by Chloe Neill
The Containment agents approached the counter with an armful of water and MREs, so I put down my brush and moved to the metal cashbox and receipt pad to deal with their purchases.
“My notes,” she said. “I’m hoping to write up some of my outline today.” Tadji was working on a degree in linguistics. “And I’ve heard a rumor there’s a coffeehouse in Tremé.”
We all went still, looked at her.
“There’s a coffeehouse in New Orleans?” one of the agents asked, hope in her eyes.
“That’s the rumor,” Tadji said. “Woman set up a little café in her living room, sells muffins and coffee. I’m going to check it out.”
“And report back,” I requested, putting the agents’ purchases into a bag and offering their change. I closed the cashbox again, looked at her. “Like, Folgers, or what?” Coffee was relatively rare in the Zone—a high-priced luxury.
Tadji’s eyes gleamed. “I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.”
As the Containment agents left, I looked at Gunnar. “And what’s on your agenda?”
“Keeping the Zone running smoothly, as per usual.” He glanced at Liam. “You find that wraith in the Lower Ninth?”
“We didn’t,” Liam said, and Gunnar looked at me speculatively.
“‘We’?” he asked. “You went with him?”
“Bounty hunter in training,” I said, offering him a salute. “It still makes for good cover.” And gave me a chance to be sure that any wraiths taken into Devil’s Isle were treated as well as possible. We owed them that much, at least.
“No sign of the wraith,” Liam repeated, “but we found something else. Giant billboard on Claiborne. ‘Death to Paranormals’ painted over it.”
“Lovely,” Gunnar said. “I’ll have someone take a look.”
“Who has that much free time on their hands?” Tadji asked.
“There are plenty of people out there with delusions about Paranormals,” Gunnar said. “Plenty of people who believe in conspiracies, or who think the government owed them something after the war.”
In fairness to those people, the government did know about the Veil. But it hadn’t known who’d waited for us on the other side.
Speaking of angry humans, loud voices began to fill the air with what sounded like chanting.
“What is that?” I asked, glancing at the door.
“Maybe protestors?” Liam asked with a frown.
“Could be,” Gunnar said. Liam, Tadji, and I followed him outside, then to the corner and down Conti.
About a dozen men and women, most in their twenties or thirties, but a few older, a few younger, stretched across Bourbon Street. They all wore nubby, homespun fabric in bulky and shapeless tunics and dresses.
Their arms were linked together, and they sang as they walked, their voices woven into an eerie, complex harmony. I didn’t recognize the song, but it sounded like a hymn, with lyrics about death and smiting and Calvary. If this had been a different time, they might have been congregants walking to a country church. But I hadn’t seen many churchgoers carrying bright yellow signs with CLEANSE THE ZONE OR DIE TRYING in searing red paint.
Leading the group was a man with pale skin, dark hair, medium build, and a heavy beard. He was flanked by two women—one pale, one dark, but both with dark eyes that looked across the French Quarter with obvious disdain.
It wasn’t the first time there’d been protestors in the Quarter; there’d been plenty during and shortly after the war, when it was popular to complain about how the war was being fought, or how it had been won. But the war had ended six years ago, and as a Sensitive, I wasn’t feeling very sympathetic to antimagic arm waving.
Liam shifted, moving a protective step closer to me while watching the group with narrowed eyes.
Gunnar’s expression was cold and blank. That was a particular skill of his—that level stare that showed authority and said he wouldn’t take shit from anybody.
The man in the front glanced in our direction, stopped, and lifted his hands. Like an orchestra following a conductor directing his symphony, the protestors stopped behind him, and silence fell again.
He walked toward us. He wore an easy smile, but there was something very cold behind his dark, deep-set eyes.
“Good morning,” he said, in a voice without a hint of Louisiana in it. “Can we talk to you about the Zone?”
Gunnar didn’t waste any time. “You have a permit?”
The man’s eyes flashed with irritation, but his smile didn’t change. “I don’t subscribe to the notion that citizens of this country require a permit to exercise their First Amendment rights.”
Gunnar didn’t even blink.
“Of course,” the man said, “we also respect human laws. It’s just that we believe those laws should be enforced to their logical conclusion.” The man pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket, offered it to Gunnar.
“Any law in particular?” Gunnar asked.
“The Magic Act,” the man said. “All magic is illegal. And all magic should be removed from our world . . . by any means necessary.”
CHAPTER TWO
It was actually the MIGECC Act—the Measure for the Illegality of Glamour and Enchantment in Conflict Communities. But he was right about its effect.
Eyes narrowed, Gunnar looked at the man for a moment—like he was memorizing the lines and shadows of his face—before shifting his gaze down to the paper in his hand. Gunnar reviewed the document, handed it back to the man. “Thank you, Mr.—”
“I am Ezekiel.” He gestured to the men and women behind him. “We are trumpeters, and we carry our message through the Zone.”
Gunnar gave the signs a suspicious look. “Which is?”
“Bringing clarity. Sharing the truth.” Ezekiel scanned the faces of those who’d gathered around us to check out the commotion. “The Paranormals destroyed our world, our lifestyle. They’re now incarcerated, but have things improved? No. We’re told the Zone can’t be saved, the soil can’t be treated, can only be replaced, that magic is now part of our world. But no one tells us the truth—that the world is polluted by the presence of Paranormals, stained by the obscenity of their existence.”
Liam’s gaze moved from the protestors and signs to Ezekiel’s face. “The billboard near the Lower Ninth—that’s yours?”
Ezekiel’s smile was chilling. “That depends on which one you’re referring to. We have many allies in the Zone.”
“And how,” Gunnar asked, pointing to a sign, “do you and your allies intend to ‘clean’ the Zone?”
“By removing all magic from the world.”
“And arguing with humans in the French Quarter is how you’re going to go about it?” Gunnar asked. “That doesn’t seem productive.”
“Spoken like a Containment mouthpiece. You have a financial interest in keeping them in our world.”
“I have an ethical interest in treating prisoners of war appropriately, and keeping them secure and away from humans. What would you rather us do? Line them up and take them out?”
Ezekiel’s gaze went ice-cold. The loathing in it sent a chill down my spine. “The Magic Act demands the eradication of magic.”
He didn’t seem to care that not all Paranormals were the same—that they hadn’t all come into our world willingly, or fought willingly in the war.
“Class act,” Liam muttered, and began to turn away.
Ezekiel’s eyes flashed with anger. “You’d rather do nothing? You’d rather stand by and watch our culture evaporate?”
“I don’t see anyone’s culture evaporating.” Liam turned back, gestured to the people who’d gathered behind us—a few agents, a few customers. “These people are working to make a living in the Zone, to keep New Orleans alive.”
“And that’s not always easy, is it?” Ezekiel looked accusingly at Gunnar. �
��Containment tells us the monsters are all in Devil’s Isle, but that’s a lie as well. Monsters roam this land. Wraiths kill innocents.” Ezekiel narrowed his gaze at Liam. “I know your face.”
Liam was close enough that I could feel his body go rigid with sudden anger. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“Oh, but I think I do.” Ezekiel’s smile went smug. “I know your sister was killed by monsters.” That was true. Either too arrogant or stupid to understand the risk he was taking, Ezekiel stepped forward, eager to push the point. His eyes searched Liam’s face as if looking for weakness.
“I know they found her broken and bruised. I know she’d been torn and ripped by their claws, by their poisoned bodies. And yet you live in Devil’s Isle, don’t you, among our enemies? That doesn’t sound like a way to honor her memory. It sounds like you bed with them.”
“You’re going to want to step back,” Liam said.
Ezekiel ignored him, his eyes gleaming with purpose. The other protestors moved into formation behind him. “I’m not here to make you or anyone else comfortable. I’m here to testify, to protect what remains.”
“We don’t need protecting,” Liam gritted out.
“I bet your sister’s opinion would differ. If she was still alive, that it. Pity we can’t ask her.”
Before any of us could move, Liam’s fingers were tangled in Ezekiel’s shirt, and he hauled Ezekiel up to his toes. Liam’s eyes, vibrantly blue, shone with fire. “Tell me again what you bet my sister would do. My sister, who was innocent, and was killed because assholes like you who refuse to acknowledge the complexities of the real world.”
Ezekiel’s gaze flicked back and forth across Liam’s. “They killed one of yours, and still you protect them. Why? Was your sister not enough reason for you to acknowledge the truth?”
Where Liam’s eyes showed fury born of pain, Ezekiel’s showed satisfaction. He was out to make a point, and damn those he hurt in the meantime. And although it would have meant immediate imprisonment, I wanted to squeeze magic from the air and wring his neck with it.
“Claire.” Tadji must have seen the intent in my eyes. Her voice was quiet, her fingers strong around my arm, jolting me back to the street, to the crowd, to the fact that magic monitors—armed and ready—would be triggered if I so much as ruffled Ezekiel’s hair.
I forced myself to relax. This wasn’t the time or place for my big, magical reveal.
Ezekiel’s smile grew wider, more satisfied. “Are you going to hit me, Mr. Quinn, because I do tell the truth? Because you’re uncomfortable admitting you contributed to your sister’s death?”
Ezekiel was still in Liam’s grip, sweat beading on his forehead, but his eyes utterly calm. He’d done exactly what he’d meant to—gotten attention for his particular brand of vitriol.
“My sister was murdered,” Liam said, every muscle taut and ready for action, a warrior ready for battle against the advancing enemy. “Would you like to feel even an iota of her pain?”
“Is that a threat?” Ezekiel asked. “And in front of a Containment agent. Has magic made you a barbarian?”
“Idiocy has made me a barbarian,” Liam said, baring his teeth.
“Liam,” I said quietly, calling him back just as Tadji had called me.
For reasons too simple and complicated to think about, that seemed to be enough.
Liam opened his hands, so Ezekiel dropped back to the ground, stumbling before his followers reached out, helped him regain his balance.
“You deny the truth!” Ezekiel said, lifting his hands to conduct his protestors into another round of chanting.
This time, I stepped forward. “Do you think this helps you prove some kind of point? Using a family’s tragedy, a young woman’s death, to get attention? Go back to the hole you crawled out of.”
Before Ezekiel could respond, Gunnar took a step forward. “If you want to protest, go protest. No more harassing residents, or you’ll get an up close and personal view of the Cabildo.”
Ezekiel’s jaw worked. “Another denier,” he said, then cast his glance around at those who’d gathered to watch. “The day of reckoning will come. A new Eden is planned for our world, and those who stand in the way of it will be cast aside. It will be our reawakening. We are Reveillon, and we will see it come to pass.”
Ezekiel’s eyes went cold, and his smile was just as frigid. If he believed in damnation—and I’d bet that he did—he’d long ago decided he was on the right side of it.
He walked back to the front of his line and began the march again.
When they’d put two blocks between us, I turned back to look for Liam, to offer what comfort I could. But he was gone.
—
Gunnar went to the Cabildo to report on the billboard and the protestors. I walked outside, found Liam sitting on a wrought-iron bench in the small brick courtyard behind Royal Mercantile.
The building was scarred from the war, the courtyard marked by the pigeons we used to send messages to Delta.
Liam looked up at the sound of my footsteps, his blue eyes shadowed. I offered a bottle of water. “You all right?”
He nodded, took the bottle, flipped it in his palm. “I don’t like my family being used as a weapon in someone else’s war.”
“Total dick move,” I agreed, and sat down beside Liam as he uncapped the bottle of water, took a drink.
“And calling themselves ‘Reveillon’?” he said, disgust coloring his voice. “That’s a slap at New Orleans. At our traditions.”
Reveillon was a holiday dinner served in New Orleans, a tradition with French and Cajun roots that lasted through the night and into the early morning. The word meant “reawakening.”
I nodded. “They’re after reinventing the city. Destroying what’s left, and building it up in some kind of new image. They’re dangerous.”
“Yeah,” Liam said. “I imagine they are.” He flipped the bottle again. “I made the decision to stay here, in the Zone. To keep our connection to this place. To who we were. Home sweet home and all that. If I hadn’t . . .”
“Along with the rest of your family, you made a choice to stick it out. To give New Orleans another life. I didn’t know Gracie. But the pictures I saw of her—she looked like a very happy person. She didn’t look unhappy. She didn’t look like she felt out of place, or like she didn’t belong here.
“Sometimes horrible things happen, and they’re no one’s fault. Sometimes they’re just horrible things. The world keeps on spinning; we just try to stay on our feet.”
I let my head fall back against the brick and looked up at the blue sky, the enormous white clouds. Liam tilted his head back, too, and we watched the sky together in silence.
For a moment, there was peace.
And then the world shattered, the earth shaking with concussions that rattled the windows.
Liam grabbed my arm, and still held it when the world stilled again. And for a moment, everything went perfectly, horribly silent.
We ran to the street, found Tadji watching smoke rise from Devil’s Isle. Air raid sirens began to wail.
“Shit,” Liam said, then looked at me. “I’m going.”
I glanced at Tadji.
“Go,” she said. “I’ll stay here with the store, keep an eye on things while you see what’s happened.” The grim certainty on her face said she knew, and had accepted, what might happen if we ran toward the sound of trouble.
She reached out and squeezed my hand. “Be careful, Claire. Magically and otherwise.”
I promised I would and took off.
—
We weren’t the only ones heading toward Devil’s Isle. There weren’t many civilians left in the Quarter, but the former Marriott was a Containment barracks, and they were running, too.
Devil’s Isle was a prison, and looked like one. Tall concrete walls with gu
ard towers at each corner, the front marked by a massive wrought-iron gate from a River Road plantation and checkpoint. That gate was now gnarled fingers of scorched metal, a monstrous claw revealed by the apparent explosion that had rocked it.
I stopped short, arms jostled by the people running past me, and stared.
There was smoke, shrapnel, debris—and worse—everywhere. There were protest signs on the ground—some still burning, some singed around the edges. People were screaming, agents were running and shouting orders, chasing back Paranormals who saw their opportunity and ran for the gate.
“Reveillon bombed the gate,” Gunnar said, each word colored with awe and shock and fury.
“Their tunics,” Liam said. “They were bulky. Some of them must have worn explosives under the tunics—vests or something. Jesus.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Jesus.”
Silently, Gunnar moved into Devil’s Isle, to the remaining splinters of the guardhouse, features hardening as he crouched beside the agent who lay there, half in and half out of what remained of the guardhouse, his face and hair bloodied. Gunnar checked for a pulse, looked up.
“I need a medic in here!” he called out, then gestured to a set of agents with a stretcher.
I tore my gaze away, looked back at Liam. “Your . . . your grandmother,” I said. Eleanor Arsenault lived only a few blocks away.
His eyes flared with concern as he considered, but looking around, he shook his head. “The attack looks contained, and there’s no reason to think she’d have been a target. I’ll do what I can here, then check in on her.” He looked at me. “You could go back to the store.”
He didn’t make it an order or a question. It was a mild suggestion at best, and one I appreciated. But I couldn’t just walk away, however horrific this was. I looked around for something to do, some way to help.
There was a clinic inside the prison, where Sensitives and Wraiths were held—would continue to be held until Containment allowed Sensitives to manage their magic and avoid becoming wraiths in the first place.
Lizzie, one of the clinic’s nurses, was on her knees beside a bloodied woman whose white linen clothing gave her away.