Karim? Yeah, he would’ve.
“Danvers!” I called outside, whispering harshly. “Karim!”
It was RJ who descended from the air in front of me, assuming his human form an instant before touching the ground. He had blood on his shirt, on his knuckles, and he was sweating. He rushed over to me just as I started to stagger through the open door and into the night. If he hadn’t held me up, I’d have fallen into the grass face first.
“Are you good?” RJ asked as he helped me right myself.
“I feel like I’ve got the mother of all hangovers, but I’m fine,” I said, “Is that your blood?”
He shook his head. “No. I ran into some guards on the roof, had to knock them out of the fight.”
“Looks like you did more than that.”
“Trust me, they’ll live. Where’s Axel?”
“Still inside, I think. I can’t find Danvers or Karim.”
“Danvers is on the other side of the wall, c’mon.”
RJ started guiding me toward the wall, but I stopped him. “And Karim?”
He turned his head and stared at me, a serious look on his face. “They were attacked by one of the mages in this place,” he said.
“Where’s Karim?”
“Look, we ain’t got time for me to explain shit right now.”
“Where is he!” I yelled, my voice shooting into the night like a shotgun blast.
“They took him,” RJ said. “I couldn’t stop them. Danvers barely got away. She’s been hurt.”
“Fuck… fuck! I need to go back in there.”
“Like hell you do. We need to go, now.”
RJ tugged on my arm, and this time I couldn’t resist. He had the strength of ten guys—without the use of magic. I could only imagine what he’d done to the guards on the roof. I was shaking, I still couldn’t see as well as I should’ve been able to, and I was having trouble keeping myself upright, but I wanted to go back inside and find Karim and Axel. We had to go back and find them. Leaving them here just wasn’t an option.
Movement behind us caught my eye just as we reached the outer wall, stopping me just shy of pushing through the portal. I wasn’t sure exactly who had emerged from the mansion’s side-door, but it didn’t look like Greaves, at least.
“Wait!” I said to RJ, who also turned around to look at where I was pointing.
It was Axel, running toward us. Axel, but no Karim. RJ called out and waved him over, and Axel started running. More figures emerged after him, these ones clad in body armor and holding guns. I was about to start flinging magic around, but RJ pushed me through the portal, through to the other side. I staggered, lost my balance, and fell.
I heard gunshots, I saw flashes of magic illuminating the top of the wall. I tried to get up, but my body felt like it was made of lead. RJ finally broke through the portal, with Axel next to him. Between the two of them they helped me get back up on my feet and dragged me into the trees, and away from the mansion to a spot where a bloodied Danvers sat waiting for us.
We were out of danger now, and we’d retrieved Becket’s key, but we’d lost Karim. I wasn’t sure the gravity of that statement had quite hit my struggling mind yet. We’d lost Karim.
He was gone.
CHAPTER NINE
I slammed the key onto Becket’s table and glared at him from across it.
“You have your key,” I barked, “Now, I’m going back to get Karim.”
“I’m afraid that’s not an option,” Becket said.
“Like hell it isn’t.” Spinning around on my heel, it was RJ who stood between me and the way out of Becket’s office.
He shook his head. “Think about this, Izzy,” Axel said.
“I have thought about it. All I did was think about it. We never should’ve left the mansion without him, and you know that.”
Axel shook his head. “There was nothing we could do. They knew we were there, my father was on his way, and you and Danvers were out of the fight. We didn’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” I snapped, “And you all chose to let them take Karim.”
“It’s my fault,” Danvers said, her voice meek. In the dim light of the office, and with the weight of the world on her shoulders, she looked every bit the teenager she was. As if the Cassidy Danvers we all knew was a mask she wore, only that mask had broken right now. “I let them take him.”
Hearing her speak like that stole the fire out of my throat. This was the first time she’d spoken since we found her in the woods behind the mansion. A smattering of blood streaking across her cheek had dried and turned a deep brown. A single tear spilled from her eye, cutting a line through the crusty blood on her face.
“What happened?” I asked, my anger now a little more contained than it had been a moment ago.
She looked up at us, her wet eyes glistening. “It happened so fast,” she said. “Karim was worried you were taking too long. He wanted to go inside and find you both, but I stopped him. We needed to keep the way out clear, and as long as we stayed where we were, no one could ambush us… but he kept peering inside to try and see if you were coming—that’s when one of the guards saw him.”
“Was he shot?” I asked.
Danvers shut her eyes, squeezing them tightly. She nodded. “We were fighting them off… he turned the corner to throw a spell at one of the guards, and they shot him in the arm.” She touched her face. “It was warm and cold at the same time…”
RJ walked over to her and rested a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay,” he said. “Tell us what happened next.”
“Karim went down,” Danvers continued. “I dragged him out of the hallway to stop him from getting shot again, but I didn’t see the Tempest standing behind the guards. By the time Karim noticed him, his magic was already on me. It was like getting hit with a sledgehammer… I fell over Karim, the worst part was, I couldn’t use my magic after I got hit.”
Danvers turned her eyes up and glared at me, any sadness in her now replaced with anger. “I didn’t want to leave him there,” she said, her whole body shaking, “But he told me to run. He told me to get through the portal, to get RJ’s attention. I watched them take him away somewhere.”
“Did you catch the Tempest’s name?” Axel asked.
She shook her head and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, smearing some of the blood a little further across her cheek. “No, but he was white… he had long, black hair, goatee… kind of a muscular build; deep, serious voice.”
Axel nodded. “That would be Jones. He’s one of the new guys.”
“New guys?” I asked.
“He and two others joined the security staff about two months ago. Jones got fast-tracked into being Greaves’ second in command.”
“Who fast tracked him?”
Axel shrugged. “Only person who can. My father.”
A moment of cold silence passed through the room like a specter. I thought about Karim, now wondering whether or not they’d tried to stop the bleeding on his arm or if they’d simply left him to die. I had to hope he was still alive, because to accept that he was probably dead meant to abandon him, and I wasn’t ready to do that yet. I didn’t think I ever would be.
I turned to look at Becket, who cocked his head to the side, his red eyes glowing against the dimness. “I have to go back and get him,” I said, “We all do, and we need to do it soon. There’s no telling what they’re doing to him.”
Becket glanced at Axel, then turned his attention back onto me. “Your friend is alive,” he said, his voice low and calm—ever the reasonable one.
“How can you possibly know that?”
“Because I know Asmodius. I’m sure Axel can reinforce my opinion that Asmodius will have done everything he could to keep Karim alive, because his ultimate goal isn’t to kill any of you—it’s to get you back. With Karim in his possession, he has something he can bargain with, something he can use to lure you out of your fortress. I suspect we will be hearing from him soon.�
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I snapped a look over at Axel, who nodded. “I think he’s right,” Axel said, “My father likes to call himself a businessman. Murder isn’t something he’s shy of, that’s true, but Karim is of more use to him alive than dead.”
“And if he’s being tortured for information?” I asked.
Becket shook his head. “Unnecessary. Asmodius knows all he needs to know about my capabilities and how futile any attempt at attacking my mansion would be.”
“You keep saying that, but I broke into your mansion, remember? If I can do it, someone else can, too.”
“You are the Wardbreaker. I doubt if anyone has the skill required to break into my mansion without my knowing. In any case, I had been warned.”
“Warned?”
“My demons told me you would be useful to me, so I decided to let you break in, if you could. What I didn’t expect was that you’d get past the doll. Unfortunately, it was busy dealing with the Mystic Trio.”
“Wait, so you let me break into your mansion?”
“The skill was all yours, and I didn’t deactivate any of my defenses, so your ego remains intact. But let’s get back to the point at hand; Asmodius. He also knows I wouldn’t have shared any of my secrets with you, so there’s nothing he needs from Karim other than to use him to buy you. I would emphasize patience on our part. Karim is safe, and in order to get him back, we need only wait.”
It was difficult to argue with the amount of logic being thrown at me, even though I really wanted to. Thinking about it only for a moment I found myself agreeing with everything Becket and Axel had said, and that was enough to get me to back off. They were right. Asmodius will come looking for us to arrange a trade. Me for Karim. The only thing left to do now was to be ready for that moment.
I took a deep breath. “Fine,” I said, sighing. “But I want everyone out of this room. I need to talk to Becket alone.”
Axel frowned at me, questioning my order without saying a word. A moment passed, and I didn’t budge. Glancing at Becket only once, he left the room with RJ and Danvers, shutting the door as he went. Finally, Becket and I were alone. I didn’t want them to have to hear what I was going to talk to him about, because I didn’t want their trust in him wavering… like mine was.
“I won’t pretend I don’t know what this is about,” Becket said.
“So, you admit you were spying on me?” I asked.
“At first, yes. You have to understand, all I knew from you was that you were a thief. A thief who had stolen from me. I wasn’t sure if I could trust you.”
“Why did you save us, then?”
“Because you had succeeded in securing a thousand-year-old artifact I have wanted to examine for a very long time. If I hadn’t intervened, the Magistrate would’ve captured you, thrown you into Harrowgate, and taken possession of the scroll again. It was an opportunity I couldn’t refuse, and I took it.”
I shook my head. “You sent a demon to spy on me… you’ve literally had it over my shoulder this entire time. Do you have any idea how invasive that is?”
“Understand, a demon isn’t a CCTV surveillance system. I posted it near you so it could watch you, and report to me if you did anything to compromise the security of my house. I wasn’t using it to directly watch your movements or to listen to your conversations. And, in fact, were it not for the demon over your shoulder, you may not have survived your encounter with Mister Greaves.”
“Oh, so now you expect me to thank you?”
“I expect nothing of the sort, except perhaps for your understanding. Isabella, you are a capable mage. One stunted by your lack of a Guardian, yes, but capable nonetheless. You are also strangely trustworthy, given your skillset and your penchant for theft.”
“Just because I’m good at stealing things doesn’t make me a bad person.”
“Indeed, it doesn’t, and just because I placed a servant to watch over you doesn’t make me a bad person, either. At first I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t turn on me, but as the weeks went on, and I learned you wouldn’t, I decided to leave my guard at its post… just in case something like this were to happen. Imagine if you had been captured. We would know exactly where you were and how to get to you.”
I set my hands on the desk and let my head dip. “Becket, you have an infuriating ability to make everything sound reasonable.”
“It’s a superpower.”
I looked up at him again. “But the fact remains, you’ve kept something from me… and I still feel like you’ve violated my privacy.”
Becket gestured with one of his hands. “For the latter, I will apologize. It wasn’t my intention to make you feel this way. For the former, however… am I to believe you do not keep things from me?”
“I can’t think of anything I’ve kept from you.”
“Because I have not asked you for any more information than I need. But if I were to ask you about your father, for example…”
“Why would you?”
“I have no personal interest in asking you about him, but to a certain degree, we are strangers. I would expect you to keep plenty of secrets from me.”
I hated that the very mention of my father sent my hackles up. Even now, after all these years, thinking about him made my blood boil. “Starting from now, I don’t want any more secrets between us,” I said. “If we’re going to be working together, I need to know everything you know.”
“Everything that’s relevant, at least.”
“Fine. Everything that’s relevant. There aren’t many people I trust in the world… I want to trust you, and seeing as how your demon saved my life, I’m going to try.” I paused. “I’m not… possessed or anything… am I?”
Becket grinned. “No. That’s not how possession works. In any case, my demon is forbidden from possessing anyone unless I give it specific instructions to do so. I should tell you, in the interest of full disclosure, that I have had to recall it for the time being… Greaves was able to damage its essence, and it will need time to heal.”
I waved a hand at him. “Trust me, having one less demon over my shoulder is only gonna make me more comfortable in this place.”
“Good. In that case, I would suggest you clean up and get some rest. I do not know when Asmodius will make his move, but I believe it will be soon. Perhaps after he has assessed the damage you did to his property and his assets. He won’t be pleased you stole from him.”
I shrugged and started heading for the door. “Nothing I can’t handle,” I said, “Just make sure you tell us as soon as Asmodius makes contact.”
Becket graciously nodded. “You will be the first to know.”
I left Becket’s office, walked over to my room, and sat down on the bed. It was quiet there, and dark, and cold. I wanted to help Karim, but Becket was right. There was nothing I could do except wait for Asmodius to call and prepare for when he did. The only problem was, I had no idea how to prepare for something like that.
They say if you don’t know who the loose cannon in your group is, it’s probably you.
CHAPTER TEN
You’re a wildcard at best, Isabella Warden, and a hurricane at worst.
Karim had said that to me only a few weeks ago. He’d said I would drag people into my problems without caring about how my needs would affect others. I thought about those words long and hard in the silence of my bedroom, as the seconds ticked over into minutes… or maybe hours. I was waiting to hear from Asmodius, hoping we would hear from him. And until that happened, it felt like I was sitting in some messed up, timeless limbo.
A knock at my door snapped me out of my thoughts before I started spiraling. At first, I wasn’t sure if I was going to answer, but then I did. I found Axel standing on the other side of the door, though it looked for a second like he’d been about to walk away before I finally opened it. He stopped and looked at me.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
I narrowed my eyes. “This is the second time I’ve gone for a private talk with Becke
t only to find you at my door,” I said. That had probably been a little too harsh, a little too much of an attack, but I guess I wasn’t totally over what had happened in Becket’s office.
He put his hands up. “I come in peace… but I can leave, if you like.”
“Did you seriously come up here and knock on my door only to leave a moment later?”
“No, but I don’t want to make a bad situation worse.”
Sighing deeply, I opened the door a little further and allowed him to step into my room. This was starting to feel like something of a ritual. Part of me wondered whether he’d been able to sense my annoyance, my inner turmoil, even from another section of the house. If that was true and he’d come up here knowing I wasn’t in the right frame of mind, then it was his own fault if I exploded on him.
“Any word from your father?” I asked.
Axel stopped in the center of the room with his hands in his pockets and turned around. “None,” he said, “Anyway, I ditched my old phone, so he’s more likely to call Becket directly.”
“Do you think he has Becket’s phone number?”
“If he doesn’t, it probably won’t take him too long to find. Relax. He’ll come to us.”
I jabbed a finger at him. “Don’t tell me to relax, alright? You know as well as I do what happened tonight. I won’t relax until we have Karim again.”
“That may not be for a while. And in any case, getting him back is going to involve a personnel trade.”
“More like a personnel snatch. You know they’re gonna try and grab the box without having to give away their bargaining chip.”
Axel shrugged. “Just like you’re undoubtedly planning on doing?”
I frowned. “Maybe I am…”
“I didn’t expect any less from you, but we still don’t know where the next stage of events is going to go down. You need to slow down. Recharge. You’re no good to Karim if you’ve used all the gas in the tank.”
“And how do you suggest I recharge, exactly?” I asked, advancing on him. “Maybe I should take a nap, or have a snack, or watch reruns of old shows I like until my brain goes numb?”
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