For almost a full minute, no one says a word.
Then I proclaim, “So, I think it’s time we all sit down and have a little chat.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The “little chat” morphs into an hour-long discussion in the parking lot of a convenience store five blocks away from the auto repair shop, where DSI Moscow set up their mobile command center for what they thought was a mission to apprehend a DSI defector and a sorceress for hire who’d taken possession of a dangerous relic with the intent to sell it to the highest bidder.
They learn over the course of the discussion just how badly they’ve been played over the past two days. And by the time Foley finishes explaining in his best diplomatic tone the nature of Azazel and the Children of Enoch, most of the senior DSI agents attending this impromptu meeting look like they’re going to be sick.
The blond female captain, whose name I learn is Valentina Yevseyeva, is the third most senior agent in Moscow. Or rather, she was the third most senior agent, until Petrov’s body disintegrated and Volkov bit the dust.
While the rest of the agents are still stuck in a stupor, Yevseyeva dutifully shrugs off her shock and grief, her anger and embarrassment, and announces that she’s taking command of DSI as acting commissioner, effective immediately. None of the other agents challenge her authority, and when she starts dishing out orders to the other captains on scene, they obey her without question.
With a competent person in control—one who isn’t an enemy operative—things begin moving very quickly, and answers come in a deluge.
Not twenty minutes after Yevseyeva sends a team back to the office to report the grim news to an assembly of all the remaining agents on duty, one of them calls in to report that somebody trashed the office’s servers, and their offsite backups, using a virus that caused the servers to overheat and literally catch fire. The caller also reveals that several members of the admin staff and infirmary staff seem to have absconded, with no clues to their whereabouts.
Yevseyeva swears in Russian at the news, then barks out in English, “Fucking spies. Right under my nose.”
Foley, who’s cleaned the blood off his face and is a bit less menacing as a result, moves away from the SUV he was leaning against and sidles up to Yevseyeva. “I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself. These people have been planning infiltrations like this for decades.”
“Not to mention,” I throw in, using the SUV’s side mirror to hoist myself to my feet, “their leader was wearing an actual human body as a costume.”
Yevseyeva purses her lips in disgust. “To think that creature killed Commissioner Petrov and used his body like a puppet…I will not let him and his henchmen get away with this. We will wring information out of Irina—if that even is her name—and once we know all she knows, we’ll send her to the sort of place where dogs like her belong.”
To express our desire to cooperate with DSI, now that their “infestation” has been exterminated and they’re no longer trying to arrest us, Foley and Erica allowed Yevseyeva to take custody of Irina. They’ve stuck her in a dungeon cell under heavy guard, with one of the ICM witches acting as backup in case the woman tries to make a run for it. Not that she can make a run for it. The golem that fell on top of her crushed two of her vertebrae, and going by what Azazel said, that damage won’t heal anytime soon.
Despite her dire circumstances, however, I seriously doubt Irina will say anything that compromises the Children’s plans. If not out of dedication then out of fear of what Azazel will do to her if he finds out she talked. I got the impression in the garage that Azazel isn’t the most considerate of bosses.
They’re not working for him because they like him or support his cause. They’re working for him because he gives them hope that they might one day be free from the blood restraints.
I pity the Children of Enoch. I really do. But as I survey the skyline of Moscow, filled with smoke and glowing embers, hear the echoes of sirens rebounding through city streets rendered empty out of fear, I can’t bring myself to forgive them for anything they’ve done. There is no justification for the actions they’ve committed, and there won’t be any justification for the actions they commit from here on out.
So they must be stopped, by any means necessary.
While Yevseyeva is discussing with two other captains how to best handle the developments at the office, a DSI van pulls into the convenience store lot. Before the vehicle comes to a complete stop, the back doors burst open and vampires begin to spill out. Annette, Esther, and half a dozen others hit the ground running and make a beeline for Foley. They crowd around him, talking over each other as they ask him if he’s all right, if he needs any immediate medical attention, if the golem poison is still harming him, and so on. Foley can barely get a word in edgewise.
With Foley and the DSI captains preoccupied, I pick up the duffle bag that once again contains the sword, slip around the side of the SUV, shamble across the parking lot, and meander down the sidewalk half a block until I come across a bench. The bench seat is iced over, but I’m so exhausted that I can’t bring myself to do any work to clear it off. So I sit down on top of the ice and ignore the dampness that gradually spreads across my thighs. I’m already cold, wet, dirty, and hurting. What’s a little more discomfort?
I’d trade a lot more discomfort just to get some alone time so I can process what I learned today.
That kind of time isn’t in the cards right now, unfortunately. So I file away all the earth-shattering revelations about myself and my parents into that mental folder I only open in private, when I have space to cry and shake, to scream and shout, to rant and rave, away from people who would judge me for it. There will be peaceful moments, peaceful hours, peaceful days, once the fallout from this chaos is cleared from the streets of Moscow.
During those moments and hours and days, when my hands aren’t needed to help hold up the weight of the world, I’ll let myself fall to pieces, let the trauma rake me over the coals, let the anxiety smother me, let the grief wring all the tears out of my eyes. And when they’re done, I’ll put the pieces of myself back together, in a new arrangement, a better arrangement, a stronger arrangement.
Until the city rests, however, I have to stay awake.
Footsteps sound off to my right. I look up, not surprised to find Erica heading my way, with none of her subordinate agents in tow. We left them to process the garage scene with a DSI team, as they can gather evidence using a variety of magic means in addition to the standard forensic techniques.
Erica was supervising the group—and arguing with an unruly Barnett about what kind of monetary compensation the bounty hunter “deserves” for her reluctant role in the rescue operation—when Foley and I walked off with Yevseyeva. It appears the group and Barnett have finished up. That or Erica thinks they’re competent enough to be left to their own devices.
Erica clears the other half of the bench with a quick spell and plops down beside me. “You look beat. Long day, huh?”
“Long week.”
“Guess you’re counting what happened in Aurora?”
Haltingly, I ask, “What did you hear about that?”
Erica taps my left wrist with her finger, where the array of the binding oath is etched into my skin. “I heard enough. Snippets of Targus’ report on the…Delos matter were left in a place on High Witch Iyanda’s desk where I just so happened to catch sight of them when I was dropping off some papers.”
I let out a dry laugh. “That has ‘plausible deniability’ written all over it.”
“As did my ‘accidental’ glimpse of the orders Targus was given before he left for Aurora.”
I stop laughing. “Are you saying Iyanda wanted you to sabotage Targus’ mission?”
“High Witch Iyanda said nothing regarding the matter,” Erica says, her voice betraying no emotion. “She did, however, ask me to ‘investigate’ a man in the general administration office that she believed to be a Federation spy. As part of this investigation, I w
as instructed to pass along information to this man that was distinct enough to be easily identified if it were to leak beyond the High Court’s offices. The exact nature of that information was left up to my discretion.”
I stare at the ground for a long moment. “I don’t even know how to respond to that.”
Erica brings a finger to her lips. “Silence is how you respond to that.”
“My lips are sealed.” I fiddle with the strap of the duffle bag in my lap. “Or they will be, if you’ll tell me one more thing: do you want out?”
Erica blinks at me owlishly. “Out?”
“Of where you are now.”
“Ah.” She smiles, one part bitter, one part sweet. “I’m afraid I can’t get out any more than you can, Cal. The time for choosing ‘neutral’ in the coming war has passed.”
I look away from her. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. My own choices got me here.” She sighs. “And if I’m being honest, I should be here. I don’t have any right to stand on the sidelines while so much is at stake, and even less of a right to pick and choose who I help and when, based on personal convenience. I’d be one heck of a selfish bitch if I tried to bow out now, just as the true scope of this threat is coming into focus. I chose to help DSI with lesser problems. I should choose to help my allies with larger ones.”
“You could be killed. By the Children. By the Fallen. By the ICM.” I swallow hard. “Targus knows I got intel from somewhere inside the High Court offices.”
“Firstly, I know my life’s at stake, Cal, and I’ve judged the potential aid I can give to a good cause as more important than my life,” she answers softly. “And secondly, the issue of the intel leak has already been dealt with.”
I snap my head toward her. “How?”
“I did mention we were looking for a Federation spy in the general admin office, did I not?” She cocks an eyebrow. “This morning, we discovered the man I tested had fled in the night without warning, after erasing the hard drive on his work computer and burning a great many papers in his home almost beyond the point of reconstruction. Almost.
“Among the fragments of papers recovered from his home appear to be several dossiers this man collected by breaking into the records rooms of multiple High Court practitioners’ offices. How this man bypassed the ward arrays to get into those records rooms, we don’t know, though word on the street is that this man is a skilled ward breaker.”
“Ha. So that’s how it is.” I rub my cheeks vigorously. “You’ve set him up to look like a master spy so the psychic cops of the High Court’s internal security force will have no reason to go sniffing around anyone higher up the chain.”
Erica bumps her shoulder against mine. “Don’t put me on too high a pedestal. I didn’t pull the whole thing off by myself.”
“But you did pull off a delicate and dangerous part of the job, and you didn’t get killed.” I snort. “More than I can say for Hays, the ‘highly experienced’ shapeshifter merc.”
“What was up with that guy anyway? Why did he use your appearance for the heist?”
I pat the duffle bag. “It wasn’t my appearance. It was my blood.”
“Your blood?” She frowns. “You mean your nephilim blood.”
“Yes, that. I think Hays was told by his client that if he ingested my blood and took my form, the sword would be less likely to kill him if and when he touched it.”
“Because it would recognize your blood as being of seraph descent.” She runs her finger along the duffle bag’s zipper. “But who knew you were of seraph descent before Azazel figured you out?”
“My dad, for one,” I reply. “And there are other possibles. Azazel said he killed ‘most’ of the Midnight Coalition’s members, but not all. Some of them may still be out there, working against the Fallen and the Children from the shadows. I assume all of them, being my mother’s friends, were made aware of me.” I exhale, white on the cool air. “Either way, with Hays dead, we’ve lost our only lead on the client’s identity. We’ll have to wait and see if they make another move.”
“I assume they will, and soon, now that the Children and their masters are making more prominent strides toward their goals.” She props her elbows on her knees, pensive. “You know, there’s one other thing I still don’t understand about all this. None of the known players in this game to recover the seraph blade had a reason to want you to get involved in the matter. So who created the blizzard that forced your plane to land at Sheremetyevo?”
“I haven’t the slightest clue.” I press my hand against the duffle bag and trace the outline of the sword within. “But whoever it was knows a lot more about me than I’m comfortable with. They wouldn’t have nudged me in the direction of Moscow if they didn’t think I could influence the outcome of the Dawn Slayer struggle. Which means they know I’m nephilim. They wouldn’t have been able to nudge me in the direction of Moscow if they hadn’t known I was flying to Omsk. Which means they had eyes on me from the moment I…left…Aurora…”
A chill that has nothing to do with the weather rocks my entire body as a terrible realization descends.
“What’s wrong, Cal?” Erica asks. “You look like you’ve seen another fallen angel.”
“Omsk,” I whisper, as if saying the word aloud will make my fears a reality.
“What about it?”
I stand up abruptly, agitation marching through my veins like an army of fire ants. I begin pacing in front of the bench, the duffle bag swinging to and fro from the strap I’m wringing in my hands. “About fifteen minutes ago, Yevseyeva received a disconcerting report from the DSI office. Several more DSI agents, now believed to be members of the Children of Enoch, vanished without a trace. But before they left, they trashed the office’s servers and backups. Presumably to erase all digital evidence of the various criminal acts they’ve been committing under the guise of legitimate DSI business.”
Erica rises and places a hand on my shoulder to stop me from wearing a hole into the sidewalk. “And why does that have you so concerned?”
“Because the Omsk research project, whose objectives are known only to a select few, is under DSI Moscow’s purview. The level of secrecy surrounding the project, coupled with what we now know about the Children’s infiltration of the highest levels of DSI Moscow’s leadership, means that the project was almost certainly spearheaded by the Children of Enoch. The Children weren’t just hanging around DSI for fun. They were using DSI Moscow’s political and financial resources to further their own goals. Whatever they’ve been doing at Omsk this whole time has been part of their overall plan. And—”
My breath hitches, and I realize I’m hyperventilating, the tingle of hypoxia crawling up my cheeks. But I can’t stop the flood of anxiety through my system, can’t stop my thoughts from spiraling out of control, can’t stop a thousand terrible images, all of them bloody and all of them dark, from overwhelming any sense of sanity I still possess after standing in the shadow of a fallen angel.
Erica grips both my shoulders, forcing me to stand still. “Cal, you need to calm down.”
“This isn’t the time to calm down!” I practically scream, turning heads across the neighborhood. “Three weeks ago, the Omsk project’s facility went dark, and Ella’s project contact at the Moscow office claimed they had a major server failure. But that contact was almost certainly an agent of the Children, which means that she was lying. There was no server failure. Something happened at Omsk. Something terrible. And Cooper Lee was in that facility when it happened.”
“Oh.” Erica blanches. “Oh gods.”
“We need to go to Omsk. We need to go there right now.”
Epilogue
The skies above Omsk are crystal clear the morning we fly in on a chartered jet whose manifest claims we’re a group of businesspeople. The jet lands on a private airstrip two miles outside the city, and as we taxi toward the departure area, the six of us prepare for war.
Me, armed with the seraph blade that only I ca
n use now that it’s bonded itself to my hand with its golden sigil. Lucian, only half his usual self, quick to tire and slow to heal, who insisted he be allowed to resume work at a time when we cannot afford to lose able hands. Barnett, still bitter about the loss of her big payday now that the sword is off the market, who accepted an offer from Iyanda to “consult” for Erica’s taskforce on a semi-regular basis—for a generous wage, of course.
Esther, fully recovered from her fall from the tree in Izmailovsky Park, looking just as fierce as usual, her scowl pinned to Barnett. And lastly, two members of the aforementioned ICM taskforce, both of whom I was formally introduced to last night. Victor Vidal, a fifty-something wizard whose clothing and hair and horn-rimmed glasses suggests his day job is professor. And Tiffany Garland, a witch fresh off her apprenticeship, who spent the entire flight from Moscow playing a handheld video game.
When we step off the plane, each of us is armed to the teeth, an assortment of guns and knives and charms hidden beneath our winter coats, and the sword—my sword—stowed away in yet another duffle bag. Two growling Humvees are waiting for us on the tarmac, their drivers regular humans who know better than to ask questions when mysterious rich men like Foley hire them for hush-hush jobs. We pile into the vehicles, Lucian, Barnett, and me in the first, the others in the second.
With nothing but a hand signal from Lucian, our driver hits the gas. And off we go toward the Omsk project facility.
Despite the erasure of the data at the DSI Moscow office, we were able to learn the approximate location of the project facility from a low-level admin agent who worked beneath one of the Children’s vanished plants. The plant was sloppy enough to mention the location during several conversations with the agent, mostly regarding physical mail sent to and from the facility. It turns out the facility isn’t actually in Omsk proper, but rather thirty miles outside the city, tucked within a large area of dense woodlands. Perfect for maintaining intense security, and secrecy.
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