by Sarah Fine
But I didn’t need them.
Keenan had wanted those pages, though. And he’d promised to help me get Asa if I delivered. I was his eyes inside this room. I should push the sensor Jack had placed on my cuff and call them in. There was no better time, really. People were starting to relax now that the menace of Frank Brindle had departed. The pages were just in the other room. Botwright hadn’t left with them yet. My fingers crept toward the cuff, then froze.
If I called down the Headsmen now, Keenan might get his pages. And if he’d gotten hold of Brindle’s mosaic panel, he and Jack could get the magic from my vault back into the ancient relic.
But I still wouldn’t have Asa.
My hands fell to my sides.
“If they hadn’t already left, this would be the time for an ambush,” Theresa’s voice muttered in my ear as Botwright accepted the pages from the auctioneer. “But I watched them drive away. What are we missing?”
She was speaking all my thoughts aloud. Dizzy with our failure, I looked up and realized Myron was beckoning to me. I drifted a little closer, still in a daze, just in time to hear Botwright say she had called an armored vehicle to transport the case to the airport. Myron held his arms out as Botwright handed off the pages. “Let’s get out of here,” she said in a clipped voice.
“Madam, I’d like you to meet someone,” said Myron. “This is Mattie Carver, the reliquary.”
Botwright’s snowy brows rose. “Is it now?” She smiled. “I’ve heard impressive things about your ability, Ms. Carver.”
“Thanks, I think,” I said. “I’m sorry we didn’t deliver your magic in London.”
Botwright swatted Myron playfully on the shoulder, and he winced as if she’d stabbed him, which is what it probably felt like. “That was hardly your fault. Poor planning, I say. But perhaps you can make it up to me.” She gave me a speculative look. “Walk us out to our vehicle. We can talk on the way.”
Myron grinned at me as Botwright strode past in her tiny heels, followed by her other agent.
“Thought you might like an in,” Myron whispered as I trailed after them.
That wasn’t why I was following her, though—I was following the pages, unable to believe Asa wasn’t going to pop up out of a manhole and try to snatch them.
I held up one finger as we walked past the surveillance room.
“What are you doing, Mattie?” Theresa said in my ear. “Get in here. We have to figure out what to do before Frank takes Asa back to the States.”
I ignored her, unable to shake the suspicion that Asa was still playing. Scanning the sidewalk, I picked up my pace and caught up with Botwright and her agents. “So, can I ask—what are you going to do with these pages? I’ve heard that no one knows how to translate them.”
Botwright looked over her shoulder at me and smiled. “It’s a long game, Ms. Carver. A very long game.”
As she spoke, an armored vehicle pulled to the curb, and the driver got out and opened the heavy rear door, then stood at the ready, his hand on the gun holstered at his belt. I squinted at him as my bracelet gave me a buzzing shock, and realized he wasn’t Asa disguised with Knedas magic.
“You all right, Mattie?” Myron asked, looking back and forth between me and the driver.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Just really confused.”
“Myron,” Botwright said, her voice taking on an edge. “If you please.” She was looking around anxiously, too, as if she also suspected an attack.
Myron jogged ahead of us and carefully laid the case with the pages in a reinforced metal trunk in the back of the truck. He leaned forward and spoke quietly to the driver, then stepped back onto the curb to allow the guy to shut the goods inside.
“You told him to meet us at the airport?” Botwright asked Myron.
Myron nodded and leaned against the truck as the driver moved onto the sidewalk to get back into the cab. Botwright turned to me and held out her hand, a card between her slender fingers. “I’m going to be growing my collection over the next year,” she said. “So I will be in need of a dependable reliquary. Please call on me when you next come to London. I—”
I flinched at the two sharp cracks that cut her off. Botwright’s eyes went wide, and her mouth fell open as she crumpled. I stared down at the card as it fluttered to the ground, splattered with her blood. The blond agent shouted, “Myron!”
Another crack and the blond, too, fell to the ground, a bullet hole through his chest.
I turned toward the oncoming threat, already knowing there was nothing I could do to protect myself.
The driver of the armored vehicle strode toward me, his gun aimed at my head, his expression calm, as shouts and clatter filled my earpiece. There was chaos in the surveillance room. I heard my name, but I couldn’t make sense of the rest. And it didn’t matter.
Myron Forester pushed himself off the side of the armored vehicle and offered me his hand. “Come with me, Mattie. Quickly now, or else I’m going to have this poor fellow shoot you in the legs.”
I tore my gaze from the driver. “What . . . why . . .”
He took my hand and yanked me toward the passenger seat of the armored truck, forcing me to step over Botwright’s body, as the armed commandos burst through the door of the high-rise. But they were too far away to stop him unless they were willing to shoot me, too. Myron shoved me into the vehicle and slammed the door, then clambered up into the driver’s seat as the actual driver ran forward, firing his weapon at the oncoming commandos, obviously doomed.
Myron threw the vehicle into gear. “Why? An easy question.” He gave me a cocky smile. “Because Frank Brindle pays better.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I held on tight as the armored vehicle lurched onto the road. The commandos had felled the driver, and a few were running up the sidewalk after us, but it was a futile effort. “You’ve been helping him all along, haven’t you?”
“Of course. It’s dangerous, being a double agent, so I’m well compensated.”
I gritted my teeth. “You laid the trap at Harrods. You helped them catch Asa. You’re the reason he’s a slave right now.”
“Oh, come on. If I hadn’t helped, Brindle would have found another way to collar Asa. He spared no expense.”
“You’re scum.”
“Rich scum, so there’s that.”
I crossed my arms, feeling the cold slide of metal against my skin. The cuff. It would protect me from Myron’s influence, but it was also my lifeline. I threw my captor a sidelong glance—his eyes were focused on the road as he wove his way through city traffic, occasionally jumping a curb to keep moving. “You helped Brindle yesterday, too,” I said bitterly. “Somehow, you influenced Garza’s magic sensor—”
“I didn’t. Not directly, at least,” he said, smirking.
I thought back to what Theresa had said about him. When he’d first arrived at Volodya’s stronghold, she’d said he was giving off ridiculously strong vibes, but later, she told me it had faded. “You brought in a relic filled with your own magic . . .” I rolled my eyes. “It was your tie.”
“Tie tack, more precisely. All I had to do was leave it where Asa could pick it up. Small enough that he could jab it into Garza’s man without anyone really noticing. And then it was just a matter of suggestion. It was Asa’s idea. Not exactly what you’d expect from a slave, eh?”
I stared out the window, slowly inching one of my hands toward the cuff. “And now you’ve killed your boss and—”
“Technically, I didn’t. We were attacked by the driver, and I just got both you and the valuables away from there.”
“No one’s going to fall for that, dude.”
He reached over and encircled my forearm with his fingers. “Botwright was a vicious woman who deserved to be put down.”
“You’re full of crap.”
He drew his hand away quickly and swerved as he looked me over. “Lift your sleeves.”
I shrank against the seat. “Why?”
He pulled abruptly off the road and threw the truck into park. “Lift. Your. Sleeves.”
For a moment, we simply stared at each other. And then I lunged for the door handle. My hands closed around it, and I wrenched it up just as Myron threw his arms around me. He grabbed my wrists before I could press the button on the cuff that would summon the Headsmen and dragged me across the seat toward the driver’s side. “What is it?” he said with a grunt. “What are you using to resist my magic? Ah, there it is.” He had pulled back my sleeve to reveal the cuff.
As he reached forward to remove it, I slammed my head back and felt my skull collide with his nose. With a strangled growl, he loosened his grip, and my fingers shot forward and found the tiny sensor. I had just begun to press down when Myron tore the cuff from my wrist. Breathing wetly as blood dripped from his nose, he rolled down his window and tossed my cuff onto the road, where it was promptly obliterated by a passing bus. “Should have checked for that before we left.” He wiped his sleeve across his upper lip and winced, then chuckled. “Now we can have an honest conversation.”
I pinched the inside of my forearm, my fingernails digging in. Had the Headsmen gotten my signal, or was I on my own? All I had left to defend myself was the vial of Theresa’s magic tucked into my stocking. And I could already feel Myron’s magic caressing the edges of my consciousness. I pressed my back against the window as he leaned forward and took my hands, holding them in a firm but gentle grip. “Mattie. I did you a favor by getting you away from Volodya. You know that.”
Volodya was pretty terrifying.
He smiled. “No one wants to hurt you. Asa specified that you weren’t to be harmed.”
My heart squeezed. “He did?”
Myron nodded, even as a little rivulet of blood snaked along the corner of his mouth. “You’re precious, Mattie.” His deep voice massaged away the knots of fear in my chest. “You are rare and valuable. Damaging you would be like burning the priceless pages of the Essentialis Magia. You need to be with people who recognize your skill. Who reward it. What was Volodya using you for—some kind of lookout?” He scoffed as he reached up and plucked out my earpiece. That, too, he threw out the window, though we’d long since gone out of range. “What a waste.”
It was kind of a waste. “But where are we going?”
Myron nodded at the road. “A safe place. It’s not far.”
God, being safe would be so nice. Even as I had the thought, the tiniest sliver of doubt poked at my mind. Was I safe? I glanced at the door that I’d managed to open just a crack. “Um. I—”
A black sedan swerved suddenly out of traffic and beached itself on the curb just a few feet from our truck’s front bumper. Myron cursed and threw the vehicle into gear, then roared forward. I barely had time to brace myself before we crashed into the car, the impact knocking it out of our way. My head bonked against the window of the passenger door as it slammed shut, a result of another collision, this one on the driver’s side. I scrambled to put on my seat belt.
“Headsmen,” Myron shouted, stomping on the gas even as he sideswiped yet another dark sedan trying to pull in front of us.
Headsmen . . . wait. That was what I wanted to happen. As the pain in my head cleared the fog of Myron’s influence, I glanced around to see that we were racing through a dark neighborhood, shadows on every corner. To my left I could see the soaring edifices of Moscow City, where Volodya had fought to keep his dying empire together—where he’d just lost everything. Racing along next to us were two of those black sedans. They kept trying to box us in, but Myron repeatedly swerved toward them in the armored truck, forcing them to cross lanes and brake to stay out of his way. I eyed his tense, hunched form and decided that trying to clobber him or douse him in Sensilo magic would probably result in my death. We were going too fast.
Then a line of shimmering lights appeared in the distance in front of us. Myron shouted a curse, jammed his foot onto the brake, and cranked the wheel. I screamed as the rear of the truck swung around, as I felt us tilting and falling. We slammed into the ground, sparks flying up as we skidded along the pavement, losing speed as we rammed one sedan after the other. My ears filled with the sounds of shrieking metal. My hands were clamped over my face as my body hung from the seat belt, the straps digging into me as we bounced along and finally hit something that didn’t yield to our momentum. One side of the truck tipped up and then crashed to the ground.
And for a few seconds, everything was quiet. Or maybe that was the shock.
Myron moaned. I forced my eyes open and looked down at him, bleeding from cuts on his face, his head resting on the shattered window beneath him. I turned my head on my aching neck and looked up to see the night sky . . . and a face, dark eyes peering down at me.
“Jack,” I whispered.
He turned his head and shouted something I couldn’t understand, then turned his efforts to opening the heavy door of the armored truck. With a loud metallic complaint, it swung open, and I felt a rush of cold night wind across my cheeks.
“Mattie,” Jack said in a rough voice. “Hang on.”
He pulled on the seat belt strap, and I whimpered as he slid his arm around my body, as his grip tightened while he unbuckled me. With a grunt, he heaved me upward and out of the truck.
“How bad are you hurt?”
“No idea.” I moaned as he pivoted with me in his arms.
“Got her,” he barked. “But she needs transport.”
“To where?” I whispered.
“Anywhere but here,” he said curtly. I closed my eyes against the footsteps and shouts and sirens and flashing lights. “We got the panel from Brindle, but just when the crew was headed out, Volodya’s players showed up and triggered his alarms.”
I sighed and opened my eyes. “Poor Ilya.”
“Screw Ilya,” Jack said as he motioned to someone behind me. I was pressed against his chest, grateful for the warmth and steadiness. “It turned into a shit show.”
I couldn’t help but feel a pang. “But at least you got the mosaic.”
“And now we have the pages, thanks to you,” said a new voice—Keenan. He sounded out of breath but happy.
“Happy to deliver,” I said as Jack gently maneuvered me down into Keenan’s arms.
“Anything broken?” Keenan asked Jack.
“Doesn’t seem like it. But she’s at risk for shock. She should really be looked over by a doc. That was quite a crash.”
“Someone needs to get in there and see if the intrepid Mr. Forester made it.”
“I’d leave him for the authorities to find, but he’s too dangerous.”
Keenan called out to someone, telling them to get over to the truck and get Myron to something charmingly called “containment.” I wondered whether it was anything like the way they’d held Arkady in Virginia, with a thick collar around his neck to keep him in enough pain to prevent him from wreaking havoc. Or whether it was more like Asa’s collar, doping him up and twisting his mind.
I shuddered. Both made my stomach turn.
“We need to get the treasure off the streets,” Keenan said. “And you and Mattie have to get to the safe house. I’ll have a medical team meet you there. You can do the transaction tonight.” He was talking fast, the cloud of his frozen breath swirling over my head.
Jack’s eyes met mine. “Only if she’s strong enough.”
Keenan looked down at me and gave me a slight squeeze. “Of course. Do you want to take her while I manage the scene?”
“Yeah.”
Jack moved close and started to take me, but I wriggled in Keenan’s arms. “I think I can walk.”
Keenan chuckled. “Something tells me it’s almost impossible to keep you down.” He carefully lowered my feet to the pavement and steadied me as I tested my strength and balance. It felt a little like I’d taken a spin in a cement mixer.
“And yet it can be done,” I said weakly, clutching at his arm and breathing deeply. My whole body was tingling. Nothing hurt, but I cou
ldn’t stop shaking. My hand grazed my thigh, and I sighed. At least Theresa’s magic was still secure.
“We need a blanket over here,” Jack shouted.
Someone threw a blanket over my shoulders, and Jack pulled it tight around me and turned me around. Beyond the overturned truck lay a scene of chaos and destruction: crushed cars, twisted metal, and shattered glass, Headsmen helping their wounded colleagues out from behind deflated air bags, some shouting for medical assistance. “We got the cooperation of the authorities,” Jack said as he helped me limp toward the line of headlights, a barricade of vehicles that had positioned themselves across Myron’s intended escape route.
“The citizens of Moscow are grateful, I’m sure.”
We were approaching an undamaged dark sedan at the end of the row of parked cars, and a young woman with a ponytail and earmuffs smiled and opened one of the back doors as we neared. “I’ll be driving you, Agent Okafor,” she said with a slight Russian accent.
“Sounds good, Agent Urasov,” he replied amiably. “And could you—”
A wretched scream from behind us caused Jack to whirl around, his brown eyes wide as the noise multiplied in volume and intensity. Agents who had been standing next to cars near the truck were crumpling to the ground, clutching at their guts and writhing. I blinked, trying to process what was happening.
Jack cursed and dragged me toward the open car door just as I caught sight of two men standing on either side of the road, not close enough to see their faces . . . but I didn’t need to. I recognized their silhouettes.
“Oh God,” I whispered.
Jack tossed me onto the backseat, his gentleness gone as Agent Urasov shrieked and pitched over the hood of the car, her face twisted in agony. Through the windshield, I watched her body start to shake uncontrollably as Jack reached for her.
The night was filled with screaming as a bone-jarring pain swirled across my skin and terror jolted my heart. I yanked up the edge of my skirt and pulled out the vial, clutching it with an unsteady hand.
