Fate of Flames

by Sarah Raughley

  “That’s the report.” Rhys pulled a long jean jacket out of his duffel. “The only attack sites were the hotel and the bridge. Once Saul left, the phantoms didn’t attack again.”

  “What does that mean? Who is this guy?”

  My words hitched in my throat as Rhys’s jacket hurtled toward me. I caught it awkwardly by the crook of my fingers.

  “Good question,” Rhys said. “Nobody can do what he’s done. It’s impossible. He’s impossible.”

  Vanishing into thin air, reappearing at will. Treating phantoms like his own personal winged monkeys. It didn’t make sense. Phantoms were forces of nature, without consciousness, drive, or direction. They roamed outside the margins of our society, killing whichever poor bastard had the exceptional misfortune of straying from the protection of our technology. When they killed us, their violence was random and indiscriminate, but not this time. This time, somehow, Saul had managed to bend them to his will—weaponized them.

  “He’s controlling them,” I concluded, without a single inflection in my voice, because my brain couldn’t process the information. My fingers bit into the denim. “That’s—”

  “Against the rules,” finished Rhys. “Right? Reality’s not supposed to work like that.”

  My thoughts were swirling. Saul’s existence contradicted everything I knew about the monsters of the world. But for someone so powerful to freeze at the very sound of a name—well, it was about as ridiculous as everything else about him.

  “Nick,” I said. “When I yelled that name, during the fight I mean, it was like I’d hit him with something.”

  “There are a lot of things we don’t know about him, which is why we need to bring him in.” Belle beckoned to one of the agents, who promptly produced a steel-gray computer tablet. “More than a threat, he’s a valuable asset to the Sect. The information we learn from studying him might give us more insight into the phantoms themselves. But it should be obvious by now that the three of us aren’t enough to take him down.”

  With a few swift taps upon the tablet’s surface, Belle brought up the image of two faces, each taking up half the screen. I gulped. Neither needed introducing.

  Belle’s sharp eyes fixed on me. “You know who they are, don’t you?”

  I couldn’t be a premium-level member on the Doll Soldiers forum if I didn’t. Victoria “Lake” Soyinka and Chae Rin Kim stared back at me from the soft glow of the screen. Two final names to round out the current roster of girls who’d won—or lost—the cosmic lottery that bestowed upon us the title of Effigy.

  “Orders from above,” Belle said. “Finding and capturing Saul will take an extensive operation that’ll require the involvement of many operatives.”

  “Yeah,” chimed Rhys. “Which means we’re going to need all the firepower we can get.”

  I could barely muster an “okay.” Information bombarded me from all sides, and my head just kept spinning and spinning.

  “Right.” Rhys started dialing a number on his cell phone. “So Chae Rin and Lake are back in the game. I’ll call some agents to pick them up.”

  “No.” Belle put up a hand to stop him. “We’re to pick them up ourselves. They’re Effigies.” And this time, Belle’s gaze shifted to me. “If they’re going to be called onto the battlefield, it should be by another Effigy.”

  I clutched the jacket close to my chest, hoping Belle wouldn’t notice the slight tremor in my arms.

  Belle turned to Rhys. “According to the reports, Chae Rin still works at Le Cirque de Minuit.”

  “Maia and I’ll take that one.” Rhys rubbed the back of his neck. “Since I think Chae Rin might hate you.”

  I tried to interject, but my lips felt like clay.

  “Then I’ll go to Lake,” Belle said.

  “You know where she is?”

  It took only a couple of clicks to bring up Lake’s entire social media catalog; her pending Seventeen magazine fan signing in Glendale, California, was splashed across every site with as many exclamation points the character limit would allow.

  Laughing, Rhys shook his head. “Finding her shouldn’t be hard.”

  “Regardless.” Belle handed the tablet back to the agent as two shuttle buses arrived on the helipad. “Phil,” she said to the agent, “we should be leaving soon. Make sure everything’s arranged.”

  “Just wait a damn second!” I’d yelled it louder than I’d meant to. It did the trick, but now that all eyes were on me and I hadn’t the faintest clue what to say next. “U-um,” I stuttered, wringing Rhys’s jacket. “Belle, can I talk to you alone for a second?”

  After shooting Rhys an indecipherable glance, Belle motioned for the other agents to go ahead and enter the shuttle. I stared down at the denim as Belle stalked past me without a word. I followed.

  When we were far enough away, Belle swiveled around. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

  “I know.” Belle and intimidation just went hand in hand. I was too scared to even look her in the eyes.

  “Well, then? What do you want?”

  I thought carefully before speaking next. “It’s about the name I said back there. The one that stalled Saul: Nick.”

  “What about it? Why that name?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. It just came to me. When Saul kissed me back at the hotel, I saw something . . . like a memory. After that I started hearing a girl’s voice. And names: Alice, Nick.” I pressed a hand against my forehead, squeezing my eyes shut. “For a second, it was like there was someone else living in here.”

  “Memories.” Belle’s sharp gaze wandered past me, seeing something I couldn’t. “Les portes rouge . . .”

  “Le what?” Something told me I was going to regret choosing Spanish as my second-language credit. Which I barely passed.

  “Did you see Natalya?”

  The question stunned me into silence. “No. Why . . . would I?”

  Belle considered me for a long moment. I could see the riddles twisting and knotting behind the blue sheen of her eyes, but before I could prod further, she looked away. “It’s something I’ll have to think about further. For now, just focus on your mission.” With a newfound sense of urgency, she started back to the shuttles. But a few steps into her stride, she stopped. “Maia.”

  I jumped. “Y-yes?”

  She turned. “Do your best.”

  It was a curious phenomenon. Belle’s words weren’t so special; there were only three of them, and they probably weren’t even the best she could have come up with. And yet, just like that, I suddenly remembered, down to my bones, what it felt like to see her at Fashion Week, gliding down the ramp at Lincoln Center—as if she had a right to own the world she’d shed blood to protect. The awe and heartache.

  Don’t let me down. That was what she was really saying. I was sure of it. And I wouldn’t. It was obvious that I couldn’t. We were finally on the same team.

  Slipping my arms inside Rhys’s jacket, I readied myself for the work ahead.

  THERE IS, GENERALLY, SOMETHING INFINITELY disturbing about being able to see monsters outside of your window, even if they’re so far away you can barely see them. Car rides were fine. I was used to it then. But when you already hate flying . . .

  The first thing I did after boarding the Sect’s private jet was shut my window blinds. Ten minutes into the flight, I was still cowering in the corner.

  “You okay?” said Rhys from his seat opposite mine.

  “’Course,” I lied with a resolute nod. “I’m ready.”

  “I can see that.”

  “So, let’s do this. Where do we start?”

  Rhys had switched his dork glasses for some contact lenses, which, as he’d told me in the airport, were far more suited to battle. He brought out his tablet and stared at the screen. “It’s going to take us only an hour to get to Montreal, so I’m going to have to bring you up to speed pretty quick.”

  “Right, right.” I nodded again, very resolutely, my bloodshot eyes straining.


  Rhys’s quizzical gaze stayed on me for a moment more before he reached into his bag again. Then a candy bar flew at my face.

  “Ow,” I complained after it bounced off my nose.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to throw it that hard.”

  I picked it off the table. “What’s this?”

  “You’ve never seen chocolate?”

  I flipped it over. “Why are you giving it to me?”

  “Would you prefer to starve?”

  “This jet doesn’t serve real food?”

  “Fine, give it back.” Rhys reached for it.

  Quickly, I clutched it to my chest. “So you said there was information I needed to know?”

  Rhys’s lips quirked into a little grin.

  “Chae Rin Kim,” he said as I quietly began tearing the wrapper. “Stop me if you’ve heard this. Eighteen. Born in Daegu, raised in the suburbs of Burnaby, Vancouver. Youngest of two daughters.” He handed me his tablet.

  Chae Rin looked particularly disinterested in the picture next to her stats, though the stats themselves were nothing to shrug at: high number of missions, high number of kills. I bit off a piece of chocolate. “Her parents own a restaurant too. It’s pretty famous.”

  The pathetic truth, of course, was that June had almost convinced me to save up for a cheap plane ticket. If June had had her way, we both would have been part of the customer boom Daegu Grill experienced once the news finally leaked that the owner’s youngest daughter was an Effigy.

  The plane shook. Just the slight jolt almost made me choke. Swallowing my candy before it could go down the wrong pipe, I shrank even deeper into my sad little corner.

  Rhys sat back, sliding his coffee toward him. “Well, since I’m at least mostly sure you’re one of those weird Effigy fanatics—which, by the way, I still find endlessly ironic—you probably already know she works near Montreal.”

  I nodded. “At a circus. But as far as I know, she hasn’t been in the field for, like, months.”

  “It was that last mission. Happened just outside a little fishing village near Hong Kong.” Rhys’s index finger linked around the handle of his coffee mug. “Didn’t go well. Some villages in certain parts of the world have weak APDs, so attacks are inevitable. Even though agents managed to evacuate the village, it was a hard fight; the damage Chae Rin caused was massive.”

  “I remember hearing about that, but I didn’t know she was involved. I just thought phantoms wrecked the place.”

  “The Sect suppressed that information from the media,” Rhys continued. “But dealing with governments is another matter. Of course, a certain amount of damage is unavoidable during missions like this, but as an international organization, it’s crucial that the Sect maintains its political relationships and takes responsibility for situations like these. Because of what happened, Chae Rin’s been suspended for the time being.”

  “Suspended.” I cocked a brow. “Didn’t know you could be suspended from a cosmic duty.”

  “Cosmic duty or no, there are rules,” said Rhys. “Usually when an Effigy screws up, there’s an investigation—not only of the incident, but also of the Effigy herself.” Rhys sipped his coffee. “They look at everything: past training scores, psych evaluations, mission proficiency, and so on. They even interview people in her life. Then a council assesses her potential and figures out what to do with her. Depending on the results, they could order the Effigy to be retrained, jailed, or put to use in other ways. But while that’s going on, the Effigy has to leave the field.”

  “Okay, but isn’t the Sect scared she’ll cause some damage while she’s on hiatus?”

  Rhys took the tablet back into his possession. “In extreme circumstances, an Effigy can be taken into custody during the investigation. But Chae Rin’s saved a lot of lives. I’ve met her a few times myself. Despite her temper, she’s usually proficient in the field. Plus she had a couple of agents vouch for her, so she was given some leeway.”

  Another jolt. Wrapping my arms around myself, I pressed my shoulder firmly against the window for support.

  “Scared of flying?”

  My eyes snapped open. I hadn’t even realized I’d shut them. “No.”

  “It’s just turbulence.”

  “I said no.”

  “Or don’t tell me. . . .” Rhys tilted his head. “Are you scared something out there might be causing the turbulence?”

  “Something always causes turbulence.” I avoided his eyes, but couldn’t look at the window either. “Air pressure and velocity and—I don’t know, clouds and other sciencey stuff.”

  Rhys moved to open the blinds, but with lightning-fast reflexes, I grabbed the handle and kept them shut. Even after he started laughing, I held firm, though my cheeks burned.

  “You do know there are antiphantom signals inside airplanes, right?”

  “Obviously.” I didn’t know the science behind it, except they worked like Needles. Their range wasn’t nearly as vast, but they helped create clear pathways for flight.

  He leaned in. “And they have EMA. You know that, too, yeah?”

  Yes, yes, in case the signal didn’t work and the plane needed to be protected via electromagnetic armor. I could tell this one had it because of the pulse vibrating through my skin from the cabin wall.

  “And this is a Sect jet. Trust me, you’re safe.”

  “I know that.”

  “Just a bad flier?”

  “Why do you care?”

  Apparently, this caught Rhys off guard. Blinking, he sat back. “Should I not?”

  We were silent for too long.

  Then, out of the blue: “Your uncle’s okay.”

  “What?”

  “In case you were still worried, I mean. He’s fine.”

  “I know.”

  “Some agents even gave him a lift to the control center in Manhattan. He works there, right?”

  My hands felt cold. Without saying a word, I pulled my legs up onto the seat, wrapping my arms around my knees. “Did they tell him about me?”

  I never thought I’d be so happy to see someone shake his head. “No, not yet. They gave him some excuse about needing you as a witness or something.”

  “Creative.”

  I wanted to wait for the right moment. That was the official excuse. But it made sense, didn’t it? I wanted to tell Uncle Nathan, but not now, not from an airplane in the middle of a dangerous mission to take down a mass murderer.

  “I’m curious, though.” Rhys lowered his eyes to his mug, turning it around by the handle. “You’ve had over a week to tell him the truth about you. Why didn’t you?”

  “Excuse me?” I squeezed the candy bar in my hand until chocolate oozed out the other end. “That’s . . .” I fidgeted in my seat. “That’s private.”

  “It’ll be hard, though. The longer you wait, the harder it’ll be on both of you.” Rhys kept his eyes low as he quietly added, “If you’re not careful, you might end up getting hurt.”

  An uncomfortable heat rose up my neck as I stared at him. “Why do you care?”

  “Why shouldn’t I?”

  The second I caught his eyes, I wished I hadn’t. My body stiffened. My heart thumped against my chest, but the sound of the beat made my fingers curl against my lap. It was his expression: pity, or concern, or whatever else. The shocking tenderness pried me open, and in that one moment, I felt cruelly exposed. Helpless.

  He didn’t even know me. And I was vulnerable. This wasn’t fair.

  I placed my candy bar on the table and wordlessly slipped off Rhys’s jacket.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, but I didn’t answer.

  It’s not that I didn’t appreciate his kindness. But Belle had already warned me about what it meant to be the next so soon after the last. The struggle to remain yourself, to draw that line. Apparently mine would begin with his jacket, since he probably hadn’t given it to me at all. Folding it in my hands, I stretched out my arm, presenting it to him.

  “Take it.”
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  “What? Weren’t you cold?”

  “I’m fine. Thank you. Just take it, please.”

  “But—”

  “Natalya’s dead.” I was expressionless as I said it. “She isn’t here anymore.”

  I could see Rhys’s hands twitch. “That’s—”

  “I’m not her.” And I looked at him. “I’m me. You don’t know me, so don’t . . .” I sighed. “I don’t need you to worry about me. It just makes me feel . . . all awkward.” I shifted my shoulders uncomfortably. “Please. I’ll be okay. Let’s just . . . work. I want to work.”

  By the time he spoke again, whatever awkward warmth flushing his skin had already dissipated. Taking back the jacket, he straightened up in his seat. “Okay, then. Back to Chae Rin.”

  • • •

  We touched down at eleven. Because I wouldn’t let up about it, Rhys got a couple of hotel rooms so we could finally clean up and change clothes before heading off in the Sect car waiting for us outside.

  Montreal was a really pretty city with a nighttime skyline. And unlike New York, it wasn’t ruined by a giant blinking monster-repelling tower. I didn’t know much about Canada and its antiphantom tech, except that they apparently used a rail system in the parts of the country where the population was concentrated. I guess being flashy was an American thing.

  Somewhere beyond the rails protecting Montreal was Le Cirque de Minuit, hidden deep in the boreal forest.

  Sitting in the backseat, I thumbed through a brochure of the circus I’d picked up from the hotel’s front desk. Apparently, Mastigouche Reserve had to be abandoned in the late nineteenth century once the phantoms appeared. That made it one of the many areas around the world that we ended up having to leave to them: a Dead Zone. According to the pamphlet, a private investor spent millions in the forties buying up some of the area, paving a single, fortified road and setting up one of the most successful circuses in the country.

  I shook my head. Turning a Dead Zone into an attraction. It was just crazy enough to work. People do love the thrill of danger. But over the years, countries began passing laws that regulated people’s access to those sorts of areas, so even with the circus’s permit and strict security measures, their business started to suffer. These days, they toured the world for most of the year as a troupe, but for a few special weeks out of the year, they put on the ridiculously spectacular shows they were famous for in Mastigouche. June had always wanted us to go to one together. Would have been nice.