by Tess Adair
Despite Alexei’s reluctance to drive around the city, he did keep a car in the garage beneath his building. That night, they planned to take the car out to the row of warehouses they’d found on the map. After some cajoling and a small amount of threatening, Jude finally agreed that she would remain with the car, ready to lend a hand if, and only if, she was called for.
The sun had begun to set by the time they parked on an adjacent street, and the fog that had cloaked the city for most of the day still drifted between the buildings around them. As Logan stepped out of the car, its damp chill pressed into her. She and Alexei shut their doors and walked about ten feet away from the car.
“Can you hear me okay?” she asked, holding a walkie talkie up to her face and pushing down the button in the center.
“Yeah, you’re coming through loud and clear! Hey, aren’t you supposed to say ‘over?’ Over.” Jude’s voice tinkled through the small speaker, tinnier than normal but easy enough to understand.
“Just remember to keep the line open unless it’s an emergency. Over.”
“Aye, aye, captain! Over.”
Logan lowered the radio to find Alexei smirking at her. She clipped the walkie to the back of her belt and raised an eyebrow at him.
“Got something to say?”
“Your partner’s a nerd.”
“That a problem?”
“No, ma’am. Just an observation.”
Logan rolled her eyes at him dramatically and started walking. They headed one block east, closer to the water, and turned a corner onto the next street. Just as Alexei had indicated, the street was lined with warehouses, each massive and covered in a weathered coat of dull white.
Just as Logan turned to head north, Alexei came to a stop. She felt his hand reach out and touch her lightly on the arm, so she turned back to him.
“Hey, H.C., is…is there anything you’re not telling me?”
Though her heart seemed to freeze in her chest, Logan kept her face perfectly neutral.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know,” he smiled sheepishly, as though he felt foolish talking about it for even this long. “Something your psychic friend might have said, maybe?”
“No. I’ve told you everything from the vision. Everything I know about it, anyway.”
“All right. I suppose I trust you.”
“Is something wrong, Alexei?”
“I don’t know.” Putting his hands in the pockets of his elegant, dark-blue suit pants, he looked up at the sky. “It’s just…this contract already seems to have spun spectacularly out of control. I suppose I’m just starting to wonder what other curveballs the future has in store for us.”
In all the time she had known him, Logan had never thought of Alexei Marin as particularly sheltered. But when she looked at him now, full of apprehension as he took in the foggy night around them, she wondered if he was ready to face Todd Phillips, ready to do what was needed. The only jobs she’d ever done with him paled in comparison to any mission the Key had ever sent her on.
“Alexei,” she asked tentatively, “have you ever fought a bound person before?”
“I’ve killed demons,” he said, somewhat defensively. He looked down from the sky and back at her. “Is there a difference?”
“Oh, there’s a difference.” Logan sighed. “Killing a person is…always different.” She looked him square in the eye and made sure he was looking back at her before she added, “You should probably decide right now whether you’re willing to do that.”
Alexei stared at her and slowly blinked.
“I didn’t mean…I’m not planning on killing Todd Phillips. I was hired by his mother, for god’s sake.”
Logan shrugged, entirely unaffected by consideration for the purse strings.
“You didn’t face him before,” she said, caution in her voice. “He’s not the same boy you were hired to find.”
“Biologically, he is,” answered Alexei, beginning to sound a little defiant. “And for that, I’m going to do everything in my power to bring him home safely…and, you know, after that, have him tried for murder.”
“All I’m saying,” said Logan, calmly and carefully, “is that you might want to consider what your choice is…if it comes to a matter of either you or him. Okay?”
Slowly, Alexei nodded, though the look in his eye was one of doubt. Either he didn’t believe it would come to that, or he didn’t see the merit in the choice Logan intended to imply.
“All right. Duly noted,” he said. “Shall we continue?”
Logan nodded and turned north again, charging headlong toward whatever awaited them inside the warehouses.
They pressed close to the first one they came upon, trying their best to slip between the gathering shadows. Of course, Logan could have hidden herself more completely, but she couldn’t have kept Alexei hidden, too, so it seemed like a waste of a cast.
The door they found was shut with a heavy padlock. With a quick look around to make sure nobody was watching, Alexei reached into an inner pocket on his jacket and pulled out a small lock-picking kit. Logan almost chuckled: once upon a time, she’d been pretty handy with one of those.
After a minute passed with no forward movement, she leaned closer.
“Need a hand there?”
Alexei grunted in annoyance but didn’t shift from his position.
“Think you could do better?” he asked.
“At this point, that’s a pretty safe bet, yeah.”
“Look, I don’t make it a habit of breaking-and-entering when I’m working a job most of the time, okay?” He glanced up at her and arched an eyebrow. “Except when I’m with you, of course. Any thoughts on why that is?”
Logan shrugged.
“Hey, if my life of danger and excitement is too much for you, you just let me know.”
“There is no such thing as too much excitement, H.C.”
With a small smile, Logan stepped back, giving him a wave like she was leaving him to his work. Once she turned the other way, however, she closed her eyes and pulled her shoulders back, quickly imagining her spine straightening like a tree, roots escaping her feet and connecting her to the ground. With one more deep breath, her defenses relaxed, letting her senses reach out in every direction.
Scents and sounds came rushing at her—the honking of cars a few blocks away, the smell of Mediterranean food from a restaurant she couldn’t see. She tried to focus in a little bit closer, honing in on the street around her.
There. Across the street, she could hear…it sounded like metal scraping against metal. A door opening? She stepped back.
“Alexei,” she said, touching his shoulder, “I think I heard something.”
He paused and looked up at her.
“Nearby?”
“Across the street. Sounded like a door.”
“Does that mean I’m wasting my time down here?”
“I’m afraid so, champ.”
He pulled his tool out of the lock and popped to his feet.
“Well, lead the way, coach.”
She felt a reluctant smile pulling at her lips as she headed across the street, over to the other warehouse. They made their way around the building and found a door on the south-facing side. Alexei got to work again, and in a few short minutes, they opened the door and slipped inside.
It was dark where they entered, but through rows of wide, dust-covered metal shelves, Logan could see a low, flickering light somewhere near the far end of the chamber. They moved quietly along the western wall, staying in the shadows of the shelves, heading in the direction of the light. When they were about halfway down, Alexei broke off from the wall and headed down one of the rows. Logan followed close behind him.
As she peered between the dusty cardboard boxes that still lined the shelves, Logan started to make out more and more of the scene beyond. The flickering light seemed to comprise primarily of candles and at least one freestanding torch, probably purchased at some hardware store. Someon
e moved among the flames, this way and that, hunched over something. After a moment, she heard a human voice speaking, though she couldn’t make out the words. They crept closer and closer, and as they neared the end of the row, she realized it wasn’t speaking, but chanting.
Another cast? Todd Phillips wants to summon a demon? But why?
They were nearly out in the open now. Alexei paused and turned to look at her, his eyes forming a question. She nodded.
He stepped out from the shadows and strode confidently toward Todd Phillips. There was no turning back now—either they’d succeed in taking him down, or they’d be forced to fight. Logan strode out behind him, staying about ten feet behind.
“Good evening, Todd,” said Alexei, announcing their presence. “Your mother sends her love.”
Todd Phillips whipped around to face him. Now that Logan was out in the open, she could take in the scene in full.
Todd had, indeed, lit his surroundings with what looked like nearly a hundred candles, as well as two free-standing torches, one on either side of a large metal slab of a table—possibly the metal that Logan had heard grinding against the cement floor beneath them. As she focused in on the table, she saw what he’d been bending over—Alana Huntsman, her hands and legs bound, and a gag tied over her mouth. Her eyes were open, wide, and terrified.
Logan fought the urge to run past the two men that stood between them to free her. It would have been a useless effort; Todd Phillips was sure to intercept her before she could reach her target. Besides, she had promised Alexei they would try things his way—at first, anyway.
Before them, Todd let out a long, low growl, forcing attention back to him. He looked normal—just like he had in the photos in his mother’s living room, if perhaps a little older. Acne sprinkled his pale skin, and limp blond hair grazed his forehead.
“Who are you?” he asked, his voice shaking, but accusatory nonetheless.
“I’m an old friend of your dad’s,” said Alexei lightly, charmingly. He took one step forward. “Herb used to take me on some of his more…outlandish adventures, I suppose you could say.”
Todd’s eyes narrowed. “I doubt that. My father didn’t hang out with your kind.”
“My kind?” asked Alexei, pausing.
“You know. Towelheads.”
He stared Alexei down, daring him to react. Alexei simply smiled in response, taking another step forward. “Come now. Don’t you think it’s time for you to come home? Your mother’s worried.”
Todd’s pallid face broke into a toothy, awkward grin.
“You don’t know anything. I’m so much farther than all of that now. I don’t need my mother anymore, and I don’t need some fucking Jihadist telling me what to do. As a matter of fact, no one in the world will be able to tell me what to do, ever again.”
Logan sensed a shift in the air and readied herself, letting a bend come into her knees as she placed one foot subtly ahead of the other, ready to spring. Alexei had kept walking as he spoke, and now he was fifteen or twenty feet ahead of her. She watched him reach one hand inside his pristine blue suit jacket, where she knew he had a letha-imbued battle knife stored safely, ready for use.
“You can still walk away from this, Todd,” he said calmly, even gregariously—more like he was selling him a product than trying to talk him down from madness. “You can still come home, no problems.”
She knew he was lying; it was part of his approach. With every second that passed, however, it seemed less and less likely that the lie would matter.
“Why would I want to walk away from this? I’m finally free to do whatever I want.”
Must be so oppressive, not being able to murder people. Logan slid forward, hoping to close some of the gap between herself and Alexei. To her frustration, Alexei took another few steps.
“Todd, listen, we can work something—”
“NO!” Todd suddenly screamed, his fists clenching so hard the skin on his knuckles turned white. “I’m through listening! It’s time for you to listen to me!”
With a roar, he pushed his arms up and out to the side, stretching his neck as he did so. With each stretch, his neck pulsed and swelled, the muscles bulging to monstrous size. He gave his arms a shake, and they swelled, too, busting against the fabric of his polo shirt.
Right before their eyes, Todd Phillips had morphed into a monster. As an inhuman laugh ripped from his chest, Logan saw those same black, spidery veins spreading across his face.
The demon within him had awoken.
And he was coming right at them.
Chapter Ten
Mask and Sword
As soon as he shifted, Logan knew she wouldn’t get there in time. Todd Phillips ran at Alexei, and Alexei, the bastard, ran forward instead of back. Briefly frozen in shock, Logan watched as if it were in slow motion, cursing the irony of her inhumanly fast limbs, falling short when it finally mattered.
As Phillips bore down on him, Alexei waited until the very last second, then ducked out of the way, letting Phillips’ bulk work against him in an instant. The bound man stumbled, nearly running into a shelf, and Logan breathed a small sigh of relief—though she didn’t pause her advance.
Phillips eventually spun himself around, but Alexei managed to dodge him once more, letting out an arrogant laugh as the giant’s bulging but inflexible arms flailed in the empty space he left behind.
No vision-death scene yet. Maybe I’ve already changed the important parts.
Then Alexei’s luck ran out. Even as Logan slid a knife into her own hand, Phillips’ right fist connected with Alexei’s jaw, sending him sprawling to the ground. She hoped with all of her being that his head didn’t hit concrete, but she couldn’t pause long enough to find out. Instead, she launched herself at Phillips.
Her first punch connected with the back of his skull with a satisfying pop. He wavered and whipped around, just in time for her second blow to land—this time with an exposed blade. She left a slim cut across his cheek, and a torrent of red blood burst from his face.
“You cunt,” he growled, touching his face briefly and examining the blood on his fingers. “You’re gonna pay for that.”
His words sent a perverse thrill through her body.
“Oh, I don’t think so.”
He threw himself at her, but Logan danced easily out of his grasp. The feel of fighting him was strange, different from what she was used to. He was somewhere in between demon and human: not quite as powerful as a demon, but not quite as slow as most demons, either.
He landed a blow to the right side of her face, sending her spinning. She had to take a few steps back to regain her balance. As he tried to swing for her a second time, she stepped swiftly to the side. His mass passed by her, and she hit him hard in the gut, releasing her pent-up power right into his rib cage.
The audible crack that rent the air made her smile. Unable to stop herself, she opened her mouth.
“You don’t like to lose, do you, Todd?” she asked. In reality, she watched him double over, either from the force of her blows or merely from the force of his own shock. In her mind, she watched Ariel Huntsman, trying to outrun him.
“You—fucking—”
“Because that would make you a loser,” she continued, her tone even, free of animus. “And I imagine you’ve spent enough time being a loser already.”
He roared in rage, and though he hadn’t yet recovered from her last hit, he ran at her. She sidestepped him once more, with no more difficulty than the first time. He stumbled past her, and she used her own momentum to spin around and launch a roundhouse kick. With a thud, her steel-tipped boot connected with the very center of his back, sending him sprawling to the ground.
She was enjoying this too much. She knew it, and yet she couldn’t stop.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Alexei, safe and unharmed, lean down to help Alana.
Good. They can both retreat to safety.
Without another thought, she turned back to Phillips and ro
ughly grabbed hold of his arm, flipping him onto his back. Then she jumped down on top of him, trapping him underneath her weight.
Adrenaline pulsed in her veins. A part of her still recognized that she was getting carried away, that her panic over Alexei was fueling a new rage she didn’t entirely understand. But the rest of her felt something uncomfortably similar to pleasure.
Once she was in range, she let her fists fly, pummeling him with repeated blows. She couldn’t say for sure how many times she’d hit him when he finally struggled to fight back, his arms moving weakly toward her neck, as if he meant to strangle her. She batted them aside like mosquitos and reared back, preparing herself for another round.
“H.C.! You can stop now!”
His voice seemed to come to her from far away. Still, she heard him, and she stopped herself short. Glancing down at last at her target, she could see that blood now poured from his nose: it looked like she’d broken it. His head wavered back and forth on the ground, his arms hanging limp and useless off to the side.
“He’s been bound recently,” she said, just loud enough that she couldn’t honestly say whether she spoke for Alexei’s benefit or for her own. “He’ll heal quickly.”
Her breaths came to her hard and fast, like she’d been sprinting. Inside her chest, her heart felt like it might explode.
In the funny echo chamber of the defunct warehouse, she heard a sudden noise—a sharp slap of skin on skin.
One smack, then two. Someone was clapping—applauding the scene.
The sound of blood rushing in her ears muted itself as the world around her went quiet. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.
She could feel the weight of someone’s gaze pressing down on her. Slowly, she let her head turn to the right, toward the other end of the chamber, where they’d entered only minutes before.
A figure stood in the center of the aisle between the shelves, dressed all in black, wearing a carved wooden mask, painted silver. The blank black holes of its eyes seemed to stare at her. As she took it in, she froze.
The mask was shaped like a wolf’s head.
The Wolf stopped clapping and tilted its head to one side. She got the distinct impression that it was studying her—though, expressionless as it was, it was hard to say for sure.