“No, but someone is panicking with the intention to run minutes after you request a meeting with the Brotherhood? It can’t be a coincidence.”
Tom’s blue eyes darted between me and the vial he’d taken out of his pocket. “No one should know what this meeting is about. But all right, check it out. If you’re wrong, I have this and everyone assembled.”
I didn’t wait around for any additional instructions. Someone with the intent to flee wasn’t going to do me any favors and leave a note about where they went. I barreled through the hall and burst into the stairwell, almost skidding down the steps in my haste.
Tracing the emotion’s source was an awful lot like using my bond with Raj to seek him out. But whereas that had felt unnatural and new, picking out emotions was second nature to me. I’d been doing it for ten years whether I wanted to or not.
Headquarters’ current state made it easy too. Most of the people here were tired. If they felt anything besides that, it was the same generic anxiety that permeated the city. In some cases, the anxiety was mixed with a mild annoyance at having to work an extra shift.
Almost to the ground floor, my feet thudded against the concrete steps. Only when I hit the landing did I discover my error—the emotion’s taste was getting weaker again. Damn it. The person I was searching for hadn’t gotten this far yet.
My magical buzz and determination were all that kept me moving. My muscles whined at me as I forced my legs up the previous flight, and my lungs weren’t much more pleased. Sweat broke out on my neck. It occurred to me that after everything I’d been through tonight, I probably didn’t smell so sweet.
Oh well. I shoved the stairwell door open and ran right into someone on the other side. He visibly shook off the impact, and I swore in surprise.
Apologizing, I assessed the obstacle in my way. The other Gryphon was a member of Le Confrérie, an Indian man who’d introduced himself as Kevin, though I was ninety-nine percent certain that wasn’t his real name. I was also ninety-nine percent certain that he wasn’t the source of the panic I was sensing.
“Sorry,” I muttered again, this time to atone for my language since I’d never heard the man swear. “Did you see any other members of the Brotherhood go that way?” I motioned down the hall.
“Just Theo’s down there. He said he had to gather things to bring to Tom.”
Theo. Of course. I could have slapped myself for not figuring it out.
Theo was on my short list of possible suspects because he was one of the eleven Gryphons who had been given access to all the leaked information. Plus, Theo was the fraternity’s charm-making expert. He spent more time in the labs than anywhere else. Tom hadn’t been dumb enough to ask a Le Confrérie member to make his truth serum, but if Theo had seen a Boston Gryphon working on it and had asked why…
“See you upstairs,” I called to Kevin as I willed my feet to move.
Unfortunately, surprise was not entirely on my side. Theo couldn’t sense me coming, but he was quite capable of hearing my pounding feet approach and putting the facts together. Not being an idiot, he didn’t wait around to confirm his suspicion.
He must not have bothered to change out of his uniform before running because a streak of black and gold disappeared around a line of cubicles. He was heading toward the lab area, a bad choice but not one I’d begrudge him since I was chasing.
Although Theo knew the lab section better than I did, I had three advantages. One, I carried nothing and he had a pack of belongings on his back. Two, the adrenaline boost his fear provided him was nothing compared to the magical hit it gave me. And three, while we were both charmed out the ass for additional speed—ironically from glyphs drawn by him—I had bonus magic that the satyrs had given me.
I caught up to him as he rounded the next corner. My fingers brushed his sleeve, and as he turned, his hand closed around some curse he undoubtedly intended to aim my way. The only weapon I carried was my knife, and that wouldn’t be much help. Luckily, looking at me to aim meant Theo wasn’t looking where he was going. He banged his shoulder into a doorframe.
He faltered from the impact, giving me the additional second I needed. I tackled him, knocking the curse out of his grip and forcing him to the linoleum. Theo was no slouch in hand-to-hand combat, and we struggled on the floor, neither gaining the upper hand but both of us definitely earning plenty of bruises.
Finally, I swiped the curse container from his reach. Theo slammed an arm into my stomach, but his angle diminished the blow’s force. I grunted with pain, but my fingers grasped the trigger on the curse container and pulled.
The magical spray hit him in the chest. Instantly, his body went limp and his eyes closed. Body aching and my lip bleeding from where he’d decked me, I climbed out from beneath him. Theo’s breaths came long and steady, suggesting the curse was some kind of sleeping charm.
Lovely. I was the one busting my ass, and it was the traitor who got to nap.
* * * * *
Half an hour later Theo’s hands were bound and Tom dosed him with the counter-curse. He darted awake, swiveling around in his chair and taking in his handcuffs and the interrogation room’s beige walls. Resignation weighed down his face, and fear was no longer his predominant emotion. It was sweet, vanilla sadness. Odd.
In my experience, two emotions tended to prevail in people who were discovered to be lying or deceiving. Anger was the main one, probably at either the person who called them out on their lies or at themselves for getting caught. Running beneath that was almost always a salty-flavored embarrassment. Sadness was new to me.
Theo’s gaze moved from Tom to Ingrid and settled on me. Again, where I’d have expected anger aimed at me for capturing him, I picked up on a mild fear instead.
“You abilities are impressive.” It was probably the longest string of words Theo had put together in my presence.
I neglected to thank him, letting his other two interrogators handle this. I’d caught him, and I’d serve as a living lie detector, but this wasn’t my show.
Ingrid’s hair was falling out of its messy bun, and her voice was as weary as she looked. “Why, Agent Stephanopoulos?”
Theo folded his hands together, at last turning his attention from me to his boss. “Because I have a family, and they need to be protected.”
“That is what we’re trying to do.” Ingrid leaned over the back of an empty chair, and her reading glasses bobbed against her chest. “That is the mission you interfered with.”
“That is the mission you’re going to fail.” Theo cocked his head toward me. “Her abilities are unusual, but you have no idea how they might actually help. You’re relying on interpretations and translations of a very old text that said an other was required to save the world. You don’t know for sure if she’s what was meant. Come on, the furies used her and one of the others like her for their own interests. How can they be useful against the original furies if they can’t defeat a modern one?”
Thanks for the vote of confidence, I thought, but I was too stunned by the length of Theo’s speech to bother with my own words. Besides, it wasn’t as if he were voicing thoughts I hadn’t had myself. My stomach turned, acknowledging that, in many ways, I agreed with him.
Tom slammed a hand onto the metal table. His face was red, and his rage simmered hot beneath the surface, unblockable by the charms he wore. “You passed on information to the furies long before what happened in France. You had no idea whether Jessica and Mitchell could handle them.”
“I had an idea. We’ve read the same prophecies, Kassin. Our interpretations differ. The furies knew what would happen with her power. They know far more about what they’re doing than we do.”
“So they approached you, and you made a deal with them?” Ingrid crossed her arms. She was clearly furious too, but she had a much tighter grip on her feelings.
Theo shrugged. “I have a family to pr
otect. I don’t want the furies to get away with what they’ve done, but they will. They have. We don’t know how to close the Pit, and we don’t have any weapons strong enough to fight the demons when they emerge. I don’t want to lose, but I don’t see how we can win. So yes, for my family’s sake, I threw my lot in with the likely victors. I was promised my wife and children would be protected.”
Tom laughed bitterly. “You can’t trust we might defeat them, but you will trust a fury’s promise?”
“Of course not. I’m not the one here willing to believe in miracles.” Again, his gaze flickered in my direction. “I have a magically binding contract.”
Behind my back, I dug my nails into my palms. The hyper-focused state I’d been in since Raj’s death, the momentum that had pushed me through my tiredness, was evaporating. Along with it came the physical pain of my new cuts, bruises and strained muscles. But worse was the emotional assault.
It would be one thing if I could have been angry with Theo, but any anger I harbored was cool and distant. Rather, it was the same, sickening resignation that I sensed in Theo that had also taken residence in me. More than fear, it was dread. While Tom and Ingrid fumed that Theo had made their chances more dire, my pessimistic heart whispered that he’d only done the smart thing under the circumstances.
How could I be angry when he made valid points? How could I call Theo a coward when I considered Tom a fanatic for believing the opposite of him? Where was my middle ground?
And mostly, how could I claim Theo was wrong when I hadn’t been able to defeat Raj? Or when killing Raj had left me… I dug my nails in deeper, driving away the images of Raj’s blood coating my knife.
Theo spread his hands in a gesture of contrition. “I am sorry I made everyone’s life more dangerous, but I’d do it again. Who do you think the demons are going to target first when they leave the Pit? It’s going to be a massacre, and we and our families will be first in line for the slaughter.”
Chapter Eight
I couldn’t get Theo’s words out of my head as I made my way to Shadowtown. I don’t want the furies to win, but they will. Our families will be first in line for the slaughter. The first statement hadn’t been carved in stone yet, but the second struck me as all too likely if they did.
We—mostly Tom—had spent another hour grilling Theo for any new information he might be able to provide. But while Theo willingly coughed up what he knew, it wasn’t much. We got the names of who he assumed were the five ringleaders among the furies, for what that was worth. Technically, they were down to four ringleaders without Raj.
Rather than lock up Theo, Tom and Ingrid decided to keep him nearby in case he could be of use later. He’d be outfitted with both an ankle monitor and a tracking charm, much like mine but not removable, and left in his hotel room under guard. It was the Gryphon’s equivalent of house arrest.
My presence wasn’t necessary to see any of that through, so I finally got to leave. The T system had shut down for the night, and I’d had to call a cab for the ride home. The cabbie was listening to NPR, and although part of me didn’t want to hear unpleasantness, my ears nonetheless perked up when I heard the words HELP Act. Dezzi had mentioned something about that earlier.
“Representative Mark O’Donnell of Massachusetts’ First Congressional District joined colleagues from across the nation today in cosponsoring a bipartisan bill known as the Human Empowerment and Liberty Protection Act or the HELP Act,” the NPR reporter was saying in her perfect diction. “The bill grants humans the right to protect themselves from perceived threats of a magical nature. Supporters claim the bill is merely an extension of current self-defense laws, particularly those known as ‘stand your ground’ laws. Representative O’Donnell had this to say about the proposed bill.”
The cabbie merely tapped his fingers against the wheel, but I leaned forward to hear the radio better. The audio changed to a male voice, presumably O’Donnell’s. “Humans have been forced to accept living in close quarters with those who would prey on them for too long. In light of recent events, it’s become clear that the laws which were supposed to protect humanity from the alleged ‘pred’ races are archaic failures. Everyone has the right to protect themselves from those who would threaten them with bodily harm. We should have the same right to protect ourselves from those who threaten our souls with harm. If you wouldn’t hesitate to shoot a bear that’s attacking you, why should we have to lie down and die if a pred attacks?”
The station switched back to the female reporter. “Critics of the bill stress that the language is too broadly worded, essentially giving humans the right to attack any nonhuman they encounter without fear of legal consequences. The HELP Act is a response to the mass shooting of several satyrs and harpies by a group of humans in Miami two days ago. While none of the injuries were fatal, the incident has spurred more violence and rioting as the debate grows over whether such actions are justified under the circumstances.”
The cabbie grunted, whether in agreement or disgust I couldn’t tell. “World is going to hell.”
“Yeah, it is,” I said, too tired to get sucked into a conversation.
Shit. No wonder Dezzi was concerned about the HELP Act. It sounded like a plan for disaster. There were ways to confirm whether someone had been magically attacked, and therefore if self-defense was justifiable under this law, but those traces of magic in the blood didn’t last long. Ultimately, this law was giving humans the right to attack at will. After all, just standing near a pred was enough to leave magical traces on people.
The sad thing was, though I’d like to blame the hysteria and recent increases in violence on the Pit opening, I strongly suspected this was simply human nature at work. History was full of examples of fearful people committing atrocities. The only difference was that these days all their fear was feeding some ancient demons.
You fed them too, Jess. You had to have your revenge on Raj. You gave into your rage, full of self-righteous fury.
I gritted my teeth and bade the voice in my head to shut up. Raj had attacked me. It was self-defense.
It was a moment you’d been yearning for. A moment you relished.
Except I hadn’t. I’d wanted to, but the blood. So much blood everywhere. I could see Raj’s surprised face. I could…
“You can let me out here.” I needed to move, to burn off the memory with exercise. Exactly what I’d been doing all night.
The cab slowed, and the driver frowned at the quiet street. “You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m good.”
We were a block away from where I’d asked to be dropped off, which was a block away from the edge of Shadowtown. Human cab drivers never liked going into that neighborhood, and when they did, they typically added a surcharge to their fare. But these days, even the surcharge wasn’t enough for most of them. Not at night.
I paid the cabbie and turned toward home. Concentrating on the wail of police sirens in the distance, the aches in my muscles and the eerie deadness all around, I was able to distract myself for several minutes. Imps danced about by the streetlamps, but aside from the lights glowing behind closed curtains, they were the most obvious signs of life. The few businesses that were open seemed to be trying to hide that fact.
A stab of pain pierced my heart as I passed by The Lair. Though it had been closed hours ago, the bar’s neon signs currently lit up a small patch of the street. But it too had opened quietly. The bar’s outdoor seating remained stacked and piled in a corner of the patio. Any patrons were hidden away inside.
Lucen didn’t have much time to manage the place given his other responsibilities lately, but he was trying to keep it open as often as possible. The satyrs liked to congregate there, and it provided a defiant sense of normality that was desperately needed.
Although I was too tired to drink, I was half tempted to pop in myself, but I doubted Lucen was around. What happened with the furies earli
er was probably keeping him busy. I hadn’t gotten a reply from him to the text I sent about Theo other than good.
Good. It was apparently the word of the night. So why didn’t I feel it? I had no answer to that question, and I didn’t particularly want to dwell on it. Picking up my pace, I swatted at a curious imp and kept going.
About ten feet past The Lair’s entrance, Lucen called out to me. “Little siren.”
He didn’t need to yell to be heard these days, and I spun around. “I wasn’t expecting to see you there.”
Lucen had changed into his third outfit of the day, and the only reminder of our earlier fights was the small dab of white goo on his left cheek. That was the magical bandage preds used to heal skin broken by salamander fire blades.
Lucen stepped past a stack of chairs, holding out a hand to me. “Dezzi wanted to meet about what happened, and since I was going to be here, I figured I might as well open for a few hours.” He gestured to me with the open hand.
“I’m tired. I should sleep. Tomorrow’s not going to be any easier.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. No rest for the wicked lately. But we should talk.”
The light changed down the street and a couple cars blew by, tossing hair in my face with their wind. I started to ask what we were supposed to talk about, but Lucen’s stare was getting to me. Whether talk, sleep or none of the above, I’d prefer being around him for it.
“Damn you and your persuasiveness,” I told him, clomping down the steps.
He held open the door. “How come it was never so easy before?”
“Yet another question I can’t answer. How did you know I was out there?”
“Because I’ve always been able to tell when you’re nearby.” Instead of slipping behind the bar, he took my arm and walked to the far side of the room with me. “These days it’s easier to notice because there aren’t any humans hanging around to cloud the air.”
Misery Happens Page 7