“I’m touched, Prime Sagredo, but your protection is not necessary.” Or welcome.
Alessandro turned to Linus. “The contract you had me sign has no expiration date. I’ll abide by its provisions. Let me keep her safe.”
Linus pondered it.
No. Absolutely not.
“Work with him,” Linus said.
The betrayal stung. I had three seconds to pick an emotion. I could storm off angry, which would be childish; I could refuse and show everyone just how deep Alessandro had hurt me; or I could swallow my feelings, act like it didn’t matter, and be professional about it.
“Is that an order?” I kept my voice casual.
“Does it have to be?” Linus asked.
“He shares no information unless his arm is twisted, which makes him unpredictable, and he’s driven by self-interest, which makes him a liability. He has no loyalty, he can’t be counted on, and his principles are murky. I have no problem working with him, but I want my objection noted, so when he cuts and runs at the worst moment, I can tell you ‘I told you so.’” And I would really rub it in.
“I told you before that I would see things through,” Alessandro said. “I kept my promise and I’ll do it again. When I sign on the dotted line, I always deliver.”
I shrugged.
“You do remember what betraying the trust of the National Assembly of the United States means?” Linus said. “There is no place on this planet where we won’t find you.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Alessandro said.
Linus smiled again, showing even white teeth. “See? He knows the consequences.” He clapped his hands together. “It’s settled. You will investigate, he will protect you, and everything will come up roses. Moving on.”
This was some kind of nightmare. Not only did Alessandro reappear in my life, now I had to work with him. He would insist on following me everywhere. We would be around each other all the time. I would rather walk on broken glass all day than spend fifteen minutes talking to him.
I had picked my path. I swore an oath to the Wardens. Like Mom said, it was time to put up or shut up.
I wrestled my mind back to the problem at hand. There would be time to vent all of this later. “You don’t know who Arkan sent?”
“No,” Alessandro said.
“Do you think he is behind the two attacks?”
“Unlikely. Arkan’s people are precise and fast. This was stupid.”
As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. “Agreed. First, they attacked Linus in his home where he is the strongest. Second, they attacked both of us and simultaneously. It wasn’t just an assault on two Primes, it was an assault on the Office of the Warden. All of this guarantees that we will drop everything and investigate. Why?”
“That’s what you’ll need to find out.” Linus leaned forward. “The recovery of the serum is your first priority. Get in and shake them up until it falls out. Get me the evidence I need to force my way in. Don’t die.”
He looked at me and said, enunciating every word, “Do me this favor, Catalina.”
“Of course, Mr. Duncan.”
We went through this ritual with every assignment. I called it “Victoria Tremaine’s insurance.”
Linus nodded at Alessandro. “Wait outside. She’ll be along shortly.”
Alessandro rose from the chair with that liquid grace and walked out.
I waited until he’d had time to reach the front door. “How could you?”
“I know it hurts. I know you’re angry. He’s an arrogant jackass, but he is very, very good at what he does. Your survival matters to me a great deal more than your feelings.”
“Anybody but him. I could have taken Pete.”
Linus raised his eyebrows and pointed at the unconscious Pete with his thumb. “He would be difficult to carry.”
My feelings must have shown on my face, because Linus sat back.
“Do you understand why I can’t take this over now?”
“You have no justification. The Office of the Warden can’t just run over the private affairs of Primes. The Houses would scream bloody murder.”
Linus nodded. “I have a lot of things to verify. If what that hotshot said is true, I have to cover a lot of ground. I may not be available to provide assistance.”
“I’m not sure I can count on Alessandro to provide it either.”
Linus steepled his fingers. “You’ve had a chance to observe him here. Tell me what’s different about him from the Alessandro you remember.”
I ran through the last twenty minutes in my head. “He didn’t challenge you. You gave him multiple chances to mouth off, but he didn’t take them.” No, Alessandro was in full Artisan mode. Ice cold, calculating, resolute.
“What else?”
“He offered information without being prompted.” That was new as well. The last time we met, I had to pull every bit of intelligence out of him with tweezers even when our lives depended on it.
“Something must’ve happened to him,” Linus said. “I suspect it was extremely unpleasant. I like his determination. It’s a welcome change.”
I gave up. “How dangerous is Arkan?”
“Dangerous enough that the Imperial Department of Defense let him go rather than kill him, which is their usual procedure. It was judged to be more cost-effective.”
“Wow. He gave the Russian Imperium pause?”
“Yes. The man is a mass murderer, Catalina. He has a black tag. Just him alone.”
In the Warden Network, potential threats were tagged with different colors, from low to high. Black indicated the highest level, critical. It was usually reserved for criminal organizations and small governments rather than individuals. Even my brother-in-law, who could level an entire city once he got going, was marked as brown.
“One wonders how much easier our lives would be if the Russian Imperium had collapsed during the farmer revolt.” Linus opened a drawer of his desk, took out a large box, and held it out to me. “I’m throwing you into a den of wolves. The least I can do is give you a stick to hold them at bay.”
“Thank you.”
I took my present. Made of polished cedar, it was about two and a half feet long. A stylized tree branch with five leaves was carved into the lid, wrapped in a ribbon of Norse runes.
“It’s beautiful.”
“This is a prototype, with all the issues that entails. I planned to refine it, but we have no time.”
I opened the box. Inside on turquoise velvet lay a short sword. It was a straightforward weapon, almost plain: about fourteen inches overall, with a ten-inch double-edged blade, and a wooden grip wrapped in a leather cord. Both the simple cross guard and the round pommel shimmered with blued steel, catching the light. The blade seemed unusually wide for the length, about forty-eight millimeters, at least.
Aww. He made me a sword. He never made swords. He specialized in projectile weapons.
I set the box on his desk and plucked the weapon out. Heavy. And weighted oddly, most of the mass at the hilt. This wasn’t a functional sword, more like a decorative sword-shaped object you would hang on the wall.
It didn’t matter. It wasn’t a very good sword, but he’d made it specially for me.
“I love it,” I said. Nobody had ever made me a sword before.
Linus sighed. “Flick it.”
“What?”
“Stand up and wave it around.”
I got up and sliced through the air. The blade unfolded like a telescopic pole and I almost dropped it. The new sword was thirty inches long.
Um . . . I raised the sword and studied the blade. Logic said there should have been lines between the segments, but I couldn’t find any. I spun, swinging in a quick combination of slashes. The blade held. Still, the structural integrity of it had to be crap. A good sword was essentially a somewhat flexible length of sharpened steel designed to slash and stab through objects with high resistance and would be sturdy enough to block a strike. A segmented sword, by definit
ion, was hollow. If I tried to cut something, it would snap at the joints. If I tried to block, it might snap at the hilt.
I manufactured some enthusiasm. “Awesome.”
Linus shook his head. “You are a terrible liar. Sink some magic into it.”
I relaxed my hold on my power and let it flow into the hilt. Faint dark lines formed on the blade, growing into an intricate pattern of tiny arcane circles. What was this? Mages used arcane circles to supplement and channel their magic. Some circles amplified magic; others contained or shaped it. The most prominent families developed House spells, which unleashed catastrophic power and required circles of dazzling complexity. But all circles had to be drawn fresh with chalk or other organic substances like soap or wax. That’s why I redrew the trap circles in our house every couple of weeks.
I looked at Linus.
He pointed at the box. “Hit it.”
A sword wasn’t an axe, and since this one was hollow, it would break. But he ordered me to hit it. I raised the blade and chopped down.
The sword cut through the box like it was butter and sank into the desk. Crap. I reversed the swing, expecting resistance. There was none. The weapon came free, and if I hadn’t gripped it tight, I would’ve flung it into the air. The momentum pitched me back, and I spun, bringing the sword in a wide arc around me, shut off the flow of magic, and stopped, blinking.
Linus slow clapped.
Holy shit.
“How?”
Linus chuckled. “Null space.”
Some arcane circles required so much magic that their boundary ceased to exist in our physical realm. It was a place where our reality touched the arcane. Nothing could penetrate it. A mage inside such a circle was invincible until his magic ran out, which would happen quite quickly. The very nature of such circles made them unsustainable long-term.
“I don’t understand.”
“I used an organometallic compound to embed the arcane lines. It contains a bond between metal and carbon atoms, which makes this particular substance suitable for magic channeling. Unfortunately, it’s also sensitive to moisture and air and you wouldn’t believe the hoops I jumped through to modify it.”
Oh my God. He’d just revolutionized the entire science of arcane metallurgy. If it ever got out, the line of people trying to kill me for this sword would stretch down the I-10 all the way to San Antonio.
“Every time you feed it magic, the compound reacts, so in effect, you are redrawing the circles with every application. It remains to be seen how durable it is. Like I said, it’s not perfect, but I’m not unhappy with it.”
I choked on air.
“This is an emergency blade,” Linus said. “Swing it long enough and it will drain you dry. You know what happens then.”
First, I would see glowing dots, then the world would shrink, and if I kept going, I’d either pass out or die. I nodded.
Linus Duncan fixed me with his hazel eyes. “Be careful, Catalina. The night is dark, and the wolves have vicious teeth. Guard yourself.”
“I will,” I promised.
Chapter 4
Outside the sunset burned across the sky, orange and red against the encroaching darkness. The air had cooled enough to breathe, and the first bats streaked back and forth above the oaks bordering Linus’ property. Alessandro was leaning against the Spider, arms crossed, slouching slightly, a tired prince, waiting.
Yeah, that didn’t work on me anymore.
I walked down the stairs to the driveway. He peeled himself from the car.
“Let me take you home.”
Pete, who would have been my ride, was still unconscious. I could call my family, but that would mean pulling them out of a secure base, and after today’s fight, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. My imagination painted Grandma Frida trying to drive Brick, her special armored monster of a vehicle, through a cloud of snakes with moth wings. No, thank you. I could call an Uber, but there was no telling who would respond to that request.
The memory of Alessandro stalking me through MII popped into my head. It was a sad day when your safest way home was a rabid killer who broke your heart and you were getting into his car to prove to yourself that you weren’t a coward.
“I need to go to Felix’s house first.”
“I’ll take you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Sagredo.”
He opened the front passenger door for me and I got in. The last time I was in this car, he had jumped over a gap in an overpass. On second thought, this was probably a different car. That Spider had barely limped to our warehouse. He must have replaced it. He was wealthy enough to buy one of these every month in a different color.
Alessandro slid behind the wheel and the engine came to life with a growl. I plugged the address into my phone. Same neighborhood as Linus, but it would take several minutes to get there.
“Make a left out of the driveway.”
The Spider glided forward and we were off.
I pulled out my phone and texted Bern. Safe. Coming home soon.
The next text message went to Patricia Taft, our head of security. ETA 45 min w/ Count. Not hostile.
Understood.
I’m being targeted in connection with a case. Let’s stay on lockdown.
Got it.
I didn’t expect Alessandro to ever come back, but when we hired Patricia, she did a threat assessment based on past acquaintances, and Alessandro was at the top of her list. He and Augustine, whose moniker was Pancakes.
After Alessandro left, I had spent some time researching the Artisan. Partially because Patricia requested all of the information I had so she could build his threat profile and partially because I wanted to shut the lid on the pain of him leaving. I wanted to know all the terrible crap he had done, so I could move on.
I found out very little and what I did find was surprising. Alessandro was expensive and elusive. Hiring him required going through a specific intermediary. No other broker had access to him. Alessandro was the intermediary’s only client, which suggested a trusted friend or a family member. Alessandro declined most jobs offered to him. I found one would-be client who unwisely left a comment on the wrong forum thinking he would be anonymous. Bern traced him and broke into his email server. The client had been a Prime of a wealthy Brazilian House. He ranted to a family member about Alessandro’s refusal to take the job because it didn’t meet his criteria.
I thought I would find a trail of blood and it would be easier to hate him. Instead I found questions.
I pulled up my email and began going through my inbox. Riding in a car with him was a mistake. It reminded me of things I had desperately wanted. They had been in reach, so, so close, and then they were ripped away. I wasn’t even angry anymore. I was just sad and tired.
Alessandro glanced over at me again. He had been looking at me every minute or two.
I looked directly at him. “Yes?”
He kept his eyes on the road. “Just making sure you’re really there.”
Aha. “Do you think I learned to teleport?”
“No. It’s just for the first time in the last six months I know exactly where you are.”
He did not just go there. “No need to worry. I won’t jump out of the car. Make a right at the next crossroads, please.”
I went back to my phone. Seconds stretched. I had read this stupid email three times and I still didn’t know what it said.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
If I could buy the power to teleport with ten years of my life, I would do it in a heartbeat.
“I’m sorry I treated you as an amateur. I’m sorry I tried to force you to abandon the investigation into the death of your friend’s mother. I’m sorry for the things I said. I’m sorry I left. I’m sorry I didn’t call.”
An apology from Alessandro Sagredo. No dancing around, no excuses, no shifting the blame onto anyone else. A direct and firm admission of guilt. If I wasn’t so busy trying to wrangle my emotions under control, I might die from shock.
A muscle in his cheek jerked.
“I’ve moved on, so don’t worry, things won’t become unpleasant.”
And I’d just lied through my teeth. Things were unpleasant as hell.
“I never thought things were unpleasant.”
“Good. I’m glad it wasn’t a total torture for you.” Okay, that was petty, but he deserved it.
“Catalina . . .”
“Ms. Baylor,” I corrected.
“Catalina,” he repeated. His voice told me he wasn’t going to budge on that point. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”
I shut up. Nothing he said should’ve mattered, but it did, and I didn’t know if I was mad at him or at myself.
The Spider whispered to a stop before a large Tudor. I keyed the code from Augustine’s folder into the electronic lock, the gate slid aside, and Alessandro guided the Spider down the long driveway to the door.
Alessandro shut off the engine. We sat quietly in front of the dark building.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“This is a dead man’s house. Nobody’s home.”
I dreaded this part. I had done it several times now, and it always left me hollow.
“Let me help you,” he said.
“My objection to your presence was on purely professional grounds. You don’t share information, Alessandro. I don’t trust you.”
He didn’t just not share, he actively hid information.
“What do you want to know?”
Let me make you a list . . .
I went for the jugular. “Why did you become the Artisan?”
Silence.
As expected. Mr. Ask Me Anything lost his tongue. Alessandro didn’t answer any questions about himself, his family, or anything having to do with what he did or why he did it, and this was the most important one. He probably wasn’t even capable of that kind of honesty. Telling people about yourself made you vulnerable and he avoided vulnerabilities at all costs.
Emerald Blaze Page 7