The Hunt

by Chloe Neill

  He looked back at me. “Do you see now?”

  There was something grave in his voice. Something sad, and something angry.

  “Do I see what?”

  “Your magic is neutral. Mine is furious.”

  His hands were fisted on his hips, his lean body still stiff.

  “During the battle, he hit me with a blast of magic.” He turned back, fingers against his chest like a cage. “I could feel it, sinking in. Affecting me. Changing me. It wasn’t just magic, Claire. It was Ezekiel’s magic.”

  Ezekiel had been the leader of Reveillon, a Sensitive who’d suppressed his own magic and been destroyed by it.

  I just looked at him, confused. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “When she was hit, Eleanor lost her vision, but gained her sight. The Para that hit her was a seer, and the weapon carried residual power.”

  I hadn’t known that—hadn’t even known it was possible that humans who gained power directly from Paras were affected by it that way.

  Did the magic make the Paranormal, or did the Paranormal color the magic?

  “And you think Ezekiel’s magic had some of him in it?”

  He turned back to me, gold churning in his eyes like a tempest. “I know that it did. It took a few seconds before I could move again, before I could do anything other than lie there, the magic like needles in my skin.”

  “I remember. I went to get Lizzie. You were gone when I got back.”

  He nodded. “I got to my feet, and it ravaged me, Claire. I had no power over it.” His gaze softened, like he was staring at a memory. “A Reveillon member was beside me, on his knees. He’d been hit by something—there was a knot on his head, and he was staring at the ground, totally dazed. And none of that mattered. Because I wanted to kill him. Before I knew it, my hands were wrapped around his neck, and I could feel Ezekiel’s fire in my skin, beneath my hands.”

  Liam stared down at his hands. He extended his fingers, then clenched them into fists, as if he could feel those flames and that power again.

  “It was a battle,” I said. My voice sounded quiet, far away. “He was trying to kill you. All of us. There’s no shame in wanting him dead, or in killing him. That’s just war.”

  “Not sitting there on the ground, only half aware of what was happening. But to the magic that didn’t matter.” He looked back at me.

  Something clenched in my stomach at the look in his eyes. It was feral.

  No, I realized. It was Paranormal. I knew only some of the basics of Paranormal biology, but I’d seen that primal hunger before—in the eyes of Paras who’d wanted to kill me and everyone else during the war.

  “I was so angry. So full of hate I could hardly see through it. It was a haze across my vision.” His eyes focused again, and he looked at me. “I held his life, quite literally, in my hands.”

  “You could use Ezekiel’s magic.” And it had been a sight—the hot fire that had burst from Ezekiel’s mouth. He could literally scream fire.

  Liam nodded.

  “And still, even though the Reveillon member tried to kill you, you didn’t kill him.”

  “I could have. I could have so easily done it. I could feel his pulse beneath my hands, and see that look of disgust in his eyes. Even dazed, he could see what I was. What I’d become. And when he realized what I could do, that disgust turned to fear. He pissed himself, sitting there, waiting to die.”

  He went quiet, the memory all but poisoning the air around us.

  “You chose not to kill him,” I insisted.

  “No, I managed not to kill him.” Liam walked toward me, held his thumb and forefinger a millimeter apart. “That’s the difference between life and death, Claire.”

  He paused, seemed to collect himself. “You’re worth too much to risk. So I removed myself from the situation. And I removed myself from New Orleans.”

  I stared at him. “You could have told me.”

  “How could I tell you that? That I could have taken that man’s life as easily as snapping my fingers? That I could have that kind of anger—and that kind of power—inside me? When I’m channeling Ezekiel?”

  “Ezekiel was a sociopath.”

  “And I’m not?”

  “No. He’d have done what he wanted and damn the consequences. You just tried to save my life, and yours. You could have killed those agents, but you didn’t.”

  “You could feel the anger?”

  I paused, decided there was no point in lying to him, and nodded.

  We didn’t know if someone had created the Veil or if it had grown organically between our world and the Beyond. If someone created it, maybe this was why. Maybe magic was too much for us—too much temptation, too much power, too much risk. Maybe we couldn’t be trusted with it any more than Paranormals could. If magic wasn’t the problem, who was good enough, strong enough, to wield it?

  Liam looked away, his features fierce, waging his own battle. “I couldn’t bring that to your door.”

  “You think I wouldn’t understand?” I stood up, faced him. “That magic is wonderful and terrible? That it makes you feel invincible—and totally vulnerable? Because I do.” I put a hand on my chest. “I do, Liam. I know it better than anyone else. Because, like you, I wasn’t born with it. I wasn’t used to it. It just was one day. And everything changed.

  “But even if you had to leave to deal with it to ensure you had control, that was weeks ago, Liam. You couldn’t send a message? You couldn’t take five minutes to let us know where you were, how you were?”

  He turned away, walked back to the gap in the bricks. “It took a long time to get myself ready,” he said. “To understand who I was. I had to know who I was before I put you at risk again. Erida helped me—helped me figure out what I could and couldn’t do. Helped me try to become myself again.” He took a step closer, and I didn’t move back. “You think I walked away from you, but I didn’t. I took myself away so I could keep you safe, so I could learn control.”

  I looked up into his eyes, saw the doubts that still flickered there. “And can you learn to live with what you are?”

  His jaw worked, chewing over words he couldn’t bring himself to say. “I don’t know. I care more about whether you can.”

  “I have magic. I’m an enemy of the state. I’ve killed. And a bounty hunter once dragged me into Devil’s Isle because he figured there was more to life than my becoming a prisoner to my magic.”

  Liam considered that for a moment. “I don’t recall dragging you.”

  He said it lightly, almost sarcastically. And it loosened some tight knot of tension between us.

  “It was mostly emotional,” I said, and watched him for a moment. Watched the battle rage in his eyes. And figured that taking this danger away from me was exactly the kind of thing Liam Quinn would do.

  “All right,” I said.

  His brows lifted. “All right what?”

  “All right, I accept your story.”

  “That’s good, because it’s true.” He swallowed, looked to be gathering up his own courage. “And the rest of it?”

  Us, he meant.

  “I guess I want you to tell me when you’re ready.”

  I walked toward him. Saw the heat flare in his eyes, hotter with each step I took. Then I held out a hand. “Envelope.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You’re cruel, Connolly.”

  I arched an eyebrow.

  “Fine.” He took the envelope from his shirt, offered it.

  “Thank you.”

  I removed the sheet of paper, found an invoice addressed to Javier Caval from a place called Henderson Scientific, which was based in Seattle.

  “An order for pipettes, a refractometer, polymerase, and other things I don’t understand.” I passed it to Liam. “This make any sense to you?”

  “It doesn’
t,” he said, looking it over. “I mean, not beyond the fact that it’s scientific equipment. Lab stuff.”

  The invoice’s memo line said the goods should be routed to Laura Blackwell, president of ADZ Logistics, and listed another address.

  “Javier Caval,” Liam said. “That name sounds familiar.”

  “From New Orleans? Containment?”

  “I’m not sure. But add him to the list of people we know are involved.”

  “What about Laura Blackwell?” I asked, and Liam shook his head.

  “Don’t know her,” Liam said.

  “So we think Broussard found this invoice. Saved it and hid it, because he thought it was a link in whatever chain he was trying to build. The person who killed him didn’t find it.”

  “They didn’t find the paper,” Liam agreed. “But that doesn’t mean Broussard didn’t go off half-cocked about whatever he’d found. That was his style.”

  “So what do we do?”

  He pointed to Caval’s address. “This place is closer. So we check it out.”

  I stared at him. “We just left two Containment agents unconscious. We need to get out of here.”

  “One person is already dead in my name,” he said quietly. “Did you want to stop looking when you found the gas station?”

  I’d been ready to aim a snarky retort in his direction. But I couldn’t argue with that. He was right. I’d pushed ahead, and he’d been there with me.

  “If they catch you, they won’t bother asking questions. Someone wants you to be the fall guy. I know you want to stop this. To fix it. But you can’t take chances like that.”

  “Everyone with magic takes chances. Just by existing here.”

  I looked at him for a long moment. “All right,” I said, rising. “We follow this through. But maybe work on controlling your magic.”

  A corner of his mouth lifted. “I’ll do my best.”

  All a girl could ask for.

  • • •

  We stood on the neutral ground across the street, looking at the house. It was a newer house by New Orleans standards, probably built after World War II, with white clapboard, a single dormer window beneath a high pitched roof. The deep porch was held up by square columns that narrowed as they rose to the roof. The steps in front were concrete, and no wood or paint had been wasted on decoration—or cleaning up the char marks that still stained the front and sides of the house. The front yard was dirt except for a few scraggly patches of grass.

  “I’ve been here before,” Liam said. “This is a Containment safe house.”

  “A safe house? For who?”

  “Humans who talk when they shouldn’t, Paras who help when they shouldn’t, the occasional controversial visitor. Because despite all the talk, Containment is politically pragmatic.”

  “But they’ll still bitch about Paranormals, paint them with the same brush?”

  “That just makes them human,” Liam said, the grimness in his voice matching the anger in mine.

  “This is another connection to Containment. To whatever’s happening here.”

  “Yeah,” Liam said, “I noticed that, too.”

  “How did you know it was a safe house?”

  “Had to park a bounty here three or four years ago. Yale graduate who decided he was going to tell the truth about Devil’s Isle conditions.”

  “You picked him up.”

  “And parked him here until the PCC could get him out of the Zone again. I think he was a well-meaning kid, but he figured throwing some money around New Orleans would get him special access, special treatment.” Liam smiled, crossed his arms. “He was incorrect.”

  That stirred a memory. “Was this in the summer? And the guy wore this dark Capitol Hill Windbreaker every day?”

  Liam looked surprised. “That was him. He come into the store?”

  “He did, actually. Came in to get MREs, tried to talk up some of the customers and agents about the prison.” I frowned, remembering. “How’d you know what he meant to do?”

  Liam’s smile went sly. “Because I’m good at my job.”

  “And as humble as your brother.”

  We were getting into a rhythm, having the kind of conversation we’d have had before he left. I’d missed that in the same way I’d missed talking with Gunnar and Tadji—I could be myself around all three of them, with no pretensions. Just comfortable in my own skin.

  Before we got too far afield, I looked back at the house. “Not much to look at.”

  “That’s the point of a safe house,” Liam said with a smile. “Nothing to look at means the house doesn’t raise anyone’s suspicions. If you were driving past, you wouldn’t bother to look twice at this place. That’s good op sec.”

  “Op sec?”

  “Operational security,” he said.

  “What are we likely to find in there?”

  “I’m not sure.” He cast a gimlet eye on the porch. “But the front door’s ajar. That doesn’t bode well for anyone using this place as a refuge.”

  He looked around and, gauging that the coast was clear, climbed the concrete steps.

  We stood quietly for a moment, waiting for movement or sound. And then Liam pushed the door open.

  The odor that emerged didn’t leave many questions about the fate of whoever was inside.

  I put my arm over my face, but there was no masking the scent—sweet and rotten and so horrifically strong. And I was suddenly seventeen again, standing in the house across the street from ours. There’d been a barrage of fighting the night before, and I’d wanted to check on the woman who lived there.

  Mrs. McClarty was a widow. Her husband died in the first attack on the city; her son had enlisted and had been killed in the Battle of Baton Rouge. She had two daughters, who she’d sent from the Zone to live with relatives before the border had been closed. Because she was alone, we kept an eye on her.

  “Mrs. McClarty?” I’d called, and when she didn’t answer after a couple of knocks—and when I couldn’t see anything through the lace curtain on the front window—I turned the knob and pushed open the door.

  It moved with a squeak and let out the thick scent of death. I should have walked away, but I couldn’t. I was too young, too curious.

  She sat at the kitchen table, her head on the linen tablecloth, arms at her sides. Her eyes were open and blankly staring. A half-drunk mug of coffee, coral lipstick staining the rim, sat in front of her.

  She hadn’t been killed in the battle the night before; her house hadn’t been shelled. She’d been killed by life even while war raged around her.

  To my mind back then, that was inspiring and sad. She’d survived the worst of the war, which was a kind of miracle. But she wouldn’t have known at that time, and her survival hadn’t been worth much in the end, because she still wound up like the rest of us would.

  When I’d walked back into our house, my father had stood in the living room with a peanut butter sandwich and an apple on a plate. “Lunch?” he’d asked.

  He must have seen the look on my face, because he’d dropped them both and run toward me. When I told him what I’d seen, he wrapped his arms around me.

  They’d carried her out a few hours later. Her daughters didn’t come back, and no one else took care of the house, so it began to die just like she had. The roof caved in, and the house fell in on itself. And as far as I was aware, that was the end of the McClartys’ presence in New Orleans.

  I couldn’t look at the house then, or think of it now, without experiencing that horribly ripe smell all over again.

  “Claire.”

  I blinked. Liam’s hand was on my arm, steadying me. “I’m all right. I’m okay.”

  “Flashback?”

  I nodded. “The smell.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. I think we’re probably too late to question anyone, but
I want to take a look. You can stay here if you need to.”

  I shook my head. “I’ll go.”

  I just wouldn’t breathe in while I did.

  It was a simple house with slightly shabby furnishings. A worn couch, comfy recliner, scratched dining room table. It was comfortable, and looked lived in and loved. Very different from the showiness of Broussard’s house.

  A man lay on his back on the floor of the rear bedroom. His body was swollen with death and heat, and the fluids he’d lost in death stained the floor beneath him. Blood and worse, from the gunshot wound in the middle of his forehead. And he wore Containment fatigues.

  “Murdered,” Liam said.

  He moved closer, crouched nearby.

  “His hands,” he said, and I glanced down. His palms, fingers bore streaky remnants of what I guessed was blood, but it hadn’t come from his body. There was no blood anywhere else on him, and the blood on the floor hadn’t been disturbed.

  Where else might a man have gotten blood under his fingernails?

  “He killed Broussard,” I said quietly. “Or put Gracie’s name on the wall.”

  “Seems to be a distinct possibility,” Liam said.

  I held my breath as I walked closer, careful not to step in anything and disturb evidence, or leave a mark that anyone could trace back to me. J. CAVAL was embroidered in gold thread on his pocket flap.

  “We found Caval,” I said, through the sleeve I was holding over my mouth.

  Another wave of odor hit me, and I could feel my gorge rising. “Outside,” I said, and didn’t wait for him to follow. I dashed to the door, made it to the front porch, and lost what little I’d eaten that morning.

  He gave me a moment, then came out, offered his handkerchief in silence.

  “Sorry,” I said, wiping my mouth and wishing for a tankard of ice water. “Got to me.”

  “Take your time.” He put a hand at my back. We stood there for a few minutes, and I rested my forehead on the porch banister while he rubbed my back in slow, soothing circles.

  “It’s not the smell per se. Not exactly. It just . . . reminds me.”

  Liam nodded. “The war?”

  I nodded. “Neighbor. I found her.”