by Anah Crow
As for the unexpected outcome of napping with Lindsay, Noah was putting it down to being overcharged with his magic and too tired at the same time. They’d each forgotten who was next to them, and he couldn’t blame either of them for seeking comfort. Lindsay could be trusted with anything, even Noah’s mistakes, and Lindsay deserved whatever support Noah could give him. He belonged to Lindsay, scars and all.
Scotch and cigarettes in hand, Noah headed out back. There was enough light for him to get some work in before night fell, and he needed to be busy.
By the time the yard was filled with black shadows and gray evening, he had the stairs and rails on the porch. There wasn’t much in the way of a floor yet, but that would go in fast. He’d gone through the scotch and half a dozen beers and most of a pack of cigarettes, and he was tired. He wanted to be tired. He dragged himself into the house, taped a warning sign to the inside of the back door, and went to bed. There was no sense troubling Lindsay when he was too tired to have nightmares. He made it out of his sneakers and shirt before he crawled into bed and slept.
“Noah?” A soft voice drew him out of sleep. “You didn’t tell me you were going to bed this early.”
“Long day.” It must have been, if he’d forgotten to tell her he was going to bed. The bed shifted and he moved over to make room for her.
“Are you smoking again?” She sneezed. “Never mind. You’re lucky I love you.”
“I know.” Noah knew he was dreaming, but he pushed the knowledge away. Elle snuggled into his arms and put her head on his shoulder so he could press his cheek against her soft, golden hair. He never got to have good dreams about her. It wasn’t fair. “I love you too.”
One dream would be enough. A good one. In his mind, Noah closed his eyes and held on to her. If he could have one good dream, he wouldn’t want to wake up from it.
“Noah.” Someone was shaking him. “Noah, wake up.” Elle sounded frightened. “I smell smoke.”
“Where?” He was always careful about grinding out his cigarettes, even splashing water into the ashtray before dumping it. “Are you sure?” When he opened his eyes, the room was full of fire and she was crying and tearing at his arms with her long nails.
“Get us out. Noah. Make it stop!” She choked on the smoke, and still, she was sobbing.
The flames were gnawing at the bed, the blankets were on fire. Noah found the window jammed when he went to open it. He turned to grab Elle, to pull her away from the fire, as her hair flared into flames. In the back of his head, some analytical voice asked him why he didn’t use his magic as he batted at the fire with his bare hands.
What magic? He tried to break the window but his burned hands only split and bled. Elle’s weight fell against him and she was silent now. The only sound he heard was his own voice, howling.
“Noah. Noah, wake up.”
Just like that, the fire was gone, and he was staring into the dark, sucking cool air into his unburned lungs.
Lindsay’s hand was icy on his forehead. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left you to sleep alone. Are you all right? We don’t have much time.”
All Noah could do was breathe and fight down the urge to be sick until his voice came back, at least enough of it for him to talk.
“What’s wrong?” He didn’t sound like himself. He was drenched in sweat, and his hands were shaking as he struggled to free himself from the covers.
“We know where Moore is. Vivian sent word.” Lindsay untangled him from the sheets with all the precision of someone folding an origami crane. “We’re going after that girl. Zoey.”
“Okay, good.” Noah tripped over his own shoes, barely righting himself before running into the dresser. All of him was shaking, his jaw clattered like a set of castanets. He managed to find his boots by the dresser and pulled them on. He didn’t have a shirt, but it would only be a hazard. So would his denim jacket. “I’ll be... I need to get my other coat.”
There was a long leather coat hanging in the closet, one he used to wear when they went... Noah pushed the memory of his wife out of his head and forced the jammed folding door of the closet to give up its resistance. When he turned around after pulling the coat on, Lindsay was right there behind him.
“Come here?” Lindsay said, holding one hand out. Noah shook his head. He couldn’t let Lindsay comfort him now. Still, he reached out and squeezed Lindsay’s hand, then let go so he wouldn’t cling.
“I can’t.” His voice was still raw, as though he’d been back in the fire for real. “I’m sorry...I would, but...I can’t.” He shook his head. “Do anything else.”
Lindsay nodded and touched Noah’s arm. “All right. Breathe. You’re going to be all right. I’m here if you need anything. Tell me when you’re ready.”
He couldn’t hide how wrecked he was from Lindsay. He wouldn’t have tried. It would only endanger everyone else. In the same vein, he had no right reaching for a drink.
“You’d think I could have one good dream about her.” He rifled through the top shelf of the closet to find his next carton of cigarettes. “One.” He tore at the packaging until it gave way and he could pull out a pack. “But no.”
He shoved the cigarettes in an inner pocket of his coat, but discovered he didn’t have a lighter. Not in the coat, not on the dresser, not in the top drawer, not in his jeans. He spewed curses in an unthinking stream of English, French, and languages that fell somewhere in between.
“Noah. Noah, you don’t need it.” Lindsay stopped him with a hand on his chest. “I need you here with me, Noah. Look at me.”
“I don’t...” It sank in all at once that he had his magic and that he was awake and acting like he was out of his mind. “Right. Oh damn. I’m sorry.” Noah made himself breathe. That was the worst part of the dreams. That he had it. That he didn’t have it. That his own body, his own history could fuck him over like that. Why did it wait so long to come?
“It’s all right.” Lindsay held his gaze for another moment, then stepped back. He pulled a lighter out of his pocket and passed it over. “Just in case.”
“I’m an idiot.” A wave of shame washed away some of Noah’s pain, drowning it in his awareness of how much he was needed and how badly he was behaving. “I promise, I’ll have it together before we’re there.”
“I know.” Lindsay held out his hand and, when Noah took it, he led Noah out of the room and down the hall to Cyrus’s front room.
Noah tried to pay attention when Cyrus was telling them what they had to do, but the memory of his cheek pressed against Elle’s hair wouldn’t fade. The girl, Zoey, was at some government installation.
Vivian had sent the information. The present was relentless, battering Noah until he let go of the last scraps of the dream. They had to recover Zoey. Cyrus’s tone made it sound like they were going to the store. Drop in and pick me up a mage.
Once they were in the van, Noah desperately regretted the choice not to drink. He had coffee, thanks to Ylli, but it wasn’t the same. Regardless, he needed to wake up, and he drank it as quickly as he could, trying to wash the memory of burning out of his throat. Slowly, he unwound. Lindsay’s hand in his helped more than Noah wanted it to.
Dane took up most of the bench seat in the back of the van, long legs stretched into the gap left by the middle row being gone to accommodate Ylli’s wings reaching back from the front seats. That left Lindsay and Noah in the space that remained, Lindsay’s hand still tight around his. Noah breathed and tried to relax, letting his head fall back and stretching his legs out into what little room was left. He knew the mental
exercises that would help him grasp his magic. He’d practiced since he was a child, before he realized none was coming to him.
He drew shapes in his head, changed their colors, made them three-dimensional, turned them over and over. He called up the memory of how he’d left his dresser and the floor of his room, filling everything in as perfectly as he could. It worked to calm his nerves, and he needed all the help he could
get.
Kristan drove like a maniac—or it felt like it from the backseat—but no one else seemed to mind.
When Lindsay leaned into Dane and Dane wrapped an arm around him, that helped too. As long as they stayed together, they’d survive.
After more than an hour, Kristan pulled up near the arching entrance to what Noah realized must be their destination. She cut the lights and the engine, and turned in her seat. “Everybody out.”
Ylli was already maneuvering his wings past the seats and the door, and beside Noah, Dane and Lindsay were shaking off the stiffness of being still so long.
“I’ll put up an illusion that will keep us from being seen while we’re inside,” Lindsay said quietly.
Noah slipped out of the van first and waited for Dane and Lindsay. “I can stay with you.” He offered Lindsay his hand and helped him down. He couldn’t imagine that Dane would be better used watching over Lindsay rather than hunting down the girl they were here to get. Hopefully, Dane wasn’t angry about this afternoon. This afternoon felt like ten years ago. “I won’t let anything hurt him,” he told Dane.
“I know,” Dane said, but it sounded more like an order than an acknowledgement.
When Dane slammed the van door behind them and put his arm around Lindsay, Noah stepped away to give them some space, following Ylli, who was looking around. Noah checked over his shoulder to see that Dane had pulled Lindsay close and spoke to him, too softly to be heard.
“Do you know what the hell you’re doing?” he muttered to Ylli.
“Enough to know I don’t really want to do it. But...” Ylli shrugged and his wings whispered like wind-blown leaves. It had to be done.
“Yeah, that.” Noah wanted a cigarette, and it was worse for knowing he couldn’t have one.
Dane and Lindsay caught up a moment later, and Lindsay slipped his hand into Noah’s. “The illusion is set,” he said, voice tight. “Time to go.”
They walked through the front gates and none of the guards so much as blinked at the intrusion.
Noah’s heart was in his throat for the interminably long walk to what the sign outside the building said was the Personnel Directorate.
“I need to find a computer.” Ylli’s wings twitched with distress as the heavy double doors closed behind them. “And I have to say, I wish Cyrus would hire—or whatever it is he does—someone who can actually hack things. All I know how to do is take advantage of security gaps the real hackers post about online.”
“This is just finding Moore’s offices,” Lindsay said, though the look he gave Noah was uncertain.
“You’ve done well enough in the past.”
“You search your way, I’ll search mine,” Dane rumbled. He was already casting about, head raised, to catch the scent. There was a subtle shift in his shape, so small it seemed like a trick of the light until he glanced over his shoulder at them and Noah could see the feral features that had overtaken his face. “I’ll find you when I’m done. If you have her first, let me know. We leave together.”
“I’ll tell you if we find anything.” Lindsay’s grip on Noah’s hand tightened as Dane loped away down a side hall.
“We can get access here.” Ylli had drifted ahead of them and was peering through a glass wall.
“People are still working.”
The large room beyond the wall looked like a standard cubicle farm, with a few young men and women in uniform still at work. Lindsay gestured for them to step in, and Noah watched from a vantage point by the door as Lindsay and Ylli wove between the oblivious staff and peered over one shoulder after another.
“Here. I can get somewhere with this clearance.” Ylli beckoned Lindsay closer. “Can you...” He waved his hands vaguely.
“Yes. Step back?” Lindsay gestured for Ylli to clear out of the way. As Ylli moved, the man rose, then walked to the back of the room where he settled down at another computer and began to go through the same motions. This time, Noah could see that his screen was dark.
“Thank you.” Ylli wriggled into the seat, wings arched awkwardly. “Keep your phone out.”
“I will.” Lindsay pulled it out of his pocket. “I’ll let you know if we find anything.”
“Nice job.” Noah grinned at him.
It wasn’t ever going to get old, watching people walk past them like they weren’t there. As a child, Noah had dreamed of being invisible and travelling the world unseen. Minds were strange things; he wondered how much of the illusion was magic and how much of it was the mind lying to itself.
No matter what the process was, Lindsay’s magic was impressive. Noah followed Lindsay out into the hall, where they wandered along like a pair of fresh ghosts looking for a haunt until they found an elevator.
A sign farther down the hall indicated a set of stairs, but Ylli’s first message on Lindsay’s phone said they should go up two floors by the nearest elevator to get into the correct section.
“I hate places like this.” Lindsay slouched against the side of the elevator, crossing his arms over his chest like he was hugging himself.
“I think anyone who doesn’t work in one does,” Noah said, jabbing at the buttons to get them moving.
Elevators made him twitchy—he hadn’t seen one until he left home for the first time—so he kept talking to fill the dead air. “A friend of mine works for the government up north. It’s a mage unit. And it’s still creepy walking in there. It’ll be good to get her away from here.”
“Yes.” The word was barely out of Lindsay’s mouth when the elevator stopped with a sickening jerk and thud. Noah pounded on the buttons, trying to get the door to open—the lights dimmed, there was nothing but a rattle from the emergency hatch overhead.
Something heavy fell into the car with them, making the whole of it lurch while the cables squealed.
Noah shoved Lindsay behind him, spreading his arms to stop the danger from getting past.
It was a man. A brutish, ugly man, but just a man until he smiled, baring jagged teeth. The smile didn’t last. Lindsay swore and then the man was snarling, clawing at his own throat, caught in whatever illusion Lindsay had cast on him.
Noah was still frozen when the man shook off the illusion and hissed, “Not this time, pretty boy.”
The first swipe at Noah, long black claws coming for his chest, never reached him. A white ball of fire burst from his raised hands and blew the man’s head off. The fire kept going, cutting through the elevator and the shaft beyond like they were made of paper. The body collapsed, flailing and making strange noises through what remained of its throat.
The elevator doors creaked open.
“Thank you, Ylli,” Lindsay muttered.
He shoved at Noah’s back, sending him stumbling toward the bare concrete block wall revealed by the open doors. There was a gap big enough for them to crawl out through. The noises wouldn’t stop and Noah turned to see the headless body flailing. Not a corpse yet.
“Come on, come on.” Lindsay grabbed him by the back of the jacket. “God-damned Jonas. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Come on.”
Noah stopped staring and turned to help Lindsay, realizing at the last second that throwing Lindsay out into an unknown hall was a bad idea.
“Make sure you’re hidden,” he said as he got his hands under one of Lindsay’s feet. He had no idea what had gone wrong but they sure as hell hadn’t been hidden seconds ago. “Use me as a ladder, Lin.”
It didn’t take much to heave Lindsay through the opening. He was so light.
“Hurry.” Lindsay poked his head back through once he was up and out. “We don’t have much time.
We have to get out of here.” He looked both ways down the hall and scrambled over to one side.
“What happ...” Noah gave up and fought his way through the opening, bruising his knees and elbows.
The mage he’d decapitated was slamming around in the elevator car. “It’s not dead.”
He turned and tried to punch all his horror and rage into the small space. Red an
d orange exploded inside the car, metal screamed and the force washed back, knocking Noah onto his ass. “Okay, now. Go.”
He flailed, trying to get up.
Lindsay grabbed his hand and dragged him to his feet. “We have to get out of here before Jonas heals.
Let’s go.”
“Which way?” The hall they were in was featureless, the numbers on the doors had no meaning. Noah had no way to get his bearings, he could only follow Lindsay. His head was a mass of questions. What the hell—heal? From that? “Do they know we’re here?”
“Jonas knows.” Lindsay seemed to think that was reason enough to flee. Jonas—Noah could only assume that was who had attacked them in the elevator—was on fire at the bottom of the elevator shaft, but Noah wasn’t going to argue with Lindsay. “I have to tell Dane.”
Noah grabbed the nearest doorknob and sent a spike of flame through the lock. The mechanism gave way and the door swung open enough for him to nudge Lindsay through. The office inside held a hollow stillness.
“There’s no alarms.” Noah’s brain finally prodded him with the absence he was feeling.
“Jonas hasn’t told anyone.” Lindsay’s face was lit by the glow of his phone, but his eyes were locked on something in the distance. “He wouldn’t, not if he thought he had a chance at getting me and Dane to himself.” He shook his head and focused on Noah. “Dane has Zoey and he’s going for Ylli now. We need to head back.”
“We can’t take the elevator,” Noah muttered. He opened the door enough to peek out. After a moment, he thought he knew which way to go. “If we keep down this hall and take a left, we should be near where I saw the stairs.”
“Okay. The illusion feels like it’s holding, in spite of Jonas. Let’s go.” Lindsay was still reading whatever Ylli was sending him, wave after wave of tiny blue text, so Noah took him by the hand and led him out.
“Where did Dane find Zoey?” Noah took the time to read the names on the doors as they pattered down the hall.