by Tess Adair
“So,” she said, clearing her throat, “what rumors have you heard about the Wolf?”
Cas sucked a short breath in through his teeth.
“The Order does not like him either,” he said. “Not many do, from what I have heard.” He glanced back at the door, but neither of them saw any signs of an intruder. “As for specifics, I can only tell you my own story. The Order has kept everything else quite tightly under wraps.”
Logan nodded with understanding.
“Okay. Tell me your story.”
“As you might suspect, my story begins with a contract,” he said. He reached down into his coat pocket and started to pull something out, then paused to glance at her. “Sorry, do you mind if I smoke?”
Logan slipped her left hand behind her back so he couldn’t see it clench.
“Not at all,” she said.
“Many thanks.” He pulled out his pack, which was stamped with Cyrillic, and tapped out a cigarette. Before he could find his own light, Logan held out hers.
“Many, many thanks,” he muttered, cupping a hand around her flame as he lit up. When he took a drag, he seemed to find some strength. “I take contracts with the Order on occasion. More often than not, I suppose. I may not like all their rules, but I like their money well enough, so…ah, to my point. I took a contract. I went to New Jersey, and I met with one of their Adepts. They had detected a demon summoning in the area, though as per usual, they wouldn’t tell me how they detected it. Secret Order magic, I suppose. Anyway, we went to the site, and it was quite clear a demon had been summoned. So we began canvassing the nearest neighborhoods, waiting for the demon to make an appearance. Then it did.”
He paused to take a long drag. The smoke drifted out into the darkness beyond the terrace.
“We had not been there a day before a woman was killed. In broad daylight, too. Mauled to death in her own backyard.” He shook his head, letting out a smaller puff of smoke. “Her young daughter was the one to find her.”
“Shit,” Logan hissed. She battled with herself a moment, then motioned toward the cigarette in Cas’s hand. “Do you think I could—?”
“You wish to share?” He smiled at her, the mischievous twinkle in his eye nearly upsetting the tone of his whole story. “How intimate. I accept, of course.” With that, he held it out to her, and she took it gladly.
“This is a great fucking job we got, you know?” she said, passing it back to him, her regret already mounting. She was supposed to stay alert, on task—not smoke her lungs into oblivion, or, worse, non-athleticism.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Cas replied, flicking a spot of ash into a nearby enchanted flame. “I haven’t even gotten to the worst part.”
“You’re not about to tell me something terrible happened to all the neighborhood cats, are you?”
Cas chuckled and offered her a second drag. This time, she held steady and refused.
“No, the cats were fine. The girl, on the other hand, was not. Why do you Americans care so damn much about your pets, anyway?”
Logan shrugged. “They’re easier to like than humans.”
“Strange.” He shook his head and flicked another spot of ash. “Anyway, it was the girl. The demon came back, and he attacked the little girl. We did our best, but we failed. She was killed. When we arrived, it was only seconds after her father had found her body. In his, well, grief-driven madness, he confessed it all to us. It was he who summoned the demon. He had believed his wife was cheating on him, you see. And he was active in some…online community—I can’t be totally certain, but the way he described it, it sounded like the community centered on…well, a shared interest in the hating of women.”
“Sounds familiar.”
“Well, this group had a sub-group that had another sub-group, or something like that…and one of the sub-groups knew a little something about casting. So, the man got a spot of magical help, and he summoned a demon.”
Cas flicked his cigarette again, which had burned almost all the way down by now.
“He said he only wanted his wife to understand. He wanted her to know that she could never humiliate him again, or she would suffer consequences. It would seem their conversation did not go as he hoped, so he killed her instead. Of course, he never imagined he might be putting his precious daughter in danger as well. I suppose he thought he could control the beast forever.” Cas shook his head, dropping his cigarette to the floor and putting it out with his boot. “He didn’t know magic very well.”
With a sigh, Logan shook her head.
“So where does the Wolf fit in to all of this?”
“Ah, yes. The Wolf ran the community. Our man claimed the whole thing was his idea.” He ran a hand through his now tousled hair. “He stood over his daughter’s body as it went cold, and he insisted that it was not his fault.” He sighed. “Then he charged at us and tried to kill the Order Adept, so we had to deal with him.”
“You mean kill him.”
“He did not leave us much choice.” Cas shrugged. “If I am to be honest, it was the Adept who made the call. It is like you said: if the Order of Shadows has but one skill, that skill is body disposal.”
He sighed heavily, staring hard into the blue flames nearby.
“After that, I assumed the Order would open up a broader investigation into the Wolf. And considering everything I had already witnessed, I assumed I would be invited to take part. But no. If the Order did investigate further, they did not discuss it with me.
“I tried a few of my contacts, hoping to get a little more information. But all I got was a run-around. And all I’ve heard since are rumors—rumors that other contractors like myself have gone on similar missions. Rumors that there are even more the Order is covering up.” He looked at her through his considerably long eyelashes. “Your story is the same?”
Leaning back against the balustrade to give her lower back a small stretch, Logan shrugged.
“I didn’t take a contract with the Order,” she said. “I went out to a small town, ran into a kid who’d summoned a demon. He mentioned the Wolf. Didn’t get too specific about an online community, though. I don’t suppose you found a URL for that or anything?”
“We found a few sites on the summoner’s computer, but they were password-protected. By the time we found a way in, the links were dead.”
Logan shook her head, disappointed but unsurprised.
“Technology these days,” she muttered.
Beside her, Cas let out another long, sad sigh as he turned away from the bright lights inside the hall, and out into the darkness of the fake countryside all around them.
“That case has stuck with me,” he said. He gave a small shake of his head, as if he could shake it away from him. “It was the little girl, I think. Seeing her body, knowing that…that her own father had done it to her. And the way he kept insisting it wasn’t his fault. Believing he could control a monster, he invited it into his home. Nobody else did that to him. And it devoured his future. Do you ever wonder…just how stupid one man can be?”
“Not really,” said Logan. “I passed high school history, so, you know.”
Cas let out a mirthless snort.
“No surprises for you, then. So it goes.” He rotated a little where he stood, turning towards her instead of the dark. “I’m sorry, I did not mean to bring down the mood. Perhaps we should discuss something…lighter?”
Logan allowed herself a small smile. She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t lived waist-deep in talk of monsters and death.
“It doesn’t bother me. If I needed to look away from this kind of stuff, then I’d be in the wrong business.”
“Hm,” he nodded thoughtfully. “Perhaps that is so. And perhaps I am the one who’s in the wrong business.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to imply—”
“No, do not mistake me, I take no offense. This is…something I wonder sometimes. I wonder about the stupidity of men, and I wonder…I wonder if we are all doing it
the wrong way somehow. The Order, its contractors…perhaps even the Adherents of the Temple, hidden away in their secret gardens. What if we’re all wrong?”
“Well, if you think of another way to do it, feel free to let me know,” said Logan, only partly joking.
“That I will do, shadow summoner.”
Suddenly, the sounds of music reached their ears, almost as if the string quartet had materialized on the terrace right next to them. They both turned toward the door, expecting to find it open, and a few more guests spilling through. To Logan’s surprise, there was no one. She scanned the rest of the deck, and eventually her eyes lighted on the flame-carrying columns.
“Looks like someone just remembered to throw the last switch,” she said, then pointed. “Outdoor speakers.”
“Delightful,” said Cas. His tone was neutral; she honestly couldn’t tell if he meant it sarcastically.
“I changed my mind,” she said, turning to him. “I’m done talking about death for now.” On a whim, she held out her hand to him and gave a slight bow, much as he had done before. “Shall we dance instead?”
His eyes lit up immediately. “I would love to.” With a flourish, he took her offered hand.
This time, it was Logan who led them into the dance. She knew Sasha and Alexei both likened dancing to sex, but that was never what it felt like to her. To her, it felt like a spar—or a preamble to a fight. The tension, the back and forth: it was fighting with the safety on. Her feet moved lightly in her heavy boots, and the cold breeze that cut through the artificial warmth of the terrace invigorated her.
Casimir Volkov’s hand rested gently at her waist, a little higher than Alexei’s had earlier. He was taller than her, though her boots helped make up some of the difference. As they spun around another time, she felt the distance between them close just a little bit.
As she studied Cas’s face, now so close to her own, her mind wandered back to Alexei. How was it that she had known him for as long as she had, and yet somehow, she still felt so much messier when he was around? His presence blurred her sense of her own boundaries.
And that look she’d seen on his face, when he realized she’d kept so much from him…when he watched her suck the life out of Todd Phillips…
He should probably run away from me. They all should.
Cas shifted his hand ever so slightly along her waist, and despite the layers of thick fabric between his skin and hers, she felt a funny kind of tingling sensation run up her spine. All her guilt-ridden musings dropped to the side at once, her attention pulled into sharp focus on the present.
His hair had fallen into his eyes again, and as she looked into them, she felt an unexpected urge to test just how wide she could make them go.
That’s an intensely bad idea. Fooling around with red-haired nurses was one thing. But an unknown contractor attending the Summit? He could have a million different motives, a million different agendas. For everything he’d said about the Order, she couldn’t even rule out the possibility that he was in their pocket.
She tried to take a breath to reign herself in, but her breath seemed to burn in her throat. His chest rose and fell in rapid succession, the movement straining the tight, silky shirt that clung so closely to his skin. She pressed forward, spinning them in a new direction, changing up the spar. His lips quivered uncertainly, and her hand braced his shoulder—
The squeaking sound of a door swinging wide interrupted them, splitting the tension in two. Whatever half-formed ideas that floated in Logan’s head now fluttered and died. They paused their dance, glancing back at the open glass doors behind them.
Zilla Ulric, one of the Twelve Seers of the Order of Shadows, stood framed in the doorway, openly staring at them both. Logan dropped her hands, but she didn’t step back.
“Mr. Volkov,” called Ulric, her voice commanding their attention. “Your presence is requested at one of our esteemed donors’ tables. If you’ll please come with me…”
“Of course,” Cas called back, before turning back to Logan one more time. “Forgive me, I must beg my leave. Perhaps, if it is not too much trouble, you might save a dance for me some other time?”
“Sure,” said Logan with an easy shrug. “I’ll hit you up at the next ball I go to.”
“Wonderful.” Either he was playing along with her, or he hadn’t caught the sarcasm. “Until we meet again.”
Logan smiled and nodded, not entirely certain how to respond to such a formal-sounding farewell. Of course, it didn’t matter much: within seconds he was gone, walking away from her and toward the Seer impatiently tapping her foot by the door.
Guess we all go after the paycheck, in the end.
As Ulric and Volkov disappeared into the crowd beyond the large glass doors, Logan decided to hang back. She had to return eventually, but she could take a moment to collect her thoughts. She returned to the balustrade, leaning over it until her head and shoulders pressed out of the invisible dome of magical warmth, and she could feel the blissful cold of the evening.
She stayed there as long as she could justify it. Though she did her best to keep her mind blank and meditative, her thoughts found a way to interrupt her. She could feel the warm press of Cas’s shoulder against her palm; she could feel Alexei’s warmth, too. His hand at her waist, his breath on her neck. She could hear him posing her a question, back in San Francisco, not for the first time.
On her next inhale, she brought her focus back to her own body. First, she concentrated on her diaphragm, then her chest, then her shoulders. Each piece she contracted and released. Each new breath pushed out a little further.
Just like that, she was back. The dance was gone from her mind.
Inevitably, of course, she had to return to the fray.
The Wolf may not have struck yet, but her work was far from over.
Jude’s night had been a blur, and she could feel it blurring still. Her heart beat a staccato rhythm in her chest as she ascended a set of darkened stairs, feeling every bite of rich food and sip of sweet champagne weighing her down. The hand she had clasped to the railing clenched for just a moment, then released.
Taking a quick, large step, Sasha came astride her and poked her gently in the shoulder.
“You’ve gone quiet,” she said, her tone lighthearted. “Something on your mind?”
There were a million things on her mind. Jude glanced over her shoulder; Logan and Alexei had fallen nearly a floor behind them.
“I’m a little nervous,” said Jude. “Not really sure what I’m walking into.”
“What is it that’s got you nervous?” asked Sasha. She didn’t sound as out-of-breath as Jude felt, and she also didn’t seem nearly as drunk as she should have been, considering how much champagne they’d all consumed already. “Is it the fear of being drugged up and locked inside an enclosed space, or is it something else?”
Jude stopped dead in her tracks.
“What did you just say?”
“Oh, don’t worry—it’s perfectly safe. I mean, you’ve already been through the burden release. This is nothing compared to that. Though you didn’t hear me say so.” She emitted a light, twinkly laugh as she tossed her head back. “Now, come on. What are you nervous about?”
Jude glanced back once more to make sure Logan and Alexei couldn’t hear them. She started up the stairs again, motioning for Sasha to come with her.
“It’s…there’s a girl that I…that I kinda like. She’s gonna be up there, at the afterparty.”
“This girl wouldn’t happen to be the Champion of the Gauntlet, would it?”
Jude felt her face flush. Immediately, she imagined Eliana in her mind’s eye—all shiny, curling hair and wide, black eyes, and even in the middle of a fight, an effortless confidence coming off her in waves. Jude knew she couldn’t even begin to match up.
“I, uh, well—”
“Don’t worry so much,” said Sasha, lowering her voice ever so slightly. “You like her, don’t you? I mean, you certainly spent
a lot of time watching her crush rocks tonight.”
“Uh, yeah, well—she’s pretty cool.” Suddenly Jude couldn’t help but notice how awkward her left arm was, swinging at her side like that. She shoved her hand in her pocket.
“You’re plenty cool yourself, you know,” said Sasha, patting her on the back again. “Believe me, I know how to spot it.”
“Uh, thanks.” Jude knew she sounded incredulous, but it couldn’t be helped. She’d never been cool, and she’d always been keenly aware of that.
“Besides,” said Sasha, apparently indifferent to Jude’s tone, “she likes you back.”
Against her will, Jude felt a thin ribbon of hope leap inside her chest.
“Did, uh, your psychic powers tell you that?”
“Didn’t have to,” Sasha said, shaking her head and giving Jude a knowing smile. “All her very best friends around her all night, but you’re the one she can’t take her eyes off of? Seems obvious to me. Oh, look, we’re almost there!”
Sasha turned back to the others, yelling at them to hurry up, but Jude could barely hear her anymore. Her heart beat wildly in her chest, strumming with excitement.
She didn’t want to let herself believe Sasha completely, just in case she was wrong, but she couldn’t help the way her body immediately responded to her words.
She tried to scroll through her own memory of the evening so far, to see if she could categorize and parse every moment she’d locked eyes with Eliana in the small crowd of strangers they’d been surrounded by all night, but her excitement wouldn’t let her press pause on any single moment long enough to analyze its content. Instead, a kaleidoscopic carousel of images twirled at top speed inside her mind.
At the top of the last staircase, their group met with an unassuming pair of thick metal doors. Sasha and Jude each pressed down on their bars at the same time, throwing both doors open at once.
As soon as they stepped outside, a cold night breeze rolled right through them, sending shivers down Jude’s spine.
The sight that greeted them nearly took her breath away; she did her best not to gasp out loud.