There was one final, truncated knock.
I gripped the hilt tighter, straining to listen outside. I wasn’t expecting any friendly visits. Allies were in short supply in this new world. Outside of Pearl, I’d never been one for making friends. Always wandering from one place to another. No one had been waiting for me when I’d gotten out.
Which meant there were three possibilities lurking on the other side of that door: MagiTekk, the FBI—or something unknown. Which was probably the worst of the three scenarios.
Footfalls silent against the cool hardwood, I edged up to the peephole. A cursory peek showed that no one was in the hall.
Or they were hiding, waiting to pounce.
I flicked the blade’s electric energy on. Its blue glow washed over the bottom half of the wall. With a deep breath, I hurled the door open and spun into the hallway, ready to stab any would-be attackers.
But the long, carpeted hall was empty—save for a single card propped against the paint-chipped baseboard. I furrowed my brow. Ruby was written in an elegant, sprawling hand on the cream envelope’s front.
With skepticism, I opened the envelope flap.
Then I groaned, my dismay echoing down the long hallway.
If I’d been annoyed last night, that was nothing in comparison to the emotional churn running roughshod over me now. Because this note was from the only mark who had ever evaded my grasp. That failure still burned, more than thirty years later.
It didn’t help that he was one of the worst creatures I’d ever encountered. He gave Malcolm Roark a real run for his money.
I read the note twice.
Dearest Ruby—I have information that you shall find useful. You have a mere twelve hours before it becomes useless. But first, to earn my audience and hear what I have learned, you must cause a little chaos. – HL
P.S. I already have spoken with your friend Colton. I must say, I do like him. Don’t let him get too far ahead, however, for the path he’s taking might be dangerous alone…
Knowing his tricks, I sniffed the paper to make sure it wouldn’t explode or burn down the entire building. I got a head rush from the aroma, but nothing else.
But he was definitely back after thirty years. A thousand would’ve been too soon.
“Bastard,” I said under my breath. Harcourt Leblanc had planted that nonsense about the Tributary and the “truth” about Sam’s demise in Roark’s ear. The Tributary was a mythical ninth Realm, long rumored to exist, but never seen by anyone I’d met.
Harcourt must’ve whispered to Roark that all the answers lay within. And were well worth dropping everything for. Even me.
So much for better days—because this morning wasn’t off to a rip-roaring start.
I heard the elevator ding, and I wheeled around. Still empty. Just a final taunt from Harcourt. I contemplated running downstairs naked, chasing after him in the streets. But the psychotic Fae was slippery, and already in the wind. I’d only make a fool of myself and wind up in jail. So, with a reluctant deep breath, I slipped back inside my apartment.
Flipping the note over as the door shut, I found no additional instructions on the back. No allusions to what information he might have—or how he might define chaos.
Twelve hours. Roark had mentioned that his intel had been time-sensitive. I wasn’t sure I believed Harcourt for a goddamn second—but I needed to know where he’d sent Roark. I doubted it was to the land of lollipops, unicorns, and rainbows.
I headed into the kitchen and leaned against the countertop, scanning memory for clues.
Harcourt Leblanc and I had shared a brief—but eventful—twenty-four hour stretch together. One that neither of us were likely to forget. Clearly, it’d made enough of an impression upon him to return three decades after the fact.
The job had been simple. I’d been contracted to kill Harcourt—but he’d had other plans. After taking an entire restaurant hostage in downtown LA, he’d forced me to agree to sign a Blood Oath promising to return him to his home Realm.
For the uninitiated, a Blood Oath is a standard legal agreement—with one key difference. If the consenting party fails to completely discharge their duties, they remain bound to the other individual. And suffer a consequence written into the contract.
In this case, I had one day to deliver Harcourt to the Fae Plains. Normally, any Fae is welcome to use the standard exits and entry points into the Realm. Being a constant troublemaker, however, he’d been banished by the prince. The Fae didn’t believe in capital punishment, so the worst the prince could do was send Harcourt to Earth and bar him reentry via the conventional entry points.
Enter my involvement: as a Realmfarer, I could bring Harcourt home through a back door. And if I didn’t, I’d turn into a pile of smoldering ash. Shoot him in the head? Well, if he died, then I died.
Why help a murdering nutjob evade police custody? It had been the only way to save the hostages within the restaurant. Although save might have been a bit generous: Harcourt had pitted them in gladiatorial combat against one another, cutting to the heart of their worst fears.
Living after that might have been a fate worse than death.
Nonetheless, after a little too much excitement, I had managed to get him back to the Fae Plains, thus fulfilling the terms of the Blood Oath. I’d planned on shooting him in the head the instant he crossed the threshold. But Harcourt was nothing if not slippery, and he’d escaped in the ensuing firefight. That failure would gnaw at me occasionally over the ensuing thirty years.
The only blemish on an otherwise perfect bounty hunting record. And now Harcourt had returned, eager to taunt me with dubious promises of “useful information.”
No clues lurked in the past, other than what I already knew. Harcourt was a dangerous, psychotic asshole. And he needed to be stopped.
But he wasn’t exactly giving me a lot to work with.
After putting on fresh clothes—tossing the heels and little black dress in a shadowy corner of the bedroom, where they belonged—and having a cup of coffee, I checked the news stream using the glass table. Holographic images and ultra-high definition videos rotated through the air, painting a clear story.
MagiTekk had taken a brutal beating as a direct result of my recent efforts. Their once bulletproof stock was circling the drain, thanks to billions in product going up in a puff of dragon smoke. There were murmurs of improprieties: overstepping into law enforcement, illegal research pushing the boundaries of decency.
Outside, the day seemed to become more overcast. If I had to guess, a rare summer storm was bearing down on Phoenix. Appropriate, given the confluence of events on the ground.
After rolling up the sleeves of my oxford and adjusting my jeans comfortably around my hips, I laid my supplies out on the table. I’d woken up without a clear plan. Harcourt’s note hadn’t changed that.
In fact, his had only added to the heap of problems. They were scattered about the table, the items telling stories of all the threats lurking in the shadows of my life.
There were plenty to choose from: Malcolm Roark had some of my blood. The attached note had been less than subtle: I kept the rest for safekeeping. And to see who bends first. He’d be gunning for me hard after the Crusaders of Paradisum fiasco. He could do more than make me bend; if Malcolm chose, he could break my back and tear my soul asunder.
But something told me MagiTekk still needed me alive. I still had utility to them. Two decades ago, I’d been caught, captured, and set-up for a reason. Malcolm had admitted that some of MagiTekk and the FBI’s higher-ups had known who I was, and what I could do.
The ruse otherwise—all those sessions in the dark room, trying to break my will and get me to talk—had simply been to discover the extent of my abilities.
Which led to a more chilling question: to what end did Malcolm Roark want me to bend toward? What dominoes had MagiTekk laid out more than two decades ago?
And when did they plan on knocking them down?
I had no answers,
so I moved on to the next item.
He’d also given me the addresses of the final three names on my revenge list. Before last night, I’d been uninterested in pursuing that angle further. A changed woman, one might argue. But with Roark’s rejection whispering in my ear, the urge was returning.
Of course, that wasn’t even the biggest development of all. My mentor, Pearl, had penned me a note over twenty years ago that Malcolm had retrieved from the FBI’s evidence lockup. It suggested that she had known we would be ambushed in that suburban house all along.
Had allowed it to happen, sacrificing herself for a greater purpose.
One involving me.
What purpose that was remained unclear. But one thing was certain: the game was intensifying around me, heading toward some sort of inevitably fiery conclusion.
Right now, I needed to choose the path that would help me find Harcourt. Nothing spoke to me, and my intuition—that blend of cold-reading and Tarot Card-esque fortune telling that had saved my ass so many times in the past—wasn’t helping. The wisps floated lazily by the window, like they’d absorbed the brunt of my hangover.
I surveyed my wares, waiting for a sign or flash of inspiration.
The shotgun sat next to multiple boxes of MagiTekk ammunition. Diamond studded, silver cored rounds designed to tear through any creature of essence with alarming ease. I’d seen them used against creatures in the Tempe Internment camp during my long stint behind the gates.
It had never ended well.
Since then, I’d discovered—through my own unscientific field studies—that MagiTekk’s ammo had more stopping power than their essence-laced counterparts, which I’d used for decades. A few such shells lay upon the table. A faint magical aura trailed off their blue-rimmed casings. But the supernatural was no match for the omnipresent march of progress and MagiTekk’s army of lab coats.
The lightning blade sat nearby. The inventory was rounded out by the notes—Pearl’s, Malcolm’s thinly veiled threat, and Harcourt’s recent, unwelcome addition—the leather jacket Roark had given me, the hacked cube which gave me access to the FBI database, and my Realmpiece.
I picked it up, hoping for a sign.
But the pewter, compass-like instrument was also of little help. Occasionally, it charted a course where the trail of clues or my own intuition had failed. Right now, however, its dial just spun rapidly over the myriad of ancient symbols cluttering its face. Kalos Aeon, the half-demon, had given it to me many years ago—a final gift from Galleron. My first love, down in the Weald of Centurions. That Realm of bones, where I had escaped, and Galleron had died.
People that crossed paths with me tended to wind up dead, one way or another.
It briefly dawned on me that Roark could share the same fate. That got my heart racing, despite his behavior the night before. But it didn’t spark any new insights.
“Goddamnit.” I slammed my fists against the table, the modest collection of items rattling. Still unmoored without a clear objected, I stuffed the supplies back into my pockets.
When I got to Harcourt’s note, I felt a strange buzz coursing through the paper. The wisps danced in manic, kaleidoscopic fervor around the edges of the thick stationary. But it could’ve been one of Harcourt’s many tricks. His trademark was an unquenchable thirst for chaos. He liked seeing people confused, chasing their tails.
But no, this was real: after holding the note up to the fuzzy gray light, I confirmed what my fingers had felt. The note was enchanted. There was more information hidden within.
The next step crystallized: I needed someone to break the enchantment. Then I’d find out more about where Roark had gone—and whether Harcourt was telling the truth about the Tributary.
Scrounging through the bottoms of the drawers, I found an old watch left behind by the previous tenant. I strapped the cracked leather band around my wrist and set the alarm to go off in twelve hours—with reminders on the hour.
Just in case Harcourt wasn’t totally full of shit.
4
Giving one last glance around, I coughed into my wrist. Light blood droplets stained my skin.
“Goddamn Fallout Zone.” I peered at them, feeling slightly lightheaded.
I’d defied doctor’s orders, damn near killing myself with an adrenaline overdrive potion in my efforts to sabotage MagiTekk a couple days ago. Due to stress and lack of bed rest, the radiation sickness was returning. I needed meds—or a booster shot.
I grimaced, lungs burning. Looked like I had a brand new first checkmark on the old to do list: see Serenity Cole for a booster shot. That should keep me going until I could find a more permanent solution.
Before I left the apartment for good, I fired off an email to Alice Conway—Roark’s former vampire CI who was now our resident tech expert and hacker. I briefly summarized my findings deep within the catacombs of the Cathedral of St. Peter.
That MagiTekk had partnered with the FBI and kept the presence of the powerful mana wellsprings hidden public. Had traded their location to a dangerous cult in exchange for the Crusaders’ essence suppression tech, which was worth billions. Even agreed to help the Crusaders extract the mana from the long-dead god Pan, and make the cult members immortal—and quite powerful.
All in the pursuit of the almighty dollar. Capitalism at its most cutthroat—and elegant.
Alice knew most of this already. But I was looking for something more. I asked—more like begged—her to find some concrete evidence of the dealings. Proof of the unholy alliance between the Crusaders, FBI, and MagiTekk. It had to be lurking on some server, somewhere in that mess. The Cathedral of St. Peter had been quarantined off in the interest of “national security.” The guilty parties were closing ranks. But they were still reeling in disarray. There had to be a way to sneak through the cracks.
Even a straw could break the dying camel’s back at this point. At the very least, it would slow the corporate machine down further. If Malcolm planned to test the flexibility of my spine, perhaps a new scandal would keep him preoccupied. MagiTekk’s stock would continue to plummet, distracting the higher-ups from seemingly lesser problems.
Like me.
I capped the email with a manageable request: I needed someone to break the enchantment on the note. That wouldn’t be hard, given Alice’s network of contacts.
Then I rushed out of the apartment. It had been my recent home, but it had always felt more like a hotel than a place that had roots. There were no tearful goodbyes or nostalgic waves as I pressed out the glass doors, into the bustling street.
Carrying everything I owned upon my back, I hailed down an autocab and charted a course for Old Phoenix. Then I settled into the worn leather seat and looked out the window. My phone glowed in my hand, inviting me to make bad decisions. I flipped through the contact list, finding Roark’s name. Against my better judgement, I tapped the glowing number and pressed the thin handset to my ear.
“Come on, Roark, pick up.” The lonely ringing sputtered and stopped, going straight to voicemail. This is Special Agent Colton Roark. Leave a message and I’ll return your call as soon as possible.
Ding.
With an annoyed sigh, I hung up. Off the grid and out of range. Maybe he had actually found the Tributary. He hadn’t even gotten the chance to change the message to reflect his promotion to Supervisor. A big career win for someone who wasn’t even thirty-five. Head honcho of the Phoenix Field Office—MagiTekk’s corporate backyard and one of the Four Points of the Southwest District. A magical hotbed, rife with energy and turmoil. Important to humans and creatures of essence alike.
A critical post—perhaps the most important in the entire United States.
Whatever information Harcourt had dangled about Roark’s dead brother, it had to be big. Because going AWOL with MagiTekk on the verge of collapse wasn’t a solid career move. And he’d burned his bridge with me, too.
Still, the thought nagged at me: what if that crazed Fae had found a way to the Tributary? Surely we’d
be looking at the end of days if Harcourt Leblanc was suddenly a beacon of truth.
My gaze returned to the window. Lost in thought, I watched the uniform skyscrapers segue into more architecturally diverse Midtown high rises. The autocab sped past Kendrick’s bar without slowing down, the wooden door disappearing in the early morning haze.
Nerves firing like jumping beans, I fished out Pearl’s cryptic note to distract me. Maybe I could crack it with a clear mind. Reading it after two bottles of wine hadn’t been a fruitful endeavor.
Or maybe there was nothing to crack.
Maybe I just didn’t want to believe it.
Ruby,
If you’re reading this, then I’m dead. And everything is as it should be. Because now your training is finally complete. And you can set out to do what I always meant for you.
As this may come as a shock to you, allow me to start from the beginning.
I have watched the Callaways for many years, through the sands of eternal time. Our meeting in that Pennsylvania forest two centuries ago was no accident. Everything you henceforth believed about me is thus at least partially untrue.
I am not a Seer. I have always been something more. I have foreseen many paths, many conclusions to this tale. Before you came along, however, your line was unwilling to partner with me. Your mother, for one, was a difficult woman.
The same could be said of you, Ruby: difficult at times, temperamental at others. Yet I persisted, for your bloodline would be needed one day. And you have followed my lead through hellfire and darkness and light and emerged with minimal scars.
Your ascension has arrived at a fortuitous juncture. For graver threats face the world than they did centuries ago. The worst of the ends I have foreseen, it seems, could come true.
Blood River (The Ruby Callaway Trilogy Book 3) Page 2