Thea didn’t take it as a slight. Plenty of people were coming in just to snag a piece of cake before rushing back to their desks. She stepped back against the wall with her own piece, poking at the frosting.
Graves came over and touched the amulet—the mark of a full fury—Thea now wore on a leather thong around her neck. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you.” Thea regarded Graves calmly, although her belly was roiling with suspicion. “By the way, what ever happened with that lead in North Dakota? Or was it Montana?”
He smiled at her. “Didn’t pan out.” She noticed he didn’t specify which state it was. Probably he had already forgotten his story. “But don’t worry. We won’t give up. Chances are she’ll come home on her own before too long, anyway.”
Thea raised an eyebrow at him. Did he really think Flannery might come home soon? Did that mean they were finished with her?
Graves waved to someone across the room, maybe because he really wanted to say hello, or maybe because he just wanted to pretend not to see Thea’s doubtful look. When he turned back to her, he changed the subject. “Now then, when do you go into your exploratories?”
“Tomorrow.” Thea was due to start first thing in the morning on a series of what Alecto had called exploratory meetings with the departments of Hexing House. She would talk to a representative from each, answer their questions, and after she’d seen everyone, the departments interested in hiring her would make offers.
“Any ideas on where you’d like to land?”
“I’m interested in RDM.” She wasn’t really, but she wanted to see how Graves would react to the idea of her joining the same department where Hester worked. The department he’d once been head of.
His face didn’t change. “Interesting. Not Infliction? Everyone always says their first choice is Infliction.”
Thea shrugged. “I hear it’s the most highly paid. But I’m not that crazy about travel.”
“Well, if RDM is what you want, you’d better have a backup plan,” Graves said. “I happen to know they don’t have openings right now. You’d have to really impress Maggie for her to squeeze in a position for you.”
Well, you’re being awfully discouraging. Could it be you have a reason for wanting to keep me out of RDM?
Graves started to say something else, but was interrupted by a shout from outside. Or at least, it started as a shout. Then it became some shouts. Pretty soon everyone seemed to be shouting, barking orders at one another, mainly to do with fetching Langdon.
People were rushing for the doorway. Thea started forward, but Graves touched her elbow and gestured at a side exit that seemed to be neglected by the herd. As a result, they came around to the front of the building at a different angle from the gathering crowd, and Thea was able to get a clear view of what had everyone so worked up.
A fury, twitching but otherwise unconscious, was lying on the front steps, which she’d apparently been crawling up. Her dark hair was matted with blood, and her fingers were thick with it. Thea wasn’t close enough to tell for sure, but it looked like she was missing some claws. She was sprawled on her side, one arm outstretched so that Thea got a good look at the turquoise bracelet that circled her wrist.
It was Hester.
The crowd closed in, and Thea soon lost her view in all the commotion. But not before she noticed something that maybe only a country girl, and a native to the area, would have given any thought to: mud, all over Hester’s shoes and the hem of her pants. Red mud, and several river birch leaves stuck to one ankle.
The weather had been dry for several days. Thea was willing to bet that Hester had been down by the Prescott river, which wound its way, partly parallel to the road, down the west side of the campus and out toward Aunt Bridget’s farm.
Alecto and a couple of security guards came swooping in. They got the crowd to back off, while Langdon bent over Hester.
Cora came rushing up to Thea. “Do you think this has anything to d—”
“I don’t know,” Thea interrupted. She tossed her head back to where Graves was standing. It looked like he was out of earshot, but she couldn’t be sure.
Cora got the message. She nodded and stood quietly beside Thea as they watched two furies fly off in the direction of the Wellness building, carrying Hester between them on a stretcher. Langdon followed. Alecto stood on the steps and started whistling, louder than Thea had ever heard anyone whistle, until the crowd quieted.
“Obviously this is upsetting, but I need you to go about your business,” Alecto shouted. “Having you all tramping and buzzing around can only impede any investigation we can do here. As soon as I know more, you’ll know more.”
To Thea’s surprise, everyone obeyed almost immediately. She and Cora moved slowly in the direction of the Tech building until they were out of Graves’s line of sight.
“Where to first?” Cora asked under her breath.
“Wellness,” said Thea, although she knew it was probably hopeless. “But if we can’t see Hester, we’ll try the river.” She quickly explained to Cora what she’d seen on Hester’s clothes.
As expected, when they got to Wellness, there were two guys from Security standing out front, and one circling the building in the air.
“We need to keep the building clear,” the airborne one said to them. “Unless you’ve got an emergency.”
Thea and Cora thanked him and flew off toward the residences first. When Thea was pretty sure nobody was watching them, she changed course and sped up, heading for the bend in the river that came closest to campus.
They flew out over the highway, then dipped lower to the ground so they could follow the river. They went a few miles up one bank and down the other, flying slowly so they wouldn’t miss anything, before Cora suggested—without much delicacy, as was her way—that it was a lost cause and a waste of time. Thea had to agree. There were footprints, but of course there were. Dozens of hunters, children, fishermen, and hikers used this land. It was a long river, and the chances of them finding anything were small, unless they had some idea of what to look for.
As they flew back over the campus fence, Thea hesitated, then changed direction. Cora shouted something, no doubt along the lines of where the hell are you going now, but she followed.
The river wasn’t the only place Thea could search for clues. She flew down into the forest, where the impediment of the trees forced her to land and go on foot.
“You’re looking for the cabin, I take it?” Cora asked. Thea had told her the whole story that morning, the first time she’d seen Cora since she’d gotten her wings.
“There might be some evidence there,” Thea said.
“What kind of evidence?”
“I have no idea. But I can’t just sit around waiting to see if Hester dies and if me or my cousin will be next. I need to find out who’s doing all this, and why.”
Cora nodded. “Well, come this way. I remember there being a few outbuildings on this side.”
They found the cabin a few minutes later, and as it turned out, there was some evidence there, of a sort.
Mr. Fanatic was wandering near the building, sewing the ground with salt and loudly quoting scripture. He froze when he saw them, then his face crumpled. For a second, Thea thought he was going to cry.
Instead he shouted, “Harlots!”
Thea’s first reaction was Oh good, he calls everyone that. He didn’t know about me.
“Give it to me! Give it back!” Mr. Fanatic rushed forward, but Thea stood her ground. She was equipped with claws now. She hardly needed to fear one crazy man, even if he was on the large side. It was a wonderful feeling.
He stopped in front of her, his bloodshot eyes wide with rage and terror.
“Give what back?” Thea asked. “What did you lose?”
“Didn’t lose anything.” He gestured wildly at nothing in particular. “Taken. Stolen. The demons stole my blood!”
Mine too, buddy. “Why would they do that?”
“They
need the blood of the righteous, that’s why!”
Nope, somehow I don’t think that’s it.
“I can’t let them keep it,” Mr. Fanatic went on. “I can’t let them use my blood.” He reached back his arm, as if to slap her.
Cora grabbed his wrist. Mr. Fanatic’s screams came back threefold. It was like he’d been touched with hot iron.
“Take your hands off me, demon!” He jumped back into a tree and fell. As Thea and Cora stepped forward to help him, Mr. Fanatic skittered away from them, reaching into his pocket for a cross he then held up. All the while screaming about demons and harlots and the apocalypse.
“Who took your blood?” Thea asked. “When did they take it? Where did this happen? Was it another fury, like us? With long black hair?”
But it was no use. If he’d ever had the ability to speak coherently—which Thea rather doubted—he’d lost it the second Cora had touched him.
While he continued to rave, Mr. Fanatic waved his cross and, after a while, took a vial of what Thea supposed was holy water from his pocket and splashed it around.
“They want them for themselves,” was one of the few intelligible things Thea caught. “But they won’t use the seven bowls against the righteous. The righteous will use the seven bowls against them. We will smite the demons.”
After that it was mostly repetition of the word smite. Cora showed some inclination to beat the man into submission, but Thea held her back and shook her head. “Let’s just get him off the campus,” she said. “He’s told us what we need to know.”
Cora looked at her like she was crazy, but helped her fly Mr. Fanatic—wrenching and screaming and actually, at one point, trying to bite them—off the Hexing House grounds. They deposited him outside the gates. Thea didn’t like just leaving him there, but he didn’t seem inclined to tell them where he lived. He still held his cross, but seemed to have dropped his bag of salt and bottle of holy water. When they left him, Thea flew back to the cabin and picked both up.
“What do you want those for?” Cora asked.
“Holy water,” said Thea. “There’s a little left. And I’ll bet you the salt is blessed. It’s an old tradition, for warding off evil. I don’t think many priests do it anymore. Probably hard to find.”
“What do you need blessed salt for?” Cora asked.
Thea sighed. “If what he said meant what I think it meant, it can’t hurt.”
“What he said made no sense.”
But it had, to Thea. Hers had been a Bible-reading house, and after the incident with Mr. Delacroix, when the extent of Thea’s powers became obvious, it only became more so. It seemed the women in Thea’s family often had such abilities. But Thea’s mother did not. She regarded them as gifts from the devil, and was convinced that the Lord had put her in that family to stamp out the evil from within. Some of her methods of stamping were terrifying. Some were excruciating. But some were just reading scripture.
Thea had read Revelation enough times to know what the seven bowls meant. And it wasn’t anything good.
She and Cora flew back to Thea’s residence to talk. “Okay,” said Cora as she collapsed onto the couch. “Tell me what Mr. Fanatic was talking about.”
Thea sat beside her and sighed. “The seven bowls,” she said. “It’s in the Bible. They’re plagues—weapons—given to the angels to be used against the wicked. During the apocalypse, this is.”
“But he thinks we’re demons, trying to take this weapon to use against the righteous instead? Oh, and that it somehow relates to his blood being stolen. And that makes sense to you?”
“He wasn’t the only one whose blood was stolen.”
“Right, I know, but you seem to think it all fits together. I still see nothing but a bunch of disjointed pieces.”
“Graves wanted me here awfully badly,” Thea said. “He kept talking about my natural aptitudes and talents. And maybe I was unusual, for a human, but I only have one talent that furies don’t seem to be able to train for.”
“Hex resistance.”
“Hex resistance,” Thea repeated, nodding. “And they wanted my blood. And I’ll bet it’s why they wanted Flannery’s blood, too. That sort of thing could run in families. A lot of this other magical stuff seems to. And maybe Mr. Fanatic has the same trait.”
“So?”
“So, vials of blood, version eight, subject T, serum fourteen. They’re experiments. Hexes and hex resistance. That hex in the forest that even I couldn’t resist, and all the weird shit it did. I’m not positive of exactly how it all fits together, but I can tell you what Mr. Fanatic thinks they’re cooking up in their lab. Whoever they are.”
“The end of the world. The demons destroying the righteous,” Cora said. “They’re making a weapon.”
They checked with some people hanging around the residences, but there was still no word about Hester. Thea wanted to go back out to the river, just to do something, but Cora convinced her not to.
“We just agreed it’s too big a search area,” Cora said. “And it’s already getting dark. You’re better off waiting for Hester to wake up and trying to talk to her.”
“What if she doesn’t wake up?” Thea asked.
“Then a directionless search around miles of riverbank can be your plan B,” Cora said. “But for now you’re exhausted, fresh off that attack and then your test, not to mention a major physical change. You can’t possibly be at your sharpest. Plus aren’t you supposed to start your exploratories tomorrow?”
“Yeah. Eight o’clock.”
“So, that decides your whole future. Rest tonight. I’ll go with you tomorrow after work, if you want, and then after that it’s the weekend and we’ll have plenty of time.”
When Thea was alone, she ran a claw across her palm and smeared her blood once again across the smiling face of Tatiana Tulip, hoping for a glimpse of Flannery. She knew it almost certainly wouldn’t work, that her flower friends were friends no more. But it was better than doing nothing.
Nothing was exactly what she got. She couldn’t feel Flannery at all.
Maybe it’s not the flower friends who’ve left you. Maybe you can’t feel Flannery because she’s dead.
Thea looked down at the violet blood mixed with red on The Book of Flower Friends. “No,” she told it.
You’re supposed to be fearless now. Even reckless. What are you doing, pacing around here? Agreeing to do the sensible thing and wait?
Just before dawn, while it was still dark enough to slip away unseen, Thea flew out west, back to the river. She sat on a rock and waited for the sun to come up. She hoped she wouldn’t come across any humans—a race she already thought of as them instead of us—but she didn’t suppose it would matter that much if she did. Persephone had been pretty nonchalant about the possibility of being seen. And it was easy enough to fly away.
When it was light enough to see by, Thea started searching again. It only took an hour to come to the same conclusion she’d come to the day before: it was stupid to be out here, stupid to risk being late for her first day of exploratories when she would never find anything—
Something in the mud caught the light.
Thea swooped down and bent to pick it up. Her heart was hammering; she was sure it was a piece of turquoise jewelry, the kind that Hester always wore.
She was wrong. It was nothing but a piece of tin foil some careless picnicker had dropped. Thea crumpled it and glared out at the river, as if it was to blame for not giving up all its secrets.
Something hit her from behind, and then there was the feel of mud on one cheek, something hot on the back of her head.
And that was all Thea felt for a while.
She was in a hospital bed, in a white room. There were things stuck in her arm. Beeping sounds. The smell of disinfectant.
Why was she in the hospital?
That’s right. Baird. I remember.
She looked at the door, half expecting the sandy-haired, blushing Irish lawyer to come in. What was his name?
O’Connor, or maybe O’Connell.
Baird deeply regrets This Unfortunate Incident. Baird wants only for both of you to move past This Unfortunate Incident. Baird wishes you nothing but the best, and hopes you can remain caring friends despite This Unfortunate Incident.
Thea would never see Baird himself again. Within a month, he would have a new woman on his arm, another fresh-faced everygirl the public would believe he happened upon in a coffee shop or while walking his dog, and love.
O’Connor-or-maybe-O’Connell was clearly embarrassed, having to say crap like that to a woman whose leg—and life—had just been pulverized. He was just doing his job. But then, he took the job in the first place. He’d been the one who recruited her and drew up the contract. Her and several before her. The yearly agreement, the terms of her availability, the non-disclosure, and of course the financial arrangements. He’d been Baird’s lawyer for years. He knew what Baird was.
So Thea didn’t feel all that bad about putting the squeeze on him. He tried to gently remind her that she wasn’t allowed to tell anybody, that the non-disclosure prohibited her from discussing Baird in any negative light, no matter what the circumstances of their parting.
She reminded him, less gently, that she’d read her contract too, and it didn’t say anything about nearly fatal internal bleeding and eleven assorted breaks and fractures. But if he wanted to make it all a matter of public record by suing her, he was more than welcome to do so.
He didn’t fight her much after that.
No police ever came to talk to her, and Thea never went to talk to them. She came out of the hospital with a limp and twenty-seven million dollars, and disappeared, just as she’d promised. No Celebrity Dance-Off for her.
But this, she realized as she stared blearily at the metal door, was not that disappearance. It was a new one.
And she was relieved. Whatever was going on, whoever had taken her, whatever reason she was here, it was all bound to be horrible, she supposed. But that was outside herself. She wasn’t horrible. She wasn’t the weak borderline-prostitute who used up the last of her courage to extort twenty-seven million dollars out of a movie star. She would never have to be that woman again.
Rising Fury (Hexing House Book 1) Page 12