by Jenn Stark
“What do you mean?” I asked, but I had a sinking feeling I knew what he was going to say.
I was right.
“That idea to inform governments, who presumably might want to protect their citizens, by using a known agent with psychic abilities to explain what was happening in the world around them? Yeah. It would seem our vaunted global leaders don’t possess as much of an imagination as I’d hoped they did…”
“I wondered about that,” I muttered. “How much trouble are we in?”
“We? Not a hell of a lot. You, on the other hand…” Simon’s hands started moving in double time, his twisting fingers threatening to break off if he kept it up. “It’s your face they remember, and it’s a face they’ve seen before, at least some of them. But you were cleared from Interpol’s notices, and we thought that would carry more weight.”
I frowned. “We?”
“The Magician knew what I was doing, and he thought it was a good idea too.” The Fool turned around to face us. “You don’t think I would have done all that without his approval? There were about sixty-seven ways this all could have played out, and we chose the way with the highest likelihood of success.”
“Uh-huh. Except now I’m the girl most likely for a bunch of control freaks who need someone to blame for their nightmares—nightmares only they and a couple of their gun-toting friends remember. That works out well for me.”
“It was a calculated risk,” Simon retorted, and intellectually, I understood what he was saying. There hadn’t been a lot of time, there had been a lot of variables, and it ultimately wasn’t a bad thing to involve the leaders of the free world in a situation that could have resulted in the death of all their people. That said, now that the danger was past, the next inviolate act of almost any government in that position would be to find somebody to blame. And I was now at the top of their lists.
“But what do they even have on me? Their memories, right? You didn’t actually broadcast this video over typical feeds.”
“I did not,” he confirmed. “And any cameras attempting to take video of it were unsuccessful, same as what happened in London. But we didn’t lose time. That’s the problem. Something definitely happened, all these leaders have a shared memory, all their accounts sync up, and time actually passed. While they were in their offices staring at the ceiling, part of the world experienced solar flares, and another part saw the sun appear to be on the verge of exploding until magically, it wasn’t. If there’d been any polar ice stations or any satellites pointing to the giant hole in the middle of Antarctica, they would have seen something seriously bad beneath all the static, except the ice sheet only kind of sort of got damaged. So, back to the government leaders, we got a whole bunch of over-the-top Type As freaked to their bones and pretty damned sure that something happened, even if they can’t prove it. And enough of them were familiar with your Interpol notice, both before and after it was revoked. Which makes you a person of incredibly intense interest to all of them.” He shrugged, then looked at me sheepishly. “Sorry.”
I stood up, needing to walk off some of my nervous energy, even if my walk was more of a shuffle. Nikki stood as well, pacing in the opposite direction. “So they’re after me because of a memory. A shared memory. That’s not going to hold up.”
“Well, if they go after you, they’ll have the full weight of the House of Swords and the Council all over them,” Simon said. “And we’ll protect you. You can bet on that.”
Almost immediately, I saw the flaw in this plan—the same flaw that had been in me staying underground when Interpol had started playing footsie with me. “Yeah, that’s great for the short-term, but we need a better solution than that. I can’t go on the run again, and I’m definitely not going to spend my next year being interviewed by every country on the planet. How many people are we looking at, all in? A hundred? Maybe two?”
Simon shrugged. “With the shared memory? About five hundred, all in. There are just under two hundred nations total on Earth right now, and they didn’t have time to assemble their full chiefs of staff, if they even have chiefs of staff. But yeah, five hundred ought to do it.”
I groaned. Five hundred people that had a shared memory that linked me with the scariest experience of their governance. Fantastic. “But you can reach them again, right? If you had to? Anyone that saw this video?”
“Ah—no, probably not. I mean, the rulers yes, but who am I to know who might have been hiding in the broom closet, catching the show?”
“Simon…”
“Yes, okay, yes, right? Armaeus didn’t want you to know. He’s already feeling bad that he commandeered you and the Houses for your little Ice Capade, though it was totally necessary. Now here he is messing yet again with non-Connecteds, but there’s no better way to keep you safe. So yes, I can zap their memories, and yes, it’s already underway. Not everyone in the room, but the rulers, yes, and once we get those…”
He was back to twining his fingers together. “Look, I didn’t expect them to throw a hissy fit. I thought that video would help!” When I didn’t respond, he flapped his hands. “Anyway, I don’t know why you’re so worried about it. They aren’t going to come after you.”
That stopped me, midpace. “Ah…they aren’t?”
“No—well, the big ones aren’t, and that’s who you need to worry about, the US, members of the EU, China, Russia, Japan—you know the list.”
“And they’re not going to…”
“The Sentinel Group got to ’em first.”
Now Nikki stopped her pacing too. “Say that again, short stuff?” she prompted Simon.
“The Sentinel Group has sent messages to the world leaders telling them to stand down from their search, that you’re working with them to preserve humanity, blah blah blah. I don’t…now what?” he asked, looking over at me. “How is that a bad thing?”
“I am not working with the Sentinel Group to help them preserve humanity,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “They want me to put me through some kind of test, is all.”
Nikki blinked at me, and I realized, belatedly, that I hadn’t told her this part.
“Test as in Calc 2, or test as in shooting you up with whatever’s in the pretty blue vials?” she asked warily.
“Not that kind of a test,” I said, though in truth, I had no idea what the Sentinel Group had in mind. “I’m thinking it’s more like guessing at flash cards and bending spoons.”
She snorted. “I so want to watch that.”
“Either way, it’s apparently a pretty important test to them,” Simon put in. “All I know is that in the wake of this little memo from the Sentinel Group, people are laying low. They mostly think it’s all bullshit, that you are behind some kind of traditional attack on their governments, the world, whatever, working for some cloaked organization to scare the daylights out of everyone. They can’t explain the video feed they have no proof of seeing, but they’re not trying all that hard. They’re focused on you. So yeah, I mean, I guess they won’t do anything traceable. That’s the benefit of the Sentinel Group’s intercession. But you still might randomly disappear down a dark street one day, never to return.”
I scowled. “Not helping.”
“I don’t know what you want me to do!” the Fool protested, and to his credit, he seemed genuinely upset.
“Here’s an idea, then: Tell the Magician to step up his little plan to wipe the memories of the government officials who know. In the meantime, find out who the threats are and let Ma-Singh know. And find out who within the Sentinel Group is behind the message that got sent to the world leaders. Because if it’s anyone besides Henri de Castille or one of his cronies, we’ve got an even bigger problem on our hands.”
He cocked his head. “Okay…okay. I can totally do that. He turned back to his screens—
Just as they all went blank.
“Whoa!” The Fool shot back from the monitors, sweeping the room with his gaze, but he no sooner had rolled forward once more when the
monitors snapped back on—every one of them flaring to life with an epically short message blinking on their screens:
It’s time.
A string of GPS coordinates ran beneath the two words.
“What in the—”
Even as Simon’s hacker outrage got rolling, however, the screens flickered again, and once more we were treated to images around the world, everything spinning merrily along. If we hadn’t been watching the monitors at that exact moment, we might never have gotten the message.
But we’d gotten it, all right.
And given Simon’s spluttering protest as he dove back for his keyboard, it wasn’t the Council checking in. Which left only one possible sender: the Sentinel Group.
“Those coordinates, that’s close,” the Fool announced, squinting at a screen that showed a map of Vegas. “I mean, seriously close. Maybe only an hour out of the city.”
I sent a glance to Nikki, who was also scowling at the screen. “They want you to go by yourself to this little spelling bee?” she asked, thoughtfully.
“They didn’t specify,” I said. “And I kind of think that’d be a dumb idea anyway.”
She nodded. “After you, Gamon’s probably the second most powerful Connected on the planet, but I don’t trust her not to bring napalm as a hostess gift.”
“Agreed…” I lifted my brows at her. “Um, you busy?”
She shrugged, glanced down at herself, then her mouth eased into a grin. “As I’ll ever be, dollface. I just need a few minutes to change.”
I nodded, then shifted my gaze to Simon. “Put a call into Dr. Sells, would you? See if Sariah can be cleared to catch a little fresh air.” If she was still incubating the powers I'd recently dumped on her, that might come in handy.
“Will do.” He grinned. “Should I say who’ll be picking her up?”
“Just tell her to be ready. It’ll be sooner rather than later, but I need to take care of a few things first too.” Never hurt to be as charged up as immortally possible before a big event, after all.
I’d no sooner opened my mind, when I felt it then, the slow, sensual pressure I’d come to crave more than oxygen. The invitation that came with it had once promised only temporary healing…but now it was so much more than that. A promise. A treasure. A magic all its own.
I thought you’d never ask, Miss Wilde.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Magician didn’t bother sending a car for me this time. The moment I stepped out of the war room and turned one corner away from the eyes of my well-meaning house guards, he reached for me with a surge of energy—sucking me into his private office in Prime Luxe like I was the morning mail shooting through a pneumatic tube.
I staggered to the side as I regained my feet on the sea of plush carpeting, my arms flinging wide. “Since when can you do that?” I gasped.
Armaeus sat sprawled in one of his wingback chairs, his eyes raking over me. He looked more himself, I decided. Tall, dark, and mind-bendingly powerful. “I’ve only begun to plumb the depths of my new abilities,” he allowed. “This seemed an excellent time to test my skills in transportation. You’re unhurt?”
“I’m…” I ran my hands down my shirt and jeans. “Unhurt. And all here. I don’t actually remember seeing anything during the transport process, though. How did you…”
“I don’t think that’s perhaps the best use of our time, Miss Wilde.”
He stood then, moving toward me with a predator’s grace. “There’s nothing about you that seems in need of healing, though,” he murmured. “I confess, I find myself at a loss for how I might be of service to you.”
“You know where I’m going next, I assume? With Nikki and Sariah?”
“I do. And I’ll assist however you need with that. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
He stopped in front of me, and as if we had been lovers for decades, we moved together in almost one motion. His arms opened up to me, and I slipped beneath them, pressing myself against his body. In a heartbeat, we were no longer in his study, no longer dressed like civilized adults, but tangled naked in white sheets in the center of an enormous bed I didn’t recognize, propped up against a mountain of pillows.
I peeled my fingers away from his chest, caught my breath. “Couldn’t we have walked?” I managed, shivering uncontrollably as my body determined whether it had just been put back together as effectively as it’d been taken apart. “A little warning might not be a bad thing.”
“Mmm,” Armaeus hummed, his gaze sweeping over me once more—in part like an appreciative lover, yes…but in part like a professor who was ever surprised by his student. He leaned back to get a better view, and I instantly missed the contact. “You trust me enough that you need no warning, and so you remain relaxed. When energy goes tense, tight—it doesn’t work as well. The transport doesn’t work, more to the point.”
I considered that as he reached for me again, more than happy to sink back into his embrace despite his unsettling words. “Do I want to know how you’ve come to that conclusion?”
“You do not.” He brushed his lips over my hair, then tightened his hold as the electricity from his touch crackled, his energy zipping through me on gossamer wings.
“You’re worried,” he murmured. “Your mind is too full of too many things.”
I grimaced. “It’s a curse.”
He seemed to take that in stride, settling me more comfortably against him and giving me the one thing that could help my nerves almost as much as his presence: information.
“I have not been able to pinpoint the nature of the Sentinel Group’s test, but there has been no movement at their compound since the GPS coordinates were sent to you. I’m arranging for Sariah and Nikki to be transported—by vehicle ”—he interjected as I stiffened—“to the facility. I’ll see you arrive there before them.”
“And the technology?”
“We’ve not been able to access it yet, but it will take the barest moments to get what we need once we do. After that…” He sighed, the sound one of deep contentment as his hand stroked my arm languidly. “Then we will have a new barrier to the gods. A barrier it will take considerably longer for them to thwart.”
“Good.” My eyes were closed, my face warm against his chest. In that moment, there was nowhere else in the world I wanted to be. I could live innumerable lifetimes held by this man I still didn’t fully understand, our energies linked, our fates irrevocably intertwined.
But my mind still wouldn’t quite let go. “And, um, those crystal things…?”
“Those crystal things,” Armaeus said, amusement lacing his otherwise grim tone. “The very hearts of the gods. Though they in their full power cannot yet walk this plane, the gods’ core magic has seeded itself once more in the soil of the earth, as it did at the dawn of creation. The world has changed, and what’s more, its people don’t even know it yet. That magic will grow and flourish—some of it quickly, some not. But it is all part of the weave of the world now. And we must prepare for it.”
“The balance has shifted,” I whispered. My eyes had opened, my mind churning faster. The world had changed. Both Armaeus and I had changed.
What else needed to change in order to protect the Connecteds and all the peoples of the earth? What else could I do to help?
“With the introduction of new magic, and, of course, the demons, the balance has absolutely shifted,” Armaeus agreed. “But we will be there to fight it, each according to our ways. The Houses of Magic. The Council. Me.”
He kissed my head again. “You.”
I tilted my face back so I could stare into his deep black eyes, now faintly limned in gold. There was so much pure magic in this man, more than I could really wrap my head around. “Are you healed too?” I asked, searching his gaze. I saw my own intense emotion reflected back to me. My love. My need. My insatiable thirst for more.
“I’m healed, Miss Wilde,” the Magician rumbled. “As I believe I already pointed out, you’ve become a far more
competent healer than I ever was. I should be annoyed by that. Instead, I choose to take advantage of it.”
I lifted my brows. “Well, as long as taking advantage doesn’t mean you stick your hand in a wood chipper just to see what will happen, I can handle that.”
“I’ll do my determined best.” As if he couldn’t help himself any longer then, Armaeus dipped his head and touched his lips to mine.
At this, the lightest pressure, another surge of energy scored through me, setting every nerve ending alight. I reveled in the way my blood raced through my veins, the rapid beating of my heart, the dizzying spin of my molecules as they danced in the rippling waves of his magic. This Magician, this being of pure light, pure power, pure magic…he was mine. Really and truly mine. Every time I thought of it, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“Or you could simply be, my beautiful Sara,” Armaeus whispered, his mouth moving away from my lips to kiss a trail up my jawline, to the sensitive skin below my ear. There, he simply breathed me in for one long moment, his fingers twining with mine. He shifted then, his body pressing close, and I once more felt his strength, his vital force. With my help, he’d opened himself up to his true base power, the carnality of creation, the depths of darkness that coiled and writhed in an endless transformative fervor, constantly seeking to build new form, new strength, new life. And into that darkness, he’d carried me, cradling the love I’d shared with him unstintingly. He was stronger for it…I was stronger for it.
And we were stronger together because of it.
How many times had I wondered what it would be like to give myself fully—to anyone? To know that I could stand in strength with another soul, to know I wouldn’t be putting them in danger merely by their association with me?
I hadn’t thought I would ever feel this way—that I could feel this way. It’d required me finding the most powerful entity on Earth, in fact…but in the Magician, I’d found that soul. And I would never stop loving him as long as I drew breath, as long as there was even the tiniest spark of energy within me, too stubborn to die. I was his…and he, finally and forever, was mine.