Shadow of Temptation (Asylums for Magical Threats #2.5)

by Jessie Donovan

  “I prefer to stand.”

  Neena shrugged. “Fine, although you might change your mind. You see, I have some bad news for you, my dear. Do you know how that Night-Weaver found you at the market?”

  Sabrina frowned. How did Neena know about that? “Jorge said it was because someone saw him with me, and that the Collector woman planned to use me to coerce him again.”

  Neena made a buzzing sound with her voice. “Wrong. They were there because Watkins tortured Yolanda until she told them about you and your relationship with the Feiru Liaison office. By decoding your message, he knew about your meeting with Juan Marquez and sent the Night-Weaver and others to capture you.”

  Sabrina’s heart skipped a beat. Juan’s name wasn’t common knowledge. “My identity is compromised?” Neena nodded and she forced herself to ask, “What about Yolanda?”

  Neena shook her head. “I’m sorry, but she didn’t make it, my dear.”

  Somehow Sabrina managed to keep on her feet. Now was not the time to grieve for the woman she’d barely known, but who had continuously risked her life to help Sabrina’s mission. The best thing she could do was finish this damn assignment and make sure Watkins was put into custody to receive justice.

  She took a step toward Neena. “I’ve been working for the Feiru Liaison office for a little over five years, and your knowing all of this is too much of a coincidence. Tell me how you got this information and I might start to believe we’re on the same side.”

  “Clever girl.” Neena buffed the nails of her right hand against her shirt and looked at them. “First, answer me this: What does your office know about latent abilities?”

  “Only rumors, and most of them are from nearly a hundred years ago. Why?”

  Neena looked up. “While Salazar’s ability is pretty nifty, I have the rarest ability of them all. In addition to being an elemental wind first-born, I can see snippets of the future.”

  “What?”

  “You say that a lot for no reason.” Neena uncrossed her leg and stood up. “I told you, I can see bits of the future. While things can always change, I have a pretty good track record of figuring out what will come true or not. And for you, my dear, I think I’ll be right again.”

  Sabrina avoided saying “what” again. Her mind was clear enough to fall back on her years of intelligence gathering. In any situation, it came down to asking the right question at the right time.

  She was pretty confident that Neena wouldn’t divulge Sabrina’s own future, but there was something she wanted to know, something that would affect the whole world. “Okay, so tell me what’s going to happen to Feiru and human relations in the future?”

  Neena’s face grew serious. “A lot of people will die, but eventually the Feiru will live side-by-side with the humans and the way we both live will change forever.”

  She studied Neena’s features and body language, but if she were lying, she was damn good. Besides, Sabrina’s gut told her Neena believed her words to be true. She didn’t look forward to the “a lot of people will die” part of the prediction, but she only hoped the integration of the races would lead to a better tomorrow worth the sacrifice.

  “Fine. I’ll talk with Jorge about going after Watkins tonight. For now, I think it’s time for you to leave.”

  Neena smiled. “I have an ever-growing list of things to do, so I think I will leave. But I’ll see you again soon.”

  Jorge moved on the ground and Sabrina looked at him a second before she glanced back to where Neena had been standing. The woman was gone.

  She brushed off her irritation. The woman was annoying, but if she were right, tonight would be big. If Jorge could confirm that his powers were recharged and ready to use, she would finally finish this assignment. That thought sent a thrill through her—one mixed with relief and a little bit of fear. Now that her identity had been compromised, either she would spend the rest of her life at a desk job in some secret location, or the Feiru Liaison office would “relocate” her to who the hell knew where.

  But at the moment, none of that mattered. She moved to Jorge’s location on the floor and sat beside him. He was restless and moving about as if he were having an active dream. She put a hand on his forehead and he calmed.

  She stroked his hair and hoped he woke up soon. She wanted to finish this business with Watkins so she could talk to him about her revelation. She had no idea what he would think of her being human.

  Part of her hoped he would accept her, but another part of her was afraid that this would be one lie too many and he’d never learn to trust her ever again.

  Chapter Ten

  Harry Watkins watched the woman with dark skin and short, curly black hair sitting in the chair in front of him. She was silent with her eyes closed, gripping the pillowcase his people had retrieved from Ono’s apartment. It wasn’t in his nature to be patient, but this woman was extremely valuable to the Collector. If he harmed her in any way, Watkins wouldn’t live to see tomorrow.

  There were few people who could threaten him and mean it. The Collector was one of them.

  So he waited with his arms crossed over his chest. The woman in the chair was a Locator. All she needed was something that had been worn or touched by a person in the last twenty-four hours, and she could pinpoint their approximate location down to twenty or thirty feet. It wasn’t an exact science, but Watkins would use whatever he could to find the traitor.

  Earlier, his men had succeeded in breaking the waitress, and she’d told them as much as she knew about Sabrina Ono. The only important facts had been that Ono worked for the Feiru Liaison office, she’d had a meeting with her office’s boss this morning, and she was human.

  His borrowed latent soldiers had fucked up this morning, which had led to him using the Locator’s abilities. Watkins needed to find Ono. She was the only real threat capable of ruining his plan against his rival, which he needed to succeed to please the Collector. Since Ono was determined to thwart his plans, he needed to find her before she could finish the job. The tricky part was the Shadow-Shifter, Jorge Salazar, seemed to be working with her. Feiru with latent abilities were always harder to catch, but since Salazar had used his shadow-shifting abilities to escape earlier today, he’d be easy to capture until tomorrow, when the man could shift again.

  The woman in the chair gasped and opened her eyes. She blinked a few times and then looked Watkins in the eye. “I think I’ve pinpointed her location.”

  “Where?”

  “Not far from the zoo. I can see the row of small rectangular houses, but I won’t be able to pinpoint exactly which one until I see it.”

  He nodded. “Right. Take my team of men and women, as well as the Siren. Use her if you need to, but just bring me Sabrina Ono. Salazar is secondary, but both I and the Collector would reward you if you could bring him in as well.”

  The woman’s face was blank as she nodded, which was the normal expression for any of the Collector’s long-term soldiers. Watkins signaled to his men in the room to assist the Locator out. Once she was gone, he brought up the video conference program on his computer and waited for the Collector to answer. As always, her face was shielded from view, but her voice was clear when she asked, “Did you find the woman?”

  “Yes. Your Locator is on her trail, and no doubt Salazar is with her. Did you need both of them alive?”

  “For now. The Shadow-Shifter has his uses, but it’s the woman I want. Rumors have been floating around the Feiru Liaison offices about a tip from James Sinclair, and this woman might give me the edge I need to keep Sinclair otherwise occupied.”

  Watkins didn’t know—nor care—about the Collector’s other plans, but in the interest of keeping civil, he nodded. “I’ll pass on the message. I wanted to ask for some reinforcements so I can focus on the bombing whilst your people take care of Ono and Salazar.”

  “They’re already on their way. Contact me when everything is complete.”

  The screen went blank and Watkins picked up his ce
ll phone to call his bomb makers. He just might be able to pull this all off before breakfast tomorrow.

  Jorge waited behind the large wooden desk in his shadow form. Any minute now, his target would enter and he’d have only seconds to engulf the man, knock him unconscious, and absorb him into his mist.

  The target was a local police detective sympathetic to the Feiru, a man named Julio Reyes. Jorge wasn’t supposed to know why Reyes was the target, but while sniffing around and determining the best way to kidnap the man, he’d learned of Reyes’s current investigation into some Feiru-related crimes.

  He didn’t know all the particulars, but some of the crimes were by prominent gangs in the area, gangs that had been previous targets of the Collector. Jorge’s best guess was that the Collector didn’t want any of the human authorities putting their noses into her business.

  He almost felt bad for the human, but if Jorge failed this assignment, he knew his sister would be tortured again. No matter what it took, he couldn’t allow that to happen.

  The lock turned and Jorge watched the door, but instead of Reyes, he saw Harry Watkins holding a knife to his sister Alejandra’s throat. He moved toward Watkins, but the man slit Alejandra’s throat before he could reach the pair. Jorge watched in horror as his sister’s lifeless body was tossed to the floor. Watkins kicked her and stared straight at him. “You’re no different than me. You’ve killed innocents, and so have I. Remember that.”

  Watkins vanished and Jorge watched his sister’s blood cover the floor, unable even to cry out at his sister’s murder.

  Jorge jerked awake and sat up, heaving in deep breaths. Something touched his back and he rolled off the bed to the side and took a defensive crouch. He looked up to see Sabrina staring at him with a mixed expression of puzzlement and concern.

  Her voice was soft when she asked, “Are you okay?”

  He drew in a deep sigh. He’d been dreaming. Alejandra was safe with DEFEND, not dead on the floor.

  When he still didn’t answer, Sabrina moved to where he was crouched and kneeled on the floor in front of him. She reached a hand toward him and he suddenly yearned for her comforting touch, but then she pulled back and he wondered why. She asked, “How do you feel? Were you just having a bad dream or a negative reaction to Neena’s drugs?”

  Neena. The crazy woman’s name brought him back to the present and what had happened. He did another quick scan of the room, but he didn’t see Neena anywhere. “I’m fine. It was just a bad dream, don’t worry about it. What happened to Neena? Tell me what happened after that woman drugged me.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “You don’t look fine to me.”

  “Sabrina.”

  She put up her hands. “Fine, I’ll drop it for now. As for what happened, you’re probably not going to like it.”

  Now that his heart rate had calmed a little, his head ached. He slowly stood up and realized the sluggishness from earlier was gone. “Tell me anyway. It’ll give me a chance to try to pull myself together and shake off any aftereffects of the drugs Neena pumped into me.”

  She also stood up and watched him for a second before she finally replied. “Well, Neena and I had a chat.”

  “A chat? Seriously? With the crazy lady who drugged me unconscious?”

  She shrugged. “Hey, I was ready to knock her out cold until she said some things that forced me to take her seriously. Did you know she can see visions of the future? The woman has abilities I can’t even name.”

  He took a step toward Sabrina. “I may have heard something about that, but enough about Neena’s abilities. Just tell me what she said.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “She gave me the information we needed to take down Watkins tonight.”

  “Exactly how is this supposed to happen? I can’t even shift until tomorrow morning.”

  She shook her head. “You’re wrong. I don’t know how your abilities work, but if you can ‘check’ on your power levels, they should be at full capacity thanks to a mystery drug.”

  He gave her a skeptical look. “I’ve never heard of a drug like that. If it existed, I’m sure the Collector would’ve used it.”

  “Just check, okay? For me? If what Neena told me about this drug recharging your powers is true, then I’d feel more confident about using the other information she gave me.”

  He stared and she stared back. He could tell the woman wasn’t going to back down.

  The human had guts; he’d give her that. Human. He’d nearly forgotten about her earlier revelation, but for some reason it didn’t seem to bother him as much as he’d expected. Probably because of the way she’d looked at him when he’d fallen to the ground earlier. It’d been a long time since someone had shown any concern or worry for him.

  He just needed to be careful not to read too much into it.

  He sighed. “Fine. I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I have a feeling you’ll argue with me until I do what you ask, so in the interest of saving time, give me a second.” He closed his eyes and focused on the hum of power he drew on whenever he used his shadow-shifting abilities. Normally, this close after using them, it would be nothing more than a whisper. But Sabrina was right—his energy was pulsing at full power.

  He opened his eyes. “Usually shifting so close together would put enough strain on my heart to kill me, but my energy levels are back to full. I can shift again without killing myself. How is that possible?”

  “The drug I mentioned was the one Neena injected you with, and it seems she was telling the truth about it speeding up your recovery process.”

  He opened his mouth to ask how, but decided that wasn’t important right now. Instead, he said, “But there must be more you aren’t telling me because as awesome as I am with my abilities, they alone won’t capture Watkins.”

  Sabrina couldn’t get the look of horror she’d seen on Jorge’s face when he’d jumped up from his bad dream out of her head. She wanted to wrap him in a hug and push him to tell her what it’d been about, but she had a feeling he wouldn’t say a word—if anything at all—until he knew everything Neena had told her.

  Since it was only early afternoon, she just needed to get their plan for tonight formulated and then she would still have time to get him talking about his dream and maybe even about his reaction to her working for the Feiru Liaison office. He had yet to bring it up and Sabrina wasn’t going to go into a high stakes situations—like taking down Watkins at the school—until she was sure they could trust each other enough to work together.

  She clenched her hands into fists to prevent herself from reaching for him and said, “Watkins is moving up the bombing of the school. According to Neena, he’s going to do it tonight.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “Start from the beginning, and tell me everything Neena told you.”

  She did—well, everything except for one secret she’d promised to keep from Jorge—and when she finished, he looked her dead in the eye and said, “You’ve been doing this double-life thing for years, so I’m guessing you’re good at telling whether someone is lying to you or not. What’s your professional opinion on Neena? Imagine you had a team’s life in your hands, would you still trust her and use her information?”

  Sabrina had already given this a lot of thought. “Yes, I think she’s telling the truth. Her eccentricities are genuine and I get the feeling that most people think she’s lying because of them, when in reality she’s being herself. It’s kind of a brilliant cover, if you ask me. I wish I could just be myself and say whatever I wished, but then have people dismiss it out of hand because of my behavior. It’d be a hell of a lot easier than having to live two lives.”

  He uncrossed his arms. “About that, what made a human take an undercover job with the Fed League for two years? How long have you even known the Feiru existed?”

  She hadn’t meant to draw attention to her earlier revelations, but now that she had, she wouldn’t try to brush them aside. “I sort of discovered your existence by acciden
t.”

  He gave her a look and she decided they had enough time for her to tell him more. She hadn’t told anyone outside of the Feiru Liaison office this story before, but if she wanted any sort of trust between them, she needed to stop worrying about what her superiors might do to her. Especially since her identity was already compromised.

  She took a deep breath and said, “During my first year at university in Brazil, I was returning from a late night at the library. It was a clear, warm night, but all of a sudden I heard loud splashes of water, as if there was a downpour. I went toward the sound and came upon a young man surrounded by streams of water dancing around him, and occasionally one of the water streams would hit the ground. Like any human, all I could do was stare. The young man was standing in the open, and there was no logical reason I could think of for the displays of water—no fountain, no hoses, nothing.

  “I didn’t get to stare long, however, before I heard something like a gun go off. The young man went down, and the water instantly splashed against the ground to form a big puddle. As I tried to move away from the growing lake at my feet, arms grabbed my shoulders and spun me around. The woman was wearing a police-like uniform, but something about it was off.”

  Jorge said, “She was a Feiru enforcer.”

  Sabrina nodded. “Yes. I later learned they’d gotten a tip and had come to take care of the problem before someone could record the display of elemental magic with a camcorder or a video on their cell phone. The man was taken into custody, as was I.”

  “And what did they do with you?”

  Despite everything she’d seen, and everything she’d experienced in her current occupation, that night was still the most important in her life because from that day onward, she’d never been able to be truly honest with anyone. Keeping it a secret from all of her friends and family, including her sister, had nearly torn her apart.

  But with Jorge, she could finally break her silence, and maybe start to heal her fractured psyche. After all, he was a Feiru, and talking about the enforcer procedures wouldn’t violate any of the agreements she’d signed. She might get in trouble with her boss back at the Feiru Liaison office, but she could handle that.