The door to the cafe swung open and I glanced up, not surprised at all to see Star walk into the cafe, attired in a casual outfit of denim trousers and a white button-down blouse under a leather jacket dyed a deep nightshade purple. I did my best to keep from calling attention to either of us while she calmly ordered a cafe au lait and waited near the counter until her drink was finished.
Star sat down across from me and sipped at her coffee. “Don't use it.”
My head tilted to one side and I gave Star a quizzical look.
“Don't use my code name. Call me Meilin.”
I blinked in surprise. For nearly a year I'd known this woman as Star, to the point where I no longer considered it to be a code name. With the restrictions placed upon us by AEGIS, I never expected to learn her real name, but I wasn't surprised that she no longer wanted me to use it. It didn't take much to recognize just how betrayed she felt—I could feel it in her sense, in the way she carried herself.
“They were wrong about me,” I began, keeping my voice low and conversational, trying to avoid using specific terms that would identify either AEGIS or Karin. My companion nodded as if she'd expected this.
“I knew it. I knew he was wrong when he said it. Maybe you're barely holding it together, but you aren't going to just fade away tomorrow.”
My eyes narrowed. “You didn't volunteer that information.”
“I don't owe them anything.” Meilin's voice was sharp but not accusatory. “Not after what they did. Not after forcing me to betray you two and everything I know is right.”
“I'm sure I don't need to tell you how dangerous this is going to be.”
Meilin's expression didn't budge. Her eyes were sharp and determined as she sipped at her coffee with her usual elegant poise and grace. I understood how she felt; her principles had been badly shaken when AEGIS ordered her to step aside. It wasn't visible outwardly, but I knew that guilt had to be gnawing away at Meilin's mind over Karin's fate.
I looked into her eyes and nodded. “Okay. What do we do, then?”
“The two of us alone, without any support or equipment? And with you in a severely weakened state? There's little we can do on our own—”
“I don't believe that,” I cut in, feeling my tail lash involuntarily between my legs. “There has to be something we can do.”
“I didn't say we couldn't do anything. I said we can't do anything alone. We're going to need allies if there's to be any hope at all, and I have an idea where we can try and find some help.”
Disbelief spread across my face. “Who would be willing to help us?”
“There is a group who would be willing to help us, so long as we make it worth their while. I've worked with them in the past. At the very least, they've always been honorable in their dealings and have never once called darkness into the world.”
My eyes widened almost imperceptibly as I recognized the group Meilin spoke of. In ancient times, they were known as the Order of the Moon, a non-familial alliance of mages who dedicated their lives to archiving and preserving magical knowledge. While I wouldn't say they were especially heroic—the Order had their own agenda, of course—what Meilin said was true. The Order was the only major arcane house who categorically refused to summon specters for any purpose.
“They have no connection or loyalty to the agency?” I inquired, trying to keep any disbelief from creeping into my voice.
“None,” Meilin assured me. “The agency itself makes a point to avoid working directly with any such organizations, as it exists in opposition to most of them. I have… a personal contact within the group.”
I kept my expression neutral and wondered exactly what she meant. I could detect a faint increase in the heat rising from Meilin's cheeks and forehead, but the sharp look in her eyes didn't change.
“What assistance can we expect from them?”
“At the very least, a safe place from which to plan our next move.” Meilin took a sip from her cafe au lait, casually glancing around the coffee shop. I knew she was constantly remaining on the alert in case she'd been followed. If we wanted any chance at all to succeed, we had to make absolutely sure AEGIS kept operating on the assumption that I was doomed.
“Once we act, the agency will know the situation has changed,” she continued, ceasing her subtle visual scan of the cafe and looking me directly in the eyes. “We're going to need these allies if we want to save her and make it out of this alive.”
I swallowed hard. Meilin's tone was grim enough to indicate that she'd witnessed such brutal methods first-hand. Part of me wondered whether she actively participated, but that part was quickly silenced. Star's—no, Meilin's—convictions were strong. More than likely she was kept out of direct involvement in such things as much as possible to maintain her loyalty to the agency.
“There's one thing I still can't figure out,” I murmured, half to myself. Meilin arched one delicate eyebrow curiously. “What is the point of all of this? What is the agency trying to do? There has to be more to it than we were originally told when we first signed on.”
Meilin sighed and set her cup down. “You already know the agency operates on a cell structure: no one group knows exactly what the others are doing. You'd have to go all the way up to the top.”
“Of course, those people are hidden beneath cloaks of anonymity,” I added. “I think it's safe to assume that much of what we were told—”
“Is a load of bullshit.” Meilin's eyes narrowed dangerously. “We shouldn't discuss this too much in public. I'm reasonably sure I lost them, but those bastards in black have been keeping a close watch on me since yesterday.”
My expression went rigid. As if the universe had conspired to prove Meilin wrong, I felt a familiar sensation as tiny motes of loose mana were scattered gently. The random, chaotic nature of the deflections told me we weren't dealing with mages altering the flow of the loose mana, but people equipped with quintessence-containing Spell Engines.
“I can sense deflections,” I warned her. “They weren't fooled.”
Meilin's expression darkened. “Damn it, I thought I was being careful. I altered my route here more than enough that nobody should have been able to follow—”
“If they didn't know you were with me already, it's not going to take them long to figure out.” I stood up and took my empty teacup to the dish basin and retrieved a few napkins, nonchalantly wiping my mouth and doing my best to appear like any other customer. The door to the right, near the restroom, led outside into the alley and was left unlocked so vendors making deliveries could enter without having to go all the way around.
Meilin grabbed my arm. “You're going to slip out back and leave me here?”
“You have a better idea? If they find you with me, they're going to report back and we're going to be in a lot more trouble. If we both go, their suspicions will be raised and they'll place even tighter surveillance around you.”
“Yes, I have a better idea.” Her eyes hardened. “We take them by surprise, take them out before they can report to anyone.”
My expression became dubious. “Corpses aren't going to help us much, either.”
“We can't maintain the status quo any longer. It's inevitable that the agency will find some way to remove me from consideration if I don't act fast. We have to make sure that they don't find out that you're not dying.”
“I may be severely weakened, but I should still be able to wipe their memories,” I argued, not particularly happy about any plan that involved creating more human corpses than was absolutely necessary.
Her lips compressed into a thin, impatient line as she shook her head. “No. We can't leave any evidence that you were here. Besides, these aren't my people nor are they any of the hunters you've ever worked with. They don't play nice—if we don't match their resolve, we're done for.”
I didn't bother to argue any further. She was right; just knocking them out wouldn't buy us much time at all. Eliminating them permanently would give us a much wider windo
w of opportunity. I tried to quiet my conscience down by reminding myself that they wouldn't hesitate to kill us both if they caught us. This was about survival—ours and Karin's.
I felt something cold and metal pressed into my palm—a solidly-built folding knife with an eleven-centimeter blade. I flicked the knife open and glanced over at Meilin. She flattened herself against the wall nearest the door leading to the alley.
“They're right outside,” I whispered, keeping my voice as low as possible. “I can feel the deflected motes of mana.”
“How many?”
“Two.” I closed my eyes and felt my ears twitch beneath the hat that hid them. “Only two. They don't have anyone covering the front door.”
Meilin's lips twisted into a grimace. “Trying to keep out of sight. Even if we changed plans and ran out the front, they'd be able to follow us no problem. They're covering the alley because it's the only way we can slip away unnoticed.”
I flipped the fighting knife over in my hand, swapping the position and settling into a point-down grip that would give considerable stabbing power in exchange for reach. Charging into battle without my magic didn't exactly fill me with confidence, but I had trained extensively with short blades, many years ago.
“I'm ready.”
Meilin eased the door open and we slipped through. Clad in black suits with the telltale bulk of armored vests beneath their button-down shirts, I instantly knew Meilin had been right—these were not AEGIS spirit hunters. Their compact automatic pistols bore the long, slender tube of a suppressor and a small cloth pouch fitted around the weapon's ejection port to catch any spent brass.
They were not observers sent to monitor Meilin's movements, but rather assassins tasked with quietly removing her from consideration.
Lips curling into a snarl that bared my fangs, I called spell-flame into existence around my free hand. The magical fire was a native part of my spiritual aspect and thus required very little mana to maintain. I shaped the flames into a whip and struck out with the fiery tendril, mentally commanding the magic to ensnare without burning.
My opponent cried out in shock and raised his pistol, trying to get a clear shot at me, but I bent the flame-whip to my will and sent him flying through the air with tremendous force to crash into his companion. The two went down in a heap, but I knew that wouldn't stop them for very long.
Meilin and I charged forward as one, taking advantage of the momentary confusion. The soldier I grabbed and used as a bludgeon was already getting back up. The odd ring of suppressed gunshots echoed in my ear as he fired at me, but I mentally yanked on the fiery tendril, dumping him on his rear and foiling his aim. Bits of masonry rained down on me as the bullets struck the building behind us.
The second assassin, the one I'd knocked over with his partner, back-stepped a meter, trying to put more distance between himself and the battle, but Meilin was faster. The prim and proper woman who spent most of her working hours behind a computer was quite a competent warrior. She dropped low and lashed out with her foot, catching the man behind the knee.
More gunshots told me that I needed to focus on my own opponent. I whipped the tendril of fire around and encircled the man's gun arm, twisting it harmlessly out of the way as I closed the distance between us. For the first time I was able to appreciate just how big my opponent really was. In an honest melee, this man would have utterly destroyed me.
Unfortunately for him, I was more than willing to fight dirty. He ignored the temporary loss of his gun arm and lashed out with his left foot, attempting to plant his heavy boot in my stomach and knock the wind from me. My eyes hardened as I slung the middle section of the spell-flame tendril around and caught his leg in the loop.
I didn't hesitate. The silvery blade flashed out, slashing against the assassin's unprotected throat. The concealed armored vest he wore was designed to protect against firearms over bladed weapons and I took full advantage of my ability to restrict his movements. Blood spurted from the terrible wound, nearly hitting me with the spray as I manipulated the tendril of magic to toss his body away.
The dying man gasped as I refocused the spell-flame to burn the blood from my knife before I flipped it closed. Slashing the throat was a slow and messy way to kill someone, but without the luxury of being able to burn him, I had little choice.
I turned and watched as Meilin dragged the body of the other assassin, dumping the dead man next to his partner. I studied the dead man, noticing how his head and neck lolled at an unnatural angle.
“How did you do that?”
Meilin smiled grimly. “He shouldn't have let me knock him over. I got my legs around his head in the grapple and it was over.”
“What do we do about the bodies?”
“Leave them where they can be seen,” Meilin muttered, kneeling down near the man she'd killed. “If the police come, find these two and their guns, the agency will have to deal with it, spin some kind of cover story. It'll buy us a little more time.”
The former AEGIS controller peeled back a hidden panel in the assassin's glove, revealing the familiar metallic core of a Spell Engine. Fitting the pilfered device over her left hand, she flexed her fingers and adjusted the fit. “Perfect, it's been fitted with a fresh cartridge. Now I feel a little less helpless.”
“We don't have much time before they realize your pursuers haven't checked in,” I reminded her. “Let's get out of here before someone sees us.”
recollections
Though we were forced to leave her car behind, Meilin took over driving duties. In addition to having a legal license to drive, she'd spent many hours training in hazardous-situation driving techniques. If we were followed or came under attack in transit, her proficiency could make the difference between making it out alive or not.
That left me in the passenger seat, staring out the window idly as we made our way south, crossing over the state line into California. Our destination was located somewhere in the mountainous region in the extreme northeastern part of the state, hidden within a densely-forested area at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountain range.
I threw a glance at Meilin. “Do they know we're coming?”
“The agency has all of my personal communications monitored, but I think I got a message off to my contact through a public terminal. I just hope they figure out the code I used.”
“I trust they won't shoot first and ask questions later.” I reached into the pocket of my borrowed jacket—like the skirt and hat I wore, they were Nicole's—and pulled out a small bag of sour strawberry-flavored candies. I placed one of the tangy sweets in my mouth and chewed thoughtfully. These were Karin's favorite.
No, they are her favorite, I told myself. She's absolutely still alive.
“So,” I said to Meilin, trying to distract myself from thinking about Karin, “who is this contact of yours in Luna? You glossed over that earlier in the cafe. Was that because you were worried about anyone listening in?”
Meilin's cheeks flushed almost imperceptibly, but the increase in heat could not be missed by a spirit with the aspect of flame. Clearly she was just embarrassed, not worried about a potential leak of information.
“My contact in Luna and I have a… history,” she said at length. It was obvious that she was uncomfortable talking about it and I turned away.
“If you don't want to talk about it—”
Meilin took a deep breath. “No. It's important that you know.”
I didn't say anything, but my ears flicked curiously, the concealing hat sitting in my lap. Meilin sighed and turned back toward the road. I could tell she was trying very hard to find the right words.
“She's my sister,” Meilin murmured, almost too quiet for me to hear. “Half-sister. The daughter of my birth mother. We haven't really spoken much in over a decade. I guess you could say we're estranged.”
I blinked. “You were adopted?”
“Yes… well, it's complicated.” Meilin took another steadying breath, keeping her eyes locked on the ro
ad. “My biological father was a wealthy businessman from Beijing with a very… loose definition of marital fidelity. That's the most I've ever been able to discover about him.”
“I'm sorry,” I murmured, and I meant it. Such personal connections had become very important to me in the months since I became a member of the Ashley family. As an intelligence called into being through magic, I had no parents nor siblings.
Meilin favored me with a reassuring smile. “I appreciate that. My birth mother was an American citizen, a simple clerk working for the same company. Somehow she ended up having an affair with one of the company's chief officers. When she became pregnant, the whole mess just broke apart. My sire demanded that she terminate the pregnancy to avoid a potential scandal, but her parents threatened to disown her if she were to seek an abortion.”
My ears drooped fractionally, but I couldn't think of anything to add. The situation was indeed very complex, with conflicting beliefs and traditions clashing head-on amidst a series of poor decisions by everyone involved.
“Despite my birth father's threats, she carried me to term and placed me up for adoption. I was adopted by a wonderful second-generation Chinese couple before I was even a year old. My parents never tried to hide it from me. I always knew I was adopted and when I was a teenager, my parents told me what little they knew of my biological mother and father. I had little interest in reconnecting with my sire, but my birth mother was a different story.”
“You started looking for her?”
“Not until later, when I was already an adult and had the resources. I couldn't ask my parents to help me find her. I didn't want them to feel in any way inadequate as my caretakers.”
Meilin was silent for a long moment as she maneuvered Karin's car around a sharp curve, slipping through the light traffic while maintaining speed. Not wanting to push her further, I simply waited for her to continue.
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