“Okay. You’re fishing for attention. Obviously, you said that because you wanted me to ask what you meant. Because you made it sound like you knew when my time was.”
She lowered her eyes with a smile, nodding. I waited, but she gave me nothing. Just then, a thought hit me out of the blue, likely delayed as a result of my injuries, the tiny prick, and this surprise kidnapping. The ward had gone off at my house.
I hid my reaction well, suddenly very interested in concluding this little chat. I waited patiently, rather than snarking off back and forth.
She tapped her lips thoughtfully, noticing my change in demeanor, if not my anxiety. “So, you do have common sense. A bit,” she teased. I nodded, grinding my teeth. “I’m here to deliver an ultimatum. Imagine my surprise to find out that you are once again a wizard, and thus under my jurisdiction. Especially after that chat we had outside your home when you helped me with Jafar.”
I ground my teeth harder. I hadn’t helped anyone. I had gone against her wishes and murdered him for his crimes. For the crime of working with the Brothers Grimm to take me out in a revenge scheme. Because I had hurt his pride in the past. The Grand Master had inadvertently been kidnapped by my well-meaning friend, and upon her release, had demanded that she handle the justice of Jafar’s failure. Since I had been juiced up on a new power, and no longer a wizard, I had challenged her, and come out on top. I had taken matters into my own hands and murdered the psychopath. Against her wishes.
But I had also shown her that it was the smartest option, rather than her taking Jafar back and having to answer to her other wizards, who would be very interested to know why and how her most trusted Lieutenant had double-crossed her. It also prevented her from having to kill one of her own, which would have hurt her power base with the other wizards. It had been pure politics, but I had won, and she – although knowing I had been right – hadn’t liked it. Not one bit.
Because G Ma liked to get her way.
But I bit my tongue, letting her have her day in court. Well, at least in part. “You sure about the whole jurisdiction thing?” I replied softly, casually, careful not to appear threatening.
She frowned at me, and then shot a look at her Justices, who merely shook their heads in response to her unasked question. They had no idea what I was talking about. She took a few steps closer, studying me. I nodded in invitation. She slowly held out her hand, and closed her eyes. I felt her power touch me. Since I had invited her to look, and it wasn’t an attack, my fisticuffs didn’t block her. A few moments later, she stepped back with a gasp, as I’d known she would.
Because I had a little bit of Horseman in me. “A is for Apocalyptic. B is for Biblical,” I began, but she cut me off harshly, leaning forward so that she was only inches away from my face, staring deeply into my eyes.
“Stop babbling. Explain,” she commanded.
But I really couldn’t. I wasn’t quite sure why the power tainted me, because I hadn’t accepted the job. Nevertheless, something about merely being offered the job had marked me with potential, and in the magical spectrum, potential for power… stained things. So, I had a certain stink about me.
Horseman of the Apocalypse stink.
“I’m just lucky, I guess,” I finally said.
“But you are no longer a Maker. Even now I can sense the break. Cleanly severed. But the trace remains. What in blazes are you?”
I blinked. “What?” I still had Maker taint on me? I had only meant for her to see the Horseman thing. “But… that’s impossible.”
I was getting really sick and tired of this shit…
Chapter 8
She sounded amused. “Don’t get excited. The power is truly dead and gone inside you. Merely a decayed tree stump. But it…” I could see her searching for words. “Left behind some furniture before it moved out.”
“Oh,” I breathed in relief. “Okay. That’s better, I guess.”
She was nodding, pacing around me. “Just stained from your brief contact with it, most likely. I’ll admit, I hadn’t anticipated sensing any of it on you. But it will all be gone soon.” She completed her circle, eyes seeming to see my soul. “You thought I was referring to the other thing.”
I nodded, glad she had picked up on it. I thought my alphabet recital had made it pretty obvious. “Exactly. Which is why we should just wrap this up really quick—”
“The world does not need another Horseman. We already have Four,” she murmured to herself, thinking, taking on a scholarly tone. “Why would we need a Fifth? The texts do not speak of such a thing.”
I shrugged, mildly curious why she had been so nervous about the Maker thing if she had known about my possible Horseman power. “No idea. I guess they saw talent. Point being—”
“Point being, I should just leave you here to die. The world will have enough chaos and carnage without a fledgling Horseman mucking things up. I don’t think anyone would object to my decision.” She wasn’t smiling.
“I would raise my hand to object, but…” I shook the chains, arching a brow at her. She sighed, and nodded at the chains. They instantly released my wrists and zipped into the air, hanging suspended between us, like a coiled snake ready to strike. I stared at her, ignoring the snake chain as I stood. She smiled.
“Precautions…” she said softly.
“Okay.” I shrugged, the heat from the sun beginning to burn my bare shoulder where the Justice had ripped off my sleeve. “I get that. Now, you mentioned something about an ultimatum. Seeing as how I’m not a wizard. Well, not just a wizard, I think you see how that won’t really work out between—”
“We are going to kill all of the students in the school.”
I blinked. “You might be new to this, but negotiations usually start out differently. Because that’s a horrible idea.” She didn’t react at all. “They’re innocent,” I began, knowing that she had the strength, backing, and ability to do exactly what she said.
“It is necessary. We can’t have a colony of shifters loose in your city. Too much chance for error. If they overwhelmed your Beast Master, your city would suffer consequences the likes of which haven’t been seen for centuries. I will not allow that. Because that would indirectly lead the world to learn that magic is very, very real.”
“Right. Well, we have a Daywalker, a Beast Master, an Alpha werewolf, an Angel…” I trailed off. “Look, it’s easier to list who we don’t have helping keep this thing from going belly up. Your goons tried to prove a point today. But they failed. Suffice it to say, I won’t allow anything like that to happen again.” I paused. “To my city.” I took a step closer to the coil of chain, not even sparing it a glance as I met her eyes. “Or to the children. They are victims. They didn’t ask to be kidnapped, tortured, brain-washed, and then killed.”
“I sympathize with that. But the fact remains.” Her face hardened, considering consequences, blocking out any sympathy. “They are unbelievably dangerous.” Then I caught a flash of anger erupt in those eyes as she continued. “And you should know that bringing up your list of acquaintances does not help your cause. It’s akin to one nation showing another nation their vast array of nuclear weapons while explaining how peaceful they are…” I swallowed. I hadn’t thought about it like that. “One such group was founded in a very similar way,” she added in a low tone, too quiet for her Justices to hear.
I leaned forward, suddenly interested. This was new. She could see the question on my face, but she didn’t speak, only let out a final grimace of disgust.
“Fine. Don’t share. Let’s skip the games. First comes the part where I stupidly ask you to help. You know, the whole point of the Academy in the first place. To help magical creatures. Then you say you can’t, or won’t because blah, blah, blah, aren’t we great?” I leveled her with a judgmental glare. “But I’m still going to pretend you have a heart in that old, desiccated, flesh-suit you call a body, G Ma.”
The Justices went rigid, prepared to do whatever they could against me. I flung u
p a hand at them, and nothing happened. Right, they were blocking my magic. One of them snickered. I scowled at him. “Why don’t you try throwing magic at me so I can snicker back, douchebag?” I folded my arms and began tapping my foot. “I’ll wait.”
He folded his arms, but I could imagine him grinding his teeth behind his mask.
“See how unproductive that is?” I rounded on the Grand Master. “Well?”
She looked furious, but let out a frustrated breath. “We don’t have the resources to aid you.” If she had said it in any other tone, I would have mocked her up, down, left, right, and center. But she looked as if she was swallowing a live eel.
“Explain.”
She began to pace, that coil of chain slithering through the air between us, keeping me in line. “When you unveiled Jafar’s betrayal, we did some digging. We found… veracity to your claims about the demon incursion as well as the Grimm ordeal. And we found… many others complicit in aiding him. In fact, we found more than we had feared. In our worst nightmares.” She flicked her gaze briefly at the Justices.
I slowly turned to look at them with a frown. Then I remembered that the last few times I had run into them… there had been a lot more than three. “You’re not saying that this is all you have left of the Justices, are you?”
She scoffed. “Of course not.” But it sounded a little too immediate and rehearsed. She let out a sigh as I stared at her, waiting. “But it is accurate to say that where before you saw seven, now there are three. Statistically speaking.”
I gasped in disbelief. “You’re saying that more than half of the Justices were in on it?”
She nodded in resignation. “Maybe not fully aware of the big picture, what they were truly doing, but, yes. They were all helping the other team. And not just the Justices. Many other… departments were infested.”
“Holy crap…” I murmured.
“Which brings me back to my earlier statement. There is another party at play, and we don’t have the numbers left to spread ourselves so thin.”
My mind raced. They were speaking of… “The Syndicate…” I whispered.
She flinched, pinning me with her gaze. “What?” Her body was entirely too still, and I suddenly felt waves of power gathering around her. A lot of power. “Where did you hear that name?”
“That’s what you’re talking about, right? The Syndicate. It’s what they go by.”
She stared at me incredulously, and then let out a very amused laugh, releasing her power. “The Syndicate was destroyed decades ago. Their name struck from the books. Before you were born. Hell, before I was born. Did your reputable father steal a book with mention of them or something?” she asked, sarcastically. “And like the wise wizard you are, you have attributed this to these Boogeymen?” she chuckled, shaking her head. “Whatever you think you know is false.”
You may think I lashed out at her mockery of my father. Or at her mockery of me. But I didn’t. Because underneath her harsh words, I sensed a very deep well of concern. She was using words as a coping mechanism. That word had bothered her on a level that things typically never reached.
I grew very, very uneasy. But I needed to tell her the truth. “I… have reason to believe that they are alive and well,” I said softly, pulling the napkin from my pocket. “Not as reputable as a stolen book, but much more recent…” The end of the message had been destroyed, leaving only the #Syndicate part.
I showed it to her. She shook her head, looking amused as she entertained my delusion and accepted the napkin. She began to read it with a dismissive scan, but froze, rereading it much more intently a second time. Her hands began to shake, and all traces of humor were suddenly gone as if they had never existed, her coping mechanisms firmly obliterated. “None should even know of this name. It’s an extremely well-kept secret. Which means…” her hands began to shake slightly. “They never really left…” she sounded stunned, terrified, and very, very angry. “And they left you, specifically, a message…” her eyes were pits of merciless hatred as she inclined her head. “Where did you get this?” she whispered.
“At the Gala. Someone—”
“You invited them to your Gala?” she roared, eyes flickering with fire.
“No! They dru—”
“You’re working with them!” she continued, not listening to me. “We will destroy you and everything you hold dear! The school will be ashes. I will not let the Syndicate get their hands on them or your other allies!”
And the world abruptly erupted in fire, the sky blackening as fiery red bolts of tree-trunk-thick lightning began hammering into the salt flats, racing towards us. The Justices and G Ma disappeared rather than risking their lives in the oncoming inferno.
Now, my fisticuffs are good, but I wasn’t about to test them against the full outrage of the Academy’s Grand Master.
And since they had fled in such a rush, one of them forgot to maintain my ward.
And I suddenly had access to my magic again.
As the lightning from hell raced my way, I ripped a hole open in the air with a hasty Gateway, and threw myself through without looking, gasping as the air of the salt flats filled with fire and ashes. I landed on thick carpet, instantly releasing the Gateway behind me, panting as I sucked in cool, clean air. A furry face head-butted me from inches away, purring like a locomotive, and I cried out in surprise.
But it was just Sir Muffle Paws. My cat. I was back in Chateau Falco. The carpet near my feet smoldered where some of the lightning must have snuck through. I blindly reached up to dump a glass of whatever was handy onto the embers.
It was alcohol, of course, causing the entire rug to burst into flame.
Sir Muffle Paws hissed and bolted as I yelped, scooting my bare ass away quickly.
I jumped to my feet, fumbled with a vase of roses, and dumped them on the flames, stamping out everything that steamed or smoked.
Dean burst into the room, a feather duster in one hand and a pistol in the other, ready to domesticate or decimate, I wasn’t sure.
“Master Temple, is anything amiss?” he asked, pointing both weapons at the steaming rug.
“Alcohol is flammable,” I mumbled, trying to gather my thoughts.
He inclined his head to look at me for a moment, frowning. “Science is fascinating, is it not?” and then he turned away, calling over his shoulder. “Your fiancée came by earlier to pick up some things. Some things that weren’t hers to pick up. You should have been here to stop her.”
My heart stopped.
Indie? She had been the one trying to break my ward? I opened my mouth to press Dean for an explanation. But he was gone.
Fucking butlers.
I raced after him.
I was terrified at how badly my meeting with the Academy had gone. Now they thought I was part of the Syndicate, and would do anything to stop me. Including killing all my friends.
And judging by the napkin, the Syndicate wanted a little vengeance for my past attacks, even though it had been a long time since id heard from them.
Both parties had shown up at the Gala to fuck everything up. But who had fire-face worked for? The portly dude was obviously Academy, and the young, dark-haired server had been Syndicate, leaving me the note. I had once heard that embers and sparks revealed evidence of the Syndicate, but I hadn’t seen any today. I let out an angry breath, promising myself I would find out. After this home-invasion issue.
Because love conquers all.
My ex-fiancée was back in town, trying to break into my house and steal my stuff.
Chapter 9
Dean sighed, apparently more interested in dusting than explaining what had happened when the wards had alerted me. He began ticking off points as if reading a to-do list. “No serious injuries at the Gala, just some very angry attendees. Tory woke up, was told some news about Yahn that she wasn’t happy about.” Fucking loose-lipped vampires, I silently seethed. “She would like to speak with you tomorrow,” Dean continued. “Miss Rippley came,
she saw, she was vanquished.”
“Yeah, about that last part. Let’s get more detail.”
Mallory spoke up. “Indie tried to take your damn book, had her fingers almost blown off, and then she left. After the Guardians gave her a polite message. They almost tore her to shreds. Of course, she took many down with her.” He leveled accusatory eyes on me. “And the mansion did nothing. At all. Not even a purr.”
For reasons I was entirely unaware of, my house was alive. Or it harbored a Beast of its own. Possessed. But it was friendly to me. In fact, it obeyed me. Not because it had to, but because it had deemed me worthy. Which was kind of cool. And very terrifying.
I dropped my eyes. “Yeah. I…” I let out a guilty breath. It was my fault. I hadn’t informed my house to mark her as an intruder. Because I harbored the hope that every crime she had committed with Ichabod had been under duress. But deep down I knew better. I should have told the House to keep her out. With extreme prejudice. But it had been almost a year since I’d heard from her, and our last meeting hadn’t been too great. Meaning, she had tried to kill my friend.
I had no excuse. Only… misguided hope.
As if on cue, Death came striding inside. “What the devil happened here?”
“That’s saying a lot coming from you, Horseman,” Mallory grouched.
Death sneered at him. “Want to share fireside stories, Old One? I think I have a really good one for Nate. He probably hasn’t heard it yet…”
Mallory muttered something unpleasant under his breath, but he did back down.
Death grunted in satisfaction before turning back to me. “I love the project car in your driveway. Billionaire meets white trash lawn ornaments.” He smiled, and I noticed Dean dusting more forcefully, also angry about the totaled car in the drive.
“Afternoon appointment went FUBAR,” I replied distractedly.
He chuckled, waving a hand. “So, Hope led you astray… Ah, Irony…”
I threw my cup at him. He dodged it effortlessly. “Be useful, or get out. So, I have a blind spot. Sue me.” He had once referred to me as the Horseman of Hope. A Fifth Rider.
Tiny Gods: A Nate Temple Supernatural Thriller Book 6 (The Temple Chronicles) Page 5