by Rob Cornell
A wave of fatigue hit me all at once, as if my body had answered Sly’s question on its own.
“Rest,” I said. “For all of us. Then we set up the meet with Markus and you two hit the books.”
“And Odi?” Mom asked.
“He’s backup.”
Chapter Forty-Two
We slept until ten, well after dusk. Mom took the couch. I kicked back in the recliner. Green took off for his own bed at home, and I doubted we’d see him again for a while.
When my eyes fluttered open, I sensed the tail end of a dream slip away from memory. I couldn’t recall anything except the feeling it left me—a feeling of hope. My subconscious must have been deluded, because the odds were well stacked against us. The memories of real life soon crowded out the hope. I was sad to see it go.
First thing I did was check my arm. I unwrapped it and peeled away the gauze that had become pasted to the wound with thick, dry blood. But underneath all that coagulated blood, the bite mark had disappeared except for a pair of pin-prick scars.
I let Sly and Mom sleep while I cleaned up. Then I started coffee brewing.
Sly must have heard me up and moving. He shuffled into the kitchen scratching his bare chest. He wore a pair of gray sweatpants and gym socks. His ponytail was undone and his salt and pepper hair stuck out on one side of his head. “Brother,” he muttered, then went to the counter to stare at the coffee maker as if he could will it to work faster with the power of his mind.
Mom woke up right as I started pouring the coffee. The three of us sat at the table in total silence. We had a big day ahead of us, and I think we were all storing our energy.
Sly offered to make a late night breakfast, but I passed. I needed to grab some clean clothes for me and Mom from the hotel, hit a twenty-four-hour Meijer to buy a cheap outfit for Odi, and, while doing all that, think about what I was going to say to Markus Hope when we met.
It felt strange running errands at night when I had only just woken up and felt like it should be morning. I was on a vampire’s schedule.
I got all the clothes we needed, including new coats for me (just a Docker’s pea coat, nothing fancy) and Mom. Alas, I still hadn’t come up with some magical interview questions for Markus that would tell me whose side he was really on. I would have to play that by ear.
Everyone dressed and feeling human again—or undead, in Odi’s case—we had one last sit down. Three Jet’s pizzas, Detroit-style deep dish, and a couple two liters of Pepsi. Obviously, Odi was already full, and pizza would not agree with his undead system. Sly had a couple pieces. Mom and I ate the rest. Sorcerers had some of the most ravenous appetites when they needed to operate at full power. I had to recoup the energy I’d used in my sleep to heal my wound, which didn’t amount to much. But I also needed to make up for all the magic I’d used at Toft’s to pull Mom and Odi out from the wreckage. Not to mention the juice I had used to help burn down the nest.
Long fucking day.
Mom had called Markus while I was out and set up the meet.
“Please,” she said before I left. “Give him an honest chance. Don’t let what happened with Fiona make you a cynic. There are good people in our community.”
I gave her a noncommittal grunt and headed out.
Dodge Park sat across the street from the Sterling Heights Library and the police station. Dodge Road pretty much ended at the park. I had come here a lot as a kid, though plastic had long since replaced the metal and hard wood play structure I remembered. As you pulled into the front lot, you were greeted by a large open span of grass with a hill that sloped away toward the playground and beyond to the wooded area that hid a number of biking and walking trails. Large trees also dotted the open area, providing shade for some of the picnic tables.
At night, I could hardly see any of it from the parking lot except what the headlights on Sly’s Caddy illuminated as I pulled in. The park was closed after dark, but they didn’t have a gate or anything to keep me from entering. I knew this ahead of time because in high school I would take girls here for “walks” in the moonlight. The platform at the top of the curly slide had made a great place to make out.
Only one other car sat in the lot. An SUV of some kind. I couldn’t make out details in the dark.
I took the spot three down from the SUV.
I checked the rearview mirror to make sure the Caddy’s back seat looked empty. I saw what I was supposed to see—nothing but shadow.
When I got out of the Caddy, Markus Hope climbed out of the SUV. No limo this time, and he was driving himself. Poor Arbiter Hope was slumming it.
He stayed by his car while I rounded the back of mine. A crisp wind tugged at the bottom of my coat and flapped it around my knees. The buttons on the new coat only came so high, leaving the cold air to sneak in around my neck and upper chest. If the temps kept dropping like they had been, I’d need a scarf. Just one more inevitable step toward the bitter winter.
Once around the Caddy, I stopped.
Enough light from the nearest buildings, including the police station, allowed me to see his silhouette and the barest hint of his face. I realized I might have made a false assumption that this was Markus Hope. Maybe he had sent someone else, some Ministry underling, to do his dirty work and finally take Sebastian Light off the board.
The reason I had wanted the meeting at Dodge Park was because of its proximity to the cops. Not that they would know what to do if a magical throwdown started across the street. But it still might discourage an attack. I clenched one fist anyway, ready to toss fire at the first sign of trouble.
“Mr. Light,” the figure said, and I recognized Markus’s voice.
But I didn’t relax my hand.
“Arbiter Hope. Thank you for meeting me.”
“I have to admit. I’m baffled about the clandestine nature of this meeting. You’ll forgive me if I’m suspicious.”
“You trust my mom, don’t you? She’s the one who asked you to meet me.”
“Yes. I trust Judith. I also think she trusts you enough not to question your motives.”
I tucked my hands into my coat pockets, one still in a fist, and hunched against another icy gust. The air smelled like exhaust from the road, which was pretty close to the park’s front lot. Kind of ruined the nature vibe, but I wasn’t here to hike trails or have a picnic.
“Mom knows my motives. This meeting is more her idea than mine. Because she trusts you.”
He laughed. My eyes were adjusting to the dark, and I could make out his smile. “Trust, trust, trust. Should we skip the dancing, then, and get to the point?”
I didn’t like the distance between us. Well, I had mixed feelings about it anyway. The gap kept me out of immediate reach in case he initiated an attack. But I also couldn’t see him clearly enough to look for the usual cues that might tell me if he were lying or not.
I decided to start by trying to throw him off balance. “You part of a killer cat club?”
My night vision had sharpened enough now so I could see his thick eyebrows knit together. “Are you out of your mind? What does that even mean?”
“You tried to kill me while in the form of a cougar.”
“And I’ve already explained why.”
“Another Ministry officer, in the form of a panther, also tried to kill me. Is that a coincidence?”
His eyes widened. “Did you say a panther?”
“Yep.”
Without warning, he strode toward me.
I yanked my fist out of my coat pocket, held it out at my side, and pushed my power into it. I had it lit for all of three seconds when Markus waved a hand, “Oh, please,” and the fire winked out. That had only happened to me once before. A powerful little goblin had done the same trick.
He trudged up to me, stopping only a foot away. I could see him clearly now, from the top of his thick dark hair, to his sport coat with a t-shirt underneath, and his loose slacks and loafers. I would have been shivering if all I had on was a sport coat, b
ut the October air didn’t seem to bother him at all.
He narrowed his eyes and peered at me as if he thought I could be an illusion. He tugged at his goatee, seemed to come to some decision, and backed off a couple steps.
“A black panther?”
I nodded, feeling a little lost.
His gaze drifted away and lost focus on any one thing. “Ira,” he whispered.
“You knew him?”
His eyes snapped back to me. “Knew?”
“He’s dead.”
He sighed, hung his head. I got the feeling he wasn’t surprised by the news. I made sure not to add any more details about me being the one who killed him.
“He went missing about a week ago,” he said. “Several members did.”
“Was some guy named Able one of them, too?”
His brow formed so many lines, he seemed to age before me. “How do you know all of this?”
It would have been easy to keep going, answer his questions, tell him as much as I could without implicating myself with Glass’s murder. I reined myself in, though. His concern appeared real enough. But Fiona’s love had also seemed real, and that hadn’t worked out so well.
“Those wards you put on the house where my dad was killed? You set those up to catch his killer?”
“I’m not lying to you, Sebastian. I sure wish you would answer my questions. As it stands, it would be my duty to take you in for a formal interview at the Ministry offices.”
I laughed. “Interview? You mean interrogation.”
“I don’t know why you’re being so aggressive with me. I’ve been nothing but forthright with you. I am not your enemy, no matter what you’ve gotten yourself involved with.”
“Do you know what I’m involved with?”
“For the heavens’ sake, I haven’t a clue.”
I studied his face, focused on his eyes, examined the set of his mouth, the slight tilt to his head. I had to face a nasty fact. Short of hiring a psychic to read his mind, I would either have to trust him without any proof that he might betray me, or walk away.
I ground my teeth. I kept seeing Fiona at Goulet’s side, felt the twist in my guts as I learned she’d been working for him all along. I could even smell the animal-like musk she left behind after we made love. A primal scent that aroused me more than it bothered me.
I almost got in Sly’s Cadillac and left Markus in a cloud of exhaust. But Mom truly trusted him. And my mother was no fool. Not like I had been falling for Fiona.
To hell with it.
“I’m about to trust you with my mother’s life,” I said. “If you truly care about her like you claim, you need to know that. She’s as good as dead if you cross me.”
He gave me a hard stare. “I would die for your mother.”
That reminded me of the touchy, lovey display they had shown when I’d first met him. Much as I didn’t want to think about it, I felt pretty sure he had once had a thing with Mom. I didn’t know if it was before she married Dad, or after. And right now, it didn’t matter. If anything, it gave me just enough to finally trust bringing him in on this.
I really hoped I wasn’t wrong.
“It’s getting cold out here,” I said. “There’s a Denny’s on Hall Road, just east of Schoenherr. Meet me there.”
Chapter Forty-Three
I insisted on a corner booth at the back meant to seat eight even though we were a party of two. I convinced the hostess with a pair of twenties. She guided us back, took our drink orders, and promised that our server, Steve, would be right with us.
I asked for a coffee.
Markus went with root beer of all things.
“Give me as much as you can before Steve arrives,” Markus said, voice low.
It was close to midnight, but the twenty-four-hour diner had a fair share of its tables occupied, including a table of three male loud talkers nearest us, probably early drunks on their way to a club after mowing down some Moons Over My Hammy or Grand Slam breakfasts.
The smell of grease and something burnt on the griddle hung at the edges. My stomach growled even though I’d had a whole pizza not too long ago. There was always room for diner food.
The busy noise was actually a good thing. It would mask our own conversation.
“None of the missing Ministry members reported what had happened to them?”
“I hadn’t heard. Someone else might have, though. I’m an arbiter. Their report would have gone to the Guardians first.”
“I found six officers strung up as feed bags for a nest of vamps in an old office building in Troy. Able was one of them. As was Glass.”
Markus stared at me, lips parted. I could see the wheels turning. He was trying to decide if I was fucking with him. “I want to say you’re mistaken or a fool.”
I smirked. “But?”
“The vampire aggression in the past couple weeks…” He rubbed a hand over his mouth and down the length of his goatee. “That they would dare target representatives of the Ministry astonishes me. And yet, it’s hard to deny, given the circumstances. And I can’t fathom why you would make up such a story.”
Steve (though his name badge read “Steph”) came with my coffee and Markus’s pop. He asked us if we were ready to order and looked devastated when we said we were happy with the drinks for now. He didn’t nag us about it, though.
I took a sip of the coffee. It tasted like tree bark, but my body appreciated the zap of caffeine.
Then I went for it. I told Markus everything, going back as far as my near turn, through the details of my battle with Goulet and the things he told me before dying. I described the role of the Maidens of Shadow and their effort to restore Mom’s memories. I stopped just short of Mom’s realization that she had killed Dad.
Markus noticed me holding back instantly.
“What did she remember?” he asked, almost breathless.
I did not like his eagerness. I hesitated.
He slid aside his untouched glass of root beer so he could lean on the table and move in closer to me. “Sebastian, I have waited for this information for a very long time. I won’t lie to you. I want vengeance for what happened to Judith and Walter. Those wards I planted were outside of the Ministry’s eye. This is personal to me, and the Ministry need not know a damn thing about it.”
Whoa. I hadn’t expected that. This guy was speaking my language now. I wanted to reach across the table and shake his hand. I settled for a devious smile. “That’s a good thing,” I said. “Because it was the Ministry, or at least a part of it, who was responsible.”
He drew back. “Impossible.”
“Your pals Able and Ira were in on it. So was Goulet.”
“The vampire? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It does if you know what they want to accomplish.”
I told him the rest. I even trusted him enough to tell him that Mom was the one who killed Dad and how her spell was meant to kill them both to keep the conspirators from getting their hands on Huitzilopochtli’s cloak. The deeper I went into the details, the lower his jaw opened and the wider his eyes grew. His thick black eyebrows became the unibrow they seemed destined to be. I noticed him grasping the edge of the table, knuckles white.
When I finished with it all, he didn’t say anything for a long while.
The loud talkers shouted about their most recent drunk bowling scores. One of the guys bragged about the number of gutter balls his “drunk ass” threw. All three of them howled with laughter.
Steph eyed us as he swung by with a tray full of steaming plates towards another table.
“I don’t even know what to say.” Markus’s voice came out in a rasp, almost inaudible against the drunk bowlers club. “It explains the vampire behavior. They feel betrayed. It explains…” He blinked and shook his head. “It explains a lot. But not the kind of explanation I could have imagined in a million centuries.”
I let the story sink in a little more before I asked the key question, the reason for this whole
meeting.
“So,” I asked, “can you help us?”
“You’re asking me to turn against my brothers and sisters in the Ministry.”
“No. I simply need you to find out who’s behind this, how deep it goes, and if there are any others we can trust to help bring these motherfuckers down.”
His dark eyes stared at the middle distance between us, I think visualizing various scenarios, one of them, I hoped, involving his revenge on those who had pushed my mother to such a desperate point, she had tried to kill herself and the man she loved.
Steph came by, clasped his hands together, and smiled big. He opened his mouth.
I stopped him there. “No.”
“Uh—”
“No. Leave.”
His cheese ball smile faltered. All his customer service training couldn’t keep him from breaking into a sneer. “Whatever.” He stormed off, grumbling to himself.
Markus’s gaze withdrew from his thoughts and pinned to me. “You’re a brave young man,” he said. “You’ve faced off against the city’s most powerful vampire and came away victorious. You’ve defeated the undead infection in your blood. And now, you stand willing to fight against a branch of the most powerful institution in the world.”
“Brave or stupid. Either way, I’m going to do whatever I can to protect my mom. Or die trying.”
“Indeed.” He folded his hands in front of him on the table, straightened his posture. “And so will I.”
Chapter Forty-Four
I climbed behind the wheel of Sly’s Caddy, pulled the door shut, and let out a shaky sigh. I’d done it. I’d given a member of the Ministry all the information the Ministry would need to get to Mom. I felt a strange sort of relief about it as much as I did worry. It was the ultimate step toward bringing this all to an end, and I honestly had a feeling I’d done the right thing enlisting Markus’s aid.
“You okay?” Odi asked, materializing from the shadows in the back seat.
I nodded. “He’s agreed to help.”
“And you trust him?”
“I have to. Without someone on the inside, we’re fighting blind. We need to know who’s involved and what their exact plans are. We need to go on offense instead of all this defense.”