I nodded at the doctor, who didn’t appear entirely convinced. However, she pressed her lips thin and left. After she did, Lucen pulled a chair up to the edge of my bed, and another satyr followed him into the pseudo-room.
“Azria?” So this was why Lucen was insistent that I’d be fine. He’d brought one of the satyrs’ own magical medics.
Like Lucen, Azria had her horns hidden. She tucked her pink-dyed curls behind her ears and began retrieving several items from the bag she carried. The first one she handed me was a pain-relief charm, which I took gratefully. The hospital had offered me potent painkillers, but I’d refused everything except the extra-strength Tylenol. I didn’t need my head getting cloudy again. Alas, Tylenol had only taken the edge off.
Lucen squeezed my hand as I draped the charm around my neck. “Kassin wanted to send a Gryphon healer in to tend you, but I convinced him to let us have a go at it first.”
“Um.” I bit my lip, not wanting to offend Azria’s healing skills but feeling it necessary to point out the obvious. “Will your medical charms work since I’m not a normal satyr? Ouch.”
Azria had taken a sample of my blood while I was looking at Lucen. The satyr medic stuck the drops in a bowl and added what appeared to be some pre-mixed spell ingredients to them. “Lucen tells me that when you were turned, your eyesight corrected itself. To his knowledge, you haven’t even come down with a cold in the last ten years, and you’ve healed very quickly from prior injuries.”
“And to top it off,” Lucen added, “the protective glyphs we gave you did far more than they should have if you were human. You don’t have so much as a concussion or a broken rib from your accident.”
“To be fair, I’m covered in the glyphs you gave me and the ones the Gryphons gave me. I’m wrapped in magical Teflon. I’m surprised I didn’t bounce off the pavement.”
After fighting with the furies in the Alps, Dezzi had insisted the satyrs add their own spells to the many the Gryphons had already covered me in. I didn’t know what all of them did, but I was pretty sure there were tattoo artists out there who were covered in less ink. Except my glyphs weren’t permanent. Once the magic was used up, they’d disappear.
On that thought, I inspected my arms, unsurprised to learn the marks on them were noticeably lighter. Definitely some of that power had been burned.
“Little siren, as far as I can tell, you went flying off your motorcycle at high speed. The fact that you’re in one piece is a testament to those charms, yes, but also to the fact that you’re physically a lot tougher than any human. More like one of us. I thought you were okay with that.”
“I am.” I took the vaguely acidic-smelling concoction Azria handed me and drank up as she indicated. It was hardly the foulest-tasting thing I’d ever had in my mouth, and with a wrinkled nose, I returned her cup. “I’m just not sure what it means.”
Azria was busy mixing up something new, and she didn’t glance at me as she answered. “It means magical remedies are likely to work more effectively on you than human ones. Now show me where the worst of your bruising is.”
“That would be my whole body.” Moaning, I lifted the scratchy blanket covering my hospital gown. While Azria spread some cooling paste on my thighs, I turned to Lucen again. “Speaking of my bike, where is it? And is the you-know-what safe? And how’s Tom and Dezzi and everyone else? For that matter, why hasn’t Tom checked in with me yet?”
“First, how about you tell me what you were thinking taking after Raj by yourself?”
In spite of the drugs and charms, I winced as Azria smeared yet a third remedy on my abraded wrists. “Later. Can we focus on what’s important?”
Lucen leaned back in his chair, looking weary. “All right. Least bad news first—your bike has been carted away.”
“What do you mean by carted away?”
Lucen smiled sadly. “Let’s just say it’s far more damaged than you are. I expect it’s totaled.”
“What?” I jerked forward, almost knocking the bowl from Azria’s hands, my heart sinking. “No. No, no, no—not my Dragon’sWing. Come on. I love that bike. I will never be able to afford to replace it with something half so nice.”
“Sorry, little siren. The bike is a wreck.”
Whimpering, I flopped back, though I was aware how ridiculous I was being. It’s a bike, Jess. Not the end of the world. The real end of the world should be your concern.
Damn it. I forced myself to put aside my misplaced angst. “You said that was the least of the bad news. This doesn’t make me hopeful.”
Lucen rubbed the day-old scruff on his cheeks. “Yeah, about that. We lost the Vessel.”
I gaped at him, too horrified to speak. A hole opened in my gut, and I thought I might be sick yet again. “The furies got it? Oh, shit.” An unhappy silence followed, broken only by the sound of Azria packing away her supplies and a couple nurses talking down the hall.
Lucen cleared his throat. “After you took off, the fighting died down. Most of the furies got away, but we did manage to take one alive. The Gryphons took him to their headquarters for questioning. Meanwhile, they’re blocking off the city.”
“Blocking it off?” I flexed my fingers, which weren’t nearly as stiff as they’d been a few minutes ago. Azria’s spells must be working. Thank dragons. I was not sitting out the rest of this fight. “How long can they do that for?”
“I’m not sure, but as long as we know the Vessel in is the city, we have a chance to track it. If Raj smuggles it out, we might lose it for good.”
I closed my eyes and searched for that thin thread connecting me to the fury Dom. It was there, for whatever good it would do. The Vessel could be anywhere already, and there was no sense in going after Raj if the Gryphons had a lackey in their possession who we could question.
“I want to talk to this fury,” I said. “I have a suspicion. Something about being ambushed tonight stunk.”
Lucen dumped my torn and bloody clothes on my bed. “Yeah, it did. That’s why I was able to convince Kassin to let us tend to you, even though he’s suspicious of our magic. He wants you on your feet ASAP. He’s holding a strategy meeting at the damn Gryphon building in…” Lucen checked his phone, “…thirty minutes.”
Warily, I slid out of the bed and tested my legs. They held, and I sighed with relief. “Let’s go then before this night gets any worse.”
“Can it?” murmured Azria as she hitched her bag over her shoulder.
I shook out my abraded denim, hoping there was enough fabric left to keep my jeans on. “It can always get worse. There’s been no zombie sightings yet. Right?”
Lucen cringed, and I shrugged. Whatever. There was a reason I didn’t do optimism.
* * * * *
My body still ached by the time we reached headquarters, but Azria’s spells were working. The scabs and skin flecks that decorated my hands were disappearing, and I assumed the rest of my injuries were too. I had survived this much. As for the rest of the night’s events, well, that remained to be determined.
Headquarters was a madhouse. The Gryphons were mobilizing every resource at their disposal and calling in every one of their agents, charm specialists or healers they could drag off their normal jobs and put to work. The National Guard helicopters that had been circling overhead since the sky reddened, and their constant thump-thump, had been augmented to include two of the Gryphons’ own.
Olivia Lee, Director of the Boston office, must be spitting salamander fire. She was already less than thrilled that the Brotherhood had moved many of their resources to her building, and with no wonder. They were a secretive, high-ranking bunch, which was enough to annoy anyone. Plus, they were using up a lot of Boston’s conference rooms and lab space, and undoubtedly drinking coffee that came from the Boston office’s budget. That they were now poaching her agents for their projects had to smart.
Of course, it w
asn’t just the Gryphons who were alarmed. Gunthra, the goblins’ Dom, was at headquarters, along with Dezzi and the Upper Council satyrs, and they were all trying to figure out how to help. In a way, it was inspiring. I only wished it had taken something less than the potential end of the world for this sort of cooperation. In fact, if everyone had been cooperating a couple weeks ago, we might not have been in this situation at all.
“Jessica.” Tom pounced on me the moment I limped through the door of the conference room. “We need to talk.”
I collapsed on a chair to give my legs a rest. “I’m fine by the way, thanks for asking. How did you survive the shootout?”
He ignored my sarcasm, but judging by the dark lines etched into his face, he hadn’t fared well mentally. “You’re up and moving, and that tells me what I need to know. We have bigger problems than social etiquette.”
“Fair enough. How’s the fury hunt going?” Although Lucen had rushed to get us here, we’d missed the briefing Tom had called. As Tom had explained to me over the phone during the drive, there was no time to waste talking.
Tom shut the conference room door and ran his fingers through his hair. It was just the two of us and piles of notes, books and photographs spread over the table. Rather ominous. “I’ve convinced the others to nominally bring in Director Lee. We need her assistance—and this office’s assistance—to canvas and blockade the city.”
“I don’t disagree that the director should have a clue what’s going on, nor that she’s very competent. But given what happened, bringing more people on board seems risky.”
“You’re referring to our leak problem.”
My eyebrows shot up. That was exactly what I was referring to, but I hadn’t expected Tom to suggest it. I’d made the case that a leak existed weeks ago when we were ambushed in Phoenix, and Tom and the rest of the Brotherhood had been in denial. “Excellent. They say the first step is admitting we have a problem. And before you start accusing the satyrs, I strongly suspect the person is a Gryphon.”
“I’m aware.”
Right. I’d made my case for that too. “Yeah, well, I consider tonight to be more evidence that I’m right.”
Tom regarded me curiously. “Why is that?”
I’d had a lot of time to think about what bothered me during the fighting at the terminal, so I laid it out. “The furies came armed with regular guns, which is really unusual. Preds almost never fight each other like that since the bullets aren’t lethal. That tells me they were expecting Gryphons to be there when we met the new satyrs, and that suggests to me the leak was a Gryphon. The satyrs weren’t aware you were planning on providing extra security until right before we left.”
Tom nodded slowly, swirling the remains of a mostly empty coffee cup around. “Well reasoned.”
I gazed longingly at the coffee dregs. It had been a long night, and it was far from over. Feeling like I’d been hit by a tractor trailer didn’t help. “Was that a compliment? I’ll take it. If that wasn’t your logic, though, then what changed your mind?”
“The fury we captured.”
I cursed silently, annoyed to have missed the interrogation. “What did he say?”
“That they got their information from the Gryphons.” Grimacing, Tom pushed away the cup and stretched his arms. “Normally, I wouldn’t put much faith in anything a fury said, but we had some strong lie-detecting charms on him. Plus, after what’s happened before, it adds up. I don’t like admitting it, but I’m not blind.”
I bit my lip and refrained from making a joke. When I’d first met Tom, I’d thought he was a crazy zealot, putting his infuriating organization ahead of people—including innocent children like I’d been—and blind to the consequences. But it wasn’t Le Confrérie de l’Aile he cared about. It was his mission, and I could respect that, although it would take a swarm of imps to make me admit it.
“So what are we doing about it?” I asked. “It has to be someone who was involved in the Phoenix plans since we were ratted out there too. There’s only, what, maybe ten people who knew about tonight and who had also been part of that mission?”
Tom motioned to the closed door. “Which is why I’m only sharing this information with you. We will find out who it is, but for the moment, we don’t have the time to go searching for our leak. Every resource has to be put toward finding the Vessel.”
I gritted my teeth. Much as I wanted to find this leak—the person who’d gotten me kidnapped and almost killed on more than one occasion now—Tom was right. “Did the fury tell you anything else that might help?”
“No. He seems clueless. He doesn’t know who the leak is and he doesn’t know where Raj is taking the Vessel.” Tom got up as the conference room door opened.
In strutted the Upper Council satyr who’d arrived tonight. Her white leather suit was smudged with dirt, but she’d otherwise put herself back together. No mutilated jeans, bloodstains or a dirty face for her. Seriously, how did she do it?
She clasped her hands together. “My understanding is that the Gryphons are trying to find the Vessel before the furies can destroy it. In that case, I have more information about this Vessel that you obviously need to know.”
Chapter Four
“What information?” Tom asked.
The Upper Council satyr’s head snapped his way, and only then did I realize she’d been addressing her comment to me. She raised a well-plucked eyebrow in Tom’s direction then returned her gaze to me. “Somehow the furies were able to ambush my arrival. Rumor has it there is a leak in Boston. Do you trust this man?”
Next to her, Tom’s face turned as red as the sky outside, and in spite of everything, I had to repress a giggle. I was so used to being bossed around by the Brotherhood and ignored by Claudius that there was something incredibly funny about the situation.
I struggled to my feet and held out a hand toward the satyr. “Yes, Agent Kassin is one of the only Gryphons at the moment I’m willing to trust. Claudius said your name is Raia, right?”
“Yes, it is. A pleasure, Jessica.” She pressed her hand lightly against mine, once more filling my imagination with a teasing sense of warm spice. Then Raia motioned her head toward Tom. “I detected no reason to suspect your friend, but one can’t be too sure under the circumstances.”
I refrained from disclaiming Tom as my friend since I could already taste his annoyance.
Scowling, he shut the door, but the blood was draining from his face as his regained control of himself. “Information about the Vessel should be shared with Agent Blecher, as well.”
“Ingrid Blecher is the Gryphon in charge of this mission,” I explained to Raia. “She’s probably not the leak either.”
Raia took a seat next to me, arranging her thick, black hair artfully over her shoulders. “That may be, but it is you, I understand, who is acting as the liaison between my people and the Gryphons. I will liaise with you, and you may pass the information on to whomever you believe is appropriate.”
I caught Tom eyeing me, torn between amusement and insult, but I couldn’t respond without Raia noticing. So I sat back down and folded my hands. “Okay, so let’s liaise. What do we need to know?”
“Both good news and bad news.” She cast her dark eyes in Tom’s direction as he joined us at the table. “Your concern about the furies destroying the Vessel is ill-founded. The Vessel cannot be destroyed.”
“Is that the good news or the bad news?”
Raia tapped her fingers together. “I consider it both. You need not be concerned about losing the Vessel for good, but nor will you be able to prevent others from using it in the future if that is your hope.”
“I’m assuming your people have attempted to destroy the Vessel then.”
“On numerous occasions, specifically to prevent the possibility of it being reused. All attempts proved unsuccessful.” Raia’s phone vibrated on the table, but rathe
r than answer, she drew a light pink nail down its length. The phone fell silent, as though soothed by the gesture. “When Claudius informed us what was happening here, more recent attempts were also made. Again, they were unsuccessful.”
Interesting, but satyrs weren’t furies. The former excelled in seduction; the latter in destruction.
I studied Raia a moment longer, contemplating how to tactfully question the satyr’s magical qualifications in this regard. She was clearly as powerful as Claudius and possibly older. So far she also seemed far more reasonable than him, but seeing as I’d only spoken with her for a couple minutes, I wasn’t counting on my impression lasting. Since she wasn’t being overtly rude, however, I preferred to remain on her good side.
I took a deep breath. “Don’t take this the wrong way because I’m sure your people were thorough in their attempts, but furies excel at this kind of thing. I don’t think we can count on them failing.”
Raia smiled in a way I found difficult to discern. “I take no offense at being told I’m not as destructive as a fury, but I think you’ll find I’m quite right about this. Attempts to neutralize the Vessel’s threat were not the work of a moment. We have tried for centuries.”
“I hope so.” I rubbed at my itchy, healing arms. “Tom, if Raj has to keep this thing away from us and he can’t destroy it, then he’ll have to hide it. That should give us more time, shouldn’t it?”
Tom shrugged. “It might. We’ll need to involve more people in brainstorming about where he might hide it. Even with our agents scouring the city using detection charms, this search could take days that we don’t have.”
“Then all things considered, I suggest we omit your pals in the Brotherhood from the discussion. We need people who we know aren’t the leak and who know the city.”
He nodded but was clearly not pleased. “Gather your friends. In light of the leak most likely being a Gryphon, I’m going to restructure the teams I have doing the search to make sure all Le Confrérie members are paired with a local Gryphon. No one is tipping off Raj again. You have ten minutes.”
Misery Happens Page 3