I’m correct, but my evasive maneuver isn’t quite good enough.
A tentacle rips through the air where I was kneeling, warmth wafting off its bulk, then lurches to the right, chasing me toward the weathered brick wall of the apartment building. I try to drop underneath it, but my hampered limbs don’t move fast enough. The tentacle slams into my stomach and throws me into the wall.
My vision shorts out as all the air rushes from my lungs. When it fades back in, I find myself lying in a heap atop a pile of rancid trash bags, coughs wracking my chest, my arms and legs now paralyzed by the poison coursing through my veins.
I have just enough strength to lift my head in time to see the practitioner dash around the corner of the neighboring building, something in his hand that looks suspiciously like a glass bottle with a cork jammed into the top. There’s something on the cork too. Some kind of white tape with symbols written on it. And…and…my neck loses tension and my face slumps against a plastic bag.
A moment later, I’m out like a light.
Chapter Five
I wake up in the back of an SUV with a blanket draped over me. At first, my vision is blurry and my hearing is muffled, like I’m forty feet under water. But after a few heavy blinks, eyelids like iron weights, my eyes manage to focus, and at the same time, my ears pop, everything around me growing louder in an instant. Ella, in the front passenger seat, is talking to someone on speakerphone, who I identify as Carmen Ortiz, the new infirmary head. They’re discussing some kind of knife and a poisonous sub—oh. The poison-coated knife that knocked me for a loop.
That’s right. The practitioner pulled a fast one on me.
I’m so used to witches and wizards bringing out the big magic guns that the idea of them using a non-magic method of wrecking my body has never crossed my mind during a fight. Guess I learned my lesson today: Practitioner hitmen are just as liable as the average-Joe variety to rub some paralytic drugs on a sharp blade and chuck it at your face. Probably even more so, since assassinations committed via poisoned blades have fallen out of use in favor of guns over the past, say, five hundred years or so. Seriously, who the hell uses a poisoned-covered knife in the twenty-first century?
After four tries, I manage to drag my left hand up to my cheek, but I don’t have enough dexterity in my drugged fingers to strip my glove off. So the best I can do to check the cut is smack my palm against my face. The amount of pain that blossoms from the tiny wound tells me that the entire side of my face is inflamed, a consequence of the poison spreading through my veins. Judging by how swollen it feels, I’m guessing I look like a guy with a bee allergy who walked face first into a hive. A groan of irritation slips out of my cotton-dry throat.
Ella pivots in her seat. “Cal, are you okay?”
I squint at her and say nothing. Largely because my tongue isn’t working.
She winces. “Don’t worry. We’re almost to the office. There’s a medical team waiting for you in the garage.”
I want to tell her I think the poison is wearing off—sensation is slowly returning to my extremities—but I decide it’s not worth the effort. Ortiz is just as big a hard-ass as Navarro was. She’ll make me stay in the infirmary until she’s checked my vitals two hundred times and run every lab test that’s even peripherally related to my current ailment. And the rest of the staff will back up her decisions.
After we lost so many people during the curse epidemic, the entire infirmary staff has been extra vigilant around every agent that comes through their doors. Can’t say I blame them. I felt helpless enough myself when people were dropping like flies from Delos’ disgusting magic. I can’t imagine how the medical staff must’ve felt, unable to stop the progression of the curse, forced to stand by and watch as the life faded from their patients.
The perimeter fence around the office passes in view of the window, and a few seconds later, the SUV pulls to a stop in the garage. The door next to my head opens almost immediately, revealing Ortiz and a crew of nurses. Ortiz takes one look at the swollen cut on my face and swears in Spanish, then directs the nurses to carefully haul me out of the vehicle. They remove me efficiently, strip off the blanket, and lay me on the waiting gurney, wheeling me away before Ella and Delarosa even manage to climb out of the SUV.
Ortiz leans over me and shines a light in my eyes. “Detective Kinsey, can you speak?”
I make an attempt. It’s sounds like a baby babbling.
“I’ll take that as a no.” She gently prods my throat, but I only feel a faint ache. Bruises have healed very fast for me since my life seal was broken last month, so I figure most of the damage from being strangled by the creature’s tentacle has already vanished. “Blink once for yes, and twice for no,” Ortiz continues. “Did you sustain a neck injury?”
I blink once.
She examines both sides of my neck. “Strangulation?”
I blink once again.
“Huh.” She nods. “That healing ability of yours is impressive. I could hardly tell.” She takes my pulse, blood pressure, and checks my heart and lungs with her stethoscope, all before we’re halfway to the infirmary. She calls out numbers after each check, which one of her nurses dutifully writes on my new chart. As we turn down the hall that leads to the main infirmary entrance, Ortiz dips her head close to my face to analyze the cut. “The actual laceration here is almost healed too, but it looks like your body is still having a reaction to the poison.” She purses her lips. “I wonder if this would’ve been a lethal poisoning for a human.”
All the nurses buzzing around Ortiz pause their work, their gazes not quite centered on me but close enough that I can tell they’re searching for any signs I don’t possess a hundred percent human DNA. Every single goddamn time someone mentions my newly discovered ancestry—half human and half unknown Eververse being of doom, presumably—all the people around me do the same thing, like they’re going to find some new quality I didn’t possess the last time they saw me. And it makes me feel far too much like a circus attraction.
I bite my tongue, annoyed I can’t speak right now. Because if I could, I’d be firing off snippy comments until every nurse looked away in shame. Ortiz, of course, wouldn’t be fazed by even my best insults. You could hold a gun to her head and tell her to zip it, and she’d still keep rattling off tone-deaf medical commentary. Because that’s the kind of person she is. She has no patience to spare for other people’s sensibilities.
But hey, at least I could make myself feel better by verbally pummeling her staff.
As it is, I have to lie there and take the stares until Ortiz clears her throat and the nurses jump back into action, eager to please the boss. They wheel my gurney into the infirmary and transfer me onto a bed, the bulk of them peeling off to resume their usual duties while Ortiz and two helpers continue with the rest of my “checkup.” Over the next twenty minutes, they poke and prod me, draw my blood, test my reflexes, and even do an ultrasound, until finally, I recover enough mobility for Ortiz to declare me on the path to good health.
“I want you to stay here for observation for another hour,” she declares in that authoritarian tone all doctors use when they won’t take no for an answer. “If you’re not suffering any ill effects of the poison by that point, I’ll let you get back to work.” With that, she scrawls a few final lines on my chart, sticks the clipboard on the end of my bed, and slips out the curtain, the two nurses trailing behind her. I’m left alone with half my clothes stripped off and a blanket pulled up to my bare chest.
For a while, I just bounce my slightly numb right foot up and down, fidgeting, while occasionally testing my voice. Mentally, I review my fight with the practitioner and his summoned creature several times, and attempt to figure out what I could’ve done better. Besides the obvious answer—I could’ve evaded the knife—the only thing that comes to mind involves the suppression of my magic.
I bumped up against the limit of my rings twice, and the second time was with my lightning attack that struck the creature. I p
lainly saw that the electricity affected it, which means if the attack had been stronger, I might’ve killed that creepy, misshapen thing and, at the very least, cost the practitioner his preferred murder weapon. Depending on how driven the guy is, I might’ve even stopped his killing spree entirely.
My attention drifts to the rings, sitting atop my gloves on the nightstand next to my bed. “What good is having magic,” I murmur aloud, “if I have to bring myself back down to normal on a daily basis anyway?”
“The good,” someone answers, “is that you’re our trump card in our time of greatest need.”
I snap my head to the left to find Riker peeking through the curtain. He slips into my space, the blue fabric swinging back into place behind him, and looms above me with both hands on his cane. It’s still strange to see him donning a nice gray suit, complete with a gold tie clip and perfectly shined shoes, but I have to admit he strikes an impressive figure, especially with the recent edition of a pair of glasses tucked securely in the front pocket of his jacket. He looks like some high-powered executive at the peak of power, or maybe a top-level government official, a dignified touch of gray in his sandy-blond hair, a ramrod-straight posture, and stern eyes heavy with the weight of a thousand secrets.
Awkwardness fills the space between us the moment we make eye contact, because the last time we were in the infirmary together, I kicked his cane out from under him and hurt his knee. He spent a full two weeks shooting me death glares every time I passed him in the halls, and he still doesn’t look especially happy to see me now. I did manage to drum up a sincere apology and deliver it to him with my head hung in legit shame though, which took the edge off his ire, so he sounds neutral, maybe even a touch amused, when he says, “Fancy seeing you in the infirmary, Cal.”
“Wow, Commissioner,” I reply, my words a tad slurred, “I didn’t know you could tell jokes.”
“And I still don’t know whether you can work a single case without getting your ass whooped.” He cocks an eyebrow.
“Ouch.” I pout. “That’s not a very nice thing to say.”
“I’m not having a very nice day, so suck it up.” He pulls the guest chair away from the wall and situates it next to my bed before sitting down. “Run me through what happened at the Wheeler apartment. I’ve already heard Ella and Delarosa’s rendition. I want you to tell me what they didn’t witness.”
I review all the pertinent details I can think of, starting with the part where I felt the warmth from the creature and ending with the part where I got dumped into the trash. A few times, I have to stop because my throat is parched and take a few sips of some water a passing nurse graciously procures for me. During my silences, Riker jots down some observations on a notepad he brought along. When I’m finished, he taps the back of his pen against the paper and asks, “So, what’s your take on the practitioner?”
“He’s extraordinarily keen to hide any indication of his identity. He only uses the tiniest hints of magic to break into his victim’s homes and then lets his summoned creature due the bulk of the work for him. Even when he was being pursued, he refused to use any magic tactics against me, relying on the creature to rough me up. The only thing he did himself was throw the knife, which I’m sure is completely wiped clean of any prints or DNA evidence.”
“You think he’s someone recognizable in the practitioner community?”
“That would be my educated guess, yeah.” I clench the crisp white sheet in my fists. My fingers are still faintly tingling.
Riker closes his pad and clicks the top on his pen. “Why do you think it’s a wizard and not a minor practitioner?”
“Because a minor practitioner wouldn’t have any reason to hide his aura.” I lean back against the pillow. “The ICM doesn’t keep records on most minor practitioners, not their names, not their skills, and the majors don’t mingle with the minors more than they have to. So finding a minor practitioner would mean looking for a needle in a haystack—there are tons of minors in Aurora, all dabbling in different shit—but there are an extremely limited number of wizards and witches. And you can damn well bet they all know each other in some fashion. This guy doesn’t want to tip off the other ICM practitioners. That’s who he’s hiding his identity from. Not us. His peers.”
“The ones who can most easily ID him.” Riker spins the pen around in his fingers. “Still, we’ve never had a practitioner go so far out of their way to obscure even their magic. This man is very meticulous, and also not as arrogant as the usual ICM fare: He knew we’d show up to his crime scenes with someone who could sense magic, and he didn’t underestimate the skill of this person. So he left behind only the most minuscule bits of magic energy, extremely hard to spot and guaranteed to degrade quickly.”
I know what question is on the tip of Riker’s tongue, so I say, “No magic-sensitive DSI agent other than me would’ve spotted the energy on the cork and the locks. And I’m not being cocky. If I’d still had all my magic locked down inside my life seal, I don’t think my own sense would’ve been keen enough to spot it. The ‘upgrade’ I got last month greatly increased my sensitivity level. It’s far beyond the limit of any non-practitioner.”
“So if any other detective team had shown up to investigate these murders, we wouldn’t have any idea what this guy’s magic signature looks like because their sensitive would’ve missed the only clues. In other words, we got lucky.” Riker shoves the pen into the spiral binding of his notepad, none too gently. “I don’t like how smart this guy is. It almost feels like he’s been trained specifically for this.”
“You think the practitioner community’s got some kind of secret assassin’s guild?”
“Well, they have an entire faction of rogues wreaking havoc,” he points out, “so I don’t see why we can’t throw assassins in there too.”
“A disturbing thought.”
“Indeed.” He tucks his notebook away and offers me his hand. “Think you can walk now? I’ve got an important meeting in about twenty minutes, and I’d like you to be there.”
“Meeting?” I push myself into a sitting position and swing my legs over the end of the bed. Pressing my feet against the floor a couple times to tighten my muscles, I determine my legs should hold my weight. But I take Riker’s hand just in case, gripping the nightstand with the other, as I carefully stand. “Who’re you grilling today?”
“Pamela Newsome,” he replies, “the new Wolf representative.”
When my knees don’t buckle as I put my full weight on them, I slide my boots out from under the bed with my foot and slip them on. “I thought she refused to meet you face to face.”
“She did. Until I told her a werewolf had been brutally murdered by a practitioner on a killing spree, leaving behind a traumatized two-year-old girl.”
“Oh yeah.” I drop my gaze to the floor. “That would change my tune too.”
Riker releases my hand and grasps my shoulder, reassuring. “Don’t torture yourself for losing the perp, Cal. We’ll get him.”
“I know. It’s just…” I sigh. “If I could’ve used my full power, I think I could’ve beaten the creature.”
“I understand that frustration, but don’t lose sight of the big picture.” He yanks the curtain open, revealing the brightly lit infirmary. There are half a dozen other agents, most of them newbies, scattered around the room, having various injuries patched up by nurses or doctors. “These murders are terrible,” he continues in a softer voice, “but they’re also small scale. If you blow your cover on a case like this, and the ICM forces me to fire you, then we’ll be sorely lacking in the firepower department when another Wellington disaster or curse epidemic descends on the city. That’s when we’ll need you the most. That’s where you can do the most good.”
“Even if you fire me, it’s not like I’ll leave Aurora. I’ll still be here when the attack comes.”
Riker gives me a pointed look. “But you can’t act without authority. Unless you want to be a vigilante. Aka a criminal.”
<
br /> I groan. “Really?”
“Yes, really. And I’ll have no choice but to order your arrest, else I’ll risk losing my job, and the mayor’s support of DSI.” He gives my shoulder one last squeeze, a hard squeeze, before he lets go. “Understand?”
“Yes, sir.” I roll my shoulders back to iron out the remaining stiffness in my muscles. “I understand.”
Riker grabs my coat and shirt off the nightstand and smacks them against my face. “Good. Then get back to work and catch this son of a bitch.”
Chapter Six
Pamela Newsome turns out to be a middle-aged woman with a permanent scowl. Between the solid gray updo, the librarian glasses (complete with a beaded strap so she can wear them like a necklace), and the tweed skirt suit worn with aging brown loafers, she gives off the impression she’s just stepped out of a fourth-grade English classroom sometime around the year 1985.
When Riker and I shuffle into the conference room, Newsome tugs her glasses down the bridge of her nose and examines me over the rims, her hazel irises reflecting the light and giving off that eerie yellow sheen all Wolves display in the dead of night. Then she blinks, and her eyes take on a more human aspect, the animal inside receding to whatever den it hibernates within when it isn’t needed. Newsome readjusts her glasses and shoots me an expression of utter disdain, and even though she doesn’t say anything, I get the message loud and clear: You’re that stupid boy who got Vincent Wallace killed.
Yes, I am that boy. And yes, I still feel guilty about it.
The conference room is arranged with two half-circle tables facing one another, the seven-person Wolf delegation seated at one table, my DSI team at the other. Riker sinks into the chair at the center of our table, in between Ella and Desmond, and I take the spare chair next to Amy at the very end. Which puts me face to face with a six-foot-five thirtyish white guy whose biceps are the size of my head and whose trunklike, veiny neck screams roid rage. I don’t know if the size of a werewolf’s human form has any direct correlation to the size of the animal they transform into, but all I can imagine is this guy morphing into a big furry beast the size of a truck.
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