by Nazri Noor
I stared at her in disbelief, watched the space in the air where that hellish portal of living shadow had just been. “You mean that was magic?” My voice caught in my throat, meek. “I did that?”
Thea grinned, the perfect pearls of her teeth arranged in the sort of smile a proud mentor would give her protege.
“Okay. Clearly I’m dreaming.” I splayed myself across the floor, laying my head back, crossing my arms across my chest, my shirt soaked with sweat. With my eyes closed, I stilled myself and did my best to relax. “Wake me up when it’s over.”
Thea laughed.
Chapter 8
Days passed. The Lorica took me in as one of its own. You know how they say when life becomes a whirlwind? Well, it was. Everything moved too fast for me to really have a say in anything, and before I knew it I was under the Lorica’s employ, with Thea as my supervisor. I didn’t know where else I could go, anyway.
What was I going to do, go back to my dad? “Hey, remember when we fought? Also, I’m supposed to be dead. What’s up?” That was a whole other can of worms, but I knew it’d be something I’d have to deal with in time. I couldn’t just show up on his doorstep, dead man walking. At least I didn’t want to.
And the Lorica deal wasn’t all bad, either. They gave me a stipend to figure out my living situation, in a block of apartments not all that far from where my dad lived, and not so far from HQ, either. It turned out that quite a few of the Lorica’s people lived on the same block, which also meant that I had some semblance of protection. It was different, almost comforting being around people who were like me, especially when those people were nothing at all like the rest of the human race.
Thea said that I was learning to use my magic quickly enough. She watched over me while I practiced. I can’t say that shadowstepping – or stepping, that’s what we call it now – was my favorite activity, considering I had to move through the darkness each time, that dimension that has things crawling and living in the shadows. But the power definitely came with its conveniences.
I didn’t tell Thea, and nor would I ever, but after I had some practice with stepping I did go back to my old apartment, the one I shared with shitty roommates when I was still functionally “alive.” I stepped into my old bedroom – was it still considered breaking and entering if it was your own bedroom? – to reclaim some of my stuff. Mostly some clothes, a few valuables, and a favorite jacket mom gave me, but I also swiped the last of the beers out of the fridge. You know, just a last middle finger to those two butt holes.
So sure, I was starting to get the hang of things, but I wasn’t too fond of my new designation. Or the jewelry that came with it, for that matter.
“How come I don’t get to be a Wing?” I was perfectly aware of how whiny I sounded. I really shouldn’t have been, but Thea was infinitely patient like that, which had the net effect of me behaving like a brat whenever possible.
“Because Wings transport other people,” she said, gently, but firmly. “You can’t do that. That’s the distinction. You can only transport yourself.”
I huffed. It stung enough that I didn’t get to be a Hand.
“Sit still,” Thea said. She was fiddling with a leather thong, the middle of it weighed down by a gemstone the same color and size as the others that she wore on her fingers, around her throat. An opal, by my best guess.
“I’m not sure that goes with my eyes,” I said.
“Shush. It’s not meant to be decorative.” She fastened the thong around my neck. I hooked a finger over it and shifted it around. At least it didn’t feel too obtrusive. With time I could even pretend it wasn’t there. “This lets me keep track of you, and it lets us communicate. I want you to wear it, at least for now. Think of it as part of your training.”
I nodded. Best not to push my luck with all the whining, plus I knew I could stand to learn a lot more about the Veil and the arcane underground it was concealing. Thea was clearly the perfect person to teach me.
“Now,” Thea said, reaching for a glass of water on her desk. “Being a Hound is a perfectly noble thing. You’ll be hunting down contraband and evidence in support of the Lorica’s agenda, which is to keep both mages and humans safe from irresponsible use of the arcane.”
I blinked. “Okay.”
Thea sipped and made a face. “You get to break into people’s houses,” she said slowly, as if for my benefit.
Maybe I shouldn’t have seemed so enthusiastic, but I grinned at the sound of that. “Oh.” I liked a little bit of excitement. Sue me. And I’ll be the first to admit, I was never above a little bit of casual thievery.
“But I’m not sending you out alone. Not just yet. You’ll need supervision.”
I shrugged. Fine by me. It’d be helpful for someone to show me the ropes, plus a new friend – especially someone who already understood all this strangeness – would definitely be nice to have.
Thea leaned over her desk and pressed a button. That was one thing I’d learned in the little time I’d been with the Lorica: wizards weren’t afraid of a bit of technology here and there.
“Send them in.”
Which was a weird thing for her to say, in retrospect, considering Thea didn’t have a secretary, but the door swung open anyway.
You know how sometimes you just have a feeling you’ll get along with someone, and sometimes you see a person and hate them on sight? That’s exactly how it went with meeting Prudence and Bastion.
Chapter 9
Prudence Leung and I got on immediately. We took a hired car to our destination – just one of the perks of working for the Lorica, it turned out – and I quickly learned the basics of our mission. She and Bastion were meant to be the diversion, and I was supposed to go in and locate a designated artifact. A sword, as it turned out. Interesting.
Prudence herself was – well, badass was the easiest way to put it. She had the cool air of someone who’d seen enough of Valero’s streets not to be frazzled by its potential dangers, and the same level-headedness that ensured she wouldn’t be easily dazzled by anything either. There was a precision to her, how her nails were so well-buffed and neatly manicured, how there was that one hidden section of her hair that was dyed electric blue and was only ever visible when she turned her head just so.
She was barely years older than me, but somehow radiated this seen-it-all vibe that told me she wouldn’t buckle under pressure. Hell, she seemed more likely the type to exert that pressure. It was something about how her hands rested in her lap, fingers splayed in a neutral position, as if constantly ready to gnarl into talons or curl into fists. She was a Hand, after all, and a pretty literal one, I was soon to find out. And, all right, she was pretty cute.
Maybe it was precisely the fact that we didn’t take the car together that initially caused the rift between me and Bastion. Maybe. But I distinctly recall disliking him as soon as he walked into Thea’s office, and I still disliked him when I saw him again at our destination.
Prudence busied herself with tying her hair back and, for some reason, putting on leather gloves as soon as we got out of the hired car, so she was either too occupied to notice Bastion pulling up on his motorcycle, or had seen it enough times not to care. I doubt she didn’t notice, though. He was throttling it loud enough, in that specific way where someone pretends he doesn’t want the attention, but clothes himself in the loudest, most attention-grabbing accessories anyway.
But that was too harsh. As histrionic as he was, it pained me to admit that Sebastion Brandt had some pretty good dress sense. I’d hack my tongue off before I’d let him know that, but his leather jacket looked like it’d been cut to fit, his jeans the seven-hundred dollar type that came pre-distressed, because the wear and tear were worth extra somehow, and the silver flames running up the sides of his motorcycle helmet were, okay, kind of cool. His blond, close-cropped hair stayed oddly neat and unmussed even after he’d removed his helmet, and his eyes seemed to savor the way others looked at him. He was, in short, a cocky bastard
.
Bastion looked like the kind of guy who grew up with a nanny and servants and a house with a pool and a library, and also the kind of guy who failed at every effort to conceal it. He couldn’t have been any older than either myself or Prudence, but his swagger, the way he dismounted with his nose held high and his shoulders spread too broad gave him the demeanor and impertinence of a teenager. I could smell the desperation from him, this deep, unrelenting want to be cool. He was exactly the kind of person who’d try to assert that coolness by putting someone down. And as the new guy, that someone was me.
“Okay, rookie.” Bastion cracked his knuckles, like it was supposed to intimidate me. Okay, it did, a little, but it was such a patently alpha move that I had to question why he was so eager to throw his weight around. “Job’s simple. We’re the diversion. You grab the goods.” He cracked the knuckles of his other hand. Fingerless gloves, I noticed.
“I got that,” I said. “Prudence explained to me on the way.”
Bastion’s lips turned up at the corner, what I would come to ruefully recognize as his signature sneer. “Did she tell you about the potential traps?”
Traps? He got me there. “What traps?”
“Bastion, honestly,” Prudence cut in. “Don’t scare the poor kid.”
That stung a little, not because we were so close in age, but for highlighting how much of a rookie I was. Which, I suppose, was fair, but didn’t I deserve a little credit?
“He’s a newbie,” Bastion said. Also fair. “Guy barely knows how to control his gift and Thea’s already sending him out with us?” He stuck his hands into his jacket pockets and sidled up to me, his head at an angle, face so close that I could see the blond wisps of stubble on his chin that he was so transparently trying to pass off as a beard. “What makes you so special, anyways?” Anyways, I noted. Another little affectation.
I shrugged. That was the way to get under their skin, guys like Bastion, by showing them how unbothered you were. There was another way, of course, and that was to be a bit of a smart-ass. “Maybe I’m cute.”
Bastion frowned. He didn’t back off.
“Or maybe,” Prudence said, slipping a forearm between us and firmly shoving Bastion back a couple of steps, “maybe Thea sees something in him. You have to admit, nobody at the Lorica’s ever seen anything quite like what Dustin can do.”
Bastion scoffed. “So he can move between shadows. That makes him less than half a Wing, and a mediocre Hound, at best.”
“Bastion,” Prudence spat, her voice rigid with warning.
“It’s cool,” I said. “It’s just a tantrum. He probably just hasn’t gotten his bottle yet.”
Bastion frowned so hard I thought his skin was going to split at the forehead. Prudence groaned.
“But yeah,” I said, suddenly concerned. “About those traps?”
Prudence waved a hand. “It’s nothing. Bastion’s exaggerating. We’re dropping in to visit Hubert. He’s a vagrant, pretty much, who has this unfortunate habit of finding and acquiring magic items he has no business playing with. He’d make a decent Hound if he wasn’t so – unhinged.”
“Unfortunate for him,” Bastion agreed. “But lucky for us. Makes tracking down some of this stuff real easy.”
Prudence nodded. “He’s right. We drop in once every couple of months and we’re pretty much guaranteed to find contraband. You know the drill. That’s what we’re meant to do for the Lorica, is to make sure the dangerous stuff doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.”
“So this thing we’re looking for, this sword? How do we even know it’s in there?”
“An Eye picked it out,” Prudence said. “Eyes are never very specific though. They know the sword’s in there.” She placed her hands on her hips, then squinted. “Just – they don’t know where exactly it is.”
“And you’re saying it’s booby-trapped?”
Bastion examined his nails, picking under them. “Could be. You never know with Hubert.”
Prudence rolled her eyes. “He’s exaggerating. Hubert couldn’t keep his hands from shaking long enough to use a wand, much less set a trap.” She looked away from me then, her eyes shifting. “But, uh, just be careful all the same, in case you see anything out of the ordinary.”
“News flash.” I threw my hands up. “This is all out of the ordinary for me.”
Bastion buffed his nails against his jacket. “It’s no big deal. Could be just a fireball.” Just a fireball. He clapped one hand heavily against my shoulder. “I’m sure you can handle one of those.” He pulled me in, his eyes gleaming as he grinned. “How good are you at dodging things?”
Chapter 10
“Okay,” Prudence said, tugging on her gloves, then cracking her knuckles. “First order of business, we break in. No sweat.”
Easy for her to say. I looked around at the block we were in. The Meathook was a rough neighborhood, sure, and noisy from all angles – street vendors and people in bodegas haggling and yelling, cars honking, and for some reason, like, a lot of cats in heat – but it was exactly why a break-in was that much more feasible for us. That kind of chaos and noise would just blend in.
Bastion seemed unbothered, and he just jerked his neck from side to side, the joints in his shoulders audibly popping. It was starting to feel like the two of them were prepping for a fight, and more and more I was starting to feel woefully under-equipped for the task at hand.
We stopped in front of a condemned building, just this squat, concrete mess overgrown with whatever weird greenery could survive in Valero’s sometimes chilly, sometimes sweltering streets. It had shattered windows boarded up with thick planks, graffiti everywhere, the works, and somewhere along the way, we found something that might have passed for a door. At least that’s what the heavy padlock on the outside told me. Prudence tutted as we stopped just in front of it, eyeing the lock. She rapped her knuckles on the not-door.
“Really clever getting someone to magically lock you in like this, Hubert. Makes us think that no one’s in there, that you’re out for business. What do you do to get in and out, climb through a window?”
No answer. I turned to Bastion. He was tightening his gloves, too.
“Come on, Hubert,” he called out. “We know you’re in there.”
The response: more silence.
“Maybe he really isn’t in there,” I said, unsure of why, if I was so confident about his absence, I was keeping my voice so low.
“It’s what he wants us to think,” Bastion said. He looked around, down the street both ways, then nodded, seemingly satisfied that we had enough privacy, for whatever value of privacy one gets on a grubby street outside an abandoned warehouse.
“Go for it,” he said, nudging Prudence with an elbow.
She frowned. “Why me?”
Bastion shrugged. “I’m saving my strength. What if he puts up a fight? Remember last time?”
I wasn’t enjoying all this vagueness. “What about last time? What happened then?” Bastion looked away. Prudence cleared her throat. “Will somebody say something?”
“Damn it, Dustin, calm down,” Prudence said. “Just follow our lead. It’ll be okay.”
She held a hand out towards the padlock, fingers spread apart. I looked on, wondering what was supposed to be happening, and on the verge of verbalizing the very question when her fingers emanated a brilliant blue light.
I repeat. Tendrils of blue light pulsed out of nowhere, sheathing her fingers and knuckles, spiring over and under them like iridescent snakes. The light built to a white head, her fingers poised like an eagle’s talons, at which point she closed her hand around the padlock – and crushed it utterly, as easily as you’d crush a beer can.
See? Badass.
“Holy shit,” I muttered.
“Awesome, right?” Bastion drawled, his expression thoroughly uninterested, like he had already seen this a hundred times before. As Prudence’s partner, he probably had. Prudence just shrugged.
“So the gloves, they�
��re to protect you from the blue flamy things?”
Prudence blinked at me, then unclasped her fingers, letting the padlock fall to the ground in a sprinkle of twisted detritus. “Um, no. They’re to make sure I don’t injure myself. You ever get metal filings shoved into the palm of your hand? It’s not fun.”
“Oh. Right.” I scratched the back of my neck. “Of course.” I watched Bastion next, somehow expecting him to do, well, something, except that Prudence fiddled with the door and grunted.
“Damn it, Hubert. He’s got some kind of seal in place. Thing won’t budge.”
“A seal?”
“Like a barrier.” She gave the door a hard rap. It barely shuddered in its frame. “See? Won’t budge. Brandt. You take over.”
“What? Why me?”
Prudence scoffed. “You want me to spend all my juice, then what good will I be in a fight? Remember the last time?”
Juice, she said. Like energy, or spell power, or mana, I assumed. But more importantly, she brought up “the last time” yet again.
“You’re doing it again,” I said. “What happened the last time?”
“Nothing. God!” Bastion threw his hands up, exasperated. “Fine. You two wusses stand back. Let the big guns do their work.”
Prudence chuckled to herself, then, to my surprise, stood a clear two feet behind Bastion. “You might want to join me over here,” she said. I did as I was told.
There wasn’t much ceremony to whatever it was Bastion did to that door. He stood with his legs apart, in a way that I knew he thought was cool, how a superhero might pose. Then he held out a single hand, palm out, towards the center of the door. A pale white light flashed, and a sound, dulled and bass-filled, thumped just the once.
The door exploded into pieces, like a cannonball had just punched its way through the wood. Whatever was left of it clattered to the ground in a shower of splinters and sawdust. Bastion looked over his shoulder at me – like an asshole – and favored me with his smarmiest grin.
