by Chloe Neill
A boy could dream.
—
We drove back to Carrolton, Liam slowing as the numbers ticked down to the address we were searching for.
My stomach knotted uncomfortably . . . and then I just stared.
It was an Apollo station—an old-fashioned gas and service station probably from the 1950s. There was a rectangular building with two garage doors and a roof that swooped dramatically to one side. The Apollo trademark—a giant, sun-shaped sign—still stood in front of the building like the standard of another era. The modern, angular numbers on the side of the building said we had the right place.
Liam pulled the truck beneath the overhang in front of the building, which had probably shielded gas attendants from torrential southern downpours once upon a time.
“A gas station,” he said, glancing through my window at the tidy white building.
“Yeah.” It was all I could gather the energy to say. I’d expected something more. I didn’t know what, exactly, but something that would tell me about my father, about the secrets he’d been keeping.
Instead, we’d found . . . a gas station.
“Hold on,” Liam said, as if he could sense my disappointment. “Let’s take a look.”
We climbed out of the truck, stood for a moment in the quiet. A dog barked somewhere in the distance, but there were no other sounds of life in the neighborhood. It was creepy to hear that absolute silence, but also comforting in a way. There were no people here, which meant no war and no Reveillon. Just nature drawing its green blanket back over New Orleans.
“The building’s in good shape,” Liam said, walking around to join me on the passenger side. “Surprisingly good shape, all things considered. Either it wasn’t hit during the war or it’s been taken care of since then.”
He stopped in front of the door, put his hands on his hips as he surveyed the building, then looked back at me. “You’ve never been here?”
“Nope.”
He nodded, put a hand on the doorknob before I could get there. “Wait,” he said, and looked around. “Let’s do a perimeter check first.”
I nodded, followed him to the side of the property, where weeds were tall in the cracked asphalt. There was a drive all the way around the building, a utility box, a locked security door. On the far side, windows coated in white paint.
“I don’t see anything telling,” I said as we walked around to the front again.
“It tells us no one has tried to break in. Given the looting during the war, it means this building was exceptionally lucky, or someone protected it, at least for a while. The locks are rusty,” he said, nodding toward the front door. “That tells us no one’s been through the front door, either.”
He put an ear to the door, then tried the knob. It didn’t budge.
“I don’t suppose you know how to pick a lock?”
“I do,” he said. “But I don’t have any tools on me.” He looked back at the truck, frowning. “And none in the truck, either.”
“I could open it,” I said. I’d shifted a dozen magical tumblers in order to lock the Veil into place. I could probably handle a commercial dead bolt.
Liam looked back at me, then behind me, gaze shifting around us. He walked to the canopy that covered the spots where the gas pumps had been, looked up and down, then back at the roof, the light poles, the streetlights, before returning.
“I think you’re safe for that,” Liam said. “I don’t see any monitors or cameras that could have eyes on us. But even if there is a monitor somewhere, and it goes off, we’ll hear Containment coming.” Containment tended to roar toward magic with lights and sirens. “And that assumes they’ve got any personnel who could respond to a call right now.”
“The fires,” I said, and he nodded.
“Ezekiel knows how to use his people. The border attacks show he knows how to keep Containment spread thin.”
“And if they do get here?”
Liam smiled. “We tell them the truth—we’re on a bounty, which we just verified with Hitchens. We found a wraith, and he went into a frenzy that triggered the monitor.”
That was plenty close enough to the truth.
“All right, then,” I said, and crouched in front of the door. I felt suddenly self-conscious doing magic in front of him after last night, after the conversation this morning he didn’t know I’d heard.
Maybe I could use that, I thought, shifting to my knees and closing my eyes. Malachi had told me to figure out how to use my emotions to help fuel my magic. This was a good chance to try it.
I let myself be frustrated, let myself open to emotions I’d rather have pushed away and pretended didn’t exist. And by doing that, I acknowledged they had weight and power, and substance of their own in that weird space where magic existed.
Experimenting, I let them twine together, let the magic and the emotions braid themselves along the filaments of power, enhance them, direct them. To my surprise, the emotions contained it, a lasso around wriggling prey, and directed its movement. The magic still fought back, tugging against the line, but it was in my grasp, instead of the other way around.
It was the first time I’d set a limit on the magic itself, as opposed to trying to use the magic—its wildness and madness, its forcefulness and strength—to manipulate an object.
Hope filled me.
Maybe Malachi had been onto something.
Before I lost the edge and the grip on the filaments of power I’d created, I linked them together, imagined sinking them into the tumblers, letting them feel their way through the lock. I couldn’t actually see their shift, the rise and fall of the pins, but I could feel them with that indefinable sense.
And then they fell into place, and the lock opened with a click.
Still on my knees in front of the door, I opened my eyes, the frissons of magic still sparking in the air like dust motes in a shaft of light.
I stood slowly, expecting to feel the magic rush suddenly back into the vacuum I’d created. But there was nothing but the sound of the breeze in the long and waving grass.
I could feel Liam’s gaze on me, and looked at him, saw the interest in his eyes, the pride. There was reluctance behind it, sure. Considering what I’d done in the full light of day, I could understand the uneasiness.
The moment passed, and Liam looked back at the door. He held up a finger, signaling me to wait, then pushed it open.
A dusty breeze spilled out, the air cool enough to make a mist of the humidity at our feet. “The air-conditioning works,” I whispered. But there were no other sounds, no other smells, no obvious dangers.
When we were certain no one would rush the door, Liam took the first step inside.
I moved to follow him, but the sudden vertigo made the ground shift at my feet, and I put a hand on the doorjamb to steady myself. Maybe I’d have to get used to this new way of wrangling magic, or its aftereffects.
I walked carefully inside, closed the door behind us—and kept a palm on its cold, metal surface to give myself a chance to regroup.
Liam flipped a switch on the wall. There was a momentary buzz, and overhead lights illuminated the space.
“Merde,” he said, staring at the room.
—
Silence fell heavy around us.
“Lock the door,” Liam said after a moment, and I reached out and flipped the lock. I wasn’t entirely sure what we were looking at, but I was pretty sure we didn’t want anyone else walking in.
The interior of the building had been rehabbed, stripped down to concrete floor that had been refinished and glossed and bare walls. There was a small kitchenette along the wall to the right, and a spiral steel staircase that rose to a second floor toward the back.
There were shelves along the other walls. And in the middle of the large space were long tables, stacked with objects, like some kind o
f homegrown museum.
I walked to the closest table, glanced over the objects that filled it. A mask, a dagger, and a book wrapped in black leather. A set of small glass bottles. A large blue-black feather and a carefully folded triangle of white cloth. And that was just a sampling. All four tables, all four shelves, stored the same varied assortment of things.
“Magic,” Liam said.
“Yeah,” I said with a nod, lifting my gaze to the shelves, and realizing exactly what my father had done. “I think this is an archive of magic.”
Magical objects—books, weapons, charms, herbs, statues—filled the room, all of it as contraband in the Zone as magic itself. They hadn’t actually been magical until the Veil had opened, spilling the Beyond’s energy into our world. But after that happened, Containment feared Paras could use the objects against humans. And considering New Orleans’s fascination with ghosts, vampires, and voodoo, there’d have been a lot of them to use.
I picked up a walking stick, similar to the dozens still stocked at Royal Mercantile. Most of the walking sticks in the store had a secret. If this one was here, it probably had a secret, too.
I picked it up, unscrewed the brass end cap. The wood didn’t want to give, and it took a few attempts, but I finally managed to pry it away. I held out a hand, upturned the stick. A small purple bag, a symbol crushed into the old and stiff velvet, fell into my palm.
“Gris-gris,” I said, holding it up so Liam could see. A walking stick with a voodoo charm tucked inside.
I put the pouch and the stick on the table, wiped dust and sweat onto my jeans, but couldn’t erase the tingle of magic. They might not have been magical before, but they were certainly magical now.
“If this is your father’s building, then it’s probably your father’s archive.”
But from where? The Magic Act was broad; Containment confiscated everything that could arguably be magic. They saw crystal balls in glass paperweights, summoning guides in books of ghost stories.
“When the act passed,” I said, “my father cleaned out the store of everything they said was illegal, gave it to Containment. But it was all innocuous.”
Still, I remembered standing with him, watching as Containment burned a pile of books and voodoo “implements” in Congo Square.
“They shouldn’t do this,” he’d whispered, gaze on the licking flames while others cheered. “These things are harmless.”
“These things are dangerous,” I’d said, parroting what they’d told us at school.
“People are dangerous. Guns are dangerous. Knives are dangerous.” My father had been tall, with brown hair and dark eyes. When he’d looked down at me, he’d seemed unbearably sad. “This is a reaction to fear, to the attacks. Even when we’re afraid, we still have to think through what we’re doing. We have to consider the consequences.”
We’d walked away from the fire then, left the crowd to its bloodlust.
“He was in love with New Orleans,” I said. “And he loved objects—was fascinated by their meaning, their history, their symbolism. That’s why I stayed here and kept the store.” I looked back at the table. “If any of these belonged to him, he didn’t tell me about it. He certainly didn’t tell Containment about it.”
“If he’d gotten these things from anyone else, surely they’d have come back,” Liam said. “Cleaned up, or added things, or taken them back.”
I nodded. It was a miracle the place hadn’t been looted. I swiped a finger of dust off the table. Everything looked carefully arranged—carefully curated—but the dust said they hadn’t been touched in a very long time.
I looked back at Liam. “It’s cold in here, and nothing looks dirty, moldy.”
“Dehumidifier and air conditioner,” he said. “Although how that’s been operating for seven years I have no idea. Parts break over time, especially metal parts in New Orleans.”
“Maybe someone checked on it in the meantime.”
“Or maybe it was magicked. This was a big risk,” Liam said, flipping through a book before sliding it back onto a shelf again. He looked back at me, his blue eyes blazing. “He put you at risk. If Containment found this now, they’d destroy it. And then they’d destroy you.”
I walked across the room, stared up at the golden shield that hung from posts there. It was a weapon of the Consularis, heavily engraved and inlaid with metals and symbols in a language I didn’t understand.
I reached out and traced a finger across a deep diagonal dent that ran across the middle of the shield. The metal vibrated softly beneath my fingertips, like an engine hummed beneath it. Magic, alive and well seven years later.
“The walls have to be shielded,” I said, pulling back my fingers and rubbing the sensation from my fingertips. “Wraiths would be swarming outside if they weren’t. They’d be drawn to the magic.” Maybe that was why I’d felt vertigo when I stepped inside.
Liam nodded. “Maybe the same person who shielded the store. More confirmation of your father’s involvement.”
Yeah, it was. And I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
“I’m going to look around,” he said, and walked to the staircase. He took a testing step, bouncing slightly to be sure the steel was sturdy, then circled up into the second floor.
I walked to the kitchenette, opened the refrigerator. It was cool, but empty. Immaculately clean, as was my father’s way. The cabinets were glossy red and slick to the touch. They held a few white cups, a few white plates. The cabinet below it had a small set of pots and pans, still unmarked and unused.
Waiting for someone to use them. Waiting for someone to make this a home.
“There’s a loft up there,” Liam said, footsteps clanging on the metal treads as he came downstairs again. “Bed, bureau. You find anything?”
I closed the cabinet, frowned. “A few cups, a few bowls, a few pans.” I looked back at him. “This place is outfitted like a guesthouse, but it doesn’t look like anyone stayed here.”
Liam nodded, walked to a door on the other side of the room. “Up there, either. It looks untouched. Maybe your dad wanted a hole in case you had to run.”
“Because he was a Sensitive.” Because my very existence—through no fault of my own—was illegal in the Zone. And the possibility existed that someone would figure that out. He probably felt the same.
“Yeah,” Liam said, and opened the door, then closed it again. He must not have found anything interesting.
From my spot in the kitchen, I looked back over the space, realized the tables were perfectly aligned on a couple of large woven rugs, which were placed perfectly parallel to each other, about five feet apart.
This had been a garage, I thought. Maybe it still worked like one. I walked to the far wall, looked over a light switch plate with an awful lot of wide buttons, and pressed one.
“Winning,” I said as the metal plate beneath two of the tables began to rise, lifting them into the air and revealing the empty space beneath.
“Clever girl,” Liam said, walking toward it. He gave the steel rod that supported the plate and tables a solid look before moving to his knees beside it. “And what do we have here?”
“What is it?” I asked, jogging toward him, my eyes widening as he moved aside to let me look.
“Supplies,” he said. The lights above us pooled into the space below the lift, showing crates, boxes, and barrels of food and supplies. Water, dehydrated potatoes, cans of soup and broth, bags of rice and beans.
My stomach growled, and I put a hand against it to silence it.
“Is half of my protein bar the only thing you’ve eaten today?”
“It was my protein bar,” I reminded him. “And yes, but I’m fine. That was a covetous growling.”
Liam made a sound of doubt and sat back on his heels. “There’s got to be a way to get down there. A door, some stairs to the lower level.”
He stood up, offered a hand to help me to my feet. When he pulled me up, we scanned the walls.
“There,” I said, pointing to the narrow door in a corner of the kitchen.
We walked to it, opened it. A narrow set of stairs led into darkness.
Liam found another light and flicked it on, illuminating another set of stairs in corrugated metal. Another testing step—it was wise never to trust old metal in a subtropical zone without testing it first—and we descended.
The air was even cooler down here, the dust just as thick. The scents were different. The first floor smelled more like an antique store than a gas station—dust and must and fiber. The basement smelled more like a museum. Clinical. Sterile.
Everything was organized—cans on shelves, bags on pallets, life vests and backpacks hanging from a pegboard. Stacks of first-aid kits. Bundled and wrapped sleeping bags. Dozens of cases of bottled water, also still wrapped in their plastic sleeves. In one corner, a humming dehumidifier.
My father had collected food, water, and supplies the same way he’d collected magical supplies.
“This isn’t a guesthouse,” Liam said, trailing fingers across the front of a row of canned soups.
“No,” I agreed. “It’s a bunker.”
His voice was soft, and I could feel his eyes on mine. “Did your father ever mention it?”
“No,” I said again, and could hear exhaustion in my voice. I was tired of developments and revelations, and my anger at my father was growing with every one of them. Growing every time I had to wonder why he hadn’t told me about this place, whatever it was.
I walked to the pegboard, unzipped one of four matching camo backpacks. Inside was a bottle of water, two flares, a small first-aid kit, a plastic bag of protein bars. It was a go bag, not unlike the one I had stashed in an armoire in the second-floor storage room. Just in case.
I’d asked him about leaving. One night, when we sat huddled in the downstairs bathroom, all the lights off, all the doors locked, as sirens screamed outside, I’d told him it was insane to stay.