by SM Reine
But for a heartbeat after they jerked the black bag over my head, I was afraid that the inside of the bag would be the last thing I ever saw.
It wasn’t.
They walked me for a few minutes, shoved me to my knees, and ripped the bag away again.
I couldn’t tell where I was. It was too dark for that.
And then a light shined in my face—a blazing cliché straight from a bad cop TV show. I cringed away from it.
“Agent Cèsar Hawke,” said a cool voice.
My watering eyes adjusted slowly. There was a familiar figure in the room with me. Two of them, in fact.
The one in the front was stereotypical femme fatale. Tall, lean, wearing a white suit that cut off just above the knees, making sure I could see how shapely her legs were—but not enough of her shapely legs to be indecent. That wouldn’t have been appropriate for a vice president of the Office of Preternatural Affairs.
Lucrezia de Angelis’s companion wouldn’t have broken five feet tall if she hadn’t been wearing men’s loafers to go along with her well-tailored suit.
Suzy had managed to shake off my sleeping potion, and she didn’t look happy about it.
“Why am I not surprised to see you here, Agent Hawke?” Lucrezia asked. Her accent was some shade of Italian, so thick that I expected her to start going on about spicy meatballs.
“Because you’ve developed powers of precognition and saw this coming weeks ago?” Nobody laughed. I guess it wasn’t much of a joke. “Did you recover Agent Banerji? He was with me. He was seized by the demon.”
I couldn’t read Lucrezia’s expression. It wasn’t because of the Botox, but the dramatic backlighting that made her look like she had a halo. Or like she was standing in front of hellfire.
“What demon?” she asked.
“The one who could have snatched the Goodyear blimp out of the air.”
“There was no such demon, and Agent Banerji left to investigate Vista Boulevard with Agent Bryce. You must be under the influence of Reno’s resident nightmares.” Lucrezia said it so calmly that I would have believed her if I hadn’t seen Agent Carthay’s brains splattered across network services.
Suzy glared murder at me from behind Lucrezia. Once we were alone, it was going to be bad. Really bad. But hey, that was a problem for Cèsar Five Minutes From Now, not Cèsar Right At This Moment.
“Would you like to tell me what you were doing in this zone? You weren’t authorized to leave the base,” Lucrezia said.
My hands tightened into fists behind my back. I tested the strength of the handcuffs. With my magically augmented muscles, I could break standard cuffs. Not these ones.
I drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly. This was my only chance to talk to Lucrezia before Zettel got to her. If I spent too much time thinking about what I should say, I wouldn’t speak at all.
“I’ve been performing the investigation of internal procedure assigned to me,” I said. “I suspected corruption from Allyson Whatley. She’s created the infected brutes crawling the streets of Reno and she’s been kidnapping civilians. Agent Banerji was helping me look for clues as to where she’s been sending them.”
Considering that was the accusation that was going to ruin my life, I’d expected it to fall with some kind of impact.
Suzy flinched.
Lucrezia didn’t even twitch.
“Did you see Allyson Whatley at System Computing Services?” the vice president asked, her tone filled with silken danger.
“I saw security footage of her assaulting Commander Gallagher. I can show you.”
She repeated herself with more bite to the words. “Did you see Allyson Whatley at System Computing Services?”
It wasn’t as though I could lie.
“No, ma’am,” I said. “But—”
“I won’t entertain baseless accusations.” Lucrezia dismissed me with a flick of her fingers and turned to Suzy. “You’ll be rewarded for the tip that led to seizing Agent Hawke in the midst of this policy violation, Agent Takeuchi. Thank you.”
Policy violation? It was a hell of a lot worse than a policy violation. There had been kennels filled with people. Agents had died.
“I don’t think he’s lying about Aniruddha,” Suzy said. “I mean Agent Banerji. We should search System Computing Services.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Lucrezia said.
“Director Friederling is already on his way with a team to do a sweep for evidence.”
That should have taken the wind out of Lucrezia’s sails, but her eyes only smoldered with dark delight. “I hope he doesn’t take too long. I’ll need him back at the base for Agent Hawke’s trial in the morning.”
They took me back to Fernley, where I discovered a new part of the Union base I hadn’t yet gotten a chance to explore: the dungeons.
Okay, they weren’t exactly dungeons. But they were prison cells that just so happened to be underground.
Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.
Doctors arrived shortly thereafter to ask me stupid questions, the kind you ask someone who might have a concussion. It was obvious what they were doing. They had been told by the vice president that my brain had been broken by nightmares. They were trying to decide if I was up for trial.
That was a problem. Not the state of my brain—I was sane, unfortunately. But the fact that Lucrezia was telling everyone that I’d been broken in the first place was definitely a problem.
See, aspides were mostly immune to the effects of nightmare demons. And she knew that I was an aspis because she’d personally forced me to become Fritz’s partner.
Lucrezia de Angelis knew that I couldn’t possibly have had a case of the crazies from nightmare hallucination.
Which meant she was covering her ass.
I didn’t need the doctors to verify that for me. I’d figured out that Lucrezia was covering shit up as soon as the place where she had been interrogating me started to move.
They had shipped me from UNR to Fernley in a semi truck.
You know, like the semis that Allyson’s ribbon-bound demons were using to transport naked humans in kennels.
Needless to say, I’d made a huge mistake.
I’d been searching for a way to keep Gary Zettel from reporting my connection to Ann. I’d thought if I kept my nose clean, I could report Allyson to Lucrezia, wipe the witch off the face of the Earth, and everything would be sunshine and daisies in my half of the evil organization.
The mistake was assuming that Lucrezia hadn’t been on Allyson’s side in the first place.
“I’m screwed,” I told the door of my cell, which was very sturdy steel reinforced with wards that would prevent me from casting magic. They didn’t need the wards. I didn’t have any supplies with me anyway. What would I cast a spell with, spit and wishes?
I didn’t manage to get any sleep.
But hours passed anyway, and sometime before sunrise, I had another visitor.
A guard opened the door and Suzy Takeuchi stepped inside.
The way that she glared made me think I wasn’t going to survive to go on trial in front of Lucrezia de Angelis.
“I can explain,” I said, lifting my chained hands in a gesture that I hoped would come across as properly helpless. “But first, you have to tell me—did Fritz investigate SCS? Did he find anything?”
“He’s gone,” Suzy said.
“Fritz?”
“Aniruddha.”
I let loose a string of curses. “What about the other stuff? The kennels? Agent Carthay’s body?”
Suzy shook her head. “I’m told that SCS was clean.”
“It’s not possible,” I said. “My gun had a camera on it. I was filming the whole time. If you can find that—”
“They say they didn’t recover any evidence from the scene.”
“Someone’s lying,” I said.
“Yeah. You lied.” She stalked toward my cot, and I stood reflexively, backing into the corner. “You increased the dose, didn’t you? On th
e potion you gave me—you doubled the strength of the magic.”
Tripled it, actually. “When did you wake up?”
“Director Friederling found me. He had to have Allyson Whatley use magic to wake me up. That’s how out of it I was.”
I’d assumed that Suzy had woken up out of sheer stubbornness. I wouldn’t put anything past her.
“Tell me it was an accident,” Suzy said, drawing charms out of her pockets. They didn’t look like they’d come out of the Union supply closet. They were home-brewed, the work of the master herself.
“Suzy,” I said.
My tone must have said enough.
Her hex ripped through the air and struck me full in the chest.
Heat swept over me, and where it spread, my skin bubbled. “Holy fucking shit!” I said, trying to wipe it away. The more I rubbed at it, the worse it got. It clung to my fingers. Burned like tar.
She lifted the charm to hex me again. I lifted my arm, deflecting the magic onto the sleeve.
“Suzy, stop!”
She tried again. It didn’t work. The hex had already fizzled out. That was the problem with magic, after all—you couldn’t cast it in advance and save it for later, unless you didn’t mind wimpy magic, or if your name was Allyson Whatley.
Failing that, Suzy hurled the stone at my head.
It smacked into my forehead.
“Ouch!”
She seized my lapels and slammed me into the wall. “It’s your fault!” Suzy pummeled me in the gut, right in the small ribs.
I could have stopped her if I wanted to. She was a better witch by a factor of a thousand, but there’s no beating brute force sometimes.
But I didn’t want to.
She was right. It was my fault.
“You have every right to be pissed at me, Suzy,” I said in between blows, gritting my teeth. “I’m not going to argue with you.”
“Why the fuck not? Argue! Yell! Hit me!” She slammed her fists into my chest again and again, bouncing them off of the muscle. It didn’t hurt as much as usual. She wasn’t trying very hard.
I wasn’t going to respond to her. She was hysterical—a word I’d never have expected to associate with Suzy.
Everyone had their lines, though. Suzy’s had been crossed.
“When we get back to Los Angeles, I’m putting in for a transfer,” Suzy said. “I don’t want to work with you again. I never want to see your fucking face again, you fuckhole.”
“Come on, Suze,” I said.
“Don’t ‘Come on, Suze’ me,” she snapped. “You drugged me against my will. I feel so fucking violated.”
“Look at the bright side: Lucrezia de Angelis is about to put a bullet through my brain, so you won’t have to deal with all the paperwork for a transfer.”
Her whole face went red. “Is that supposed to make me feel better? Do you think this is funny?”
“I don’t know about funny, but…”
“You’re being tried for sedition,” Suzy said.
“Sedition?”
“Gary Zettel claims that he has evidence that you’ve been conspiring with demons. He also thinks that you’ve been spying. Something about getting into Union files outside your clearance.”
He was going to try to use Malcolm’s thumb drive against me.
Damn.
Accessing files above my clearance was a serious charge. I’d almost been killed for that before. The problem was that I had actually done it this time, and I probably couldn’t talk my way out of it.
“Gary Zettel’s a piece of shit, and so are Allyson Whatley and Lucrezia de Angelis. They’re all poison. They’re the ones capturing people and keeping them in dog crates,” I said.
“Are you sure?” Suzy asked.
“I saw it myself. I’m really fucking sure.”
There was a momentary spark in her eyes—an instant of resolve. But it soon faded. “Lucrezia de Angelis didn’t arrive at the base alone. She brought three members of the board of directors with her. Do you know what that means?” Suzy didn’t wait for me to respond. “It means they don’t have to take you to HQ for sentencing. If they think you’re dangerous enough, they really can put a bullet in your brain at the end of the trial.” She looked at me as though waiting for a reaction, but I was too numb. “Who’s laughing now?”
“Give me a minute to get over the shock and I’ll have a new bad joke for you,” I said.
“God, Cèsar! Why are you such a fucking moron?” She hugged me so tightly that it hurt about as much as when she punched me in the stomach. I surrendered. No point fighting back at that point.
“Which directors?” I asked. “Fritz?”
“Directors Grimsey, Kirby, and Liberty. Why?”
Because even Aniruddha had thought the OPA wasn’t completely rotten. Because I knew Director Grimsey, and I thought she might vote to save my ass. And because if I could convince two of the three of them that not only was I innocent, but that Allyson Whatley was a danger to the entire organization—well, I might survive the trial after all.
In fact, the trial might be the best thing that could have possibly happened to me.
I put on my most winning smile for Suzy. “What are the chances you’ll do me a favor?”
“Not as good as the chances I’ll punch your teeth in,” she said.
“What if I said that it might be the only way to get Aniruddha back?”
Suzy punched me.
She struck low, in the gut. Not the teeth. Which I took as a sign of forgiveness, even if it did hurt like hell.
“Okay,” she said, breathing hard through her nose, like she was a bull. “Tell me what we have to do.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE TRIAL WAS HELD in an outbuilding at the back of the base. Lucrezia de Angelis sat at a long table near the back wall, along with the directors who had been selected to judge me.
Director Grimsey. A woman with a dour face who offered a fractional smile to me when I entered. Director Kirby. Director Liberty. Neither of whom I’d seen before. Didn’t even know which departments they managed.
If I could get two of them to vote to save me, I might survive. I only needed to convince two.
But when I came into the room, Suzy still wasn’t back from the chore I’d sent her on. And Fritz wasn’t there, either.
Lucrezia twisted the delicate gold chain of her watch on her wrist to check the time. “You’re early.”
“Blame these guys,” I said, jerking my chin toward the Union kopides who flanked me. They’d kicked me out of bed in my cell too early that morning, dragged me to the showers, made me put on sweats that were a size too small. I felt exhausted and looked stupid.
“The trial isn’t due to start for five more minutes.” Lucrezia sighed like it was the greatest of inconveniences.
“Then we should start now,” Director Grimsey said. “Start early, wrap up early. We have other appointments, if you recall. Another trial to attend.”
“Someone else is on trial?” I asked.
“You don’t ask the questions, Agent Hawke,” Director Liberty said. He was the tallest, fattest guy I’d ever seen, like if Marvel’s Kingpin had been an Asian American. And he talked like Ben Stein. That was a real winning combination. “Who has the list of charges?”
Lucrezia glanced at her watch again. “Oh, very well.” She produced a folder and flipped it open. “Sedition, conspiring with demons, espionage…”
“Says who? Gary Zettel?” I asked. “I’d love to see his evidence. I’ll wait right here for him to arrive.”
“You can’t stall this,” Director Liberty said.
“We also can’t proceed without evidence, right? Five minutes, guys. Get Gary Zettel in here to do his thing. And I should have evidence in here when my kopis arrives, too.”
Lucrezia stood, smoothing her hands over her dress to push it down her thighs. “I don’t think you understand how this works, Agent Hawke. This isn’t a court of law. You have no rights. We’re here to decide if
—by a majority vote—we believe you’re doing what a Union commander has claimed.”
I caught Grimsey’s eye. “Don’t you want to vote after seeing actual evidence, though?”
The tough old lady’s eyes were crinkled at the edges. It wasn’t exactly a smile, but the expression wasn’t unfriendly, either. She got along with Fritz. I had to believe she wouldn’t want me dead without good reason.
Then she said, “My time is too valuable for that.”
My heart sank down to my feet.
But then the door opened. Suzy entered, wearing a fresh suit with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She looked clean and professional. Everything that I wasn’t.
She was also holding a black laptop with white letters on the lid: UKA. And Malcolm’s thumb drive jutted from the USB port.
“I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” she said, striding forward. She set the laptop on the table in front of the directors.
The guard to my right touched his sidearm.
“Stand down, Saunders,” Director Kirby said before turning her attention to Suzy. “Who are you? What is this?”
“My name is Agent Takeuchi, and I’m with the Magical Violations Department. I understand that my partner, Agent Hawke, has been accused of sedition, among other things. I’ve come with evidence to clear the record.”
Lucrezia kept glancing at her watch. “Is this going to take very long?”
Suzy’s eyes filled with icy hatred. “As long as it takes.”
She lifted the laptop lid. Woke up the machine. When she clicked on the icon to open the database, it greeted her as Malcolm Gallagher.
“As you can see,” Suzy said, “the breach of security is clearly Commander Gallagher’s.”
“Wait,” I said. Implicating Malcolm hadn’t been in the plan.
She talked right over me. “I won’t proceed deeper into the database, as I don’t have clearance, but if one of you would do the honors…”
“You have my attention.” Director Grimsey tugged the laptop toward herself.
I caught Suzy eye and shook my head, trying to tell her to stop. But there was nothing but hatred left in her expression. Her line had been crossed. Tough-as-nails Suzy had gone past hysteria and entered a place of revenge against the whole Union—including its commander.