heart thudded.
“Call it loyalty or stupidity—it doesn’t matter. The fact is, I came back, freed you all. And when you and I were fighting our way to freedom and that bugger pushed me over the cliff, I had but one thought in my head:Damn, this is all it’s come to.” Marius’ throat worked. “I was going to die in the middle of bloody nowhere, with no one knowing or caring, and for no purpose whatsoever. This was how it was going to end for me—and it didn’t even come as a bleeding surprise.”
Don’t listen to him. Don’t be fooled again.“That would all be very touching—if you were dead. But you’re not,” Gabriel said acidly. “You’re alive and pointing a gun at me.”
“I wouldn’t need the gun if you weren’t so bullheaded.” Marius expelled a breath. “There was a ledge on the cliff, hidden beneath a larger outcropping. On my way down, I managed to grab hold of it and hoist myself up. I lay there, bleeding from the shot in my arm, and in that moment, I knew that Marius had died. He’d fallen into the ocean to his unmarked grave. But I, John Malcolm, was going to live. The universe had given me a second chance at life, and I was damn well going to make it one worth living.”
Gabriel hated that he heard the truth in Marius’ words. Hated even more that he understood those sentiments all too well.
“I thought you died because of me,” he said, his voice gritty. “For over twelve years, you’ve let me live with that guilt.”
Marius had the gall to look surprised. “Why would you think that my death was your fault? You didn’t push me over the cliff.”
“I was the reason we were slow getting out of that hellhole.” The memory seared through Gabriel like lava. “You kept telling me to run, to go, to get out of there, but I wouldn’t listen because I was out of control, caught up in bloodlust. Instead of running, I stayed and fought and killed. By the time we reached the outside, the enemy surrounded us. If I’d listened to you, we’d have had a good ten minutes start on them. You wouldn’t have been forced to have a stand-off on the cliffs.”
Comprehension shifted over Marius’ worn features. “You thought that the delay you caused led to my death?”
“Not now that you’re standing there as alive as I am,” Gabriel bit out. “But for all the years before—yes, goddamnit, I thought it was my fault. You died because I let my emotions rule instead of my head. Because I lost control. Because I failed to heed Octavian’s teachings—”
“Control wasneverthe problem.” Now Marius’ eyes glowed with anger. “Don’t let our mentor’s so-called lessons blind you to the truth. To block out all emotion isnotnormal. To kill, to see the things we’ve seen, and pretend that that doesn’t affect one’s soul is bloodywrong. That was why I needed to get out. I didn’t want to become a deadened, soulless soldier. An empty shell of a man.”
A vise clamped around Gabriel’s chest. He couldn’t speak.
“I’m not the Spectre, Gabriel,” Marius said quietly, “and I’ve lived a life of peace—some might say boredom—since I started over again. I’ve no reason to be here today except to pay a debt that’s owed.”
