He had intimated that his magic was strong. He’d shown her that glyph. But that was nothing compared to this. She clenched her muscles again, trying to throw her shoulder forward against the power humming over her, then tried to lift her leg, shift her weight.
“What the hell is this?” Her voice was abnormally high-pitched. Shaky. She’d put on her normal armor to handle Chavez and his goons this morning. None of that did a damn bit of good now. “Why are you doing this?” And holy shit—is this what killed the senators?
She stopped herself before she said it. At least she had that much sense left. Pissing him off was a bad, bad idea, but maybe he was the murderer. It was clear he had the power.
Anything she might have imagined as magic didn’t even come close to this. The energy swirling in the room was physical, crackling. It was a barely leashed, wild creature without form.
“Listen to me,” she said, trying to keep the edge of rampant hysteria out of her voice. “I. Didn’t. Kill. The senator. That’s what this is about, right?”
Aiden’s face twisted in a sort of pain that made her wonder if the power she felt actually hurt him, too. “You blew me off this morning and didn’t answer your phone all day,” he said. “Because you left immediately for Chicago. You killed Senator O’Reilly.”
“No!” she spat the word at him, getting angry now. By God, if she was going to die again, it wasn’t going to be for something she didn’t do. “I don’t even know who O’Reilly is,” she hissed. Cait wasn’t sure which pissed her off more, being so helpless against this power, or being falsely accused by this arrogant bastard.
“Are you human?”
“Yes!”
“I have ways of telling if you’re lying,” he said.
“Then fucking use them,” she managed, clenching her chattering teeth. Be damned if she would show him that fear. “I’m not lying. Chavez picked me up. With a warrant. I’ve been at FBI headquarters, being interrogated for the past nine hours!”
“Don’t lie,” he rasped. With a whiplash of power, the colors of her imprisoning bars changed from red to blue. “Say it again, tell me the truth. If you don’t the cage will turn black and I’ll know.” A bleak look came over his face. “And if you’ve killed these men…” the words hung between them, invisible and powerful.
With a twitch of his fingers and a muttering of words that didn’t sound like English, a current of flame raced over the bars of her cage, and he finished the sentence. “…you’ll die.”
Cait wanted to shriek, wanted desperately to wake up from the nightmare. Pinching herself on the leg hard enough to bruise, she knew she wasn’t dreaming.
“Aiden,” she said, trying for sanity, and she saw him flinch.
Taking a deep breath, she managed to speak. A soldier’s report. Simple. Unadorned.
“I got to DC on Wednesday. I got the limo from BWI. I didn’t kill Hathaway. I don’t know who O’Reilly is…” she spoke the words slowly, carefully. The colors of her cage flickered, but remained unchanged. Breath whooshed out of her lungs, rushed in again. She had a moment of clarity. “Wait, wait…O’Reilly, he’s another senator? In Chicago? Chavez said the reporters had all gone to Chicago.”
“Yes,” Aiden said, arms folded over his chest. “What about the rest?”
“Is O’Reilly really dead?”
“You don’t ask the questions.”
“I didn’t kill them. I didn’t. I had nothing to do with their deaths. If you thought I did, you’re wrong.” She managed to say this with more strength, more conviction.
When her cage continued to glow a vibrant blue, she saw him twitch, saw the puzzlement come over his face.
“Have you killed anyone?”
What did she say? She’d been a soldier.
“Yes.”
“Are you lying to me about anything else?”
“I’m not lying to you!”
The bars went black.
As she had on Meena Pal, Cait prepared to die.
The blow didn’t fall.
“That was a lie. What you’re lying about?”
Shit. She was in a corner. “Everything.”
His frown was thunderous.
“Who are you lying to?”
“Everyone” It was true, and she had to say it. Everything she was, everything she said when she was downside, was a lie.
“But you didn’t kill the senators?”
“No.”
“What are you?”
She stared at him a moment, and saw the granite in his expression. There was no way out of it.
“A Slip Traveler,” she said, her voice quivering with tension. The arrogant bastard just stood there. He was going to kill her if she didn’t tell him, and the Sh’Aitan would kill her if she did.
Fight the opponent that’s closest to you first.
She took a deep breath. Here goes nothing.
“I’m an alien hunter. I’m like a cop, or a protector. Like Men in Black,” she added, thinking that it might help as a reference. She was getting desperate.
“I’ll ask you again. Are you human?”
“Yes. I was born in New York. My parents still live there. I have two brothers. Well…had. I went to basic at Parris Island. I was a marine. They all think I’m dead. They think I died on 9/11.”
“Oh, sure.” He sneered. Then he seemed to catch himself, focused on the cage around her, and frowned again. “You’re not much more than thirty. You would’ve barely been out of high school when the Towers fell. And now you hunt aliens? Seriously?” That was said with some sarcasm.
“I thought this cage of yours turned black if I lied!” Cait yelled at him. God, she was pissed. And pissed felt a hell of a lot better than paralyzed with fear.
“Who do you work for?”
I am so gonna die.
Squeezing her eyes shut, knowing she was signing her death certificate, she answered. “I work for The Alliance, a group of space-faring races who protect planets that aren’t yet ready for active contact. My contract is with a race called the Sh’Aitan.”
“Truth,” Aiden said, surprise ringing in his voice. “All truth.”
As suddenly as it had sprung up, the power surrounding her dissipated, lowering her gently to the floor. Her knees gave way, and she collapsed.
* * *
Aiden jumped forward to help as Cait crumpled to the floor.
“Get away from me, you bastard!” she hissed, scrambling backward across the floor as quickly as she could.
Hands outstretched, he retreated, sitting down carefully on the floor, as low as he could get, as non-threatening, now, as he could be.
Holy gods, guides and guardians.
He’d made a terrible mistake.
* * *
“Get out!” she rasped. She got her feet under her and rose, a small sliver object in her hand, aimed at him like a weapon. He had no doubt it was one, and would make him dead as a doornail, no matter how innocuous it looked.
“Cait…” he said. The wash of agony across his soul was as deep as any he’d felt, and it shocked him. It was agony at what he’d done, and at this point, it didn’t matter at all that he’d had good reason. She was innocent.
“I said get out,” she spat. “Now.”
Staying here longer would gain him nothing and might get him dead. Which he deserved, he supposed, but that wouldn’t protect his territory from whatever had committed the brutal murders. Holding his hands up in the age-old signal of surrender, Aiden slowly stood and backed to the door.
What took him by surprise, what he hadn’t expected to see, was the raw pain in Cait’s eyes. It stabbed him to the heart.
He’d expected her anger. He’d known there’d be serious fallout if he was wrong, but gods help him, this felt like more. He hadn’t expected to feel hollow inside, to feel this intense, burning need to make it right. Make her understand.
But how did he explain? How did he make up for this? Where did he start?
He’d attacked a p
otential ally. Made a powerful enemy. And all without catching the murderer or stopping the killing. He’d dangerously drained his resources with nothing to show for it. The Council was right. He wasn’t fit for real duty.
“Cait,” he said, his hand on the door behind him, “I’m sorry.” The words sounded cheap and worthless. He didn’t wait for a response.
He slipped out in front of the guard and heard her shoot home the bolts on the door. The sound echoed in the upper foyer like the knell of doom.
What had he done?
Chapter Fourteen
When the door closed behind him, Cait let out the breath she’d been holding.
“Oh, sweet cycling Jesus in a circus,” she managed. Sweat ran cold all over her body and she shivered.
Shock. The career paths she’d taken had done one thing for her. She could assess her own condition—mental and physical—better than most. She recognized the symptoms of shock and knew what to do. She needed hydration. Liquid and sugar.
Stat.
She made it to the kitchen counter and grabbed the abandoned can of Coke from that morning before sinking to the floor again. Even warm and flat, the Coke tasted like heaven.
All the stories she’d read, all the things her Granny had told her about ghosties and goblins, flooded into her mind. What the hell?
She took another swig and grimaced. It would be nice if she could just wallow in hysteria for a while like a quivering heroine from a movie, but she wasn’t built that way. If she were, she wouldn’t have survived Marine Corps boot camp, flight school, alien boot camp or five years working for the Sh’Aitan.
God. Sometimes being a tough chick sucked.
Aiden told you, her logic brain lectured.
Yeah, he had. Not the details, but he’d drawn that stupid glowing thing in mid-air.
If that wasn’t un-be-fucking-lievable magic, what was?
He’d told her what he did. He’d asked her if she was an adept. But she’d blown off his questions.
She hadn’t believed it. Not really. Because she hadn’t been able to explain it, but hell, wasn’t she used to that by now? She’d gotten jaded about the “unexplainable” working for the Sh’Aitan.
But that was technology. It had an explanation, moving parts, chips, sensors. Just because she didn’t know how to take it apart didn’t mean she couldn’t use it. Tech, she got.
This was magic. Power. Organic and pure, nothing to do with chips and circuits.
Part of her wanted to simply say “la, la, la” and forget all about Aiden Bayliss. At the same time, that little girl who still lived inside her wanted to believe in faeries and elves and dragons as she had at her grandmother’s knee. That part was whispering gleefully, “Magic, magic, magic!”
Up until now, she’d blown off that little girl, just like she’d blown off Aiden’s capabilities.
But why had he done this? What the fuck?
Again, logic popped up, the snide, pompous bitch.
Cait was the new neighbor, and a murder had happened practically the minute she got into the building. She’d been evasive. She’d been nonchalant about the glowy sign. She’d slid around Aiden’s questions without giving him any real answers. She’d avoided a meet-up, left for an entire day, and another murder had happened.
As a dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker, she had to say it.
“Badda-boom, badda-bing, you got a murderer,” she managed, then giggled, a near-hysterical reaction to what had just happened. It had always been this way. She was steady in a fight, but the delayed freak out was never pretty.
“Magic. Ain’t that a fuckin’ kick in the ass?”
She drained the stale Coke and crawled to the fridge.
What could you do with magic? How did it work? How the hell did you make a net in the middle of the air and hold up a grown woman?
How did you kill a senator with javelins?
“He didn’t do it,” she stated, just to hear herself say it. “He couldn’t have washed off the blood that quickly.”
She remembered her own sopping hair, her own entrance into the fray.
The pieces fell together. There had been enough time—barely—for her to get in the shower, wash off the blood, come back out.
“He should have asked—” Even as she started the sentence, she knew she was on a losing track. He had asked. Not in those exact words, but she’d denied it to his face, and if she were him, would she accept that? No way.
He’d been trying to ask her for help. To call a truce, to set a meeting. To find out, some other way, if she was involved.
She thought of talking to him now and shuddered.
“Face it, now you’re afraid of him.” Saying it was important. If she said it out loud, she could admit it and deal. She could put it aside and think. Cait wasn’t afraid of much, but hanging there immobile at his mercy had been ugly.
She struggled to her feet. She got a fresh Coke and began to pace. Maybe pacing would help her shrug off the helpless feeling of abject terror he’d engendered.
“And maybe pigs will fly Harriers.”
She hated feeling vulnerable.
On her next pass pacing the living room, she switched on the television, mostly just for noise. She stopped when the headline story rang out.
“In our top story tonight, Illinois Senator Malcolm Baines O’Reilly was killed this morning in a suburb of Chicago,” the serious-faced, beautifully styled, female anchor intoned. “The second senator in so many days to be murdered by mysterious and gruesome means, Senator O’Reilly was killed at approximately eight twenty-five this morning, in his home. Police in Schaumburg have no leads at this time…” The reporter droned on, but Cait fixated on the film of the house, secluded behind a tall fence, with police and crime scene vehicles clustered along the driveway, and neighbors standing along the curbs.
In the milling crowd, a tall man, with a hoodie pulled over a ballcap, caught her eye. His dark jeans were pressed with a neat crease.
Had she seen him before?
Her mind worried over that for a moment, then moved on to the bigger picture. There was a killer, maybe an alien killer, slaughtering senators. Humans. Americans.
Her people were dying, and dying badly.
She was in an untenable situation with two senators dead—possibly three if you counted the missing one from New Mexico—and a Ty-Op on planet. Her mission was the Ty-Op. She had to get it out, off-planet.
Only then could she find out about the killer. If it was alien in origin…
If so, it was her turf. Her job. Unless the Kith told her differently, she would hunt it down and take it out. All while dancing the delicate dance of evading the press and police.
But the Ty-Op was first. She had to get it out of DC before the second Ty-Op—and she didn’t trust any platitudes that the second one wasn’t on this continent, not now, not with everything else so fucked—made an appearance. And she had to do it all and still protect the anonymity of the Alliance.
“Piece of cake,” she muttered. Post-trauma reaction was settling in, and she was balancing on the edge of tears and hysterical laughter. “Easy as pie. Just a walk in the park.”
Dread rose to choke her. The feeling of being held, helpless, in the air. Questioned. At the mercy of one man’s judgment. Or lack of it.
And now she’d revealed information about the Alliance. About the Sh’Aitan, and chances were good that they’d find out. They’d send a detail to kill her.
Fear won.
Stumbling to the bathroom, she threw up the Coke and what little she’d eaten at FBI headquarters as the residual terror overwhelmed her.
“Oh, my God,” she panted, wiping her mouth, splashing water on her face. Looking in the mirror, her pale face and stark fear stared back at her. “There’s no way out of this.”
* * *
In his condo, Aiden paced.
Don’t twist a tail, boy, lest you find out there’s a dragon at the end of it.
In this case, Cait was the drag
on, and he’d made an enemy of alien-hunting, powerful, efficient marine.
He’d hated that dragon saying. His uncle started every magic lesson with that homily.
Know what you’re getting into before you act.
He’d taught Aiden the early, basic, foundational magic. Now he felt like he’d twisted the tail of a Nightflyer, and it had closed its jaws around him for good.
He’d been telling the Council he was ready to go back to serious duty. His body had healed. His magic had healed.
Obviously.
But his judgment? His ability to read a situation properly, use his skills and his intuitive gifts to make the correct call? Apparently those were never coming back.
Hell, maybe he’d never had them.
His teacher and recruiter, Gregory, had died protecting him. His last words had been, “Now it’s you, Aiden. You’re the strongest. When your generation needs you, stand for them.”
He was the strongest and he was failing.
He’d fucked up so badly with Cait that he might as well just pack it in and head for Antarctica tomorrow.
He didn’t know what had killed Hathaway or O’Reilly. Cait seemed to have some idea, based on the smell, and he needed that information.
There was part of his soul that told him he needed to have Cait not hate him. And it had nothing to do with the murders. He could admit it so he could get past it, but he couldn’t make the situation about that. He couldn’t go there.
The smell. That smell had been there on the day she’d arrived. He’d come up with his mail…he’d smelled it then. Had whatever killed Hathaway been lurking then?
That idea bumped around in his head and finally rose to the top of the possible oh-shit scenarios with a giant red flag, waving like crazy.
Had it been waiting for Cait?
He needed to talk to her about it, and that was never going to happen. Not now. He’d screwed up any hope of their working together.
He went into his office, picked up the bin of mail, put his face into the bin and drew in a long breath.
Nothing. Same as when he’d sniffed it before.
He sat down, sent emails telling his colleagues he was all right, he’d determined that his quarry wasn’t a suspect, and he still had no other leads.
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