“This isn’t your fight,” a ten-year-old girl with pigtails told me. Right before she held her palm against one of the Nats’ faces. Her hand became translucent blue. The Nat screamed as his skin turned to ice and cracked beneath the girl’s palm.
I dove for them, knocking them apart.
The little girl tried her skin-freezing trick on me, but I felt nothing. Her brow furrowed, like it had never occurred to her that she might meet her match. Before she could try her luck on someone else with actual skin, I thumped my fist on the side of her head. Not hard enough to smash her skull, but enough to give her a nice, long nap.
I tackled another kid to the ground. This boy couldn’t have been older than ten, and he was drawing extra-long needles out of thin air and sticking a Nat full of them. The screaming, writhing Nat looked like a porcupine.
There were a few dull clinks as stray needles shattered on impact with my skin. The Super Mag took offense at my imperviousness to his magic. He screeched in rage, and then all of his needles were coming at me.
Clink. Clink clink clink clink.
What was left of the kid’s needles shot straight into the air as A.J. joined the fight. While the Super Mag was distracted by the loss of his weapons, I tackled him. He fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes.
I wasn’t a violent person by nature, but I also didn’t lose sleep over other people hurting themselves on my skin. I didn’t start fights if I could help it, but I did end them.
“Knock it off!” I shouted at the enraged, deadly children.
Predictably, they ignored me.
The lightning bolt boy was next. Purple electricity shivered up and down his bare arms and even cut down the center of his pupils. I would have been more impressed if he wasn’t looking at me like he planned to fry me alive.
“Bring it, little man.”
A lion sprinted past me. It roared and bared its teeth at the other Super Mags.
“Thanks,” I told the Animalist.
The lion licked my arm with the biggest, stickiest tongue I’d ever encountered. It regarded me with bright gold eyes. And then it bounded back into the fray.
“Stop fighting.”
I heard Michael’s soft command in my ear. It never should have carried over the melee surrounding us, and yet, the Super Mags and Nats went still.
Eight dead Nats lay sprawled on the ground. Valencia wasn’t one of them.
“You devils,” Valencia croaked, getting to her hands and knees. “Barbarians…heathens! Nats will wipe you off the face of the earth!”
I strode up to Valencia.
With her runny makeup and billowing mumu, she looked far more barbarian than anyone else on the field.
“You piece of shit,” I told her.
Today had been about Kaira and Graysen’s efforts to make Boston a better, more inclusive home for all of us. Valencia had turned it into a senseless brawl that left eight people dead.
Not only would this whole disaster encourage the few lowlives who wanted war between Mags and Nats, it would spike fear in citizens who were just starting to trust their new leaders. The damage Valencia had done today might be irreparable.
Furious tears pricked at my eyes.
“I should kill you,” I told the Mag-turned-Nat.
But if I did, it would reflect on Kaira and Graysen. As much as Valencia deserved to die, I didn’t have the right to play the role of executioner.
“Go ahead,” Valencia snarled, bending to stick her overly-large nose in my face. “It’s just like you Mags to use your deviant powers to take advantage of us poor Nats.”
It irked me beyond reason that she was taller than me.
“You were a Mag until four months ago,” Yutika told Valencia, throwing up her hands in exasperation.
“You Mags are all the same,” Valencia said, ignoring Yutika’s comment. “You think you’re better, stronger, and smarter than us. The truth is you’re unnatural. Wrong.”
I gave Valencia my best impression of a crocodile smile. I blew on my fists so my skin lost its titanium sheen. And then, I punched her in the face.
A.J. and Yutika didn’t bother stifling their laughter as Valencia dropped like a ton of bricks.
“There you go,” I told Valencia as she wiped blood from her lip. “One-hundred-percent natural strength. Want me to do it again?”
I cracked my knuckles for effect.
While I had been born with the ability to make my body titanium, my reflexes and conditioning had come from training. My dad had helped me learn how to use my titanium skin to its full advantage. He was also the reason why I’d been the top Mag wrestler in the city during high school. I’d been the only female on my high school’s team, and I’d gotten no end of pleasure at seeing the smirks on my opponents’ faces when they first caught sight of me.
They were never smirking after we fought.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” I told Valencia and the mud-spattered and broken Nats who were staggering to their feet. “You’re going to drive yourselves to the nearest Nat police station and turn yourselves in.”
Technically, she was their jurisdiction now. I didn’t want to cause any problems between the Directors and the cops by stepping on toes.
Valencia gave me a petulant look, flinching a little when I raised my arm to adjust my sleeve.
“You heard her,” Michael said, narrowing his gaze on the Nats. “Except, instead of going to the nearest police station, you’re going to go to the farthest. And you’re going to walk.”
Yutika nudged Michael in the ribs. “Let no one say Michael is completely humorless.”
His mouth twitched in the approximation of a smile.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Valencia and her remaining Nats began tromping across the field to do as Michael had said.
“What do we do about them?” Yutika asked, nodding at the Super Mags.
With the way they were placidly staring at Michael, I was almost fooled into thinking they were just a group of kids. Almost.
“Kaira and Graysen are going to want to talk to them,” Michael said.
“That’s a great idea.” Yutika rolled her eyes. “Bring home a bunch of murderous, hormonal Super Mags. Ma will make a casserole, and then they’ll kill us in our sleep.”
I wasn’t any happier about the prospect than Yutika. We’d gotten the upper hand on them because they’d been focused on the Nats. And because there were only ten of them here right now instead of the grand total of forty-seven.
The Super Mags were just too powerful.
As hard as Kaira and Graysen had worked to convince Boston society to accept them, the Super Mags had no interest in becoming law-abiding citizens. They needed a leader—one of their own to look up to. The problem was that the oldest of them was fourteen, and the Super Mags already had a lifetime of learning not to trust adults.
Kaira and Graysen were convinced that the Super Mags would come around. I wasn’t so sure.
“I can Whisper to them,” Michael told me with his usual quiet confidence, “since none of their magic is mental like mine.”
In the three years we’d lived and worked together, I’d only seen Michael lose control once…when one of Valencia’s people had held a gun to Yutika’s head.
“I’ll make a bus to get them back,” Yutika offered, flipping to a blank page in her sketchbook.
A minute later, the Super Mags were filing onto the bus.
“Don’t worry,” Yutika assured me. “I can draw them some toys and snacks to butter them up before Kaira and Graysen read them the riot act.”
The way she was talking, it was like we were about to chastise these kids for being naughty on the playground. The eight corpses on the baseball field told a different story.
As relaxed as she sounded, Yutika’s hand visibly shook as she began to sketch. I noticed the way her gaze kept straying from her drawing to the bodies on the ground.
I wasn’t particularly squeamish, but I still kept my gaze averte
d as I climbed onto the bus behind Michael. My clothes were splattered with mud, and I felt the kind of weariness that usually only came as I was dragging myself to bed.
And if the flurry of emails marked Urgent! in my inbox was any indication, my day was just getting started.
CHAPTER 7
It was late. My eyes were bleary from how long I’d been awake and on my feet. My stomach was growling. And I was in such desperate need of a shower that even Sir Zachary didn’t want to come near me. I was just working up the energy to haul my butt up the two flights of stairs to my room, when Smith intercepted me.
He sniffed the air and wrinkled his nose.
“Oh, not you too,” I warned him.
“We need to talk,” Smith replied, taking a step back.
“I’m showering right now, okay?” I threw up my hands. “No need to stage an intervention.”
Not that Smith was exactly the standard for hygiene, with his oily hair and three-day-old hoodie.
“What? No.” Smith tapped the closed laptop he was cradling like a baby. “I have a lead.”
“On the magic ripper?” I asked cautiously, not daring to hope that he might be referring to the other mystery far nearer to my heart.
Smith shook his head. “On the missing slaves.”
My breath caught. I grabbed Smith’s arm and practically dragged him back to the living room, where the rest of the Seven were gathered.
“Bri Hammond,” A.J. whined. “You’re still covered in dirt.”
“I found someone who might be able to help us track down the slaves,” Smith said, coming to my rescue.
Everyone sat up from their slouched positions at that.
“Talk,” Kaira told Smith.
“Okay, so there’s this blog I follow. It isn’t exactly pro-Alliance.” His gaze slid to Kaira and Graysen before he continued. “It’s actually super anti-establishment, and you need to break a special code to even read it. It’s kind of fun—”
“Smith!” Six exasperated voices said at once.
“Right.” Smith cleared his throat. “Out of the blue, the blogger messaged me and said she had information about the location I needed.”
I started. “The location?”
Could this blogger be referring to the location? If so, it was the piece of the puzzle the now-deceased interim Director, Dr. Pruwist, had taken to his grave. It was the last detail we needed to solve this stone-cold case. Anticipation shivered through me.
“I mean, we’ll have to take whatever she says with a whole barrel full of salt.” Smith’s expression darkened. “She’s a Clairvoyant.”
“What’s wrong with Clairvoyants?” Yutika asked.
“Aside from the fact that they couldn’t give a straight answer if their lives depended on it?” Smith retorted.
“We need to go talk to her,” I said. I didn’t care what her magic was, just as long as she could give us the information we needed.
Except….
“Don’t worry about the Super Mags,” Kaira told me, already knowing what I was thinking. “Gray and I will deal with them when they wake up. The rest of you need to go see this Clairvoyant.”
I wanted to argue. As their Security Chief, it was my job to not leave the two most important people in the city alone with a bunch of Super Mags. The ten kids we’d brought back from the baseball game were in the mansion now. They were sleeping off the effects of Michael’s Whispering in various guest rooms in the mansion. But if they woke up before the rest of us got back and started tearing the place apart….
“Becoming Directors hasn’t made us completely useless,” Graysen said, giving me an amused look. “We’ve got this.”
“I’ll stay here,” Michael said. “Just in case.”
“Fine,” Kaira conceded. “But the rest of you. Go.”
Having lost the small amount of willpower I had to argue, I nodded.
“Everyone meet at the van in ten,” A.J. said before narrowing his gaze on me. “We’ve waited four months for answers. We don’t want to scare this Clairvoyant away with the fierce and terrifying Mud Girl before she tells us what we need to know.”
“That’s Mud Woman to you,” I retorted, already sprinting for the stairs.
✽✽✽
Since it was close to midnight, we had no trouble finding a parking spot right outside the narrow brick building where the Clairvoyant had told Smith to meet her. We were on Newbury Street, which was full of high-end shops that were clogged with people during normal hours. Now, though, all the stores were closed and the street was quiet.
“Did you tell this Clairvoyant that we’d be dropping in after hours?” A.J. asked, as Yutika hung her freshly-created handicapped tag from the van’s mirror.
We’d learned the hard way that being the new Directors’ BFFs didn’t exempt us from parking tickets. We probably should have felt guilty using Yutika’s magic this way, but none of us claimed to be saints.
“We didn’t discuss times,” Smith replied.
“Do you at least have a phone number to call when this place turns out to be locked?” I asked as we climbed the short flight of stairs to the door. The windows were tinted, so it was impossible to tell if there were any lights on inside.
“Do you really think someone whose username is WorldEnds2070 is going to have a cell phone?” Smith asked, rolling his eyes at my apparently ridiculous question.
“Let’s just hope her username isn’t a premonition,” A.J. pointed out, “and that she’s simply an optimist like you.”
“What’s your username?” Yutika asked Smith.
He pointedly ignored the question as he tried the doorknob. Surprise and relief filled me when it gave. All four of us—four-and-a-half, including Sir Zachary—entered the building.
“Holy crap,” Smith muttered.
It looked like a voodoo shop and one of those fake magic stores had gotten together and then barfed up their insides. Every inch of space was covered in stuff. There was a narrow, foot-wide path through the store. If I balanced carefully, I could avoid brushing up against anything.
The air was so full of incense it looked like a fog machine had been turned on. Strands of beads hung from the ceiling, and tribal masks hung on the walls. Glass cases were stuffed full of skulls, books about the occult sciences, and decks of tarot cards.
Burning candles balanced precariously on top of wooden figurines and dangled from iron holders nailed to the wooden wall.
“The Boston Fire Department would have a collective heart attack if they saw this place,” A.J. said.
My hopes for getting useful information were fast dwindling. Anyone who owned a place like this had to be a real nut.
Sir Zachary sniffed everything, his tail wagging as he explored. He made cute little lapping noises as he drank from a bowl with a painted paw print that seemed like it had been recently filled.
“I can already tell this is going to be a waste of time,” Smith muttered, echoing my thoughts.
“Isn’t the owner worried about people stealing stuff?” Yutika asked. She petted a feather boa hanging around an Alaskan totem pole. “I mean, anyone could walk in here.”
“But I knew they wouldn’t,” a soft, feminine voice said from the back of the shop.
We all went still.
“Except for the four of you, of course…well, five, if you include your dog.”
“We do,” A.J. said. “We definitely do.”
Tinkling laughter came from the girl who emerged from the incense fog.
At first, I thought she was a teenager. She was shorter and thinner than me and didn’t have much in the way of curves. But when I caught her eyes—a startling green—I could tell she was older than she looked. There was something fathomless in her gaze that I couldn’t exactly pinpoint, but which told me she was no little girl.
The Clairvoyant cocked her head as we all sized each other up. With her breathy little laughs and the way her hands fluttered, she reminded me of a sparrow.
The
Clairvoyant had boy-short blonde hair that was spiked on top. Rings, chains, and studs climbed their way up both her ears. A tiny emerald glittered on the right side of her nose, and she had about twenty bracelets on each wrist that jangled together every time she moved.
“Not what you expected?” She arched a brow at me, like she knew exactly what was going through my mind.
“I didn’t know what to expect,” I told her, embarrassed I’d been caught staring.
Frankly, I didn’t care one way or another what she looked like, as long as she had the information we’d come here for.
“How’s it going, WorldEnds2070?” Yutika asked in a bright voice. “And is the world really going to end this year?”
The Clairvoyant’s lips curved into a full smile. “Not that I’ve seen, but it’s always possible.”
“Typical Clairvoyant response,” Smith muttered.
The woman—who I had decided was probably around our age—arched a brow at Smith. Most people would be offended by someone questioning their magic. But instead of taking offense, her expression seemed amused.
“In case you were wondering,” she said, “my name is Starlight.”
“Of course it is,” Smith said under his breath.
I elbowed him in the ribs. Hard.
“Don’t be rude,” Yutika hissed.
Starlight grinned, unperturbed. I liked that she wasn’t as fragile as she looked. She gestured to us, leading the way through a curtain of beads at the back of the shop.
After exchanging a few skeptical looks, we followed.
We gathered in a circular room that was just big enough for the five cushions that were laid out on the floor. Starlight sat in a graceful motion, folding her legs up in what I thought yoga people called lotus position. She closed her eyes and breathed in the incense-filled air.
Exchanging glances and shrugs, the rest of us took our own cushions. Sir Zachary’s collar jangled as he trotted into the room after us. He looked around, assessing his options. After only a second of consideration, he nestled into Starlight’s lap.
The Clairvoyant didn’t open her eyes or so much as twitch. She absently stroked our dog’s ears as she hummed quietly to herself. Her easy acceptance of Sir Zachary made me like her even more.
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