Traces of Sulfur: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Series (Blade Keeper Academy Book 1)

by Madeline Freeman

  Liza sighed, tipping her head. Her wavy dark brown hair shifted against the smooth black horns that curved out of the top of her head. “Someone grabbed your purse. That’s… less than ideal. But at least you were able to chase them down and get it back.” She paused, studying my face. “You did get it back on your own, didn’t you?”

  “Some guard got in the way.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I had it under control, but he just had to be the hero. But it’s not like he found the package, so what does it matter?”

  Derek’s brow creased. “What happened to the thief?”

  Something like pride surged in my chest, and I sat a little straighter. “I made him let her go.”

  Liza raised an eyebrow. “You made him? Now, I’ve got some people who can talk their way out of sticky situations, but most aren’t usually so lucky.”

  I bristled at the doubt in her tone. “Maybe I didn’t make him, but I convinced him. She was hungry. She was probably looking for some money to buy food. So I gave her the ration bars I shoved in the bag for cover.”

  “All of them?” Derek asked. “That was more than two weeks’ worth of food.”

  My gaze dropped to the floor. Although our little household wasn’t as bad off as that girl had been, it didn’t mean that we were in a position to take our next meal for granted. When I took the ration bars from the emergency pantry, I’d had every intention to replace them. But looking back now, I don’t know if I could have made a different decision.

  “It’s all right,” Liza breathed. “What’s important is you made the drop and the thief didn’t end up in rehab. We’ll call this a provisional success.”

  I perked up at Liza’s assessment. “Does that mean I passed? Are you going to put me on the delivery rotation?”

  Liza held my gaze a long moment before saying, “Maybe.”

  The simple word was enough to send my spirit soaring. If I could start going out and actively helping people, maybe the restlessness inside me would calm down a little.

  Labored shuffling drew my attention to the hallway beyond the security monitors. Liza was out of her chair in a flash, her movements as graceful as a dancer’s as she darted into the darkness. When she returned moments later, she was supporting a man almost a foot taller than she, whose head of curly dark brown hair was more unruly than usual. Marco still wore the gray sweatpants and black tee-shirt that served as his pajamas, and the trip from his room had taken a toll. His usually ruddy face was pallid, and his breathing labored.

  Derek jumped up and helped Liza support Marco the remaining distance to the table, where they plopped him in the seat Liza had vacated.

  “Just what do you think you’re doing?” Liza demanded, arms akimbo. “You’re supposed to be resting.”

  This was the first time I’d seen Marco out of his room in weeks. Somehow, sitting out here at the table, he looked even thinner than he had lying in bed. My heart ached to see my uncle in such a state. Marco had always seemed strong and capable of anything, so to see the toll the virus was taking on him was almost too much to bear.

  A little over a month ago when we learned Marco had contracted the Languo virus, we all figured it would be a minor inconvenience, but we’d get through it relatively quickly. After all, we were the epicenter of the region’s medical black market. Even when Languo cures were scarce, we had favors to call in to acquire some when it came down to it.

  But Marco didn’t contract Languo-C, the most common form of the virus in circulation today. Instead, the infection ravaging his system was Languo-B4, a strain that had all but died out about ten years ago. The treatments for L-B4 were nearly impossible to come by. A law on the books from fifteen years ago required every city with over fifty thousand residents to keep medications for four strains of Languo on hand at all times—including L-B4—but we had yet to locate any here in Cameron Heights or in any large enough surrounding city.

  Marco took several seconds to catch his breath, and the fact that a walk of ten yards had winded him sent a prickle of concern through me. He was getting worse.

  “A message came through…” Marco paused, panting as if simply speaking was too taxing for his system. “…on an old comm. One I haven’t used in years.” He glanced at Liza, the corner of his lip curving into a half smile. “You remember Chamberlain?”

  Liza scoffed. “How could I forget Chamberlain? I thought he got out of the game after his stint at societal rehab.”

  I met Derek’s eyes, but he lifted a shoulder in response to my unasked question. I’d never heard of anyone named Chamberlain. Marco must not have been exaggerating about the comm being inactive for so long.

  “And he did,” Marco agreed. “He’s been a model citizen since his release. He’s been doing so well, in fact, that he’s got himself a job as an assistant file clerk at the city hall over in West Cameron. But I guess he ran into some mutual acquaintances a week or so ago, and they mentioned me.”

  Derek’s brow knit. “So he called to check in on you? Come on, Marco. That’s nice, I guess, but it’s no reason for you to haul yourself out here.”

  “If it were just a simple hello, I wouldn’t have come.” Marco cut his gaze to Derek, and for an instant, it was like he wasn’t sick at all. I’d seen that stern look more times than I could count—more often than not directed at Derek instead of me, but only because Derek was much more likely to talk out of turn or say something as if it were fact even without knowing all the nuances of the discussion at hand. “Looks like I was right about picking up the virus in Amberg. Chamberlain overheard some angels he works with talking about how Amberg was seeing a spike in B4 cases, but they’re below the population threshold and don’t have any medicine on hand—and apparently the government hasn’t been very helpful in getting them any. Today he heard the mayor gave the go-ahead for them to send their supplies to Amberg.”

  A thrill of excitement shot through my system. “So West Cameron does have the treatment stored away. I knew it. We just haven’t looked hard enough. Does this Chamberlain guy know where they’re keeping it?”

  “No,” Marco said.

  The eagerness that had been building up in me extinguished like a flame doused with water. So that was it? Marco’s old friend contacted him to say that the cure for his virus was out there—in the next city over—but we still had no way to get our hands on it? Any pride I’d felt after completing my mission fizzled away. What good was it to be able to help others if I couldn’t do a thing to help my own uncle?

  “He doesn’t know where the medicine is being kept,” Marco continued. “But he knows where they’ll store it overnight before someone from Amberg comes to pick it up.”

  Liza grinned so broad I could almost count each of her teeth. “I always liked Chamberlain.”

  Marco wheezed quietly. “You couldn’t stand Chamberlain. We’re just lucky he owed me from back in the day. According to him, the pickup is two days from now, which gives us a day to plan the heist.”

  Derek hooked his foot around the leg of the nearest chair and pulled it out far enough to allow him to sit on it. Once he was sitting, it was like a switch had flipped inside him. Gone was his usual air of nonchalance; instead, he laser-focused his attention on Marco. Without looking, he grabbed a pen from the middle of the table and pulled a sheet of scrap paper from the pile, immediately prepared to take notes. “What’s the target?”

  Marco’s lips twitched, but whatever expression he was going for didn’t stick. “West Cameron City Hall.”

  Liza let out a low whistle, but Derek was already scribbling down ideas on his paper.

  A knot twisted in the pit of my stomach. The building was among the most well-guarded in the city. And if they were moving medical supplies, it was possible they would increase security. But without treatment, it was only a matter of time before Marco died. We all knew it, even if we didn’t say it aloud. People never just recovered from Languo.

  So if breaking into West Cameron City Hall was what we had to do to save
him, we would do it.

  We had to.

  Chapter Four

  City Hall rose above the surrounding buildings like a sleeping dragon. The reddish-orange fingertips of sunlight clinging to the last vestiges of the day curled over the building’s roof like armored spikes.

  Although I’d lobbied to go on tonight’s retrieval mission, now that I was here, part of me wished I were running point back at the bunker instead of Liza. Moving contraband medical supplies was one thing. Breaking into a government building to steal medicine was something else entirely.

  I never expected something like this for my second assignment, but this was for Marco. I’d do anything to save him.

  Despite my nerves, I was desperate to get into the building. What I needed lay inside, and I would get my hands on it. I had to.

  Footsteps scraped the pavement behind me and I spun around, my hand clenching into a fist. But as soon as my gaze landed on the newcomer, my muscles relaxed. “You’re late.”

  Derek scoffed. “Hardly. I was doing some last-minute recon.”

  Fingers of unease curled in my stomach. “Did Liza ask you to check something out?”

  “No,” he said, his right hand resting gently on the tranq gun Liza had permitted him to bring. “But it’s always a good idea to get a general lay of the land before heading in.” He raised his hand and nudged my shoulder. “Don’t worry. All this stuff becomes second nature the longer you do this.”

  I sighed. “You’re assuming we make it through this without getting caught.”

  He ducked down to peer into my eyes. “We will because we have to. Okay?”

  I nodded. He was right. Failure tonight meant Marco would die. It was that simple. It was an incredible stroke of luck that we’d learned about this transfer of L-B4 treatments. We couldn’t count on lightning to strike twice. “Okay.”

  Raising to his full height, he stared out across the darkening road toward City Hall. “Do you ever worry that we’re not doing enough?”

  I studied his profile. “What do you mean? I know we didn’t have long to plan this mission, but Liza’s a pro. I’m sure we’ve got all our bases covered.”

  He shook his head. “No—not for tonight. I mean in general. Sure, we get medicine to people. We help save lives—and that’s great. But we’re not changing anything. People aren’t sick anymore, but they’re in the same place they were before they got sick.”

  I chewed on my lower lip, considering his words. “I guess you’re right. But what are we supposed to do? It’s not like the angels in the senate are going to suddenly start changing the laws to give demons more rights. Remember what happened last year in Amberg? Dillon Osgood had the mayoral election locked up. He followed all the rules. But the angels just couldn’t stand the idea of a demon being mayor, so they dusted off some ancient law that said he couldn’t…”

  Derek lifted a hand to quiet me. “Of course I remember. But that’s what I mean. What we’re doing isn’t changing things. Maybe we need to try something new.”

  I opened my mouth, ready to ask what that something new might be, when Liza’s voice filtered in through the comm in my ear. “Are you two ready to begin your approach?”

  I glanced at Derek, who still stared at City Hall in the distance. When it was clear he wasn’t going to respond, I activated my mic. “Yeah, we’re here. We’ll let you know when we’re ready to cross.”

  With a sigh, Derek reached down to a pocket near his knee and pulled out a pair of night vision binoculars. He pointed them toward City Hall, and even though the light had faded significantly since I had arrived, I knew he could still make out plenty of detail.

  “Right,” he said at length, lowering the binoculars. “The patrols look like they’re the same as they’ve been all day. The guards on the roof just turned toward the back of the building. This is our best window to move unseen.”

  I nodded, my throat suddenly too dry to speak.

  City Hall didn’t usually have guards patrolling the roof, and when we first noticed them, we assumed they’d been added to protect the medicine until the authorities in Amberg came to pick it up. But when we reached out to Chamberlain to see what information he had about it, he said that the extra security was for the chancellor’s benefit. He would be at City Hall tomorrow, along with a handful of senators and a group called the Blade Keepers. Liza, Derek, and Marco had all nodded knowingly at the mention of the Keepers, while I did my best to disguise my confusion. The term sounded vaguely familiar, but I had no idea who they were or what their significance might be.

  Derek and I hugged the shadows around nearby buildings as we made our way toward City Hall. By the time we made it to the street across from the four story building, my fingers trembled from the adrenaline coursing through my veins. A thin line separated vigilance and panic, and I was walking it now. I kept my breathing as even as possible to ensure I wouldn’t tip the scale to fear. It was easy to make a mistake when acting out of fear. Instead, I needed to move with purpose.

  Derek pressed the comm in his ear to activate it. “We’re about to cross the street. Is the drone in position?”

  Liza’s response came through the comm in my ear. “It will be in thirty seconds. Wait for my signal.”

  Derek nodded his head. “Did you hear that?”

  “Loud and clear,” I assured him.

  As we waited, I scanned overhead for a sign of the drone, even though I knew that Liza would have it so high up that it would be nearly impossible to pick out against the rapidly blackening sky. This morning, I had outfitted the small aerial device with a thermal imaging camera so Liza could track the position of the guards. I’d been working with tech equipment since I first came to live with Liza. Originally it was my job because I had fingers small enough to handle the tiny tools required to work with devices like in-ear comms. But as the years progressed, I developed the skills and talent needed to go beyond simple repairs.

  “Drone’s in place,” Liza said through the comm. “I’ll count you in. You’ll have ten seconds to get across the road to the south wall. Ready? Three. Two. One. Go!”

  I sprinted out of our hiding spot as soon as Liza said go. My heart banged against my ribs, and I kept my eyes locked on my target. A wrought iron fence surrounded the building, but at only four feet high, it was easy to vault. Only when my hands slammed against the stone wall did I check to make sure Derek was still with me.

  He stood an arm’s length from me and swung a pack off his back. “We’ll go up one at a time,” he said, pulling out two sets of climbing gloves and traction cleats. “I’ll go first.”

  “Begin your approach,” Liza said. “But be prepared to stop if I tell you.”

  Derek nodded as he pulled the traction grips over his shoes and slipped his hands into the specialized gloves. The gloves and shoe-coverings were coated with a material he had manufactured in his lab. Well, “manufactured” was a generous term. Derek himself had taken to referring to the substance as a “happy accident.”

  My stomach tightened as I watched Derek begin his ascent up the side of the building. But as he climbed higher and higher without crashing back down to the ground, my worry ebbed. When he was halfway up, I pulled on my own cleats and gloves, wanting to be ready to go as soon as it was time.

  It seemed as though a glacial age had passed by the time Derek clambered over the ledge encircling the roof.

  “Okay,” Liza said through my comm. “Next.”

  My throat went dry as I positioned my hands against the smooth wall. I brought my right foot up and began my climb. After the first few feet, I got the hang of pulling my hands off and repositioning them. But the higher I got, the more panicked thoughts entered my head. What if the material stopped sticking? What if a glove slipped off and fell to the ground? For all I knew, the angels had captured Derek already. If the angels on the roof nabbed him quickly enough, he wouldn’t have time to radio distress. I could be walking—well, climbing—into a trap.

  Closing my e
yes, I blew out a breath. The scale was tipping to panic, and I couldn’t give into fear if I wanted to succeed. I needed to accomplish this mission—for Marco, yes, but also for myself. The need to do, to help, hadn’t ebbed when I delivered the medicine yesterday. If anything, the desire increased. It was like something inside me was desperate to get out, but I wasn’t sure what act might satisfy it.

  I neared the top of the building and began sizing up the ledge when Liza’s voice came through the comm. “Eden, stop moving!”

  Chapter Five

  I froze, clinging as close as I could to the wall, waiting for further orders.

  “We’ve got a patrol,” Liza continued. I strained my ears and could just make out the crunch of footsteps. “It looks like they added in another rotation. Once he’s gone, you’ll have thirty seconds. Be ready.”

  Thirty seconds? My heart hammered against my chest. Derek hadn’t cleared the ledge that quickly. The bulky stonework was at least two feet wide and the lip extended three feet away from the wall.

  The footsteps stopped and every muscle in my body tensed. Although I had no way of seeing the guard, I couldn’t help imaging him standing even with me on the roof, maybe even staring over the edge. Was there any possibility he could see me? Depending on his angle, he might catch a glimpse of my reflection on an adjacent building’s window.

  I didn’t breathe again until I heard his footsteps move on.

  “Get ready to go in five seconds,” Liza said. “Four. Three. Two.”

  On one, I channeled all of my bundled energy to my legs and sprang toward the ledge. Mercifully, my fingers gained purchase on the stone, and with one final kick, I propelled myself over the lip.

  “Twenty seconds,” Liza intoned.

  I grabbed the inside edge of the wall and pulled myself in toward the roof. Swinging my legs around, I landed silently on the pebbled surface. I scanned the vicinity for Derek, but all I saw were rectangular structures popping up from the roof at intervals.