“Arkan approaches him, asks him to cooperate, and in return Albert gets to swoop in when things are at their worst—”
“Swoop in? What is he, a turkey vulture?”
“—and play the white knight when you need him most. A good plan.”
“You need to have your head examined.”
“What kind of a Prime is he?”
“Quit it.”
“No matter. I’ll find out.”
We drove into the parking lot.
“Alessandro, what makes you think that someone would go through the trouble of attacking a House as dangerous as ours just to marry me?”
He parked and twisted toward me. “Catalina, have you seen yourself? Like in a mirror?”
“Oh please.”
“Did you show him your wings?”
“Why would I show him my wings? What do they have to do with anything?”
“What do . . .” Alessandro made an obvious effort to control his voice. “There are men in this world who would stop at nothing to be with you. You’re beautiful, you’re brilliant, and if they knew how dangerous you were, you would get buried in proposals. There isn’t a House out there that wouldn’t want to add you to their arsenal. And when the wings come out, it’s all over. I’m the best antistasi on record, anywhere, and when I saw you, I stared like an idiot. I could’ve stood there, listening to you talk for a year.”
“You’re delusional . . .”
“Why do you think Benedict lost his shit? He survived twenty years in the murder business, he was smart and careful, and then when you showed up he abandoned all common sense and, instead of killing you, tried to capture you, repeatedly. An elite assassin stopped thinking, because there was only room for you in his brain. I almost felt sorry for the bastard just before I shot him, because I know how he felt.”
“You are immune to my magic and my wings.”
“But I’m not immune to you.”
He had to stop saying things like that.
“It’s not the wings for me. It never was.”
I didn’t want to hear it.
“It’s not the wings for Albert either. I heard his voice. If you called him, that guy would run through fire to get to you. If you called me and I was across the ocean, I would—”
“Stop talking.” I put my hand over his mouth.
He shut up.
“Okay. Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to interview Cheryl Castellano. She’s dangerous and I need all of my brain power for this conversation. I can’t be distracted. You can come or you can stay in the car. Do you want to come with me? Answer yes or no.”
I lifted my hand.
“Yes.”
“Thank you.”
I got out of the car and marched to the doors. I had no time to think about all the things he just said. There was a Prime expecting me and I had to put on a good show.
The lobby of Felicity Tower offered the latest in modern luxury. Acres of white marble streaked with soft brown tastefully contrasted with geometric onyx columns. A grandiose chandelier dripped thousands of Swarovski crystals above tastefully grouped furniture. Original art in exquisite frames added color to the tan walls. The developer had hired a harmonizer House to execute the interior design and walking into the space was like stepping into another world, a place of power, privilege, and exclusivity. It was at once elegant and welcoming, and as you moved through it, you felt transformed into a member of the elite. Your shoulders straightened, your stride gained confidence, and when you met others, you looked them in the eye, secure in your right to be there.
We passed through security and gave our names to the concierge. We were expected, and he walked us to the elevator. People stopped and looked at Alessandro. Men and women.
It wasn’t just his stunning face, it was the way he wore his clothes, the way he walked, the expression on his face, the hint of a smile in the corners of his mouth. He represented the unreachable ideal they strived toward, power, wealth, youth, beauty . . . The perfect scion of a House. I had no doubt that if we lingered, he would collect a stack of business cards, room keys, and phone numbers hastily scrawled on the first available scrap of paper.
I liked the other Alessandro better. The one who didn’t bother to pretend. The one with lethal magic and a dangerous mind. The one who cursed because I wouldn’t let him take me to the hospital and then patched my wounds on the side of a road.
The concierge handed us off to the elevator operator, who swiped his keycard and delivered us to the sixth floor. We exited into a long rectangular room. A black marble floor stretched to walls the color of coffee with too much cream. The tinted windows dimmed the light to a soft golden glow. Here and there pedestals of frosted glass rose, lit from within by LED lights, and paired with digital screens, some as small as a tablet, some, on the walls, the size of a small TV. A small construct rested on top of each pillar, illuminated by their glow. Odd.
Alessandro raised his eyebrows.
We started forward. The pillar on the left flashed, reacting to our movement. The construct on its top twisted. Magenta-colored magic sparked, and the small mechanical beast came to life.
About a foot across and eight inches high, the construct seemed old and a little crude, a collection of metal gears and cogs, shaped vaguely like a mole with four front limbs, two where the normal paws would be and two others, inverted so they pointed out, attached to the mole’s back. All four came equipped with long curved claws.
The screen on the wall behind the mole turned on, showing a black-and-white picture of a young man. He wore a dark suit and lighter frock coat and held a derby hat in his hand. Next to him a massive version of the mole construct towered, ten feet high, with claws the size of giant bulldozer blades. The caption underneath read “Secondo Castellano, 1901, Digger I.”
From where I stood, I could see other pedestals with their own photos. 1912, Crawler I, a millipede with a multitude of arms, each capable of picking up a large container. 1927, a strange beast with a scrapper attached to it, some sort of bulldozer equivalent. 1932, a bizarre grasshopper mutant capable of raising power poles. 1948, Digger V, updated and refined to be more efficient . . .
We were in House Castellano’s personal museum.
Alessandro studied the room. His face turned thoughtful.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I’ve never stood inside someone’s American Dream before.”
A family of immigrants, coming to the US, starting a business, growing it into a House worth millions. “A version of it, yes.”
We resumed walking.
“My mom once told me that the American Dream was to live better than your parents.”
“Do you think it’s true?” he asked.
“I think everyone defines better differently. Some want more money. Others want more time.”
“What do you want?”
The answer popped into my head so fast, I didn’t even have to think about it.
“Security. I want my family to be safe in all ways. I want them to be secure from attacks, physical, magical, and financial. I want us to have enough money to cover our bills, to allow everyone to have the career they want, and to take time off if they need it. To not be one disaster away from complete collapse. Less disasters would be really nice. As a House, I want us to have a solid reputation, the kind that commands respect, so everyone can marry whoever they want without jumping through hurdles.”
“That’s all about your family. What about you?”
My happy dream died six months ago. Earlier, actually, before any of us realized the depth of Victoria Tremaine’s scheming. One day I would get back some of what I lost, but by then it would be too late for me and Alessandro.
“My family is my happiness.”
A dangerous shadow flickered through his eyes. “Don’t say that.”
I must have hit a raw nerve by accident.
The pedestals kept going. We passed out of the twentieth century into the new mill
ennium. The constructs slimmed down, becoming sleeker, more specialized. A spider to climb buildings and deliver supplies to disaster areas over rugged terrain. A mobile solar battery shaped like a flower that crawled forward on tentacle-roots.
The pictures changed too, as did the names. From Secondo to Francis, then Janet, then Sean and Mark, then finally, Cheryl. It was a trip through history designed to impress. Had we come to do business with House Castellano, by the time we reached the frosted glass doors at the other end, we would have been humbled and grateful for the opportunity.
But I wasn’t here to be humble. I was here to interrogate Cheryl about a murder. None of her family’s admittedly impressive achievements would change that.
The museum ended in another lobby and a pretty female secretary ushered us into Cheryl’s office.
Prime Castellano smiled at us from behind a solid black glass desk, accented with gold. She wore a soft silk blouse the color of bluebonnets and a tailored skirt. A porcelain brooch in the shape of a delicate white orchid rested on her chest. Her hair coiled on her head in soft feminine waves.
A man in his thirties stood on her right. Large brown eyes, deep bronze skin, South Asian ancestry. His gaze fixed on me and a faint shadow slid over my mind, filled with a distant echo of a wail. Mentovocifer, a mind shrieker. Victoria had had me fight one. They attacked by flooding the mind with magic, which their victim’s brain interpreted as a deafening, agonizing scream. Cheryl was taking no chances.
She rose. “A pleasure to see you both again, although I do wish it was under better circumstances.”
“Such a tragedy,” Alessandro offered.
Cheryl held out her hand to me. I shook it. Her fingers were soft, her handshake gentle. She got me out of the way and shifted her attention to Alessandro. He kissed her hand. Cheryl smiled in that particular way women smiled at Alessandro. He smiled back at her, a charming roguish grin that said, Yes, I would be a lot of fun. I resisted the urge to smack the back of his head.
“Please sit down.”
We took our places in two black chairs. Cheryl settled back behind the desk. It struck me how out of place she seemed. The office was luxurious, but so impersonal, it almost looked staged. Grey walls, chestnut wood paneling, black and gold color scheme. A distinctly corporate space devoid of personal touches.
This couldn’t have been her regular office. Frequently used offices, like most of the spaces people occupied, accumulated personal touches: photographs, plants, knickknacks, business gifts. She must have borrowed it for the meeting, most likely from her uncle, who had retired and rarely involved himself in the House business, according to Bern’s summary.
Cheryl didn’t want me to see her space. She could have done it out of privacy concerns, or because this office was convenient and impressive, but I doubted it. She did it because her regular office would’ve told me things about her, and she didn’t want me to gain any insights.
What are you hiding, Cheryl?
“This is Rahul.” Cheryl looked at the shrieker with a small smile. “He’s going to sit in on our meeting. Didn’t you have an interview with Marat this morning? How did it go?”
She was trying to hijack the conversation. I smiled at her. “What’s your opinion of Mr. Kazarian?”
She pursed her lips for half a second. That’s right, I ignored your question and asked my own. You don’t get to drive this car.
“An extremely hardworking man, dedicated, and an excellent father.”
“Can you tell me about Stephen Jiang?”
“Dedicated,” Cheryl said. “He comes from a wonderful family, steeped in tradition, very respected. A very smart young man. I’m not sure why you’re asking me these questions.”
“It helps me understand the interactions between everyone.”
“In that case, what did Marat say about me?”
“He wondered if you are applying for sainthood.”
Cheryl raised her hand to her mouth and laughed softly.
“Tatyana Pierce?” I prompted.
“My niece went to school with her. They used to call her Tatyana Fierce. The nickname still applies. Tatyana is direct and excellent under pressure.”
“And Felix?”
Cheryl’s face turned sad. She sighed. “Felix was everyone’s favorite. He was like a brother you wish you had growing up. Our leader, if you will. I feel so terrible for his children.”
“Can you tell me about your day on July 15th? Starting with waking up.”
Cheryl frowned. “Some days you remember and some days you don’t. This was an ordinary day. I woke up at seven, drank my coffee. Anna, my housekeeper, bought pomelos the previous evening, and I had one for breakfast.”
She spoke softly. Her tone wasn’t meek; rather, it was conciliatory and gentle enough so that raising my voice would have immediately branded me as an ass and a bully. Interesting.
“I spoke to my son, Sander, before he left for school. He keeps trying to convince me that a neck tattoo would make a good birthday present. Evan, my chauffeur, picked me up at half past eight and took me to the family workshop. I spent the day there.” Her frown deepened. “I don’t remember if I went out for lunch or if I ordered in.”
She had ordered in, a strawberry salad with salmon in a balsamic maple glaze. Augustine’s people had confirmed it with her secretary.
“I stayed at the workshop until five or six.”
She’d left at 4:42 p.m. Castellano’s workshop was roughly the same distance from the Pit as the Morton building. If they were going to the Pit, she would beat Felix by twenty minutes. Enough time to disable the security equipment.
“Where did you go after work?” I asked.
MII’s investigator assigned to the case confirmed that Cheryl was home by seven, but MII couldn’t account for two and a half hours of Cheryl’s time, starting from her leaving the office and ending with a traffic camera picking her up as she took an exit off I-69 on the way to her house in the Memorial Villages.
“I had a light dinner and some cocktails with a friend at Masraff’s.”
“The name of your friend?”
“Gloria Neville.”
I hid a smile.
Gloria Neville came from an old and powerful House. Like Bern, she was Magister Examplaria, a pattern mage, but her specialty lay in economics. She analyzed market patterns and predicted global economic shifts. She was in her sixties, and in the course of her life she had made a lot of money for a lot of people. In the eyes of the Texas magical heavy hitters, she was an unimpeachable witness. They trusted her with their money.
Cheryl had just made a mistake.
“Where did you go after?” I asked.
“Home.” Cheryl sighed. “It’s difficult for me to admit, but despite our best efforts, the Pit Reclamation Project stalled. It causes me a great deal of anxiety.”
“We all have those projects,” Alessandro said.
She acknowledged him with a grateful glance. For a moment they were alone in a room, two wealthy entrepreneurs sharing an understanding of difficulties with running a business. Something pinched me and I realized it was jealousy. I buried it.
“You’ve seen the front room of this office,” Cheryl continued. “The name of our House is synonymous with reliability. We are problem solvers. I will solve the problem of the Pit, but the solution to it demands every ounce of my attention. After a full day of concentrating at the workshop, I can barely put two words together. Gloria was too kind not to mention it during our dinner, but I’m sure I looked like death warmed over and likely sounded the same. I barely got home, fell asleep, and woke up around nine, because my son became concerned that my back would hurt from sleeping on the couch.”
She was giving a lot of detail.
“Your dedication is commendable,” Alessandro said. He sounded impressed.
“I do what I can.”
Modesty, Cheryl, is your middle name.
“This matter doesn’t just concern me,” she said. “It concer
ns our family legacy.”
“What was the nature of the construct you released into the Pit?”
The helpful expression on Cheryl’s face gained a slightly injured quality, as if I had insulted her, but she was too good to acknowledge it. “It was an experimental model under the working name Kraken. It’s designed to assess its environment and eliminate biological threats.”
“Marat mentioned that you lost control of the Kraken.” I had chosen my words very carefully.
Cheryl leaned forward, but her voice remained gentle, patient, and bordering on patronizing.
“No, I lost contact with the construct. I assure you, none of my creations have ever escaped my control.”
There it was, a featherlight touch from Rahul. He was a dual—not just a shrieker, but also a telepath, probably a lower Significant in both. The duality made him dangerous. He was trying to pick up my surface thoughts. Cheryl had just breached protocol. Scanning another mage’s mind was grounds for retaliation. It was like being groped by a stranger.
I sent my magic out. It grew from me, its tendrils twisting like grapevine shoots, subtle, barely detectable, winding around Rahul.
“So where is the construct now?” I asked.
“Lost to the Pit.”
“How big was it? I didn’t see a model of it in the front.”
“We only display constructs that have passed the prototype stage.”
The tendrils of my magic slipped through Rahul’s defenses. Mental mages guarded against what they knew, especially their own brand of magic. Rahul built a shell around his mind, hiding his thoughts and protecting himself against a direct assault. He had expected a battering ram. But vines didn’t batter, they grew, and curved, and found purchase in the smallest crevices. They went over and around, and eventually they slithered in.
Cheryl tapped the keyboard of her laptop. A digital screen on the wall flared up, displaying a construct. It had a long, sharp head armored by a metal carapace followed by a segmented body, like that of a millipede, and ending in a powerful finned tail. It reminded me of some alien shrimp.
“The Kraken was twelve meters long from the tip of the head to the end of the longest appendage,” Cheryl said. “It could collapse its width to one and a half meters in circumference, but it reached maximum efficiency at a circumference of two meters.”
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