Mercy Strange

by Alisa Woods

  Almost like he had an emotional shield. Or maybe a level of monk-like powers of focus and control that he’d never seen before? Swift swallowed and reflexively stepped back, bringing Mercy with him.

  Eliphas took in that small motion, eyes glittering even more. Then his gaze shifted to Mercy. “We only have a short time together. Shall we begin?”

  Swift twitched and felt something he hadn’t felt in a long time.

  Fear.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Your research is terribly exciting.”

  Those were just words coming out of the monk’s mouth—Eliphas Storm, cult leader, Mercy scolded herself—but they felt like honey dripping on a warm plate and coating everything about her. She shuddered in a way that reverberated between her legs, and the pleasure of that disgusted her even further. What the hell? The guy was hot but not panty-melting hot. And since when did some guy just holding her hand or flattering her work turn her into a puddle of lust?

  Mental magick. Her eyes widened, and she flicked a look at Swift, who still had a grip around her shoulders like he was going to hurl her from the room. His face was inscrutable, but his cheeks were a little too pale. Holy fuck, he knew—he could read Eliphas, and he knew something was very fucked up about this.

  Mercy straightened and gently worked her way out of Swift’s death-grip hold. To Eliphas, she said, “Why would a monk of your caliber be interested in med-magick?” But her mind was racing ahead. Was this his hold over his cult members? How could she fight it? Should she just whisper magick him into releasing Verity from whatever this was?

  “Why shouldn’t I be?” He drew a languorous look along Mercy’s bare shoulders, and she felt it like he’d touched her. Her entire body shivered, in both disgust and delight. Fuck. “Your research is fascinating in its own right,” Eliphas continued, “but what is this I see on the news, Ms. Strange?” He flicked a look at Verity, which made Mercy’s heart seize up. “Your sister tells me you were not to blame for those unfortunate deaths, which of course, I believe to be true. And yet…” A smile grew on his face. He took a single step closer and peered down at her. “I would love to know what fantastic Talent you’re hiding from the world.”

  She felt that bizarre attraction wash over her again, like the nearness of his body was enough to send her into a tizzy of lust. But if hanging out in the same room with the legitimately hot Agent Payne had taught her anything, it was that she could ignore such feelings and keep on top of her game. “I could say the same about you.” She arched an eyebrow at him. “Is this how you seduce people into your cult? Low-grade mental magick tricks?”

  “Mercy!” her sister hissed, aghast.

  “I have no idea what you mean.” But Eliphas smiled—a deeply creepy smile, like he found her delicious and couldn’t wait to take a bite.

  Well, he’d be waiting all of fucking eternity for that.

  “She means back off.” Swift said it with a growl in his voice, yet even she could hear the concern buried there. He had to know she could take care of herself with this clown.

  Mercy put up her hand. “It’s all right, Swift.” To Eliphas, she added, “Let’s just say whatever you’ve got, I’m not concerned… for me. But if you hurt my family in any way, there’s no monk cave in which you can hide.”

  Eliphas’s delight just grew. “Spoken like a witch who knows her true power.”

  “Don’t make me use it.” But she was already conjuring the excuses for why she had to—this fucking cult leader was using mental magick on her sister. And how many others was he holding under his spell?

  “She doesn’t mean that—” Verity’s voice hiked up.

  Eliphas cut her off with a raised hand. All his attention still focused on Mercy. “Ah, but you should.”

  What? “Excuse me?” Mercy frowned at him. Fucking crazy cult leader—

  “You should be free to use your Talent,” Eliphas continued, his smile fading under his fervor. “As should we all. There should be no legal or illegal Talents. As I’ve said for years, all of it, all of this…” He stepped back and spread his arms wide, encompassing what, Mercy didn’t know. “…is a natural manifestation of the wild magick that surrounds us. What is deemed natural by the universe cannot be declared unnatural by mere witching kind.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Mercy was just shaking her head now. So much crazy…

  He let out a short laugh, then his smile took on a more natural smirk. “You’re not familiar with my teachings.”

  “I’ve been too busy science-ing to read the tabloids.”

  His smirk faded. “We are not so different, you and I, Mercy Strange.”

  “Oh, I think we’re different in every possible way.”

  “You search for the ineffable,” he continued, undaunted, “just as I do. But whereas I have faith in the High Magick that animates us all—that its power and purpose is manifest, that it should be free to fully express, that it was programmed deep in our very bones, our blood, our genetic prehistory for a reason—you believe only in what you find in your laboratory, with your genomic analysis and your med-magick tinkering. Yet we are both after the same thing. The mystical essence of humanity. You are content to poke at the hurricane, measure and analyze and perhaps cure some disease or…” His eyes widened as if something had just occurred to him. “…or maybe cure some Talent whose power frightens you, like a girl caught holding lightning in a bottle.”

  “How about you fuck off?” But her heart was pounding.

  “Ah, but you see…” He stepped forward again, crazy eyes gleaming in all that smoky shadow. He towered over her, and she felt that magnetic attraction again, like his charisma was weaponized into liquid seduction. “You needn’t fear the storm, Mercy Strange, for you are the storm… and I am here to set the hurricane free.”

  She teetered under his intimidating presence for a second then stepped back. “You’re fucking crazy.”

  “Am I?”

  Her heart wanted to bang its way out of her chest. “Stay away from my family.” Stay away from me. It wasn’t Verity she feared for, not in that moment. Something inside her was telling her to run—to get as far away as she could from this insane man and his power-mongering ideas. Because she’d spent her entire life keeping her power locked-down, unused… safe. Years of successfully resisting the temptation that lived just beneath her skin to use it—on someone who deserved it, someone who crossed her, some monster who had done terrible wrongs. Only she could never be sure, if she did, that she wouldn’t become the monster. And here was a man who wanted to set her monster free.

  Mercy edged backward. Swift’s hand appeared at the small of her back, but he was moving with her. Verity stood to the side, tears in her eyes, lower lip trembling.

  Fuck. “Verity, let’s go—”

  But her sister just turned and dashed back to the door of Eliphas’s luxury suite, throwing it open and fleeing into the hall.

  “Your sister understands,” Eliphas said, his voice grave. “Someday, you will too.” He pulled in a deep and savoring breath. “Until then… I’ll await, with great anticipation, the birthing of your powers into the world.”

  Mercy squinted at him—what a bizarre thing to say—and kept backing away with Swift. Eliphas stood still, bare feet on his pristine white carpet, crazy eyes following them, but physically unmoving as they retreated. They reached his door.

  Mercy only turned her back on him once they were out in the hall.

  The guard watched them retreat, impassive except for closing the door behind them.

  Neither she nor Swift spoke until the elevator arrived, and they were alone.

  “Holy fuck, that guy,” Swift exhaled, hand to his head, braced against the shiny steel wall of the elevator.

  “You felt it, didn’t you?” she asked. “Or heard it, I guess. There’s something about him…”

  “He’s a sociopath,” Swift said quietly.

  “Right? I mean, for the love of magick—”
/>   “No, I mean that literally, Mercy.”

  She gave him a wide-eyed look. “You can tell.”

  “Yes.” Swift rubbed his hand across his face. He looked spooked. “And there’s more. You felt it, right? The allure. Or whatever the fuck that was.”

  A flush of embarrassment went through her. Swift would have sensed that in her. And the embarrassment she was feeling about it right now.

  “It’s okay.” He rushed to her side and suddenly, she was in his arms, and he was holding her, clutching her almost, one hand to the back of her neck, the other to the small of her back. “You couldn’t help it,” he whispered in her ear, then he pulled back and gave her a small smile. “But holy magick, you told him off.” His gaze dropped to her lips, and she ached for him to kiss her like his gaze had been promising all week, but the elevator dinged, and like that, he dropped his hold on her and stepped away.

  The hallways were crowded again—it was almost time for the next session.

  Swift kept close by her side as they strode out into the flow. “Eliphas is a much bigger threat than I realized,” he said quietly. “We’ll get Verity out of his clutches, I promise.”

  “She hates me now.”

  “Probably.” Swift grimaced and peered ahead. Given he could read everyone’s emotions, that was a definite yes.

  Nia was at the door of the conference room for the panel on hedge witches, signaling for them to skip the line snaking out the door and down the hallway. “But we’ve got bigger problems at the moment,” Swift said. “Like finding a seat before the panel starts.”

  “Standing works for me.” She didn’t know if—or how—Tobin would find his way into the panel with all the security and crowds and everything else, but she was convinced he would show. Or something would happen. It was just fucking odd for a scientist and business owner like Tobin Raine to be on a panel about divination and craeft that dealt with the “mystical essence of humanity” as Eliphas Storm called it. This was his territory—which was why he was hosting the panel. The other three panelists included an occultist who ran seances for the rich and famous, an online necromancer who was a complete fraud, and an obscure alchemist who specialized in organics. Eliphas was wrong—she’d done all her homework. She knew just who he was and the company he kept. Tobin Raine was the odd-man-out in that crew—he might be an asshole and a demented, immoral gen-magick researcher, but he was a scientist. He produced real med-magick, even if he committed horrors on the side. Yet he agreed to be on this panel months ago—the only reason could be that he planned to use it for his final “demonstration.” And with a headliner like Eliphas running the show, it would be a packed crowd of unsuspecting guinea pigs.

  She just had no idea how Tobin would make it happen.

  The room was packed, and Verity was nowhere to be seen. And her father must be at another panel. Which, given the possibility of Tobin showing, Mercy counted as a good thing. Nia’s presence parted the way for them—the three worked their way along the back wall until they found an open spot to stand. Every seat was taken, and conference-goers were performing that uneasy dance of claiming a standing spot that didn’t block others or giving up and leaving. The people outside had zero chance.

  Up front, the panelists were already seated—well, three of them. The fourth chair—no doubt Tobin’s as it was closest to the host’s lectern—was conspicuously empty. A smattering of noise filled the large room along with the crowd. There had to be two hundred people seated, a few dozen more standing.

  “Everything okay with—” Nia cut off as the chattering in the room escalated into applause.

  Eliphas had entered via a side door on the right, not from the main hallway but from some secondary entrance. He’d changed his clothes. The tight black leather was gone, replaced by loose white harem-style pants that hung from his waist and gathered at the ankle. His feet were still bare, but his mandarin-collared shirt was now closed, buttoned to his neck. His smooth, confident stride to the lectern and wide, warm smile exuded that same sexy-guru vibe he’d had in the penthouse suite—but now Mercy could easily see the sociopath that lived under that skin.

  “Thank you for coming.” As the applause dimmed, Eliphas pressed both hands flat over his heart. “Your faith warms my heart. And for those who do not yet believe, know that your curiosity has brought you here for a reason.” He swept his arm toward the door he just came through. A strikingly beautiful witch stood with a briefcase in hand—her pale skin and almost white-blond hair were contrasted sharply by her dark purple makeup. Mercy was impressed by the elaborate design around her eyes—a starfield fading into purple below her eyes and deep black above, ending in feathered eyebrows not unlike Eliphas. It was so much dark makeup on such a pale palette it almost served as a mask.

  Eliphas beckoned her forward. “Dr. Raine couldn’t be with us personally today, but he sent us his representative to attend the panel in his place.”

  Every hair on Mercy’s skin rose. She squinted at the woman. “Who the hell is that?” she hissed.

  Nia and Swift both scrutinized the woman as she strode toward Eliphas.

  “Briefcase,” Nia whispered, her hands splayed, ready to conjure. But there were too many people in the way. And they had no idea what they were dealing with.

  “Swift.” Mercy grabbed his hand and hauled him forward, but he was already primed to go. They had to fight through the standing crowd, shoving their way forward. Swift’s reach was about the same as hers—twenty feet—and they gathered verbal curses as they went, but they only had to get a bit closer… The woman reached the empty seat and, without a word, immediately placed her briefcase on the table and popped it open.

  Fuck. Mercy jerked reflexively to a stop as something mechanical buzzed and whirred up out of the briefcase. It took her a moment to realize that no one else was panicking and that the briefcase had merely unfolded into a screen propped on the table. A life-sized version of Tobin Raine, from the chest up, flickered into place.

  “Ah, the wonders of technology,” Eliphas enthused, and a smattering of applause followed.

  Mercy and Swift were stalled out halfway to the front, mashed with the crowd against the side wall, with Nia catching up to them.

  “Where the fuck is he?” Mercy asked. The attendees close by shushed them and sent them dirty looks.

  Swift had his hand to his earbud. “Are you seeing this?” he whispered into his FBI comm in his cuff. He listened for a moment. “Plain white wall behind him, interior lighting. No, I’ve got no idea where the transmission is coming from.”

  “Why the fuck aren’t they monitoring the WiFi?” Nia complained.

  Swift shook his head, still listening to his earbud. “All right, standing down.”

  “Standing down?” Mercy asked, aghast.

  Swift kept his voice low. “Could be closed circuit. They’re trying to track it. We don’t want to spook him and make him run.”

  Mercy’s fists clenched at her side, and her jaw ached from how hard her teeth clenched. How could Tobin be so close and yet out of their grasp? More important… “What’s his endgame?” she mumbled, mostly to herself. “What’s he doing here?”

  Swift gave a fast shrug then urged her forward. “Closer,” he whispered, but how would it help to get closer to the front—ostensibly to use their Talents—if Tobin was nothing but a talking head on a screen?

  “What’s your plan?” Mercy whispered back. Fucking Eliphas Storm was giving Tobin some kind of epic introduction, but the booming list of accomplishments kept their curious onlookers from hearing them.

  Swift lifted his chin toward the front. “The woman.”

  As the three of them edged forward, Mercy peered over the crowd at her. She’d stepped back from the briefcase once it unfolded, and now she stood meekly behind the screen. Her cascading blond hair nearly obscured her face, as she stood, hands clasped, head bent forward.

  “That’s Violet!” she hush whispered. Through all the makeup, Mercy should have seen the
same owl-big eyes, the same long-limbed slender frame, but she hadn’t.

  Swift did a double take but kept moving them forward until they were nearly to the front. He stopped at the first row of seats, much to the consternation of the people already standing there—but they were close enough now that his emotion-mancing Talent should reach Violet Thorne in case she was more than just a stooge delivering the briefcase. She didn’t appear to hold any other device—something that could serve as a “trigger”—but then the briefcase itself could contain more than just a pop-up screen.

  “Thank you so much for that kind and technically accurate introduction,” Tobin Raine preened from the screen. A twitter of laughter went around the crowd.

  Swift leaned back and whispered in her ear, “If she goes for the briefcase, I’ll take her down.”

  Mercy nodded. And if that didn’t work, she just had to get a few feet closer to whisper Violet away from whatever she had planned.

  Tobin was droning on. “Some of you may be wondering why a man of my background is part of a panel on hedge witches, and why this year’s conference has a panel on Divination at all. It’s long been my personal belief that the mystical realm and the realm of med-magick should not be considered separate arts, much less unequal ones. The inspiration required for truly original work—for great work, world-changing work—of necessity has a touch of the mystical divine embedded in it.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Mercy muttered. The people seated in the first row threw her more dirty looks, but they didn’t know what she did—this monster had experimented on dozens of people, killing many, in his “mystically divine” experiments. Including her father.

  “I come from humble roots,” Tobin continued. “A low magick family of no prominence whatsoever. I started out with nothing and built my way up, one business after another, using my Talents both in magick and finance to build an enterprise that could tackle one of the most important issues of our time. What… makes… magick?” He paused for a second and seemed to fight a smirk. “Now you may think you know the answer to that. Some would say obviously, magick comes from the fields of wild magickal energy all around us. Others would trace it further back, saying it was the Carrington Event of 1859—the solar flare that transformed our world by flipping the polarity on the wild magick fields, thrusting us into an era of High Magick once again. They are correct, as far as they go. But they are wrong in a fundamental sense.” Tobin leaned forward, his smirk fading. “Magick is intelligence. It is the spark of divine inspiration. It is the mystical essence of humanity, as our host Eliphas Storm would call it. Understanding that, decoding the essence of magick, how to turn it on and off, how to control it…” He sucked in a breath. “That takes a singular mind to discern.”