In an instant the funny blonde vanished, and a cold killer with a thousand-yard stare sat in Andrea’s place. “Let him try.”
“No!” Red, bright like backlit rubies, sparked in Aunt B’s eyes. “We don’t wait for him to try. There aren’t enough of us to be reactive. We think a step ahead of our opponents. We force them to respond. You’ll watch her back, Raphael will watch Curran’s, and I’ll look after our collective interests. You will need panacea, my dear. Trust me. I’ll make sure we’ll get it.”
Andrea raised her finger and opened her mouth.
“That is final, Andrea.”
Andrea clamped her mouth shut.
“Talk to Curran about it. Talk among yourselves. I will be packing. Thank you for a lovely breakfast.”
Aunt B rose and left.
We waited until the doors down the hall shut behind her.
“That woman drives me crazy,” Andrea growled.
“Is she for real?”
“She’s been a bit obsessed lately,” Andrea said. “Ever since I became a beta and then Raphael proposed, all she’s been talking about is how she’ll retire and spend her years cuddling grandchildren. These are theoretical grandchildren. Raphael and I aren’t in a hurry. She says she is tired.”
“Does she seem tired to you?”
“She’ll outlive me. I’ll be an old woman, and she’ll be still promising to retire. I know that look. She’s coming on this trip, whether we like it or not.”
I sighed.
Andrea shook her head. “The Black Sea, right? That’s the place where the Golden Fleece was and Jason grew an army out of dragon teeth?”
“That’s the one.”
“Whatever happened to Jason afterward?”
“He married Medea, a witch-princess who was from Colchis.”
“Did they live happily ever after?”
“He left her for another woman, so she killed their children, chopped them into stew, and fed it to him.”
Andrea put a half-eaten sausage link on her plate and pushed it away. “Well, at least I’ll be there to watch your back.”
And it already made me breathe easier. “Thank you.”
Andrea grimaced. “You’re welcome. I’ve got to go tell Raphael that his dear mother is coming with. He’ll just love this new development.”
* * *
I went to look for Curran. Knowing him, he was probably holed up somewhere with Jim trying to finalize the list of shapeshifters we would be taking with us. I bet that “somewhere” was Jim’s not-so-secret lair two floors below the top level of the Keep.
Jim genuinely loved his job, and he somehow always found people who loved it as much as he did. They took the whole spy thing to the next level. Somehow simply walking through their hallway to the break room didn’t seem enough. I should’ve gotten a black cloak and slunk dramatically, flashing my knives.
I was about fifteen feet from the break room when I heard Mahon’s voice and stopped. “. . . not questioning her ability. She’s proud, undisciplined, and she doesn’t take anything from anybody. We’re going into a shit storm. They will attack her appearance, your relationship, and her human status, and I question how well she will hold up under the stress.”
Mahon and I would never see eye to eye. That was the long and short of it. I had decided that I didn’t want or need his approval, so I’d stopped trying.
“Kate will be fine,” Curran said.
“It’s a bad idea.”
“I heard you the first time,” Curran said. “Kate is coming with us. You worry too much.”
I walked into the room. Curran, Jim, and Mahon stood around a small kitchen table. Curran and Jim both had mugs, which probably contained Jim’s patented coffee: black as tar and just as viscous. A piece of paper lay on the table—the list of ten names. Curran and Jim had hashed out the list of who was coming, and I was about to change it.
“I was just going,” Mahon rumbled, and walked out of the room.
“Coffee?” Jim asked.
“No, thank you.” I knew exactly what his coffee tasted like. “Aunt B, Raphael, and Andrea would like to be included.”
Curran raised his eyebrows. “Why?”
“Aunt B says she’s worried about my well-being.”
“She’s mostly worried about getting her paws on panacea,” Jim said.
“Yeah, she mentioned it.” I looked at Curran. “The way I look at it, we’re taking ten people. You get five and I get five. If I take Aunt B, Raphael, Andrea, Barabas, and Derek, that will take care of my half.”
“Fair enough,” Curran said. “I can count Derek as one of mine. It will give you an extra spot.”
“No, it’s cool. You should take the extra spot.”
“I honestly don’t mind,” Curran said.
“I don’t mind either. You’re giving me Aunt B. I probably owe you a spot for that.”
“Damn it,” Jim said, his face disgusted. “You’re like an old married couple who found twenty bucks in a parking lot. ‘You take it.’ ‘No, you take it.’ I can’t stand it.” He put the coffee down and shook his head.
“Fine,” Curran said. “If you want Derek, he’s yours. That fills the list.”
“That means we’re axing Paola from the list. The rats will be pissed,” Jim said.
“I’ll handle the rats,” Curran said.
CHAPTER 4
I stood on the grassy hill. In front of me a garish sunset burned with violent intensity, the scarlet and crimson clouds floating like bandages in the open wound of the sanguine sky. Against the sunset, on the plain below, people were building a tower. Magic churned and roiled around them as the roughly hewn stone blocks rose in the air, held up by power and human will. Far in the distance, another tower stretched to the sky.
I wanted to stop it. Every instinct I had screamed that this was wrong. It was dangerous and wrong, and we would all suffer at the end of it. Something terrible would happen if it was completed. I wanted to go down there and scatter the stones.
I couldn’t move.
Cold sweat drenched me. I couldn’t look away. I just watched as the tower rose block by block, a monument to my father’s growing power and ambition. It kept going up, unstoppable, like an ancient legion, like a tank crushing all that stood before it.
Someone moved to the right of me. I strained, trying to tear myself from the scene, turned, and saw Julie. Wind stirred her blond hair. She looked back at me, her eyes terrified. Tears ran down her cheeks.
“Julie!”
I sat upright in my bed. Darkness reigned, diluted but not conquered by moonlight coming through the open window. My face felt damp. I brushed my fingers at my hairline. They came away wet. Sweat. Great. I used to have nightmares about Roland and being found, but they stopped when Curran started holding me at night. They were never this vivid.
Maybe Roland was trying to find me. I had a vision of him sitting several states away, broadcasting screwed-up dreams like a TV tower. I needed to have my head examined, except anybody who actually tried would run away screaming.
The covers next to me were rumpled. Curran must’ve slipped out of our bed in the middle of the night. Well, that explained it. He was gone, and watching Maddie going loup had rattled me. It was stress. Eventually my dear dad would find me, but not today.
I had to check on Julie. I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I didn’t. I slipped out of bed, pulled my sweatpants on, and went out, down the stairs. Julie’s door stood slightly ajar. Odd. I rapped my knuckles on a skull-and-crossbones DO NOT ENTER sign that took up most of the door. No answer.
Janice, a shapeshifter in her late thirties, stuck her blond head out of the guardroom to my right. “She took her blanket and a pillow and went downstairs.”
“When?”
“About two hours ago.”
That would be one o’clock in the morning. There was only one place Julie could’ve gone.
Five minutes later I walked into the dim room, moving quietly on my toes. The on
ly illumination came from the glass coffin in front of me. In it, submerged in the green liquid of Doolittle’s healing solution, floated Maddie. Several IV tubes ran from her arms to the metal stand with fluid bags. Julie sat next to her on the floor, slumped over on her blanket, her elbows propped on her knees, her face hidden in her hands.
Oh, Julie. I crossed the room and sat next to her. She gave no indication she heard me.
Maddie’s bones protruded at odd angles, the flesh stretched over the distorted skeleton like half-melted rubber. Here and there patches of fur dappled her, melting back into human skin. The left side of her jaw bulged, the lips too short to hide the bone, and through the gap I could see her human teeth. Her right arm, almost completely human, seemed so thin, so fragile, little more than bone sheathed in skin.
When I sat there and watched her, my heart squeezed itself into a hard painful rock. It wasn’t just Maddie. It was the haunted desperation in her mother and sister. It was the panic in Jennifer’s face. It was the masked fear in Andrea, who had come to see Maddie last night. I’d watched my best friend as she crossed her arms on her chest trying to convince herself that this wasn’t her future. She loved Raphael. She wanted children and a family, and both of Raphael’s brothers went loup at puberty and had to be killed. When Aunt B said they would need panacea, she meant it.
It was the icy nagging dread inside me that said, This could be your child.
Maddie, the cute funny girl, whom we all knew and took for granted. We had to save her. I had to save her. If there was one thing I could accomplish, it would be giving her life back to her.
Julie straightened. Her eyes were red, the skin around them puffy. I wished I could do something.
“She isn’t hurting.”
“I know.” Julie sniffed.
“I read to her. Her mom does too, and Doolittle’s nurses. She isn’t alone.”
“It’s not that.”
“Then what is it?”
“I’m trying to understand why.” Her voice broke. “Why?” She turned and looked at me, tear-filled eyes bright and brimming with hurt. “She was my best friend. I only have one. Why did it have to be her?”
The million-dollar question. “Would you rather it be Margo?”
“No.” Julie shook her head. “No. She feels horrible, because she’s okay and Maddie isn’t. I hugged her and I told her that I was so glad that she made it.”
“I’m proud of you.”
“It’s not Margo’s fault that the medicine didn’t work. I just don’t want it to be Maddie. I want her to be okay. It’s like this is the cost.”
“The cost of what?”
“Of magic. Of being a shapeshifter. Like they’re strong and fast and somebody has to pay the price for that. But why her?”
I wish I knew. I’d asked myself the exact same question when I found Voron dead, when I saw the ruin of Greg Feldman’s body, and when Julie lay in a hospital bed, so sedated her heart was barely beating. I wanted so much to spare Julie from that. It killed me that I couldn’t. I didn’t know why some people had tragedy after tragedy thrown at them, as if life were testing them, and others lived blissfully, untouched by grief.
I told her the truth. “I don’t know. I think it’s because a child is the most precious thing we have. There is a price for everything, and it’s never something you can afford to give up. It’s always someone you love.”
Julie stared at me. “Why?”
“I don’t know. That’s the way it always is.”
Julie drew back. “I don’t want it. If that’s the way it’s going to be, I don’t want to have any babies.”
Life had finally scarred Julie deep enough. Now my kid had decided not to have children, not because she didn’t want to be a mother, but because she was too scared of the world into which she would be bringing her children. That was so screwed up. I wanted to stab something.
Julie was looking at me, waiting for something.
“Having children or not having them is your choice, Julie. Whether you do or don’t, Curran and I will love you anyway. You don’t ever have to worry that we’ll stop.”
“Good, because I don’t want kids.”
We fell silent.
“You’re leaving,” she said.
“Yes. Are you scared?”
Julie shrugged. “You’re the alpha and you have to go.”
“That’s right.”
“And if anybody will get the medicine, it’s you. I understand.” Her voice was tiny. “Don’t die. Just don’t die, okay?”
“I have no plans to die. I’m coming back with panacea and we’re getting Maddie out of the healing tank.”
“I heard Jim talking,” Julie said quietly.
Oh boy.
“He said that it was a trap and you might not come back.”
Thank you, Mr. Positive Peggy, we appreciate your vote of confidence. “Does the spy master know you’re spying on him?”
“No. I’m very careful and he doesn’t look up very often.”
Eventually I’d have to figure out what that meant. “It is a trap. The people who laid it think that we’re weak and stupid. I promise you that if they try to hurt us when we get there, they will deeply regret it. We’ll sail away with panacea, and they will still be figuring out why they’re sitting in a puddle of their own blood trying to hold on to their guts. You’ve seen me take on dangerous things before.”
“You get hurt, Kate. A lot.”
“But I survive and they don’t.” I hugged her with one arm. “Don’t worry. We’ve got this.”
“Okay,” she said. “I just . . .”
She clenched her hands together, staring straight ahead.
“Yes?”
“I have bad dreams.”
So do I. “What do you dream about?”
She turned to me, her eyes haunted. “Towers. I see them being built on the grass. They are terrible towers. I look at them and cry. And I see you, and you’re looking at me, and you’re calling me . . .”
Oh no. Cold claws pricked my spine.
Why would we have the same dream? It had to be magic. If my dream was the result of my magic or the result of Roland looking for me, it shouldn’t affect Julie. He couldn’t possibly know about Julie.
The ritual. That was the most likely explanation. When I healed Julie, I’d mixed my blood with hers. Some of my magic had tainted her. Now we shared dreams. If we were lucky, this was just a by-product of my magic stretching itself while I dreamed. If we were unlucky, then Roland was trying to find me by broadcasting visions into my head, and Julie was picking up the signal.
Damn it.
It must’ve shown on my face, because Julie focused on me. “It means something, doesn’t it? What does it mean, Kate? I saw you. You were in my dream. Did you see me, too?”
I didn’t want to have this conversation. Not here and not now. In fact, I didn’t want to have it at all.
“Tell me, please! I have to know.”
I wasn’t planning on going to my funeral, but one never plans to die. If something happened to me, Julie would be left without answers. She had to know something at least. In her place, I would want to know.
“Kate, please . . .”
“Hush, please.”
The need to hide had been hammered into me since I could understand words. The number of people knowing my secret had gone up from one to five in the past year, and thinking about it shot me right off the beaten path into an irrational place where I contemplated killing those who knew. I couldn’t kill them—they were my friends and my chosen family—but breaking a lifetime of conditioning was a bitch.
If I didn’t tell her and I died, she would make mistakes. Roland would find her and use her. She didn’t realize it yet, but she was a weapon. Like me. I had created her, and I had a responsibility to keep her safe and to keep others safe from her.
“What I’m about to tell you can’t be repeated. Don’t write it in your diary, don’t tell your best friend, don’t rea
ct if you hear about it. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“There are people who would kill you if they knew about you. I’m very serious, Julie. This is a life-and-death conversation.”
“I understand,” Julie said.
“You’ve learned in school about the theory of the First Shift?”
“Sure.” Julie nodded. “Thousands of years ago magic and technology existed in a balance. Then people began working the magic, making it stronger and stronger, until the imbalance became too great and the technology flooded the world in waves, which was the First Shift. The magic civilizations collapsed. Now the same thing is happening, but we get magic waves instead of technological ones. Some people think that it’s a cycle and it just keeps happening over and over.”
Good. She knew the basics, so this would be easier. “You heard me talk about Voron.”
“Your dad,” Julie said.
“Voron wasn’t my biological father. My father, my real father, walked the planet thousands of years ago, when the magic flowed full force. Back then he was a king, a conqueror, and a wizard. He was very powerful and he had some radical ideas about how a society should be structured, so he and some of his siblings built a huge army and rampaged back and forth across what’s now known as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, and eastern Egypt. The world was a different place then geologically, and my dad, the wizard-king, had a large fertile area in which to build his kingdom. His magic kept him alive for hundreds of years, and he succeeded in creating an empire as advanced as our civilization. And wherever he went, he built towers.”
Julie blinked. “But . . .”
“Wait until I finish, please.” The words stuck in my throat and I had to strain to push them out. “When the First Shift came, the technology began to overwhelm magic. The magical cities crumbled. My father saw the writing on the wall and decided it was time for a long nap. He sealed himself away, how or where nobody knows, and fell asleep. A tiny trickle of magic still remained in the world, and it was enough to keep him alive. He slept until the Shift, our apocalypse, woke him up. He got up, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and immediately started to rebuild his empire. He can’t stop, Julie. It’s what gives his existence meaning. This time he started with the undead.”
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