Thicker Than Blood

by Annie Bellet

  “Why do you need us, then?” Kira asked, directing her question down the table to Noah. “Can’t secret agent man here walk in, open the cell that has the guy we want, and then walk him out again?”

  “He could, though getting out with a prisoner would be complicated, I imagine. But we are not breaking Ash out. We must get Jade inside,” Noah said. “Her father is in there voluntarily.”

  “Well, he’s locked up,” Salazar said in a mildly defensive tone. “But he doesn’t wake up much. Just eats and sleeps, and occasionally binge-watches television before passing out for another few months. Nobody knows what he is. He just walked in about forty years ago, or so the stories go, anyway. Asked for a room. Killed a guard when they told him it was a prison and he couldn’t have one. So they locked him right up. He’s never been a problem since, not in all the years I’ve been in NOS.”

  “What does he look like?” I asked. It wasn’t relevant really, but this was my father, my biological one at least. Curiosity nudged out sense.

  “Who cares?” Kira said. “Fine, he won’t walk out, and I assume you can’t carry him out. How do we get in?”

  I really wanted to tell her to go fuck herself, but I needed her, rudeness and all.

  “I can open a secret hatch, a side door. It’s an emergency exit. Here.” Salazar shoved his plate to the side. “Let me show you the layout.”

  We all started moving dishes down the table toward Noah, clearing a spot in front of Salazar so he could unfold a piece of paper he pulled from an inner pocket in his suitcoat. On the paper was a rough sketch of something shaped like an infinity sign.

  “This is Custer,” he said, tapping a finger on the figure eight. “Whole thing is underground. It’s almost like a Möbius strip, which I’m going to assume I don’t have to explain.” He waited for us to nod or glare at him, depending, before continuing, “The front is here, at the crossing of the sides. It is actually two levels, this loop being on top, the other the lower level. Lower level is the more dangerous one.”

  “Let me guess,” I muttered. “That’s where we have to be?” It would be with my luck, lately.

  “No, that’s the good news,” Salazar said. He wasn’t smiling, which worried me. “Upper level, here on the bend where it starts to straighten? That’s where you want to get to. And here…” He indicated the middle of the upper bend. “This is where the hatch I can open for you is.”

  “So we creep up to the side, you open the door, we go get the guy, easy peasy?” Alma asked. I shared her skepticism.

  “What are all those little dots?” Cora leaned forward to examine the paper more closely.

  “Those are why we need you,” Noah said from directly behind me.

  I barely flinched. Really. Except my knee hit the table hard enough to leave a bruise and jump the cutlery around. Damn quiet vampires.

  “Those are magical landmines, more or less. They trigger nasty things, most of which I don’t know about, not specifically. It is hard to sort what is Agency legend and what’s reality, and I can’t ask too many questions. Rumors are the traps trigger magical creatures that attack whatever steps on them. Or they just might be like regular mines and explode.” Salazar spread his hands and gave us an apologetic smile.

  “Why would they build an escape hatch into a deathtrap?” Kira said.

  “The hatch leads to the helipad. No one is supposed to just walk across the field.”

  “It’s open ground?” Jaq asked.

  “Yes. About twenty acres are kept clear. I haven’t even gotten to the best part.” Salazar picked up his coffee, took a big drink, and set it down, looking from Kira to me. “There’s an invisible magic fence around the whole place except the road in. Maybe more than one fence—the water-cooler stories vary from one to three fences.”

  “If it is magic,” I said, thinking things over, “it is most likely three. Three is a common and powerful number.”

  “There are one or three invisible fences. There are invisible magical landmines, or possibly just straight-up normal landmines. The whole facility is underground, and this time of year, under snow. We’ll have to cross open ground in full view to deliver the package, over dangers we can’t even see,” Kira summed up, ticking off the problems on her fingers.

  “Hey,” I said. “I’m not a package.” The way she’d kept ignoring me, and her rudeness, was starting to grate.

  “Did your magic come back while you got your beauty sleep?” she asked, her voice as icy as her eyes.

  “No, but…” I said. I stopped talking, because I had nothing to add after the but.

  “Can you shoot?”

  “Not if you want me to hit what I aim at,” I muttered. Now I knew how a deflating balloon felt.

  “Fight hand to hand?”

  I shook my head. Alek had been teaching me some stuff, but I had no illusions about my skills versus anything deadly.

  “Detect landmines? See invisible fences? Fly a helicopter?”

  “Kira,” Alma and Jaq said at the same time.

  “Kira, come on,” Cora echoed.

  “She has no practical skills; that’s why we are here. I won’t have a normal fucking up my team. Tell me what you can contribute, or get out and let the grown-ups plan.” Kira glared at me.

  I opened my mouth to say a lot of words that began with the letters F and C, but Salazar cut me off.

  “None of you can fly a helicopter in. They’d see you coming and shoot it down without questions.” He gave me a sympathetic look.

  “Fine, genius,” I said, standing up. I’d had enough. “You figure out a plan, since that’s what you’re being paid to do.” I stormed out of the room, brushing past Noah.

  I didn’t know where the hallway led, but I tried to return to my room. I needed to think. I needed to breathe. I really, really needed not to cry in front of that bitch. Or start trying to punch her. As she’d just pointed out, I wasn’t a match for most humans, much less a giant tiger shifter. Punching would just end in tears. Mine, probably.

  The door I opened wasn’t to my room. Instead I found myself in the library I’d first been in months and lifetimes ago with Yosemite, when we had traded Samir’s dagger for the druidic book. Tall shelves lined the room, stretching up into the shadows. Lamplight bathed the room in a cozy golden glow, adding to the mysterious atmosphere. It gleamed off leather spines and gold-leaf titles. This was as good a room as any for a sulk, I decided, and shut the door.

  Kira’s words had hurt because I had to acknowledge, much as my smarting pride didn’t wish me to, that she was right. Not that I couldn’t think strategically, of course. I was a gamer, I’d planned more imagined assaults and break-ins of facilities and castles and dungeons and whatever than most people. But those were all imaginary.

  I didn’t know Kira. I didn’t know her team. I had no clue what the resources available looked like. I couldn’t fight. I couldn’t protect us with magic. It was worse than that, however.

  Samir was still in Wylde. He potentially had Harper captive; doing Universe knew what to her. My friends, Alek… they were all out there in the wilderness, licking wounds, hiding from a mess I’d made, from an evil I was responsible for bringing into their lives. I couldn’t go to them either, because what could I offer? My best hope for saving them was to find my father, get my magic back, and then go kick some ass.

  Kira had more or less said I was useless. Sitting here alone in the library, I could grudgingly admit that maybe I was. I half-expected Noah to come after me, but he left me alone to wallow. It felt totally shitty to be sidelined like this, no matter how much truth was in it or how dangerous it might be for me to try to get too involved. There was probably a life lesson in there somewhere, but I was speeding along the Sulk Highway to Pityville so fast I didn’t want to detour down Introspection Lane.

  There was only so much sulking I could handle. I was in a library, after all. I walked slowly around the room, gently touching titles, thrilled that I could still read the spines. I hadn
’t lost my wicked-cool ability to read any language. I had seen a red book last time I was here, with a dragon on it. I went hunting for that but another title caught my eye almost immediately. It was new leather, black with gold stitching, standing out among the other books for its thickness and its shiny newness.

  Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke. I’d never read it, opting to watch the miniseries instead. I’d been impressed with the magic system and meant to read the book, but I’d had so little time the last year for reading. Gaming was my first love anyway, right after trying not to get killed by my ex.

  I thumbed it open. It was special edition, signed by the author. Made sense, I supposed, though I wondered how Noah had it in here among thousands of far more archaic books. Maybe it had been mis-shelved and there was a fantasy section around somewhere.

  If only I had a couple magicians to imbue me with all of English magic right about now.

  I should have been born a wizard, I guess. But I was sorcerer to my core. I’d even learned to control my magic through D&D spells the way a sorcerer would, not learning them by the book, but taking the essence of the listed spell and practicing with my will, bending my magic to do my bidding without ingredients and incantations, or study. Prestidigitation had been my favorite. It was fun to say, too, a good word to work into random sentences. It was a wonder I hadn’t been more popular at parties. Using something like Ray of Frost would have made me way cooler, but probably raised too many questions.

  I took the novel back to one of the padded benches and sat down. I figured someone could come find me if or when they got a solid plan. Meanwhile, I could read and cool off and hopefully Kira and I would stop wanting to kill each other. Who knew? Maybe I’d learn a thing or three from Jonathan Strange.

  I started to smile at the thought and my cheeks froze in mid-pull. My heart started to thud into my ribs. I almost face-palmed for realsies.

  I didn’t have magic. That didn’t mean I couldn’t do magic.

  People, normal humans and witches and whatever, they did magic all the time. Well, not all the time, it took rituals and knowledge, and discipline and a non-fake spell to go on, but… magic wasn’t just the providence of sorcerers. We were just better at it.

  I dropped the book onto the bench and started for the door. Then stopped. I had a lot of suspicions about this warehouse and its owner. Time to test one of them.

  “Noah Grey,” I said, trying not to yell. I didn’t think I needed to speak too loudly.

  Suspicions were confirmed when he walked through the door not thirty seconds later.

  “Yes?” he said. His angular face carried a half-amused, half-curious expression.

  “Do you have spell books?” I said. “Real ones, not like fake New Age bullshit.”

  The vampire tilted his head to one side and raised both eyebrows.

  “Okay,” I said. I started thinking as quickly as my excitement would allow. “Stupid question I guess. I need spells. Ones that deal with seeing invisibility, also some simple stuff, too, so I can test and see if this will even work.”

  He studied me for a moment and I wondered if he’d start demanding another drop of blood or something. I was willing to give it. Anything to be of use, anything to do magic again, even if it wasn’t exactly the same.

  “Wait here,” he said. He left as silently as he’d entered.

  Fuck yeah. Allowing a small fist pump, I grinned. I was about to gain my first level of wizard. We’ll see who is useless now, bitch.

  Harper wasn’t unconscious long, unfortunately. She came to, still a fox, with Samir looming over her. The moment her eyes opened, he kicked her.

  “Stupid fucking animal,” he spat, lifting his boot again.

  She didn’t hesitate, despite her ribs letting her know they were going on strike and her hip screaming its death scene.

  Harper sprang as soon as she had a leg under her, shifting to human in mid leap and slamming into the surprised Samir. She went for his throat with her hands and teeth, uncaring this was her weaker human body. Human teeth could still rip and tear, and she was still shifter, still strong.

  Samir slammed his elbow into her ribs, knocking the wind from her laboring lungs. His hand snapped up and closed on her throat, barely keeping her teeth from his neck. Her hands closed on his jacket, and for a moment, they struggled before he threw her backward into the snow, her strength waning.

  She curled on the snow around her aching ribs, spitting blood and wheezing. Samir made a fist, and crackling energy, barely visible in the fading daylight, formed around his hand.

  “That’s right, motherfucker,” Harper snarled. “Kill me. Kill me, pickledick. Fry me. Do it.”

  Dying had been, like, plan zed, but she hurt so much she found she didn’t care. The unicorn was free. If she was dead, the pain would stop. Samir wouldn’t be able to hurt her anymore or use her to hurt anyone she loved.

  “No,” he said. “Stupid bitch. You are going to live and watch your friends come and die here, one by one.” He kicked her again but she twisted and took the worst of it on her thigh muscle. “Get the cage,” he told one of the men.

  Harper allowed herself the tiniest feeling of relief. Not dead. Not yet. She clutched her hands to her chest as one of the mercenaries grabbed her legs and started dragging her back to the house. She started reciting Pi in her head to keep herself conscious. It was back to plan C.

  Plan C was in her hands. Literally. Harper closed her fist tighter around the ruby vial she’d taken off Samir’s neck in their struggle. She mentally thanked Uncle Darragh and his lessons with the bells.

  Still alive. Almost kicking.

  Samir didn’t take chances this time. No more chains. He had two of his men bring a heavy cage up to the room she’d been in before and they stuffed her into it. It locked with a thick chain through bars and a welded loop on the top, nowhere near the slits at the front. No way for someone inside to reach and pick the lock.

  Harper let herself pass out once inside the cage, after tucking her tiny prize into her jeans pocket. She heard Samir giving instructions that someone was to remain in the room with her at all times before exhaustion and injury pulled her back into the dark.

  She didn’t know how long she was out, but the pains had faded somewhat and the room was full dark when she awoke. A guard, the young-looking, flat-expressioned brown-haired man who had come back with Samir and the unicorn, leaned against the wall near the door, flipping a coin. Could have put his picture next to the dictionary definition of boredom. A different guard than before. Time was definitely slipping away from her.

  Her friends would come for her. Hopefully they wouldn’t be totally stupid and walk right into an obvious trap, but Harper didn’t feel much like waiting around to be rescued. She was no kitten and she’d get her own damn self out of this tree. Somehow.

  “My mouth tastes like ass,” she said, opening conversation. “Water?” She didn’t see any around him, not even a cup or a bottle, but maybe she could get him to leave and get her some.

  “No,” he said.

  “No? Just no?” she asked, licking her chapped lips. She really did want water.

  He shrugged and slipped the coin into his pocket.

  Harper tried a different plan.

  “You’re stuck in here with me,” she said. She awkwardly tried to pull down her filthy bra strap, exposing an equally filthy, and bruised, breast. “We could pass the time more pleasantly.”

  It was a Hail Mary to end all Hail Marys, she recognized, but figured at worst he would say no again.

  “Not into rape,” he said with another shrug, his voice still calm and flat.

  “Not rape if I’m willing,” Harper said, pressing her cheek to the bars. This always worked way better in the movies. She needed a makeup crew. And a nap. And a hidden gun.

  I watch way too many movies, she thought, still trying to look even marginally appealing. She mostly felt utterly pathetic.

  “Technically,” he said, movi
ng away from the wall and walking toward her, “it’s still rape. I have total power over you in an illegal situation. You can’t consent.”

  “Great,” Harper muttered, dragging her bra strap back up into a position that didn’t push too hard on her bruises. “What are you, a fucking lawyer?”

  “No,” he said, his mouth twitching in the barest hint of a smile. “I’m not a rapist.”

  Harper leaned back against the side of the cage and drew her legs up. She couldn’t reach the lock. This guy wasn’t going to fall for stupid movie tricks. She’d have to wait for another opening. Maybe his replacement wouldn’t have qualms and would only see a helpless female.

  “Besides,” her guard said after a long moment. He bent down in front the cage, out of reach. “You’re just trying to get me to unlock this thing for you so you can try to escape again.”

  “Now you’re fucking Sherlock Holmes.” She closed her eyes. “Aren’t you people worried about the Council of Nine sending a Justice after you?” she asked finally, trying one last line.

  “No,” he said, his tone so sure she opened her eyes and looked at him again. “Lots of us have been operating for years without trouble. Long as you don’t do certain things, nobody cares. The Nine aren’t quite the all-powerful gods some think.”

  “You going to explain that?” Harper glared at him. She was learning the hard way that he was right. The shit that had gone down with the rogue wolf Justice and the Alpha of Alphas mess had shown that. Plus whatever weird stuff was going on with Alek.

  “No,” he said.

  Harper sighed. She was bone tired, hurting, and out of ideas. Maybe the next guard would be a lot more stupid. A nap sounded like the only real plan left to her.

  “You could ask nicely,” the guard said after a long moment, his smile sly and big enough to flash a hint of teeth.

  “What?” Harper eyed him, feeling like she’d lost some key context. Maybe she’d passed out again without knowing it and missed a whole chunk of conversation? More likely he was messing with her.