by Alisa Woods
Nia’s brow furrowed. “I didn’t think… what are you saying?” She glanced at Swift like she thought he was making her say all this. He folded his arms and stayed where he was. Nia edged closer to Mercy, still keeping her eye on Swift. “What’s his Talent?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Mercy said. Thank magick—Swift had enough to contain here as it was. “It’s mine that’s the problem.”
Nia finally faced her. She scowled. “What is this about controlling people?”
“It’s called whisper magick,” Mercy said with a sigh. “And if I wanted to order you to jump out the window, I could.”
Nia’s eyes went wide, and she leaned back.
Before Mercy explained any further, she waved a dismissal at him. “I’ve got this. You go do what you need to.” He’d already told her he’d have to report in. That was critical to getting Mercy cleared of all this so they could move forward with the investigation—plus keeping an innocent witch from getting hauled out in handcuffs when the police tracked her down. There would be no keeping Mercy’s Talent quiet then—a memory scry would quickly be approved by a judge in a murder investigation—and everything would definitely go to hell from there.
Swift gave her a nod, but she was already shushing Nia into her office and closing the door. He strode out of the lab as fast as he could without raising more suspicion.
Chapter Thirteen
Fatigue was a boulder sitting on Mercy’s shoulders.
She sunk into her chair as Nia, her sister’s special forces bodyguard, stared at her in horror. It was the reaction Mercy had always expected, but there was no hiding her Talent any longer. She’d used it in public. Didn’t matter that she’d been trying to save people—she got tagged as a murderer anyway.
Mercy rubbed her cheeks, careful not to smear her makeup, and sighed into her hands. She was so tired. Maybe that was why she had fucked up so badly. And then she’d spilled everything to Swift—holy magick, that had felt good. And the kisses… so hot and yet where the hell was that going? Could it go anywhere? Swift was FBI and Mercy was probably going to jail. Maybe. Oh, fuck, what a mess…
“Okay, what the hell is whisper magick?” Nia finally asked. She’d been struggling to say something for a good ten seconds after Mercy dropped that truth bomb on her. At least she wasn’t running away in terror.
Mercy let her hands fall into her lap. “I can control anyone by whispering a command. As far as I can tell, it operates directly on the brain.”
“Mental magick.” The horror was even greater on Nia’s face.
“Mental magick.” Mercy sighed. “The highly illegal kind. The kind they lock you away for. Or, you know, you use it to commit a terrible crime, and they lock you away for that.”
Nia was aghast. “But you didn’t—”
“No. I didn’t. But I could have, Nia. And I used my Talent today as I tried—and fucking failed—to save those people.” She shook her head and leaned back in her chair. “Agent Payne promised I wouldn’t go to jail for it, but honestly? I don’t see how I can avoid it.”
Now Nia was scowling. “Wait… you’re saying you used this whisper magick to try to save the contestants.”
“I was trying to reach them before they jumped. Nobody knew what I was doing, of course, so they tried to stop me, and I just… told them to stop.” Mercy grimaced and gave a longing look to her computer screen. All she wanted was to bury herself in work. And find where these killers were going to strike next. There would be even more deaths, she was sure of it. If she could stop those…
“Did you hurt them?” Nia asked.
“What?” Mercy blinked, focusing on Nia again. Even her eyelids were tired. “No, I didn’t hurt them. I mean…” To be honest, she didn’t really know what the people she controlled felt. She knew they didn’t remember it, as if no memories were formed during the time they were obeying her command. She frowned at the floor. “They stopped everything, including breathing. If I hadn’t released them, they would have passed out and… probably started breathing normally again. I guess. There probably wouldn’t have been any permanent physical harm.” She peered up at Nia. “But it’s felony mental assault. There’s no sugar-coating that.”
“But you did release them.” Her expression was intense but inscrutable.
Mercy could see what she was trying to do—justify it. Just as Mercy had tried, fruitlessly, ever since she came into her Talent. But there was just no way to justify mental assault. “Yes, I released them.” She wasn’t even sure she had the energy for this fight.
Nia propped her hands on her hips. “Well, that’s it.”
Mercy squinted at her. “What’s it?”
“If you had punched those people in the face, it would be assault, right?”
“This is different—”
Nia put up her hand. “Like hell. If you had physically shoved those people out of the way trying to save those jumpers, no one would be saying a damn thing about it.”
“This was more than a shove.”
“Still.” Nia folded her arms. “Trust me, if there’s one thing I learned while serving, it’s that the rules of engagement matter. And the people in charge get to make the rules… but that’s a different issue.”
Mercy squinted—she knew Nia had seen some seriously ugly stuff. It was why she left special forces and came back home to be Ever’s bodyguard. Mercy practically lived in her office and didn’t run a billion-dollar company the way her sister did—she didn’t need a bodyguard. But if she did, Mercy knew Nia would be there for anyone in the Strange family… even her.
Apparently, even now.
In her massively fatigued state, that was enough to choke her up.
“Hey.” Nia’s voice softened a little. “It’s going to be okay.” She glanced at the closed door to Mercy’s office. “I’m not letting anyone take you anywhere, not without a warrant and even then… I won’t be leaving your side. Got it?”
“Yeah.” She was seriously going to screw up her makeup. She sniffed and tried to reel in the tears. Part of her felt all loose inside. Nia knew. And she wasn’t running away. In fact, she was vowing to stand by Mercy’s side. First Swift, and now Nia… “Thank you.” Mercy was still having to swallow back the tears.
“Okay.” Nia’s natural stern efficiency was back. “I’m calling your father and—”
“Wait.” Mercy was on her feet before she could think why. “Don’t tell him.”
“Mercy.” Nia frowned at her like she wasn’t in her right mind. “I’m good for holding off anyone without jurisdiction, but you’re going to need your father’s lawyers—”
“Call Ever,” Mercy rushed out. “She knows all the lawyers. She’s even been through something like this.” Her sister’s brush with the law—when she accidentally killed that poor guy who was kind of her boyfriend—was a nightmare. And it traumatized her sister. But Ever would know all about how to handle this.
Nia was looking her over again. “You haven’t told them. Not any of them.”
Mercy dropped her gaze to the floor and shook her head. Then she slowly sunk back into her chair.
“Your father’s right down the hall in his office,” Nia said, but it was softer. “He’s watching the news. He knows that part of the story. And he sent me looking for you. Don’t leave the man twisting.”
Mercy’s stomach was knotted up so tight, it was curling her over in her seat. Getting a breath seemed harder by the second. All this time—ever since her Talent manifested—she’d feared her father finding out, more than anyone else. As she told Swift, she’d almost confessed to her mom before she died—but Mercy was too much of a coward. And her whole life, she’d relied on her father to keep her on the straight-and-narrow, especially with their research. The research she’d been secretly hoping would deliver a cure for this illegal magick she possessed. If he’d known… if he knew all along she’d been trying to…
Mercy sucked in some shallow breaths and forced herself to straighten. “Okay. I’l
l tell him.”
Nia nodded, but she had that look again—like she had serious concerns about Mercy’s mental state. She slipped a phone out of her trim leather pants and sent a message. Mercy snuck a look at the box on her shelf. Still there. If she’d just worked up the courage to take the pill before, none of this would have happened. She wouldn’t have been able to save the jumpers, but then, even with her Talent, she’d fucked that up. And screwed up everything else in her life, too. Which was exactly what she thought would happen one day.
Now that day was here.
Mercy forced herself to stand because her body was cramping up in the chair. Her legs were shaky under these ridiculous simple clothes that Swift had put together for her—somehow, he’d cobbled them from an assortment of outfits in her closet. She didn’t own simple clothing, so it was like a neutered pastiche of things from other outfits—leggings ripped out of another dress; an under-blouse from a decadent French gown she’d special ordered; slip-on flats that she’d rejected and tossed in the back of her closet. The effect was wrong in every way—a fashion sin but more important, it made her look innocent, not dangerous. There was no warning to it.
Her door swung open, and her father rushed in.
Mercy opened her mouth with absolutely no idea what to say. But before she could even squeak, her father swept her up in his arms, literally lifting her from the floor with his hug.
“Oh, thank magick.” His voice was muffled by her hair. “You’re all right.”
The tears sprang out, and she couldn’t begin to stop them. She just wrapped her arms around his neck and held on and sobbed into his shoulder. He held her tighter, slowly easing her back to the floor but not letting go. “Sweetie, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
Oh, God, she was a wreck. She allowed herself another moment of crying then forced herself to dry up the waterworks. What the hell was this self-pity? She tried to pull back from the hug, but her dad wouldn’t let her go without one more squeeze. That practically gushed the tears out again, and when he finally released her, he cupped both her cheeks with his hands and dried those tears with his thumbs.
“It’s okay to cry.” He said it with the gentle smile her kind-hearted father had always had—for patients, for friends, and especially for his daughters. It was the heart she’d always feared breaking.
She pulled away and wiped at her eyes. “Okay to cry? Are you kidding? Not with this makeup.”
That pulled a real smile out of him. He dashed a look to Nia that held volumes Mercy didn’t understand. To Mercy, he said, “I’ve already watched one daughter take too many risks for this case. I don’t need any more heart-attack-worthy moments.”
The knot in her stomach—the one released by a good cry on her father’s shoulder—came snarling back. “Um…” Shit, how was she going to say all this again? “Dad… there’s something I have to tell you.”
“Is it about your magick?” His voice was gentle, but his words were jarring.
Mercy just blinked. How could he know? “Did Nia tell you—” She dashed a glare to Nia, but her father cut that off by taking hold of her shoulders again.
“I’ve always known two things about you, my middle and oh-so-stubborn daughter,” he said with that soft smile again. “That you were far more powerful in magick than you ever let on…” He touched her cheek. “And that you were hiding a powerful secret.” He dipped his head to peer at her. “It didn’t take much deductive reasoning to put the two together.”
All the energy drained out of Mercy. Her mouth hung open, her arms limp at her side, and she was just… empty. Her dad’s hands were all that held her up. “You knew?” she breathed.
“Not the exact form, of course.” He released her and shrugged. “I figured you would tell me in your own time. And now this…” He gestured to the world outside her door. “I know my daughters. I know you. Whatever this is, you have to know—it changes nothing. And we’ll get through it, together, as we always have. Because that’s what families do.”
She didn’t know what to say to that, so she just hugged her dad again. Hard. “You’re the best,” she said, chest tight. And suddenly, the boulder of fatigue rolled away, and her heart soared. Her father loved her. Still.
Even now.
Swift had been right after all.
“Hey, I’ve got the—” The voice at the door drew everyone’s attention. “Oh.” Quill stood there, awkward like he was trying to conjure an excuse to retreat.
“It’s okay.” Mercy smiled at him. “Come on in. What do you have?”
“Er, just some more results…” He tentatively stepped into her office, checking out her mess of a face and the simple clothes. “I, um, stopped by earlier but you were gone and…” He looked around at everyone. “Did I miss something?”
Mercy couldn’t help the laugh that chirped out. Her dad smiled wide. Nia just looked unimpressed.
Mercy let out a big sigh. “Pull up a chair, Quill. It’s quite a story.”
Chapter Fourteen
The trip to the Chicago field office was mercifully uneventful.
Swift knocked on his handler’s door this time. He had no idea what he was walking into, so giving Dalvi a heads up he was coming was… unwise.
“Enter!”
He swung open the door but froze on the threshold. Special Agent in Charge Etta Burrows stood next to Dalvi, who had a tablet in her hands. Even from the doorway, Swift could see it was a news report about the free jumpers.
“I can explain.” He hustled his ass in the office and closed the door.
“You haven’t been answering your phone, Agent Payne.” Burrows was an older witch, legendary in the bureau for her powerful Talents and her singular focus on the pursuit of justice. A saw-buzz of indignant anger told him he was two seconds away from her tossing him into Underwood Correctional herself.
“I had a bit of a situation.”
“Yes, we can see that.” Dalvi’s zero-affect stare showed no support for him. And he couldn’t tell jack from her blank emotional state.
“I got here as soon as I could.” Even he could hear the defensiveness in his voice. “This isn’t something I wanted to discuss on the phone.”
Burrows was the only emotional read in the room, but by the pinch in her eyes and the slight dimming of her anger-buzz, she’d decided to give him a chance. “I’m listening.” She and Dalvi exchanged a look, and they each took a different route around Dalvi’s desk. His handler took a position between the desk and the door, standing like an implacable goddess in her black-taffeta gown, golden brocade, and steady non-emotional drone. Burrows leaned against the edge of the desk, her bureau-standard black-leather suit barely wrinkling as she folded her arms and radiated a wariness five times more intense than shown in her cool expression.
Swift couldn’t help feeling surrounded. And he didn’t know the full extent of either witch’s Talents—they might take him down first and ask questions later. And if he even tried to hold them off, that would be the end of everything.
He flicked a look to Dalvi. “You can do a memory scry, but it’s faster if I just tell you.”
“I will do a scry as well.”
He’d expected as much. Still, it chilled him the way she said it. He turned back to Burrows. “Mercy Strange is not a murderer.” He might as well lead with everything he had—he might not get a second chance to explain. “She does, however, have a mental-magick Talent. I just discovered it at the event.” He nodded toward the tablet Dalvi had left on the desk.
A staticky rush of curiosity sprung forth from Burrows, drowning out the angry buzz and screech of wariness. “There’s no record of it.”
“She’s kept it secret from everyone, even her family.”
That piqued more interest. Good. He flicked a look at Dalvi, but her cool, dark eyes were inscrutable.
Burrows unfolded her arms and braced up from the desk. But her affect was open, reserving judgment. “Let’s hear your report, Agent Payne.”
; Swift tried to keep the relief off his face. Besides, he wasn’t out of this yet. “The trove of data I brought out of Raine Magitek—Mercy decoded some of the reports and discovered a planned test of the drugs and their ability to turn off Talents. That discovery was just as the free jumper’s event was starting, so we rushed over, no backup. I honestly didn’t think we’d need it. I used my Talent to get us in, but we were too late. Mercy made a last-ditch attempt to stop the jumpers, but she didn’t get there in time.”
“You’re saying someone else turned off their Talents?” Dalvi arched a thinly-penciled eyebrow.
“Yes.” He turned back to Burrows. “The drugs are designed to install a switch—Mercy’s analysis discovered that. The FBI interrupted the original tests when they confiscated the drugs, but the reports—reports I lifted from Raine Magitek, the ones I gave you as well—had the Free Jumping Nationals listed by name as a field test they’d been planning all along. And there’s another test planned—a larger one—mentioned in the documents as well.”
Burrows’ buzz of righteous anger was back. “Do we have a timeline?”
“No.” But Swift was relieved she wasn’t asking the wrong questions. “Mercy’s back at her office, working on getting answers to that now.”
Dalvi edged forward, away from the door. “You are taking a lot for granted with a witch who is a suspect in this investigation.”
Shit. “She discovered the free jumper test.” He gestured with an open palm at the tablet on Dalvi’s desk. “And it turned out just as she predicted. Someone was at that event with a device or drug or something that can turn off Talents in anyone who’s been previously exposed to the gen-magick drugs. And they’re planning on doing it again. That is what we should be focused on.” It was a risky move, pushing so hard, but if SAIC Burrows and PsyOps Agent Dalvi discovered he’d been making out with Mercy Strange, everything would get derailed. And he knew she wasn’t involved in any of this, not the way they were thinking, anyway. They needed to keep their eyes on the real bad guys.