by Pat Esden
She wrenched from his grip. “Why do you think the Vice-Chancellor’s wife is in a room next to the meeting? In the same room as the crystal.”
Em looked from one to the other. Logic said waiting for Gar was smarter. Her heart told her Chloe was right.
“Quiet.” Devlin put a finger to his lips. “They’ll hear you.”
Her voice lowered to a growl. “The Vice-Chancellor’s wife is here to bear witness against the coven. That’s the only explanation that makes sense.”
Em shook her head. “But Rhianna put her blood on the crystal. Presenting it as evidence would only prove she was involved with us.”
“I don’t think we can afford to wait.” Chloe whipped out her phone. “If Rhianna’s in that room with the Vice-Chancellor’s wife and the crystal, I’ll record it. Then they can’t accuse us of lying about their connection. This might be our only chance, while there still are Council members who aren’t corrupt.”
She stormed toward the door the Vice-Chancellor’s wife had vanished through, Devlin an inch behind her. Em raced to catch up. If Rhianna was in there, proof of her presence in conjunction with the crystal could solve everything. If she wasn’t there…well, it wasn’t like they hadn’t embarrassed themselves before.
Chloe flung the door open and they rushed inside.
The room was dark and tiny. Oil paintings of robed Council members covered the walls, leaving only enough space for one narrow window, a fireplace, and a second door that most likely led out into the main corridor. A ring of candles flickered on a desk, illuminating the silhouette of a tall, bleached blonde, who stood with her head bowed. In her cupped hands, an amethyst crystal the size of a peach sparkled, brighter than the purple jewels that encrusted the etched ring on her middle finger.
Though the woman’s hair screened her face, Em recognized her in an instant. She wasn’t the Vice-Chancellor’s wife—she stood in the shadows behind the blonde.
The woman raised her head, her papery skin stretching tight across high cheekbones as a sneer lifted her lips. “Isn’t this a pleasant surprise.”
“Rhianna,” Devlin snarled.
Her sneer widened into a jackal-like grin. “It’s about time you crawled out from your hole.” She licked her lips. “But it’s too late to save your vile coven. The Northern Circle’s time has run out.” Her gaze sliced to a clock on the fireplace mantel. “Just about now.”
The Vice-Chancellor’s wife tilted her head toward the door and cupped a hand to her ear. “Are those cheers I hear coming from the Council Chamber?”
“Shut up,” Chloe screeched. “The meeting isn’t even over yet.” She flung her phone back into her pocket, every muscle tense, as if ready to draw up her magic and attack.
Devlin clamped his hand on her arm. “Don’t. They’re just trying to goad you into doing something you’ll regret. You got what we need, right?”
“Yes, I think so,” Chloe said.
A soft metallic clink-clink-clink sounded, as if one of them had dropped their pick-a-roo cylinder and it had rolled across the floor. A whiff of vinegar and sulfur prickled the inside of Em’s nose. She glanced at Chloe. “We need to get out of here.”
“What’s wrong?” Chloe’s voice caught on a gasp as fog surged through the room, coiling from ceiling to floor as if someone had set off a smoke grenade.
A shiver worked its way over Em’s skin. It might have looked like a smoke grenade, but the chill in the air told her this wasn’t the work of a mundane weapon.
BOOM! The sound echoed in from outside the building. Lightning flashed. The window rattled.
Rhianna wheeled toward Devlin, only her outline visible through the fog. “Clever distractions. But you’re not going to cover your escape that easily. Time to face your judgment.” A flash of magic crackled along her fingers as she whipped out a wand and pointed it at him.
“I have no intention of going anywhere, Rhianna.” He gestured at the fog, toward the thunder and lightning outside the window. “None of this is my doing.”
“You’re damn right it’s not us,” Chloe added.
Em strained against the fog, reaching out with her eyesight and magic, searching for ghosts. Saille. Athena. Ghosts from the Green. Something supernatural that might have caused the havoc, if it wasn’t a spell.
Another rumble boomed. Every hair on Em’s body stood on end. Her instincts and sixth sense screamed for her to run. Another crack of lightning flashed. In the strobing brightness, Em glimpsed the Vice-Chancellor’s wife scuttling away from Rhianna, slinking along the wall by the fireplace as she muttered, “Mote it be. Mote it be, dear Magus.”
“We have to go now,” Em said, as much to herself as to anyone else.
Another rumble.
Then silence. Long, drawn out, paralyzing silence.
Except for the tick-tock of the clock on the mantel.
Em sent her magic cautiously into the fog, looking for anything out of place. A wave of frenzied, otherworldly sensations rolled over her. Hunger. Lust. Excitement—
She slapped a hand over her mouth to smother a scream. Dear Goddess, it couldn’t be…. It felt like Merlin’s Shade.
A loud crack resounded, and the window shattered inward, glass exploding. Energy hissed into the room, sparking and wheeling through the fog like Chinese dragons. The air temperature plummeted further; Em’s breath was now icy vapor.
“Get down,” Devlin shouted.
Rhianna screeched.
The fog crackled and sizzled. Spears of window glass raked Em’s cheek, razor-sharp as claws. She dropped to her knees and buried her face in her arms.
The floor seemed to buckle and shift, but Em’s equilibrium remained intact, telling her at least part of the chaos was illusion, not reality.
Using her jacket’s sleeve to protect her face from the flying glass, Em glanced up.
A sickly green haze braided with the fog. She could barely see Devlin and Chloe now, huddled only a few yards away. Farther into the room, the outline of the desk and the shimmer of Merlin’s crystal showed under a beacon of light from Rhianna’s wand. A dark, raggedy shape rose beside Rhianna, six feet tall and wider than a man.
Rhianna wheeled toward the dark shape. She thrust out her wand and shrieked, “Be gone!”
A dagger streaked from the shape and headed straight at Rhianna. Its blade glistened like liquid silver. It was shaped like an icicle.
“No!” Em shouted. Rhianna was a horrible person. She wanted the coven destroyed. But Em didn’t want her—
Rhianna dodged aside. Too late. The dagger plunged into her chest, bright flashes of light blasting outward from the impact point. Sparking white. Sparking black. Rhianna exploded, a volcano of blood and flesh spraying the room. Gory dampness rained down over everything. The smell of burned cloth. Scorched hair. Rhianna’s arms and legs splattered to the floor in a burbling and gelatinous mound. Her head landed on top of the pile.
“Guards!” the shout came from outside the room.
Em snapped back to her senses. Dozens of shouts flooded in from the reception room. The door flew open. A guard screeched to a halt, gaping at the gruesome sight. Behind him, robed witches streamed across the reception room toward the open doorway. Gar was pushing his way to the front of the pack.
“Help me!” The Vice-Chancellor’s wife raced through the dissipating fog, waving her hands madly at Devlin and Chloe. “They killed her. They killed Rhianna.”
“Are you crazy?” Devlin shouted. “That wasn’t us.”
“Murderers,” the Vice-Chancellor’s wife wailed.
Chloe swiveled toward the onrushing crowd. “We didn’t do it!”
Em gestured at the gelatinous remains of Rhianna’s body, preparing to tell what she’d seen. But Rhianna’s equally gruesome ghost now shimmered where her living body had stood only moments ago. Her head was hairless, every vein
clearly visible, pulsing and glowing bright blue against her paper-white skin. Her eyes were misshapen caverns.
Rhianna fixed her gaze on Em’s, her mouth opening in a silent howl of terror as a group of tall, dark shapes and sickly haze spun around her, cocooning her until she was entirely enclosed.
The air pressure soared, cycling higher and higher by the second, singing in the air like a siren, just like the tug-of-war had the last time she heard it.
Em clamped her hands over her ears, struggling to block out the excruciating sensation. The Vice-Chancellor’s wife fell to her knees, arms over her head. The guards and robed witches retreated into the reception room, squirming backward, trampling over each other as if they couldn’t escape the pressure fast enough.
“Hecate, protect us,” Chloe prayed, as every shard of glass and droplet of blood in the room began quivering like pudding. Just when Em thought her eardrums were going to break, there was a pop and the air pressure plummeted back to normal.
But the abnormal pressure wasn’t the only thing gone. The cocoon of dark shapes and haze that had contained Rhianna’s ghost had also disappeared, along with Merlin’s crystal and the gelatinous mound of Rhianna’s body parts.
The Vice-Chancellor’s wife was back on her feet, screeching, “They did it! Murderers!”
“Don’t let them escape,” said a robed man, who flagged the guards forward toward the room.
Gar rushed through the doorway ahead of everyone. He pivoted, muscles flexed and ready to fight as he faced the onrush of guards. He glanced over his shoulder at Em. “There’s a door behind you. Get out. Go.”
He charged the guards, his fist catching one in the throat. Devlin was beside him, a blue energy ball blazing in his hands. Confusion boxed Em in. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t spot Chloe. But she had to get out. Had to run.
Em wheeled around and flew to the door. As she’d suspected, it opened into the corridor. The crack of energy balls hissed behind her. Gunshots. Screams. Smoke and the hiss of magic surged out into the hallway with her. The stairs. She had to take the stairs.
Panic crushed the air from her lungs. Where were the stairs?
Her pulse drummed in her ears. Sweat beaded on her temples. She gulped a breath. She had to relax, think. When they’d come into the building she’d seen a sign—in the entryway near the elevators.
She sprinted down the corridor toward the museum-like vestibule. Please, please, let the stairs be there. Please.
She reached the vestibule and spotted the stairwell sign beside the elevator. Guilt surged inside her. She glanced back down the corridor. Gar. Chloe. Devlin. She couldn’t just leave them.
A flare of energy burst from the reception room’s open doorway. Shouts. Screams. A guard’s body flew out of a different doorway, cartwheeling backward and crashing into a window. A potted plant winged through the air, slamming into him. Robed people flooded from the rooms, swarming into the corridor. A guard appeared, running toward—
Fuck! Toward her.
She bolted for the stairwell door. Not locked. Gar had said she’d have three minutes before lockdown—or was it two?
She hit the stairs at a dead run. She’d escaped from a hospital before. She’d outrun Alice’s dealer. Outrun the police. Outrun her aunt.
The soles of her shoes squawked as she slid around a landing. She skipped stairs, flying as much as touching steps. As she passed the door on the third-floor landing, the loud click of a lock snapping shut resounded. Other clicks echoed up and down the stairwell—locks automatically snapping shut above and below her.
Her mouth dried. Her pulse jackhammered. She raced downward, her hand in her pocket, holding onto the pick-a-roo cylinder. Second floor. First floor.
One door on the first landing went back into the building. The other door went to the entry with the bank of elevators, she was sure of that. But there wasn’t a keyhole in the door. Only a keypad beside it. Damn, Midas. Why couldn’t he have prepared her for this?
Em snatched the cylinder from her pocket and shook out a pick. She drew up her magic. But when she went to jam the pick into the keypad, her fingers fumbled, and she lost her grip.
The pick fell to the floor and rolled across the landing, over the edge of the stairwell and out of sight.
A sick feeling crawled into Em’s throat. She gritted her teeth and willed calm into her shaking hands. She could do this. She had to.
She took out another pick, slowly wedged its pointed end into the narrow space between two keys in the middle of the pad, and commanded, “Sesame.”
An electric prickle and a rhythmic pulse hummed up her wrist. She could hear the beat of magic in her head, an ancient song she couldn’t quite remember the words to. Smoke rose from the pick and blue flames of magic licked outward.
She rested her hand on the door’s thumb latch, head cocked as she listed closely for the lock to release. Gar had warned her the lock would reset if she waited a second too long.
The clank of a door opening reverberated down the stairwell from somewhere above her. The noise of distant voices flooded in, then silenced again as the door banged shut. Footsteps thundered on the stairs, heading down. Headed her way. Fuck. She had to get out now.
Click.
She flung the door open but closed it quietly behind her.
In an instant, she was past the bank of elevators and to the main door. She tried the latch. Locked, of course. But this time, her fingers knew what to do. She had the pick-a-roo out and the lock open in a heartbeat. She raced outside, the welcome chill of fresh air filling her lungs.
She glanced toward the parking garage. Gar’s truck sat in the shadows. She looked in the opposite direction, down the alleyway, to the crowded street and beyond, to the city Green with all its ghosts. She could get lost in the traffic, the people, and spirits. Hide. Survive. She was a new initiate to the Northern Circle—Devlin and Chloe were the Council’s priority. She was an afterthought they’d probably overlook. This mess wasn’t her doing. If she ran, her aunt and mother wouldn’t know where she was.
Her gaze caught on a couple sitting under the awning of an outdoor café, sipping beers and laughing. She’d be happy if she left. She’d be free.
An empty feeling took root in her chest, a familiar hollowness that twisted into an ache. Who was she kidding? That couple didn’t reflect what her life would look like if she ran. Laughing and having a few beers would lead to stupors, blackouts, and throwing up every morning. Romance would lead to screwing strangers. Streets meant craziness. Loneliness. Hunger and worse. That wasn’t freedom.
The door behind her flew open.
She yanked her knife from her pocket and spun to face them.
Gar rushed out. It must have been his footsteps she’d heard coming down the stairwell.
“Hurry.” He took her by the arm, lending her strength as they ran for the truck.
A sense of joy washed over her, pushing aside her fears. She’d been wrong about what freedom was. Wrong for so long.
Chapter 19
Vodka. Tonic. Pickled eggs. Bags of lemons. Bags of limes. Credit. Debit.
Beer. Bud. Dirty glasses. Dirty hands. Eyes burn. Calves ache.
Burst of anger. Burst of words. Sharp. Shaking.
Stools up. Glasses dry. Go Home. Alone. Too afraid.
To peel away the loneliness.
—“Tired” by E. A.
Memory. Uncasville, Connecticut. 21 years old.
Em and Gar sprinted for the truck. As they reached it, Chloe and Devlin appeared, running toward them from the opposite direction. In another second, they were all inside, Em and Chloe in the back like before. Devlin and Gar in the front.
As Gar threw the truck into gear, Em leaned forward and clutched his shoulder. “Are you sure we should do this? Won’t running only make us look guiltier?”
Gar floored th
e gas and the truck sped forward. “Believe me, we need to get out of here.”
“But we didn’t do anything,” Chloe insisted.
A crack rang out as Gar slammed through the barrier arm, wood splintering and flying in every direction. Devlin looked at Chloe in the rearview mirror. “We don’t have a choice. The Vice-Chancellor’s wife has it out for you—or all of us. This was a setup.”
“How could it have been?” Chloe asked. “The Vice-Chancellor’s wife had no way of knowing we’d all show up to the meeting, let alone follow her into that room. That wasn’t even our original plan.”
“That’s something we’ll have to figure out later.” Gar cranked the steering wheel, tires squealing as the truck shot from the garage and onto a side street.
Em glanced out the back window. No one was following them yet. “Do you think the Council called the police?”
“They’ll come after us themselves. But you three should still get cleaned up, to be on the safe side. There are wipes in the glovebox.”
“What are you talking about?” Chloe let out a yelp. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Em turned to see what was going on. Blood speckled Chloe’s face and clothes. A fleshy string of something clung to her hair.
Nausea crept into Em’s throat. She leaned forward to look at herself in the rearview mirror.
Something’s coming! her sixth sense screamed.
Em gasped in anguish, the air pushing from her lungs. Her vision narrowed into a tunnel of darkness that ended in a pinpoint of light.
Uninvited. Uninvited, she shouted in her head. She raised a wall of energy to block the spirit’s way. It slammed through her protection, entering her hot and fast.
Em’s fingers curled into fists. Her jaw clenched. So much anger. So much frustration.
“What do you think happened to Rhianna?” Gar was asking, but his voice was remote, as if he were miles away.
“I’m not sure,” Devlin answered, barely audible. “I sensed a strange energy. For a moment I almost thought Merlin’s Shade was back. But that’s impossible.”
Impossible. Impossible. His voice echoed in the back of Em’s head. She tried to open her mouth, to say she’d sensed the same thing—
