by W. J. May
“Yeah,” he said quietly, eyes never leaving the page, “I am.”
Aria wanted to ask more, but knew him better than that. You didn’t get anywhere with Jason by pressing. Besides, she’d stumbled upon plenty about Gabriel Alden herself.
The man was a force of nature.
Despite working under the same banner, his mission reports didn’t read like the rest. Neither did his sister’s for that matter. There was a charge to them unrivaled by the others. The feeling one got when standing on the edge of a cliff...just a little too close to the edge.
The body counts were massive. The injuries were too gruesome to recount. But despite the lethal nature of their profession, there was something beautiful about it as well. A deadly grace that raised the hair on Aria’s arms—like they’d both been charmed by the same dark star.
It was hard to believe that Angel was the same woman who’d brought doughnuts to every school play. That Gabriel was the same man who’d read her bedtime stories, sitting on his lap.
While each of the friends worked mainly with their partners, depending on the requirements of the mission, they were often paired with someone else. Julian and Rae, with their similar coloring, often posed as siblings. Angel handled almost all of Eastern Europe, while Luke had the schematics to almost every major city grid as a purposely mislabeled icon on his phone.
The more radical the pairing, the more delightful the mission report was to read.
There had been a full month where Molly and Gabriel were stationed together in Guam. The file didn’t say much about what happened there. In fact, it was summarized in just six words.
We gave it to the fish.
Granted, everything Aria could find about Gabriel was relatively new. He’d been working for the agency for just a little over a decade. Before that, he’d dedicated his life to tearing them down.
Not that you could find that in the files either.
In his personnel file, the section labeled ‘origins’ was left blank. The rest of it was as brief as it was vague, written in Carter’s own hand. Rumor had it, Gabriel’s only condition for signing on with the Council was that it come with a truly clean slate. Everything he’d done before was erased.
Of all the friends, there was only one pairing that was suspiciously absent. Coincidentally, it was the one that would probably have been the most interesting to read.
Devon and Gabriel had been paired together only once. The entire file was redacted. Neither man would discuss it to this day. It was the only mission either of them had ever failed.
But that wasn’t the only thing the children were searching for. If you’d given them the chance to read only one file, the same mission would have jumped to each of their minds.
“I found it!”
The others’ heads snapped up as James waved a manila folder above his head. Aria instantly tried to levitate it away, but he held on tight—yanking it open while anchoring it with his knees.
“It’s right here,” he gasped. “That night in London. The one where all hell broke loose and they fought Vivian in the fire.”
His bright eyes flew over the page, scanning at lightning speed as the others waited impatiently beside him. Finally, after a few seconds of silence, he lifted his head. “It doesn’t say.”
Benji snatched it away. “Give me that.”
He started reading at the speed of light. Lily stood on her tiptoes behind him, reading over his shoulder. For a second, things looked hopeful. Then their heads lifted with the same blank look.
“No,” he echoed quietly, “it doesn’t say.”
With a look of shock Aria grabbed it out of his hands, reading for herself as Jason came up to stand beside her. His chin rested lightly on her shoulder as they gazed down at the same page.
One of the most important nights in supernatural history, but the file was classified. Almost the entire thing was redacted—a sea of impenetrable black ink. Every now and then, a certain phrase would have made it past inspection. Things like, ‘threw him into the water’ or ‘blocked the subway entrance with a melted cab’. But there were no details. There were hardly any names.
And the question the children wanted answered the most? How in the world their parents had managed to defeat the almighty Vivian as the sky rained down fire?
That was nowhere to be seen.
All that was referenced was a mysterious turning point. The arrival of some new force that shifted the tide. Whether it was a weapon, a person? They had no idea. Perhaps they’d never know.
“Unbelievable.” Aria shut the folder with a little extra force, sending wisps of smoke rising from the edges. “It’s like they knew we’d come here.”
“Maybe they did know,” James said reasonably, throwing a glance at Lily. “Maybe your dad saw it coming and told the rest.”
Aria shook her head. “No, I specifically didn’t decide when I was going to do this. If Lily hadn’t texted me that she wanted to get together tonight, we wouldn’t have come.”
Benji stared down at the fallen paper with a frown. “I guess it’s not that surprising. Most of the rest of this stuff is redacted, too. Not as much as all that, but...it was an important night. Maybe it’s just procedure.”
“But why redact it?” Lily insisted, perching on the edge of the table. “The whole point of these files is to archive things that happened. Why have a restricted room dedicated to preserving mission memory when all the good stuff is already blotted out?”
The others agreed wholeheartedly, but were too disappointed to say so. After a long silence, Jason finally nudged her with a coaxing smile.
“It’s still a bloody good present. This place is a gold mine.” He threw out his hands, drawing her attention to all the unredacted reports. “The stuff I found out about my dad...”
He trailed off suggestively and the others started laughing. But Aria couldn’t help but detect a slight strain beneath the smile. Suddenly, she wondered what kinds of things he had found out about his father. Suddenly, she wondered if he’d been looking for something in particular, too.
“It’s an awesome present, Arie.” Lily hopped off the table and threw her an unexpected smile. “The best. How on earth did you get the key?”
Aria backed away with a coy shrug, settling back down in the corner. “I have my ways...”
In reality, her ‘ways’ involved a great deal of distraction and a great deal of luck. She’d been sitting in the kitchen, puzzling over what to get Lily, when her father got a sudden text message then bolted to his feet. He was out the door a second later—forgetting to close it behind him, calling out a quick, “There’s money on the table for pizza,” before sliding into his car.
The distraction was a rare thing. Her father was always meticulous in the moments when his work life caught him at home. But that night, for whatever reason, he was in a hurry. He left without taking his phone and wallet. He left without realizing he’d left his school keys by the door.
Aria didn’t steal them. That was an important point to make.
...she just duplicated them.
“Yeah, it was pretty heroic,” she added, stretching out her legs as she pulled another file into her lap. “Swords and spears. Fire-play. There may have been a badger involved...”
The others laughed a moment—paused, as they wondered if that was true—then continued laughing as they settled down once more. Jason was right. There was plenty more to read. Adrenaline had burned away any desire to sleep, and they would have stayed there for hours.
But, as usual, fate had other plans.
“Hello?”
The friends jumped at the same time, then froze in rigid positions all over the room. Lily was perched on the table. Jason was lying on the shelves. James and Aria were sitting on the floor. Benji was in the process of going to refill the coffee maker, arm still reaching for the open door.
He froze like the rest of them, then jerked his hand back like he’d been burned.
“What time is it?”
he hissed.
It was so quiet, only Aria with her fox tatù was able to understand. She turned her head to the tiny window beneath the ceiling, shocked to see the sky outside had turned pink.
“Is somebody up there?”
SHIT!
With a collective gasp the friends abandoned their positions and huddled together in the center of the room, listening in horror as someone started climbing the stairs. There was only one door, which would soon be in plain sight, and the window was so tiny that none of them would be able to fit through. There was a reason the Privy Council had chosen to house their most precious papers in this particular location. The place was a vault.
“What should we do?” Lily whispered, paling to the same color as the walls.
The gang might have been known to bend a rule or two, but the girl was always more guilty and careful than the rest. Usually, she came along only after Aria’s incessant prodding.
“I don’t know,” Jason murmured. “We could—”
But whatever he was going to suggest the others would never know. Because at that moment, the door swung open and a tall, dark-haired man stepped into the frame.
He stared at them in shock for a moment before glancing at the papers scattered by their feet. There was no more need for explanation. The guilty looks on their faces said it all.
“I might be new,” he began with a slight drawl, “but I’m pretty sure this room is off-limits.”
Chapter 6
There wasn’t a sound in the library. Only the steady drip of the coffee maker as it ended its cycle. None of the kids wanted to be the one to answer, but the man, whoever he was, seemed perfectly content to wait. The second they froze up he folded his arms and leaned against the doorframe, looking like he was enjoying himself immensely.
“You see,” he said after an eternal silence, “I can stand here all day. But I’m pretty sure you all have parents waiting at home. And I’d be willing to bet they don’t know where you are.”
The mention of their parents got a reaction. A frantic look passed between them, a guilty shiver that got those frozen pulses racing again. Finally, after a long moment, Aria cleared her throat.
“We didn’t mean to...”
She trailed off at the man’s expression before valiantly trying again.
“There’s actually a perfectly good...”
He lifted his eyebrows with an amused smile, and her shoulders dropped in defeat.
“It was a birthday present.”
There was a hard jab between her ribs—a furious condemnation for telling the truth. She didn’t know who it came from. Probably either Lily or Benji. Her money was on Benji.
But the man dropped his casual position for the first time.
“A birthday present?” he repeated in surprise.
He hadn’t expected her to tell the truth any more than she’d planned on telling it herself. A few steps back Lily paled in horror, but Aria quickly stepped forward. Shouldering all of the blame.
“It was my idea to come here. I’m the one who had the key.” She clutched it tightly in her pocket, wondering how long it would be before the man took it away. “The others didn’t even know where we were going until they were standing outside the door.”
A heavy silence fell over the library.
It was hard to know whether the impromptu confession made an impact. Truth be told, it was hard to know much of anything happening behind those impenetrable eyes. They were half-hidden behind a pair of bookish glasses, but the expression was so sharp it pierced right through.
It took a long time, but the man finally spoke.
“At which point, they followed you in here.”
Under no circumstances was he buying this army-of-one routine. They’d all made the same decision, they were all equally to blame. The beginnings of a reprimand rose to his lips, but then his eyes flickered to the papers lying at their feet and he softened ever so slightly.
“But I’m guessing you’ve wanted to read those files for a long time...”
Aria blinked.
Excuse me?
The friends shared another quick look, sure they hadn’t heard him correctly. They watched with that same rigid stance as he slowly knelt down, picking up a random page.
“You’re the kids, right?”
His eyes travelled slowly over the group, catching all those shared features, resting a moment on each one. Only Jason bore no family resemblance, though he was studied just as carefully.
There was no need to ask what he meant. They’d been ‘the kids’ their whole lives.
“Yeah,” Aria mumbled, “that’s us.”
An awkward silence fell between them, one that demanded further explanation.
“Our parents barely ever talk about this stuff,” she continued hesitantly, “but everyone else always seems to know. We just thought...we thought it couldn’t hurt to find out for ourselves.”
His lips twitched with a wry smile. “No harm ever came from reading a book, right?”
“...something like that.”
The man’s eyes twinkled, but he said nothing in response. He just flipped the cover off the file he happened to be holding, then read aloud to the group.
“—at which point Skye created an electrical dome over the top of the city, grounding all planes and forcing the targets to make an emergency landing...” He trailed off, fixing those twinkling eyes on Benji. “That’s quite a benchmark. You up for the challenge?”
Normally so quick with a reply the spirited teenager stayed silent, watching the stranger with careful eyes. They’d committed a huge infraction. He was still waiting for the shoe to drop.
But, as it turned out, he’d be waiting a long time.
“I can let it slide...just this once.”
WHAT?!
There was an audible gasp as the five friends let out a breath at the same time, unable to believe it could be true. A splash of color ventured back into those pale faces even as Jason, always the last to trust, took a step forward. Examining the man just as he’d been examined himself.
“Are you sure?” he asked cautiously, eyes flickering amongst the disordered shelves. “This isn’t really something that—”
“He’s sure,” Benji interrupted sharply, pulling him back. He took his place a second later, flashing the man a grateful smile. “Thanks. We really appreciate it. And it won’t happen again, I swear. We’ll just get out of your hair—”
“Not so fast,” the man said suddenly, stepping between him and the door. “You don’t get something for nothing; there’s a condition to my silence.”
Sharp words, but he said them with a smile. One that grew even more amused at the look on Benji’s face. He stood there for a moment then took a step back, looking a little nervous.
“Okay...what do you want?”
The man stared at them for a moment, as if wondering whether they were up to the task, then he took off his glasses and gestured behind him with a grand flourish.
“It’s funny you should ask...”
FOR THE SECOND TIME that morning the five friends froze where they stood, staring in dismay at the colossus in front of them. How the man had managed to cram so many boxes through the door without them hearing was a small miracle, but it paled in light of a larger problem.
“What are we supposed to do with them?” Aria asked with a sense of dread.
The man glanced at her before striding to the nearest one and kicking it open with the tip of his shoe. Half a dozen books came pouring out, spilling haphazardly onto the floor.
“You’re going to help me unpack.”
Of course we are.
There had to be almost a hundred boxes, each one labeled with a colored piece of tape that varied depending on genre. There were math texts and volumes on science. Botanical indexes and Shakespeare’s sonnets. Everything you’d expect to find in an academic library.
But there were stranger books as well.
Books on terrorism and chemical warfare.
The subjugation of indigenous species and parapsychology. Peeking out of a hole in the broken box Aria spotted Machiavelli’s The Prince.
Jason strode over to the fallen pile, kneeling down beside a leather-bound book with a deep burgundy cover. The title was pressed in glinted gold: Evolutionary Inheritance.
He picked it up with a strange expression before glancing up at the man. “Who exactly are you?”
The man strode over with a broad smile, offering a hand. “Dorian Locke. The new librarian.”
Only then did Aria realize that she’d seen him somewhere before—in the school parking lot, right before her mom had driven her home. He was the man who’d spilled the books, who’d let out a vile curse to the sky, then flushed with embarrassment when he caught her watching.
She watched as he pulled Jason to his feet, taking the book from his hands at the same time.
“There’s much to do and not a lot of time to do it.” He glanced not at the clock, but at the calendar. As if he was days late. “I’d welcome the extra hands...if you could spare some time.”
Translation: Either work or be expelled. Your choice.
Dorian offered the book back out between them, holding it just inches from Jason’s hand. A cheerful invitation, paired with a silent threat. Jason’s blue eyes flickered to Aria’s, dilating slightly as she gave him a covert nod. A second later, he grabbed the book with a forced smile.
“Happy to help.”
TWO HOURS LATER, THEY were still helping.
At first, they’d tried a variety of different methods. Piling the boxes of the same colored tape together. Simply hauling them one at a time to be emptied at the proper shelves. At one point they’d even attempted some kind of assembly line, but after they knocked the legs off one of the chairs the idea was scrapped and they were back to square one. Still, they’d barely put a dent in the pile.