The questions fizzled until there were just a few hands, most of the curiosity sated in the first fifteen minutes. We were coming to a conclusion when one hand shot up; Alysa hesitated before directing her attention to him. When he stood, I understood her apprehension—a cool drift of animosity consumed the room. Unmistakably human, he wore his disdain for us, all of us, heavily on his face. Sharpening his gaze on me, he started, “Do you want us to believe that we aren’t in any danger from you all?”
“You wouldn’t be in any danger anyway. You’re human,” I offered in a neutral voice, hoping it belied the grimace I had to struggle to keep off my face.
He shrugged. “To the naked eye. So were the ones who died. We don’t shift, change our appearance with a shrug of our shoulders, or create magic with a wave of our hands, but since the alliance, there has been a significant amount of intermingling.” His disgust lingered after his last words. Doubting that he had any supernatural in him but was simply raising the question to incite strife, I listened, forcing all the emotions off my face as he continued. Elijah was having a harder time. It took him a moment to relax his frown.
The reporter continued, “I’m sure people want to ignore the increase in extraordinary events over the past weeks. Odd creatures roaming the streets. Dangerous supernaturals who were ‘supposed’ to be locked away in the strongest containment facility we have causing havoc after escaping. Magical fights that nearly destroyed the city. At least when the other magic users get out of hand, we can count on the shifters to resolve things since they are immune to most magic. But not to yours. Who will protect us when you go rogue?”
Grimacing, I watched all eyes focus on him. He looked down at his notes. “On more than one occasion you’ve been seen fighting another supernatural. I’ve been told he is a Legacy who has attempted the Cleanse.” Again, he looked down at his notes, but I was convinced he’d memorized his arguments and was well versed in anything he had to say. “Also, what was your penalty for killing three people in the middle of the street? It seems like a person who did that should be in the Haven, not the poster girl for magic acceptance.”
Swallowing the bile that had inched its way up my throat, I remembered the time I’d been attacked by three Trackers and passersby had witnessed my self-defense. From a distance it had looked like I’d killed three people in cold blood, but in fact they had orchestrated an ambush to block me in on a rarely traveled street.
Alysa edged in next to me and eased her way to the microphone. “I appreciate your concerns. First, I will address the most pressing issue. Olivia isn’t a cold-blooded killer. She was protecting herself from an attack by an organization called the Brotherhood of the Order. I’m sure you are familiar with the name since you’ve worked with them before.” Fixing him with a hard, knowing gaze, she continued, “They had planned to kill her, and she protected herself. She was found innocent because it was self-defense. Which leads to the next problem. When people are forced into hiding, they don’t have the benefit of our protection—it lies on them. People die when things like that occur. The Brotherhood has been linked to several murders and attacks. The Legacy no longer have to hide, therefore there is no need for people like the Brotherhood of the Order to exist.”
“What about the strange happenings over the past few weeks?”
As she maintained her pleasant façade, her lips curled into a kind smile. “We had a rogue Legacy, just as we’ve had rogue humans—the ones responsible for violence at the Solstice parade. There will always be those who continue to do things like that because they thirst for that divide. It gives them power. You want to know why a rogue like Conner existed and would have been successful if it weren’t for Olivia? Because he, like others, was tired of hiding. Please remember the Cleanse was stopped and the Legacy were defeated because of the collective effort of supernaturals and humans. I don’t think we would have been as successful without both. Remember that.” She looked down at the name on his press pass, and I was positive I could see the mental note of him being put on her crap list.
When his shoulders slumped, I suspected he knew, too. With the new ruddy color on his face from being called out about his membership in a rogue vigilante group, he looked as if he wanted off the list and out of the room.
“Finally, Conner has been apprehended, and we’ve taken extra measures and are confident that he won’t escape.”
I wished I shared that confidence. Watching them taking him away, I’d seen that he didn’t seem concerned. Even though he’d been cuffed with enough iridium to render him magically helpless, I’d felt like he had something up his sleeve. A man who’d eluded death as many times as he had wasn’t likely to go quietly. It still bothered me that he hadn’t made an escape attempt. Sent briefly into a moment of paranoia, I’d questioned everyone, including Elijah, who had fought against him. Guilt clutched my chest as I realized that the only way I’d feel confident that Conner wasn’t a threat was when I saw him dead. Really dead. A confirmed kill.
Alysa concluded the press conference, and Gareth, Victor, and the SG escorted us out past the cameras and the enthusiastic journalists who had more questions. In the car, I wondered how Gareth did it. What I’d experienced on a smaller scale, he was apparently intimately familiar with as one of the most sought-after men in the city.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I don’t like the attention,” I admitted.
“It’ll wane soon.”
“How do you deal with being the city’s most eligible bachelor? The man all the women swoon and blog about?” I teased.
“It’s a struggle, but I don’t blame them. And at least I’m not getting the level of hate you are. After all, you have all of this.” He waved his free hand over his body.
“Yeah. I’m the luckiest woman ever!” I said with mocking enthusiasm. “To have Gareth Reynolds, the most modest and humble man, with me most nights. The impossibly beautiful shifter who makes Adonis pale in comparison and walks around as if he’s just mere man when he is a god. A freaking god, I say. How will I be able to pay adequate tribute to your glorious presence?”
A mischievous grin crept over his face and made his eyes twinkle, and he licked his lips. His brows arched. “I’m sure you can find a way.”
“Did you just make that dirty?” I asked, rolling my eyes.
“Since you’re the one who wanted a way to praise me, I think you made it dirty.”
I just wanted to wipe the grin off his face. Directing my attention outside, I asked, “Have you seen Conner since he went to Barathrum?”
“Yes, once. He asked to see me.”
“And you went? Why?”
He shrugged. “I was curious.”
I turned from the window toward him to give him my undivided attention. I waited for him to continue. “What did he want?” I pressed.
Frowning, he dismissed Conner with a wave. “Just a bunch of threats. What’s your favorite saying, ‘super villain’–style. He went on and on about how he’ll get his revenge. It was just ten minutes of ranting from a desperate madman.”
It wasn’t what he said, but what he hadn’t. “Threats against me, right?”
“He’s not going to get out.”
“He wasn’t supposed to get out the last time, either.”
CHAPTER 20
Don’t think about it, I scolded myself as I followed Kalen toward the small brick home, a new job. It didn’t help.
Seeing my unease, he slowed and said, “There’s a reason they are keeping him alive. Alysa must know something about him that she’s not sharing. That’s the reason Conner’s still alive.”
“Nothing he knows is worth him staying alive. They have the virus; it was in Gordon’s car. Conner has nothing else to offer. They need to get rid of him.”
Shocked by how cavalier I was with Conner’s life, Kalen stopped and gave me a look.
I softened my voice and tried to take the chill out of it. “He’s escaped every time they’ve had him, and I’m th
e one he comes after.”
The fact that Conner no longer requested to speak with Gareth bothered me. He’d found resolve, but in what? I needed to know. Had Conner finally been broken? Were they foolish enough to consider the possibility of keeping him around—using him in the future? The thought made me ill. The political maneuvering baffled me. Conner shouldn’t be part of political negotiations. He was strong and one of the most knowledgeable supernaturals ever to exist. Perhaps that was an asset they wanted, but they should know that the cost would be too high for the benefit.
“But he’s also been so many steps ahead of everyone. What if he has another group of acolytes just waiting to avenge his death? I know you hate that he’s still alive, but if they can, they need to find out everything he has planned. If he escapes this time, you find him and do what is necessary,” Kalen said. If I wasn’t mistaken, I would have suspected that he wanted Conner to escape—a small part of me did as well. I wanted to get my justice. It didn’t make me a good person, but I was several wounds and far too many attacks down to care when it came to Conner.
And the past week Legacy and Vertu were going to SG offices around the country, making their presence known. There weren’t nearly as many as I’d thought there would be; Gareth said that there was a total of fifty. The work was being done for Conner. He didn’t have to find them; the SG had a way to do it for him.
My mind raced trying to come up with a plan to get into Barathrum. Everything came to mind, from the mundane, like requesting a visit to see him, to doing something bad enough to get me placed in there. They weren’t good plans, but rather the musings of my overactive, frantic mind fully aware that if he broke out again, I might not survive it.
Shrugging off the thoughts, I attempted to slide into my typical routine as I stood next to Kalen on the doorstep of the house, waiting for our client to answer the door.
A wiry old man greeted us with a wide grin. Hunched over, he relied heavily on a cane.
“We could have let ourselves in and saved you the trip to the door, Mr. James,” Kalen told him, rushing to the man’s side to assist him when he looked as if he was going to lose his balance.
“Nonsense. I’m a lot more spritely than I look.” Unless he was talking about a can of soda, he wasn’t. Even the magic that came off of him was faint. Witch probably, maybe even a low-level mage. “You deserve a proper greeting. You’re celebrities around here”—he smiled in my direction—“I’ve seen you on the Internet, Facebook. Everywhere, really.”
Ignoring the twinge I got every time I was recognized, I gave him a weak smile. My newfound celebrity was a little overwhelming. Either I was met with fascination or aversion, and sometimes an odd combination of both. Mr. James was vastly intrigued.
“Legacy,” he said, getting closer to me, inspecting me as if to see what made me different. It was an exercise in patience when he leaned forward a little and smelled me. Kalen’s brows inched together, curious.
“Your magic is strong,” he acknowledged. Again, I felt the weight of his appraisal.
“We have paperwork we need to fill out,” Kalen informed him, his tone assertive and loud enough to yank the man’s attention back to the task at hand. Mr. James’s gaze continued to flick in my direction.
“Yes, yes. Of course. I don’t want any of it. Most of it I’ve accumulated over the years, and the items that have been classified as illegal I made sure I surrendered to the Supernatural Guild.” He flashed us a grin, his teeth discolored from excessive coffee drinking—or at least that was what I gathered from taking a whiff of the house. It smelled like a coffeehouse and I could hear a pot brewing in the kitchen.
The man was weird, without any concept of personal space. But at least he was honest. He reviewed the paperwork, going over it in more detail than any client we’d had in the past. Usually if the person was shifty and using us to clear out their place only to request the return of most of the goods, they read over it in detail, asking questions that easily gave them away. “What if I didn’t know about the item, can I keep it?” “Do I get a percentage of it if I didn’t know about it and its value?” “Is this legally binding?” The last question always earned an eye roll from me. No, it’s not legally binding. We just have you sign it to get a look at your penmanship.
Mr. James’s questions were thorough and well thought out. He inquired how the items would be used, the process, and where they would be sold in the event we found something he wanted again. Were our clients humans or just supernaturals? Kalen always maintained a businesslike approach during the questioning and let the person know that they could purchase goods back, but in reality, he’d never made anyone pay. One wistful puppy dog look from a customer had Kalen handing over the goods without so much as considering the cost. As much as Kalen blathered on about this being his business, it was a hobby that brought in some money. Not nearly enough to support his lifestyle and not even a percentage of his designer clothing. It was a good thing he had a trust fund that took care of those things. It also took care of my griping at him every time he gave away an expensive item. More often than not, I had to point out that I didn’t have a trust fund I could resort to. Each time, it bothered me. I was content in supporting his delusional belief that he was the common man. Like a “common” man would wear Tom Ford to rummage through someone’s attic. I guessed he wasn’t since most of the time he “delegated” that part of the job to me.
Directing us to follow him, Mr. James took us through his house. Colorful walls made the house vibrant along with the sunlight that spilled in from the large, curtainless picture windows. Along with the strong scent of coffee, magic moved through the air, getting stronger the closer we got to our destination. Powerful magical objects were near. Studying Mr. James as he led us to the basement, I couldn’t help but wonder if he was deceptively stronger than I’d been led to believe. Young, powerful mages become older, powerful mages.
Basements didn’t bother me, but for some reason Mr. James’s did. The magic was too strong; it prickled at my skin, raising the hairs on my arms.
Even Kalen noticed it. “You have a lot of magical objects down here. Are you sure you want to part with them?”
“Magical objects are only as good as their practitioner,” he said, waving his hand. “I stopped using magic long ago. It was too much trouble. Damn Legacy made me realize that maybe magic shouldn’t be used.” Giving me an apologetic smile, he continued, “Not everyone’s bad. I know, but sometimes it’s really hard figuring out who isn’t. You know, from the moment you walked in, I’ve wondered what you really look like—fae. You are all so darn pretty, but I wonder if that’s just the glamour. Do you look like little hellions when you drop it? Each time I deal with one, I just figure my mind’s been tampered with or something. Probably not, but it’s fun to think about it.”
Another weak smile lifted his lips. He threw open the door. Rows of cabinets filled with stones, rods, balls, and various magical objects lined the entire right wall. Two bookcases of books were on the left side.
Hesitating at the entrance once he stepped in, I watched as he went over to one of the cabinets. He opened it and began picking items up, smelling them, and then frowning. What is his deal with sniffing everything?
Kalen looked at the neatly stored magical objects. Some of them were illuminated, offering wafers of light in the dark space.
“You’ve been collecting magical objects,” I said, moving closer to him to see if I could identify them. There were several summoning stones, Hearth Stones, which witches used to call forth ancestral magic, and then a blade that looked like a Necro-spear. Before I could grab it, Mr. James picked it up.
“This one was a gift,” he said as he examined it.
Without warning, he shoved it into my stomach. Stumbling back, I clawed at it, trying to remove it, but it latched on to my flesh. A wave of magic sent Kalen and me back, pressing us against a wall. Heat simmered in me. The blade felt like it was cauterizing the injury. Calling magic was a fru
itless endeavor. I felt empty, devoid of it. Mr. James’s lips moved slowly as he performed an invocation. Gold and amber flashed off the few inches of exposed blade that hadn’t been embedded in me. Fatigue took over and I collapsed against the wall, feeling the drain of magic, the way heavy doses of iridium felt. With iridium, I could still feel my magic, like pent-up energy that needed to be expended. This was siphoning it out of me. Trembling, I tried to gather whatever magic I had to free me. Nothing.
“Stop fretting; you will make it harder on yourself. I think it should be over soon.” Mr. James looked around expectantly as my stomach blazed. A cyclone swept into the room, magic fluttering through the air.
Conner appeared before me.
“You can’t bear to look at me, darling.”
I cringed at him using words of endearment to refer to me when all I had were curses and hate-filled names for him.
“I can’t possibly disgust you that much,” he mused, taking in my appearance.
“Even more than you can imagine,” I snapped angrily. I made another useless attempt to free myself. He chortled, which heightened my blistering rage. They should have killed him.
“No more magic. That was your promise, right?” Mr. James said to Conner. I winced. Another person had fallen for Conner’s promise of a beautiful magicless utopia.
“I’ve given you my word. I will end magic,” Conner promised. The sincerity in his voice demonstrated what convinced people to follow him, to sacrifice their souls and toss away their ethics to do his bidding.
“I can’t do anything like this,” Conner said to Mr. James as he wiggled his fingers, exposing his shackled wrist. “Do you think you have a key that would fit these?”
“Of course. Of course.” Retrieving a ring of keys from a drawer, the old man went to work trying different ones on the lock on the cuffs. Unable to find a key that worked, he resorted to picking the lock with tools.
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