by Jenn Stark
Nikki snorted. “We’ll need to give him a few days for that. He’s been placed in a medical coma so that he doesn’t fight the healing process. Apparently, he was pretty freaked out by the whole experience, flailing like a Muppet in a dryer the moment he regained consciousness. I don’t think he’s used to getting attacked by dead people.”
“Well, maybe next time, he’ll think before he shoots.” I blew out a breath, then gave words to the only explanation I could string together so far. “Dixie set us up,” I said. “If that research place checks out and isn’t a haven for anything but questionable Unconnected test subjects, then she set us up.”
Nikki hesitated, but she didn’t defend Dixie. “Maybe. Not enough evidence to say for sure, and either way, I don’t like tipping our hand until we know why. Dixie’s got no beef with you, right?”
I snorted. “She does not.” I looked at her more steadily now, a thin pang of dismay sounding deep inside my cynical heart. “I’ve made you doubt Dixie, haven’t I? You two are friends.”
“We’re still friends, and I don’t doubt her, not who she is inherently,” Nikki said staunchly. “But if she’s using, dollface, that changes things. I don’t care if it’s technoceuticals or coke or too much bourbon on a Saturday night—once it hits a particular point, things can go sideways in a hurry. That’s what I don’t know about Dixie, and until I do, well…it’s better to be open-minded.”
I accepted that, my mind running back over the story. “We can check her alibi, I guess. See if she was in the supply store. If we can place her there, maybe—maybe her story holds. Maybe it was just wrong place, wrong time.”
“Maybe,” Nikki said, but she clearly wasn’t feeling any better about it than I was.
Sells returned and sent us on our way, disclosing that she’d be testing samples of the blood and gore on my shirt and would share the results once she got them back. Nikki called the Soo mansion for a vehicle and a security detail. For once, I didn’t argue.
We spent the night out at the Swords mansion, the whirr of electronics punctuating the still night no longer serving as a gentle balm for me. Did Tesla know this building was here, I wondered? Had he flowed through its electrical circuits, eavesdropping? Did he know about MedTech? He could have intercepted Dixie’s phone call, could have…zapped the cameras. Could have…
I drifted off, still no closer to answers, and now unsure of even where to go to ask the questions. My sleep was fortunately dream free, but I awoke the next morning more tired than I’d gone to bed. Instant healing was apparently hell on your circadian rhythms.
I’d just sucked down my second hit of coffee, jotting notes in the middle of an impromptu team meeting with Nikki, Ma-Singh, and Nigel, when Armaeus summoned me.
Given the events of the previous afternoon, I’d been expecting him to check in, sort of, but it still jarred me. The whisper-thin touch on my mind, the gentle nudge. Familiar, yes, yet infinitely different from the arrogant intrusion I’d been used to from Armaeus for so many months.
Then again, this was a different Armaeus from the man I’d first met in Rio de Janeiro, all those jobs ago. He’d not aged, exactly. His immortality forbade that. But he’d changed. Evolved. Become a little more comfortable with me, perhaps, or at least a little more tolerant. He’d never stopped testing me, never stopped pushing. Never stopped challenging. Still, one thing was certain—he valued me, my help, the things I could do for him. I couldn’t trust a lot about the man, but I could trust that.
And his words, when he formed them, confirmed it.
“We’ve located Tesla in Nashville,” Armaeus spoke into my mind. “But not his precise location. Your skills are needed.”
I didn’t respond at first. Instead, I turned my gaze to Nigel, Nikki, and Ma-Singh as they argued over the breakfast table, allowing Armaeus to see what I saw. Knowing further that he would understand it. After Dixie’s maybe stunt from yesterday and the very definite reality of me being shot in broad daylight, I couldn’t go to Nashville alone. Couldn’t and wouldn’t put myself at risk so openly anymore. I had a team now, and they were expecting me to treat them as such.
“Very well, Miss Wilde. They will be useful. In addition, you will be receiving a call in a matter of minutes that I recommend you ignore. Either way, come as soon as you can. All of you.”
Armaeus flowed away from my mind as easily as he’d touched it, and I marveled anew at how much his communication had changed. Where was this kinder, gentler Armaeus coming from, I wondered? Had he been there all along?
No way. Something was different.
I didn’t have time to consider the question, however. My phone erupted with a familiar chime. Brody.
I lifted my brows as the table quieted, their attention turning to me.
“You wiped down the van?” I asked Nikki, and she nodded.
“There are operating suites that weren’t that clean, I guarantee you.”
“Okay.” I took a deep breath and picked up the phone.
“How’re you feeling, Sara?” Brody asked, his voice level. Flat.
“Um…fine,” I said. I sent a panicked glance toward Nikki, who lifted her brows, eyes wide. “How are you?”
“I would be better, except this morning I got a visit from a panicked girlfriend wailing about some banshee woman in a hoodie and tank top beating her boyfriend half to death in a public parking lot. Sound familiar?”
I closed my eyes. The girlfriend. I hadn’t even thought about her. Last I’d seen her, she’d been heading toward me, screaming, but then Nikki had been there, and we’d been off and running. It appeared the girlfriend hadn’t waited around either, if Brody was just now talking to her.
“Not really, but hoodies are making a comeback,” I said. I scrawled “girlfriend” on the notepad next to me and flipped it around to Nikki. Her eyes widened further. “She tell you anything else?”
“Only that her boyfriend—and we do have him, though he’s in a coma—dumped enough rounds of ammo into said banshee woman to stop a water buffalo. Unfortunately, she kept coming. Kept coming and knocked him down, beating the ever-loving crap out of him. Trust me, I saw the guy. She’s not lying.”
“Huh,” I said. “So, why’re you calling—oh!” I brightened with false cheer, straightening in my chair. “You want me to use my cards to find whoever got shot.”
“No,” Brody snapped. “I want you to stop bullshitting me. First Dixie takes me to MedTech based on her spinning doohickey, then we get all the way into the place and she absolutely loses her shit, begging me to get her out of there, stat, only she won’t explain why. I drop her at her chapel, and not a half hour later, the same damned medical facility is getting shot up to kingdom come and a fire breaks out—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said. Everyone in the room stopped and looked at me. “Fire? What fire?”
Nikki shook her head, disavowing all knowledge.
“Contained internally, records room. Kind of a coincidence, you ask me, but CSIs are working to sort everything out, see what we can find. Right now, I’m more interested in what happened outside the building.”
I wasn’t, but I played along. “You got the wrong girl, Detective. I have all my internal organs, last I checked, and I’m full up on blood. No extra holes.”
“You expect me to believe someone other than you walked through bullets and then beat a guy half to death? Because, honestly, Sara, I’d rather it be you. The idea of two nutcases on the loose in my town is a little much for me to bear right now.”
I had to hand it to Brody, he was good. I almost caved on that line. But I sensed the trap before it fully sprang, and gave him a hearty laugh-snort. I excelled at those.
“More likely your shooter wasn’t as good a marksman as he thought he was. I doubt whoever he shot at was struck.”
“I thought that too,” Brody said gamely. “Only, we don’t have simply bullets, we’ve got spent casings too. Too many. I got crime techs combing the scene, and the numbers don’t add
up. Dude emptied his magazine, and we’re missing about six bullets, assuming he was fully loaded when he arrived on the scene. Which we’re not assuming, but it seems likely.”
“Why would it seem likely?” I countered. “Guy was outside a medical testing facility, Brody, with a gun. That’s not normal. Who’s to say when he reloaded it last?”
“The gun was legally registered to him, the girlfriend maintains. We’re running that down now. Boyfriend was a gun nut, carried all the time, but so far he’s got no outstanding warrants, no criminal history. Girlfriend says the woman threatened, boyfriend opens fire, woman kept coming, beat down ensued.”
The woman threatened? Really? “That’s interesting, but I still don’t know how I can help you.”
He sighed. “Just don’t leave the city anytime soon, okay? I may have questions for you.”
“I won’t,” I lied. I felt bad for Brody, really I did. But he was using Dixie to help solve his crimes. He could enjoy that a little while longer while I handled my own ration of crazy. Looked like we’d both be busy.
Chapter Twenty-Three
We rendezvoused in Nashville by three p.m., the sun high in the sky over Music City. Nigel and his cohort of guards had traveled by commercial plane. Ma-Singh and Nikki and I flew via Soo’s private jet. Armaeus presumably arrived by magic carpet. He met us all at a large, private, and recently vacated residence south of the city, our apparent headquarters for the next few days.
Armaeus studied the group stonily as we assembled, more of us than I would have anticipated him allowing to take part in a Council action. I didn’t trust it, suddenly. I watched him with narrowed eyes. There was a lie in this. Somewhere.
The Magician’s initial words, however, took me by surprise. “Most of you here are decoys,” Armaeus said. “Our target is a proud man, a romantic, who believes that only the most intricate of traps will ensnare him. That’s not true.”
Ma-Singh shifted uneasily. Of all the assembled, he viewed the Magician with the most suspicion. I liked that about him. “Then why haven’t you caught him yet?”
Armaeus regarded the general coolly. “Because it’s not been in our best interest to do so. Tesla the inventor could influence only so much activity as an entity in the ether. With the advances in artificial intelligence and technology, his strength has grown, but despite his personal preference of magic for all, he still grudgingly conformed to the principles of his position—noninterference—for decades. We have reason to believe that he’s no longer playing by the rules. Accordingly, we will move quickly to contain him. With your help.”
“Why here?” Nikki asked. She was dressed appropriately for the locale, her auburn hair in big country curls beneath a beaded cowboy hat, her body bedecked in a plaid shirt, cut-off shorts, and bright red cowboy boots. “I thought he was in Silicon Valley.” She looked around, also noting the large group. “And why are there so many of us?”
“Because Soo’s most promising technoceutical research comes from here,” I said, swinging my gaze to Armaeus. I’d caused this, I knew. I’d lured Tesla to Nashville myself.
Armaeus nodded, though how much he knew about my chat with the Hanged Man was uncertain. I’d stopped giving color commentary right around the time that I’d been skewered with Tesla’s Electrical Spear of Doom. “We tracked his digital imprint, and he’s no longer present in any Silicon Valley electrical streams. Instead, he’s here in Nashville. Up to now, the wards Soo has put in place on her patronized lab have kept him out. Kept us out too.”
I nodded. I’d been able to exit via the front doors, but I wasn’t a Council Member, I was the head of the House. Membership apparently had its privileges.
“And, what, you want me to let him in, see what she’s been developing?” I asked. Across the room, Ma-Singh stiffened.
“Only as bait to keep him here,” Armaeus said. “Frankly, I think his pride will ensnare him well before he gets close to Soo’s lab. You’ve seen the signs, the messages. He wants you to chase him. And so, we’ll give chase. In the meantime, we’ll assemble a trap that requires only that the Hanged Man be in the proper place, at the proper time, to receive enough of an influx of energy to render him corporeal again.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “There’s no risk of said influx frying anyone on my team?” Armaeus had many good qualities. Protecting mortal lives wasn’t always one of them.
“In everything there is risk, Miss Wilde.” The Magician glanced to the guards that Ma-Singh had assembled. “May I?”
I hesitated. I couldn’t ignore the fact that the House of Swords was about to go up against a Council member. Soo had wanted to pursue technoceuticals for mortals to be able to do exactly this—but on their own merits, not as a tool or a pawn. Still, I also couldn’t deny that Tesla needed to be stopped. The work he was doing was too dangerous, and no one knew him better than the Magician. This was our best shot to rein him in. I didn’t know if we’d get a second one.
“Fine,” I said at last.
Armaeus inclined his head and selected a half-dozen guards, fixing them with a sharp glare. “Your assignment is simple—report to your stations with the equipment that will be assigned to you. You’re a net, nothing more. No contact with the target if you want to live. In his present form, he’ll electrocute you without meaning to do so.”
The men nodded. I’d left it to Nigel to explain the entire Tesla connection to them on the flight here. If they thought we were insane, they hid it well. Which was all you could ask for in a workforce.
“Nikki, you’ll be with Sara. Both of you will carry the silver disks recovered from the mine. They will serve as deflectors to any energy that Tesla will direct your way, channeling it back toward him. They’ll keep you safe.”
“Safety first.” Nikki grinned, giving the Magician the thumbs-up. It occurred to me that this was the first time Nikki had truly interfaced with Armaeus on a job. Her eyes were a touch glassy, but otherwise, she held herself together well.
The other people in the room didn’t react at all, but then, they weren’t Connected. To them, Armaeus Bertrand was another in a long line of billionaires with orders he expected these men to follow exactly. Even Nigel watched Armaeus with bemusement more than true concern. The Magician was an enigma, a puzzle to be solved, not a threat.
Still, the math wasn’t adding up yet. There were three disks, and according to Death, they had to wielded by Connecteds who were not Council members. I glanced around the room, but no one else resonated on that level other than Nikki. We needed someone else on the team.
Oblivious to my concerns, Armaeus continued. “In addition to protection, all of you are distraction. I’ve had a number of electronic mini-generators built for you to carry on your belts. Wherever you go, there’ll be chaos on the airwaves. Cell towers disrupted, electrical storms popping up. The works. Nigel and Ma-Singh, you’ll be close to Sara and Nikki. Close—but not too close.”
Nigel looked at me and arched a brow. His pursed lips conveyed distinctly British displeasure. I eyed him with profoundly American “get over it.”
“The rest of you will hold a perimeter around wherever we can isolate the Hanged Man, and then move inward.” The Magician’s voice carried authority along with a hint of compulsion. For once, I didn’t object to his use of vocal projection. I wanted my people following his direction to the letter. There was no margin for error here. Especially if Tesla still had his spear.
“If we do this correctly, we’ll have Tesla entrapped tomorrow night, but we should be ready to act at any time. We won’t get a second chance for a simple bait and catch. You understand?”
Nigel and the general swung their gazes to me. At my nod, neither of them looked happy, but they didn’t argue either. I could see how a body could get used to this House rulership thing.
The rest of the details were hammered out over twenty minutes or so, and in short order, Armaeus had deployed the entire team. Nikki, he tasked with getting a fix on the men and their locations in her m
ind. With her psychic abilities engaged, once she got to know someone, she could see what they saw as if she was flipping browser windows. She’d never tried it on so grand a scale as a dozen operatives across a city, but Armaeus dispatched her before either of us could object.
All too quickly, the spacious mansion emptied, leaving the two of us alone in the room.
“The seals, huh?” I said, picking up the nearest one from the conference table, weighing it in my hand. “How are these going to help, specifically?”
“Tesla created these seals to keep intruders out of the Granite mine. He couldn’t control his own abilities so well back then, so the seals also blocked the Council members—including himself. At the time, we all agreed it was a minor issue. The seals would be buried, the mine and its ultrapure silver would remain safe. The years passed. He forgot about the mine and the seals.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I didn’t. They remain to date the only tools we have to repel a Council member. They do more than deflect energy. Where they are positioned, Council members may not pass. So when we use them in the city…”
“You’re going to herd him,” I said, suddenly getting it. “The same way he herded me in Silicon Valley. But there are three seals—not two. And Nikki and I are the only Connected here.”
“A third Connected volunteer is being secured,” Armaeus said, waving off that issue. “Your assessment is correct, however. Once we’ve herded Tesla to a controlled place, we’ll have him.”
“Then what?” I asked, wrinkling my brow. “You’re going to Ghostbust him?”
Armaeus’s lips thinned. “In a manner of speaking. Tesla will find he cannot escape and will draw in a great deal of energy to do that. Once he pulls in too much, his form will manifest corporeally once more. At that point, he can be fixed in this plane, and we can restrain him.”