by Ciara Graves
Onyx stood and smoothed down her cloak. “I’ll contact you as soon as the disguises are ready. This woman will be arriving on the twenty-third of April. That’s when the conference will kick off, too.”
A week. We had a week to wait before we could head into Sector 13 and find Gigi. I worried about trusting this witch. How did we know she wouldn’t turn on us once she made it back to the others?
As she walked toward the door, Mercy grabbed hold of her arm and placed a dagger at her throat.
“What the hell are you doing?” Onyx shouted.
“Warning you. If you turn on us, if you betray us, I’ll make you pay for it in kind. Can we trust you or not, Onyx?”
“You can, I swear it on my magic,” she uttered. “Please, Gigi is my friend. I want to help.”
Mercy looked into her eyes then released her. “Had to be certain.”
“I understand.” Onyx pulled the hood of her cloak up, promised she’d be in touch as soon as the disguises were ready, then bolted out the door.
Loud conversations and bottles clanking came from the bar as the door swung all the way open.
“Going to be a long week,” I said, half-hoping to start a conversation.
Mercy walked quickly toward the door. “Go home and get some sleep. You’re going to need it.”
“Mercy,” I said, but she kept on walking. I slammed my palm into the nearby wall then stomped into the bar and sat down at the counter. Shep slid me a beer without my asking. “You going to give me another lecture to stay away from her?” I snapped as I sensed him watching me. “Well?”
“No lecture,” he assured me, “but you’re a damned fool of a demon.”
“Yeah, starting to realize that.” I drank my beer, mind in turmoil over the last few weeks.
And now I’d have to wait another week before walking into the den of the enemy with a woman whose heart I shattered. She probably wanted to kill me. Hell, this might be her chance to do it.
I wasn’t even sure I could blame her anymore.
Chapter 4
Rafael
Four days passed since I last saw Mercy and it was like we were in that fight all over again. I could hardly focus during the day while we searched for any hints as to where Envy was holed up. If the few contacts we had knew anything, they were keeping quiet on his whereabouts. After fighting the hybrid, I didn’t blame them. The paper Damian gave me with the name Franklin Monroe was tucked safely away at work. I hadn’t been clearheaded enough to dig into who that might be.
The nights were worse. The little sleep I managed to get was plagued with nightmares of Mercy fighting Envy and losing. Others were of her standing before a dragon, alone, and I couldn’t save her. The dragon swallowed her whole, and I was left behind, bellowing in rage.
On the fifth day, I was slumped over my desk, waiting for my pounding headache to go away, and replaying the latest nightmare. In this one, I’d shot Mercy. We were back in my apartment the night of the fight. And instead of letting her go, I’d shot her.
She’d shifted into the same face as the dragonborn we fought, and I shot her.
I’d woken up drenched in a cold sweat and my stomach clenching hard as if was going to be sick. I hadn’t been able to go to sleep afterward, and this headache was going on its eighth hour of sticking around. Nothing I did helped it dissipate. Sitting at my desk all day wasn’t an option. With the date of the dark covens’ conference drawing closer, I had to tell Nor I was putting in for a few days of leave. I had the excuse already in mind as I walked to his office and knocked on the door.
But Nor wasn’t there. In fact, I hadn’t seen him since the day he scolded me about my attitude. As far as recalled, no memo had gone out saying he’d be out of the building.
“Iris,” I said as I poked my head into the conference room.
“Well look at that, his highness is finally gracing us with his presence. Come to snap at us some more?” She didn’t even look up as she spoke.
The other Feds nearby stifled their smirks.
I ground my teeth but didn’t respond to the insults. “Have you seen Nor?”
“No, he’s been gone for a few days.”
“What? Why?”
“Something about a family emergency.”
I looked at Iris blankly until she finally glanced up. “Family emergency?”
“Yes, why? Rafael, is something wrong?”
There were a lot of things wrong with what she just said, but I kept them to myself and backed out of the conference room. On second thought, I stepped back in long enough to tell her I was taking the rest of the day off and not to worry if I wasn’t back in the office after the weekend.
“Where are you going? Nor said nothing about you traveling,” she said loudly as she rushed out of the room to follow me. “Rafael!”
“Nor knew,” I lied. “It’s about a different case. Nothing for you to worry about.”
“Are you going with Mercy?”
“Yeah, we caught a lead, and we’re going to have to go check it out. We’ll be back in a few days. You’ve got everything under control here, right? Go to Jeremy if you need any assistance.”
Jeremy worked directly under Nor. He was a nice enough shifter, but the guy was damned clueless about what went on inside this office. I honestly wasn’t even sure why Nor kept him around, but right then, I wasn’t going to worry about it. With Nor gone, I’d be able to go to Sector 13 with Mercy, and no one would question where I was.
I gathered up my bag and left the office behind. My headache didn’t lessen, and I crashed on the couch with my cell in hand and the volume up all the way in case Mercy called. As the day turned into night, there was still no word from Mercy about this witch who was supposedly going to help us get into Sector 13. The longer it took for her to get back to us, the more I began to wonder if we could trust her or if she was plotting against us. The witches could’ve already been preparing to make a move against Mercy. Shit, that could be why I hadn’t heard from her. Halfway in panic, I texted Mercy and counted the seconds until I got a message back. She said she hadn’t heard anything yet and would tell me as soon as she did.
I asked if she’d gotten a hold of Damian to let him know what we were up to and she came back asking if I told Nor. Tired of texting and needing to hear her voice, I called her.
“What?” she answered on the second ring.
“Nor’s out of town.”
“Doing what?”
“Iris said family emergency.”
“And? Why do you sound like you don’t believe that?”
I sat up on the couch as I said, “Because anyone who knows Nor as I do would know that’s a damned lie. Nor has no living family. None.”
“Why did he lie? Where did he go?” she asked sounding more worried than I expected her to when it came to Nor. “Rafael?”
“He didn’t leave a message with anyone.”
“Shit.”
“Something I need to know?” I impatiently knocked my knuckles on the coffee table. “Mercy.”
“Yeah, no, shit, I don’t know.”
“Right well, I don’t have to worry about Nor. Do you need to worry about Damian getting all ticked off at you again?”
“No. What day did Nor leave town?”
“I’m not sure. Last time I saw him was the day Damian came after me in the alley.”
Several very vivid curses left Mercy’s lips.
I pulled the phone from my ear when the shouting only got louder and more vivid.
“I’m going to kill him. No, I’m going to kill them both.” Her fury was out of control.
“What are you ranting about? Kill who?”
“Damian and Nor. Who do you think?”
“Mercy, I’m lost. Can you catch me up here? Why are we killing them?”
“Someone came to pick up Damian after he finished his talk with you in the alley,” she snapped. This was followed by a loud crash. “I couldn’t see the driver. Now Damian and Nor are gone. I
knew it. I should’ve called them both out weeks ago.”
I had no idea what she was talking about and said so. “You think Damian and Nor are what, together right now? Why?”
“When Damian was in the hospital, guess who came to visit him?”
No. No, it wasn’t possible. “I don’t believe you,” was what I said and she hung up on me. “Damn it, that’s not what I meant, woman.”
I called her back once, then twice, before she finally picked up again.
“I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant, I’m just not sure what it means,” I got the words out as fast as I could.
“Sure you did.”
“Nor visited Damian?”
“Yeah, and they talked for a bit. I only heard part of the conversation, but it was definitely Nor. He was dressed in street clothes and a ball cap. Obviously didn’t want anyone to see him there.”
“Can you blame him?”
“Listen, buddy,” she snarled, and I felt the heat from her glare without even being in the same room, “Damian is the closest damned thing I have to a dad so watch it.”
I could’ve argued he was a piss-poor example of a fatherly figure but kept my mouth shut. The last thing I needed was her deciding to come over here and kick my ass. Not that she could in her current state, but I wasn’t going to go there either. “What did they talk about?”
“Envy. Nor told Damian the gargoyles came from Envy and that he was delivering a message.”
“And?”
“And it was on a piece of paper, so I have no idea what it said.” There was another crash and then more cursing. “Damian said he was following up a lead on Shuval.”
“But we think Shuval’s going to be in Sector 13.”
“I know,” she yelled. Then said quietly, “Son of a bitch.”
She hung up again, and I glared at the blank screen. My thumb was on the redial button when she texted me, saying to call Nor while she tried to get a hold of Damian again. If they were supposedly going after Shuval, and she was going to be in Sector 13, the lead they were following could be a trap.
I called Nor, but it went straight to voicemail. I left him a message, telling him to come back home, that he was walking into a possible disaster. I said nothing of Damian or Shuval on the slim chance Mercy misheard what the two of them spoke about.
I called Mercy back, but it rang and rang and rang without answer. I hung up, waited a few minutes, then tried again. On the third time, she finally answered.
“Did you reach Nor?”
“No. You talk to Damian?”
“Left him a shit ton of messages. If they’re going after hybrids, they might have left their cells somewhere else, to make sure they didn’t go off while they’re hunting down whoever they’re after. I knew something was going to go wrong. I knew it. Why doesn’t anyone ever listen to me when I say that? First Gigi and now Damian.”
“Do you ever listen to anyone when they tell you it’s a bad idea to do something?”
The silence was answer enough, but at least she hadn’t hung up on me. If I didn’t think too hard, it was almost like we were back to normal. Bantering and working on a case together. But we weren’t, and everything had changed for the worse between us. There was no easy redo button, or a spell that would let us go back a month. Or even longer.
“Mercy?”
“Yeah, guess I’ll talk to you when Onyx messages me,” she said then told me to hang on. “Never mind, she just texted. The disguises are ready.”
“When are we meeting her?”
“Midnight at Shep’s. See you soon.”
Then she did hang up, and I was left holding my cell as I played catch up with everything I found out about Nor and Damian. If Nor was that close with Damian, that meant he must’ve known Mercy from the beginning, or knew of her. That meant anything I told Mercy, she relayed to Damian, which would’ve made its way back to Nor. He would know we’d been together and probably know that now we weren’t. The next sliver of truth slammed into me like it was a truck barreling down the street.
I sank back to the couch.
“He knows,” I whispered to my empty apartment.
This whole time, Nor had known who Mercy really was. What she really was. And he kept it to himself. Why? I had to rethink every conversation I ever had with Nor when it came to Mercy. That first time he met her face to face, she genuinely seemed not to know who he was. But I hadn’t paid much attention to his behavior. Then afterward with the gargoyles, more than he once he seemed concerned for her safety beyond what he should, if she was just a bounty hunter who got on the wrong side of the Feds’ radar. If he knew about her, if he was with Damian, tracking down a lead on Shuval, then he knew everything about the hybrids and the dragonborn trying to start a war. He knew every last detail Damian knew, and yet he didn’t call in the Hunters. Didn’t raise the alarm.
All this time I was hiding what I knew from him, and he was part of this network of contacts. As I leaned back against the couch cushions, I wondered if that was how Mercy managed to have the drop on the Feds in so many different situations. Damian gave her the information, but Nor was the one who provided it originally. He was a damned traitor.
I slammed my fists into the couch cushions, the muffled thud not satisfying enough for my current mood. A year ago, my job made sense. I knew who the bad guys were. I cared about the law and chased down those who broke it. I brought them to justice. There was no grand scheme taking place behind the scenes. No war on the horizon because of some crazed dragonborn. Dragonborns were gone, extinct, nothing more than a nightmare, just like gargoyles. I took the cases given to me and didn’t worry if the person I was after secretly worked with some underground network to prevent an outbreak of mass ritual sacrifice killings. Or the ley lines were being charged with the blood of innocents. I didn’t give two shits about artifacts because they weren’t my department. I had an ex-girlfriend who drove me nuts and no friends because I cared too much about my job and not so much about making connections. I’d been too angry at the world to get to know anyone in a way that made a difference.
Now, sitting on the couch in my living room, all of that shit was gone. I had no idea anymore which way was up or down. I was sinking fast into a world of confusion and riddles. Those I assumed were my enemies turned out to be allies and friends. More than friends. And those I trusted with my life for years had secrets far worse than my own.
And the fight I had with Mercy, the moment I held a gun to her head, was the worst mistake of my life.
I covered my face with my hands, grunting in disbelief at my actions. She wasn’t the one I should’ve been aiming at. Nor was. The second I saw him again, we were going to have a very long talk.
I glanced at the clock. I had the rest of the day to kill, so I attempted to get some sleep on the couch. When my alarm went off at half-past eleven, I hadn’t slept a wink. So much for that. I got up and found my way to the Underground to meet Mercy and Onyx at the Wailing Siren. I didn’t bother stopping at the bar to talk to Shep. I just headed for the back room. The door was open, but Mercy wasn’t there yet. Several different versions of what I could say came to mind, but each one wasn’t good enough. When her voice reached my ears from the bar, I vowed not to say a word until I had a chance to speak to Nor. I needed time to sort through how I’d been living my life that was now nothing more than a lie.
“Rafael?” Mercy stood a few yards away, studying me with those blue eyes that were not so cold tonight. “You look like you’re going to be sick.”
“I’m fine.”
“Really? You’re not pissed at Nor for lying?”
Keeping my arms crossed firmly, I held her gaze but didn’t trust myself to talk, so I said nothing.
Onyx arrived as the second alarm on my cell went off. Straight up, midnight. I dismissed it as Mercy shut the door.
Onyx removed a small black pouch from her belt.
“Does anyone know what you’re up to?” Mercy asked.
�
�No, they all think I’m visiting family.” Onyx’s hands shook as she opened the bag and beckoned us closer. She dropped the pouch, but I caught it. “Thanks. I’m sorry, it’s just been hard this last week, acting like everything’s fine when it’s not.”
“Did something happen?” I handed the pouch back.
She was still shaking and bit her lip. She glanced over her shoulder a few times.
Damn. Not a good sign. “Are you sure you weren’t followed?”
“I wasn’t, I swear. It’s just I heard rumors about something at the conference.”
“Something different?”
She nodded frantically at Mercy’s question. “I only caught bits and pieces and then this morning I saw the cages being brought in through the rear doors, then taken away through another set of doors. Not sure where they led.”
“Cages? For what?” Mercy met my worried gaze, but I had no idea what they’d be up to.
“I don’t know, and I was too scared to ask around, I’m sorry.”
“You’re doing plenty to help Gigi. Let us take care of the rest,” Mercy assured her. “The disguises?”
“Oh, right.” She shook the pouch, and two amulets fell into her palm.
They were small, barely the size of my thumb. The metal was twisted into the shape of a dead tree, and a flicker of a very similar image came to mind. The place where the sacrifices had taken place. Mercy didn’t seem to notice, and I didn’t bring it up. The magic coming off them was potent. And dark. I growled on reflex.
Onyx shot me a worried look. “I know, it’s dark magic, but Gigi never had a chance to really work with me.”
“We’ll be fine.” Mercy she shot me a glare. “How do they work?”
Onyx held them up by the silver chains, and the amulets swung like pendulums. “You slip them on, and the charm will take over. You’ll both appear as different people. Hair, facial structure, eye color, even body shape will be altered.”
“Great, I’m going to have to remember what you look like.”
“No,” Onyx corrected me. “I made it so you two only look different to everyone else. You’ll still look like you to Mercy, and vice versa. There’s going to be too many witches and warlocks running around, I didn’t want you to run into that problem. This is going to be dangerous enough as it is.”
