by W. J. May
“Ethan?” Rae exclaimed in absolute delight. He was staring up at the high ceiling, flanked by three other members of his mentoring class, all of whom looked equally impressed. “What’re you guys doing here?” A sudden stab of worry pierced her gut. “It’s not exactly the best time—”
“That’s exactly why we came.”
Tall, handsome Rob, a shifter with the ability to turn into an eagle, thrust a newspaper into her hand.
SHOWDOWN IN KENT
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” Rae scanned through the article in dismay, glancing down over the black and white picture below. “We made the front page again? Don’t these people have anything better to write about?”
“Than a massive mob confronting the President of the Privy Council on her own front lawn?” Andy snickered and took Julian’s coffee out of his hands, helping himself. “No, I think that’s pretty much the story they’re going to be running with for a while.” He gestured down at the photo with a mysterious grin. “Very festive, by the way. Who knew this place was black-tie?”
“They were having a Thanksgiving celebration,” Ellie piped up from the stairwell, her boyfriend Jake standing by her side. “Did you even read the article? Or did you just look at the picture and decide to make fun?”
Andy considered it for a moment before returning to the coffee mug with a shrug. “No reason we can’t do both.”
Rae passed the paper off to Devon and strode forward to give Ellie a tight hug. “Hey, stranger! I’m glad you came.”
Ellie wrapped her tiny arms around Rae’s neck, grinning from ear to ear. “Likewise.”
Of all the people in the mansion, Ellie and Rae alone shared something in common. They were both hybrids. She remembered when she’d found out like it was yesterday.
As far as she had been concerned, Ellie was just another student in the class she was supposed to be mentoring. Carter had assigned her and Molly the task as a discreet way of digging up new information on Cromfield, while simultaneously setting the newer generation at ease with all things Kerrigan. It had been a brilliant idea, but one that stopped at the doors of the library. Rae and Ellie had never really spoken beyond their weekly sessions.
…until Rae found her crying in the stairwell by her dorm.
She’d invited her up, and after a few false starts the girl had finally spilled the dangerous secret. The relief had overwhelmed her, and the terror had kept her crying on Rae’s bed for the better part of an hour. But slowly, ever so slowly, Rae had talked her down.
Convinced her that it wasn’t a curse, but a blessing. Promised to help her nurture and develop it at all costs. Vowed to guard the secret with her life.
When Carter’s presidential decree effectively brought all hybrids out into the open, Ellie had been one of the first among them, walking proud. Since then, her respect for Rae had blossomed into nothing short of hero-worship.
“We couldn’t let you guys take all the risk without us,” she squeaked, glancing from Rae to Devon, who gave her an indulgent grin. “Where’s the fun in that?”
“That fun is exactly why I’m here,” Alicia said sharply. She snatched the paper out of Devon’s hands and jabbed a finger at the photo. “Looks like you guys have all been having quite a bit of fun already on your own.”
Rae glanced from the picture to the faces around the room, and realized the lovely doctor was right. They were in pretty bad shape. All of them.
Both Devon and Gabriel were sporting black eyes from their fistfight just a few days before, but that wasn’t the half of it. Huge chunks of flying stone and plaster had come down upon them, bruising bones, tearing muscle, and leaving a wide array of concussions in their wake. Julian’s face was still lacerated and torn, and the arm he’d broken back when they’d stormed the halls of Guilder had yet to heal. He’d trained through the pain back in Scotland. Fought through it at the showdown in the factory. But, realistically, there was only so much more it could take.
Bright burns covered the back of Angel’s hands from where she’d tried to shield herself from Molly’s electricity, and a giant gash was running down the side of her neck. Molly and Rae both had split lips and broken fingers alike, but overall had been spared the worst of it. And Luke looked like he’d been repeatedly run over by one of their cars.
It was a sad testament to the state of affairs, that these things were so common by now the gang hardly even noticed them. When they’d sat down for Thanksgiving, Rae had seen the fancy clothes and smiles…not the broken bones and blood.
Typical family meal, really…
The rest of the Guilder alumni were of a slightly different opinion.
“You guys are looking a bit more gnarly than usual.” Rob looked them up and down appraisingly. “What the hell happened?”
Molly shrugged. “Kitchen exploded.”
Rob and Andy nodded, as if that put the matter to bed. Rae was about to ask to ask them if they had been together when they decided to come over or if Ellie had called them, when she noticed a slight catch in Devon’s breathing. She turned toward him.
He looked down at the paper with a sudden frown. “Yeah… how did the kitchen exploding happen exactly?” His eyes travelled up Rae as he ventured a guess. “Camille’s power? I just assumed—”
“Yeah,” she cut him off quickly, “it kind of got away from me. Hybrid ink can do that sometimes.”
While Ellie nodded with a knowing smirk, Rae dropped her eyes down to the floor.
She still hadn’t told anyone about the extraordinary set of circumstances that had rendered their kitchen a temporary black hole. Camille’s power was only the half of it. It was simply the tatù her body had switched into to save them all from a far greater, far more powerful, force at play.
A sudden rush of nerves stirred in the pit of her stomach, and she headed back to the kitchen. “I’m going to go make another pot of coffee. Anybody want?”
“Yes, please!” Ellie and her friends chorused at once.
“I’ll help you make it,” Maria, a kind-hearted telepath, and one of Rae’s first friends at Guilder, volunteered.
“And I’ll take a look at that kitchen wall,” Ethan murmured. He was the original conjurer from whom Rae had mimicked the skill. “See if we can get that wiring reinstated.”
Nick MacGyver, the resident genius, hurried along to help. He hugged Rae. “You doing okay?”
She leaned into him a moment, missing not having him around. It felt like forever since they’d all be at Guilder together. He was like a long-lost brother. Scratch that, he was nothing like Kraigan. “We’re managing.” She straightened. “I am the President of the Privy Council, you know.”
He chuckled. “You are. I’m on missions these days, trying to save your booty and defending the Kerrigan name. The Rae Kerrigan one, that is.”
“I’m glad you’re on our side.”
His smile seemed a little more strained. “Hard to tell what side is what these days.”
“True.”
As the others began to follow, they were stopped by an angry blonde just outside the kitchen.
“Not so fast,” Alicia commanded, arms folded sternly over her chest, “I’m here to take a look at all of you. Make sure you’re all okay. You guys may have gotten used to this ‘apocalypse-chic’ thing you have going on, but it ends today. Do you hear me?”
One by one, Devon, Julian, Molly, Luke—even Rae—headed obediently into the living room for an examination, grinning ruefully as they went. It wasn’t the first time they’d been given such an order, and it would surely not be the last. But Angel and Gabriel, both of whom had no history with the girl, stayed exactly where they were, staring impassively back at her.
As Angel headed defiantly off to the kitchen to get coffee, Gabriel gestured up ahead to the others. “I’m fine. Knock yourself out with the rest of them.”
Alicia raised her delicate eyebrows. “You’re fine?”
“He thinks he can say no,” Molly giggled behind h
er hand. “It’s so cute.”
“Yeah. Fine,” Gabriel replied stiffly. “Whatever.”
Rae knew what was going on, even if the others didn’t. To say Gabriel’s time spent in the cave had bred a natural aversion to doctors would be understating it to a massive degree. His childhood had been spent craving such basics as sunlight, so the restorative powers of medicine never really figured in. However, Privy Council physicians like Alicia had long ago discovered that things like the Patient’s Bill of Rights were more like guidelines. The Hippocratic Oath was more pliable than they’d thought when it came to a person’s well-being. Before Rae could give Gabriel a reassuring message, Alicia strode forward.
“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?” She ignored the look of warning that flashed through Gabriel’s green eyes.
“Listen, sweetheart, I don’t—”
She lifted her hands to his face.
It was like the entire world came to a pause. The second she touched him he froze perfectly still, gazing down in shock as she ran her pale fingers over his skin. A visible set of chills arced down his spine, and shock quickly turned to wonder as she stretched up on the tips of her toes.
Her eyes grew vacant as the tatù took hold. Rae knew exactly what was going on. Alicia’s ink was telling her the exact location of every break, every bruise, every sprain. The first time Rae had seen her do this to Devon, she’d actually been a little bit jealous. There was a strange kind of intimacy to it. One that was impossible to put into words. After seeing what those hands could do, however, jealousy gave way to gratitude and relief.
But Gabriel had yet to fall under her spell. He had yet to even see it in action.
Until now.
Their faces were just inches away, but while he was gazing intently into her eyes she didn’t even see him—so intense was her concentration. When her balance began to sway, he reached up silently and wrapped his fingers around her wrists.
Well, this is unexpected…
“You want me to get your bag?” Rae asked softly, watching with a secret smile as beauty tamed the beast.
Alicia shook her head, her eyes still vacant with a faraway look. “No, I don’t need it anymore. I’ve moved on to something a little different.”
“A little different?” Julian asked curiously. “What does that—”
But a second later, they all found out.
There was a burst of light. Nothing flashy. Nothing overwhelming. Just a soft, white light that radiated out from the center of her palms. As everyone looked on in wonder she ran a gentle thumb over a deep bruise beneath Gabriel’s eye, cupping the side of his face in her hand.
The bruise disappeared.
Gabriel gasped softly, then leaned almost subconsciously into her fingers. One by one, the rest of his injuries vanished. Fading without a trace, as if they had never been there in the first place.
“Holy shit, Aly.” Devon looked on with admiration as she continued her slow journey down Gabriel’s sleeves, fixing every break and tear beneath. “No more diagnostics. You’re a healer.”
A healer.
For the most broken man Rae knew.
It was ironic, sure. But strangely poetic at the same time.
“That’s what it’s supposed to look like,” Julian murmured, teasingly referencing Rae’s offer to try to heal him the day before. “That’s nothing that you could do. Only her.”
Rae nodded. But as she stared at the pair of them, magically suspended in middle of the room, a tiny smile began to creep up the side of her face. She couldn’t help but think that Julian was absolutely right. And in more ways than one.
That was exactly what it was supposed to look like. And no matter how long she and Gabriel may have danced, it was never going to be something that she could to do.
It was always going to be Alicia.
Rae smiled. She didn’t need Julian’s tatù to see the future on that one.
After a few minutes, the trance they’d fallen in became too obvious to ignore.
“You about done?” Molly finally interrupted, a mischievous smiling twinkling in her eyes as well. “The rest of us are still hurting here. And one of us is pregnant.”
“Of course.” Alicia shook herself out of it, looking slightly caught off guard. A delicate blush rose up her pale cheeks, and she seemed unable to meet Gabriel’s eyes. “Who’s up next?”
She was clearly desperate to move on, but the others were far less inclined. In fact, Gabriel was still frozen exactly where she’d left him, looking like he’d seen the sun for the first time.
“Maybe you should stay over for a while,” Devon suggested with a casual smile. “Keep an eye on Molly? We’ve got plenty of room.”
Alicia looked up at him, clearly unable to tell whether he was messing with her or not. “Yeah, uh…maybe.” For a second, the notion threw her all over again. Then she blinked several times, determined to regain her professional composure. “Jules, come here.” In a far cry from her usual bedside manner, she grabbed him with unnecessary force and yanked him over. By the broken arm.
His deafening profanity was still echoing through the room when Mr. Fodder stuck his head in from the foyer and caught Rae’s eye. She quickly detached herself and hurried over, joining him in a hushed conversation by the front door.
“I told you back at the safe house that I would call the second a decision had been made regarding your father. Well…one’s been made.”
Rae held her breath, staring anxiously up into his eyes. Suddenly she wished they were outside. There was more oxygen out there. “And?”
“And—it’s exactly as we thought. He’s going to remain there, incarcerated and under guard by members of both the Council and the Knights, until the time of his trial. A trial which is being expedited to an unheard of degree. On an important side note,” he continued, “you and all your friends have been cleared of any implication of guilt. It seems the initial wave of concern brought about by seeing the two of you together gave way to reason at last.”
Thanks in no small part to his own testimony, no doubt.
Rae nodded quickly and tried to breathe again. That, at least, was good news. But it was likely the last of the good news they were going to be hearing for a while.
The higher-ups in both the Knights and the Council may have forgiven her for what she’d done, but the rest of the public had obviously taken up a different opinion. And if these newspaper headlines were any indication, things were spiraling downhill pretty freakin’ fast.
“It’s good news, Rae,” Fodder encouraged softly, seeing a barrage of different emotions chase each other across her face. “Once he’s been tried, the entire matter will be put to rest once and for all. In time, your involvement—whatever it may have been—will be forgotten as well.”
Rae lifted her head sharply. She sensed a big qualifier coming on. “However…?” she prompted.
His face fell with a sigh. “However, it’s the trial itself we have to worry about. You may be asked to…” He trailed off with a worried frown. “Rae, you may be asked to testify.”
Rae jerked back like he’d slapped her, blinking in horror at the word. “Testify?”
She’d never even considered it. Not for a single second.
What the heck would she have to testify about? She was six years old when her father went on his killing spree through London. She certainly didn’t remember it. All the facts, and dates, and evidence had all come from other people. That’s how she’d learned about it herself. What could she possibly have to contribute? She didn’t even know what kind of monster he was until she’d come to Guilder when she was fifteen. Her Uncle Argyle had never discussed her father. Or tatùs. Or much of anything.
“I don’t understand,” she said in a rising panic. “I was just a kid. I don’t know anything that happened. I can’t remember—”
“You can’t remember,” Fodder said gravely, “but you can still see.”
It took her a second to understand. When sh
e did, it felt like she been stabbed in the gut.
“Carter’s power?” Her voice dropped to a hush. “They actually want me to go back with Carter’s power, and see what…”
She couldn’t even finish. At every level, it was a betrayal. Every single level.
That they would ask the man’s own daughter to convict him. That the evidence used to forever bury him would come from her own mouth. Every terrible thing he’d ever done, every monstrous confession, every life he’d stolen… she would have to see them all.
A cold sweat broke out over her skin and she backed away, shaking her head. “No, I can’t. Never. I can’t do that. They can’t make me to do that.”
“Rae, calm down.”
But she couldn’t calm down. In fact, she couldn’t even come close. “Do you even realize what that would mean?” Her voice cracked over the tiles, echoing harshly back upon them both. “What I would see? What I would have to do?”
Devon appeared in the foyer a moment later. He took one look at the scene going on in front of him before blurring to Rae’s side. “What’s going on?” He slipped his arm around her, and cast a wary look at Fodder at the same time. “What did he say to you?”
Since the very beginning, his relationship with the Commander had gone through its share of ups and downs. It didn’t help that the first time the two of them had met was when Fodder literally pulled Devon off of Victor Mallins, stopping him from taking the man’s life. In hindsight, it had probably saved him from a capital murder charge, but Rae got the feeling that Devon had never quite forgiven him for that.
From there Fodder had gone on to hold him and his friends as political prisoners inside the Abbey, until they were finally able to prove that they could be trusted and that Jonathon Cromfield was really alive. After that, he’d asked the love of Devon’s life to take on Cromfield in person.
Things had gotten slightly better in the weeks that followed. The training at the Abbey was tough, but not unbearable. Fodder was a good leader but Devon’s heart belonged to the Privy Council, and he was Carter’s man through and through.
