“Stay in our custody for a few days. Let me figure this out,” Victor beseeched. His tone had lost its edge and he seemed conflicted. His inner turmoil didn’t squelch my feelings of betrayal.
“Don’t arrest Savannah,” I said.
Being cuffed and escorted away didn’t quell her defiance at all. “They’d better not arrest—”
“Savannah, stop. I’m fine. You can’t help me if you’re in jail.” I turned to Victor. “I’ll agree to stay in custody, just don’t arrest Savannah.”
Victor nodded once in the direction of the police officer who had cuffed her. He removed them. Keeping his voice even and tepid, Victor continued the conversation he’d started with Savannah earlier. “You are very aware that the rules in the human world apply to us. Levy is a public safety concern and will be contained.”
“Or killed,” the mouthy mage offered. It was the last thing he said before Gareth pushed him so hard he crashed into a wall several feet away.
“I said you were done talking.”
A flash of anger lit Victor’s face. It was safe to say that Gareth’s job security was in question.
“I’ll go. Just let Savannah go.” I turned to Gareth. “I’ll be fine. Find out who’s behind this.”
“It will just be for a few days,” Victor offered. He inched closer to me, his voice a barely audible whisper. “I don’t think it’s you, but I can’t let you stay free. We just need a few days to sort this out.”
I nodded.
CHAPTER 16
If Victor thought I was innocent, he was doing a horrible job showing it. Barathrum was where they kept the most dangerous supernaturals, and I was now being held there along with such luminaries as the Maxwells, the chaos mages. It was like being sentenced to eternal solitary confinement. Each section was a separate multiroom, with a great deal of magic used to keep it secure. Secure for most—Conner apparently didn’t have a problem breaking himself or others out. After eight hours inside, I was convinced that the Maxwells might not have started off as bad as they seemed, but had been driven to madness. It was too quiet and the pulse of strong magic that coated the air irritated me, especially since I was saddled with large iridium manacles that restricted mine. They weren’t fooling around.
Victor was on my list and there weren’t too many things he could do to get off of it. If I’d known this was where they planned to hold me, I’d have railed against it. The silence just gave me more time to think about the situation. I walked along a long hallway with rune-decorated peach-colored walls. The color made it seem less institutional, but the limited space was definitely a reminder. Off to the right was a small room for dining, to the left a larger one, a multipurpose area. There was a TV, exercise equipment, and a flimsy bookshelf with few books on it. The wall coloring was a little cheerier, blue. I assumed it was to give the illusion of being outside. It didn’t.
I went over all the things that had transpired. Someone had used my blood to make the virus. Contrary to what Harrah had believed, I couldn’t have left much of my blood at every scene of battle. But I hadn’t been careful—not as much as I should have been. Familiar magic brushed against my back, and I whipped around and assumed the defensive position with only the manacles available as weapons. Conner stood at the other end of the hallway.
Rolling his eyes, he exhaled a breath of exasperation. “Sometimes I believe you are more savage than woman. I’m still drawn to the idea of taming the savage.”
“Each time we’ve met, you’ve attacked me or tried to make me your consort to be nothing more than an incubator for your self-proclaimed wunderkinds. I think we know who’s the real savage.”
He chuckled, a stormy, bristling sound that definitely put him up there with every super villain imaginable. “So this is where they keep you after you’ve done so much to curry favor with them.” He waved his hand around. “You’re locked in hell.”
“I agreed to be here.”
“Of course. Like a good little Legacy, you do what you think they will want. Someone with your level of magic should never be told what to do. Ever. I wish I could get you to see that. I am not above forgiveness; seeing that you are here, I imagine you see the error of your ways. There are more of us. I guess in your misguided way, you’ve emboldened them.” He smiled, one hand casually placed in his pocket as he maintained a good distance between us. Was he being courteous or did he know that if he came close enough I would strike him?
After several minutes of silence, he closed the distance but left several feet between us. “Savannah is whole again,” he said. “Resourcefulness is what I find most alluring about you.” Turning away from me, he looked farther down the hall, then into the two rooms. I could see his frown in profile; he still had it when he turned in my direction. “Savannah is a woman of great beauty and refinement. Too bad she’s human.”
I started to correct him but decided against it.
He went on, “What if I told you she could come with you if you agreed to join me? She’s proven to be worthy. Would you reconsider?”
“No matter what package you wrap that crap in, it’s still a big heaping pile of compost. I’m never going to agree to kill a bunch of people because you have a distorted, and I might add, possibly clinically insane, delusion of your greatness.”
His typical haughtiness settled casually over the planes of his face. In silence, he studied me. “You do realize you will be rejected by the others. I will see to that. Your blood was found in the virus. The next time it won’t be yours, it will be another’s. One by one, I will force them out. Others won’t be screwing the head of the Supernatural Guild, so they won’t have your advantages. They will turn against other supernaturals. They will side with me, seeing the need to separate.”
“You overlook the reason that the Cleanse failed before. It was because of the humans. Those conditions haven’t changed. Do you think there are fewer people who have some link to the supernaturals? You’ll fail again. I do believe a bomb or being riddled with bullets will be something you can’t walk away from.”
Sizing me up, he said, “You seem to think you have all the answers. Such a problem with youth. I can assure you that I’ve taken precautions as well. It would be good to have you join me, but if you maintain your staunch allegiance to others, then your death is well deserved.”
“You know who’s behind the virus, don’t you?”
He smiled. “Of course. It’s me.” He was lying. Only he would think it was a good idea to take full credit for something so ruthless. There were others. He might have helped with the idea, had a major part in it, but there was more than magic at work. Others were involved. Ironically, the one time I needed him to monologue about his diabolical plans, he chose not to. In a flash of movement, he was just inches from me. When he reached up to touch my face, I blocked his hand.
He spoke softly: “You know you survive because I will it to be.”
He is more than textbook nuts. He’s giving psychotic egomaniacs pause with this behavior.
“Really. Because you seemed to be willing your creatures to kill me and trying rather hard to do it yourself as well.”
“Not once have I doubted your ability to succeed,” he said, giving me a wry smile, “which is why it bothers me that you require so much coercion.”
“Are you on drugs? How many ways must I tell you that I’m not interested? I don’t want your world of solitude, surrounded only by people who believe themselves to be gods. Anyone who agrees with you and is willing to help you suffers from the same delusions of grandeur. What do you think will happen when they grow tired of you being the leader? When they feel they could do a better job? They will come after you. How many times must you fail?”
“Did I fail?” he asked, a brow hitched up in amusement.
I shrugged. “Well, since you were on the floor with your chest sliced open, I’d call it a decisive failure, but then again, I’m sane.”
“You question my sanity, I question your virtue and your intell
igence. We are linked and you chose others. You’re here because—” He turned in time to catch the burst of magic heading in his direction. The mage had another ready, which he shot the moment Conner caught the first. Conner pushed a wave of magic toward him, so strong the walls rumbled and wavered. Conner wore astonished rage as he turned in my direction. “This betrayal will not go unpunished.”
Betrayal? I had no idea what was going on. As defensive magic soared through the air, Conner returned the assault. I picked at the manacles, looking for a weakness in the metal. There wasn’t one. An orange bolt hit me in the chest, throwing me back and knocking the wind out of me. Its currents ran through me as I lay flat on the floor. I’d felt Conner’s magic, and this was similar. I blinked back tears of pain. Pushing up on my elbows to get a look at the assailant, I saw Elijah’s eyes widen and his mouth gape as he realized he’d missed his target. Before he could correct it, Conner returned his assault. Strong, wrathful magic consumed the room, making me feel helpless because I was without mine.
“Levy, give me your hands,” Gareth whispered standing next to me. Behind him were Victor and someone I didn’t recognize, a tall woman with short, dark hair. A dust of reddish brown freckles covered her nose and cheeks. Her oval face and gentle chestnut eyes made her seem warm despite the small frown on her face. Or perhaps it was her magic. It crept over me, ushering me into a false place of tranquility before I completely realized she was doing it. Gathering that the unknown woman was Harrah’s replacement, I inched back away from her.
“Alysa, this is Levy,” Victor offered as Gareth removed the cuffs.
“I told you he would show up,” Alysa said.
Gareth’s features were pinched so tightly, I didn’t see them relaxing anytime soon. “Whether you knew or not, you used her as bait. We both deserved to know.”
The edge to Victor's voice matched Gareth’s: “No one knew but me and Alysa. We needed to keep it that way.”
I couldn’t tell if the flashing colors before me were from the magical battle taking place a few feet away or my anger. They were both violent and tumultuous. Only when I heard Conner gasp and then a thump did I pull my attention from Victor and the fae. Conner was on the ground, stilled. Magic inundated the air, but also the strong scent of metal. Iridium. Several oddly shaped darts were sticking out of him. It wasn’t long before his legs and arms were shackled.
CHAPTER 17
Gareth was still wearing his anger when Victor and Alysa entered Gareth’s office, where I had been taken. Keeping a cautious eye on the fae, I readied my shields in the event that she decided to play games with my mind. I realized she wasn’t Harrah and perhaps wasn’t nearly as fiendish as her predecessor, but she still had the job in public relations, and was charged with maintaining the innocuous image of supernaturals. If one of her first actions was to use me as bait to trap Conner without informing Gareth and me, I wasn’t likely to trust her.
“I apologize for any deception that we had to utilize. Your blood was in fact found after an attack. But based on Conner being at the scene when you were poisoned, I suspected he was involved. We needed to do whatever was necessary to apprehend him.” Alysa started off slowly, her voice mild and gentle, delivering her admission of betrayal with a calmness that entreated understanding. Working in her favor were sincere eyes and a pleasant countenance. She was dangerous. Anyone who held her position couldn’t be too nice and would have to be a masterful liar. Being a fae, she innately had one ability: to manipulate. She could do it to minds and with her appearance. The face she’d chosen worked. She looked innocent, which would belie her nefarious act.
“If you had told me, I would have helped. There was no need to keep me in the dark.”
“Ms. Michaels…or do you prefer Kismet?” she asked, the implication she placed in her words pointing out that I’d lived in two different worlds. I was a Legacy, something no one seemed to be willing to forgive me for. As if I had something to do with it.
“Michaels is fine.”
She nodded. “Ms. Michaels, I am still learning the extent of your capabilities, and from my understanding Conner’s abilities exceed yours. If in fact that was the case, he would have been aware of everything and wouldn’t have stayed.”
“We can’t read minds.”
“Perhaps you can’t and maybe he can’t, either, but we weren’t going to risk it. He’s behind this. We needed to apprehend him. If history has taught us anything, you all are capable of extraordinary magic. As a fae, I can sense a lie, and I can touch the mind and find some information. I can imagine you possess some cognitive ability; after all, you all are the forbears of magic. Am I correct?”
I was having a hard time buying her innocent act, but I had more pressing things to address. The number of people willing to ally themselves with a sociopath who wanted to commit genocide boggled my mind. Humans First were bad, and I hadn’t missed their constant rhetoric, but compared to whatever we were dealing with now, they were harmless.
“The virus was proven to be linked to me?” I inquired.
Victor, Alysa, and Gareth nodded. “Elijah was found to be as well, which is why he was willing to help us. He wasn’t happy with Conner setting him up, too,” Gareth added. “That’s what’s so troubling. I’d implicated the Brotherhood—”
“Trackers,” I corrected Gareth.
Nodding in acknowledgment, he continued, “Trackers. But there are so few now since—the incident.” The incident being that Conner and his acolytes had killed all the Trackers they’d been able to find. I wondered if the one who’d made an attempt on Elijah was one of the few remaining. A person so radicalized that despite the death of the organization’s body, they were the limb that continued to move.
Was Elijah helping the SG a sign of false optimism, something I’d had just weeks ago? It was fading too quickly as I started to believe that humans and supernaturals weren’t going to live in perfect harmony.
Mason knocked on the door and then peeked in. “He’s not talking. Even with the braces on I can’t get anything,” he admitted.
Victor’s gaze slipped in Alysa’s direction. “Would you like to try?”
She smiled. “Of course.”
CHAPTER 18
I made a mental note that wherever Alysa was, I would be nowhere to be found. It took her less than an hour to get the information from Conner. An hour. I was having a hard time deciding which was scarier: Conner willingly giving the information, which surely meant it was a trap, or Alysa being magically strong enough to acquire it from him.
Conner had given a location of where the virus was being made as well as where the artillery was being held. I was confident we would find the next would-be assassins and followers.
My discomfort with Alysa led Gareth and I to take a separate car to the location. The place was exactly what I expected: A large room stocked with ammunition, targets, scopes, and stacks of camouflage clothing. A war room. An empty war room. Weapons in hand, a large group of Supernatural Guild and Federal Supernatural Reinforcement agents went through the building. It was empty. Shifters stood in the middle of the room, brows furrowed, listening for any sound that would give away the locations of the people inside.
“They’re still here,” Gareth whispered. Sai positioned to strike, I listened for whatever he heard.
“Are you sure?” I asked before a blur of camouflage dropped in front of me. I dropped to my knees, the shot he’d fired barely missing me. Glass shattered from the impact of the bullet. They weren’t firing darts with the virus, but actual bullets. A mage behind the shooter hurled magic at him, sending him careening forward. I shifted my weight to get out of his way as he fell facedown on the floor. With a smooth movement, he was handcuffed, had his legs zip-tied together, and was dragged against the floor.
Following the shifters who were tracking the others by scent, we moved outside. Clusters of trees surrounding the building made it difficult to navigate the area, and when a shot zoomed past me, I quickly realized
that was by design. Gareth cursed and fell to the ground, blood spreading over his shirt where the bullet had torn through it. I looked in the direction of the shot and saw the gunner aiming at me. Magic wasn’t faster than a bullet, but it hit him in time to throw off his aim. The bullet grazed my leg and pain lanced through me. It was a hell of a lot better than the bullet going through me.
A deep, threatening voice ordered the assailant to drop his weapon. Another shot was fired off and whizzed past me, followed by a succession of several more. Another man in camouflage dropped to the ground, eyes blank. I turned from the gruesome sight just as one of the virus-filled arrows traveled toward Gareth. I hit it, striking it out of the air with the side of the sai. Another arrow soared and I hit it. Throbs of pain moved through me with each movement. I decided not to spend any more time knocking arrows out of the air. A ball of magic pushed through my sai and hit the shooter hard enough to knock the wind out of him. He gasped for air that didn’t readily come and stumbled back. Before he could react again, three agents had guns trained on him. He gave each gun aimed at him a hard, scrutinizing look before he surrendered. Dropping his weapon, he lowered to his knees and was handcuffed.
Shots being fired, bodies dropping, the rustle of people running through the grass, and sounds of aggression became a collective din that I had to ignore to assess the situation. Gareth had scooted back and was resting against a tree. Before I could start toward him to help, his eyes darted past me and narrowed. Following his gaze, I saw Gordon Lands run out of the armory and throw a bag into the passenger side of a car. Sai in hand, I ran toward him. He was behind the wheel and about to drive off, but I stabbed a twin into one of his back tires and yanked it out. The car sped away but swerved to the side as air gushed out of the tire. Gordon continued to drive until he was riding on the rim. By the time he’d made it to the end of the road, there was a blockade of agents waiting for him.
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