by Jenn Stark
Chapter Sixteen
With a flicker of Armaeus’s fingertips, the world between us disappeared. In its place were lines upon lines of electrical current, much as I’d seen when I’d peered into the bodies of the young teens in Father Jerome’s château safe house—and into Nigel’s electrocuted form as well. Here the currents zagged and looped and arced in beautiful symmetry, as if every living and nonliving thing was part of the same unbroken field.
“Energy,” Armaeus said, and I sensed him moving toward me, though my eyes were dazzled by the light show. “It’s what we’re made of at the most basic level, whether our fundamental nature is mortal or immortal, Connected or Unconnected, human or animal, magic or organic.”
Those last two distinctions would ordinarily have thrown me, but Armaeus continued to approach, forcing me to focus on the brilliance of his electrical form. “When humans—any life—is first brought into awareness, its energy signature is pure and perfect. Depending on the form, however, it almost instantly begins to age. To decay.”
He lifted a hand and held it out to me, and I received his compulsion to lift my hand as well. There were no premade barriers between us in this field, which was disconcerting and exhilarating at once. It was a place of pure potential. I sensed that Armaeus could push against me—and even grab hold—but that I could push against him too, yielding an instant stalemate. No one was stronger than another here. And there was nobody else here but us.
My head began to ache, but I lifted my hand. It was the equal and opposite of Armaeus’s.
“Look deep, Miss Wilde,” he said, and his voice was everywhere, sparking electrical impulses along every inch of my circuits. I focused on his hand, confused about the emphasis. As with everything else in his body, his palm was made up of a looping, twirling Spirograph of patterns, each interconnected with the other. An endless flow of triangles, circles, squares.
“Geometry,” I said. “These are all geometric patterns.”
“Perfect geometry, in fact, or sacred, if you prefer. That’s how your electrical currents, the energy patterns of your cells, are aligning. In contrast, a typical human, a mortal human, has a slightly less efficient organization of their mitochondria. As a result, the paths of communication are somewhat stunted, making the transfer of information more difficult. The cellular structure degrades at an alarming rate. Mortals age; they die.”
“While immortals don’t.” I suddenly got it. “That’s what happens. You realign the energy of the mortal body into the perfect symmetry of an immortal body at the cellular level and everything…stops aging.”
“Stops and reverses,” Armaeus said. “It becomes wholly pure. Even better, such perfection can be transferred, though in limited fashion—and not without cost.”
“Healing.” I widened my eyes and was immediately assaulted by more of Armaeus’s energy field. If I’d had retinas in this state, they would’ve been effectively seared. “What you’re able to do to me.”
“What you were able to do for Mr. Friedman, though you drew more of your energy than necessary to accomplish it.”
“But I did it with Ma-Singh before I was immortal.” I frowned. “How did I manage that?”
“There is healing, and then there’s healing, Miss Wilde. What you were able to do for your general was remarkable and kept him alive, but he still needed the care of an entire suite of medical professionals to finish what you had begun. The healing you performed on Mr. Friedman was complete unto itself. Just as you, now, are complete unto yourself.” He moved closer to me, intimately so.
“With your permission,” he murmured.
I wasn’t sure how the Magician understood my strangled bleat as a yes, but he seemed satisfied with it, and he leaned down toward me, the heat between us a visible thing, whirling and skittering with light. “Watch,” he said.
He moved an inch farther and kissed me, the merest brush of his lips against mine, before settling back on his heels.
“Look,” he said.
“I’m looking.” With my eyes pinned wide, I could see the transformation of the energy pattern in what had to be the core of Armaeus’s body. It blossomed in ever-evolving matrices, going from an inert state to a fully active one.
“What is that?” I murmured as I stared, transfixed, and I sensed Armaeus’s arms going around me. A distant part of my brain awakened warily—but it was far too late for wariness. Besides, the other ninety-eight point five percent of my brain shut that caution down flat. The touch of Armaeus’s body was no longer skin against skin, it was energy field against energy field. But the result was the same. It simply presented itself more honestly. Electrical sparks skittered and flashed along every touching surface, and my heart thumped too quickly, pulsing out power and heat and life in an erratic cadence.
“Magic,” Armaeus said simply, leaning forward once more. His mouth drifted over my cheek, skimmed my brow. “The magic of cellular generation and regeneration, the magic of power giving birth to yet greater power. You mock the core of my strength, the sexual energy that fuels me, drives me, but above all know that it is the fastest and strongest access point to what is essentially an innately human ability. You can reach it other ways. You did reach it in healing Ma-Singh, and then, more completely, Friedman. You reached it again as you touched the minds and hearts of those children.”
“But that was you,” I protested.
“A guiding hand to show you where and how to draw upon your power, Miss Wilde. No more.” Armaeus returned his mouth to mine, his lips caressing mine so softly, I could only tell their touch through the technicolor burst of sparks that flowed in their wake. “Healing, the extension of energy beyond the plane of a single form, is a natural outpouring of magic. You’ve done it to some degree all your life. You can now do it with greater speed and efficiency.” He moved against me. “You have immense power within you, and with the symmetry of your system, you can share it more easily. Everything you need is yours for the taking, for you to give when and how you choose. There are many challenges with the path you now walk upon, but that is its promise to you.”
I tried to process Armaeus’s declaration, to be shocked, even frightened about the abilities he was describing. But it felt too right, too true for me to summon up the panic I knew should accompany his words. It felt almost like an answer to a test question I happened to know ahead of time.
Yet how could I be so certain about something that was so new to me?
Armaeus leaned in, deepening his kiss, and the question disintegrated as quickly as it had formed. My arms lifted to encircle the Magician even as our shared electrical field wobbled and hissed, the world around us taking true form once more. In the blink of an eye, we were no longer a mass of fluorescent lines of energy crackling against a blue-black void, but two people tight in an embrace, mouths locked, bodies pressed—
How easy it would be to give up everything now, I thought suddenly. All of it. Eternally. To be fully one with Armaeus, experience completely what I’d only allowed myself to glimpse. How easy it would—
“Whoa! Whoa, okay there.”
I pushed myself away from Armaeus, and he let me go willingly, his eyes still disconcertingly more black than gold. “Miss Wilde,” he murmured, but he wasn’t unaffected either. His words were rushed, almost breathless.
The world snapped back to the existence of solid, tangible things.
And yup, there was the panic, right on cue.
“That—that helps, thanks. For the explanation.” I turned and reclaimed my scotch from the bar, liberally adding more of the fiery liquid to the glass once my hand stopped shaking. “Right. So…great. I have clear and perfect mitochondria now, and I’m not going to age.”
“Exactly. For as long as you remain immortal.”
I turned back around to find the Magician watching me, amused. He made no move to stop me as I skirted around him and returned to my chair in front of his desk. Once I was seated, he strolled over as well, taking the nearest chair. As if we w
ere two civilized adults having a conversation about cellular science.
I suddenly wondered if this was how all scientific conversations went. Maybe I should’ve gone to college after all.
“Miss Wilde.”
Armaeus’s chiding tone recalled me. There were questions I was supposed to be asking him. Important questions.
“The kids,” I blurted, my gaze finally sharpening on his beautiful face. “They were Connected when we found them in that hospital, no question. Mid, even high-level Connected, and their power was raw, untamed. Hell, I thought they might be possessed. They did that thing that tortured Kreios in Italy—the voice-reproduction thing, saying the same word over and over again, one never really ending before the next one began.”
Armaeus’s brows lifted with aristocratic grace. “In the basement of the Templar chapel.”
“Right—that helmet they had on Kreios, forcing him to hear the words. It was just like that, but without the helmet. Nigel about passed out.” I shook my head. “Anyway, my point is, they were Connected…and then they weren’t. After Simon shocked their ankle bracelets off, they lost the—I don’t know how to explain it. Their energy signature, I guess. Their psychic abilities.” I grimaced. “Even worse, they didn’t seem to realize it. It was as if their memories had been wiped.”
Armaeus didn’t say anything, and I fixed him with a stare. “I have to know, Armaeus. Did you tell Simon to do that? Wipe them on purpose?” And how in the hell do you even have that ability, I wondered, while we’re at it?
The Magician quirked a grim smile, and I realized I hadn’t fully warded my mind against his touch. I jerked the barriers back in place as he shook his head.
“No, Miss Wilde. Though they had a broad range of potential capabilities, the children were low-level Connecteds when they were first discovered. Simon’s investigation into their origin, his own analysis of them after they collapsed and you were tending to Mr. Friedman, confirmed that.”
“Analysis…” I frowned, and then I recalled the events of two days ago. We’d been in the police van heading away from Lyon, and I’d been wholly focused on Nigel—Nigel, who’d been dying in my arms after I’d deep-fried him. After that crisis had passed, I’d noticed that the children had been placed in the center of the van, neatly wrapped up as a special delivery to Father Jerome. “So it was him, on his own. He…gutted them.”
“He didn’t,” Armaeus said sharply. “He returned them to the state they’d been in when they were abducted. The technoceuticals that had been introduced into their systems had taken hold, but the fact remained that for most of their lives, the children had been favored with a low level of Connected ability that was enhanced when they paired up. That still remains.”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t, Armaeus. I touched their hands. You said yourself I had an increased level of sensitivity now. If their power was dormant, if it existed at all, in any form, I would have sensed it. I didn’t. It was like…like they were a typical Unconnected. As if they’d never had abilities at all.”
“I’d suggest that you meet them again, then, when the trauma of what has transpired in their minds and bodies is not so fresh,” Armaeus said gently. “You’re immortal, Miss Wilde, but that isn’t the pinnacle of where you could go. Council Members have yet greater sensitivity, and besides…” His smile was unfeigned, almost rueful. “Do you really think Simon would willingly take so much from a human? To take their living energy and render it inert?”
I tightened my jaw. I knew what I’d sensed with those children, and something about Armaeus’s explanation felt off to me. Like he was creating one lie to cover up another one, and I wasn’t sure where to tug on the curtain to make it all come tumbling down. “So you’re telling me that in a few days—weeks, whatever, I’ll see those children again and they’ll be fine. Fine as in Connected, fine.”
“That’s what I’m telling you,” Armaeus said, his voice so sincere, it bordered on vocal projection…and I knew from experience he didn’t employ that little trick unless he was most definitely lying. But lying about what?
I blew out a breath. “Okay, setting that aside for the moment, let’s move on to Rocky and Bullwinkle.”
“Who?” He furrowed a brow.
“Marguerite Dupree and Roland Fiat, agents of Interpol who took a very nontypical Interpol interest in these children, then cooped them up in that hospital basement. The same gruesome twosome who hopped a plane to America right after they thought I did, heading for New York. At which point, according to Simon, they fell off the grid. Who are these people?”
Armaeus frowned, his eyes getting that faraway look they did when he was hitting Arcane Google. “They’ve not been an issue before,” he said. “We haven’t tracked them. Then again, the proliferation of technoceuticals hitting the mainstream market is a recent evolution of its black market trade.” He nodded. “We’ll find them. In the meantime, their interest tracks with their roles at Interpol. They believed these children had been exposed to an illegal substance, one that likely had been transported across country lines, and that’s exactly the kind of crime that is within their jurisdiction.”
“But these kids were French,” I argued. “How could they have known they were hopped up on juice from outside the country?”
“A very good question. One that bears a more thorough explanation from Simon, but I suspect that Interpol knows domestic versus foreign threats. Eventually, manufactured substances transported in enough quantities are going to catch their attention, particularly if some of those drugs are cut with known controlled substances such as opium or organic hallucinogens. Pool enough contraband together, and it triggers a response.” He waved a hand. “I’m not sure what combination caught their attention with the Tarare children, as Simon has been unable to identify the exact nature of the technoceutical that altered the children’s cellular structure. But Interpol taking control of those two when they did is probably the reason why they remained alive and relatively stable. Had they continued to be dosed, there is no telling the effects of the drug on their system.”
“The Flower of Life,” I said, the image dancing in my mind’s eye, as real and true as if we were still in the field of electricity, and I was viewing the image in Armaeus’s palm.
He stopped. “The what?”
“The Flower of Life. That’s how the new strand appending to their DNA was laid out, same as it was in the babies in Father Jerome’s nursery. The priest said it had adhered to the noncoding strands, not causing any problems that he could discern, but still not normal. Definitely not normal.” I shook my head, focusing on my drink. “If you didn’t already know that, mining it out of Nigel’s mind, I’m surprised. But I saw that same pattern again just now, in the way your cellular electrical streams were lining up. Mine too. Those kids—it wasn’t a complete match, nowhere near it. But that’s what they were… What?”
Armaeus hadn’t simply stilled, he had gone rigid with an expression I’d never before seen on his face. As if fury was bottled up in him so fiercely, if he made one wrong move, he would shatter, sending boiling rage splattering all over the room.
“Um…Armaeus?”
“Tell me exactly when and how this DNA strand appeared,” he said.
“Well, I—” I began, flailing for an explanation that would sound right without actually telling him the truth. Because I didn’t want to tell him the truth, I realized. I didn’t want to say anything that would make his expression even worse.
“Please do not make me try to find it for myself, Miss Wilde,” he said quietly.
There was enough real worry in his voice that I stopped cold. This wasn’t gamesmanship, I realized. Armaeus was worried. Genuinely worried.
Wordlessly, I dropped my mental barriers regarding what I’d witnessed in the children’s DNA and felt the Magician’s mental touch almost immediately. His walk through my brain was more a fifty-yard dash, and I watched his expression grow bleaker as he learned all that I knew, all that I’d seen,
and all that I didn’t understand.
“What?” I demanded, searching his face. “What’s so important about that pattern?”
“He did it,” Armaeus muttered, pressing his fingers to his forehead. He laughed then, the sound unusually hollow. “The bastard finally did it.”
He pulled his hands away from his face, fixing me with his gaze. “Miss Wilde, it appears I do have a job for you. There is another member of the Arcana Council we need to recall to his rightful seat, the sooner, clearly, the better. He’s done a good job of hiding from us, but now he’s overplayed his hand.”
His jaw hardened even as his eyes lost even a hint of their golden depths, becoming fiercely, resolutely black.
“You’re going to help us find the Hanged Man.”
Chapter Seventeen
“What in the name of the seven suns is the problem?”
The unmistakably feminine voice preceded the arrival of not one, but two of the Council members, each of them hastening through opposite doors of Armaeus’s penthouse office. I turned, for once unduly happy to see Eshe stride into the room. I needed a good distraction right about now.
The High Priestess of the Arcana Council was looking decidedly down-market today, her eyes boasting thick kohl eyeliner and false lashes that twitched like dying spiders above a flawless nose, perfectly lush mouth, and an ice-white toga.
Simon hustled in from the far door, his arms filled with laptop, printouts, and the remains of a gyro sandwich. “I’m coming, I’m coming,” he yelped as he saw the Magician’s thunderous expression.
Armaeus only scowled more. “Viktor and Kreios. Where are they?”
“Busy,” Eshe and I said at once, our glances connecting in sudden and unexpected solidarity. Eshe recovered first, turning to Armaeus.
“And you can forget trying to summon Death or the Hierophant. Unless you’re trying to—”
“We need to find the Hanged Man.”
“The…” Eshe’s mouth snapped shut, and Simon looked on, saucer-eyed. “Really?” she asked, and no one could miss the undercurrent of interest in her voice. I was right there with her, my mind jumping immediately to the mistaken newspaper headline I’d seen. Coincidence? Impossible. But what did it mean?