by Tess Adair
“Shadow crimes? What’s that mean?”
Alexei sighed in irritation at her interruption.
“It’s the whole reason the Order of Shadows exists,” he said. “You do know about them, don’t you?”
“Yes,” said Jude defensively.
“Well,” said Alexei, with the air of someone pretending to be patient, “everything they decide is illegal, like binding, gets thrown into the category of shadow crimes—you know, the crimes that the Order of Shadows investigates. See what they did there?”
Jude made a show of turning to Logan to ask her next question.
“So, it’s just the Order of Shadows that decides when something is a—a shadow crime? There’s no—vote, or anything?”
“It’s difficult to hold a vote on something that most people don’t know exists,” said Logan.
“So…how do they decide what’s legal and what isn’t?”
“Usually they just figure out what’s best for them,” said Alexei, with a shrug and a sip of tea.
Logan sighed. She didn’t disagree, but she also knew she had a duty to give Jude a chance to form her own opinions.
“That is what some people believe,” she said, and immediately resented it. “The official reason that binding is illegal is because its effects can be pretty unpredictable in the wrong hands. One bound person can cause quite a lot of damage, depending on how much power they’re given. And, of course, if someone were particularly determined, they might end up creating an entire bound army.” For a moment, she considered how much she wanted to editorialize. “Which might be why it’s been argued that the real reason it’s illegal…is so that the Order can maintain a monopoly on that very power.”
“The Order is still allowed to bind people, you see,” said Alexei, giving Jude a knowing wink. “As a matter of fact, they maintain a small army of power-bound soldiers at all times. The Order calls them Adepts, but we common folk know them as inhumans.”
Logan bristled almost unconsciously.
If that’s what he thinks about regular humans bound with powers…what would he think about me?
Pushing away that particular thought, she raised an eyebrow at him. “If I didn’t know you, Alexei, I’d say you just used a slur.”
“Ah, sorry,” he said, hanging his head slightly, a hint of real remorse in his tone. “I know I shouldn’t blame the puppets for the misdeeds of their masters. I’m sure there are plenty of Adepts who are perfectly fine people. It’s just the system they work inside that’s…well, fucked up.” He turned back to Jude. “You should probably ignore me, to be honest. Follow H.C.’s example instead, okay?”
Jude sipped her tea before looking back up at Logan. “Didn’t you say you don’t trust the Order either?”
So much for letting her make up her own mind.
The desire to shrug was stronger than ever. “There’s a difference between not trusting an organization, and openly antagonizing it. When you encounter an Adept, I recommend treating them the same way you would treat any police officer who may have an untold amount of firepower at his disposal—with careful deference, and a vigilant eye on his trigger finger.”
Logan watched the conflict blossom on Jude’s face—understanding, followed immediately by fear. As Jude wrapped her arms around her own torso, the fear seemed to settle into a quiet anxiety.
“Got it,” she said.
Alexei poured another round of hot tea into his own mug.
“So, you think Todd Phillips was bound,” he said, glancing up at Logan from behind a curling tendril of steam. “Which means someone must have bound him. Which means we might be up against that someone, along with Todd and his new demon powers. Does that about sum it up?”
Well, that and the fact that I’ve already dealt with a person who may be manipulating inexperienced letha users. And, oh, I never told you, but I’m half-demon and I’m the one with the rather inconvenient psychic visions, actually.
“Yeah, that about sums it up.”
“Damn,” he muttered. He took a deep sip of tea and grimaced. “All I wanted was an easy job. Something in-and-out, something to occupy my mind awhile.” He ran his free hand through his hair again. “All this actual danger stuff—it’s not really my scene, you know?”
Across the table, Jude chortled unexpectedly. Logan and Alexei both looked over at her.
“You work for people who like to summon demons,” she said disdainfully. “Are you actually surprised that it’s dangerous?”
Alexei cocked his head at her.
“Still here, are you?”
At first, Jude screwed up her face like she might be about to fight back, but then her face relaxed, and she set her cup down.
“You know, I really don’t have to be.” She jumped up from her chair and started to walk away, then paused to glance back at Logan. “You’ll wake me up before you do anything interesting tomorrow, right?”
“Of course, I will,” said Logan. “Just make sure you’re well rested enough for it, all right?”
Jude’s back straightened almost imperceptibly. “Right! See you in the morning.”
With that, she traipsed over to the guest bedroom and shut the door behind her. Logan breathed a small sigh of relief as she disappeared, though she couldn’t quite say why. Maybe it was simply the sense that she’d finally gotten through another day without getting her charge killed.
Unless she dies in her sleep, of course. Her moment of self-congratulation died immediately.
In her peripheral vision, she saw Alexei put down his mug and start to walk toward her. When she finally glanced up at him, he was nearly upon her.
“You’re not fooling me, you know,” he said.
Logan felt a stab of worry reverberate through her gut as she briefly wondered exactly which lie wasn’t fooling him. Fortunately, her composure didn’t waver.
“Not fooling you with what?”
“This fucking macho act,” he said, then dropped to his knees before her, imploring her with unbroken eye contact. “Something’s wrong with your shoulder. Is it dislocated?”
Logan grimaced, not sure whether she was relieved…or annoyed that he’d found her out.
“I think so,” she said, reluctantly.
“All right.” Alexei placed one hand on the leg of her chair, steadying himself. “Put your hand on my chest.”
With some uncertainty, Logan pressed her hand onto the top of his chest, near the collarbone. Almost immediately, she felt his other hand on the back of her arm, snaking up it until it settled just behind her shoulder blade. He gave her a quick nod to indicate his readiness, and she pushed into him, using his weight and support to pop her arm back into place.
“Thanks,” she muttered, gently moving her shoulder around to test it. Her relief was immediate.
“Hey,” he said softly, “you know I’m always here if you ever need to shamelessly use me.”
She laughed without thinking, then immediately grimaced as her ribs constricted with new pain. Alexei’s face immediately twisted in concern.
“Another injury?” he asked. The hand on her shoulder moved in a small half-circle, reassuring and questioning at the same time. His beseeching eyes bore into hers with a look that was all-too-familiar. “Where does it hurt?”
The dominant part of her brain told her that it was dangerous to stay this close to him.
“I’m fine, really,” she said gruffly. Every second she lingered, she risked a breach. But she knew any sudden movement might trigger a new spasm. “I’ll heal. I just need to sleep.”
Alexei leaned back on his heels, his hand finally slipping away from her. She felt unexpectedly bereft at the change.
“I promise it won’t make you any less of a bad ass to receive proper medical care,” he said, a sad smile playing at his lips.
Logan gritted her teeth. “I may have bruised a rib.”
“So, translated from macho, that means…you definitely cracked at least one, maybe two ribs.” With a nod to him
self, he pushed back up onto his feet and walked over to the refrigerator on the other side of the room, pulled down a first aid box, and set it on the table near her. “I swear, H.C., you could be impaled and bleeding to death on the floor and you’d insist you just needed a stiff drink.”
“Eh, been there, done that. Turns out the trick is gauze.”
With a shake of his head, Alexei pulled out a roll of medical wrap and a bottle of aspirin. He stepped close again, closer than he strictly needed to, and pressed the bottle into her hands.
“Don’t joke,” he said softly.
She looked up at him but said nothing. It hadn’t been a joke in the fullest sense of the word, but she supposed saying so wouldn’t make him any happier. For all his supposed worldliness, Alexei could be a touch naïve about their line of work.
“I’m afraid you’ll need to lift up your shirt.”
“At last, we reach the crux of your plan,” she said lightly. Then she shifted forward in her seat, unzipped her jacket and pulled it off, and tugged the hem of her shirt up under her armpits.
Alexei dropped to his knees before her once again, this time to wrap the bandage tightly around her torso. He worked diligently, his fingers whisking delicately over her skin, sending an occasional shiver down her spine.
All of a sudden, she found she couldn’t quite silence the voice in the back of her mind that started to calculate how long it had been since she’d engaged in a very particular physical activity.
Shut it down, she told herself. We don’t shit where we eat, remember? That’s the rule.
After a period of time that was at once too long and not long enough, Alexei sat back again.
“That should do it. Take some pills, will you? For me, at least. I need you to sleep well enough to do the heavy lifting for me tomorrow, okay?”
Logan smiled as she pulled her shirt back down.
“Fine, fine,” she said and popped the bottle open. “We should probably both get to bed soon.”
“Most definitely.” He stood up and put his supplies back in their box, including the aspirin when she was done with it. After he’d put the kit back in its place, he turned back to her, concern written into his features. “The girl Jude mentioned—the one she saw at the club. She said her name was Huntsman?”
Logan nodded as guilt reared its ugly head.
“She’s the sister of one of the victims, Ariel Huntsman,” she explained.
“Ah.” Alexei paused, considering this. “I wonder how she ended up at that club, at exactly the wrong time.”
A cloud settled over Logan’s heart—the vestiges of an older shame, long set aside but never forgotten. She could almost hear her father’s voice in her head, chiding her failures.
“My fault, I think,” she said slowly, as if she were afraid Alexei might turn on her. Perhaps she was. “I got the name of the club from her, but…she asked for something in return.”
“What did she ask for?”
Logan pressed her lips together, stalling for time. Then she sighed in resignation.
“She wanted to see a picture of the man I suspected of killing her sister. So, I showed her Todd Phillips’ face.”
Alexei raised his eyebrows in surprise, then lowered them again as he connected the rest of the dots.
“So…she came there deliberately. She was looking for him, just like we were.”
“I think so, yes.”
“I see.” He paused again, evidently mulling it all over. Then he said, with an air of finality, “That’s not your fault.”
“That’s…kind of you to say. But it is.”
He shook his head at her. “All you did was tell her the truth, and you did it because she asked you. You were trying to help someone who was grieving. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
Logan smiled sadly.
“And if I hadn’t shown her, she’d be safe at home right now. So what good did that truth do her, in the end?”
Running a hand through his hair, Alexei sighed at her.
“You would be stubborn about this, too, wouldn’t you? Well, fine. Blame yourself, if you want to. Regardless, I’m not giving up. If you didn’t see her die in that alleyway, then there’s still a chance we can save her. We’ll try again, and we’ll find her.”
“Okay,” said Logan. Slowly, she stood. “You’re right about getting some rest, of course. Do you have an extra pillow I can take out here? I’d rather not wake Jude up if I can avoid it.”
“Absolutely.”
He vanished briefly into his own bedroom while she made her way over to the larger couch in his living room, slinging her jacket over the back of it and setting her phone on the nearby table. Within moments, he was back, carrying a small stack of blankets and pillows. He lingered a moment after he passed them to her, and without trying, she caught his eye.
“You don’t have to sleep on the couch, you know,” he said quietly. “If you don’t want to.”
A thrill ran through her—the gentle twist of past and future, of memory and possibility. Her hand began to reach for him, before she caught herself.
“Oh, yes, I do. Want has nothing to do with it.”
He smiled, sadly but graciously, and nodded.
“Suit yourself. See you in the morning, H.C.”
“Not if I see you first.”
A few minutes later, Alexei was hidden safely behind his bedroom door, while Logan did her best to settle into the pillows on his couch. No matter what position she tried, some part of her body throbbed with pain. Eventually she lay on her back, her legs stretched out straight and her arms crossed over her chest, as if she lay ready for the grave.
She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. One breath in, one breath out. Only the faintest groan of protest arose from her ribs. As weariness began to overtake her, her mind found its way back to the alleyway, and the invisible force that had thrown her like a ragdoll.
I need to be ready.
It had been well over a year since she’d reached for any eira summoning powers beyond her ability to call the shadows, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t do it anymore. Under normal circumstances, of course, she wouldn’t even consider it. Eira summoning could be dangerous in her hands, and she couldn’t allow herself to make the gamble.
And yet…Todd Phillips had made his choice, hadn’t he? Even if he hadn’t killed the others, he had certainly abducted Alana against her will, and she doubted his plans for her were benign. On top of that, she’d seen with her own eyes that someone had illegally bound him with demonic power.
It’s only illegal because the Order says it is. But perhaps that was beside the point. She could see Alana Huntsman’s face as she asked for revenge for her sister. And she could see her face as she struggled in Todd Phillips’ grasp, too.
Todd Phillips made his choice.
Moving her body as little as possible, Logan opened her palm and closed her eyes, letting all conscious thought fade from her mind.
She could feel the air above, the earth below, and the connection running through it all. She released herself to it, gave herself over, diminished her hold on the very concept of self. For a time, she was no one. Shadows begged to rush toward her, obscure her, but that wasn’t her goal. This time, she called on the air.
A swift breeze rushed over her body and through the rest of the room, rustling the pages of a magazine on the nearby coffee table. A grim smile formed on her face. Easy as pie.
In the back of her mind, an old memory stirred. Her former teacher, shaking his head at her, telling her to be careful.
Kostya wouldn’t approve. But Kostya couldn’t help her either.
She called the breeze again, just to double check that she could. This time, it brought a chill with it, and the chill settled into her bones. She could still feel it cooling her as she drifted off into an uneasy sleep.
The next morning, Alexei informed them that he’d put a flag on Todd Phillips’ credit card, so he would get a call if Todd used it again. In
the end, however, that wasn’t how they found him.
“Oh, why didn’t I think of this before?” Alexei suddenly exclaimed, popping open his laptop with remarkable speed. Then he called to Logan over the top of it, “Hey, H.C.?”
“Yeah?” Logan glanced over at him. They had pushed his furniture up against the walls so she could run drills with Jude, who was working on a simple shield spell. Now that she’d seen Todd Phillips in the flesh, Logan was no longer sure Jude should accompany them if they did manage to find him, but nevertheless, she needed to train.
“We think Todd’s using the girls for some kind of ritual, right?”
“Right.”
“And he would need a dedicated space to do that, maybe a lot of space, preferably somewhere a little remote—or at least with good sound insulation. Yes?”
Beside her, Jude dropped out of her defensive stance.
“Sounds about right,” said Logan.
“Somewhere like, say, a warehouse?”
“That would work.”
Alexei nodded, not yet tearing his eyes away from his screen. He clicked on something neither of them could see, nodded again, and made an “aha” noise.
“Yep, I’m an idiot.”
“We already knew that,” said Jude.
Finally, Alexei picked up his laptop and turned it to face them. He’d pulled up an online map, with an address highlighted at the center. Whatever the address was, it looked like it was near the water.
“What are we looking at?” asked Logan, drifting over to the table, and to him.
“Herbert Phillips, when he was alive, owned an international shipping company,” said Alexei. “At one point in time, that company kept warehouses right here in San Francisco, though most of them are dormant now. You are looking at the biggest stretch of empty warehouses in the city.”
Understanding hit her as she bent over the table to look at the address. She traced a line across the screen, judging the distance.
“They’re pretty close to the Fox Trot,” she said. “Just over a mile away.”
“Exactly.”
“Okay,” said Logan, straightening once more. “Let’s make a plan.”