YOU ARE SACRED.
Kip’s words drifted through his mind, but after a moment’s pondering, he shook his head. He didn’t have time to meditate on crazy cat wisdom at the moment.
“Anyway,” he continued, forging on despite Mallory’s silence. “All that to say, you’re right. I’ve messed up, I’ve got problems, and I don’t have much going for me right now. But none of that matters, because a knight who loses his armor doesn’t quit, he goes and finds new armor.”
“What?” Mallory said, brow wrinkling, no doubt at the ridiculousness of his statement. It was the first honest show of emotion he’d ever seen her let slip.
“Er, never mind. The point is...” Sebastian paused and took a deep breath. “What I’ve been or done in the past doesn’t matter. What matters is what I do—what you do—right now. That’s all I care about.”
Silence.
“And all Lily has ever cared about,” he added in an awestruck voice, forgetting all about Mallory. The sudden realization made so many things click into place. Was that why she kept sticking around when she should have run far and fast in the opposite direction? Was that why she was always fussing at him to do better? Not because he wasn’t good enough, but because she believed in what he could become?
Amazing what a little cat wisdom and creative perspective could do for you.
Groaning internally, Sebastian rubbed his face with one hand. While he’d been hung up on his past, Lily had been looking to the future. It was something he’d always avoided thinking about—as if to plan for a future without his parents in it would be admitting it was okay they were gone. But it had been ten years...ten years of perpetually existing in the present...stupid, stupid, stupid—
“She’s a fool.”
Sebastian’s head came up and he met Mallory’s eyes. Her gaze held contempt but also...regret?
“I’ve always thought so too,” he murmured, wondering if Mallory, like him, sometimes wished she had more of Lily’s brand of foolishness.
“And still, you would die for her? Because that is what you face by defying my father.”
Sebastian nodded. “Multiple times, if necessary.”
“Then you’re twice the fool,” Mallory said, but there was no conviction in her voice.
“Maybe, but it’s my choice. You, on the other hand, are being paid handsomely for your trouble, so you are going to let me help you and we’re going to get this done ASAP.”
Mallory raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really?”
“Yup, and…” He took a deep breath. What was it that Lily always said? In for a penny, in for a pound? “And you’re going to teach me how to fight.”
A flicker of annoyance showed in Mallory’s face. “We don’t have time—”
“I don’t mean right this instant,” Sebastian cut off her protest, relieved that the first words out of her mouth hadn’t been no or prepare to die. “What I mean is, as time permits, stop complaining about how you think I’m useless and teach me how not to be. That way you’ll have a better chance of getting the other half of my payment, because I definitely won’t be paying you if I’m dead.”
Mallory’s eyes narrowed, and she stared at Sebastian in silence, perhaps trying to intimidate him into backing down. Of course, if she’d really wanted to shut him up she could have tossed him from the room without breaking a sweat. And the fact that she hadn’t yet…
“I’m not some stupid martial arts instructor,” she bit out.
Also, not a no, Sebastian observed. “I never said you were—though you would look adorable in one of those little uniforms,” he said thoughtfully, feeling a glow of satisfaction at the spark of anger in her eyes. Pushing people’s buttons seemed to be his greatest gift. It was nice to know he hadn’t lost that talent, at least. “But if you did teach me, it would give you a rather convenient excuse to thoroughly punish me for all the annoying things I say…”
He let the sentence dangle and waited, watching the flickers in Mallory’s eyes as she calculated and weighed her response in that motionless-as-stone way of hers. She was still only about as emotionally expressive as a pet rock, but he was getting better at reading her.
“It’ll cost you extra.”
Sebastian sighed. Apparently hoping Mallory would beat him up for free had been a waste of time. “I’m sure we can work something out.”
Crossing her arms, Mallory leaned back in her chair and considered him. The flickers behind her gaze had gone still and silent as an underground lake, and Sebastian couldn’t even begin to guess what she was thinking.
“Fine,” she finally said, her tone brisk. “You can start your training by cleaning up this apartment.”
“What? No! That has nothing to do with—”
“Every inch, from top to bottom. Don’t talk to me again until it’s done.”
“But—”
This time he knew exactly what the look in her eyes meant, and, cursing under his breath, he beat a hasty retreat from the bedroom.
Back in the living room, he shoved his hands in his pockets and took stock of everything that had happened in the last hour.
It wasn’t good.
But it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, either.
He had avoided being consumed by despair, had made several important realizations, had talked a deadly fighter into training him, and still had all of his limbs intact. Plus, by the sound of clacking keys in the other room, Mallory was still hard at work. There was nothing else constructive he could do to help her at that exact moment, so...
Taking a look around the room, he felt a tinge of panic creep into his chest. Clean up? The entire apartment? The last time he had done that—okay, the last time he had helped Lily do that, under pain of being eternally cut off from delicious scones—the task had taken them multiple days. There was no way he could possibly—
A meow cut into his frantic thoughts. Looking up, he spotted Sir Kipling on top of his lone bookshelf. The cat was sitting in the exact same spot as he had occupied the time Lily had forced her mandatory cleansing, almost as if he knew…
“No,” Sebastian said, glaring at the cat.
Sir Kipling only blinked slowly, looking smug.
“I’m no good at cleaning! It would take me days, and we don’t have time. It has nothing to do with training to fight, anyway, and I—” He stopped. Sir Kipling’s eyes had closed, and he looked well on his way to a nap.
“Blasted cat,” he grumbled, and followed it with some choice maledictions at Mallory—all of which he said very quietly while kicking discarded cans to cover his words. He knew exactly what Sir Kipling had been saying as clearly as if the cat had spoken English.
Lily would approve.
Sebastian stared glumly at the floor. Without the fae around anymore he didn’t have a good excuse for not cleaning up. They tended to make copious amounts of mess and his “live and let lie” solution had been far less trouble than constantly cleaning up after them. Besides, the mess now wasn’t as bad as when he and Lily had tackled it before. At least, there wasn’t algae growing in his sink. Oh, and he’d kept his promise to take out the trash regularly—once a month was regular, it was Lily’s fault for not specifying how regular.
With a sigh, he straightened his shoulders and put some steel into his spine. He would do this for Lily, not for Miss Grumpy McGrumperstein. To fortify himself, he imagined how delighted Lily would be when she saw his sparkling clean—all right, maybe just not horrendously dirty—apartment. Then he marched off to find some garbage bags and get started.
4
The Italian Job
It was past midnight by the time he finally finished. The apartment wasn’t spotless by any means—all its years of housing low-income smokers, drug addicts, and small children with crayons had seen to that—but it was the best Mallory was going to get. Sometime a few hours ago, a delivery man had dropped off Chinese takeout, which Sebastian had dutifully not snacked on, not even a single fortune cookie, even though his poor stomach grum
bled loudly as he carried the bag to the bedroom. He also hadn’t asked to use Mallory’s phone again. If she wanted to play the “tough it out” game, that was fine by him. He probably deserved it anyway. The thought of eating hot food in comfort and safety while Lily was enduring who-knew-what made him sick to his stomach anyway.
He was just considering whether he should inform his new “taskmaster” that her challenge had been completed when the door to his bedroom opened and Mallory beckoned him inside. Trying not to feel annoyed about being summoned into his own bedroom, he obeyed, and entered to find Mallory hunched over her laptop once more with—he did a double take. When had Sir Kipling snuck into the bedroom? Sebastian couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen the cat, but now here Kip was, sitting on the back of Mallory’s—no, his—desk chair with the most disgustingly pleased smirk on his fuzzy face.
So much for solidarity between old war buddies. Stupid cat.
As if the feline had heard his thoughts, Sir Kipling turned his head and fixed Sebastian with a lazy, half-lidded stare. Sebastian glared back and was about to pantomime something rude when Mallory swung the chair around to face him.
“I’ve hit a wall.”
“Literally, or figuratively? Because if it was literal I really hope someone took a video.” The quip was out of his mouth before common sense could stop it, but he at least had the self-control to suppress the lopsided grin that tried to spread across his face. Mallory’s eyes narrowed fractionally, and Sebastian—not wanting to give her time to decide what part of his body to break—raised a placating hand. “Sorry, sorry. It’s habit. I promise I’ll be serious...mostly.”
She remained still for a handful of breaths, her black eyes reflecting the light of the laptop screen on the desk. Sebastian shifted his weight as a trickle of uncertainty dampened his urge to grin. He wished she wouldn’t do the stone thing. What was she thinking?
Finally, she seemed to decide he’d had enough of her stare, because she began speaking again, her voice just as deadpan as before. “I’ve been trying to track my father through his aliases. I thought I knew all of them, but I haven’t found recent activity in any of his accounts, so he must have another pseudonym I never knew about.”
“Wait, tracking how?” Sebastian asked, wondering if it was something he could pass on for Aunt B to use in her own search. He drifted over to his bed and sat, listening with interest as Mallory elaborated.
“Credit card accounts, mostly. My father’s greatest weakness is that he doesn’t appreciate the complexity and power of mundane technology, specifically the internet. He lives among them and operates within their spheres of influence, which leaves an online footprint that can be tracked if you know your way around computers. I’ve seen him use magic to remove his scent and physical evidence from a scene, but I don’t think any wizard has created a spell that can influence the internet.”
“Huh, yeah. I’ve always wondered about that. From what I’ve picked up hanging around Lily, I’d say magic and the internet are two very different forms of technology that don’t mesh well. Besides, she’s always going on about how inventing new spells is really dangerous. Even if it wasn’t, there isn’t exactly a cadre of up-and-coming geek wizards waiting in the wings. I don’t think there are many wizards left at all, and most of them are getting pretty old.”
Mallory’s nostrils flared and her voice was dark as she said, “A fact my father frequently lamented.”
“Um, right.” Sebastian cast about for a change of subject that would get rid of the murderous look in Mallory’s eyes. “So, credit cards? Did you steal your dad’s account information or something? Couldn’t we use it to figure out if he has a forwarding address or contact number we could trace?”
“I don’t need his account information to track him. I’ve been teaching myself computer hacking since I—since last September,” she said, changing tack mid-sentence. Sebastian wondered what she’d been about to say. “But it wouldn’t matter anyway. His aliases are completely dormant, and the only contact information associated with them are leads I’ve already eliminated.”
Sebastian made a face and stared at the laptop while he thought, keeping watch on Mallory out of the corner of his eye. She was very good at hiding her emotions, but there were little slip-ups here and there. It seemed as if her guard wasn’t as tight as before. Whether that was caused by simple weariness, or some other factor, Sebastian had no idea.
“Hacking, huh?” he finally said. “I’ve dabbled myself, but I can’t say I’m that good. My computers keep going on the fritz. So, have you tried checking out his parents—your grandparents? Henry and, hmm, what was her name...Ursula, that’s it. Henry and Ursula LeFay? We thought Ursula might still have a soft spot for her little boy, but we couldn’t find evidence of any way she was helping him.”
Mallory’s jaw had tightened at the mention of her grandparents, and she didn’t look directly at Sebastian as she replied. “I checked. There’s nothing.” There was a heavy pause, then Mallory abruptly changed the subject. “You helped the FBI track him once. What did you find?”
Squashing his curiosity about Mallory’s past, Sebastian scrunched his lips to one side in a thoughtful expression and consulted his memories. They didn’t do him much good, especially since his recollection of that unpleasant episode was dominated by a simmering anger that clouded his thoughts. Had Richard been stringing the FBI along that entire time? Would he have ever turned in John Faust if Lily and Sebastian hadn’t forced his hand?
As patient as a predator on the hunt, Mallory waited in motionless, watchful silence as Sebastian tried to come up with something useful to say.
“The only alias we ran across was Rex Morganson,” he finally offered, shrugging. “There were a number of criminal organizations he dealt with, though. Maybe one of them knew him by something else?” Sebastian rattled off a few names, but Mallory shook her head.
“I’m familiar with them. I was involved as a bodyguard in those dealings, and they all knew him as Morganson.”
“Okay, what about other criminals, then? Suppliers? Professional services? Was there anyone else he dealt with who knew him by a different name?”
Mallory’s gaze remained fixed on him while she thought, her eyes still sharp even as they seemed to look through him and into her past. “There was one name…” she finally murmured, almost to herself. “I heard it once, but I don’t think I was supposed to…”
“Yes?” Sebastian prompted when she trailed off into silence.
Her gaze snapped back to him and her eyes lost their faraway look. “Blackwood.”
“Uhhhh, you mean Blackwell?” he asked, a faint chill tingling across his skin.
“No. Blackwood.”
“Oh...are you sure? Maybe you just misheard it.”
“I don’t ‘mishear’ things,” she snapped.
“Okay, okay,” Sebastian said, throwing up his hands in surrender. Silence fell between them. Sebastian crossed his arms and hunched his shoulders, suddenly in a dark mood with no idea why. The fleeting relief he had felt when Mallory insisted she’d heard “Blackwood” was quickly turning to suspicion. It could be a coincidence that an evil wizard who knew more about Sebastian’s past than he himself did just so happened to use an alias uncomfortably similar to Blackwell. Sort of like the coincidence of Roger showing back up in his life, or Agent Scumbag being the one picked to investigate Lily in connection to Pitts and that incident at the Emory museum last summer. Maybe it was all just one huge coincidence.
Yeah, and maybe Lily was secretly a coffee-drinking dog person.
Movement caught his eye and he watched as Sir Kipling rose, stretched, then dropped down off the back of the desk chair and sauntered over. The cat crouched at the foot of the bed, eyeing Sebastian for a moment before hopping up onto the covers. He paused there to lift a paw and lick it vigorously, as if proceeding directly to his objective—obviously Sebastian’s lap—was against the Rules of Being a Cat. Finally, having fulfilled his
obligatory show of disinterest, Sir Kipling oozed onto Sebastian’s legs and gave them a thorough kneading before settling down into a puddle of purring contentment.
“Several years ago, my father took me to a meeting with one of his Atlanta associates,” Mallory said, businesslike and to the point like she hadn’t just been completely enthralled in Sir Kipling’s byplay. “At that point, my father had only just begun taking me with him on such trips, and my job was simply to observe. My upbringing was...sheltered,” she continued, not meeting Sebastian’s eyes, “so Father wanted me to learn how to ‘interact with other mundanes,’ as he put it, before I took on my full duties.”
Sebastian wondered what those full duties were—Bodyguard? Thief? Assassin?—but kept his mouth shut as Mallory continued.
“My father didn’t tell me much about the meeting or his contact, but he did wear a...a disguise. I don’t know what wizards call it, or if most wizards can even do it. I never had much of anyone to compare my father to, but I’ve gotten the impression he was much more powerful and skilled than other wizards. The disguise was a particular suit coat he would wear whenever he didn’t want to be recognized as John Faust LeFay. Once he put it on, his facial features would change and his voice would sound different, though I don’t know if that was because of the spell or just good acting on his part.”
Mallory’s words made Sebastian’s lips flatten into a grim line. Based on her information, it was small wonder John Faust had given the FBI such a runaround. It had been months since he and Lily had last faced John Faust, and with Roger and the demons so fresh on his mind, Sebastian had forgotten about the ominous cloud of fear that had hung over them since last fall. Roger and the evil thing inside him were terrifying, but they were a known threat, and their tactics were always the same. John Faust, however, was unpredictable, and even more frightening because of it—Sebastian had no idea what the wizard was truly capable of. Without magic of his own, he could pass John Faust on the street and never know it was him. Sebastian suppressed a shiver at the thought.
Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus Identity Page 12