Reid clears his throat, and I snap my gaze back toward him. “The proposal is simple enough, though it’ll take me five or six hours to contact the right people on my side of the pond and have them set up the proper accommodations. Is that acceptable?”
Projecting more confidence than I currently possess, I reply, “Given the average amount of time it takes DSI to clear someone for removal of protective custody after a culprit is apprehended or…taken care of, I’d say you have until three or four PM to get everything ready for the transfer.”
Reid raises his right hand, and a fancy fountain pen materializes from the ether and drops into his palm. He signs the last page of the printout with an elegant script in bright red ink that may or may not be his own blood. When the tip of the pen leaves the paper, the entire contract glows bright green for several seconds.
My assumption is that the glow indicates Reid’s signature is magically binding, and that he is now obligated to fulfill the terms laid out in the contract in order to expunge his favor owed via Wallace to the local Wolf rep office. As the glow fades out, Reid flicks the pen aside, and just like the envelope, it vanishes in a burst of green flame.
“There you have it. I’ll arrange everything in the manner specified by Representative Newsome. All the Wolves have to do is show up at the rendezvous point, and we’ll perform the handoff. Should be a relatively simple transaction.”
“Good. I’ll let Newsome know.” I take one step back toward the weird door I am not keen on passing through again. Unfortunately, it appears to be the only way out, unless I want to break through the floor and take a jaunt into the Eververse. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some other things to—”
“Hold on there, boy,” Reid says. Something in his voice, some subtle snake of a spell, makes all my muscles lock up tight. I can’t move an inch.
Reid smiles. “Before you go, I’ve got a few questions for you.” A tingling sensation breaks out across my face and neck, worms its way beneath my skin, sinks into my bones, and blankets my brain. “First and foremost, I was under the impression that the Wolves and DSI had a bit of a falling-out yesterday. So why, pray tell, did the Wolves decide to use a young Crow as their courier for this little business exchange?”
My mouth pops open of its own accord, and words spill out against my will. “Based on my conjecture that the DSI building was bugged by the perpetrator of the murders, Newsome was concerned that he might also be keeping tabs on the Wolves in some way. Though she didn’t find any listening devices or spying spells during a sweep of her office, she didn’t want to take any chances with Sadie’s life on the line, so she sent me here to deliver the contract on the basis that I can use veil spells and am thus harder for the perp to follow than Wolves.”
Mind magic, I think when my mouth finally closes, my heart thudding hard in my chest. He’s using mind magic on me.
“This killer of yours sounds like quite a handful.” Reid swipes up his mug and takes a sip of a beverage I now realize isn’t beer. It’s some sort of amber liquid imbued with golden swirls that move counterclockwise at a steady rate despite the fact that Reid isn’t jostling the mug at all. An unearthly drink for an unearthly man. “Tell me, what do you know about him?”
Again, my lips part and air flows out of my lungs to vibrate my vocal chords without my consent. But this time, I fight the compulsion with all my strength, and instead of words, only a choking noise emerges from my throat. Reid’s eyes narrow slightly, a pinch of irritation at my refusal to bow to his will, and a moment later, the subtle but insidious spell that took hold of me recedes like a tide.
Only for the equivalent of a magic tsunami to slam into my brain instead. It floods all my senses, shorting them out, and there’s a period of time that feels like eternity where I’m nothing but a free-floating consciousness falling through purgatory. When my senses reset and yank me back into existence, Reid has a hold on my body and soul that feels like a vise strangling me from the inside out.
“Let’s try this again,” says the terrifying faerie man, now sitting before me with no hint of his glamour, his fearsome faerie beauty on full display, features sharp as knives. “Tell me, Crow boy, what do you know about the murderous wizard who’s been beguiling DSI for the past day and a half?”
I almost tell him everything I know, including the part about Targus being a Rook. But for the first time in my life, my post-traumatic stress disorder actually saves my ass.
The sickening sensation of Reid’s hold on my brain drags me back to the day I was bound to a chair in Iron Delos’ dungeon.
Back to the moment his magic drilled through my skull and assaulted the very core of my being, all the memories that made me who I am today, all the aspects of my proud but battered personality, all the haunting traumatic fights and solemn, quiet nights that influenced my outlook on the world, all the stupid jokes and the sarcastic grins that still, to this day, keep me bobbing on the surface when life tries to drag me down into the deep black pit of hopelessness.
Back to the moment of existential terror, absolute and all encompassing, that even now lurks in the darkest corner of my mind, a skulking phantom that often reminds me just how far some of my enemies will go, and just how weak and pitiful I am in comparison to the titans controlling the supernatural war unfolding in the shadows of human society.
I remember the pain of that violation so clearly it could’ve happened yesterday, even though Reid’s magic doesn’t hurt in remotely the same way. I remember the feeling of helplessness that overcame me, a creeping desire to simply shut down and let Delos have his way with me because the more I struggled, the more it hurt, and I was so sure fighting back was pointless anyway.
I remember promising myself, in the aftermath of the luckiest turn of events in my entire life—Vanth’s “gift” saving me from a short stint as a brainwashed patsy—that the next time someone tried to fuck with my head, I would find a way to circumvent them of my own accord, find a way to beat them under my own power, or find the power that I needed to beat them. That I wouldn’t give in. I would get angry. And I would get even.
Three weeks ago, as it just so happens, I gained quite a bit of power.
Today, with fury screaming through my soul, I let that power free.
My magic erupts from my soul in a way that is not unlike a volcano exploding. The energy surges out in all directions, slams into the threads of Reid’s own energy, tangled like a web inside my head, a complex array of spellwork I witness in full for a fraction of a second, whose brilliant structure is burned like a nuclear shadow into the backs of my retinas before the whole thing collapses into a field of green sparks that are flung out of my mind at the speed of light.
Then my magic reaches the surface of my skin, and a bomb made of lightning bolts goes off.
The shockwave smashes the table to pieces, shrapnel flying everywhere. The people sitting at the table are ripped out of their chairs right before their chairs are ripped to shreds.
The yellow-haired girl slams into the taps behind the bar, breaking the spigots, and streams of beer pour out onto the floor, an alcoholic fountain. The black guy with the cat eyes rights himself in midair but lands hard on a table in the corner that cracks under his weight and sends him tumbling to the floor.
The man with the horns smacks the back wall and bounces off with an audible crack, said horns leaving gouges in the wall even as the keratin splinters under the force. The woman with the mesmerizing blue eyes manages to blunt most of the blast with a magic shield but lands in a rough roll on her knees and knocks her head against a bar stool.
Finally, the blonde who escorted me in takes a lightning strike to the shoulder as she’s blown away and lands on a neat stack of chairs that overturn and bury her.
Reid is the only person who doesn’t move. Even as the lightning strikes the glass floor and cracks it a thousand times over, and the spell that powers the connection between here and there falters, the view of Faerie fading to black. Even as massiv
e chunks of wood fly by his face, and one, shaped vaguely like an axe, zings by his neck and nearly takes his head off his shoulders. Even as I storm toward him, arcs of violet electricity nipping at my heels, a growl rougher than any Wolf’s reverberating through my throat, my aura choking the air around me. Even as I loom over him, rage like fire in my heart, Reid doesn’t budge.
“Stay the fuck out of my head,” I snarl.
Reid downs the rest of his beer and throws the mug aside. It shatters on the floor. “Touched a nerve, did I?” he says, a subtle gleam in his eye. “My apologies, boy. You can go now.”
A pinprick of realization pokes a hole in my anger, and my cheeks flush hot as it becomes apparent that Reid just played me. He didn’t actually want me to tell him about the murder perp. (In fact, judging by the little quirk in his lips, I’d say he already knows quite a bit more than he’s letting on.)
Rather, he wanted to know about me. He pretended to shunt the topic aside after I shut him down the first time, but he never planned to let me leave this room without dredging up a few of my own secrets, and perhaps testing my mettle in the process. I walked right into his trap, using a burst of magic like that and revealing just how much juice I possess.
And yet, if I hadn’t done that, he’d have forced me to vomit up dangerous info.
It was a lose-lose situation. A favorite way for the fae to play, I’m sure.
Huffing, I say, “I hate it when people apologize when they’re not actually sorry.”
Reid digs around in his shirt pocket and pulls out a new cigar. “Is that supposed to prompt a response from me?”
“No. But this is: I’m going to tell your ‘buddy’ Erica Milburn that you screwed with my head, and leave the choice of retribution up to her.” I turn on my toes, boots squeaking against the cracked glass floor, and stride toward the exit. On my way there, I step on the scorched and wrinkled contract, which I kick backward to Reid. It lands at his feet. Still just as binding as before. No way to wiggle out of it.
“Because she’s more level headed than I am when it comes to managing the delicate matters of the supernatural community.” I throw the faerie man a dark look over my shoulder as I reach for the doorknob. “And she packs a bigger punch.”
Reid pauses with his new cigar halfway to his lips. His expression is unreadable. Which I take to mean he didn’t expect that particular threat and he isn’t sure how to respond to it. Leaving a faerie stumped, I believe, is the biggest victory I can win against one of these creatures in their own domain.
So after throwing matching scowls at all the other faeries in the room, who are slowly dragging themselves to their feet in the wake of their brutal beatings, I haul open the door, step through to the upside-down hallway beyond, find myself inexplicably right-side up, blink the resulting vertigo away, and then slam the door shut behind me. At which point it once again takes on the form of a deep, dark, menacing pit in the fabric of reality.
Honestly, I can’t think of a better place for Reid to be.
Chapter Sixteen
Four blocks from Reid’s Pizza, I collapse against the trunk of a skinny tree tucked into the middle of a small dog park. The cold air of the crisp morning dries the sweat on my face and neck, and the frosty grass around me soothes my bare hands, which I didn’t notice I burned during my magic outburst until I was scuttling out of the alley into the service street behind the restaurant. A jagged web of red marks etched into my skin, minor burns caused by a lack of precise energy control, the magic not directed far enough outside my body. The extremities, I’ve learned in my few weeks of magic study, are the parts that novice practitioners most frequently injure.
My burns will heal in a few minutes though. It’s my mind I’m worried about.
Ever since I staggered up the restaurant’s stairs and barreled past the bruiser at the exit, I’ve felt like the world is unbalanced. So much so that I actually ran into a car waiting in front of a crosswalk for the light to turn green. The driver of the car thought I was some drunk stumbling home after a late night partying. I gave him the finger to reinforce that misconception because I don’t want anyone reporting a suspicious man matching my description to the police—in case Targus is monitoring the PD too—and the average citizen of the average city ignores the average drunk the same way they ignore homeless people begging for food in the middle of winter.
And truthfully, I do feel like I’m coming off a drug. Not alcohol though. More like LSD. The whole time I was in that basement pocket dimension, or whatever the hell it is, I had the distinct feeling of being in an altered state, a feeling that grew exponentially stronger each minute that ticked by. It was like the very air was contaminated by something otherworldly, and the effects slowly leached into my nervous system, causing my senses to malfunction, blending reality with imagination to the point where the distinction between them was meaningless.
Now, planted firmly in the “real” world, the whole trip to Reid’s feels like a dream. The memories are already dull and gray, all the minute details of what I witnessed in that strange room blurred and indistinct. I can’t quite remember the faces of the faeries, not their human masks or the truths beneath, even though I expressly catalogued their appearances during the interaction.
It’s almost like the room was designed to disrupt the ability to create concrete memories. Or maybe that’s just a side effect the dense magic of such a place has on non-fae.
I take a painfully deep breath, the cold air shocking my lungs and throat, to clear the confusion in my head. As a sense of reality settles on my shoulders again, I remind myself that I was successful despite how the encounter with Reid played out. He signed the contract and bound himself to adhere to the plan Newsome and I created to protect Sadie. So even if he’s not happy about my threat to sic Erica on him, he can’t retaliate against me in any way that risks the success of today’s operation.
If necessary, the two of us can duke it out some other time, preferably outside faerie territory, and preferably with referees who’ll prevent him from crushing my skull under his boot. (Reid’s nonchalance in the face of my “lightning bomb” gave me the impression he’s no magic lightweight.)
For now, I’ve got bigger concerns. I need to get home and—
Someone clears their throat.
I whirl around to see a young woman I don’t know standing not ten feet away from me, her back against a tree. I find her presence odd and mildly discomforting because my own footsteps on the frost-covered grass crunched loud enough to wake everyone in a mile radius. So I don’t understand how she snuck up on me unheard. I’m not that out of it. Am I?
“Look a little dazed there, Crow,” she says, mildly amused. But her smile isn’t devious in the way Reid’s was when he…Hold on.
I examine the woman in detail. Long brown hair bound in a messy bun. Pretty blue eyes sparkling with mirth. Jeans torn at the knees, a few dabs of blood staining the sheared denim, but without any corresponding cuts on the visible skin. A leather jacket with similar tears on the elbows, one with a small shard of glass poking through the fabric.
The faerie with the mesmerizing blue eyes. This is her.
Those eyes, now tucked firmly under her glamour, aren’t quite as spellbinding anymore, but they still hold the same degree of curiosity they did when she was checking me out in the creepy basement. “Gosh,” she says after I spend thirty seconds staring at her without replying to her original comment, “Reid’s freehold really took you for a spin, didn’t it? I’m guessing you’ve never visited a faerie hill before?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. I don’t need more conversations with the fae today. I already have a headache coming on. “I’ve never interacted with faeries before,” I grumble, “at least not to my knowledge.”
“Ah. That explains it then.” She pushes away from the tree, ambles over to me, and plops down on the grass. Some kind of plastic equipment in the black bag hanging off her shoulder thumps on impact with the frozen earth. Based on my appro
ximation of the weight, and the cubical shape of the bag, I assume the mystery equipment is an expensive DSLR camera.
Now that I think about it, the blue-eyed woman does have that intrepid reporter look. It’s the way she holds herself, shoulders tight and angled like she’s wound up and waiting for something exciting to happen. It’s the way her inquisitive gaze catalogues all the details of my person, the way her fingers twitch like she’s checking off a mental list or jotting down ideas for snappy headlines.
Is she sniffing for some kind of story? If so, who’s the audience? The normal world or the supernatural one?
The woman flashes me a cheery smile, even as I observe her with a mix of confusion and unease—I never have liked media hawks very much. She seems to catch my drift, and with a wry glint in her eye, she offers me her hand. “No worries, Mr. Crow. I’m not here to badger you for information. In fact, I’m here for the opposite reason: to offer you an explanation for Reid’s behavior that I hope will quell your anger, or at least tone it down a bit. Don’t want you growing too resentful toward the man for that cheap trick he played on you back there. He’s too important among the local fae population to get embroiled in a rivalry with another power player.”
There’s a lot to unpack in that statement, not the least of which is that this faerie woman claims she considers me a “power player.” I don’t know if she’s trying to flatter me so I’ll let my guard down and befriend her, thus putting her in a position of influence over me, or whether my magic outburst back in the basement was legitimately strong enough to put me on the DANGER list, thus making her think getting on my good side is a good idea. But regardless, I’d be an idiot to turn down a tell-all offer from someone who knows a great deal more about faerie society than me. Because there’s no way in hell I won’t run into Reid again. He made it blazingly obvious that he’s interested in me.
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