by Sarah Fine
Daniil sat up slowly, danger darkening his gaze. “Brindle’s assassins. They killed Pavel, too. I was at the restaurant exit. I tried to find all of you, but the rush of people . . . and then the police would not let anyone in.” He covered his face. “I saw Pavel and Kira brought out to the ambulances . . .” His voice broke again as he dropped his hand and his fingers clenched over his thighs.
My heart was beating hard. “Brindle’s agents got the mosaic. But I have something just as important. Something we can use to get the panel back, if only we can make it to Volodya. I can’t do it without you.” Daniil had been primarily responsible for communications with Volodya, since he had more or less grown up at the boss’s headquarters. “But we can turn this around. It’s still possible.”
His eyes glittered with tears as he raised his head. “There is no turning this around,” he said in a harsh whisper. “They shot her eighteen times, the newspeople say to me.” He let out a strangled moan. “They tore her to shreds.”
My own eyes were burning, and not just because of the waves of searing pain he was giving off. Kira had been a gentle soul—and she’d been trying to help me right before she was killed. “I know. But we don’t have to let her sacrifice be in vain.”
He shuddered and pushed himself up, straightening his back. “If you mean what you say, this could be true.” He eyed me with new suspicion.
I put my hand on my chest. “Daniil, there was something none of us knew about the panel. Something even Volodya didn’t know. And it changes everything.” I briefly told him about how the ancient magic inside the mosaic panel had ended up in my vault. “I’m carrying something important. But if Brindle gets it—”
“He won’t,” Daniil snapped. He stood up quickly, then swayed in place, clearly weak.
I got to my feet and put my arms out in case I needed to catch him. “When was the last time you ate?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay. That’s the first thing we’ll remedy. You take a shower, and I’ll get you something to eat, and then we’ll make our plan to get out of here.”
His brow furrowed and he looked away. “Kira cared for me in this way,” he said faintly. “She always made me feel good.”
As an Ekstazo, it had probably come naturally to her. “I know I’m a poor substitute. But we’ll do this for her, right?”
He nodded and then trudged toward the bathroom, where he caught himself on the doorframe and turned toward me again. “Everything I do is for her now.” His fingers curled tightly around the doorjamb. “We will get you to Volodya. And we will use what you have to lure Brindle. And I swear . . .” His jaw clenched. “Before this is over, I will find out who did this to my Kira. I will hurt him. I will make him scream. I will make him beg. And then I will kill him.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
With the excuse of getting Daniil a hot meal, I ventured out, but my first stop was a twenty-four-hour electronics shop. I spent some of the cash Volodya had given us on a burner phone, one I could use to access e-mail. Shivering as a sharp January wind blew along the vacant midnight sidewalk, lifting my hair and chapping my cheeks, I sent a text to the number Keenan had given me. I got in with Daniil. Headed back to Moscow once we make arrangements.
The response was immediate: Go tonight. Police presence is heavy bc of incident but intel shows plenty of hunters loose in the city. Report when you’re on the other side.
Will do
Just stay focused. Do what I taught you and you’ll be ok.
I stared at the message. It was like he could sense my tension and anxiety even from miles away. I had some work to do. No prob.
Next, I opened a browser and logged in to the new e-mail account using the instructions Theresa had given me.
She’d left a new message in the “Drafts” folder.
Happy New Year! That was quite a party foul. Where the fuck are you? Still hungover?
I rolled my eyes and typed, adding to the message.
I’m rehydrated and getting ready to do the walk of shame. Dad’s gonna be mad when he finds out my ex-boyfriend stole his car. I was able to snag the registration from the glove compartment before it happened, though. Definitely counts for something.
It was pretty silly, but about as cloak-and-dagger as I could manage. Obviously, Theresa was trying to keep tabs, but I had no idea where she was or what she was up to. Would she try to help us get the panel back? I didn’t know how to ask without outright asking. I also didn’t know if I wanted her to show up and complicate things. Already I was basically a double agent, scheming with the Headsmen while I worked for the Russian boss. I wasn’t sure how I could fit Theresa into that house of cards.
I logged out and called the emergency number Volodya had given us. After giving the password, I requested immediate transportation back to Moscow for two. While the person on the other end—a woman who didn’t have even a trace of a Russian accent—made the arrangements, I bounced on my heels and wished I’d worn two pairs of socks. Finally, my lifeline clicked on again and assured me that our chartered flight out of Kennedy, direct to Moscow, would leave at four in the morning.
That gave us less than four hours. Fortunately, when I got back to the hotel with a meatball sub, Daniil was waiting. I gave him a reassuring nod as I entered the room agony-free. He ate with desperation but still seemed off as we set out again, this time for Penn Station, to catch the one o’clock Long Island Rail Road train that would take us to the AirTrain headed for Kennedy. I’d managed all the logistics, because Daniil looked like he could barely manage putting one foot in front of the other. He trudged zombielike at my side as we traversed the maze of the station and stood impassively as we waited for our train to arrive. I focused on our plan, on making each connection, on the tickets we needed. I tallied our remaining cash in my head. I counted the minutes. Keenan had said it was easier to control emotion if you kept your brain focused on minutiae. He and Jack had drilled that into me after I’d fully committed.
I did not think of Asa, because he wasn’t part of the next six moves I needed to make. He was not a factor in this equation.
Once the train arrived, I helped Daniil board. I leaned my head back on my seat after settling Daniil in next to the window. He stared at his own reflection while I peered out at the frigid, clear night beyond the glass and let my guard down for a moment, knowing that as soon as I boarded Volodya’s plane, I was going to be on. But right now, it was just me and the emotionally devastated Strikon by my side, who was lost in his own grief, who barely seemed aware of my presence.
It was a new year.
So many things had changed in the last twelve months.
I pictured my parents, taking down their Christmas tree while snow swirled outside. I pictured the lake, the ice built up jagged on the beach, the water littered with chunks of it, frothy and white. I wondered what I would have been doing if I had stayed, and whether I would have been content with what I had. Maybe I would have. But it would have been a life half lived.
I pulled my coat a little tighter around me and swallowed the lump in my throat. Right then, I would have given anything to be able to plop down next to Grandpa’s bedside. He had been the one person who not only understood what it was like to carry secrets inside your rib cage, but who also actually cared about me as a person. I’d never gotten to really talk to him about what it was like to transport magic more valuable than your own life, to be so powerful and so vulnerable all at the same time. I’d never gotten to ask him if he ever felt lonely, even when he wasn’t alone.
I’d never been truly alone before. But now I would have to be enough, because nobody else would help me figure this out. I had to find a way to get this ancient magic out of me before someone tried to take it by force and broke me in the process. For now, I had the benefit of possible secrecy. Even if Asa had sensed magic inside me, how could he have known it belonged inside the panel we’d stolen? It seemed like no one had known the ancient mosaic was a relic.
; The conductor, a solidly built African American woman with braids neatly pulled back beneath her cap, entered the car. The cold air behind her swirled and warped as it hit the heat of the car. I squinted at the distortion as she punched the ticket of the one other person in the train car with us, a gray-haired man who hadn’t looked up once from his phone.
Something wasn’t right. Even though the door to the car had been closed for nearly a minute, even though the conductor was halfway down the aisle, the warp in the air was still following her.
I grabbed Daniil’s hand. “Hurt me.”
“What?” he whispered, pulling his bewildered gaze from the window.
“Hurt me. Now,” I said, glancing back at the space behind the conductor.
“No!” Daniil whipped his hand from my grasp. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Tickets,” said the conductor in a bored voice.
My heart picking up in a frantic rhythm, I presented our tickets for her to punch. I tried not to stare at the space behind her but couldn’t keep my eyes from flicking back and forth. The conductor punched a series of holes in each of our tickets and gave them back, then moved on, striding down the aisle until she reached the door to the next car. I twisted in my seat to see if the distortion in the air was still there, still trailing her.
But it was gone.
When I turned back around, Daniil was watching me with a frown. “Did you see something?”
I let out a shaky laugh and shook my head. “I’m just paranoid.” Nobody could sense or track the magic inside me—it was too deeply hidden. They’d have to be on top of me to pick it up, and that’s only if they were powerful. No sensing relic would do it. “Cannot wait to have some backup.” I smiled at Daniil. “And I’ll bet you can’t wait to be home.”
He grimaced and turned back to the window. “Kira’s ghost will be waiting there for me,” he mumbled. “She will stay until I’ve avenged her.”
“Kira didn’t seem like a vengeful person,” I said. “She seemed gentle.”
“She was,” he whispered. “She was pure and good and should never have been with me. I brought her into Volodya’s service. I brought her to this place.”
He was on the verge of tears again, and as his control broke down, an uncomfortable ache rolled along my bones. I gave the seat across the aisle a longing look.
And as I turned my head, a shadow passed through my periphery. I spun in my seat to look behind me—and screamed. Asa loomed over my seat back, reaching for me. I threw myself into the aisle as Daniil shouted, “What’s wrong?”
I turned to see Asa lean over and lift his open palm to his lips—and blow. Dust billowed off of his skin and right into Daniil’s face. My Strikon ally blinked and coughed as Asa whispered, “Go get her. And bring her to me.”
“Asa, no,” I screamed as Daniil’s jaw clenched with new purpose. He rose from his seat as I flipped over and scrambled along the aisle until I reached the gray-haired passenger. “Sir, help me. He’s—”
Agony shot along my spine as Daniil’s hand closed over my shoulder. I jabbed my elbow hard into his stomach and jumped back, bracing my hands on the seats on either side of the aisle. It was just like a gymnastics vault, and I made the most of it, swinging my legs up and slamming them into Daniil’s chest. Pain crackled up my shins, making my bones feel like they were shattering, but Daniil staggered back and lost his balance. The gray-haired passenger continued staring at his phone, clearly under the influence of some Knedas magic as well.
I ran for the exit to the train car with Daniil and Asa behind me. Whimpering with panic, I ripped the door of the car open and edged through it before slamming it shut again. I lost precious seconds looking for a way to lock the darn thing and then had to abandon my search as Daniil grabbed the door. I let it slide open, but just as he put his hand on the edge to push it further, I yanked it shut with all my might. He howled as it smashed his fingers, and he fell to his knees, clutching his injured hand.
I didn’t wait to see what Asa was doing. I ran. I was headed away from the conductor, but if I could reach the driver, maybe I could get him to stop the train. Maybe I could get off. Maybe I could run. This wasn’t like last time, when I had tried to convince Asa to come with me. I knew that he couldn’t hear me, that I couldn’t reach him right now. It was pointless to try to loosen Brindle’s control over him. Keenan had drilled that into my head, too.
“Mattie,” Asa called as he stepped into the car. “You can’t get away from me. Stop running.”
I winced at the sound of my name, uttered in that dead voice I hated so much, and looked back. “I’ve always been stubborn,” I snapped as I reached out to open the next door. Only one more until we reached the front car and the driver. I ripped it open as Asa started to jog unsteadily up the aisle. Both relief and fear flashed through me—he wasn’t moving in the smooth, predatory way I’d grown so accustomed to. Now he moved in an ungainly manner that was slightly off kilter. As he came toward me he held on to the seats on either side of him as if for balance. His hollow cheeks were so pale that, added to the circles under his eyes, his angular face looked more like a skull. The collar was thick and ghastly around his throat. It looked like magic was eating him alive.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous, though. His hand slipped toward the pocket of his jacket, and I focused everything I had on reaching the driver’s cab.
Not that it mattered when I did. I banged against the glass. “Help,” I shouted.
But the driver was just like that passenger in our car, just like every other person I’d passed in my mad flight up the aisle. Completely oblivious to my presence. Asa had laid his trap while I stared out the window and thought about home and what lay ahead. Now I was on a moving train, the only person fully aware of the threat.
Desperate to escape, I darted to the side and grabbed the handle of the emergency exit window, but before I could pull it, Asa was on me, dragging me back into the cramped area between the front of the car and the driver’s cab. He threw his weight against me, crushing me against the wall of the cab while he fished for something in his pockets. I grabbed his forearm and twisted, and he ripped his arm out of my grasp with a gasp of pain.
“Did you do that to yourself?” I asked, panting, struggling to keep him from pulling out whatever weapon he was about to use against me. “Did you try to hurt yourself?”
“We’ve got a flight to catch,” he said flatly, pinning my wrist against the glass. I brought my knee up, but he pivoted to the side, taking the blow in his thigh. “Plane’s waiting.”
I was close enough now that I could see a bandage around his throat, just above the collar, sweat soaked and grimy and stained with dried blood. Now what had happened to him?
He wasn’t meeting my gaze. Instead, he stared at my chest, his pupils dilated to the point that his eyes were almost completely black. He flattened his palm against my chest while I struggled. “You still have it,” he said in a low voice. “And Brindle wants it.”
“What exactly does Brindle want?”
“You have the key,” he said, wrestling my other wrist up so he could hold both with one clammy hand.
“I have the key?” I asked. “To what?”
He paused, holding my wrists in a merciless grasp. “Nothing makes sense without it.” His shirt collar gaped a little as he used his free hand to reach into his pocket, giving me a brutal view of the collar and the red swollen skin just beneath it. I tore my gaze away as he pulled out one of the little water pistols I’d learned to fear.
He aimed it at my face. “Now you’re gonna do as I say.”
With a roar and a crash, someone barreled into us. The liquid from the pistol—undoubtedly Knedas juice—splattered against the window of the driver’s cab. As I fell to the floor beneath a tangle of limbs, I felt drops of it hit the back of my neck.
“Mattie, help,” Asa shouted, then retched. “Get him off me.”
Asa needed my help. I had to get the attacker off him. I re
ached up and punched at the pair of legs that were kicking at him, but they were moving too quickly.
“Are you the one?” shouted Daniil. I looked up to see his face contorted with fury, his teeth clenched as he landed a hard strike to Asa’s ribs.
Asa doubled over, and his shoulder hit the door. Panting, gagging as Daniil’s Strikon magic hit him, he banged on the glass, twice.
The train bucked as it slowed suddenly.
“You’re Brindle’s, aren’t you?” Daniil’s voice shook with rage.
I was supposed to be helping Asa. I shot to my feet and reached for him, but Daniil shifted his attention from Asa to me at the last second. As soon as his eyes met mine, it felt like someone had just ripped my pancreas out through my belly button. I let out a hoarse scream as the fog of Knedas magic cleared from my thoughts. “Don’t let him off this train,” I said raggedly as I doubled over, clutching my middle. I hadn’t expected this chance, but if Daniil could subdue Asa, maybe we could get him to Russia right now. “Daniil, we need him. Alive.”
“I’m going to end him,” Daniil growled as Asa pounded again on the driver’s door.
The train shook violently and lurched forward, throwing Daniil off-balance. He tripped over his own feet and went down hard. I clutched at Asa’s leg as the train braked suddenly yet again, tossing me against the metal-and-glass door with a thump. Pain burst through my shoulder as the train shuddered to a halt. The doors slid open.
I swiped at Asa’s pant leg as he lunged for fresh air. He barreled into the night, staggering across the tracks and then clambering up a hill toward a fence that separated the rails from the neighborhood beyond. As I limped out of the door and my feet hit gravel, I could see it was useless to chase him. He was gone again.
Daniil growled something in Russian, and I turned to him. “Are you okay?”