by MJ Fletcher
“I’ve heard whispers of what she’s up too.”
“And that is?” I asked eager to learn more.
“She has been looking for an Impossible Engineer to create something for her, a device that cannot only contain an Artifact, but use its power.”
There it was in black and white—I was right. She was going to try to steal the Artifact from me. But that still didn’t explain why she hadn’t made her move yet, unless the device wasn’t ready. Whatever she was building was complicated, and the list proved she was looking for parts. So she was only keeping me busy, attacking my friends was a distraction, while she bought time to finish her device.
“Crap,” I said aloud.
“What?” she asked leaning forward.
“I’ve been looking into this, and I got information that she was searching for some Impossible Engineer items that I imagine she needs to build this device.”
I didn’t tell her Merric had been the one to give it to me. LaReina was still an unknown, even if it seemed like she was trying to help me. I needed to keep everyone at a distance until I figured out who was truly on my side.
“That fits with what I know as well. The question is who is building it and where is it being built?”
“Do you have any other information?” I asked.
“Yes, we’ve been building a file on Nyla and all her activities. I’ll pair you up with another League member on a probationary basis while you work on this for me. Perhaps you can figure out where she is,” LaReina said.
“One thing,” I said.
“And that is?”
“I want to pick my partner.”
“Why should I let you do that?”
“Because I’m the one Nyla’s after, and I want somebody with me who I can rely on.”
“And who would that be?”
“Ronan Sparrow.”
Chapter 23
“Ronan is among the best,” LaReina said.
“He can handle himself in a fight and that could come in handy.”
“I don’t suppose it hurts that he saved your life?”
She was referring to when I first met Ronan, but her voice had a bite to it that surprised me. She grabbed her glass and swallowed the contents whole. Something was obviously bothering her, but I had no idea what it was.
“Is this going to be a problem?” I asked.
“No, but Ronan will be lead on this," she said.
“Fine,” I said not planning on following through on it at all. This was my mission, and I wasn’t about to let anyone but me be in charge of it.
“Very good, then you and Ronan can get started as soon as possible.”
“LaReina I didn’t see you come in.” Merric’s voice floated over my shoulder as he approached and I cringed.
“Merric, so good to see you.” She smiled at him.
He lifted the wine bottle, read the label, chuckled, and placed it back on the table. “I see you’re enjoying my personal stock.”
“Of course,” she laughed lightly.
Merric glanced my way and his molten grey eyes fixed on mine for a moment, and then turned cold. He slipped his hands behind his back and locked them together like a military man at rest.
“Merric, this is a new recruit for the League.” She waved toward me.
He turned an obviously fake smile on me and, for some reason, it disturbed me.
“I know Jessica,” he said.
“You do? You certainly know many people, Ms. Grimm.”
“What can I say, I’m popular,” I said forcing a smile.
“How have you been, Jessica?” Merric asked much too cordially.
“I’ve been great, Merric, and getting assistance from people who are willing to help me.” I shot at him.
“You should be weary of people who offer help so freely,” he said.
“As opposed to people who are cryptic and don’t help at all.”
“For someone who thinks I don’t help at all, I see an awful lot of you.” He leaned forward placing his hands on the table and planting his face close to mine.
“I didn’t want to come here. I had no other choice,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Then by all means get out,” he said.
“You want me to leave?”
“What I want—” He leaned in closer, his lips barely an inch from mine, and I felt the Artifact tingle across my arms. “—is irrelevant.” He stepped back and crossed his arms over his chest, looking back and forth between LaReina and myself.
“I take it I’m missing something.” LaReina said.
“Jessica seems to think I’m not a very helpful fellow, unlike some members of your little group.” Merric’s voice had taken on a steely tone that I hardly recognized.
“Good to know.” LaReina tilted her head, smiling in my direction.
“Maybe for once you should think of helping someone other than yourself first,” I said to him.
“I’ve told you before, Jessica, most people only look out for their own best interests.”
“I guess our interests don’t line up then, do they, Merric?”
“Not yet they haven’t,” he said and backed away.
“It must be nice not to care for anyone but yourself,” I said.
“You think you know me, Jessica, but you know nothing about me.”
“Nobody knows anything about you, Merric. You appeared like a ghost out of nowhere ten years ago,” I snapped and immediately realized I’d made a mistake.
“Why Jessica, have you been checking up on me?”
I was in too deep at this point. I had already admitted that I’d looked into Merric by saying what I had. I figured why not keep digging my own grave at this point.
“So where the hell did you spawn from, Merric?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he replied.
“Yes, damn it, I would. You have all this advice for me, yet you won’t tell me a damn thing about yourself.”
“Trust is earned, Jessica, and from what I’ve seen you don’t deserve mine.”
“You’re a real son of a bitch you know that?”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Whatever. Are we done here?” I stood and looked to LaReina.
“Yes, we’re done for now. You can leave.” LaReina turned to Merric. “Why don’t you join me?”
The way she dismissed me made me angry, but her inviting him to take my place set my blood to boiling. I wanted to scream, not at her, but him and demand he walk away with me and show me, even for a moment, that he would take my side in a conflict.
But instead I said nothing, and Merric didn’t bother to look at me as he slid into the booth and poured himself a glass of wine.
“How have you been LaReina?” I heard him ask as I stormed out of the Cantina.
Chapter 24
The little girl ran across the green grass at top speed and dove into the air launching herself at me with wild abandon. I pushed my arms out and caught her in midflight and spun her around in circles as we laughed and fell to the ground, her curly brown locks falling over both our faces.
“You got me Maya.” I laughed and lifted her off of me. She wrapped her arms around my neck, and I stood slipping my arm under her legs and holding onto her as we walked back to the patio. The house was an impressive stone structure that was surrounded by grass on all sides.
DeAndre watched us as we returned from our adventure, and I slipped Maya back to the grass. She ran toward him and clamped her arms around his leg, squeezing.
“Daddy, did you see me sneak up on Aunt Jess?” Maya asked as he lifted her off his leg and kissed her cheek.
“I did, Maya, and you’re going to be a great tracker someday,” he said.
“Just like you, Daddy,” she said, smiling.
“Yes, sweetie, now go inside for a few minutes while Daddy talks to Aunt Jess. Mommy is making you lunch.”
He placed her down, and Maya took off running toward the house, yanking open the door and r
acing inside.
“She is getting so big,” I said as we walked away from the house.
“Seems like she grows every day,” DeAndre said as he glanced over his shoulder.
“I made it into the League, at least for the moment,” I said.
“I heard.” DeAndre nodded.
“I was angry when I heard you weren’t my handler anymore,” I said wanting to let him know how I felt.
“Your grandmother had no choice. It was the best option, and I understand that. Plus you’re ready; you don’t need me anymore.” DeAndre shrugged.
“That’s not true; you’re my mentor.”
“Jess, you were beyond my teaching within a few months of becoming my apprentice. Your talent knows no bounds and that was without the Artifact. It will be a learning experience for you, but you’ll do fine.”
“I don’t like Winslow. He’s a weasel,” I said.
“There we agree, but he was another compromise. Your grandmother is walking through a minefield, trying to keep her position and look out for you at the same time.”
I understood that now better than ever after dealing with LaReina and the League. This was a whole other level of intrigue I was dealing with.
“I don’t think he’s trustworthy.”
“You may be right. Winslow has kept his position by always choosing the winning side when a new leader is elected. He was out of the loop when your grandmother took over, and he might hold a grudge about it. I would keep my eyes on him.”
“Good to know,” I said.
“So what is your next move?”
“LaReina sent me a bunch of information they’ve gathered on Nyla and what she’s been up too.”
“Anything useful?”
“I did come across a set of items she’s been picking up recently. I think it has to do with the list that Merric gave me, though not all the items match up.”
“I heard you had another run in with Merric,” DeAndre said with concern.
“I did, and you were right about him. He isn’t someone you can trust. He is all about Merric and that’s it.” Hearing it aloud, I wasn’t sure it was entirely true. I was angry with Merric, but I was also mad at myself for letting him get under my skin.
“You should bring what you found to Slade and see what he can make of it,” DeAndre said.
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“Speaking of your old partner, I hear you have a new one,” he said.
“Yeah, I do. I had to choose someone from the League, so I went with Ronan.”
Maybe there was more to why I had chosen Ronan. Spending some time with him would allow me to learn more about him. But I wasn’t sure that was the only reason I wanted him around.
“Do you think you can trust him?”
“I’m not sure yet, but time will tell.” I was hoping I was right about Ronan and that he really was looking out for me and not himself. I had my doubts though or was it my pessimistic nature.
“Keep me in the loop as much as you can, even though you are under orders from Winslow not to.” He chuckled. “But I won’t tell if you won’t. Now let’s get inside and get some food.”
“I should really get going and see Slade.”
“Do you really think you can leave without seeing Maya again? That girl will hunt you down if you leave,” he said chuckling again.
“Very true, and I wouldn’t want her after me.”
DeAndre slipped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me close as we walked back to the house, and the sounds of Maya laughing and yelling echoed from inside. DeAndre’s family had taken me in the moment I had become his apprentice, and I had fallen in love with them. It was one of the few places I still felt like I could be myself. If I even knew who I was anymore.
I sure wasn’t the perfect prom princess I had been in school, or even the apprentice who had first shown up here a few years ago to begin her training. After everything I had been through I was different. I was harder and stronger, though I wasn’t so sure that I had changed but rather had become who I was meant to be all along. My scars were ugly and brutal, but no matter how much I hated them, they were a part of me. Maybe I was finally coming to accept the new me, at least I hoped that was true.
We pushed open the French doors and I laughed as I heard Maya scream as she ran forward to attack me once again. For now, all I cared about was having a moment of peace among the madness that was my life.
Chapter 25
It was early in the morning when I arrived at the Diesel Factories. But it was still busy with people shopping around for that one-of-a kind thing you could only find at the Factories. I’d wound up spending the night at DeAndre’s since Maya refused to go to bed, and we played games together until far too late. I crashed on the couch and as soon as I had woken up, I headed here to talk with Slade.
I hurried down the street and turned into an alleyway and walked half way down. A large metal door with the number nine hanging above it let me know I’d arrived. I grabbed the handle and pulled it across, revealing the elevator car. I stepped in and slammed the door closed. A keypad flipped open on the wall and I punched in the access code. The elevator roared to life, and my stomach lurched as it moved up.
Slade had gotten out of the Fixer hospital in the Impossible Engineer dimension and returned home. He’d been living here since the end of war when he moved out of his family’s home. I doubted it had been comfortable there after he had been the one to oust his father from the Engineers.
When we weren’t doing our missions for the Council, he was here working on his Impossible Engineering. The lower half of the building was a factory used by some of the most skilled Engineers in the multiverse. He’d been asked to join them a few months back and jumped at the chance.
The elevator chugged to a stop and I pulled the lever, opening the door onto Slade’s apartment. It was a massive open space that looked more like a factory floor than a living area. Work tables were scattered around, each with a different set of tools and devices strewn on them. Lights dangled on chains from the ceiling every few feet, illuminating the area. A bed rested against the far wall with blankets left in a messy heap from last night’s sleep.
Slade was hunched over a drafting table, sketching a new set of schematics for some device he was working on. His shirt was off, and I could see the full effect of the damage that had been done to him. The left side of his torso and arm had been replaced or combined with robotic pieces. His physique was still impressive, but I couldn’t help but feel like I had done this to him. As I approached him, I glanced at the design he was working on and it looked like an engine, but I didn’t have a mind for mechanics, so for all I knew it was something else entirely.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey, Jess,” he replied, “let me just finish this design.”
“No problem. That’s pretty cool. What is it?”
“A new engine for a race car I’m working on.”
“Sweet.” I ran my hand through my hair and took a deep breath. “I’ve got some new intel I wanted to have you look at.”
“Okay,” —he spun his stool around and looked right at me— “what do you have?”
I held out the list of items the League had learned Nyla had procured. He snatched it from me, unfolded it, and laid it out on his desk straightening the folds out of it.
“Those are the items the League knows for sure Nyla has gotten her hands on.”
He studied them a moment before saying, “Some of these I recognize, but not all of them.”
“Crap,” I said.
“Don’t think that’s the end of it. You can take this to Monk. He has been around forever and he might know what the rest of the stuff on the list is and if it can be used to finish whatever it is they are working on.”
I cringed inwardly, knowing I had to tell him what I’d learned. “The device they’re building is meant to steal the Artifact from me.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” I said.
It hit me like a brick for the first time. I’d been so busy looking for a way to stop Nyla that I had never considered how beneficial this device could be to me. If I removed the Artifact, I would be safe. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought about that before now.
“I don’t know,” I said confused. The Artifact tingled across my forearms, and I heard the tiny distant voice once again. I was surer than ever the Artifact was trying to communicate with me, though I didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.
“Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if they removed it,” Slade said.
“True, but I can’t let Nyla be the one to do that. If I can get my hands on the device, I’ll let you take a look at it and see if it can help me. But for now I need to concentrate on stopping her.”
“Okay, I’ll contact Monk and let him know you’ll be coming by to talk with him.” He shuffled through the papers on his desk, found his phone, typed a message, and sent it. He looked my way and bit his lower lip.
“What is it?”
“I don’t like leaving you alone on this,” he said.
“I won’t be alone the whole time,” I assured him.
“You won’t?”
“No, the League gave me a partner.”
“Who?”
“Ronan,” I said.
“The guy who helped us when I got hurt?”
“That’s him.”
“Well, at least I know he isn’t some twit. Are you good with that?”
“As good as I can be,” I said without telling him that I had chosen Ronan as my partner. I still wasn’t sure how it would work, but I’d made my choice and even though I knew we’d have to start working together soon, I was nervous as hell about it actually happening.
“Good, at least you’ll have someone.” Slade’s phone dinged, and he grabbed it and tapped the screen. “Monk can see you now. Head on over there and see if he’s able to help you with the items I can’t identify.”
