“I still have them, but I don’t think there’s a right or a wrong answer to this. If we let these exist then Harrah and the rest of them will have more power and control than I think they should.” There were several beats of quiet as I considered the situation. Harrah’s views, although vastly different than Conner’s, were just as dangerous. The reactive and preemptive actions they took to maintain the harmonious relationship with the humans toed the line very closely to being cruel and unnecessary. It all got so blurred there was no clear moral stance to take.
As I violently chipped away at that stone I wondered if I would be considered “good” for doing this. Would the history books be kind to me as the person who demolished this? I looked over at the pile of destroyed glass. It was too freaking late to ask if we were doing the right thing, so I stopped and smashed into the stone some more. The air was now thick with magic that had been released from the broken objects, floating there unused; eventually it would dissipate. Looking into an empty cabinet, I said, “There is a very good chance you might not have a job after this is found out.”
“I will have a job as well as maintain my position on the Magic Council. They broke the rules. These things aren’t supposed to be used. Not on you. Not the way that they did. As far as I’m concerned they violated the trust of the community and for no other reason than to get rid of you when you haven’t posed a threat to others.”
“It was preemptive,” I said softly. I lifted my eyes to meet his, which had softened. They weren’t hard before, but had possessed sorrow and disappointment—not remorse.
I looked at my phone; we had been at it for nearly an hour. I moved toward the last cabinets in the room.
Gareth inclined his head slightly and inhaled the air, and when he spoke his voice was low. “Someone’s here.”
He didn’t have to tell me. The moment the words fell from his lip the doors blasted open. Harrah walked in, power emanating off of her. It rolled over Gareth and attacked me. My shields went up. And the person behind her came through with a wave of magic that shattered it to nothing. They had enhanced magic, I’m sure the results of an object that should have been housed in the room with the other magical objects. Before I could respond I was hit dead in the chest and flew back, crashing into the wall. I quickly scuttled to my feet, returning fire just as hard. My blast of magic hit the small cadre of people she had with her, sending them out the door and into the wall behind it. Plaster crumbled, and I heard someone groan. There were three of them altogether. I assumed it was Harrah, a mage, and a witch—most likely they were the ones who'd summoned the Mors and made a preemptive strike. When magic careened through the room again my shield was up, reinforced and prepared to fight magic that mirrored mine. This time it barely wavered. I’d used very little magic demolishing the items in the hidden storeroom. My magic was just as powerful as ever.
I was prepared to end this, and I had every intention of being the only one doing it. This was the last stand, but they didn’t attempt to retaliate. Instead they hovered over in the corner, their mouths moving ever so slightly. I looked at their hands and saw two gray crystals that gleamed with a harsh light, odd stones—darker than the ones we had destroyed. These had hues of burgundy that had a slight glow and an overpowering aura of magic. The mage and the witch had those objects in hand, and Harrah had a dagger, my dagger, a Legacy dagger. It was a Necro-spear.
Gareth glared at the weapon. He knew it was more dangerous than anything else that they were using to do the spell. If by some chance it was ever embedded in him he would lose the ability to change and his immunity to magic would be nullified. But Harrah appeared less concerned with him and more absorbed in getting the words of the spell out. The trio’s lips moved fervently. Magic didn’t strum through the air, it rampaged like a hurricane. Gareth and I stumbled back as the tumultuous wave tore into the room.
“Life” was all that Harrah said, and moments later she and her companions scattered away. Once again that gentle cadence, that soothing melancholy sound filled the air, ensnaring me in its magical entrapment. It dug into my mind and knocked down all the shields I put up with an overwhelming force. The alluring lilt continued. I covered my ears and screamed, temporarily drowning out the sounds, but they grew louder than my voice.
Gareth stood in front of me, a frown marring his face. His eyes were a deep well of concern. “Levy, what is it?” I didn’t hear his words, I just read his lips. Refusing to be rendered paralyzed and unable to fight, I screamed louder.
The Mors entered the room in a slow saunter. The same vacuous eyes as the other one, his death song emanating from slightly open lips.
Don’t let him stab you with his claws. I said it in my head but needed to let Gareth know. I wasn’t sure of the effect the poison would have on him.
Before I could say anything, Gareth lunged at the Mors. He disappeared and then reappeared behind Gareth. He landed a sharp blow on Gareth’s back. Turning quickly, Gareth returned the assault, hammering powerful blows into his abdomen and then jabbing him in the face. He staggered. His tall imposing body jerked as he attempted to maintain his balance. Gareth kicked him in the jaw and struck him with a semicircular kick. He lost his footing and fell to the ground. Grabbing my sai, I ran toward the creature to impale him. The Necro-spear soared through the air and caught Gareth in the stomach. He stumbled back, blood spreading over his shirt. He faltered but didn’t fall. It was more than an injury—he was no longer immune to magic. His eyes widened, and I knew he heard the enchanting sound. That lulling, paralyzing sound. Gareth gave a guttural shout trying to override the sound before collapsing to the ground. The Mors focused his attention on me and the wall that I’d surrounded myself with. He slowly lumbered toward me as he worked on breaking my shield. I hoped the fight with Gareth had weakened him enough that he wouldn’t succeed, but he had the others near, undoubtedly helping.
Gareth was just a few feet from me. The Mors was now right in front of me. His claws scraped against the shield as its lips formed a little O as if it were about to play a wind instrument. Thin lips opened wider as he cooed his melancholy sounds. I waited, letting him stroll around the shield looking for an opening. The odd gray coloring that drenched his eyes wouldn’t have been scary if I didn’t know what he was capable of. It walked around the shield making its haunting music, trying to render me defenseless. Just when he was to the left of me, I dropped it with a howl at the top of my lungs, drowning out all sounds. I grabbed the spear out of Gareth’s stomach and embedded it into the Mors’s neck. It was a clean strike; he wailed. I dropped down, rolled to my side, grabbed my sai, and shoved one into his stomach and the other into his chest. He collapsed to the ground. I pulled out the blades and chopped and cleaved until he was dismembered. When he stopped moving, I knelt down next to Gareth.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said through gritted teeth.
Good. Because I had people I needed to see. “Stay here until it heals.” I hoped it healed now that the Necro-spear was out of him. Tightening my grip on the sai, I ran down the hall, following the very identifiable magic. It brushed over my skin. I smiled at the devious plan to evade me—they’d split up. One wound up on the stairs to the right and the other to the left. I tracked them down by their magical fingerprints alone. Small waves of magic breezed along my arm—that familiar, devastating magic that wiped minds clean and smiled for the cameras, making magic seem innocuous and sweet. Except when you were on the other side of it, then it wasn’t so nice. It was cruel and spiteful. I ran in Harrah’s direction. I heard the whisper of magic in my head, but after dealing with the Mors it was nothing. I pushed back hard. Hard enough that I hoped it hurt. Enough pain to prepare her for what was coming for her. It wasn’t much of a hunt. I ran, hearing the click of her heels. She was trying to make her way to the building’s outer doors to get away.
At a full run, I finally caught up to her. She turned slowly, backing away, her hands raised. She revealed her palms as
if she was surrendering. The placid look on her face, the gentle, wide-eyed innocence: the very features that made everyone capitulate. She was laying it on pretty thick, doing her best to look demure and incapable of any of the acts that she was being accused of. I didn’t give her a chance to speak; I shoved the sai into her chest. Doe eyes widened, and her mouth slackened as she collapsed to her knees, gripping my arms. After a few moments, her hold on my arm relaxed and she fell to the floor.
I felt something bite into my side. It felt like hellfire. I turned to find the mage ready to engage again. Magic danced off his fingers, and his eyes gleamed with anger. His snarl was more intimidating than the magic. I simply smiled and pulled magic, strong magic that I’d reserved for my bouts with Conner. It shot from me like a bullet, just as lethal as it pummeled the mage. He went back hard against the wall, where I kept him pinned. I eased him away just to slam him against it even harder. I approached him slowly, trying to decide which was crueler, manipulating his mind until he was an imbecile and magic was just something he “used to do” or dealing him Harrah’s fate.
I still hadn’t decided. I was just inches from him, gripping my remaining sai, when I heard, “Stop right there!” I expected another hit of magic that didn’t come. Instead I heard a gun cock. Who brings a gun to a magic fight? Coward.
“Put your weapon down!”
“I can’t exactly put my magic away, now can I?”
“Drop the knife!”
I wanted so badly to correct him, but I decided against it and released my sai. It clanked when it hit the ground.
“Hands on your head!” he demanded. I complied. Someone else approached from behind, yanked my arms behind me, and placed cuffs on me. They were heavy as hell, so I knew they weren’t just iron. Had they upgraded to iridium assuming if it worked on us, it would work on anyone else?
He grabbed me firmly around my arm—too firmly. My natural reaction was to retaliate, but I squashed it down and let him lead me away.
“Stop!” Gareth’s voice rumbled through the room, reverberating off the walls, and everyone froze. His eyes blazed with ire as he came down the hall, his hands clenched at his sides and his brow furrowed. “Where are you taking her?”
The officers just looked at Harrah’s wilted body sprawled on the floor and then looked back to him. They started to walk again.
“I said, stop now.” Cold steel laced his voice, as if he dared them to take another step. His shirt was still bloodstained, and he kept his hand over the puncture wound, his fingers wet and colored red. Although I knew the injury had to hurt, he walked as if it didn’t bother him. He rolled his shoulders back and stuck his chin out, his eyes fiery and enraged. He let his attention slip in Harrah’s direction and then back.
“If she’s going to be questioned, I’ll do it. But there will not be any charges against her. It was self-defense and I was a witness to it.”
The commanding officer’s lips were pulled into a thin tight line, as thin as his eyes that were narrowed on Gareth.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Reynolds, we no longer answer to you.”
“Excuse me, what do you mean?”
And then another voice rang through the air, assertive and deep with a hint of amusement. “It means, since you’ve been compromised, things will be handled by us.”
The owner of the voice stepped into our line of sight, along with two others. They all looked like they had been part of the military at some point in their lives. They were standing tall, squared jaws, cool eyes, and surly demeanors. Their suits were a standard black and official-looking. There were guns holstered at their waists and on their opposite hips were things that looked like the dart guns Gareth had used on Conner and me.
“And when did this become a federal situation?” Gareth asked in a low, rough voice.
The gentleman in the middle stepped forward. “We’ve been monitoring this clusterfuck. Mr. Reynolds, let’s not be mistaken; this is the definition of clusterfuck. The Magic Council was tasked with maintaining civility among the supernaturals and making sure magical objects did not get out and hurt people. Above all, you were obligated to let us know when there were extreme dangers at play.” His eyes jerked to my direction and seared through me. “Olivia Michaels?”
As if he didn’t know who I was. Instead of answering, I fixed him with a hard stare as I tried to piece everything together. He was right, this was a clusterfuck, a huge one; and at the end of that I was truly screwed. Everything that had transpired over the past two weeks went through my mind: how many bodies I’d left in my wake, the violence, the retribution. It all boiled down to me standing in front of three men in suits with a dead body—Harrah’s dead body and the mage who was about to be another victim. This didn’t look good for me, and I realized that.
“It was self-defense,” I said softly. And it sort of was. Harrah wasn’t going to stop.
The man who had spoken gave a crooked smile. “What an interesting defense to employ. We have witnesses that put you on Carter Street killing three civilians. From my understanding it was unprovoked.”
“Unprovoked? You mean the people who cornered me in the street and attempted to murder me? Exactly how were they provoked?” I snapped.
When he stepped closer, I saw the familiar little ring dancing around his pupils—the same that Gareth had. As the others moved closer to him, I caught wind of their magic as well. Fuck. There were so many fucks, and they were coming out of me rapid fire. The SG was state, they policed the supernaturals. This Federal Supernatural Reinforcement were over them. At least with the SG and a new shifter representative and Gareth, I had an advantage. At what point had they gotten involved? My heart started to race. The sneer that FSR guy sent in my direction showed that he would have no leniency for me or the situation.
“And when exactly was I going to be told that you all had intervened?” Gareth snarled.
“You haven’t been officially involved in the SG for a couple of days now. Or not in the way that you should have been. The Legacy’s appearance is something that should’ve been handled, and not in the way that you were doing it.” The head guy, or I assumed he was the head of their team, spat anger that seemed to match Gareth’s.
With a nod of his head the other two approached Gareth. There weren’t any rights that were read to supernaturals; our system was different. Miranda rights were for humans. We had a version of the police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation but not rights that needed to be read to us because it was implied we had the right to adhere to the laws that were presented. We had the right to protect the alliance between humans and supernaturals. We had the right to do no harm.
As they released the handcuffs from their belts, a primal glint flickered in Gareth’s eyes. I expected him to retaliate, to resist. Instead, he looked at me, dropped his arms to his sides, and let them put the cuffs on him.
CHAPTER 15
I was spending a lot of time with blood on me, except this time, the dried blood on my shirt and jeans were from a member of the Magic Council and the Mors that she had sent for me. It was hard to forget that fact with the Federal Supernatural Reinforcement agent sternly staring at me as I sat across from him in the interrogation room. I’d been there with an SG agent not less than a week ago, with Harrah in the room, and now I was being interrogated about her murder. I wasn’t sure what they wanted me to say. Confess to it? Fine. I’ll confess to it. But he looked at me with interest weighted by more than just a longing for a confession. No, he was looking for something else and I wasn’t sure what he was angling for. There was desperation to his gaze, and as the feral animal peeked through I wanted to challenge him and refuse to allow it to intimidate me. But he was intimidating.
“I’d like to see Gareth,” I said after several moments of silence.
“Not yet, we need to talk.”
“Fine. You can talk all you want, however, if you want answers, I want to see Gareth.”
When he smiled he bared the edges of his teeth. He was defi
nitely canidae: wolf, jackal, maybe even a fox. His aquiline nose, narrow features, and narrowed eyes, despite their roundness, seemed more foxlike in appearance. Shifters didn’t necessarily take on the characteristics of their animal, but more often than not, they did. I had a feeling I was dealing with the sneaky one. He slipped back in his chair, arms crossed, giving me his undivided attention. Attention I didn’t want.
“May I have your full name?”
“I would like to see Gareth,” I said pointedly. The ice in my words chilled even me but had little effect on him. He simply bared even more of his teeth. His stern gaze laid into me hard, and it probably would have worked on anyone else, but I wasn’t as easily intimidated. After you’ve survived assassination attempts and had people whose job was to protect the supernaturals, come after you, there aren’t a lot of things to fear.
“You’ll find that I won’t play the same games Gareth did. I don’t find the obstinacy entertaining at all. Let’s try this again. What. Is. Your. Name?”
“Harley … Harley Quinn. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?” I immediately regretted it. Of all the comic book characters I could have chosen, perhaps a psychotic super villain wasn’t the best one. He seemed more amused than I thought he would be. A wide smile blossomed on his face and the humor reached his eyes. He closed them for a long moment, the long eyelashes veiling them almost pretty, and he looked not as hard and cruel as he did just seconds ago. When he opened his eyes again they were gentler and the smile still remained. I guess he was going to use another tactic. Now he’s going to be good cop.
“I can imagine being a Legacy is trying. Being hunted. People considering you evil without giving you the benefit of the doubt. I guess if I were in your shoes I’d choose to be bitchy, too. It will only get you so far, but at least you’re having fun with it. Right?” He grinned before running his tongue over his teeth, but instead of seeming endearing, I got the impression I was about to become his meal. His narrow features sharpened and he ran his fingers over the table as though he had claws instead of fingernails. I sat up taller in my chair.
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