by Claire Luana
“Not yet. Believe me when I say we are all working on it. Everyone here loved Vizol; he personally recruited most of our team. We will find who did this, Zariya, and we will make them pay.”
“I want to be involved,” I said.
“I thought you’d might say that. But this is Veil Force business. We’ll handle it.”
Bullshit. They weren’t cutting me out of this. “Then I’m joining.”
“I thought you might say that too.”
“I’m just as tough as anyone out there. I’ve been fighting for two decades. I’m a naga. We’re warriors by nature. You owe me this, Cyriaque, you can’t keep me out. Not any longer—”
“Easy, girl.” He held up his hands. “Even if I wanted to deny you a place, that burn on your hand says otherwise.”
I’d forgotten. I looked down at the mark on my palm and my eyes widened. Cyriaque held up his palm, displaying the same mark. “All of the Veil Force operators—‘Phantoms,’ we’re called—have been marked by that sword. It chooses us. Marks us as worthy.”
“I don’t understand. Dad told me he was burned by some ancient sword in India.”
“Not entirely accurate. Well, the India part, anyway. That sword is Caledfwlch, one of the legendary objects of power in Irish lore. Also known in some tales as ‘Excalibur.’ The sword has a long history of choosing those who are worthy to wield it. It chose your father first. And it’s chosen each of us to fight beside him.”
“So, what, Dad was King Arthur, and you’re the Knights of the Round Table?” I offered a half-hearted joke.
He didn’t laugh. “In a way. It has become the symbol of Veil Force—the sword and the shield. It’s what we do, and who we are.”
“But Kiki doesn’t have one. Or Alviya,” I pointed out.
“Most of our members have the mark healed after the sword chooses them. Some of us keep the brand. As a reminder. But whatever you decide, Zariya, that sword’s choice marks you as one of us as surely as your Chanji blood does.”
“Great. When do I start?” Was I really doing this? Joining some clandestine governmental organization with a secret base below New York City?
But it was one of the last pieces of Dad I had left. I couldn’t just walk away from it without exploring what it meant. Plus, if I wanted to hunt down the men who had killed Dad, I needed these powerful supes at my side. And their fancy-pants resources.
“It’s not so simple as that. Veil Force is an elite group. Phantoms are chosen after years in service—most have worked for counter-intelligence or in special operations.”
I prickled. “I get it. You think I won’t measure up.”
“To the contrary. I’m sure you will. But I’m not the one who needs convincing. It’s the rest of the Phantoms. The supes who’d be relying on you out in the field.”
Like Konstantin Bauer. “Fine. What do I have to do to prove it to them?”
“It’s funny you should ask…”
12
A test. I hated tests.
My head spun as I walked out of Cyriaque’s office.
Cyriaque stood in his doorway. “We’ll need a day to prepare. And a day of rest would do you good after tonight’s…excitement. Report back here at 0600 on Monday if you want to take the test.”
I ran a thumb over the burn on my palm. It throbbed, hot and angry. “I’ll be here.”
“I thought you’d say that.”
“I want the real report.”
“When you pass the test—”
“No, Cyriaque. Now. I deserve the truth, no matter whether I’m fit to join your little club or not.”
Cyriaque sighed and started down the hallway, jerking his head for me to follow. “Fine. Konstantin has it.”
We stopped at an office four doors down, and he poked his head inside. “Get her the real report.”
I stepped inside, standing awkwardly. Cyriaque disappeared. I guessed he was done with me. Konstantin stood up from behind a large wooden desk, a pair of trendy, clear-rimmed glasses on his nose. He quickly took them off.
“Vampires wear glasses?” I couldn’t help myself.
He strode past me to the filing cabinet at the back of the room, sending a whiff of his scent of cool breezes and night air my way. And giving me a good look at how his clothes clung to the muscles of his form—his broad back, his ass. My cheeks heated. Stop staring at the vampire’s ass, Chanji!
“Vampires keep their human afflictions even after we’re turned. I just need them for reading.”
I ran quickly through what I knew about vampires. “So you’re Derived?” I asked.
There were two types of vamps—Authentics and Derived. Authentic vampires lived in remote colonies and rarely mingled with human society. Authentic vampires had never been human—and they were the only type that could make a Derived vampire—a vampire who had once been human. Authentics also lived exclusively on blood while Deriveds could survive on a combination of human food and blood. It was why they were more easily Recognized. Authentics were Unrecognized—outside the protection of normal law, which was for the best. Because really, we needed protection from them, not the other way around. They were savage. Animal. Not members of polite society.
Konstantin inclined his head. The gesture was calculated, as if he had to remind himself to make such a typical human movement. “I am.”
“When…?” I trailed off.
“1423.”
Damn. He was old. I knew vampires grew in strength as they aged. I felt slightly better about the fact that he’d bested me in our sparring match.
Konstantin handed me a file from the cabinet. “The real report. I’ll walk you out.”
I followed him towards the elevator. “Don’t trust me to find the exit on my own?”
“Just a precaution,” he replied.
“You could have saved us all a lot of trouble if you’d just given me the real report when I asked for it.”
“It wasn’t my call.”
We were at the elevator now and he pushed the button for me before turning. His expression was inscrutable. Devastating. It was hard to think when he looked at me full on like that, with those blue, blue eyes.
1423, I reminded myself. That made him… I didn’t even know. If you needed a calculator to figure out a guy’s age, you shouldn’t be lusting after him, right? That seemed like a wise rule of thumb. “It wasn’t Kiki’s call, either. Don’t be too hard on her.”
“Why do you care?”
“I care about everyone here. Veil Force…what your father built here…we’re a family. We take care of our own.”
His words were a gut punch.
“Understood,” I managed. I stepped into the elevator quickly and hit the button for the ground floor. I willed the elevator doors to close before I started to cry. I couldn’t look at him—wouldn’t look at him—and when the doors finally slid shut, a sob escaped me.
I crumpled to my knees, the folder pressed to my chest, one hand clapped over my mouth.
What your father built here…we’re a family. The truth of it hit me like a semi-truck. It had always been Dad, Auntie, and me—they’d been the only family I’d had. But Dad had built a whole other family in secret, behind my back. Without me. All his business trips and travel took on new form in my memories. Dad hadn’t been committed to his job; he’d been committed to his other life. The family he preferred over me.
I rose and screamed, punching the elevator door with my fist. My strike left a circular dent, and the pain startled away my tears. My chest heaved as the doors opened into the little alcove that would take me through the portal back to Four Freedoms Park.
Fewer than four hours had passed since I’d gone down this very elevator, but it felt like years. The weight of sorrow clung to me like an anchor. I felt worse than I had when Dad had died. I wanted to curl up in a corner of the concrete space and succumb to the blackness of sleep, but there was something else I needed to do. Someone else I needed to yell at. So I stepped through the p
ortal and headed for a cab.
Auntie Temsula lived in a quirky Victorian in Montclair, New Jersey. She loved America, but she’d never liked the big city. Even New Jersey was busier than she liked, but she’d wanted to be close to us.
Everything about Auntie was as quirky as her home. She made her living as a psychic and a medium and was a damn good one at that. But right now I couldn’t think about anything except that she had to have known about Veil Force. About Dad’s secret MASC dealings and his other family. And she’d kept it from me too.
It was just after 3 a.m. by the time I arrived, but I didn’t care. I banged on the front door and shouted her name. “Auntie! Wake up!”
I was about to bang again when she pulled the door open, a colorful floral robe haphazardly wrapped around her. “Curlicue? What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
I stormed past her into the foyer, rounding on her. I held up my burnt hand, showing her the brand. “We need to talk.”
She stumbled back a step, her hand flying to her mouth. She recovered quickly, closing the door. “I’ll make some chai. And I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
I wanted to yell at her to tell me now, but damn it if some of Auntie’s chai didn’t sound fucking delicious. So I led the way into the kitchen, dropping down into one of the chairs tucked into the island. The ceiling of her kitchen was painted like an Indian sunrise, and the cabinets each had mismatching hardware. Every corner and open space of her house was filled with color—carvings and wall-hangings, clustered altars to the gods. I felt my roiling anger draining away, leaving me spent and empty.
“You want an ice pack for that burn?” Auntie asked.
I nodded sullenly and took it, pressing it to my hand with a sigh. I thought Dr. Dragon back at the base had put some sort of salve on it, because my hand smelled faintly of camphor and hadn’t been throbbing as badly as I would have expected. But still, the ice felt heavenly.
Auntie poured coconut milk into a pan on the stove, her back to me. “Why don’t you tell me what’s happened?”
So I did. Woodenly, I recited the events of the evening. Grappling with Kiki and shooting her with the memory serum, stealing her ring and breaking into Tartarus base, the dragon, the sword. Talking to Cyriaque and the test.
Auntie turned to me, her arms crossed before her. She didn’t look a day over thirty, her black, curly hair wild around her shoulders. She was beautiful, her naga heritage hidden in her human form. I envied her—that she could pass as human. Whereas I actually was half-human and would always look other.
“Do you remember the Arcana Prep bombing?” she asked.
I blinked. That wasn’t what I’d expected. How could I not? I’d been six years old, and we’d been here in this very kitchen, with the news on in the background. The image on the screen was burned in my memory—the bodies of children blackened and twisted. The news anchor explained in sober tones the details of the terrorist bombing that had ripped apart a private school—a school for children of supernatural creatures. One of those little bodies had had wings, another hooves. They’d been too far gone to see what type of supes they had been, but as I stroked the scales running down my neck, I knew it could have been me. I remembered Dad’s fury, burning so hot, it scared me almost as much as the images on the screen. Auntie had taken me in her arms and rocked me until I stopped crying, her own tears mingling with mine. “Of course I do.”
“That was the catalyst for Veil Force. Your father knew that things like that would keep happening unless someone did something. Unless someone cared. So he and Cyriaque started their campaign to the MASC Under-Secretary. Through sheer force of will, they secured the funding and approvals to start the project. It is his greatest legacy. Besides you, of course.”
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
“When it began, you were a child. And as you got older…he worried if you knew, you’d want to join. You always idolized him, wanted to do everything he did. And he didn’t want that life for you.”
“He was my dad. Of course I fucking idolized him!” Dad had always been like a superhero to me, ever since I’d been a little girl—strong, capable, commanding. I supposed he’d had the double-life thing down, too.
“You were doing so well in medical school—you’d found your own path—”
“He should have told me.”
She sighed and turned to stir the chai. “Yes, he should have. For now through his lies, he’s brought to pass the very thing he wanted to prevent.”
“Did he think I wouldn’t be good enough?” My voice broke.
Auntie whirled and crossed the kitchen in a blink, laying her hand on my cheek. “No, curlicue. He knew you would be too good.”
I blinked back tears. “What do you mean?”
“You’re a naga, and a Chanji what’s more. You have battle in your blood. It sings to you, calls you to challenge and fight. That’s why he put you in training when you were so young—he hoped to channel it. He wanted a normal life for you. An American life. A life like your mother should have had. Marriage. Children. Peace. A Veil Force Phantom has none of these.”
“Dad made it work. He had me.”
“But he didn’t have peace. He constantly worried he wasn’t a good enough father to you, that he wasn’t here enough. And he worried when he was home that he wasn’t giving his teams all they deserved. He was a man pulled in half, with one foot in two worlds.”
“I know the feeling,” I grumbled, running my tongue over my soft fangs, retracted in my mouth. I would never be fully human, or fully naga.
Auntie poured me a big mug of chai and placed it before me. “I am sorry for the lies. And I know he is too.”
I gazed into the caramel swirl of the liquid. “I just feel…” I cleared my throat. “Like he wanted a different family. Like I wasn’t enough.”
“Nothing could be further from the truth.” Auntie stilled, her hands braced on the cerulean tiles of the counter.
“Auntie?”
“Hold on a moment, curlicue.” She disappeared into the hallway, leaving me to salve my raw wounds with the sweet spice of chai tea.
She returned a moment later, a long, black case in her hand. She set it on the counter before me, her hands on its lid as if to keep it from springing open. “Before he died, your father left this with me. He wanted you to have it, but only if you someday learned about his work with Veil Force.”
Curiosity overcame my hurt. “What is it?”
Auntie unclasped the brass buckles and opened it for me.
I gasped. “Dad’s talwar?”
It was a sword, a beautiful curving blade of shining silver. The hilt was wrapped in fine red leather, inlaid with gold, and etched with carvings of sinuous snakes. I’d only seen it a few times as a child—Dad had kept it under lock and key. The ornately detailed scabbard lay next to it in the case, both nestled in the black velvet.
“It’s a family heirloom, passed to him by his father, and his father before that. Generations of Chanji warriors have wielded this blade.”
I reached for it eagerly.
“Zariya—” Auntie held up her hand. “This blade is enchanted with strong magic. Do you smell it?”
I opened my glands and breathed deeply. Now that she pointed it out, I did—the loamy soil scent of ancestor magic. Earth and roots and old, ancient things. “What’s the spell?”
“I do not know. But I suspect if you take up this blade, there will be no going back.”
Good. I had nothing to go back to.
I seized the sword’s hilt. And the world dropped away.
13
I stood in a dark room—a cavern of sorts. Yet not. It had no smell, no heat or cold—no dust or dank or dirt. It did, however, have another person.
When he turned around, my knees nearly buckled. “Dad?” I blinked and blinked again, disbelieving what I was seeing. But he was here.
I ran to him and threw myself into his arms, but instead of hitting the solid bulk of him, I stumble
d through and out the other side. I fell to my knees hard, but it didn’t hurt. No pain here, either. I held up my hand and found it ghostly and incorporeal. No body at all.
I turned, shoving to my feet. “Dad?” My voice wavered. “Where are we? What is this place?”
“This is my memory palace,” he said. “I created it in case you ever needed my knowledge. The knowledge of your ancestors.”
I shook my head. “What? How—”
“The Balsamic Moon coven specializes in memories and mind magic. A powerful witch owed me a favor, and this is what I asked of her.” The North American witches were divided into eight main covens, named after the phases of the moon. The covens differed widely in philosophy, approach to magic, and their approach to flouting the laws. The Balsamic witches were considered to be on the “not evil” end of the spectrum.
“Why?” In its shock, my brain was moving like molasses.
“Because I knew a time might come when you’d want to follow in my footsteps. And if I was no longer around—I still wanted you to have my wisdom.”
“You knew I might want to join Veil Force.”
“Of course, my darling. How could you not? You are fierce and brave and detest injustice. Veil Force was made for supes like you.”
“But you lied to me about it! If you thought I’d be so great at it, why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because in my selfishness, I did not want you at risk.”
I was temporarily stunned. Tears pricked my eyes. Great. Of course there were tears in this place. “That’s a shit reason.”
“I know. But you were always my greatest treasure.”
“How can you say that when you spent your life building a secret base, a whole secret family?”
“I can only ask forgiveness for how I’ve wronged you. I did what I thought was best. I only ever wanted your happiness and safety.”
“I was happiest with you,” I managed to choke through the tears. I threw up my hands. “Why am I even arguing with you? What are you, a figment of some witch’s imagination? You’re dead.”