Whisper of Shadows (The Diamond City Magic Novels)

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  I typed a quick text to Touray. A Tyet boss was now in one of my speed-dial slots. That fact in itself was more than a little surreal. I told him that the FBI had arrested Price and we were on our way downtown. At least we knew where to go, thanks to Mel having worked in the main building.

  “What was that?” Taylor asked.

  “I let Price’s brother know what was going on.”

  She nodded. I couldn’t tell if she approved or not, but she didn’t hesitate, just headed for her parking spot.

  Taylor wasn’t dressed any better than I was. She wore platform red spike pumps that made her legs look like a million dollars. Above that she had on a dark purple dress that came down to mid-thigh and fit her like a glove. Unlike me, she was slender. I’d have looked like a stuffed sausage in that dress. She looked like a runway model. Her coat was a sleek leather swing jacket. Her auburn hair was caught up in an elegant chignon. Between us, we looked a little bit like two-thirds of Charlie’s Angels about to go off on a mission.

  In winter, Taylor drove a daffodil-yellow Lexus SUV. We climbed in, and she gunned the motor, fishtailing slightly as we zoomed down the drive and onto the road.

  We didn’t speak. The silence pooled thick between us. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. She and I hadn’t been talking a whole lot since I’d managed to rescue Josh, her ex-fiancé. Before his kidnapping, they’d been headed toward getting back together again, and now he wouldn’t even talk to her. Then after I escaped from Percy Caldwell, the bastard had decided to force Taylor to fly him out of Diamond City. He’d killed a bunch of her employees and infected her with Sparkle Dust. Tonight was the first I’d seen her since then, and it didn’t seem like she was all that happy with me. ’Course, I’d brought Price to the party tonight, and I knew she blamed his brother for what had happened to Josh—not that Touray had had much to do with the actual kidnapping. Plus, my moving in with a major Tyet player, as Price now was, made me something of an enemy. After all, Mel was FBI. No wonder they’d raided her house. Someone was making a point about her not being trustworthy anymore. Clearly Taylor was blaming that on me, too. Not that she was wrong.

  I let out a frustrated sigh. “Why don’t you just say what’s on your mind already?”

  She glanced at me. “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve been pissed at me since Josh went AWOL after his rescue. Like it’s my fault he won’t talk to you. Why don’t you just yell at me already and get it over with? The brooding thing is getting really old.”

  “I’m not brooding.”

  “Yeah? Then you’re faking it really well. Come on, Taylor. I did my best to get Josh back for you, but the Sparkle Dust they gave him changed him. He’s not the same guy he used to be.” I remembered the way he’d attacked me, hitting me mercilessly. If Price and Touray hadn’t pulled him off me, I’d be dead now. I wasn’t the slightest bit sorry he’d stayed away from Taylor. Who knows what he might have done to her? “And I know you think it’s my fault Percy came after you, but I had no idea he even knew you existed.”

  “He wouldn’t have come after me if not for you,” Taylor pointed out, then stopped. “Anyway, I’m not mad at you for what happened with Josh or Percy.”

  “So then it’s my involvement with Price and Touray, especially now that Touray’s decided you’re family, which means he thinks he’s got a license to poke in your business and look after your best interests, whether you like it or not.”

  “That’s supremely irritating, but no, not that either.”

  I tossed up my hands. “All right, then why don’t tell me what’s got your panties in a twist?”

  She pulled up at a stop light. Snow mounded a good fifteen to twenty feet high on either side of the road. She glanced sideways at me. “This isn’t the time.”

  “When is? Please tell me, because I’ve no idea and I’m getting pretty sick and tired of all the silent accusations you’re sending my way.”

  “You have no idea? That’s just awesome.”

  “Just tell me.” I probably shouldn’t have cared at the moment. But for once I had her trapped and alone, which made it the perfect opportunity. Never mind that we were on our way to rescue Price. The distraction would keep me from banging my head on the dashboard.

  She glared at the road, her knuckles whitening on the steering wheel. I waited. Not patiently, but I waited. Smacking her upside the head wasn’t going to knock the words out of her, and it was the only thing I could think of to speed things along. Finally she spoke, which only served to confuse me more.

  “Did you ever wonder why I took up flying? Or why I went over into the war zone to work?”

  “You’re a closet daredevil?”

  That didn’t win the expected laugh. Instead her mouth twisted, and she muttered something.

  “All right,” I said. “Why did you start flying?”

  “Because of you. And Dad.” The last word was bitter.

  “Me? What did I have to do with it? And Dad hated you flying.”

  Taylor had earned her pilot’s license by the time she was thirteen. Ironic, that. She had to be driven to the airport in order to fly a plane.

  She nodded. “He said it was too dangerous.”

  I waited for more. Taylor hooked a corner, and another, heading for the Mariview Tunnel that led from Uptown into Midtown. When it was clear she wasn’t going to say anything else, I prompted her. So far her explanation was more confusing than anything else. “If you think you made your point, I missed it. Maybe you should talk slower and use more words.”

  “All the time we were kids, we were taught the world was dangerous. That you needed special protection. We were all given basics—using guns, defensive combat training, plus we got drilled on escape routes and what to do when this bad thing happened or that one. You, Jamie, and Leo had more lessons. Stuff on magic and I don’t know what else. I didn’t get any of that.”

  Her voice had dropped, and she looked furious. I still didn’t get it.

  “You’re—” I stopped. None of the words describing someone without any magic was very nice. Neuter had caught on lately, but the others—mundane, ordinary, defective, broken—each carried its own negative. I elected to be more politic. Score one for me. “You don’t have magic talent. So what would you have done?”

  “And that right there is the problem I have with you,” Taylor said, shooting me an angry look. “Treating me like I’m breakable and incapable. All. The. Time. Yes, it’s true: I’m ordinary. Neuter even. Not defective. Not broken. Not lacking. But none of you believe it. You always treat me like I’m about to shatter or I’m not capable of knowing the dangers that are out there. You treat me like I’ve got cotton for brains and all I know how to do is look pretty.”

  My mouth fell open, and I stared. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  She rolled her eyes again, punching the gas. The SUV fishtailed again. She straightened it easily. “All right. Let’s try an example,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me that Josh tried to kill you when you were rescuing him?”

  “You were pretty shattered at the whole situation. I didn’t want to make it worse.”

  She grimaced and nodded. “So lie to me. Protect me. Now compare that to Dad fucking with your brain in the name of protecting you. He didn’t think you could handle yourself so he handled you for you. All for your own good. After all, what’s losing a few memories and a little behavioral modification if it means you could be safe?

  “And another example. Your boyfriend and his brother practically railroaded me on upping the security on my hangar. They didn’t bother asking me what I wanted to do or how, they just assumed I wouldn’t do enough. After all, I’m so fragile and, apparently, stupid as a box of hammers.

  “You’re always doing the same thing to me. Not just you. The whole family. None of you th
ink I can handle trouble—or you think I don’t have anything valuable to contribute because I’m not talented, and you wall me out. When you get into trouble, you never call me. You never tell me until after the fact, and then you sanitize the hell out of it, so I won’t—what? Worry? Be terrified of what you’ve gone through? Too bad for you I was there for the last time when Percy chopped off your thumb. I’m surprised you didn’t have your dreamer friend Cass do a little erasing of my memories. Just so I could be protected.”

  The words spilled out of her in an angry, acid torrent. About halfway through, I managed to close my mouth. Then I started to feel like a total and complete idiot. And a jerk. And a really shitty sister.

  “Yes, I like nice hair and makeup and pretty clothes,” she went on. “That doesn’t make me some sort of idiot child without balls.” She glared at me. “Don’t say it. I know I don’t have balls. It’s a metaphor. Just because I like to look good, doesn’t make me stupid, just like you dressing like a homeless person doesn’t mean you are one. You clean up nice, by the way,” she said, waving at my dress.

  “Anyway, I’m sick of being treated like I can’t handle myself, like I can’t be useful. You know what’s worse? Your new boyfriend has no more magical talent than I do, and yet you trust him. You don’t act like he might break himself at any moment. You don’t try to keep him in the dark all the time and you don’t try to wrap him in Bubble Wrap.”

  “He was a cop and in the Tyet.” I wanted to bite the words back as soon as I said them.

  Taylor swerved into the bike lane and jammed on the brakes. Luckily, the roads here had been treated for ice and we didn’t slide into a snowbank. She twisted around, stabbing the air between us with her finger to punctuate her anger.

  “I’ve piloted planes through war zones. I’ve been blown out of the sky and lived to tell about it. Twice. I’ve been shot at and I’ve done some killing of my own. I train five days a week in different forms of combat. I’m good with knives, staffs, and bare knuckles. I’m betting I can take you down nine out of ten times. There’s not a gun I don’t know how to shoot and hit dead center on a target. Price’s being a cop and Tyet doesn’t have a damned thing to do with the way you treat me or him. It’s all about you not believing in me. Any of you. Leo, Jamie, Mom, and Dad. I’m so sick of it.

  “Yeah, finding out about Josh broke my heart. But I’m a big girl and I’ll get over it. I just needed a minute, one damned minute to deal with it. Just like I can survive Percy killing my employees and cutting your thumb off. Just like I can survive getting infected with Sparkle Dust.” She knotted her hands into fists. “What’s it going to take for the rest of you to start letting me be a full part of the family instead of the sickly idiot child you keep locked up in the attic?”

  She had a point. I’d never looked at it from that particular angle, but now that I did, I realized she was right. We always figured her as kind of girlie, too delicate for danger, and too prissy for the grit and dirt of the life I’d come to lead. I’d convinced myself that flying planes in a war zone was more like playing a video game where she had been far away from the real action. Talk about prejudice and preconceived notions. If anyone had said I was too much of a girl to do anything at all, I’d have ripped them a new asshole. Here I was doing just that to my own sister.

  “Okay,” I said, gathering myself. “One”—I held up a finger to count. “I’m sorry. Two”—Another finger. “You’re right. I need to think about it some more in order to fix myself, but I hear you. I will work on it. Three, and not to act like what you shared is unimportant or like I’m ignoring you, but can we drive now?”

  She narrowed her gaze at me and then nodded. “Right. Driving.”

  She twisted the steering wheel and pulled back out into traffic. A horn blared as she cut someone off. My phone rang. I looked at the screen. Touray. It had taken him long enough to call back. I answered.

  “Where are you?” he demanded before I could say anything.

  “I’m heading to FBI headquarters now.”

  “Turn around and go back. Better yet, come here where I can keep an eye on you.”

  “No.”

  He swore and I held the phone slightly away from my ear. Not that he said anything I didn’t want to say, but it was so loud, it actually hurt my ears. Finally he stopped. “I don’t want you down there. I’ll handle this. Stay the hell away.” He hung up without waiting for an answer.

  “He’s very bossy,” Taylor noted, having heard every word. “What do you want to do?”

  “We’re going to FBI headquarters,” I said, sliding my phone back in my pocket. “I’m not his village idiot to order around.”

  “See what I mean? Makes you want to stab someone.”

  I held in my exasperation. Taylor had a right to her irritation. “I get it. Really.”

  She flashed me a wicked grin, the kind we’d shared as kids right before we broke all the rules. “Good. Then I’ll stop beating the horse. But don’t think I won’t call you on it when you start in again.”

  “Better than the silent treatment.”

  “So you say now.”

  We didn’t talk much more after that. Taylor concentrated on weaving in and out of traffic. She ran a few lights that took too long to change, passed in the center lane, and generally drove like a bat out of hell. She was absolutely brilliant.

  We pulled into a parking garage down the street from FBI headquarters. Taylor found a spot near the exit. I had to admire that. She was thinking about how to get away. I wished that hadn’t surprised me. She was right. I needed to adjust my thinking when it came to her.

  We got out and met at the rear of the vehicle. I looked down at my boots. Spike heels on ice and snow.

  “The clothes make the woman,” Taylor said. “Use the way you’re dressed to your advantage. Go in like you own the place. It works.”

  I gave her a doubtful look. “If you say so. I feel like a fraud.”

  “Just follow my lead. You can do this. And you might give some thought to the fact I may have a few skill sets you don’t have and you need.”

  She strode away, head held high, her entire body regal. I followed, feeling like I was going to twist an ankle with every step. All the same, I kept my back straight and my chin lifted. Right up to the point where someone locked an arm around my neck and jammed a gun into the small of my back.

  Chapter 3

  “EASY NOW.”

  I recognized the woman’s voice and went rigid with fury. Special Agent Sandra Arnow. I had to fight the urge to struggle. She’d shoot me. I had absolutely no doubt of it. Unfortunately, we’d outrun our bodyguards on the way here. More evidence of my sister’s prowess. They’d catch up with us soon, I had no doubt, but that could be too late.

  “Over there, into that door,” Arnow said. “You, too, Miss Hollis,” she said to Taylor, raising her voice only slightly.

  Taylor’s eyes widened, and she got a look of helpless fear on her face. For a second I believed it. Then I remembered our conversation in the car. If our family didn’t even take her seriously, Arnow probably wouldn’t. She’d been the agent tracking Josh after he was kidnapped, and had seen Taylor at her emotional worst. Taylor was banking on the fact that Arnow would assume she wasn’t a threat. I hoped so, anyhow. And I hoped really hard that Taylor was about to show me how wrong I’d been about her.

  Arnow pushed me toward a dinged-up orange door in the shadows beneath a small portico. It had no sign to say where it led. Taylor stumbled ahead and opened the door. We followed her through.

  Light bloomed in the narrow stairwell. It smelled of cement, urine, and greasy French fries. I wrinkled my nose. To my surprise, Arnow released me, pushing me away. I twisted to face her. Taylor stood close behind me.

  “What the hell do you want?” I demanded, then looked her over from head to toe. “What
happened to you? Did you go to Kmart for a makeover?”

  My experience with Sandra Arnow was that she was a fashion model in FBI clothing. Last time I’d met her, her ash-blond hair had been pulled up in a sleek chignon, and she’d worn a tailored designer suit. The stiletto pumps she’d been wearing might have been pulled right out of my sister’s closet. Now, she looked more like me after I’d been crawling through the back alleys, under fences, and through bushes. Her hair hung behind her head in a ragged ponytail, with loose tendrils hanging in draggles around her face. She wore jeans holed at the knees to reveal a flannel lining, a green army pea coat, and battered boots too wet for me to judge what color they might have been. Without her usual heels, she was a couple inches shorter than me. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, and grease smudged her cheek and chin.

  “Keep it down,” she ordered in her crisp, low voice. “This meeting is off the books.”

  “You think I’m not going to tell the world you shoved a gun in my back? Think again, sister. And I’ve got a witness.”

  Arnow grimaced and slid her gun into the holster beneath her coat. “There’s no surveillance in the garage right now, and as far as anybody else is concerned, I’m miles away in Denver. So you can try to make accusations, but you won’t get far. Especially as the girlfriend of a Tyet soldier.”

  “What do you want?” Taylor asked, still in that wide-eyed, breathless fashion. She set her hand on my lower back and tapped twice. Yep, it was totally an act.

  “I need your help,” Arnow said to me, totally ignoring Taylor. Did the rest of us do that to her all the time, too? No wonder she was pissed.

  “Not on a bet.” Helping Arnow was nothing I planned on doing, now or ever. She’d pulled Josh into the trouble that got him kidnapped and tortured, and her raid on Touray’s warehouse nearly got me killed. Plus, I was fairly sure she’d set up the ambush with the other Tyet members once we’d escaped. I didn’t have any evidence, but how else had they known to where to set their trap? The only way was if Arnow had tipped them off.