The Operator

by Kim Harrison

  None of your business, she thought, saying, “Just about the same time your chemical tracker runs out.”

  Again he smiled. “Atta girl. Enjoy your downtime. I’ll be in touch.”

  “I’m done, Bill,” she said as he began to walk away. “Call me again, and I’ll kill you.”

  But all he did was turn to give her a smile. “Life is boring,” he said, focus distant as he buttoned his jacket. “You need me to feel alive.” His eyes fixed on hers, and her mouth went dry at the truth of it. “It was a real pleasure working that closely with you again. You did a lot with half an anchor. Think of what you could do with a whole one.”

  “Silas is a good anchor,” she whispered, stomach rolling.

  Shrugging as if it didn’t matter, Bill turned and walked away, catching a little girl who had barreled into him and solicitously making sure she had her feet before letting her go.

  He had left the money behind, and she took a breath to call out after him, swallowing it back. She had to move. Silas would be with her. Two were harder to hide than one, but they didn’t need Bill’s money to do it.

  She watched Jack say his final words to Silas and jog across the plaza to join Bill, but her thoughts had gone to her goal of sedate days. That they would safely turn into sedate weeks of inaction, and then sedate months of boredom, suddenly had less appeal.

  Slowly she tucked the fat envelope into a pocket. Picking up Carnac, she crossed the plaza to Silas, squinting when the bright sun hit her. She wasn’t taking Bill’s money as a promise to work for him. She was taking it to help hide herself and Silas.

  But as she lifted her head and smiled at Silas in the new sun, she wasn’t sure she believed herself.

  Get lost in the fact-paced world of Peri Reed with these other titles!

  Kim Harrison blazes a new frontier with an edge-of-your-seat thriller that will keep you guessing until the very end.

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  Keep reading for a sneak-peek excerpt from

  THE TURN

  The prequel to Kim Harrison’s #1 New York Times bestselling Hollows series

  Available Spring 2017 from Gallery Books.

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  Trisk ran a hand down her Jackie Kennedy–inspired dress suit, not liking how it hampered her motions even if it showed off her curves. Grades and accomplishments were her primary weapon in the battle to attract an employer, but appearance came in a close second. She was dressed better than most on the crowded, noisy presentation floor, but she didn’t want even a shimmer of glittery dust to mar its stark, businesslike black.

  Anxiety pinched her eyes as she sat attentively at her booth, surrounded by the remnants of her past eight years, which suddenly seemed dull and vapid. She smiled at an older couple as they passed, their clipboards in hand as they shopped. “How are we for security?” one asked, and Trisk warmed when the other ran his eyes over her, making her feel like a horse up for auction.

  “We could use someone, but how good could she be? She’s in with the geneticists.”

  “That’s because I am one,” Trisk said loudly, shoulders hunching when they gave her a surprised look and continued on.

  Jaw clenched, she slumped back in her chair, shifting the seat back and forth as she frowned at the empty interview chair across from her. It had been four months since graduation, and as tradition dictated, her class had gathered in a three-day celebration in the university’s great hall to say good-bye and decide where they would start their careers. Like a reverse job fair, past graduates came from all over the U.S. to meet them, look at their strengths and weaknesses, and find a place for them within their companies. Tonight her classmates would part ways, some going to Houston, others to Portland or Seattle, and the best to Florida for the Kennedy Genetic Center, working in the National Administration of Scientific Advancement.

  At its heart, the gala was a meat market, but seeing as there were only a hundred thousand of her people left on earth hidden among the millions of humans, it was a necessity. Especially now. Their population was poised to drop drastically with this generation if they couldn’t halt the ongoing genetic degradation caused by an ancient war.

  The best of her people studied to become geneticists or the politicians who would ensure that government money kept flowing into the labs. A few specialized in security aimed to do the same, though on a much darker, more dangerous level.

  At least most of them did, Trisk thought, her gaze rising past the class of 1963 banner to the impressive chandelier hanging at the center of the hall. The glowing light hummed with power, the crystal containing a room-wide charm policing all but the most innocent of magics. A live jazz band played at the far end of the room, though no one danced. Glancing down the long rows of tables, she scoffed at the hopeful smiles and cheerful platitudes of her classmates doggedly trying for a better offer as the final hour to register a contract ticked closer. But inside, she was dying. She hadn’t a prayer at attracting anyone from a lab worth working at.

  Trisk and her father had entertained only three employers at her table, all of them more interested in her minor in security than her major in genetic research. Her doctorate in using viruses to introduce undamaged DNA into somatic cells had been all but overlooked. Kal, on the other hand, who used bacteria to do the same thing, was getting accolades and offers left and right—and it bothered her to no end.

  Lip curled, she looked at him positioned directly across from her. Her stellar grades had gotten her a place under the chandelier with the best of them, and Trisk sourly imagined that was a hole they’d plug next year. Her dark hair and eyes among their predominantly fair complexions were obvious and garnering unwanted attention. Olympian gods and goddesses, every single one of them—slim and fair, bright as the sun, and as cold as the moon. Though she was not a second-class citizen, her dusky hair and brown eyes supposedly gave her a natural affinity for one thing in their class-stratified society: security. She was good at that, but she was better in the labs.

  Kal, on the other hand, had been groomed for a high position since birth. Majoring in genetic studies and minoring in business, he had skills and aptitude that made him justifiably sought after, and she hated his smugness. She had to work twice as hard for half the credit, and she thought it telling that he went by his last name, shortening it from Kalamack to Kal in order to sound more human. To her, it meant he relied on his family for his identity rather than his own self.

  Depressed, she looked down at her dress and the boring shoes it had come with. She’d chosen black to match her hair and eyes, a decision she was now regretting. It made her look like security, not business. A matching but useless hat with a fake rose on it hung on the coat stand her father had insisted on having in her booth, and she fought with the urge to throw it on the floor and stomp on it. I’m tired of fighting this . . .

  “Penny for your thoughts,” a masculine voice said, and she turned, her sour mood vanishing.

  “Quen!” she exclaimed as she rose, thinking he looked exceptional in his interview suit, as black as her dress apart from a vibrant red tie. His eyes were a dark green, and his hair just as black as hers, though it curled about his ears where hers was remarkably straight. She warmed as his gaze traveled appreciably over her, and she wished his fingers would follow, but she knew they never would. They were both so damn focused on their careers, and if she got pregnant, hers would be over.

  “Wow. I forgot how well you wash up,” she said, her smile widening as she gave him a hug, lingering to breathe him in. He smelled good, like oiled steel and cinnamon. She could tell he’d been s
pelling lately, probably to show his skills to a prospective employer. “You took your beard off,” she said, her fingers tracing bare skin. But then her eyes widened when she realized he was holding himself differently, an unusual pride hiding in the back of his gaze.

  “You accepted a position,” she said, grasping his hands. “Where?” He was going to leave in the morning and go on to the rest of his life. But finding their place in the world was what the gathering was for.

  “I’ve never seen you look this amazing, Trisk,” he said, evading her as he glanced at her contract basket and the three minor offers within, turned facedown in her disappointment. “Is your dad around?”

  “He’s getting some coffee,” she said, but what he was really doing was campaigning for her. “Who took you on?”

  Quen shook his head. His thick hand, calloused from the security arts, felt rough as it touched her cheek. They’d met in Physical Defense 101. He’d gone on into further studies as expected, and she had not. Women, even those with hair as dark as hers, were not allowed to serve as anything other than passive security, and after fulfilling her minor in security with demon studies, she intentionally flunked out of business to get into the scientific arena. It rankled Trisk that her grades were as good as, if not better than, Kal’s. She had the GPA to work for the National Administration of Scientific Advancement at the Kennedy Genetic Center, but she’d be lucky to get a job in Seattle, much less NASA.

  Kal’s laugh rang out, and Quen moved so she wouldn’t have to watch the NASA representative and Kal’s parents fawn over him. There was an opening on the team who’d solved the insulin puzzle in the forties, freeing not only their children from diabetes forever, but humanity, the species they’d tested it on. Kal’s parents looked proud as they entertained the man. The Kalamack name was faltering, and they’d invested everything in their son to try to find a rebirth. Elitist little sod. Maybe if your family weren’t such snots, you could engender children, she thought.

  Trisk looked at her offered contracts and her lip twitched. “Did I ever tell you about the time Kal cheated off me?”

  “Every time you drink too much.” Quen tried to tug her away, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave, not daring to be absent if someone should seek her out and find her gone.

  “You know the worst part?” she said as she refused to move and his hand fell away. “I think he did it knowing we’d get caught and I’d be the one called a cheater, because the Goddess knows Kal is too smart and clever to cheat.”

  “You think?” Quen said, grinning at her old anger. “I swear, Trisk, you should have majored in security. Maybe finished out that demon study track. I bet you could find a demon name, and with that, they’d let you teach.”

  She dropped down into her chair, not caring that her knees were not pressed together as they should be. “Demon summoning is a dead art. Like Latin. Besides, demons give me the creeps.”

  Quen sat on the edge of her interviewer chair, looking awkward and handsome all at the same time. “Security isn’t just guns, and knives, and stealth. It’s technology, and demons, and sneaking around. You’re good at that.”

  Her eyes flicked to his, seeing him smile. Not to mention security is the only place someone like me is allowed to excel, she thought. “I want to help our entire species, not just one or two of us.” She hesitated, astounded at the overdone display across the aisle. “My God. His genetic code is so full of holes, I can smell the human spliced in from here.”

  Quen ducked his head, hiding a grin. “I’m going to work for the Kalamack family,” he said suddenly, and shocked, Trist felt her face go white.

  “What?”

  “I took a position,” he said, still looking at the floor. “It wasn’t the money, though I’ll admit it’s more than I thought I’d ever be able to make this soon.”

  She couldn’t breathe, imagining the horror of working for the Kalamack family. “Quen, you can’t. Kal is a prejudiced prick who learned at the knee of his prejudiced dick father. You’ll never get the credit you deserve. They’ll treat their horses better than you.”

  He looked up, the anger in his brow surprising. “You don’t think I know that?”

  “Quen,” she pleaded, taking his hands in hers.

  “I don’t need the recognition like you do,” he interrupted as he pulled away. “Besides, there are long-reaching benefits to being forgotten and unseen among your betters.” His expression became crafty. “The chance to learn things is unparalleled. I’ll be fine.”

  But I won’t be, she thought, knowing her hope of finding a job near enough to him to continue their friendship was now utterly gone. The Kalamacks lived in Portland, and all the good labs were on the East Coast or in Texas.

  She took a breath, her reach for him jerking back when she realized Kal was standing before them. The smug smile on his beautiful face made it obvious he’d found out and wanted to rub her nose in it.

  “What do you want?” she said as she rose. Quen stood as well, a warning hand on her shoulder.

  “Hi, Felicia,” Kal mocked, and she bristled, hating her given name. It was why she went by her middle name, Eloytrisk, or Trisk for short.

  “My name is Trisk,” she intoned, and Kal shrugged, knowing it bothered her.

  “Felicia the flea. That’s what we called you, remember?” he said, curling the lowest contract up to see who had offered it.

  She shoved him back, her face cold. “Keep out of my space. You stink like human.”

  Kal’s cheeks reddened, stark against his fair, almost white hair. Everyone knew he’d been in and out of the hospital most of his early life, his parents spending a fortune tweaking his code to make him the picture of the perfect elf in the hopes that it would attract a successful house. No children meant no status, and the Kalamack name was ready to fall.

  “Trisk,” Quen said in warning, and she shook off his restraining hand. She’d had enough of Kal, and after tonight, one way or the other, he’d be gone.

  Kal drew himself up in the aisle, braver—or perhaps more foolish—with his parents gone, the two of them having escorted the NASA dignitary away for a drink. “I see Quen told you about his new job,” he said as he idly looked at his nails. “I asked my father if I could take him to NASA with me. I’ll need someone to make me breakfast, pick up my dry cleaning. I would have asked him to hire you, but everyone knows women can’t drive.”

  “Go away,” she intoned, hands fisted. Damn it, he’d gotten that NASA job.

  Kal rocked forward, daring her to protest. “Besides, pushing you around would get old. Much better to take away your only friend in the world. It’s not like you’ll make it to Florida.”

  She clenched her teeth, green with jealousy. Everything was given to him. Everything. She stiffened when he moved closer, again lifting the contracts.

  “I’m going to work at NASA developing new strains of carrier bacteria that can repair a child’s DNA as early as three days old with a simple inhalation. And you,” he said, head tilted as he chuckled at the small-firm letterheads. “The closest you will ever get will be in some research facility’s library, shelving books for old farts who can’t work a Punnett square. Have fun, Flea.”

  Smiling that confident, hated smile, he turned to go.

  Her anger boiled up, and she shook off Quen’s restraining hand again. “You are a hack, Kalamack,” she said loudly, and the nearby conversations went silent. “Your theory to use bacteria to fix DNA strands into a new host are seriously flawed. Good for a doctorate, but not application. You can’t stop bacteria from evolving as you can viruses, and you will end up killing the people you are trying to save.”

  Kal looked her up and down. “Huh. A second-rate security grunt thinks she knows my job better than I do?”

  “Trisk,” Quen warned as she pulled out of his grip and took two long steps into the aisle.

  “Kal?” she said sweetly, and when he looked up, she punched him right in the nose.

  Kal cried out, falling
back to catch himself against his own booth. His hands covered his face, blood leaking out from between them, a stark, shocking red. “You hit me!” he cried as a handful of excited, flustered girls flocked to him, finding handkerchiefs in their little jeweled handbags.

  “Damn right I hit you,” she said, shaking the pain from her hand. Busting his nose had hurt, but casting a spell would have been worse. Besides, the chandelier would have stopped it.

  “You little canicula,” Kal exclaimed, shoving away the people who had gathered to help. Wiping the blood away, he stood stiffly before her, his hair almost floating as he reached past the wards on the room and drew on a ley line.

  People fell back. Someone called for security. Trisk’s eyes widened, her attention going to the huge chandelier as it shifted to a dark purple color. A faint alarm began chiming.

  “No one hits me!” Kal exclaimed, and as Trisk stared flat-jawed, he spread his clasped hands apart to show a glowing ball of unfocused energy. It was a lot for a lab rat, and Trisk wondered if he’d been tutored on the side.

  “Kal, don’t!” Quen shouted, and Kal sneered.

  “Dilatare,” Kal said, shoving the white, but dangerous, spell at her.

  Unable to stomach hiding in a circle, Trisk yanked a wad of unfocused energy from the nearest ley line. Her hands went warm.

  Quen was faster, though, and Trisk started when an aura-tainted streak of power struck Kal’s incoming bolt, sending both energies spinning wildly up and into the chandelier. They hit it with a shower of green-tinted sparks, and, with a ping that echoed in her mind, the huge crystal-and-light chandelier shattered.