They stared at them, and Loren looked at Rose.
“I was hoping you could help me —”
“No.” She didn’t mean to say it, but so strong was her shock and outrage and fury that it burst out without her intention, and after that there was no going back: “You want me to help you kill someone?”
He nodded. “Someone on Argent’s team. One of the people who killed my sister.”
“You . . .” There was no word strong enough. “You bastard!” was the best she could come up with, and he reacted to it in the worst possible way: bringing the sneer back, and saying, “Well, it’s not like you haven’t done it before, is it?”
“I haven’t — how dare you, how dare you think —”
She was shaking, hating him so much she couldn’t breathe: around them windows started shattering, and she was trying to stop focusing her magic on him because she wasn’t going to hurt him because that would be confirming his point, and she was not, was not going to do that.
“I’m leaving,” she said. Her voice was strangely echoing. “I’m leaving and I’m not coming back and you can starve for all I care. I don’t care what you do to me, just don’t come near me, you bastard.”
He said nothing. She couldn’t even see him through the lowering darkness. She kicked the bag toward him and walked away down the street.
He didn’t even call her name, and, against all odds, he didn’t shoot.
The first name for Hybrids had been Slovak: vrah bez vol’by, “killer without choice,” which, despite not being the catchiest of monikers, was remarkably accurate. The rest of the world had not been so kind.
Hybrids, according to the legend, were monsters: brutal and cold and savage and bloody and murderous. Rose did not delude herself into thinking any of this was inaccurate. Most of them were. Hybrids, in general, were the closest thing to nightmares the world had ever made flesh.
As far as she was aware, there were exactly two exceptions to this rule.
She had never actually met another Hybrid in person. She knew there were others out there, of course, but either they kept it as well hidden as the Elmsworths — which would require being as clever as David, a criterion that she didn’t think anyone met — or they were the monsters who went on killing sprees and whom the Department later caught and disposed of, once they were human again. In Rose’s lifetime exactly four Hybrids had been discovered and dispatched this way.
To a man, they had been brutal and cold and savage and bloody and murderous.
So the vast majority of Hybrids were evil. But not all of them were.
Rose and David weren’t.
Rose and David weren’t, because they didn’t kill people. They locked themselves away and kept themselves under control and they never, never hurt anyone.
But no one would believe that. Loren Arkwood didn’t believe that — he looked at her and only saw the monster lurking beneath her skin. She wasn’t a person, to him; she wasn’t anything more than a nightmare. That was fine, of course. That didn’t surprise her.
That shouldn’t surprise her.
And this, this right here, was why it was absolutely crucial — vital — to keep what she was hidden from the Department and her school. Not just because they’d try to kill her. That she could deal with. That she could run from.
What she couldn’t deal with was the fact that, if they ever knew, they would believe she was utterly and inherently evil for the rest of their lives, and nothing she could say or do would ever convince them otherwise.
On Sunday, her father was in the office again, and so was Rose. Everyone was very tense: the shadow of the Gifted murderer seemed to lurk in darkened corners. Rose kept to the light.
They were in a meeting room. The Department did not do meetings very well.
Terrian was sitting at the head of the table, trying to keep the attention of the group. This was not something at which he excelled.
“Shut up!” he roared. In the silence and the raised eyebrows that followed, faint chanting could be heard from below. The Gospel had gathered again, this time protesting about Ashkind being buried in cemeteries usually reserved for Gifted. Apparently their grudge against born non-magicals was not limited to the living.
“Can’t we do something about them?” Terrian asked in frustration.
“Not unless we have a substantial evidential basis for incitement to violence, no,” said David, who was leaning back in his chair next to Rose with his eyes closed, and had until now appeared to be trying to sleep. “They don’t want to provoke us into actually doing anything. They just want to annoy us.”
“They’ve gotten bigger.”
“That’s nothing. They’ve got Parliamentary sponsors now.” Everyone looked at him in astonishment; he could not see them, but perhaps he sensed it, because he smiled grimly. “It’s not the official line, so please don’t leak the story, but what do you expect when you fill a Parliament with Angels? They have no love for the Ashkind.”
“Neither do most of us,” muttered Laura, distaste clear in her voice. Rose glanced at her sharply. “What do you think they’re planning, Connor?”
“Nothing more than activism so far,” answered David, before Terrian could speak. “They’re not large enough for a militia yet, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
The silence fell again, until Nate said warily what everyone was thinking.
“Yet?”
“Anyway,” said Terrian loudly, eyeing the window, “that’s not what we’re here to discuss. As you’ll be aware, it has been discovered that not only was Argent murdered”— a glance at Rose, which she did her best to ignore —“but the murderer, Loren Arkwood, has become the first person ever to escape our custody and appears to have an accomplice here, within our very ranks. Now, it could be anyone from the tea lady in a civilian police station to the Minister for Defense, but given the level of security clearance they stole —”
“Stole?” interrupted James, leaning forward. “How did they steal Department security clearance?”
“The defense systems run on a certain unique base code,” said David, tiredly, from his chair. “If you know that base code you can hack into the central database, and if you’re in the central database you can steal identities. I’m guessing the clearances they used were from a range of different areas, different accounts.”
Terrian nodded. “Ipswich, Croydon, Mayfair, Kensington . . . Westminster.”
“The Department wrote the code,” said James heavily, “didn’t we?”
Terrian hesitated. “Actually, we have on record exactly who.”
They looked at one another.
“So I guess I’m the prime suspect, then, aren’t I?” said David, opening his eyes and sitting up.
“You’re the first to be inspected, yes.”
Everyone stared at him. He sighed and got up. He was not looking at Rose, thought nothing of her; or of the drawer in his office desk at home with a seventeen-digit number scribbled on the back of an envelope. Third drawer down. Easy to memorize, and, at an abandoned Department computer, whose history could be wiped —
“David?” said Terrian, as he got to the door. “If it makes any difference, they really don’t want it to be you.”
David turned, looked at him, at the room. “I know they don’t,” he said mildly. “I wrote the base code for this place. I worked out the formulae for the Leeching and Insanity Gases. I have four hundred and sixty-nine convictions secured on Department cases. I’ve spent three months in hospital because of injuries sustained in the line of duty. I’ve held nearly every rank going in this place. I led three squad teams. The leadership of the Department military, the special ops captains, they’re loyal to me. I just about created this place. Of course they don’t want it to be me.”
He held the door open for a moment, and in that moment Rose recalled the two metal rooms in their basement, the soundproofed quiet. He wasn’t supporting Loren Arkwood. He wasn’t the hacker.
The weight of t
hat guilt rested entirely on her own shoulders.
But he wasn’t entirely innocent, either.
The room was in the cellar — cold, white, basic. A table in the center, and a one-way mirror on the side wall.
Rose, on the other side of the glass, watched him. He did not glance in her direction.
A woman with peroxide blond hair and turquoise eyes sat across from him. She watched him coolly, and turned on the tape. It buzzed.
“This is a staff interrogation,” said the blond woman, “of a member of the Department for the Maintenance of Public Order and the Protection of Justice, by the Anti-Corruption Commission. My name is Corporal Evelyn Wood.”
“We’re being inspected by the ACC?” James asked Laura hoarsely. “Why?”
“This is what they’re for.”
“But they’re lethal. I don’t want a Supergrass interrogation on my record. I’ll never be employed again.”
“This is routine, James. The hacker probably isn’t working in this office. They’ll clear you.”
Unconvinced, James murmured something obscene into his hands. He held something cold and metal within his fist, and was twisting it incessantly between his fingers. It was a small silver ball webbed with thin green cracks, which glowed as if concealing the remains of a star. Objects began to materialize and vanish at various points around the room: an AK-47, a table, a mirror. Once, even the beginnings of someone’s face. When James swore, metal began to creep over his hands. It had a thin, almost unnoticeable green haze around it.
“Will you stop that?” snapped Laura, and the illusion dissipated. James put the hologram projector back in his pocket.
“Confirm your name for the tape, please,” said Wood coldly to David.
He nodded. “This is Major David Jonathan Elmsworth, of the aforementioned Department, reporting for psychological inspection.”
Nate was on Rose’s right. She reached for his hand and he took it, and squeezed. His sheer physical presence seemed to settle her anxiety.
“Do you have any loyalties to non-Department members?”
David blinked. “None that supersede my loyalty to the Department.”
Evelyn Wood was ACC. She would at least have basic contact with Serena Mitchell. Rose should have realized this, and when Wood went for the kill a moment afterward, she shouldn’t have been as shocked as she was.
“Not even that to your daughter?”
David closed his eyes momentarily; Rose hissed quietly, feeling how annoyed he was, how angry at himself he must be. Of course, she was not Department, not officially.
“Of course,” said David, his voice absolutely flat now, “I am loyal to my daughter.”
“Above all things.”
“Above all things,” he said. His voice was growing colder by the syllable.
“You would die for her?”
“Of course, as she for me.”
Something about that statement — its lack of inflection, its certainty — made Rose draw her hand from Nate’s grip and wrap her arms around herself. Of course he was right. Of course. She wanted him to know that, know that she would die for him.
Lie for him, kill for him. Hide a murderer for him.
Nevertheless she felt cold.
“You adopted her when she was a baby?”
“Yes.”
He had retreated to monosyllabic answers.
“And you have no idea of her biological parentage.”
“None. Is this relevant?”
Everyone behind the one-way glass — Nate, James, Laura, Terrian — was watching Rose now.
“Is there any difference in your relationship because of your lack of biological relation?”
“No,” whispered Rose fervently, behind the glass, the silenced glass, “no.”
Laura was watching her with narrow eyes.
“No,” said David. His expression was inscrutable. “None at all.”
“She loves you?”
“Yes.”
Again, the cold in his voice seemed to grow into her bones.
“We IQ tested her,” said Wood. “She comes up with a score of one hundred and eighteen.”
He inclined his head.
“She also displayed many of the characteristics usually seen in criminals.”
Oh, now they were definitely staring at her.
“Why is my daughter relevant to this inspection?” asked David icily.
“Because you raised her,” said Wood, leaning forward. “Because you brought her up alone, with no other parents or siblings, no peer-group contact for the first four years of her life. You never even let her get a blood test. Because she is a walking, breathing experiment. She is evidence of your character, and she is dangerous.”
Rose was breathing very deeply now. Her hands were shaking.
“She’s the useful kind of dangerous,” said David angrily to Wood. “She’s the kind of dangerous you need in a Department member. I’m that kind of dangerous. For God’s sake, even Connor bloody Terrian is that kind of dangerous.”
“And since she is that dangerous,” said Evelyn Wood, “have you ever asked her to lie for you?”
That stopped him. There was a noticeable, cold hesitation before he spoke again.
“No,” he said. “I’ve never asked her to lie about anything.”
The next day, it was Maria who asked her why she looked so exhausted. It was near the end of a Healing lesson and Rose, it had to be admitted, had been very near falling asleep.
She had not slept well that night.
“I was reading,” she said.
Maria raised an eyebrow archly. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
Maria leaned in close. Rose knew this expression by now, and she sighed. “Maria —”
“How’s stuff in the Department?”
Rose had quickly found that she hated this intrusion of the Department into her school life as much as she had hated having to think about schoolwork in the office. At any rate, she certainly did not have it in her to tell Maria what was happening, so she changed tack.
“Why do you never ask Nate this, anyway?”
Maria blushed. Rose pressed her line of attack.
“Oh, that’s right — because you fancy him, and you’re too shy.”
Maria rolled her eyes at the gibe, but before she could say anything, the bell rang. Rose got her bag and slipped out as quickly as possible. Outside, however, she heard someone call her name.
“Umm . . . Rose?”
She turned to find the source. To her utter bewilderment, it was Aaron Greenlow. He was standing sheepishly by the Healing classroom, looking at her. Rose walked over to him, trying and failing to stop herself blushing. She was not quite sure why.
“Ro — Oh!”
Maria came out of the classroom and her mouth fell open in amazement. She backed away, wide-eyed, and covered her mouth to stop herself from giggling. Even Aaron, noticing her, turned slightly red: Maria’s older sister Amelia was his best friend, and he no doubt feared word of this would get back to her.
“Don’t mind her,” Rose said, embarrassed. For some reason, her heart seemed to be beating much faster than usual. She wished it wouldn’t. Surely someone would notice.
“Umm . . . yeah. Look, Rose”— he paused, and shifted his weight slightly —“umm, I was thinking . . . you know the cinema on the high road?”
“Yeah,” Rose said, wondering where this was going.
“Well, I was . . . yeah . . .”
He said nothing for a few seconds. He was bright red now. He seemed to be swallowing and blinking a lot. Rose was about to prompt him or ask him — actually, she had no idea what she was going to say — when he said suddenly, “D’you want to see a film with me tonight?”
Rose blinked, stunned. Something like disbelief was rushing through her, scattering her thoughts into an alignment that did not lend itself to coherent cognitive process.
“Umm . . .” she said, feeling very stupid. “Umm . . .”
/>
“It’s okay if you don’t,” he said. “I mean —”
“No!” Rose said, too loudly. Heads turned. “I mean, no,” she said, more quietly. “No — I mean — No, I didn’t mean — I just thought . . .”
She had no idea what she was saying now.
“Yes,” she said finally, feeling like an idiot. “Yeah, I’d love to. Thanks.”
Aaron smiled. It was a sort of embarrassed, happy smile, which later Rose would subject to every method of psychoanalysis she had at her disposal. Now, though, she just felt as if she had descended into a very surreal daydream.
“Great!” he said. “So . . . meet me there at six, then?”
“Yeah,” Rose said, relieved that this was a question that demanded only a single syllable as an answer.
Aaron grinned, gave a sort of sheepish half-wave, and walked away.
Rose stood there, stunned. The closest comparison to how she was currently feeling, she thought, would be to have been pushed off a skyscraper into a pile of pillows and then punched, hard, in the stomach.
Maybe her day wasn’t going so badly after all, then.
They’d met when she was thirteen and he fourteen. He was, just by chance, assigned to be her helper: he was in the year above her, and that year it was part of your course work to volunteer to help pupils in particular subjects, and Aaron had chosen Magical Studies.
They were learning about levitation: concentrating until objects lifted from the table and hung there, oblivious to gravity. Aaron had been very good at it. He glanced at the coin on her desk and it lifted itself with all the elegance of a many-stringed marionette, swirling and gliding around his head without any apparent effort.
“So,” he’d said. “What’s your name?”
She’d told him, and over the next few lessons he’d prized from her all the information she could give: her father, but not the Department; her adoption, but not the reasons for it; her skill in combat, but not its origins. Secrets, she’d been taught long ago, were like dominoes: spill one and the rest would come tumbling down.
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