“No, it’s not. Hang on a sec, I’m gonna call in to get you some directions. Not sure exactly the best route…” He was reaching into his pocket for his phone or his radio, and she couldn’t let him give away the fact that she’d escaped.
“You know what?” she said, inching forward. The exit was six, maybe seven feet away, and all that was standing in between her and it was this guard. He was stocky, mid-forties, with skin the color of fresh-brewed coffee and piercing hazel eyes that gave away his status as a shifter of Clan Felidae. He was very close to being another person, just in the wrong place at the wrong time. “It’s okay, it’s a nice morning, I’m sure I can find it on my own.”
But it wasn’t a nice morning. It was the kind of morning that was cool, but somehow still managed to be humid, overcast and somewhat hazy. And the guard knew, then, who and what she was, and had his weapon trained on her in an instant. “Now hang on a second there, miss,” he said, arching one eyebrow up high over the other. “I’m thinking that maybe you’re the lady that got locked up the other night, and somehow you wriggled your way free.”
Viola batted her lashes, clinging fiercely to a ruse that she had hoped would get her out of this precise situation. She didn’t want to kill this man. But she would. “What are you talking about, locked up? Is this a prison?”
“No, but…” He narrowed his eyes at her and took the safety off of his pistol. She raised her hands slowly into the air in front of her. “What’s your name?”
“Debbie Saltzman,” she said, picking a name out of thin air as quickly as she could.
“Identification?”
“I haven’t got any. My purse — that’s why I’m looking for building 228. I was… well… I was with this guy last night and I probably shouldn’t have been — you know how that goes. Well, anyway, I woke up this morning and thought to myself, Debbie, you have just got to get yourself out of here as quick as possible. And wouldn’t you know it? I left my purse behind, cell phone and everything. Thank God I remember the building number. Hopefully the apartment number is somewhere in this head of mine as well.” The lie left her lips as easy as any truth, and Viola swallowed hard, waiting to see what the guard would do.
He hesitated, and she tensed her muscles, waiting for him to give her any indication that he didn’t buy her story. Because if he didn’t, she’d spring into action, and she was a trained assassin. She wondered if the guard knew that. Canting her head to the side, she locked her gaze on his, a gaze that challenged him to make a move.
“Debbie Saltzman,” he echoed.
“That’s me,” Viola said flatly, staring. Her expression sent a shiver up his spine. He knew. And she could tell that he knew.
“I’m sorry, Miss Saltzman,” he said, taking a few steps forward. “But I’m not supposed to let anyone on or off the premises.”
“More’s the pity,” she said, heaving a sigh. “Ah, well.” And with that she dove forward, dropping down into a crouch and jabbing the heel of her hand directly into one of his kneecaps with such force that it knocked him off balance. With a wail, he went down, squeezing the trigger of his gun as he went so that it sent a bullet to ricochet off of the concrete walls. Instinctively, Viola’s hands went up to shield her head, but she was faster than him, and she snatched the gun that had fallen just out of his grasp when he fell. She rolled out of reach and jumped up to her feet, cradling the pistol in both hands as she aimed it down at his skull.
The guard was scrambling to his knees when she pulled back the hammer and peered down the sights at him. He was beginning to lift his hands over his head.
“Please, don’t kill me,” he stammered. He was aging, and obviously not important enough to the clan to have a very distinctive position within it. Perhaps the clan meant as much to him as he did to it.
“Would you have afforded me the same courtesy if our roles were reversed?” she asked, pressing forward.
He sniffed, his eyes welling with tears he refused to let himself shed, and shook his head. “No.”
“I didn’t think so.” She should just kill him. It was what she did, wasn’t it?
But no, she wasn’t a Somnus Sacrae agent any longer. She was no longer the cats’ trained killer. Everything could be different now. “Give me your phone and your radio,” she said, and he obliged, plucking the items out of his pockets and sliding them across the pavement to her feet. “Oh, and your money. I’m starving and I need a cab.” She tilted her head to the side. “Do you have a car?”
“Yes.”
“Car keys, too.” Wallet, keys, all of it, right at her feet. She smiled: her day was beginning to turn around. She crouched down and swept the items up, shoving the wallet and the radio and the phone into the pockets of her jeans until they were stuffed to bulging. She pressed the unlock button on the key fob and was pleased to hear a little chirping sound directly behind her. “What’s your name?”
“Daniels,” he said. “Anthony Daniels.”
“Well, Anthony Daniels,” she said, taking a few steps back. “Today is your lucky day. Now, it’s time for you to run. Run all the way home, Anthony Daniels, and never come back to this place.”
Anthony Daniels scrambled to his feet and darted out the front of the parking garage. Just as he reached the corner, Viola saw him shift, until a black cat sprang out of a puddle of his clothes and disappeared into the morning.
Heaving a sigh, Viola spun around and found his car, a 2013 Toyota Camry in black. Plain, responsible, perfect for her purposes. She climbed in, tossing the gun, wallet, phone, and radio onto the passenger seat, and started the car. Indie rock radio began to play, and she shifted into drive, ramming the guard rail until the wood splintered and gave way, and she was free to drive out onto the streets, past a black cat that sat and watched her from the sidewalk.
***
It would impress no one to learn that her first stop was to a McDonald’s drive-through for an iced coffee and an Egg McMuffin, but to expect her to proceed without caffeine on an empty stomach seemed like the height of folly. She sat in the parking lot with her food, sipping intermittently from the giant plastic cup while she tried to think of what her next move ought to be. Don’t go home, Rowan had said, and that seemed prudent. But she had to see Verity. She had to make sure that she was all right, that Clan Felidae hadn’t turned on her when they’d thrown Viola in prison. Yes, she needed to get to the hospital, and she needed backup.
She snatched Anthony Daniels’ smartphone from off of the seat next to her and opened a Safari browser window, into which she typed “Graham McCallum Contact Information.” The results showed a number, which was obviously his office, and she clicked on it, initiating a call.
Immediately, an answering service clicked on: You have reached McCallum Incorporated. Our business hours are eight a.m. to six p.m., Monday through Friday. If you know your party’s extension, please enter it at any time. For our subsidiaries, please press one. For our directory, please press two—
And she pressed two. The names in the directory seemed to scroll on forever before she finally got to Graham. She entered in his extension number, and a wave of relief swept over her, even from the sound of his recorded voice on his voicemail: You’ve reached Graham McCallum. I’m not available to take your call, but if you leave your name and contact number, I will get back to you as soon as I am able.
“Graham,” she said as soon as the beep indicated it was her turn to speak, “it’s Viola. I need to speak with you but I can’t go home. You can call me at… shit. Um. Hang on. I don’t know the number…” She looked up Anthony Daniels’ number in the settings of his phone: “Um, 919-763-0090. Until the battery dies, that is. Thanks. Call me. It’s important. Okay, bye.”
Then, she sat there for an hour, wondering why her message had been half important business and half heart-struck teenager. But when a full hour had passed and her iced coffee was gone and her Egg McMuffin had long been consumed, she pulled out of the McDonald’s parking lot and used the GPS to
find her way to the hospital.
CHAPTER 3
Bigby-Archer Memorial Hospital was a sprawling mass of modern architecture, with wings that spread out like the tentacles of an octopus from a pulsing oculus center, full of cameras and security. It had the added bonus of being within walking distance of the St. James Academy, so Verity could enjoy visits from the nuns that worked there and had raised her and Viola, as well as some of the school chums she’d made who had stuck around. Viola hadn’t made any school chums; Viola often remarked how nobody liked her very much, except for Verity.
It was always obvious that they were sisters, and they had, on more than one occasion, been mistaken for twins. But Verity was the softened version of Viola. They shared the same stark coloring: ink-black hair that fell in gentle curls over their slender shoulders; skin pale and unblemished as fresh milk; eyes the limpid blue of a summer sky. But Verity’s kindness and sweet disposition warmed her features, and Viola always looked rather severe next to her. Viola was kept sharp by a kind of perversity, her insistence on living a life outside the norm and keeping most people at a comfortable arm’s-length distance. Perhaps it was the illness, but Verity was open wide to life and experience and any person who showed the slightest bit of interest in her. She had an endless supply of love to give, and she would look at her companions when they spoke as though they were the only other people in the entire universe. It was addictive, the weight of her attention.
Verity had lost her virginity before Viola had, despite being two years her junior. Verity had snuck into the boys’ dorm one night at St. James when she was fourteen years old, and then had crept silently back. Viola had stirred when her sister returned, and Verity had climbed into bed with her sister and whispered the whole story into her ear: his name had been Martin, he had been fifteen, he had put his hands on her face and told her she was the loveliest creature in the world. She had opened herself to him with a dozen other boys sleeping all around them.
And when Viola entered her sister’s room at Bigby-Archer, she had to agree with that young boy: Verity was the loveliest creature in the world.
Verity was sitting up in bed, reading a book in a beam of morning sunlight. She didn’t stir right away when Viola entered the room, didn’t register her presence for several moments. But when she did, her face glowed with the force of her happiness. “Viola!”
“Hello, sweet girl.” Viola strode into the room, a sleek and modern corner suite with floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides, and climbed onto the bed with Verity, who immediately encircled her in her thin, sleep-weak arms. “How are you?”
“I’m fine,” she said, and pressed a flutter of kisses to her forehead. “What are you doing here so early?”
What a question. “I’ll tell you all about it, I promise. But first, I need the full update.” This was always phase one of garnering as much information as possible about Verity’s condition. Typically, she underplayed how things were going, brushing it off as not-as-bad-as-it-sounds. But she also sometimes told her about the stranger symptoms that she didn’t bring up to the doctor. Like how during one attack she had lucid dreams of forests every night for a week before it happened, or how another time all she could stomach to eat was rare steak. Well, Viola thought, it all makes a little more sense now, doesn’t it?
“Oh, everything’s pretty standard,” Verity said. “Medically induced coma to reduce brain swelling. Apparently, it worked, since my brain isn’t leaking out of my ears.”
“Any headaches?”
“Only right before bed at night.”
“Swollen limbs?”
“Nope, not since before the coma.”
“And, like… weird… stuff?” Viola examined her sister’s face, which was pale from lack of sun exposure, but otherwise just as lovely as ever. Verity arched a shoulder in a shrug.
“Not really this time. I’ve been sleeping well, my appetite seems healthy. Mostly, I am just ready to go home, but they want to keep me here til the end of the week.”
“I think that’s best,” Viola said, reaching up to brush a few strands of hair out of Verity’s eyes.
“Ugh,” Verity said, swatting Viola’s hand away, “I don’t. My appetite isn’t the only thing that’s healthy.” Viola furrowed her brow, eliciting a tinkle of laughter from Verity. “My libido…?”
“Ah.” Viola smiled. “I see.”
“But so anyway…” Verity nudged her gently in the ribs with her elbow, trying to catch her gaze. “What’s with the early morning visits, Vi?”
Where did she even want to begin? It was hard to say. All Viola knew is that she wanted to tell Verity everything. The whole sordid story, from start to finish. Verity knew that Viola had been conscripted into the Somnus Sacrae Assassins Guild, knew that she killed people for a living and that it was this line of work that kept Verity in the fine hospitals and seeing the best doctors. And in return, Verity absolved her of her sins, let her come to her bed and lay her head in her lap, and reveal all of the awful stories of the things she had done, so that when it was all over, Verity could gently run her fingers through Viola’s hair and say, “There, there. Everything’s all right. It’s all right.” It didn’t matter what Viola did: Verity loved her anyway, and through that love, she was absolved.
“Well” — Viola took a deep breath — “it all began with a mark, like any other…” And she launched into the story of how Rowan had sent her after Graham McCallum, how McCallum had wooed her and taken her to bed. How she’d felt a closeness with him that she’d never felt with any other man before, but how he had known who she was. She told Verity, swore to the fact, that when she’d attacked McCallum, he had shifted into a Kodiak bear and had begun to rage; how she’d darted, naked, from his home and into Rowan’s waiting arms. How Rowan had tried to calm her, explain everything to her, but how he couldn’t make her understand until he himself had shifted, shifted into a sleek black panther. How he had taken her to meet his father at the clan headquarters, how she had slept for a day, how she and Rowan had made love, and how he’d confessed his affections for her. How Graham and Rowan had confirmed that Viola’s parents had both been shifters, one panther and one bear. How Graham wished to broker a peace. How they had spoken to the council, how the council had seen her as treasonous, how she’d been imprisoned. How Rowan had let her escape, how she’d run, and why she was there, so very early in the morning.
Verity was silent for a long while after the story ended, and it utterly deflated Viola. “You don’t believe me,” she breathed, “do you?”
“Of course I believe you, Vi,” Verity said quietly. “You’ve never ever lied to me. I have no reason to believe that you would start lying to me now.”
“But it explains some things, doesn’t it?” Viola said, bolstered, and shifted so that she was on her knees on the stiff hospital mattress. “Some of your weird symptoms? Maybe this is why you’re sick at all.”
“Sure,” came Verity’s easy reply as she reached out to clutch Viola’s hand. “Maybe.”
“You really don’t believe me.” Viola pulled away and crossed her arms over her abdomen, sulking.
“It’s not that, Vi,” Verity gently intoned. “I believe that you are telling me what you know to be the truth. I’m just… wondering about the origins of that truth.”
“Oh my God, you think I’m crazy!”
“Well… can you blame me?” Verity had a desperate sort of expression on her face, and it mirrored Viola’s. She hadn’t considered the possibility that Verity would question her story, even once. Now, she thought, that made her crazier than anything else did. Of course Verity would question the insanity Viola had just revealed: she’d be mad not to.
Viola heaved a sigh and hauled herself up off of the bed. “Where are you going?” Verity demanded.
“I just want to talk to your doctor,” she said, “that’s all. Then I need to figure some stuff out.”
“You aren’t mad at me?” Verity asked.
“No, sweet girl
. I get it.” Viola leaned over and kissed Verity’s forehead before turning around and exiting the room, heading down toward the nurses’ station. They knew her there. They knew that the term “visiting hours” didn’t apply to her, and that she would come and go as she pleased, and that her sister, their patient, was always better off when she did.
Viola’s favorite nurse was on, and she spied her full mass of blond curls even from down the hall. She couldn’t help but smile as she approached, and the nurse, one Winifred Caplan, came out from behind the nurses’ station to throw her arms around Viola’s neck.
“Ain’t you a sight for sore eyes,” Winnie said in her languid drawl. Viola grinned down into her cherubic face: Winnie was a solid five inches shorter than Viola, and plump where Viola was all angles. Winifred had big brown eyes, the color of sunlight coming in through a crystal glass full of port, and pert cupid’s bow lips, and eyelashes that went on for days. Viola and Verity had both immediately warmed to her.
“It’s good to see you too, Winnie.”
“Was wonderin’ when you’d get your little butt back here,” she drawled, poking at Viola’s ribs before moving back around to fetch Verity’s chart.
“Been busy,” she muttered. “Work.”
“Mmhm.” Winnie flipped through a few pages, nodding her head, then angled that warm pair of eyes on Viola. “She’s doing well. That’s the good news — the swelling went down at about the pace we anticipated. She’s healthy — her appetite is strong, she seems antsy, eager to get out.”
“What’s the bad news, then?” Viola inquired, crossing her arms in front of her.
“The bad news is that there ain’t been any real long-term improvement. She’s exactly the same as the last time she was in, and the time before that, and the time before that.”
“What doctor is she working with right now?” Verity had seen every doctor within a hundred-mile radius; Viola could hardly keep them all straight.
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