The Hunt

by Chloe Neill

  “It was just a snapshot, what I saw. But there was something really, I guess, absent about it.”

  “She has a mission.”

  I looked at Liam and said, “Yeah, but not based on some moral code. I don’t think she cares about Paras or humans, for that matter. She has a task, and she’s not going to stop until she gets it done.”

  “And you add in Lorenzo Caval,” Liam said, “who hates Paras because of his mother’s death.”

  “Yeah. Now add those together—single-minded scientific focus and Paranormal bloodlust.”

  “And you get murder,” Moses said.

  “Yeah.” I paused. “She was at Talisheek, when Nix tried to open the Veil.”

  “I thought about that,” Liam said.

  “Maybe she wanted to sneak in a sample,” Darby said. “Was hoping for an early test of the aerosolized virus.”

  I nodded in agreement.

  “If she does this,” Darby said—“infects the Beyond, and kills all those people—it’s my fault.”

  “It’s not,” Malachi said. “Claire’s right—the context does matter. This device wasn’t created for murder. It was created for curiosity—for the basic human instinct to learn. She’s warping that, corrupting it.”

  “We have to do something,” Darby said. “We have to tell someone, or—”

  There was a knock at Moses’s door.

  Gavin checked the peephole. “Gunnar,” he said, and opened the door.

  This time, Gunnar was alone. He wore fatigues, his service weapon belted at his waist. And he didn’t look injured, which meant he hadn’t been hurt during the raid on the ADZ building.

  That was a little more weight off my chest.

  “What did you find?” Darby asked, jumping to her feet.

  “Not a damn thing. ADZ was cleared out completely. A couple of desks, a couple of refrigeration units that couldn’t be hauled away quickly or easily. That was it.”

  There was a lot of swearing, including a few more attempts at Cajun.

  “How’d they move so fast?” Liam asked.

  “Could be your visit yesterday scared them off,” Gunnar said. “Could be Lorenzo Caval has contacts in Containment, and we’ve got a leak. Probably heard about the warrant, or about the op, and made his move.”

  “Rachel?” Malachi asked.

  Gunnar barely managed to hide a smile. “She’s fine. I’ll tell her you asked.”

  Malachi didn’t look thrilled about that, but he didn’t object.

  Gunnar’s gaze fell on the plate of cookies. “Chocolate chip?”

  “Yeah,” Darby said. But the excitement had gone out of her voice. “Help yourself.”

  “Thanks. I’m starving.”

  “Broussard set all this in motion,” Gunnar said. “Found the file, figured out at least some of the rest of it. They probably figured they were nearing the beginning of the end.”

  “And speaking of endings,” Moses said, “we think Blackwell’s written a really shitty one.”

  “Brace yourself,” Gavin recommended, and Gunnar stuffed the rest of the cookie into his mouth.

  “Go,” he murmured over it.

  “PCC Research built a window into the Veil once upon a time,” I said. “Pretty good chance that’s now in Blackwell’s hands, and she’s going to try to deploy the virus there.”

  Gunnar choked, coughed, and wasn’t helped by Gavin’s slap on the back.

  “And how do we know that?” Gunnar wheezed, and we walked him through the details.

  “The decharger was just delivered today,” Darby said. “If it was in a storage facility in the Marigny, it hasn’t been maintained. It’s going to need work. Maybe substantial work.”

  If nothing else, Laura Blackwell seemed to be a planner. I glanced at Gunnar. “What did Caval do for Containment?”

  “Electrical engineer. Worked on the generators.”

  Of course he was, and of course he did.

  “Damn it,” Darby muttered. “Damn it all right to hell.”

  “If she’s going to deploy it through the Veil, she’s going to have to get to the Veil.”

  But the Veil, which ran like a fault line along the ninetieth line of longitude, was thousands of miles long.

  “We need to identify her target location,” Liam said. “Talisheek?”

  That was where the Veil had opened the first time, and where defense contractors had nearly opened it again last year.

  “It’s guarded now,” Gunnar said.

  “She’s a scientist,” I said. “She’ll want to put the virus through in the most, I guess, efficacious place. The place with the highest chance of success.” I looked at Malachi, my stomach sinking with a horrible realization. “In the Beyond, does the Veil pass through any large cities? Population hubs?”

  A shadow passed over his eyes when he figured out what I was suggesting. “You think she’ll equate success and Paranormal deaths.”

  “I think they both might.” And I wished I could apologize for her, wished that might have meant something. I wished there was a connection between Laura Blackwell and me other than a slim biological thread—something I could use to keep her from doing this horrible, horrible thing.

  “In the Beyond, the Veil runs primarily through rural areas,” Malachi said. “We were aware of it before you were, and we avoided it when building our cities.”

  That was something, but it didn’t help us narrow down the strike zone. Even if we divided the Veil into sections and tried to assign people to search them all, there was a good chance we wouldn’t find her in time.

  Maybe there was a building she’d want to be near, a battlefield that was meaningful to her. Or maybe she’d pick the spot that required the least effort—the one easiest to get to.

  “We don’t have enough information,” I said.

  “Puzzle it out the best you can,” Gunnar said, grabbing another cookie and heading for the door. “I’m going back to the Cabildo. I’ll get back to you—or send Rachel—as soon as I can. I need more warrants.”

  He looked back and narrowed his gaze at me. “And don’t do anything rash while I’m gone.”

  He closed the door heavily behind him, sending a cloud of dust into the air.

  “I think he meant me,” I said, and there were general murmurs of agreement.

  “Of course he meant you, Red,” Moses said with a grin. “You’re the only one needs supervising.”

  “I don’t need supervising.”

  But even Liam’s look was doubting.

  Since they were so certain I was going to do something reckless, I figured I might as well oblige.

  “He’s battling bureaucracy and people with power,” I said, looking at all of them. “She could be making a move right now.”

  Moses rolled his eyes. “She’s setting you up, in case you can’t tell. Preparing to drop the hammer.”

  “You want to go to her house,” Liam said, and I nodded.

  “She’s probably not there,” I said. “But evidence might be. And if I can be the one who stops her, I’m damn well going to try.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “I guess we can be grateful you were reckless the last time,” Liam said as we bumped toward my mother’s house and her pretty walled neighborhood. Gavin, Liam, and I were squeezed into Scarlet’s front seat. “Else we wouldn’t know about the box or the decharger.”

  “You should always be grateful I’m reckless. It’s one of my better qualities.”

  I gunned it, the rebuilt V-8 under the hood roaring like thunder, then patted Scarlet’s dash. “That’s my girl. My sweet, sweet girl.”

  “She ever touch you like that?” Gavin asked Liam with a grin.

  “No comment.”

  “You’re both hilarious,” I said. “Maybe we could talk about what we’re go
ing to do when we confront my apparently evil mother.”

  They both went quiet.

  “That wasn’t sarcasm,” I said. “I’m serious. She’s evil, and though I’m still processing the emotions of learning that my mother is the scientist version of Maleficent, I’m very eager to take her down.”

  • • •

  “Well,” Gavin said when we reached the neighborhood. “She’s spared no expense for herself.”

  “Being morally disgusting evidently pays well,” I said, pulling Scarlet to a stop a couple of streets away in front of a house that was obviously empty—windows open, floors and walls bare.

  “I think you’re right,” Liam said, “and there’s a good chance she’s not here. But just in case.” Liam pulled his .44 from his waistband, then looked at me. “You armed?”

  “No. But I’ll be fine.”

  We climbed out of the car, tried to walk as nonchalantly as possible down the quiet suburban street. We strode up to the front door just as casually, found the house dark.

  I knocked, waited for a response. And when nothing happened, I tried the door.

  “Locked,” I said.

  “Can you use magic?” Liam asked.

  “No. Magic monitors are armed,” I said, gesturing over my shoulder at the pole-mounted monitors along the curb.

  “Not worth the risk,” Gavin said, then pulled the gun from its holster. “Stand back.”

  “That’s not exactly low-key,” Liam said.

  “Yeah, neither is this bitch, and neither is her plan.” Gavin aimed, and we scuttled to the other side of the porch.

  Two pops, and the door swung open.

  “And I call you reckless,” Liam muttered.

  “Yeah,” I said. “And I’m not the one with a gun.”

  The house was empty.

  I took the second floor, walking slowly through each room, taking in the tall ceilings and attractive paint colors, the crown moldings. And the complete absence of décor. The master bedroom held a bed, dresser, nightstand. The nightstand held a single lamp and an old-fashioned wind-up alarm clock. Prevented her from being late, I guessed, when the power went out.

  The nightstand’s drawers were empty, the dresser’s full of neatly folded clothes in tidy piles. Even the socks were paired and fitted into an organizer that looked a little like an egg crate. I didn’t see any evidence that she’d packed a bag, but how would I know?

  The bathroom held the usual necessities. The makeup and bath products were high-end brands, must have been shipped into the Zone, but there was nothing extraneous. Nothing that didn’t have a specific purpose. And here, like downstairs, we saw no art, no flowers, no cocktail tables or objects. There were four smaller bedrooms on this floor; all were empty except for a yoga mat in the room closest to the master.

  I went downstairs again, found Liam in the kitchen.

  “Coffeepot’s still warm,” he said, checking the glass carafe with a fingertip. “She hasn’t been gone long.”

  Gavin came in through another door, the orange box in his arms. “Empty,” he said. “But here. Confirms she’s in possession of PCC property and her likely intent.”

  “Getting it through the Veil,” Liam said, and Gavin nodded.

  “You find anything?” he asked.

  “Nothing useful,” I replied.

  “She gets nervous, decides to abandon this place,” Liam said, hands on his hips as he looked around. “Goes into the wind. Or she decides she’s ready, and she’s off to deploy. Doesn’t care if we know where she lives, because she’s on task, focused.”

  “I don’t think she’d run,” I said. “She doesn’t seem to care what people think, and she’s got some kind of federal benefactor, maybe thinks she’s untouchable.”

  Liam nodded. “Agreed.”

  I glanced back, realized the laptop was still sitting on the table.

  “Computer,” I said. I pulled out the chair, sat down in the same spot where my mother had sat with her coffee and orange juice, and turned the machine on.

  It wasn’t even password-protected. The computer’s desktop blinked on, showing a photograph of Jackson Square after dusk.

  “She left her computer behind?” Gavin asked, moving closer. He and Liam stood behind the chair, looked over my shoulder.

  “She was in a hurry,” I said. And that made me worry even more.

  The computer’s desktop was immaculate. No random files, no temporarily stored documents or gifs. Just a neat line of links to the hard drive and important folders.

  I spent ten minutes opening documents and folders, searching the hard drive for anything that might give us a clue about her location. Plenty of scientific documents that I didn’t understand, but I figured Darby would be interested in them.

  I skipped those, opened up the Internet browser, then pulled up her search history. And my heart stuttered.

  The last phrase she’d searched had been “sola fluids.”

  “What’s a sola?”

  “A what?” Liam asked, moving closer.

  “Sola. It’s what she searched for last. ‘Sola fluids.’”

  “Not ‘sola,’” Gavin said, walking toward us. “So La. As in ‘Southern Louisiana.’” He peered over my shoulder. “SoLa Fluids. It’s a petroleum processor on the river. One of the few still operating in the Zone.”

  “Where is it?” I asked.

  “Near Belle Chasse.”

  “The Veil runs through Belle Chasse,” Liam said. “There was a skirmish there during the war. A few Court Paras tried to go back through.”

  “I remember.” Their effort hadn’t worked, but the fight had been the topic of conversation in the Quarter for weeks.

  “Belle Chasse,” I murmured, thinking it over. The Veil ran through it, it was close to New Orleans, and it was probably a place she’d heard about before. She wouldn’t want to leave this to chance. And there was nothing else on the computer that looked like she was trying to nail down the geographic part of the search.

  “I think that’s the best we’re going to do from here,” I said. “Let’s find Gunnar.”

  Gavin was already striding to the door. “Moral of this story?” he said. “Murderers should always clear their browser history.”

  I grabbed the computer and followed them out.

  • • •

  There were days when it was nice to be free of the burden of cell phones. There were no three a.m. e-mails, no social media stress, no worries about Internet arguments with strangers.

  And no way to easily arrange for the arrest and capture of a homicidal maniac.

  We dropped Gavin off near Moses’s house so he could find a vehicle, then drove directly to the Cabildo, Containment’s HQ. We waited outside while Gunnar talked to the Commandant about what we’d found and where we thought she might strike.

  The guards outside the building gave us the stink eye. But whatever Gunnar had said to them on his way in had them staying in position, weapons still holstered.

  Fifteen minutes later, he came out. And he didn’t look happy.

  “Senator Jute McLellan,” he said, climbing into the truck and slamming the door. The truck vibrated from the ferocity of his anger. “Go back to Moses’s.”

  “Which is who?” Liam asked when I put the truck in gear and drove away from the Cabildo before the agents could change their mind.

  “The head of the subcommittee that’s been sneaking funds to ADZ. War disrupts the economy, and Senator McLellan doesn’t care for that. So he and his friends decided Icarus was a wise investment.”

  “No more Paranormals, no more war?” I asked.

  “Pretty much.” He smiled slyly. “Capital police are now on their way to have a very long talk with Senator McLellan.”

  “Good,” Liam said. “Assuming they can make it stick.”

&nb
sp; “No evidence to date that he’s involved in the research, just the funding, so his lawyers will probably have a field day. But the money was appropriated, and that’s got his mark all over it. He’ll have plenty to answer for.”

  “And closer to home?” Liam asked.

  “Commandant has scrambled jets out of Pensacola,” Gunnar said. “And there are a few troop carriers on the ground with some fancy ordnance that the army’s been working on. But we might still beat them to the spot.”

  “And in the meantime,” I guessed, “we do what we can.”

  “We do what we can,” Gunnar said. “So drive fast.”

  • • •

  Refusing to give up after the loss of his briefly beloved Range Rover, Gavin pulled up to Moses’s house in an enormous red Humvee.

  “Only in a war zone, where gas is hard to get, would my brother drive something like that.”

  “I’m in a war zone,” Gavin said through the open window. “I’m driving a vehicle that’s ready for war.”

  Admittedly a better argument.

  The rest of us stood outside Moses’s house, preparing to stop my mother. Moses watched us from the top step of his front porch.

  “She’ll be there,” he said, pointing generally southeast and toward the ninetieth line of longitude. “Or somewhere along here. We go in teams, secure the virus, take her down. In whatever order necessary.”

  He glanced at me, concern in his eyes.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Really. She’s not my mother. Not in any way that counts.”

  It was the first time I’d said it, and it was absolutely true. We had a biological connection. Shared genetic material. My origin story was connected to her, but that was the only thing between us. She hadn’t been my mother in any way that mattered then, and she wasn’t now. She wasn’t confused, or lost, or whatever fairy tale I might have told myself growing up. She was just a woman.

  Saying it aloud lifted the rest of the weight from my chest.

  Liam reached out, squeezed my hand, and didn’t let go.

  “Claire, Liam, Darby, and I approach her directly,” Gunnar said. “We aren’t entirely sure where she’ll be positioned, but I’d like two teams—Rachel and Malachi, and Erida and Gavin—to approach from the other directions. We’re at six o’clock, you’re at two and ten.”