“Not surprising, but most of his information is over five years old at this point.”
“Yes, but we suspect he is the reason we’ve seen more and more missing potential Agents and suffered more losses of actual Agents.” Luka’s voice was quiet.
“So what does he want?”
“He says he has a warning and a proposition for peace. Not from him but from the Angelics. A chance for a cease-fire and maybe eventual peace.”
“So why involve us at all? You have plenty of Agents who specialize in negotiation and diplomacy. I doubt either Erik or I would win any awards in either department.”
“They are insisting on your and Erik’s attendance.”
Erik felt a huge shiver of unease go down his spine and then back up.
“Who is ‘they’? Byron or the Angelics?”
“He did not specify.” Hu said it stiffly, as if unused to answering questions.
“And why do we have any reason to believe this is anything but a trap?”
“We don’t.” Luka was blunt about it and shrugged her shoulders. “Byron will be there, though, in arm’s reach for the first time in five years.”
“Do not patronize me.” Matthias went quiet after his statement and Erik really wished there were a way to see what was happening in the hall. “When and where?”
“There are no details as of yet.”
“Ha, yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“Think of it this way, Matthias, even if it is a trap it is a chance to learn vital information, about the Agency, the Suits, the Angelics . . . Byron.”
“Fuck.” Matthias snarled it deep in his throat, the kind of fuck that comes from understanding you’re screwed and there’s no way out of it. “We will still leave the facility. I do not believe coming here will be of any more use to my charge. Already too much attention falls on Erik’s absence.”
“That is fine.” The surliness to Hu’s voice said it was anything but.
“You will call me with the time and place of our meeting and I will see if we can make it.” Then his voice raised in volume. “That all right with you, Erik?”
He started at his name but he’d obviously been caught. Taking a deep breath, he stood and pushed the door open, stepping out into the light of the hallway. Luka and Hu looked at him with wide eyes.
Powerful Maestres his ass. He looked to Matthias, who simply smiled and nodded for him to speak.
“Why are they contacting us now? What kind of help can we provide that they don’t have with all their fancy government approval and resources?”
“Excellent question, Erik. Well?” Matthias had his eyebrow raised at Hu and Luka, who looked at each other, some sort of battle of wills, until Hu looked down and away before he spoke.
“You’ve no doubt noticed the increase in Angelics showing up. Well, Byron implied this was something more than an increase in activity. He implied it was preparation for an invasion. This could stop that.”
Erik bit his lip to stop the growl that suddenly rumbled in his own chest. The idea of an army of things like he had fought that first night filled him with dread and worry but another part of him, a deeper part, felt a thrill. He wanted to face those creatures again, to show them what he could really do. He squashed the smile that threatened to take over his face.
“He implied? And you believe him?” Matthias did not sound impressed with the intelligence they’d received or the intelligence of their ancestors at this point.
“Not necessarily, but there is something happening, and it would make sense for us to find out what it is so we’re not completely caught off guard.”
“Yeah. Information.” Erik could not deny the logic. “Who else will be at this meeting?”
“Well, we don’t know who they will send—”
Erik interrupted Luka. “No, I mean who else are we sending?”
“You two plus Elliot, Daya, Elana, and Tae. They have the most experience working together, with the exception of Tae, and they’re people you two trust. If we sent you in there with Blooded you didn’t know, I doubt everything would turn out so well.”
“I sort of doubt it’s going to turn out so good anyway,” Erik muttered.
“Also, you are better trained that you think. Your instincts are raw but well developed nonetheless.” Luka spoke over him and could not hide a quick glance and smirk in Hu’s direction. Hu stiffened under the regard as if feeling her taunting, even if he could not see her face. “Also, as a newer Blooded, they will have no intel on your bloodline or powers. And you will not be going alone. Patrah and Melinda will stay here at the facility, continuing their dream-training to hopefully provide some insight on your mission.”
Erik nodded. He was no less convinced this might be some sort of trap, but at least they were not as stupid as they seemed. He turned to Matthias.
“I’m finished packing, but I would like to say goodbye to Melinda.”
Matthias nodded and Erik turned his back on the lot of them, heading for the girl’s room.
There was no answer to his first knock. He knocked a little louder and called through the door softly.
“Melinda, it’s Erik. Are you awake?”
There was the sound of tiny feet and the door opened just a crack. She looked at him, then opened the door wide and hurried back to the bed, burrowing into the pile of blankets, searching for the warmth she’d left behind.
“I’m sorry to come in the middle of the night but I’m leaving and I wanted to say goodbye.”
“Leaving?” The girl shot up in bed, the blankets falling off her head like a hood, revealing her wild mass of dark, kinky curls. “Where?”
“Well, I’m gonna go home.”
Melinda stiffened and Erik could read the horrible memories of her last night at home chase themselves across her face. “Don’t go.”
It was a whisper and it broke Erik’s heart that he couldn’t do what she asked.
“I’m sorry, honey, I have to, but you have Patrah and she’ll protect you for sure. And just cause I’m going home doesn’t mean we won’t see each other.”
“Really?”
The hope in her voice undid him. She was the first person he’d rescued, one of the few people to associate him with only good things, with being saved rather than hurt by knowing him. She still believed people when they promised to stay in touch and he refused to be the one to teach her that more often than not those promises were lies.
“I promise. You have my phone number, right?”
Melinda nodded.
“You call or text me anytime you need and I will be here for you.”
She still didn’t look happy about the situation, but at least she no longer looked terrified, as if as soon as he left something would come for her. She hugged him, her small arms tight around his neck, and he leaned his forehead against her, taking in the scent of honey, cocoa, and child.
Untainted by the world.
She drifted to sleep in his arms and he slowly lowered her back to the mattress and covered her with the blankets. He turned to leave the room but something turned him back. He took in her smiling face and his hands curled into loose fists and he swore he would do everything in his power to keep his promise.
He slipped out into the hall.
“Don’t I get a goodbye?”
Erik flung himself around to face the threat, haze of rage already coming up. He dug his teeth back into the wounds on his lips. Once the voice penetrated and he realized who it was, he let the power drain away completely. Perhaps Matthias and Luka were right? Maybe his control was better than he thought. He looked up at Tae.
“Don’t surprise me like that.”
“I wasn’t worried.” The simple truth in the statement hit Erik in his core. Tae trusted him.
“Didn’t think you needed a goodbye since we’ll be working together.”
“Well, yeah, but it’s still nice to be thought of.” The smile on his face was just this side of teasing and Erik returned it.
> “Well then.” Erik held open his arms and Tae rushed forward, looping his arms around Erik’s neck and turning the whole thing into the cover of a cheesy romance novel, the ones where they couldn’t afford Fabio. They both laughed as Erik let Tae drop to the floor.
“I’ll see you soon.” Tae turned to leave but hesitated then turned back to face Erik. “Watch your back, okay?”
“I will.” Erik had been watching his own back for years. He had no reason to stop now and every reason to be even more vigilant.
MATTHIAS
He waited in front of Erik’s room with both their bags until his aspirant returned. They both wore broken-in jeans. Matthias had a plain black leather jacket over plain black T-shirt; Erik’s shirt was mostly black with a drawing of a serpent emblazoned—“The Wrath of the One-Eyed Snakes” was scrawled underneath and over it he wore a dark purple hoodie.
“You ready?”
Erik smirked and picked up his duffel bag. “Yeah, let’s do this.”
Matthias nodded and led him to the elevator. He called the elevator but stopped Erik as he moved to get on. He let his power flow out of him, slowly controlled. He curled it around himself and Erik. Invisibility was not his power; it was not even Elana and Elliot’s. Their powers were similar because they both came from different hunter-bloodlines.
His was the power of the skilled huntress, to make oneself part of the landscape, fade into the background in a way that mimicked invisibility. People knew he was there but it seemed normal, as if he should be there, and so they paid him no mind at all. It was one of the blessings Artemis-Agrotera had passed down to him, one of the few he was comfortable showing off in public.
He removed a long, solid metal bar from his bag and if it was longer than the bag it came out of, Erik said nothing. He carefully slotted the metal between the outer doors, then leaned in to press the button for the garage. The elevator whined a bit but the inner doors slowly closed.
“Be ready.”
Erik nodded, The car began to move downward and as it disappeared he leapt for the roof of it, Erik right behind him. They crouched there, side by side, sneakered feet gripping metal through streaks of grease, getting used to the sway and movement of the elevator.
“This seems pretty obvious.”
Matthias shrugged. “The Organization is slower to notice non-gods-power threats. Their number one line of defense is the Alarmers and they look out for aggressive power, not physical things.”
“What are Alarmers?”
Matthias stood as the elevator came to a stop. Again he reached into his bag and pulled out a jack. Jamming the lips of it in the seam between the outer doors, he turned the crank around and around until the doors were wide enough for them to step through.
“Future seers. They usually can only see a few minutes or hours into the future, though, much less powerful than dreamwalkers like Patrah and Melinda, so most end up working for the Organization as Alarmers. Spending most of their days linked into nets of twenty or more, no sole identity, monitoring the currents of power around cities and Organization buildings.”
“Well, that sounds . . . horrible.”
Matthias nodded as he stepped on the floor above the garage. The hallway they entered was spacious, easily twice as wide as the one on the floor they had been staying on.
“This way.” Matthias started down the middle hallway, power still wrapped around the two of them, but they saw no one as they walked. They heard no one moving in the rooms they passed. It was night but Blooded often had odd sleep patterns because of their connections to various forces of nature. It was odd to find no one about. This space had come into use after he’d left, but Matthias remembered the other centers he’d visited around the world. There was hardly a time when someone wasn’t moving about, working on something.
Perhaps this was a subsidiary bolthole.
He caught a glimpse of something through the window of a room and turned to the locked door.
“Erik, would you mind?”
Erik met his gaze before smiling and nodding. He stepped forward, took a deep breath, placed his hand on the knob, and turned until the door cracked open against its will. Another deeper breath and Matthias could practically feel the power rush out of him. They stepped inside. The room was dark and Matthias groped for the light switch, flipping it on and flooding the room with illumination.
On the stainless steel table in the middle of the room was the meat suit from the way-station. Splayed out and pinned open, the disturbingly plastic-looking red and white insides exposed. Except the face, which had been pinned into wholeness and looked disturbingly alive.
He recognized that face.
“Oh god.” From the horror in his voice, so did Erik.
They both slowly came forward, Matthias keeping an ear out for anyone approaching.
“How did Elana die, Matthias?”
“An Angelic killed her.”
He reached out but pulled his hand back.
“And her body?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t with the Organization when she died and I never really asked for the full story. It felt rude.”
“Rude or not, I think we need to ask and soon.”
Erik’s voice had already recovered its calm, but Matthias noticed he had moved away from the table toward the counter where the white skull he had grabbed at the last minute rested. Matthias stared at Elana’s former body longer before he joined Erik. The skull looked expertly cleaned, a pure white. Erik picked it up and turned it over in his hands.
“Is it Elana’s?” Matthias asked as Erik prodded at the various openings.
“I don’t—what the fuck?!” Erik juggled the skull and Matthias could see the thing was shuddering in his hands. Slowly, the skull broke apart, or perhaps that was wrong—more like the skull came apart, separated into sections, still attached but showing their inner workings.
“Fuck me virgin goddess.”
Erik’s head snapped around and he laughed.
“Really?”
“She’ll understand.”
They grinned at each other and then went back to the skull. Exposed was the fact that this was no organic skull; the connectors between the pieces looked like gold filigree, small gears and joints shining in the fluorescent light. Then, just as quickly as it had opened up, it began to snap closed again.
“Fuck,” Erik exclaimed. Matthias could see where a sharp edge had caught his thumb and cut it open at the base. As they watched, the blood stopped and the wound closed. Erik wiped his blood from the skull and replaced it on the counter.
“Let’s get what we came for.”
Matthias nodded. “Yes, this way.”
He silently led the way to the main records room, his mind turning over the new information. What were the Angelics doing with Elana’s body? She had died years ago, so had they preserved it this whole time?
The room was easy enough to find, always on the lowest floor, in the center, and here it was. He rolled his eyes but he supposed bureaucracy had helped him in this instance. He had never dared to do this before, but something about being in Erik’s company made him more willing to take risks, to do the things he’d wanted to for so long but had hesitated. This was very near the top of his list.
“So what are we looking for?” Erik asked. He kept his voice quiet despite the fact that Matthias had told him there was no need.
“Information on you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, I don’t believe for one minute they haven’t already worked out your bloodline or at least have more hints than they were giving us.” There was no need to tell Erik about the other things he was looking for. Again, they were faced with one of the oddities of Organization bureaucracy: all of their copies were hard copies. The records were in circle after circle of file cabinets.
Everything was labeled and Matthias was already acquainted with their filing system. By the time Erik called out that he had found his file, Matthias had already located the five fi
les he wanted.
“Excellent.” The files were already in his bag as he hurried over.
Erik already had the file open on top of the still-open drawer, flipping through the pages. There was a mix of papers, some handwritten, some typed, English and others that Matthias recognized as Greek and Latin. The materials were various as well: notebook paper, computer paper, linen parchment and slabs of pale leather, their ink the disturbing brown of dried blood.
“Shit,” Erik called as he turned a page and revealed the illustration of a woman. She stood tall and strong, wearing nothing, her skin covered in small scars. This woman would not bend or break. The mountains behind her would shatter before her resolve. She had been drawn with her feet planted in a village to show her size. They stood frozen in shock as the drawing began to shift.
First the figure’s hair began to move, to snap and curl like it was being blown by a powerful wind. Slowly the neutral expression on her face sank into one of anger and glee, the readiness of a fight. Matthias recognized the expression from Erik’s face. This was his bloodline; this woman was the one he was descended from. She crouched down in preparation for some sort of fight and then leapt sideways out of the frame of the drawing. The background of the illustration blurred as it moved to catch the woman in the frame again. When the movement stopped, she was centered wrestling with a dozen figures less than half her size, winning easily. In the distance other giants of her stature were being taken down one by one by these smaller creatures.
Eventually only she stood, with the smaller figures piling on her until she fell under their combined weight, still screaming in defiance.
“What is this?”
“An interpretation of the Betrayal. Greek if I’m not mistaken, the Titans and the Gods.”
“So who was she?”
Matthias shrugged and gestured for him to turn the page. The next piece of paper was ripped from a spiral notebook and covered in small block writing.
BIA IS ONE OF THE FEW OLD ONES (OTHER EX.—DAMBALLAH, IDUN, TARA, ENKIDU) FOR WHICH OTHER ASPECTS CANNOT BE DEFINITIVELY NAMED. BIA WAS NOT SIMPLISTIC VIOLENCE. SHE WAS FORCE CONTAINED AND CONTROLLED. SHE WAS ONE OF THE LAST OLD ONES TO FALL. HER BLOODLINE WAS BELIEVED TO BE WIPED OUT SO NO EXACT EVIDENCE EXISTS OF THEIR POWERS BUT ACCORDING TO MYTHS HER CHILDREN WOULD BE EXCELLENT FIGHTERS, BERSERKERS WITH CONTROL AND TACTICAL KNOWLEDGE. OTHER POSSIBILITIES INCLUDE AWARENESS/ABILITY TO READ VARIOUS FORCES SUCH AS GRAVITY, ELECTROMAGNETISM, AND MORE. AS SUCH THEY WOULD REACT BADLY TO A SOURCE STRONGER THAN THEMSELVES MANIPULATING THOSE FORCES UNNATURALLY NEAR THEM.
The Root Page 24