Number One's phone started ringing.
"It's Losham." He answered the call. "Are you calling about the tremor?"
"You felt it." Losham's voice was tight. "It came from the mansion. I'm afraid there was another collapse, and that it wasn't caused by structural weakness or my father's traps."
"Then what could have caused it?" Number One asked.
"Someone is making a move."
"What do you mean? Who could be making a move and why?"
"Think. The other main contenders for the seat of power are dead, and the seat is mine, but it didn't have a chance to get warm yet. Every junior brother now thinks that it's theirs for the taking. An explosion in the mansion is either a provocation, a probe, or a cover. Someone wants to create chaos, a reason to put men on the streets and around the mansion, and once they have men positioned and control a situation that I didn't create, they remove me in the confusion and blame whoever brought the building down. It's what I would have done."
The collective absorbed the reasoning and found it sound only from Losham's vantage.
This wasn't a coup. The collective was almost certain of that.
"I need you to get there," Losham continued. "I cannot go myself, and I need someone there who answers to me and only to me to report what's going on. Go now, before the night patrol turns it into a circus. Find out if it was the basement, and if it was, what brought it down, but regardless of what you find, you tell everyone that it was a structural collapse and it will be handled in the morning. If this was an attempt by one of the idiot junior brothers, I don't want them to gain anything from it."
"We will go at once," Number One said. "And we will report what we find."
Number Five walked over to the sofa where Anita was still sleeping despite the commotion.
They couldn't just leave her alone in the suite and risk her waking up and going back to the brothel on her own. It wasn't safe.
They needed to thrall her to keep sleeping until they returned.
The Eight laid down the suggestion over her dreams.Sleep. Stay. Wait for us to come back.
22
ANNANI
It was not Annani's first time in the clan's war room, which was located in the belly of the mountain below the village. It was a comfortless place, designed for function with no regard for aesthetics, just a wide concrete rectangle with white painted block walls and a polished cement floor. A round conference table dominated the center, and individual workstations were arranged along the walls, with large screens that were showing nothing tonight because the communication with the team on the Doomers' island was conducted only through the comms.
She had been given an earpiece, and so had Amanda and Alena, who had insisted on accompanying her to provide emotional support.
Annani needed it.
Finally, after all the setbacks, she was about to get her Khiann back.
She still found it hard to believe that it was actually happening. She had believed Khiann had been murdered by Mortdh,and when she had fled the assembly of gods who had been deliberating how to bring Mortdh to justice, she had believed that he would come after her next.
They had been at it for days, and Annani had known that they were not capable of going against the powerful god who had amassed a formidable army of immortals and humans. It had been idle talk, and she had been in danger.
She had no idea how true that gut feeling was.
Annani had fled with her Odus and her aircraft and continued mourning her Khiann in the far north, which had become her sanctuary. Five thousand years of mourning had passed before it occurred to her that Mortdh had not lied when he had claimed innocence, that her own father might have compelled the witnesses to incriminate Mortdh so he could get rid of the upstart god who wanted to rule in his stead.
Then Navuh had confirmed her newfound theory, or at least the part about Khiann not being dead but rather in stasis.
She had not had a moment of peace since that day.
To know that Khiann was alive but unreachable to her was its own kind of torture.
A cheer went up when the crew uncovered the chests, and died out quickly, probably silenced by Yamanu or Anandur. Annani's heart leaped in her chest. "Are they intact?" she asked.
"Yes, Clan Mother," Yamanu said through the comms. "They don't seem to be damaged."
