by Chloe Neill
He fought the river inches at a time with teeth bared and forehead furrowed until we’d crossed the half-mile span. Maybe this was his penance, fighting back against Old Man River because of the fight he hadn’t been able to win.
He moored on the east side of the river, focusing on his task while I walked to the other end of the barge and across the dock. He’d wait there until he had a return fare, so if someone came along before I came back, I’d have to swim or wait him out.
Or catch a ride from an angel.
—
My legs unsettled, the ground seemed to wobble beneath me when I stepped onto dry land again.
Algiers wasn’t the tourist spot it had once been; neighborhoods had been flattened by human shelling. The walls of the Mardi Gras World warehouse had crumbled long ago, and enormous faces—the heads of creatures that had once populated Mardi Gras floats—still stared out from what remained of the enormous building like idols to a different age.
Because it hadn’t taken much magical damage, the things that grew in Louisiana grew here in abundance. The land had become a creeping meadow, with flora and fauna that helped feed those of us who lived in the Quarter.
Just as he had the first time I’d seen him, Malachi stood in a copse, wings retracted. He wore jeans and a thin navy pea coat, his tousled blond curls just brushing his shoulders. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with golden tan skin. His eyes were golden as well, his nose straight and leading to lips that were fuller on the bottom than on the top.
If it wasn’t for the mantle of authority that he wore as well as the clothes, you’d have thought he was a human. But that mantle was difficult to ignore.
I’d known Malachi for a month now, and I still wasn’t sure of him. He’d been a general in the Consularis army, and his manner was almost always formal. I wasn’t sure if that was because he was Consularis and we were human, or he was a commander and we were, if anything, soldiers. Or maybe that was just his personality.
He glanced back, met my gaze, and pressed a finger to his lips. Nodding, I crept through the grass to stand beside him.
A deer and a fawn stood in a clearing fifteen or twenty yards away, their bodies lit by the early light that slitted through the trees and spilled across the fog. They gnawed at grass that had grown where a parking lot once stood, then lifted their heads. Jaws working, ears alert, they chewed in the growing dawn.
The moment lengthened, and crickets resumed their chorus around us. The fawn, its haunches dotted with white spots, pranced forward merrily, tail switching to brush away gnats or mosquitoes.
Malachi’s sudden whistle split the air and the silence. The deer jumped and ran, disappearing into the mist.
“Why did you do that?”
“It’s better they remain afraid,” he said. “They become too used to humans—or anything else—and they’re more vulnerable.”
“To being dinner.”
“There’s no reason to make the hunt too easy.”
I cocked my head at him. “And are humans more vulnerable for becoming too used to Paranormals?”
He seemed pleased by the question, but that didn’t change his manner. “Do you think I am your ally?”
I gave the question honest thought. “I don’t know. But I don’t think it matters.”
He lifted his brow in surprise. “Oh?”
“We have a common enemy. That makes us allies enough for right now.”
He smiled. “On that, we agree.”
“You heard what happened yesterday?”
He nodded. “Yes. Liam and Burke both got messages to us.”
“We’d seen a billboard near the Lower Ninth that morning. Then they marched down Bourbon Street. The leader, Ezekiel, said they had lots of allies, lots of signs. Have you seen anything like that? Recruiting messages? Other signs of them?”
“I’ve seen several billboards. But no indication of who painted them, or the size of their group. They’d have to be big enough not to worry about the loss of seven members in an orchestrated explosion.”
“Yeah.” And that was disturbing enough. “Is that why we’re here so early?”
He smiled. “It isn’t early for me. But generally, yes. You will not always have the opportunity to choose the conditions under which you use magic. You need to be prepared to use it in less than optimal situations.”
I glanced around. It was cold, dark, and foggy, and I was still groggy from a night spent tossing and turning. “Less than optimal,” I agreed.
Malachi smiled. “Give me your jacket.”
My shoulders slumped. “I don’t suppose you could trade it for a white chocolate mocha with soy and whip, could you? And maybe a croissant to go with it?”
He just looked at me.
“Never mind,” I said, taking off the jacket and handing it to him. “Did you make Burke do this?” I wondered, goose bumps rising on skin chilled in the brisk air.
“I didn’t train Burke. Let’s see what you can do.”
I glanced around. “No one will see?”
“No. I’ve shielded the woods.”
I lifted my eyebrows. “You can do that?”
He nodded, and I watched him for a moment. “Did you shield Royal Mercantile?”
“No,” he said with a smile. “I didn’t know your father. And that is not a skill I have. I can bring you within the aegis of my magic—as I’ve done now. But that aegis requires a certain physical proximity.”
Malachi walked twenty feet away from where I stood, into the clearing where the deer and the fawn had munched on grass minutes ago. He linked his hands in front of him, feet spread as wide as his hips. He looked vaguely Viking-esque there in the meadow, the mist pooling at his feet.
“I want you to pick me up,” he said.
Like in a bar? was the first thought that came to mind. “I—excuse me?”
“Pick me up.” He raised a hand, pointed a finger to the sky. “Lift me into the air.”
“Could I point out you have wings?”
“You could, but that would be a waste of time. Pick me up.”
“Just call me Skywalker,” I muttered, and took a good, hard look at the object of my magic.
Malachi was tall, broad shoulders, strong body. He probably weighed somewhere between one ninety-five and two twenty, not counting the wings. And I had no idea how much they weighed. I hadn’t moved anything that heavy before—not on purpose, anyway—but didn’t see why I couldn’t do it now.
I gave him a nod, centered myself, blew out a breath. And then I lifted a hand, palm out, and began to gather the invisible magic that surrounded us. I couldn’t see that energy, but I could feel it with some sixth sense, the perception that marked me as a Sensitive and—if I wasn’t careful—would make me a wraith.
I pulled the magic together, building filaments of magic, and circling it around Malachi like a rope. When I’d built up enough magic that I was nearly dizzy with it, I slowly lifted my hand to raise him off the ground.
He didn’t budge. Not even an inch.
“Problem?” Malachi asked casually, as if still waiting for me to start.
“No,” I said, and narrowed my gaze. I’d be damned if I couldn’t do this—because there was no reason I couldn’t do this. I had telekinesis. I could move things. He was a thing, so I could move him.
Maybe I hadn’t calculated his weight well enough, I thought, and began to gather more than enough magic to account for his muscle and mass. Lifting my hand again, I wound more and more magic around him, until he seemed to glow with it, like he’d only just stepped through the Veil in the golden armor Paras preferred.
I drew my fingers into a fist and raised that fist to the sky, pulling the magic with me, and pulling him with the magic.
Not even a lock of his hair moved.
Frustration boiled over. “Son of a bi
tch.”
“You aren’t trying.”
I made a sound of doubt, shook out arms that were trembling from effort. “If I try any harder I’ll pop a blood vessel.” I narrowed my gaze at him. “You’re doing something—something that makes you heavier.”
“If I was human, I might be offended by that.”
“But you aren’t. What’s the deal?”
Malachi looked at the ground, ran a palm over the nubby grass, pine needles, and sticks that littered the ground. He picked up two pinecones, then walked back to me. He held out his palms, one in each hand. “Open your palms.”
I did, mirroring his position.
“Example one,” he said, and dropped the pinecone in his left hand into my palm.
It felt like a pinecone, pointy and nubby.
“Example two,” he said, and released the other pinecone.
My hand fell like he’d dumped a concrete block onto it, and I had to catch myself before I stumbled forward. I had to use both hands to pull the pinecone up again. It looked like a pinecone, but it weighed at least twenty pounds.
I thought of the box I kept in the store’s second floor, which held the magic I cast off to keep my levels in balance. It had become heavier over the past few weeks from the accumulated weight of that magic.
I looked up at Malachi. “It’s heavier—because you put magic in it.”
“Good,” he said. “You can drop it now.”
I considered hefting it onto his toes but let it fall to the side, where it hit the earth with a thud, no bounce, no roll. I cocked my head at him, put my hands on my hips, and gave him an up-and-down appraisal. “Okay. I get that. But what about you?”
“That is the advantage of having innate magic—it complements our anatomy. I wasn’t making myself heavier—my mass stayed the same—but I used the magic to forge a bond between myself and the earth.”
“Which made you harder to lift.”
Malachi nodded. “You have to be prepared for the unexpected.”
“If I can prepare myself, that means I can adjust to it? Like, by gathering more magic?” Although I wasn’t certain I could do that without passing out.
“No,” he said. “That’s the point, and a lesson it took humans a very long time to learn. There is no fighting it. There is no combating it. Is cold iron any more deadly than steel?”
It had taken us long to realize the myth was mostly correct; our use of cold iron had been a turning point in the war.
“No,” I said. “As metals go, it’s softer.”
He walked forward. “Correct. But it interrupts magic. That is its particular quality.”
“So I have to figure out what something is in relation to magic, and use my magic accordingly.”
“Just as you did at Memorial when you locked the box that held the Veil’s encryption keys. You identified its particular magical qualities, and you worked the locks accordingly.”
I opened my mouth to brag, but he beat me to smugness.
“You still split the earth,” he pointed out.
Damn it.
“Do you know why that happened?”
“I assumed it was magic from the Veil snapping back into place—when the energy of its movement was forced out.”
He looked vaguely impressed. “Good. How could you have done better?”
A cricket literally chirped in the silence that followed. I tried to pick up the leash I thought he’d been leading me on. “Maybe I could have, given more time and experience, gauged how it was likely to react and adjusted my magic accordingly?”
Malachi smiled broadly. “Good.”
“I was a little rushed at the time.”
“You were. And likely afraid and angry. Next time, use that.”
I blinked. “How?”
“I can’t be inside your head, Claire. That’s the lesson you must learn.” And with that, he walked forward, picked up my jacket, which he’d laid carefully at the foot of the oak tree, handed it to me.
I guessed the lesson was over. “You’re going to tell me all that, and not tell me what to do with it?”
Malachi looked down at me. “If you want to learn to wield the magic, you must learn to wield the magic.”
“Wax on, wax off,” I muttered, and watched him disappear into the trees.
CHAPTER SEVEN
By the time I made it back to the store, the lights were on. Since I hadn’t turned them on before I left, I assumed Gunnar had used his key. Sure enough, he was pacing back and forth in front of the counter when I opened the door. Since it was nearly opening time, I flipped the OPEN sign on the door and walked inside, the bell ringing my arrival.
“Where the hell have you been?” he asked, boots polished and fatigues perfectly pressed.
“Practice with our aerial friend.”
“Practice—oh.” Gunnar closed his eyes for a second. “I may have panicked when you weren’t upstairs.”
I walked into the kitchen, pulled a bottle of water from the fridge, which was still running, thank goodness. “And you didn’t assume I spent the night with a gorgeous and witty man?”
“Since the only man you have eyes for—gorgeous, witty, or otherwise—has issues, no. I didn’t.”
I took a seat on the stool and uncapped the water, took a drink. “I can’t really argue with that. How are things at Devil’s Isle?”
“It was a late night,” he said, which was confirmed by the dark shadows beneath his eyes. “But we’re making progress, if that’s what you want to call it.” He pulled a piece of paper from a folder, slapped it onto the counter.
“What’s that?”
“They have a manifesto. Assholes,” he muttered, walking behind me toward the kitchen. I was going to start charging my friends for using it like their own personal store.
I scanned the paper. The letters were tiny and neat, marked by faint marks probably made by an old-fashioned typewriter. The language was old-fashioned and sounded biblical, except there weren’t any actual mentions of religion other than the references to Eden. There were, however, a lot of implicit threats.
“‘Only through blood will our land be redeemed,’” I read aloud. “‘Only in blood will our land be revived.’ That’s pretty telling.”
“Yeah. In my opinion, the letter is a bunch of self-important, masturbatory nonsense. We’ve got profilers looking it over for an official analysis. I can already tell you what they’ll say—that the author is egotistical, narcissistic, possibly paranoid, and generally an asshole, as I predicted.”
“You think Ezekiel wrote it,” I concluded.
“He didn’t sign it, but it’s got ‘cult leader’ written all over it.”
“There’s nothing specific about next steps,” I said. “I mean, generally they want to destroy Containment and anyone who’s ever done anything in support of Containment, but they don’t go into specifics. Do you think they have more explosives?”
“If they could get access to the components once, they can probably do it again.”
After that conclusion, I nearly jumped when the bells on the front door jangled.
Liam and Tadji came in, chatting amiably. Royal Mercantile was becoming the meeting space for our group of humans-in-the-know.
Today, Tadji wore leggings and a thin, dark poncho over combat boots. She looked ready for battle, even if I hoped the retail battle was the only one she’d wage. Liam wore his uniform—fitted jeans that pooled over boots, and a snug gray Henley with the top buttons unfastened, the fit showing his body with cruel definition. He hadn’t shaved this morning, and the dark stubble across his cheeks only made his eyes glow bluer.
“What are you two doing here?” Gunnar asked.
“And good morning to you, too,” Tadji said, pressing a kiss to his cheek before pulling off her messenger bag. “I’m here to continue my
efforts to bring this store into the twenty-first century.”
“And you?” Gunnar asked, glancing at Liam. “What’s your excuse?”
“Well, there’s the outstanding bounty for the wraith, or we could discuss the bounties Containment just issued for Reveillon members.” He looked at me. “You want in?”
“Maybe,” I said, thinking about the store, the fact that I’d basically dumped it on Tadji yesterday.
“Claire has a full schedule,” Gunnar said. “She had magic practice this morning.”
Tadji and Liam both looked at me.
“And how did it go?” she asked. Liam didn’t speak, but his gaze was steady and intense.
“Fine,” I said, giving Gunnar a look. I felt like I was being set up. And since his gaze was on Liam, it wasn’t hard to guess the plan. He was trying to bait Liam, or make him jealous I’d spent time alone with Malachi. Which was a waste of everyone’s time.
“We went to Algiers Point, which was very pretty. We saw two deer. The river was rough. Magic is difficult.”
They waited for more.
I shrugged, leveled a stare at Gunnar. “Nothing more to tell.”
Liam looked at Gunnar. “What’s happening with Reveillon?”
“They have a manifesto,” I said, and slid the paper to Liam with a fingertip.
“There are still five Reveillon members unaccounted for,” Gunnar said while Liam scanned it. “They scattered in the chaos. Right now we believe it’s most likely they’re in Devil’s Isle. We’ve got extra patrols on the streets looking for them, and we’ve asked the block captains to spread the word among the Paras.” He looked at Liam. “I made sure your grandmother was told.”
“Appreciate it,” Liam said. “What’s Containment’s strategy outside the prison?”
“Stop them,” Gunnar said simply. “The Joint Ops unit—half PCC and half FBI—had our first briefing last night. We’ll be coordinating to identify, locate, and stop Reveillon.”
“You’re talking about a manhunt,” Tadji said.
Gunnar nodded. “As soon as we reported the bombing, PCC dispatched troops from Pensacola. One of the convoys was ambushed on the road. All but two were killed.”
