I sighed. The men in my life left a lot to be desired.
Rafael had done a bang-up job shattering every window in the showroom. He had also left a trail of blood that was nice and easy to follow, at least until I got into the wooded area out back of the building.
That idiot better not get tetanus from this Hulk-rage episode. Or rabies, because when I found Rafael, he was bare-chested with blood streaming down his side from where I’d stabbed him. He pawed at the ground, attempting to catch a very confused but friendly deer—hopefully to eat—which darted in close to inspect him and then pranced away whenever Rafael moved. The game seemed to amuse the animal but aggravated an already-enraged Rafael further.
I slipped from shadow to shadow until I was right behind him.
His nostrils let out a smoky burst as he tensed to leap on his prey, and I chose that moment to clock him with an armored-up fist. He went down like a ton of bricks, unconscious, but with a steady pulse.
Hoping that punch would tide him over for a bit with some cracking dreams, I tore off my jean jacket, pressed it to his side, and called Miles.
“What?” he snapped.
“Two to beam up, Scotty,” I said.
“Pickle, you’re disrupting our intimate and interactive time,” Arkady called out over the phone.
There was an element of strain under his saucy tone. Perchance all was not well? I refused to feel any guilt in light of my recent epiphany about his lying ass. Words would be had and soon, but I didn’t want to give up the element of surprise when I confronted him, so I focused on the irritating male from whom I required assistance.
“Miles, are you being naughty on a Sunday?” I gasped. “How provocative.”
“You are my penance for whatever I did in a past life,” he said.
“Oh, good. Since you’re in a mood to atone, I’ve got a bit of a situation.” I explained the problem, leaving out all mention of the library. Attendants hadn’t trusted anyone with its location, not even Jezebels, and I wasn’t going to reveal where it was.
“A bit?” Miles said when I was done.
“It could be worse,” I said.
“How?”
“Rafael could have caught the deer.”
“Fuck my life. Stay where you are,” Miles said.
“You mean abort my plan to drag Rafael’s large and heavy faux-god body through the woods for a good time?” I repositioned the bloodied jacket against the knife wound I’d inflicted on Rafael and pressed harder. “I never get to have any fun.”
“Cohen,” Miles growled at me.
“Geez. I’m not going anywhere.”
Half an hour later, Rafael’s knife wound had been treated and he was in the cell glowing with nulling magic in the basement of House Pacifica. This particular corridor had been commandeered by House operatives in the name of security, so not even the Nefesh police located at House HQ would know what was going on.
Rafael rattled the bars. “Let me out!”
“We can’t.” I stood behind the white line about ten feet from the cell, in the magic-safe zone. “It’s the only way to keep you from getting worse.”
“If you null my magic, I can’t sense if Chariot gets into the library.”
“You said the wards are strong.”
“They are for now, but if I can’t sense Chariot’s return, they’ll have all the time in the world to work on them without me there to fix any weak spots. What if they find the Kiss of Death and just waltz in?” Rafael pulled on his hair. “I have to get out. We can’t leave the scrolls undefended.” His voice ended in a half-sob.
“We won’t. Look, I can hire someone to set up a motion detector security system outside the warehouse that will immediately alert me. No one has to know what’s actually inside. If Chariot steps foot on the property to attack the wards, we’ll know and I can get there immediately.”
Rafael placed his hands against the bars. “What if they get the amulet?”
“They can’t get in without my blood, remember?” I said gently.
“Right. I forgot.” He sat down on the mattress in the corner of the cell and wrapped a blanket around himself, refusing to make further eye contact with me.
I wasn’t infallible, but I hated that I’d let him down in any way. I scratched my arm. There was so much grief and anger soaked into my skin that I wished I could shed it like a snake. I’d sworn to fix this for Rafael, but he hadn’t believed me since I’d previously assured him he didn’t have any intrusive magic inside him. And honestly, I’d tossed that promise about so often lately, the words sounded a bit thin to my ears, too.
“Get out,” Rafael roared.
It would have been crueler to stick around than to do as he wished, so I left.
I was in the hallway, arranging for a Winnipeg security company to set up the alarm system, when Arkady showed up.
“How’s Rafael?” he said, once I’d finished my call.
“Awful.”
“Miles ordered an operative be posted at all times outside the doors to secure the hallways and in case Rafael needs anything.”
“That’s good.”
Arkady opened his mouth, then closed it. “Okay, well, if you’re done here, Steven is on duty first—”
“Talia is being blackmailed,” I said.
“You mentioned that at our meeting.”
“By someone French.” I watched him carefully for the tiniest sign of guilt.
He shook his head. “Well then, you should find someone else to interpret for you, because voulez-vous couchez avec moi is the extent of my linguistic abilities.”
The flippant bastard. “Here’s what’s interesting about it. This blackmailer is threatening to expose Talia for hiding a Rogue kid unless she resigns from the party. They even have footage from the aquarium gala on the very night my magic first manifested. Isn’t that quite the coincidence? I mean, who would have been watching me already, a documented Mundane, at that precise moment?”
Although Arkady didn’t lose his expression of polite curiosity, he rocked back on his feet, creating more distance between us, and crossed one leg over the other—a non-verbal cue that he might feel threatened by my question. “I have no idea,” he said.
“It seems rather personal. Not someone with an ideological bone to pick, but a specific grudge against my mother, wouldn’t you say? In your professional opinion?”
“I guess.”
“Then we have the fact that you slipped up, saying you’d been called home to Ottawa, while admitting under jet lag that you’d been in Montreal.”
He spread his hands. “I told you that my grandmother lives there. She’s old. I care. I visit her.”
“And she does.” I mimicked his hand gesture. “Of course, I verified that.”
“Of course.”
“But here’s the thing, and correct me if I’m mistaken, but there’s another reason to have gone to Montreal. One that fits this scenario perfectly. You’re working for my grandparents. That’s why you didn’t want me to follow up with Dad’s estranged family before I went to visit Uncle Paulie. Not because it would upset me, but because it would expose you.” My voice hardened. “How am I doing?”
Arkady stiffened his hands, interlacing them with his fingers pointed out in a “V.” He moved his fingers back and forth slowly. A classic cue that something was bothering the person. “You’re wrong.”
“I’m not.” My smile had the cold satisfaction of a person who’d been lifting cups in this shell game over and over, only to find empty air under each, and now, finally, chose the one with the ball.
“Your grandmother died almost six months ago,” he said. “I’m only working for your grandfather.”
I did a double take and Arkady laughed bitterly. “Didn’t expect me to admit it, did you?”
Blood rushed into my ears, along with a curious sense of relief that the secret was out. Arkady had betrayed me and put my mother in harm’s way. He’d used Priya to get to me and insinuated himself into t
he lives of people I cared about. Now it was my play.
I shoved him up against the wall, my arm across his throat. “You fucking psycho, pretending to be my friend. Why did you do it?”
Arkady knocked my legs out from under me. I crashed backward onto the floor and he raised stone fists. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.
“Bit late for that.” I locked down my blood armor and pushed to my feet.
The air grew heavy, the two of us circling like sharks.
“Do I get a chance to explain?” he said. “Or have you skipped judge and jury and gone straight to executioner?”
Part of my brain howled for payback first, answers later, but how would I face myself in the mirror if I did? Especially with someone I’d considered a friend, even if the opposite hadn’t been true? I blinked through my red haze and shut down my magic.
Arkady watched me warily for another moment, before letting the stone turn back to skin. He slid down the wall to sit on the ground. “I never pretended that I cared.”
“My mistake,” I said frostily.
He scrubbed a hand over his face and swore softly. “That’s not—whatever you think of me, the friendship was real.”
Arkady thunked his head back against the wall lightly a couple of times. I’d never seen him agitated like this.
I sat down across the hall and threw him a lifeline. “Rebecca is dead?”
I’d only ever known Dad’s parents as names, never even seen a photo. I didn’t grieve at this news but there was a flutter inside my chest.
“Yeah. Heart trouble. She went peacefully, if that helps. I swear I tried to stop Nathan and he promised he wouldn’t undertake this stupid plan.”
“He broke his word,” I said.
“No shit. As far as I’m concerned that absolves me of any professional loyalty. Anything you want to know, I’ll tell you.”
“If you were already spying on me the night of the gala, you’d have known I didn't have magic. What were you looking for? And why? Was he paying you well?”
“I wasn’t paid at all. Nathan was a career civil servant who knew my dad through diplomatic circles.” He scratched at a frayed patch on his jeans. Arkady’s father had been the Canadian Ambassador to Russia, moving the family across continents when Arkady was young. “Nathan’d heard about my military training and that I’d moved out here, and he contacted me to do a quick job.”
“Did he want you to find me?” Even if they hadn’t spoken in years, there’s no way Dad didn’t send them a ‘mazel tov, you have a grandkid’ card when I was born. I drew my knees into my chest and hugged them.
“Do you know anything of Adam’s upbringing?” Arkady said.
I shook my head. “Not really.”
“What do you know about Hexers?”
It took me a minute to place the name. “Aren’t they some lunatic-fringe magic supremacy group?”
“Very good, pickle.” My heart twisted at the use of this nickname, when everything was so messy and hurtful between us. It was like seeing a glint of gold while standing in a shit heap. “Hexers are a lot less fringe and more organized than many realize,” he said. “They have multi-faith temples, children’s camps, and artists spreading the word. They’re also very well funded. It’s a deep and frightening rabbit hole, and your grandparents came from a long line of them, though they kept their affiliation quiet outside of like-minded circles. I’m not surprised Adam bolted as soon as he could.”
“And you worked for them?” My voice was thick with disgust.
“I wasn’t working for the Hexers, I was helping a family friend who’d asked me to find his son and daughter-in-law. I didn’t even know about their connection with those people until I’d taken the job.”
The reminder that those people were friends and community members, like Isaac, was one I wished I could ignore. It would be so much easier to paint people in broad strokes of good or bad, but that would be akin to underestimating them. That would be my downfall, just like Isaac underestimating Nicola would contribute to his.
“Nathan’s request seemed harmless,” Arkady said. “Then I learned that your dad had left your family, and Talia was Mundane, and I figured that his upbringing had rubbed off on him after all and he’d returned to his pure roots. Except I couldn’t find any trace of Adam. I reported back to Nathan that your father had abandoned you both years ago without a trace. It wasn’t enough to appease Nathan. Rebecca and he had cast Talia as the entire reason their son never came back. They despised her and wanted to cause her the same kind of pain she’d caused them. Rebecca made him swear it on her deathbed.”
“Vengeance. Such a beautiful way to keep their love alive. Hang on. Do you know the date she died?"
“December fourteenth, why?”
“Nathan gave Talia ten days to resign. It seemed arbitrary and pretty generous.” I shook my head. “June fourteenth is the six-month anniversary of Rebecca’s death.”
“That’s one way to mark its passage.”
“Why dig into me?” I said.
“Your mom didn’t have any skeletons and to be fair, you’re in an industry with its share of unscrupulous individuals. I figured I might find some shady professional behavior, but instead, I found magic.” He tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. “I thought Nathan would be happy when he heard you were Nefesh, but he was too entrenched in his hatred of your mother to care.”
“And the Montreal trip?”
“Nathan had been obsessing over the footage and he’d called me with this brilliant idea to use it against Talia to bring her down. I went to threaten him in person that I would bring in the cops and go very public with this. His reputation in government is important to him and that should have been the end of the matter.”
“Did you tell him I’m a Jezebel?”
“No. I swear. Only about your enhanced magic. That’s all I knew about at first. Once I learned the rest, I was already a part of all this.”
I wrapped my arms around myself. “You mean you’d wormed your way into our lives. If this is all true, then how could you let our friendship go on, looking me in the face each time, knowing you were lying and passing on my secrets?” My voice cracked.
“You weren’t supposed to matter,” Arkady said softly. “But once you did, I tried to shut all this down. My loyalty was with you.”
My lip curled. “Loyalty or fear of losing Miles?”
“Loyalty,” Miles said, ridiculously ninja-good at walking up to private conversations unnoticed. “Arkady confessed all of this to me ages ago. He was ashamed and wanted to make it up to you by being a part of Team Jezebel.”
Arkady winced. “Tell all my secrets, why don’t you?”
Miles shrugged. “I told you it would only hurt more not to tell her.”
There was a pause and a space where Arkady’s shoulders rose, fell, and then he sighed.
“I’m sorry, Ash. It got harder and harder to confess the more time passed. I moved around too much to really have friends growing up, and I didn’t want to lose you. I hoped that if I proved myself this way, my past actions could be swept under the carpet. I never thought it would go this far.”
I wanted to believe him. I wanted my friend back, but I was too raw for forgiveness. I exhaled slowly, looking for items to alphabetize to calm down: Ash at the end of her rope, big fucking problem, complete shitshow, destroyed friendship…
I unclenched my jaw.
Miles held out his hand and pulled Arkady up. “Do we need arbitration? A time out? A clean-up crew?”
Arkady pointed at me. “Your call, pickle. Can we get past this?”
I honestly didn’t know. “Set up a meeting with Nathan,” I said. “Then we’ll see.”
Miles dragged Arkady away on other business. I allowed myself one lingering wistful glance before turning away.
My mother hated magic, my grandparents hated Mundanes, and I was caught with a foot in both worlds, being pulled apart by my own family. Magic delusion Ash was starti
ng to have more appeal. Even with the golf.
Peeking in through the door for one last look at Rafael, I texted Lux about what had happened to him and that I’d like to speak to her about possible solutions. She was out of town for work but would contact me as soon as she got back.
Rafael sat huddled in the corner of the cell, his back to the door. He had given me his unconditional loyalty, just like I’d done with Arkady.
But unlike Arkady, I’d prove that I was worthy of it.
Chapter 13
I spent Monday morning putting the library to rights and jumping at every little sound, convinced that Chariot was back. I’d tested the alarm system and was satisfied that no one could enter the property without me knowing, but the fear was hard to shake. As I combed through the records for ways to block the Kiss of Death, I assured myself over and over again that even if they found the amulet, without my blood, it was useless.
That wasn’t much of an assurance.
Much of the furniture was beyond repair and the records were disappointingly thin on useful intel. Plus, I was still waiting on Lux, Arkady, and getting some Blank, so Levi’s text requesting assistance was an almost welcome distraction.
Until we met at my office and he filled me in.
“Golf,” I said flatly. I doodled a putter in a circle with a line through it. “That’s not in my job description.”
“You don’t actually have to play.” He sat across from me, his leg jiggling, dressed in jeans and a short-sleeved business casual shirt. “My mother is at the tournament for Vancouver General Hospital and I need help getting her to meet with me.”
I grimaced. “Nicola golfs?”
“It’s not a communicable disease. She’s involved in a lot of charities and this fundraiser is a favorite of hers.”
“Why involve me? As I recall, I’m scorched earth.” I added horns to the golf club.
“Not as much as I am, apparently,” he muttered. “You were right about her going through with this, and… I panicked when you first told me.”
Levi didn’t admit vulnerability, but this confession didn’t let him off the hook.
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