“Come on,” she urged, helping him up with one cool hand.
“Did I ever tell you that I like your hair like this?”
Margot mumbled something and turned away.
“Let’s go,” she said roughly, over her shoulder, “I don’t want anyone to see us. We have a pretty narrow window of time when this is possible.”
“Aren’t you over-thinking it? Can’t I just hop a fence or something?”
“Are you kidding? Eerie’s in trouble with Rebecca. Rebecca’s not to be messed around with,” Margot said seriously. “Even if she is a softie when it comes to Eerie, she’s still an Auditor…”
“What?” Alex stopped in his tracks, dazed. “What did you just say?”
Margot stopped at the edge of the trees and looked back at him as if he was insane.
“Rebecca is an Auditor, you fool.” Margot’s mouth was a barely visible contemptuous line, her eyes gleaming with an internal radiance that shown through the dusk. “You actually didn’t know that? Then she must not have wanted you to find out. Well, that’s life, right? You can’t take anyone at face value. I work with them now, Alex,” Margot said, sounding a bit like she was laughing, “The current Auditors. Alistair, Alice Gallow, Mitsuru Aoki, Xia, and, of course, Rebecca Levy. Though I’ve never seen her out in the field. I hear she’s terrifying.”
“Really?” Alex was dumbfounded, walking blindly behind Margot while his mind was very much elsewhere. “She just seems so… I don’t know. Nice, I guess. I’m having trouble imagining it.”
“You are a soldier Alex, as is everyone you know,” Margot said casually, but with a terrible coldness. “At some point, you are going to have accept that.”
Stunned as he was, Alex knew that Margot was right. He had been fooling himself, after all. If she was in charge of him, what else could Rebecca be? And why did he feel so surprised by it? It wasn’t as if Michael had always been a teacher, and he’d known that Alice and Mitsuru worked in the field, killing people, but Rebecca… it wasn’t only that she hadn’t told him, though that was a part of it. Seeing her as an Auditor was so profoundly at odds with the woman he thought he knew that he had difficulty reconciling the two images. He was felt anger and betrayal, and he was surprised to have such a strong reaction. He hadn't realized the degree to which he trusted Rebecca, until that moment, when he started to questioned her.
God, he hated empathy.
He followed Margot through the wooded area behind the library; a cluster of willow trees hugging a milky, churning creek, surrounded by twisted oaks and deliberately spaced fruit trees. It was a popular area to hang out and study, during the day, when the weather was nice, and most of the students who smoked would sneak out here to do it. But in the evening half-light the ground was a treacherous tangle of roots and brambles, and Alex stumbled and muttered curses under his breath, periodically urged to hurry by Margot who was apparently untroubled by the darkness. Eventually, she seized his hand like a mother pulling along a difficult child.
“Quicker this way,” Margot snapped, scowling as she pulled him along, her cold fingers tight around his wrist. His arm hurt, but he was afraid to say anything.
They walked roughly parallel with the creek for a short time, eventually emerging behind a few low hills to the east of the monolithic Administration building. There was a cluster of homes surrounded by low fences in the small valley there, notched between the hillsides, one of which looked familiar. It took Alex a moment to place it. The wind must have been playing tricks with him, because more than once, he could sworn that he saw someone following them, a figure he couldn’t make out through the trees. Margot’s pace was too demanding for him to stop and take a good look, and he quickly forgot about it, focusing instead on not tripping over roots and tree trunks in the waning light.
“Isn’t that Anastasia’s house?”
“We are neighbors,” Margot acknowledged. “The little one on the end, that’s Eerie, Sebastian, and myself.”
“Who’s Sebastian?”
“He’s a pyrokine, like Xia, maybe more so. A bit touchy about strangers. Might try to burn you alive if he sees you skulking around. Fortunately, he’s only ten, and he’ll be so absorbed watching TV downstairs that he’ll never even notice you are here. He kinda latched on to Eerie a few years ago and he’s lived with us ever since,” Margot said, tossing her shoulders indifferently. “Don’t worry about it. You probably won’t get set on fire. Follow me.”
“I hate it when you say stuff like that, you know,” Alex complained, following her with a heavier heart than when he had started.
“I do.”
They wound around the buildings and the hillocks in an abstract path that seemed utterly haphazard at first. It wasn’t until they were almost halfway to the house that Alex realized she was intent on keeping them out of view of the bulk of the Administrative building. She stopped one house past Anastasia’s, just short of their destination.
“Here’s my ID card,” Margot said, handing him her pass card. “Give me yours.”
“Why?” Alex said, digging it out of his pocket.
“When you open the door, it will record me going in the house, rather than you, dumbass,” Margot said, snatching his card. “I’m going to read in your room. I’m not going to see anything gross in there, right?”
“I don’t even know what you mean by that, but no,” Alex said, trying to remember if that was true or not. “Nothing gross. But I didn’t make the bed.”
“Fine. Eerie’s room is upstairs, second door. You have till midnight, and then we meet back here and switch cards. Don’t leave me standing out here, or you’ll be sorry.”
Margot didn’t wait for a response. She just walked off, leaving him standing there, staring at the pass card in his hand, though it looked no different from his own. Eventually he walked over to the little cottage, like the ones in some of the older neighborhoods in Bakersfield, wood and white stucco and ivy on the walls, and opened the door with a swipe of the card. The stairs were to his right inside. He could hear a TV in the front room, but no one reacted to his coming in. He went up to the second floor, past an unmarked door that he assumed was Margot’s. Part of him wondered what her room would be like, what she would keep there, if there was anything up on the walls, but mostly he was simply nervous.
He knocked as quietly as possibly, but she must have been waiting, because she heard him, and called out musically for him to come inside.
Anastasia waited for Donner to find the right bush to relieve himself on. It wasn’t glamorous, but that was dog ownership, even if the dog was actually a wolf that could transform into something that looked human. She stood by a ditch on the side of the road while Timor hovered at a discreet distance and Renton at a less discreet one.
“Well, hello,” Renton said unexpectedly, his hands suddenly on her shoulders, steering her in the direction of a figure moving quietly and deliberately through the failing light. “Is that Margot? Where do you think she’s going at this hour?”
She shrugged out of his grip and kept a firm leash on her temper, which threatened to explode. Ever since she had brought Timor in, Renton had been this way. She knew perfectly well why, of course, and it vexed her to no end.
“I don’t know. Why don’t you fix that,” Anastasia suggested coolly.
“Follow a girl through the woods at night? I’m your man…”
Renton smiled creepily and padded off in Margot’s direction. Anastasia knew perfectly well what she was up to, obviously, but she had planned to have hot cocoa and watch the Neverwhere DVD set her little sister had given her, on her bed with Donner and Blitzen, and if Renton saw that, he would snicker. She liked the idea of him hanging around outside Alex’s room, cold and getting the wrong idea about Margot, a great deal more. Besides, Timor was her favorite among the cousins, but so recalcitrant when Renton was around that she hardly had the opportunity to talk to him. She double-checked that Renton had actually left, glanced at the still occupied Weir,
and then wandered over in his direction.
“You can relax,” Anastasia said generously. “Renton will remain occupied for the rest of the evening.”
“Good,” Timor said, breathing a sigh of relief. “I’m not sure that I’ll get used to all this subterfuge, Anastasia. Are you certain you want to pursue this course of action?”
“I have to,” she responded airily, swirling her skirt with one hand. “Are you sure you can handle it, when the time comes?”
“Oh, yes,” Timor said, with his charming and utterly matter-of-fact confidence. “That won’t be a problem. Have you picked a time yet?”
“No,” Anastasia said, watching the last sliver of the sun disappear and feeling the same sadness that she always felt when she had to throw something away that she’d gotten used to having around. “But it will be soon, I’m certain. Be ready.”
“Of course,” Timor said smoothly, giving her a smile that rather made her wish that they weren’t cousins. Then again, being her cousin made it alright for her to take his arm to stroll along the darkened road, so maybe it wasn’t all bad. “Do you think that Katya will have to do her half of the job?”
“That is still up in the air,” she said, sighing and looking up at the emerging stars. “I am nowhere even close to deciding. We will all go back to the island, and then we will see what happens. If everything goes according to plan, then we have nothing to worry about. If not, we still get Emily to cook for us on vacation. She is really quite a talented chef, you see.”
“Yeah,” Timor said, nodding. “Dinner was good. You do realize there’s no way she’s the girl to back, right? You have to know that. You always know everything. So, why are you helping her?”
Anastasia pulled his arm closer because she could, because he didn’t think anything of it, and because Renton wasn’t here, and lately that had started to make Anastasia feel a little bit giddy.
“Because I like her, I suppose,” Anastasia said, feeling as if she was confessing something. “And also because she has something I want. Her older sister. Therese Muir is an effective Operator, and if I can’t recruit her, I am going to have to kill her, because she is an endless pain for me as things stand. Anyway,” she added thoughtfully, “you shouldn’t underestimate a desperate woman, and Emily is desperate. You really like Eerie that much more, then? I wouldn’t have thought it.”
It was too dark to be sure, but Timor looked like he was thinking about it. She didn’t pester him, and they wandered a bit off the path, into the shadows of the woods and the smell of moss, the wolves trailing behind them. She clutched at his arm, unable to see, but he walked confidently through the sound of crunching leaves. Even when he had been a rough and clumsy teenager, she remembered, he had been this way, she couldn’t help but rely on him, and he practically encouraged the whole world to do the same. She wondered, not for the first time, what it was that made him and his sister so profoundly different.
“She’s cute enough,” Timor said indifferently. “And Eerie seems nice in her own weird way. She’d make a good girlfriend for a shy guy, and Alex is exceptionally shy. Even I can see that. Emily is, well, she has looks and poise and she is a hell of a cook, but she’s a bit lacking in something important. I’m not sure what it is, so don’t ask me. She’s just not the kind of girl I can see Alex falling in love with, that’s all. So, I hope you’re hedging your bets.”
“You know I always do,” Anastasia chided him as he took her other hand and lifted her, delicately, over a protruding obstacle that was invisible to her. “Eerie and I have cooperated for years. She became recalcitrant and cut me out when Alex showed up, so I respected her wishes and left her to her own devices. True, I sent Katya to watch over them, but that is probably excessive caution on my part. I can’t imagine Alex getting up the courage to do anything more than talk, but I told Katya to take care of it if things get too heated.”
“Another night spent outside a window watching those two make out,” Timor laughed. “You’re going to warp my sister even more than she already is. I’m not sure I — hey…”
He trailed off. She would have asked him what was going on, but he put his hand on her shoulder, and she knew he meant for her to stay quiet. While Timor had worked as an assassin for her for a year or so, he was a capable bodyguard as well, and she respected his wishes. Anastasia knew from a lifetime of experience that a part of being guarded successfully was simply cooperating with the process of being protected. After a moment, he leaned close to whisper in her ear, she could feel his breath against her skin, and though she never would have admitted it, she didn’t mind at all.
“There are two or three people on top of the hill to our right, coming in our direction, and another group off to the left, circling around to the houses. I don’t think they know we are here, I think they are heading toward one of the houses behind us. Could be you, could be Alex. Either way, they trip over us here and we are in trouble. Can you bring your Weir closer to us?”
Anastasia pulled the whistle from where it hung on a thin braided platinum chain, down in between what she optimistically thought of as her breasts. There was no audible noise when she blew into it, but the Weir came over on their padded feet, sidling through the undergrowth to take positions protectively around her.
“Okay,” Timor said, sounding impressed and encouraged. “Those are better odds. Now, what do you want to do?”
“I don’t want them to see us. Let them pass us, and then follow them before you do anything. I want to know who they are.”
“Fine,” Timor said, concentrating, and then pointing to a nearby copse, dominated by one massive old leafless oak. “They won’t look over there when they come by. But, if they have any telepaths with them and they have your signature…”
Anastasia chuckled as she walked over behind the tree, Timor and the Weir tagging obediently along behind her.
“Not to worry,” she said warmly. “They won’t notice me, I’m sure.”
She was right, of course, and they didn’t. There were three of them, dressed in grey and dark blue, their faces obscured by smudge paint and darkness. It didn’t matter. She still recognized them.
“Taos Cartel.”
Timor turned to look at her, his expression strained.
“What? You can’t be serious!”
“I am,” Anastasia said icily. “They are Taos Cartel members, no doubt about it. They could only be here for me. We have traitors in the Black Sun. Clearly, Terrie is not the only cartel that has been compromised.”
“Assassins,” Timor said softly, watching them disappear back into the brush, moving steadily toward Anastasia’s house. “Here for the future head of the Black Sun. They mean to put the whole cartel into disarray. Maybe even start a civil war.”
Anastasia emerged from behind the tree, following the path the assassins had taken, a respectable distance behind. Donner and Blitzen pressed against the blooming skirts of her dress, and she was grateful for their presence. She could walk confidently in front of Timor, her servant, which was important. Because the dogs would do the worrying for her. And there was indeed much to worry over.
“Two teams that we know about,” Anastasia reminded him. “There could be more. They aren’t here for me exclusively. The Taos cartel fields twenty-two combat capable operators. If they are making a move, then it makes no sense not to hit me with everything they have.”
“Are you going to recall Renton?” Timor asked nervously, checking his long Russian army coat, no doubt confirming the presence of the various implements of his trade. “He could be useful.”
“No, I like him where he is,” Anastasia said thoughtfully. “If they are hitting multiple targets, I am willing to bet that Alex is one of them. But I do have to warn someone.”
She had Brennan, the only other competent telepath she had on campus, relay the call to him. The man she wanted to talk to wasn’t a telepath, but thanks to the Etheric machinery implanted in his brain, he could download protocols at will from the
network. Since he was a precognitive, he was always listening when he needed to be, because he knew that he would need to be.
“Gaul.”
“Anastasia. I assume I know why I’m hearing from you?”
“Yes. I have five of them over here, two teams. I’ll take care of them. Nevertheless, I thought you should know — they are members of the Taos Cartel, and there could be fifteen or so more of them in Central. Proscribe the Taos Cartel. I officially withdraw the Black Sun’s protection.”
“Understood. Don’t bother taking them alive.”
Anastasia broke the connection and smiled. As if, she thought. Questions had to be answered, and it wasn’t as if Gaul and his Auditors planned on sharing information with the Black Sun when they dragged their own prisoners down to the cells.
“This works out well,” Anastasia said, satisfied. “Alright, Timor. Take the first group as they leave the woods. And if you can leave one of them alive…”
Timor acknowledged her with a nod, and then ducked on ahead, moving at a jog. She gave a curt command in Norwegian, the Weirs’ mother tongue, and they glided into motion, spreading out to Timor’s flanks, moving quickly through the leaves and the darkness.
16
“Hello!” Alex yelled over the near deafening music, waving like a total idiot, and then shoving his hands in his pockets, so they couldn’t embarrass him any further.
Eerie blinked, looking briefly confused.
“Hi…”
Alex stood in the doorway.
“What — uh, what are you listening to?” Alex asked, over the thunderous, robotic bass.
“The Glitch Mob,” Eerie responded seriously, after glancing at her laptop. “Do you like it?”
Alex shrugged, at first trying to figure out if that was the artist or the song title for, then deciding it didn’t matter. Eerie put music on his mp3 player all the time without him even realizing it, since he hit shuffle every morning when he put his headphones on. Because he’d asked about it, he was pretty sure he would hear the song again eventually.
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