Dirty Little Misery (Miss Misery)

by Tracey Martin

  Devon smirked. “No need for that. I’m happy to have you tear my clothes off, Jess. Didn’t I once tell you it was inevitable? Just next time don’t be dying while you’re doing it.”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself. Dying and desperate is the only way it could happen. And, oh—Andre and Lucrezia!” In spite of my soreness, I climbed to my feet. Fury returned with a vengeance. I wanted to hunt Lucrezia down and drive my knife through her. But first, I had to make sure Andre was okay. “You don’t have any more of that stuff, do you?”

  Devon capped the empty vial and pocketed it. “I have two others. Your partner is alive. I can sense him up there.”

  “We need to give him the counter-charm too.” I raced to the stairs. “And what about Lucrezia? Do you know—?”

  “Jess!” Devon stood by the elevator and beckoned me over. “This way, and I wouldn’t worry about Lucrezia. I got everything out of her.”

  I hurried over as the elevator opened. “Where is she? She has armed addicts running around.”

  “I don’t know where she went, but don’t worry about the addicts. They’ve gone with her, and she won’t get far.”

  Andre was worse off than I was. It wasn’t a surprise, but it was awful to witness regardless. It took a concerted effort between Devon and myself to hold him down and force him to drink the counter-charm, and the potion itself took longer to work on him. After he’d calmed down, we untied him and let him recover in peace. He was barely coherent, and I hoped he was spacey only as a result of the curse’s lingering effects and not because I’d knocked him on the head. His wrists were raw and bloody from the restraints, and more blood stained his head and his back. He must have banged his body against the table trying to get free.

  I stepped out onto the balcony and frowned down at the empty club. “I should call an ambulance. Andre needs medical help.”

  I figured Devon would protest like he had last time, but he didn’t. “The counter-charm should be enough to treat the magic. That’s why I asked Azria to work on one. But your partner has other injuries, so go ahead.”

  “And Lucrezia?” I paused at the top of the steps.

  Devon took out his phone and offered it to me. “As I said, she fled with her addicts. My first concern was getting to you. I had to let her go.”

  “How did you know what was going on?”

  “Lucen called me after you called him. I was close by, so I got here first, but he should be on his way. As for Lucrezia?” He grimaced, and I noticed he wasn’t using his nickname for her. “It’s not as though she could hide what was going on when I could sense you and your partner losing your minds. She tried to convince me to go along with her, but when I made it clear I didn’t approve, she ran.”

  So that explained it. My fingers hovered over the phone’s keypad, but I felt Devon staring at me. “What?”

  “Is it true you came here expecting to bust me for cursing those people?”

  I bit my lip sheepishly. “You were a logical suspect.”

  Devon stuffed his hands in his pockets, but he appeared more amused than angry. “I’m hurt, Jess. I think you owe me an apology, and while I’m at it, a thank you for saving your life would be nice.”

  “I’m sorry, and thank you?”

  He inhaled deeply, feigning pain. “I don’t know. You don’t sound very sure of yourself, and words are so meaningless. If you wanted to pick up where we stopped downstairs though…”

  “Dying and desperate, remember?”

  He took a step closer and pushed my knotted hair behind my ear. “Not even you believe that, do you?”

  I backed away, not knowing a good answer. There had to be a reason why Devon’s magic affected me more than anyone else’s. Besides Lucen’s, that was. I just preferred to ignore the more obvious possibilities. One satyr was more than enough for a part-human.

  A door opened below us, sparing me from a weak rebuttal. Voices filled the club, and Devon darted down the stairs to the main room. I stayed where I was, tired and unsure I wanted to be a part of the commotion.

  Lucen entered the main room with Lucrezia. He had her arms bound behind her, and it was a tossup as to which of them looked more pissed off.

  Lucen’s face softened, however, when he saw me. Unlike Lucrezia’s. “Jess, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” I tightened my grip on the balcony railing.

  “Lucrezia dosed her up well,” Devon said. He explained to Lucen what had been going on when he arrived.

  Lucen’s face hardened a second time.

  “I was trying to protect us all,” Lucrezia said through clenched teeth. “Do you care more about your human pet than you do us?”

  “What they care about isn’t your concern.” A new voice—Dezzi’s voice—cut through the club. I held my breath, and Lucrezia fell silent. Her eyes opened wide as her Dom strode into the room. Dezzi’s attitude was regal as always, but murder lined her face. “This is how you thought to protect this domus? By framing one of your own for murder? By turning the Gryphons on us? You care nothing about us, just your own ambition, and you’d stomp on whoever got in your way, even your own people. It’s vile.”

  Lucrezia tossed her hair. “Your disregard is what’s vile. You going to kick me out for this? You’ll take in a freak like Angelia, but kick me out?”

  Dezzi turned her back on her—presumably—former number two. “No. It was Jessica who figured out what was going on, and Jessica who was willing to work within the Gryphons to minimize the damage to us.”

  That wasn’t entirely true or exactly what happened, but who was I to correct Dezzi?

  The Dom stared up at me. “I think it is only appropriate in this case to let Jessica deal with you. I’m therefore relinquishing my privilege as Dom to punish you, Lucrezia. The Gryphons can have you and put you on trial instead.”

  Lucrezia gaped at Dezzi, and so did I. That was most unexpected, but after a moment’s thought, I realized it was also smart. Dezzi’s move would go a long way toward placating the Gryphons’ unhappiness with the satyrs, and by treating Lucrezia like she was beneath her, Dezzi sent a powerful message to any other satyrs who might have backed her former number two. Undermine your Dom and face the most serious of consequences—be kicked out of the domus.

  I’d anticipated a fight over Lucrezia’s fate, but this would make the next few hours a lot easier. On that note, I remembered I had Devon’s phone, and I dialed the Gryphons’ emergency line.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  How did I escape Lucrezia’s curse? How did I keep getting past the compulsion and wards on the basement? Those were the answers Lucen, Devon and Dezzi wanted to know as we waited for the Gryphons to officially arrest Lucrezia and an ambulance to take away Andre.

  “You know my gift is weird,” I told them. It was the truth, just not the whole truth, and it was evident from their expressions that it was getting thin.

  “You’re human,” Devon mused. “It should work regardless.”

  I said nothing to that, and was thrilled when the Gryphons arrived. I hadn’t been feeling like I needed their healers to check me out, but letting them do so meant a faster escape from the satyrs’ questions.

  Once we got to the hospital, I asked around and found out Andre had a minor concussion. The nurse who informed me didn’t attribute it to a chair, but I knew it was probably my fault. One more thing to add to what would—no doubt—be some serious awkwardness between us.

  Unsurprisingly, the Gryphon healers pronounced me fine, magically speaking. I didn’t feel so fine, however. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, I had a massive headache and every muscle was sore. The nurses gave me painkillers, and the healers told me to drink lots of juice and eat crackers to help me ground my gift. While I nibbled and drank, I had to fill Brian in on what transpired. Only after that was I allowed to leave.

  Before I did,
I stopped by Andre’s room. Judging by the expression on his face and the mortification I could sense rolling off him, I suspected that he wished he’d been pretending to sleep when I arrived.

  “Hey, Jess. You all right?” Genuine concern laced his voice, but his gaze roamed everywhere—the empty wall, the curtained window, the ugly ceiling. Everywhere but me.

  I chose to stare at my shoes, not so much out of my own embarrassment but because I thought it might alleviate some of his. “Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry about your head.”

  “Yeah.” He snorted. “You hit me with a chair. If I recall, they’re your weapon of choice against Gryphons.”

  “They are handy that way. I am really sorry.”

  Andre held up a hand to cut me off. “You saved my life. No need to be sorry.”

  “Well, I am. You stuck here?”

  “Yeah. Docs want to keep me overnight for observation—the head and all. And Brian was kind enough to leave me with this—” he tapped a laptop on the bedside table, “—so I could get started on my report in order to pass the time. So, you know.” He brought the laptop onto the bed.

  It was clearly a sign he wanted me to go. Just as well. “I’ll see you soon then.”

  But I wondered if I would. I suspected any chance I had at a normal relationship with Andre was ruined. I was more sad that this probably meant I wouldn’t get to work with him in the future than I was at the loss of anything else. He was a great guy, but he wasn’t Lucen, and I wanted Lucen.

  On that thought, I returned to his apartment and promptly passed out as soon as I hit my borrowed bed.

  When I woke up the next morning, Lucen was sleeping, so I crept downstairs. I hadn’t seen him since leaving Purgatory last night. No doubt he’d been sucked into a satyr council meeting to discuss the Lucrezia situation. Although I was extremely curious about what the fallout from that would entail, there was something else occupying my thoughts.

  The clock on the coffeemaker declared it to be noon. Taking an extra-large mug to the table, I turned on my laptop and finally checked the email Ben had sent.

  I scrolled past the note he’d written and went straight for the good stuff—the files, particularly the one with my name on it. My coffee grew cold as I read. And read. And read.

  After a while, I turned cold too.

  Much of the data was corrupted and read like gibberish, and in some places information was clearly lost. But, on the whole, enough was available to figure out what was going on. This file contained my life, every detail from when I’d been enrolled at the New England Academy for the Magically Gifted.

  Most of it was normal—the file had my grades, teacher notes and test scores. All the usual academic stuff. Then there were my yearly blood screenings and notes on magical aptitude. Also normal, for Gryphons. Where it started to get weird was the personality assessments. Over the years, someone had kept a running commentary on my behavior. I was described, among other ways, as having “a stubborn streak and determination that borderlined on recklessness”.

  And finally, there was a different sort of running note. This first one was written when I was thirteen years old—by a Gryphon I had no recollection of ever meeting—and it described me as a good candidate for a “special service project”. A year later, this candidacy was formalized into a recommendation for something called the Philadelphia Project. Following that was a third note, signed by the same person. It only mentioned my candidacy hadn’t worked out and called me a failed test subject. Then, at last, on my eighteenth birthday, another note appeared. This one suggested that my transformation might not have taken because my gift wasn’t strong enough after all.

  My transformation.

  My fucking transformation?

  I stared at the file, specifically at these last notes, forever. My coffee was forgotten. Everything was forgotten. Bile churned in my stomach as I read and reread the words on the screen. There was no way.

  Yet I knew better. With trembling fingers, I opened Victor’s file. It was less complete than mine, but we shared significant similarities in the information it contained, and very similar magical profiles and notes. Victor’s “transformation” had failed too.

  I opened the next, and the next, and the next. With each file, I hoped beyond hope that I’d find something in the corrupted data to make my suspicions fade. After what I’d gone through last night, I couldn’t possibly be fully functioning. I was tired and sore. I was reeling from the aftereffects of serious magic.

  But I wasn’t stupid, as le Confrérie had kindly noted in several places.

  I checked the dates on the notes and did the math in my head. The Philadelphia Project coincided with the summer I’d attended a Gryphon-sponsored summer institute there. A summer institute at which I’d allegedly had the flu and couldn’t recall what I’d done. And no coincidence, that was right around the time all my childhood memories became hazy, like they belonged to a different person.

  I swallowed, unable for another moment to take my eyes off the file while I debated what to do. Truthfully though, there wasn’t much to debate. Right there in my file it said everything that made my decision inevitable—I was stubborn, borderline reckless.

  That did it. I tore my gaze away from the computer and grabbed my keys. It was time to get wholeheartedly reckless all over Gryphon fucking Headquarters.

  Actually storming a building when you had every right to be there and in fact were expected to be there so you could write a report on your recent activities was anticlimactic. I breezed through security, the dark expression I could sense on my face not bothering anyone. But no matter. One person in this building wasn’t expecting me, and to him, I could damn well storm.

  I threw open the door to Tom Kassin’s office. He was on the phone, and he gave me a very annoyed what are you doing? look until he read my face. I imagined I looked a lot like Dezzi had last night—filled with a barely controlled murderous rage.

  “I’ll have to call you back.” Tom hung up, and it pleased me to no end to sense that I’d unnerved him. Finally. “What brings you here, Jessica? I heard you had a late but productive night yesterday. I’m glad you’re okay.”

  I shut the door behind me. “Yeah, I bet you are. Wouldn’t want your precious experiment to get herself dead, would you?”

  Surprise passed over Tom’s face and settled in my mouth like ice. “Whatever you think you know—”

  “Everything. You did this to me, didn’t you? It was your people. Your Gryphon fraternity.”

  To his credit, Tom didn’t deny it. Then again, he ought to know I could detect lies. “You need to calm down.”

  “Calm down?” I slammed my hands on his desk. “Are you kidding me? You ruined my life! You screwed with my gift. You made me some kind of misery-sucking freak. I trusted this organization, and you betrayed me.”

  Tom picked a book off his shelves and dropped it on the desk by my hands. It was one of the ones I’d browsed through while sneaking into his office. The one that contained the weird prophecy crap. “You have no idea what we’re up against. The fraternity didn’t have a choice. It wasn’t a decision anyone in it wanted to make, but that’s the responsibility that comes with being selected for it. Sometimes we have to make regrettable choices and live with them.”

  “Regrettable choices? You did experiments on kids. You’re sick!”

  “They weren’t experiments with life-or-death consequences. We knew you would survive. We simply didn’t know if the magic would take.” He fell back into his chair. “How much do you know?”

  I crossed my arms. “I told you—everything.”

  “Really? How do you know so much?”

  Because I stole your files? At this point, I didn’t actually care whether Tom learned the truth, but I didn’t want to derail the conversation or risk getting Steph and Ben in trouble. The focus was supposed to be on Tom’s misdeeds. “I know yo
u tried to transform me, and I know what happens when you try to make a pred out of a human with magical blood. It either doesn’t work and the person dies, or they become…”

  “You.” Tom raised an eyebrow. “It did work on you, didn’t it? The experiment didn’t fail like the Brotherhood thought.”

  “You had no right.” My voice quivered. Magic danced along my skin, and every hair on my body stood at attention. This much power was a head rush, yet I was so full of rage, I thought I might explode. For the second time in twenty-four hours, I felt on the verge of losing my mind. Once this nightmare was all over I wanted to find a beach, the sort of drink that comes with an umbrella, and a good book. I needed to relax.

  But first, I kind of needed to kill.

  Tom shoved the book my way. He should have been afraid of me, but what I tasted from him was a spicy anger, and his eyes shone with a craziness I’d seen before but couldn’t place. “There is a war coming, Jessica. A war the magi foresaw a long time ago. If we’re going to survive, we need people on our side who fight preds like we’ve never had to do before. That is the Brotherhood’s mission. That has always been its mission. And despite the urgency of what we had to do, you were never in any danger. The organization worked for over a century perfecting the spells involved, figuring out why gifted humans couldn’t be transformed under normal circumstances. We knew you and the others like you would survive, but until recently, we thought we’d failed anyway. Your gifts vanished. But then you showed up, and Victor Aubrey, and we learned we were wrong.”

  “Oh yeah, you were wrong. You were wrong in so many ways I can’t even count them.” I paced in front of his desk, my hands clenching and unclenching into fists. “Is this why you’ve been so in my face about me spending time in Shadowtown? Why you were so afraid of me being around satyrs? Did you think I might relate to them, or that they might discover what I was?”

  Tom got up, and I backed away from him. If he got too close, I might deck him yet. “You can spend time there because you’re invulnerable to their power, aren’t you? You can take it. You’ll be what they fear—our secret weapon.”