He’s having a delusion-fest and invited just himself to the party.
“I need to tell you this in no certain terms, I will never be with you. I’m not sure why you feel the need to choose me when you have a woman who actually is allied with you. I loathe you and I don’t really know you, but getting to know you will probably amplify this. And if you think you will force me into this—go ahead. It will be the shortest relationship you’ll ever have because you won’t be able to trust me. I’ll be plotting your death while you are filling out a wedding registry. You’ll have to drag me down the aisle of whatever dumb-ass, unnecessarily elaborate, and I’m pretty sure tacky celebration you hold to celebrate our union. And I’ll be trying to poison anything I think you might eat and I won’t care if it kills our guests, too, because they probably deserve your same fate. Your consort will be the very person who has denied you and will continue to do so, making it a hobby to make your life a living hell.”
He smiled as though I had just sung him a love song, or recited a lovely poem as a tribute to him or something. Is this what narcissism on magic looks like?
Evelyn returned, her face flushed with anger, and it was obvious she had heard my threat, or at least parts of it.
“You asked me to do this for you. I did. Anya, I will earn your loyalty or you will earn my wrath. It is time for you to choose. I cannot waste more time appealing to your naiveté and cynicism.” He sighed, and his mood and features darkened—I glimpsed what I was truly dealing with. It came in an innocuous-looking package of pastel shirts, slacks, and an amalgam of aristocratic and broad features, but he was in fact a monster who saw murder as just a necessary inconvenience. A chill ran down my spine, obviously his desired effect, because he smiled and nodded in my direction. Then he and Evelyn disappeared. I dropped to the floor alone with Clive’s and Daniel’s bodies.
It took me a minute to regain my composure. I didn’t know what to do. Should I call Gareth? The police? Leave the scene? How many people had seen me come in? If someone had seen me, could they identify me? The few minutes I thought I took ended up being nearly fifteen, after I stared out the window, trying to remember the faces of the many people passing by. It wouldn’t help, because I didn’t know who had seen me, too. Finally, I called Gareth. He answered on the first ring.
“I need your help,” I said, trying to keep my voice level. But if I was asking for his help, he knew it had to be bad.
“Now? Can it wait a few minutes? We’ve had another incident in the park.”
“Clive and Daniel are dead, and I’m pretty sure people are going to think I did it.”
“Where are you?”
“At the Humans First office.”
There was a long, uncomfortable silence. It was so long that I thought the call had been dropped. “Gareth?”
“I’m here.” He sighed. He cursed—a lot. “Did you use magic in there?”
“Yeah.”
Another string of curse words. He seemed to know a great deal of them and put them together in ways I hadn’t thought of. I was particularly fond of clusterfuck, which I thought summed things up quite well.
“I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Gareth arrived about fifteen minutes later and found me in the gym, where I had been drilling punches and kicks into the heavy bag. It hadn’t made me feel any better. I needed to clear my head, and usually a run was what really helped. Hitting the bag made me wish I had the chance to land the same strikes on Conner, but the guilt was getting the best of me. If I hadn’t told Conner that HF shouldn’t have the Necro-spears, would they be dead?
“What happened?” Gareth’s voice was a lot gentler than the stringent look on his face. He looked like he’d had a day similar to mine, maybe even worse. I explained everything—the unedited version—and he listened, periodically looking in the room, as though he’d had his fill of seeing dead bodies.
“So he has four Necro-spears, twelve Legacy … Vertu or whatever … and …” His voice drifted off.
“And what?”
“And he helped three other mages escape from the Haven today, the triplets are having their way with the city, and I suspect he is doing all of this to distract us.”
“They can’t do a global Cleanse,” I pointed out.
“No, but they can destroy enough of us for it to hurt.” He blew out a hard breath before washing his hands over his face. “I can’t cover this up, Olivia.”
Fuck. Why am I Olivia now? This was bad. No Levy. Even Ms. Michaels was tolerable, because that meant he was in “head of Supernatural Guild” mode and got a jerk-in-charge pass. This was … different.
“What do we do now?”
“You’re going to have to come out and expose who you are and let the Magic Council know that you exist, and apparently in great numbers. We need a lot more people involved.”
“No.”
“Olivia.”
“No. Don’t ‘Olivia’ me! You know what will happen. I might as well find a Tracker and let him do the job. Maybe you’ll get points if you do it!” I knew I was being irrational, but everything was happening too fast. Come out—now. Did I get to prepare a speech, defend why I got to live when I was of the same kind who not only had done the Cleanse before but wanted to do it again?
I tried to calm myself by taking several breaths, but it didn’t help. Panic and fear came over me hard and I didn’t like feeling that way. Gareth’s appearance softened, and so did his voice. “There aren’t a lot of options. At least with you out and the rest, I’m not fighting a ghost or what seems like a ghost. We’ll have help, I can actively get the SG involved.” He paused. His voice lowered. “Maybe even the Guardians of Order.”
Whatever else he had said was to my back because I walked out the door, ignoring him calling my name. I was at a slow run by the time I got to my car. I drove aimlessly for nearly an hour and then I found myself in the middle of the crowded forest, feeling the subtle hints of Conner’s magic lingering in the air as I traipsed through the thicket in the direction where I’d encountered him and his group of followers. I was just a few feet from where the veil had been the last time when I stopped. Fear and panic cause people to make foolish mistakes, and I was making one now. I couldn’t beat them the last time, and being pissed off wasn’t going to suddenly improve my magical skills. I needed to learn. I had only gotten through half of the spells in the books that Blu had loaned me and hadn’t practiced them. I had to practice, improve my skills, and freaking learn how to disappear the way Conner and Evelyn did—or at least try. I wasn’t sure if that was a Vertu trick or if I possessed it, too. It continued to be one of the things I wondered about. It seemed as if it was a valuable skill to possess.
I stopped in the middle of the woods and went back to my car and after a few more minutes of mindless traveling, ignoring Gareth’s five calls, I sat on the ground in the pit cave, using the flashlight from my phone to read the spells in one of the books. Most of them I knew: wards, locating spells, object displacement. There were some elemental ones that I wanted to try but calling forth fire in a cave wasn’t the smartest thing to do.
A few minutes later I was playing with a ball of magic in the same manner that Conner had. It was concentrated power used to displace objects or people but I found it soothing as it bounced around in my hand, folding and unfolding at my will. Separating into a string of colors, each one representing a magical entity. I never learned which one was which, but I doubted it was of any importance. Our power came from them melding together to become something that was uniquely our magic. Its origin before it had been changed and diluted and possessed by others.
“That’s quite impressive.” Gareth’s voice traveled out of the darkness from the other end of the cave. The only thing I could see was the flicks of illumination from the shifter circle around his pupils. They all had it; his seemed darker than most, entrancing. But I supposed that was the appeal of the predator. Seduced by the unique eyes and sinewy and lithe movements and drawn
to the predacious nature, you found yourself too mesmerized to protect yourself. I wasn’t going to fall for it. I came to my feet, the ball of magic beating at a steady pace, thumping like a heartbeat, the kaleidoscope of colors dangerously deceptive about its danger.
I palmed it, holding it securely to me, making a promise to find some way to secure the other entrance to the cave so that it couldn’t be used.
“Talk.”
“You’re not going to convince me to do it.”
“I didn’t think I could. I have no intention of you coming out on the losing end of this, Levy. I don’t ask this lightly. What do you have to lose?”
“My life. The world sees us as monsters.”
“They see them as monsters—Conner and his allies. He’s going to keep causing problems and things are going to get worse. He’s not even hiding anymore—he’s overconfident and the face of the Legacy now.”
“Don’t make this a political or PR thing—”
“I’m not. You come out, others will, too. You get to them before he does and make sure he’s not able to recruit more people. You’ll have the SG behind you, and the Magic Council.”
“For someone who claims he’s not here to convince me to come out, that little spiel begs otherwise.”
His lips cocked into a crooked smile. “Levy, I don’t think anyone believes they can get you to do something you don’t want to do.”
He waited patiently and I busied myself with the magic I’d been playing with.
“Okay, but I need to talk to Kalen first. I’ll meet with them tomorrow.”
He nodded slowly and started backing out. “Hey, can you have that exit closed?” I asked as he disappeared into the darkness of the cave. “I keep getting unwanted visitors.”
His laughter traveled and reverberated off the walls of the cave.
“Is that a yes or a no?”
“I’ll see what I can do, Ms. Michaels.”
I hated when he called me that—but that was likely the point.
CHAPTER 7
The next morning I sat at the desk Kalen and I shared, with his coffee, pastries, and my information bomb waiting for him. I should have been late and waited until he had asked for coffee, because he wouldn’t have seemed so suspicious when I handed them to him.
“What did you do?” he asked, looking around the room.
“I always bring you coffee and pastries,” I scoffed back. He took a sip, keeping a cautious eye on me as he went into the next room and pulled out several boxes. He must have gotten them over the weekend, because I didn’t remember them being there.
Most people didn’t rummage through boxes of other people’s discards and junk in a custom suit. Kalen didn’t really think about ruining clothes because he’d always had money, and it hadn’t come from Kalen’s Collectibles—in the antiques and glorified junk-collecting business, there were very little opportunities to make money. We were lucky that through some of his connections we had a chance to acquire magical objects from auctions and somehow had become the city’s acquisitions specialists, retrieving those objects that had been lost or misplaced and those only rumored to exist.
I plopped down on the floor next to him and started sorting through the boxes. His suspicion made things tense. Usually we chatted the whole time through the process, with him for the most part making sure he maintained his status as King of Useless Information. Once in a while some of it was interesting, but generally, I fixed a plaintive fake smile on my face and just nodded.
It seemed harder coming out to him than to Savannah, and I wasn’t sure why. I considered Kalen a friend, too, but while Savannah might have lost some people during the Cleanse, Kalen had lost many, devastating his family. I bore the guilt as though I had been directly responsible. I opened my mouth to speak, but what I wanted to say didn’t come out. “Blu thinks Savannah is an ignesco.”
“Really?”
“What does it mean? Is she a witch?”
“No one actually knows what they are. I suspect they are pixies, some say witches, and others think mages. There are so few that no one has ever really studied them. Hmm, how did you all come to this realization?”
“It wasn’t an us thing so much as Savannah thinking it while we were at Devour.”
“Devour? You’ve been holding out on me, girl.” He grinned. “Usually your life is boring; now you’re hanging out at Devour and being seen by everyone in the city with”—then he stopped and did dramatic air quotes—“‘Mr. Not My Boyfriend’ Gareth. I thought when I saw that photo it might be you, but since your life hasn’t proven to be that interesting, I assumed it was a look-alike or something. You know how they say that everyone has a twin, I figured it was yours. After all, she didn’t have on plaid and Converses. In fact, the woman was quite lovely, with gorgeous hair.”
Once again, my messy ponytail was treated to one of his looks before he delivered the same scrutiny to the jeans and yellow and blue plaid shirt. Then, for good measure, he looked back to my hair again.
“I guess I have to be a hot shifter for you to even bother,” he teased.
I shrugged off his jabs at my clothing as I usually did. “How did you get a picture of me at Devour?”
His eyes sparked with excitement and he pulled out his phone and flashed the screen at me, and there I was leaning into Gareth as he whispered something into my ear. “Apparently you’re the woman to hate,” he joked.
I didn’t think me in something other than my typical attire, in a club, with a drink in my hand, leaning into Gareth was exciting, but apparently it was the gift that kept on giving. I guess I can mark him off my Christmas list.
“Why would anyone care that I was talking to Gareth?” I asked, redirecting my attention to a box and pulling out a hat that piqued my interest.
“Nope”—he snatched it from me and tossed it into the corner—“I already have to deal with the ponytail, you don’t get a hat. Women hate you because of Gareth. People pay attention to him.” Once again, he gave me a weird smile, like a host on a morning show right before they barraged the guest with a slew of personal and invasive questions. Kalen enjoyed his gossip moment and it seemed like he was gearing up for one.
“You were in one of the hottest and most exclusive clubs in the city, with Gareth—what’s going on?”
“Can’t be too exclusive—I got in without a problem.” I shrugged. I didn’t want this to be the big deal that he was about to make it into.
“Could it have anything to do with this?”
Again I had a picture pushed in my face. This time it was Savannah, and she did look awfully cozy with Lucas in the picture. But based on what the picture of Gareth and I looked like and what had actually happened, I quickly dismissed it. Even with his hand wrapped around her waist and his face so close to hers it looked like they were about to kiss. Kalen might have been enthralled by this, but I wasn’t. It was a reminder that things were spiraling fast from what I had once known, not more than three weeks ago. I needed to get back on track, but I couldn’t imagine anything was going to happen over the next few days to make that possible.
I lived in the shadows, a private life that worked, and now people were taking photos of me. And I was somehow hanging out with Master of the city and shapeshifters who were popular for reasons I had no idea of.
“I get why people care about Lucas. The whole Master of the city, owns the hottest vamp club in the city—it’s not like he’s hiding from the attention. He seems to need it as much as he needs blood, but why the hell do people care about Gareth? I didn’t think his title of Mr. Arrogant had a following.”
Kalen blew out an exasperated breath before rolling his eyes away from me.
I don’t need that from you.
“His mother.”
“Yeah, the cable/mall lady.” Whoa, that’s a different color. You don’t see that shade of red except on strawberries. My KUI had gone on and on about her so much, I’d Googled her: I was aware of her past career as a designer, which is wh
y Kalen adored her. As a teenager, she’d modeled and had a very short-lived career in music. And then she’d eventually taken over the family business. I wouldn’t have called her a socialite, but most people knew her. After seeing a dozen or so pictures of her, I knew who she was, but I couldn’t turn down a chance to see the appalled look on Kalen’s face at my crass summary. Sometimes it was the little things that made the days better.
I was just about to confess, when someone knocked at the door. Before we could answer, blond hair with hints of silver poked in. When he saw me, he came in. Behind him was another man, both of them in police uniforms.
“Does an Olivia Michaels work here?” one asked, looking at me as Kalen approached them.
I didn’t respond, but instead came to my feet, taking several steps back, my nails biting into my skin as I balled my hands tight. Inching back a few more steps, I angled myself so that I had a direct shot to the back door.
“May I ask what you want with her?” Kalen requested in a firm but professional voice.
“Does she work here? That was the question,” snarled the other guy, his hand resting on the gun holstered at his side. So much adrenaline pumped through me, triggering full-on fight or flight mode; fighting an officer wasn’t the wisest thing to do.
“I’m Olivia Michaels.” I nearly yelled it because I didn’t want it to sound as small as I felt.
Both of their eyes fixed on me, cold and hard. The blond approached first, pulling out handcuffs.
“Stop!” Kalen barked through clenched teeth. “What are you doing?”
The blond’s partner shifted over to block Kalen from advancing, and when he stepped forward more, he shoved him. Kalen’s teeth clenched as if he had to force back his words. He moved back with several forced lumbering steps.
“She has the right to know why she’s being arrested.” It was a benefit of human law—they had rules that were strictly enforced, and as far as the police and Kalen knew, I was human and protected by them. They read me my rights.
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