by Sadie Moss
Logan knocks on the front door. “Hello? Mary Worthing? We’re with IUM. We’ve come to check on a disturbance. Ma’am?”
There’s no sound on the other side of the door. Using my shifting ability, I turn into a bat, settling on Logan’s shoulder and listening to see if I can hear anything. In this form, sure enough, I can hear someone on the other side. My echolocation can’t get through the door—it’ll just bounce back against it—so I can’t tell where the person is or what they’re doing. But I can hear shuffling and some creaking floorboards.
I turn back into my human form, chewing on my bottom lip. “Someone’s in there.”
“Ma’am?” He knocks on the door again. “It’s okay. We don’t mean you any harm. We just want to talk to you.”
There’s an odd noise, one that I can hear even with my human ears. It’s like someone has just flung themselves against a piece of furniture. I glance over at Logan, raising my eyebrows. He looks as worried as I feel.
I can see him tensing up, his muscles bracing, getting ready to use his imperviousness to break the door down—but before he can, the door swings wide open. A woman smiles at us from the other side.
“Mary Worthing?” I ask.
Something is wrong about her smile. Like she’s not sure how to make her face move. “Yes, that’s me. Sorry it took me a minute to open the door. You said you were from IUM?”
I nod, glancing over at Logan. He seems to be a little wary but not ready to tackle the woman. I turn back to her, forcing a smile to my own face. “May we come in? We got a ping of magical disturbance from this location, so we have to do an inspection.”
“Of course.” Mary opens the door, stepping aside to let us in. The apartment seems neat and clean as we step into it. No signs of forced entry or any other indication of something dangerous.
“Have you noticed anything unusual?” Logan asks, although the answer to that question is pretty obvious if you ask me. Something’s definitely wrong here, I can smell it.
Okay, I can’t literally smell it. It’s metaphorical. But I can feel that something’s wrong, that something strange is going on here. Why did it take Mary so long to answer the door? What was all that odd movement I heard before, like there was a scuffle? And why is her smile so weird?
The look on her face reminds me of someone, actually. I can’t quite place it. Maybe Hannibal Lector or some other creepy bad guy in a film?
Mary’s face falls a little, then seems to settle. Her expression doesn’t look as… concerning as it did a moment ago. “I thought I heard something outside my window about an hour ago, but it turned out to be nothing.”
“We’re five floors up,” Logan notes, walking over to the window. “That’s not nothing. Did you go outside to investigate?” He gestures at the small balcony.
Mary’s face twitches, and I wonder if she just tried to stop herself from reacting to his question. Is she hiding something? What?
“Yes,” she says, and the word almost sounds like it was torn out of her, like she spoke before she could stop herself.
My spine is buzzing with fear and uncertainty. Something’s going on here, but I can’t figure out what the hell it is. Mary notices me looking at her and smiles again. It’s like flipping a switch, the way she smiles and drops it and then smiles again.
“Would you like anything to drink?” she offers.
“No, thank you,” I reply politely.
Mary nods, as if distracted. Logan goes out onto the small balcony, looking around. “Did you knock over this plant?”
“What?” Mary follows him. Sure enough, there’s a plant lying on the ground, its pot broken into pieces, dirt scattered. “Oh. Um…”
She opens her mouth like she’s going to say something, and then snaps it closed. Opens it again, then closes it. Then she draws herself up, her expression cold.
“I knocked it over,” she said. “I was going to clean it up, but then you came knocking and bothering me at this late hour. I’m supposed to be in bed. If there’s nothing further, I suggest you leave.”
“Was that a threat?” Logan asks, sounding genuinely confused.
I mean, I get it. Mary Worthing is about my height, and I’m on the small side. My green eyes and dark hair make me look like a pixie—hell, I’ve even got the freckles for it. Next to Logan, Mary looks downright dainty. I doubt she could get a hit in against him if she tried, even without Logan’s imperviousness coming into play. And if they got into a real fight and he had to use his lightning power, she wouldn’t stand a chance.
The woman gestures at the door. “Please leave.” Her voice is soft now, trembling a little, scared. All the ice that was in her tone a second ago is gone, and she sounds exhausted and worried.
I walk over to her. “Mary, I know that something’s not okay. We can help you. Just talk to us.”
She looks at me, then at Logan, who gives her a reassuring smile. He’s very good at those—I should know.
For a moment, I think that she’ll actually tell us what’s wrong. She looks like she might—but then her mouth contorts into a strange kind of sneer. The cold tone returns to her voice as she pulls away from me.
“You stupid—”
Before she can finish insulting me, she doubles over, clutching at her head. Then she looks up at me, her eyes pleading.
“Help… me!” She rasps the words as if they’re being dragged out of her.
She doubles over again, and then whips up to standing at her full height once more—and I notice her eyes glowing blue. A very specific kind of blue.
Mary had brown eyes just a moment ago. But more than that, this strange blue is eerily similar to the blue that seemed to surround the crazed Unpredictable when he fought us in the mountains. Shit. That’s why her smile is familiar. It reminds me of that creepy Unpredictable too.
“The magic came from her!” I yell, a split second before Mary raises her hands and hurls an attack.
I dive to the side as I feel the blast go past me, striking the wall and breaking down a pretty decent chunk of it. Great. The landlord’s going to be all over IUM’s ass to pay for the damages. I’m going to have a crap ton of paperwork to deal with later.
Logan goes to tackle Mary, relying on his imperviousness to keep himself safe, but Mary grabs him and uses his momentum to fling him to the side, sending him crashing into the dining room table. Before Logan or I can get up, she turns and dashes for her front door.
“No!” I scramble to my feet and shift into a cheetah, chasing after her.
Theoretically, a cheetah is the fastest creature on the planet, but Mary still manages to evade me. We’re not racing on a flat open plain, and I’m pretty sure her magic is propelling her forward.
Still, I manage to cut her off as she tries to head for the elevator. No way am I letting her go down into the street and hurt people or cause more damage. She makes a hard right turn and starts up the stairs, dashing, and I follow after her.
“Rae!” I hear Logan coming up behind me, still a ways back. He’s impervious, but he’s not as fast as a cheetah.
I shift back into human form as I reach the top landing, the exit that leads up onto the roof. “Mary, stop!”
But she doesn’t. She shoves open the emergency exit door and runs out onto the roof.
“Damn it! Stop!” I chase after her. “We don’t want to hurt you!”
Or ourselves. The roof is dangerous, and any one of us could fall off up here. I doubt there are guard rails. Mary’s clearly on a mission, turning and throwing her hands out behind her, blasting that blue magic at us as she runs.
What the hell? How did she get this magic? Is she related to the crazed Unpredictable?
Is it him in disguise? Resurrected somehow?
I turn into a gorilla and charge, leaping at her to tackle her. I try to pin her down, but Mary grabs on to me, her eyes flaring blue.
“You’re determined. I like that.” Her voice is still so cold, something vicious shining in her eyes.
“Rae!”
Logan must’ve just gotten up onto the roof, and his voice cuts through the air, full of fear. I’m blown backward, turning human from the force of the magic hitting me, my whole body screaming in pain.
I slam into something that is definitely not concrete, and I feel arms wrap around me. A moment later we slam down on the far side of the roof, and I hear Logan grunting in pain.
Holy fuck. He caught me, absorbing the worst of the pain of the landing for me. He’s impervious and I’m not.
I could kiss him for that, but now’s not the time. I get to my feet—or try to, but it’s a struggle. Everything inside me aches. I’m glad I was in gorilla form at the time, with that larger muscle mass. It helped me take the brunt of the magical hit better than I would’ve as just a human.
Logan gets to his feet, wincing as well, but looking a lot less banged up than I feel.
“Mary, please,” I say quickly. “You asked us for help. We can help you. We want to help you! But you have to talk to us. You have to tell us what’s going on.”
“I can’t!” The woman’s voice is a pained moan. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I’m trying—”
“What?” Logan asks, holding his hands out. “What are you trying to do?”
In response, she bares her teeth and snarls at us. “You’re not going to take me. I will destroy you, destroy you stupid people with your puny magic—”
What the hell? She seems almost like she’s got a split personality, jumping from one thought and emotion to another so fast that it’s hard to keep up. I share a glance with Logan as Mary shakes her head, clutching at it again.
“No, no, no,” she mutters. “I can’t do this. I won’t do this!”
Then she runs for the edge of the roof.
“No!” The sound tears itself out of me. I’m running before I realize it, with no time to even think about transforming. I reach out, but she’s too far away.
She takes a leap.
I’m so caught up in trying to grab her that I nearly leap right after her, and it’s only the hands snatching the back of my shirt and yanking me backward that saved me.
“Jesus fuck, Rae.” Logan stumbles but manages to keep us both upright, wrapping his arms around me. “You almost—”
As if that makes him realize what happened to Mary, he peers over the roof, still maintaining his tight grip on me.
Bile rises in my throat, sick and acidic, as I lean over to look as well.
Oh shit.
It’s dark, and it’s a good way down to the ground five stories below us, so I can’t quite make out all the details, and I’m grateful for that. Because just seeing what I can see, the lump on the ground—the way her limbs are splayed—
I step back. I can’t look. I don’t want to see more. My stomach heaves, threatening to empty itself even though I never ate dinner.
“Fuck,” Logan says quietly. He looks back at me and pulls me in against his body again, hugging me. I cling to him, and I’m not even ashamed to admit it. I’m shaking all over. I can’t breathe properly.
“She wanted us to help her.” My voice is a whisper. “We didn’t. We failed her.”
Logan doesn’t say anything. He just pets my hair as tears slide down my cheeks.
Chapter 8
I didn’t think this job would deal with death so much. Maybe that was a stupid, naïve thing for me to think, but I haven’t heard about a lot of other agents having to deal with stuff like this. It feels like I’m an exception and I don’t know what to do with this.
Logan keeps stroking my hair as I shake and cry.
She asked us for help. She asked us for help, and we didn’t help her, but I don’t know what else I should’ve done.
Should I have transformed up on the roof again and gotten to her faster?
Should I have knocked her out in the apartment, the moment that she showed that creepy smile?
“Why was she acting like that?” I mumble. “Like there were two of her?”
I’m so confused, and for the first time in ages, I feel like I need guidance. Like I’m not capable enough to handle this.
It’s a horrible feeling. I’ve dealt with everything that’s come my way so far, and I’ve been fine with it. I’ve handled every single challenge that’s ever been thrown at me, and now… now I just feel like I’m out of my depth, like it’s too big for me, and I don’t know what to do. I feel like every choice I’ve made has been the wrong one.
“I don’t know,” Logan admits. “I don’t know how she got that magic either, but it’s the same one as before. I recognized it.”
“How’d it get into her?”
“Maybe Nick will know, if we bring him in.” Logan kisses the top of my head, and I press my face against his chest. It’s nice to let myself be comforted. To lean on someone else. Usually I just… deal with things alone. Challenges, hard tests in school. I could handle it. But having someone else here, someone to comfort me… man, I had no idea how much I would need this.
I can feel him breathing, deep and even, and I start to match it, trying to breathe as slowly and deeply as he is to calm myself down. After a couple minutes, it starts to work.
“You nearly went over the edge.” Logan’s voice is rough. “Fuck, Rae, that was close.”
“I was trying to get to her.” I wasn’t really even aware of where I was. I was just trying to reach her. I would be dead too, possibly, if it wasn’t for Logan.
Maybe I would’ve had the impulse to turn into a bird and saved myself. It’s pretty instinctual by now to turn into a bird when I’m falling, thanks to all of my training at Griffin. But I definitely wasn’t in my right mind in that moment, so who knows?
“I know. I admire that. You wanted to help her. But you scared the shit out of me, Rae.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t apologize, I just…” He pulls away, his arms still around me. “I was just scared. That’s all.”
It feels like he’s trying to tell me something, but I’m not sure what. I’m not good at this, not good with people and understanding what they mean. I smile wanly, tilting my head to look up at him.
“Are you trying to say that you like me?” I murmur. “Is this your big confession?”
“Damn right it is.” Logan cracks a grin, and I feel a surge of relief that it was the right thing to say.
We both take a deep breath, then he glances back over the side of the building. I feel sick again just thinking about what he’s seeing.
“We need to talk to the landlord,” he says.
“We need to call Stone. This is serious.” The same kind of magical signature seems to have somehow existed in two different people, and I don’t think anyone was aware that was possible. It’s going to completely change how we look at magic, and if we’re not careful, we’re going to cause people to panic over Unpredictable magic all over again. That’s the last thing we need. We just got the magic using public to realize that Unpredictables aren’t inherently dangerous or going to hurt them.
Is this going to set all of that back? Public opinion is so changeable and fickle.
“You call Stone,” Logan suggests. “He likes you better.”
I don’t know if that’s true, but I don’t argue. “Okay. You talk to the landlord.”
Logan nods, and I walk away from the edge of the roof. We’re not supposed to call the director of IUM unless it’s a really, really big deal, but I’m pretty sure this qualifies.
I call Stone’s office phone and get the automated system, which asks me if it’s an emergency. I punch in the code and am forwarded to Stone’s secondary phone. It’s a pain in the neck, but it protects him from his workers bugging him on his cell phone all the time. You can only call this secondary phone if you get the automated system, and you only get the automated system after work hours, otherwise his secretary will pick up. And no
ne of us know his actual cell number, so we can’t call him directly.
The director of IUM answers after only two rings. “Stone here.”
“Hi, sir, it’s Raelyn Parker.” I clear my throat. “We have a bit of a situation here.”
I can feel the change in his demeanor over the phone line even before he speaks. His voice has a hard edge as he asks, “What is it?”
After I give him a basic rundown of everything on the phone, Stone has us meet him in his office. He’s wearing a suit, as always, but he looks like he kind of just threw it on in a hurry instead of looking as put together and ironed as he usually does.
“Parker informed me what happened,” he says to Logan as we enter, not bothering with any pleasantries. “But I want more details before we decide how to proceed on this.”
“We currently have a theory,” I say quickly. Logan and I discussed it on the way back to IUM after we dealt with the landlord and called the CSI team to pick up the body.
“We think we might have discovered a new kind of magic.”
Stone raises an eyebrow. “Elaborate.”
“Well… I mean, evolution is natural, sir. It’s been happening for as long as life has existed on this planet. According to scientists, humans are naturally taller than they were even just a century ago, for example. So why wouldn’t our magic evolve too?”
He nods thoughtfully. “You think this is something separate than Unpredictable magic. Something completely new.”
I nod. “Yes, exactly. And I think it’s more than people can handle. Ben said that it was a lot of power. More than any Unpredictable we’ve seen before. It could be… overloading people. Like how if you try to have too many programs running on a computer, or if you try to give a person too much stimulation—have them listen to music and watch a bunch of TV programs all at once—they can’t handle it.”
“But how are different people giving off the exact same magical signature?”