Agent of Magic Box Set

by Melissa Hawke

  For a few seconds, the screen remained completely blank and I was sure I’d done something wrong. When the picture flickered on, I recognized the interior of the room displayed on the television screen. The London branch of the Trust had possibly the nicest accommodations in the world, aside from the summit building in India. The English had reacted best to the great coming out of the 1980s. After about a decade of wary scrutiny, the Trust had been offered a space to meet in the Palace of Westminster. The English division of the Trust regularly met alongside Parliament.

  Cat sat on a long, raised dais, nestled into a plush chair like a queen officiating over her court. Gone was the pale, shaken woman I’d seen briefly at Chateau Lamonia. This was Cat in her official capacity as a delegate for the Trust. The sight of her whole should have made me happy, but instead, I couldn’t shake the feeling of unease that crept over me. She’d barely been awake for a week. Surely she couldn’t have recovered so completely in that time? The nurses at Fallen Oaks had warned me that if she were ever to wake from her comatose state, she was likely to have bedsores and severe muscle atrophy.

  I could only conclude some filthy bloodsucker had fed her his blood to speed the healing process along. I supposed I should be grateful. She was upright at least, and she wasn’t suffering. Her cheeks were still sallow and she was on the thinner side after two years of intravenous feedings, but she was miles healthier than anyone could have expected.

  Cat was flanked on either side by Findlay and a short blonde that I recognized but had never spoken with. Alice Vogel had been a peripheral presence in my life during my time with the Big Five, interacting with Sienna when the occasion called for it. Now it appeared she’d taken her sister’s place on the Trust’s peace committee. It almost hurt to look at her after what had been done to Sienna in the Hamburg attack. They favored each other. Both tall, statuesque and coldly beautiful. The only concession Alice made to individuality was to keep her cornsilk hair cropped close in a pixie cut, rather than long as her sister’s had been.

  Cat adjusted her microphone and barely glanced in the direction of the camera before beginning to speak. Her dark hair and eyes contrasted beautifully against her pale blue suit. She was always a better dresser than me. I didn’t care what I was wearing as long as it kept the cold out and had pockets for my weapons.

  “Esteemed members of this council, it is with great sorrow that we meet today. A week ago, lives tragically ended in Hamburg. My colleague, Sienna Vogel, and three members of House Lamonia were brutally murdered by two former Trust members, Dominic Finch, and my own sister, Natalia Valdez.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath at the accusation from my sister’s lips. Bly had been right. I didn’t want to hear this. Not after dying over and over to find my way back to her.

  Cat paused to clear her throat and appeared to have trouble forming her next statement. She shuffled the papers in front of her nervously before continuing. “My greatest regret will always be my inability to stop this tragedy from occurring. Placed in a magically induced comatose state by Natalia, I know better than anyone just how devastating her wrath can be. We are as yet unsure of Finch’s motives, but regardless, he will also be dealt with.”

  My arms trembled and I slumped against the cold steel wall. Cat thought I’d put her in that coma? The possibility made me weak at the knees. My logical side knew this could be a ploy. Maybe this lie was the party line the vampires wanted her to toe. Maybe she didn’t really believe it. But it still hurt like a motherfucker to hear the words tumble from my sister’s mouth.

  Catalina’s image continued on ruthlessly, oblivious to the fact that she’d just broken what was left of my heart.

  “I want to assure the people of the world, human, demi-human, and vampire, that we are doing all we can to ascertain their whereabouts. When they are caught, justice will be dealt quickly. We will not allow terrorism to stand in the way of our hard-won peace. Thank you all for your time.”

  The crowds in the periphery of the screen stood and began to clap. Cat’s expression remained completely unchanged. Findlay’s eyes flicked to her in worry and Alice Vogel nodded once politely. Then the screen flickered once more and the picture went dark. I continued to stare at the screen in shock.

  “A death sentence,” I mumbled, a hollow note in my voice. “My sister just pronounced a death sentence on me.”

  “On us,” Dom corrected lightly. “You’re not the only one who is being framed this time you know.”

  The reminder that I’d been scapegoated by these bastards once already didn’t make me feel any better. I glared at the bucket in the corner, presumably so that the vampires wouldn’t have to come in every few hours to take the mostly human members of the party to piss.

  Dom laid a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. I flinched away from the contact on instinct, fighting the urge to sink to my knees before the screen and scream.

  Hadn’t it been enough to be framed for murder once already? Now the entire world believed Findlay’s fabrication, possibly including my own sister. She couldn’t possibly think I’d tried to kill her, could she?

  Lethargy washed over me, trumping even the rejuvenating effects of Valerius’ aura. Depression settled like a cape, familiar and weighty, driving me to the floor. It took most of my remaining strength to crawl back to my bed and clamber into it, drawing the thin covers up to my ears.

  “I need a nap,” I mumbled to no one in particular.

  “Nat—” Dominic began.

  I ignored whatever he said afterward, stuffing the flat pillow over my ears to drown out the din of the others talking. Jay and Bly were arguing again.

  Given the choice between Mictlān and reality, I’d take the hellscape right about now.

  ***

  Algerone’s message had its intended effect. Cat’s casual dismissal of my life wore at me, plunging me headfirst into a depression the likes of which I hadn’t seen since the start of her coma. I slept off and on all day, ignoring my friends’ attempts to wake me.

  I finally roused myself enough to crawl out of bed an indeterminate amount of time later. The torpor that seized me was slowly giving way to anger. The familiar bite of indignation helped bolster my resolve, making it easier to refuse the literal devil on my shoulder when he offered to take the pain away.

  Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, I began to pace the room, mind going in helpless, angry circles, scrutinizing every word that had come out of Cat’s mouth. The twelve by twelve steel room they’d shoved us in made me feel like a demon-possessed hamster pacing its cage.

  I had done absolutely everything in my power to bring her back, including hosting the goddamned demon they’d stuffed into her. And now she had written me off. A necessary sacrifice for the greater good. It was probably an act. But a small, bitter part of me wondered. What if it wasn’t?

  I’d seen my sister for approximately two minutes before she’d been dragged away by Algerone’s men. I had no idea what had happened after that. What if they’d pushed her into Findlay’s arms and he’d whispered insidious lies about me to my sweet sister? Did she believe I was a traitor now? That I’d turned against everything I’d ever stood for and murdered Sienna? Surely she couldn’t think so poorly of me?

  Worse, did she think I was actually capable of killing her? What could she possibly have believed my motive to be?

  “Stop pacing. It’s exhausting, just watching you,” a soft voice reprimanded me from the corner. I jerked in surprise and spun to face the speaker.

  Dominic lay sideways in his bed, head propped up by one elbow. He was adorably tousled and despite my irritation, I wanted to cross over to him and run my fingers through his mussed hair. I really did like the black on him.

  “You should be sleeping,” I said. “It’s about three in the morning.”

  “I could say the same about you. And yet here you are, rattling around like Jacob Marley. Come and sit next to me. We need to talk.”

  “U
h-oh. Nothing good ever follows those words..”

  He chuckled lightly, amused in spite of our circumstance. “Just get over here, Nat.”

  He sat up in bed and patted the space next to him with a sleepy smile. If the beds hadn’t been so ridiculously small, I could have been content to curl up in his arms and forget about things for a while. Instead, I sat in the space he offered and pressed myself into his side. He was warm, and some of my anxiety seeped away under his soft touch.

  “She doesn’t hate you,” Dominic said, capturing the tenor of my thoughts without having to ask any questions. He’d always been good at reading a room and this wasn’t exactly a tough case to crack.

  “You don’t know that,” I muttered sourly, glaring at the sheets. “Findlay has had so much time with her already. He must have lied.”

  “You can set her straight when we get out of here.”

  “If we get out of here. And that’s a big if. The wall is made of titanium, Dom. And behind that is another two layers of steel. I can’t get through it and it would be a bugger to enchant even if I had my wand.”

  Dom tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Titanium bonds weaken when put under heat. Could you localize your power and use it to bust us out?”

  I shook my head. “Even if I had something to focus the power, the heat will spread. Titanium bonds lose their strength at about 800 degrees Fahrenheit. You’d all be cooked before I got halfway through.”

  Dominic winced and nodded. “Alright. Bad plan. Got any others?”

  I had no idea what to do next, and that only pissed me off further. The case sat in the middle of the floor, mocking me. I wanted to find Findlay and shove it down his gullet. His involvement was just another irritant, a piece I couldn’t make fit into the puzzle.

  “When I find Findlay, I plan to kick his ass,” I muttered, aiming a kick at the case. My foot connected and sent the fragile plastic spinning. It crashed into the wall with an ear-splitting crack that should have raised the dead. My werewolf companions didn’t even stir. I envied their ability to sleep through the din.

  “What’s that?” Dom asked, voice sharper than before.

  “What’s what?” I muttered. The kick hadn’t helped to alleviate my anger. I wondered if ripping the bolted-down bed from the floor would do the trick instead.

  “That,” Dom said, and seized my hand, spinning me around. I followed the line of his finger and saw what he meant.

  The case had a horizontal crack on its lid and something shimmered in the gap. I took a cautious step toward it, unsure if this was some sort of trick on Findlay’s part. The innards of the case could contain a bomb, in which case I’d probably be the best candidate to diffuse it. Why Findlay would plant a bomb inside our cell was a question to add to the growing quagmire. I still couldn’t figure out Findlay’s motive in all of this. For all his faults, he’d seemed to love my sister. I couldn’t fathom how he’d managed to sacrifice her to a demon and then frame me for the apparent murder attempt. I couldn’t figure out how the vampires had known I’d die trying to carry out the hit on Elle or how they’d gotten Findlay there quickly enough to revive me. I couldn’t figure how he had the juice to perform a powerful evocation and trap my soul on this side of the mortal plane.

  Blowing us to pieces would make about as much sense as anything he’d done so far.

  Kneeling beside the case, I pried the rest of the lid off cautiously and goggled at what I found inside.

  There were four objects strapped to the lid by electrical tape. The glittering gold sheen had come from a pair of rune-carved glasses. My glasses, enchanted specifically to act as a scope in case I didn’t have my gear. Beside it was a short length of oak. Not my wand. That had been filched by Ashby and no doubt snapped after my death. But it was a wand, which was something. The third item in the case appeared to be a key of some sort, though I couldn’t imagine what to. It was the fourth item that really caught my attention.

  A gun. One of mine, if the rune work was any indication. It was an early model, possibly bought from Anton Gray, my sometimes arms dealer. It was bound to be a bit touchy but it was still a weapon.

  Carefully ripping the tape so as not to alert the guards, I held the items up for Dom’s inspection. His eyes went comically wide.

  “Is that—?”

  “One of mine,” I finished with a fierce grin. The weight of the Beretta was comforting and I felt instantly more assured with it in my hand.

  “Why would Findlay give us a gun?” Dom wondered aloud, cutting through my elation with the sharp edge of doubt.

  Yes, why would Findlay give us a gun? He’d been in lockstep with the vampires from the very beginning. Why would he suddenly arm the enemy, knowing full well that I had a hefty sum of reasons to track him down and shoot him with it. I squinted at the gun suspiciously. I didn’t feel additional enchantments on it or the case. I did, however, spot something I’d missed in my initial inspection of the case.

  Findlay had written something on the interior of the case. Between the cracks in the plastic and Findlay’s chicken scratch, it was difficult to make out the message.

  “You’ll find your answers here,” I repeated slowly, tracing the script with a finger. Beneath the message was a small sequence of numbers.

  “48.8566, 2.3522, 114,” I paused, quirking a brow at Dominic, who’d come to stand as close to me as his bonds would allow. “Does that mean anything to you, ‘cause it’s all French to me.”

  He pursed his lips. “Call me crazy…but I think they might be coordinates. Latitude and longitude. It’s that third number that’s throwing me off.”

  “A building number, maybe? Or a P.O. Box?” I offered, excitement beginning to creep into my veins. Findlay was still a treacherous little snake, but he was a snake that had thrown us a lifeline, for his own nefarious reasons. I didn’t care what those reasons might be at the moment, so long as it helped us get out of this cell.

  “I don’t think so. In either case we’d need a street name to go with it.” He pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. “I wish I had a map.”

  I glanced around the barren cell for anything to write with. Then an idea struck me. Raising my hand to my mouth, I bit into the fleshy part of my palm and scored my teeth down to my wrist. I’d need a lot of blood for what we were about to do. The skin tore with relatively little effort beneath my new fangs. Pain streaked up my wrist and settled somewhere around the crook of my elbow, pulsing with agony. I had fresh sympathy for the victims of vampires. No one deserved to die in pain like that.

  “What are you doing?” Dominic snapped. “Stop that.”

  “You wanted a map, didn’t you? I’m giving you a map.”

  Turning my hand palm down, I let the blood stream onto the floor and puddle at my feet. Dominic took an automatic step back from it, accustomed, as many of us were, to avoiding the stuff for fear of tampering with someone else’s life force.

  “Alright, let’s see what we can do,” I muttered, squeezing my eyes shut. Dominic had told me one of the ideograms centered around blood, so it stood to reason this could work.

  I dredged up the unpleasant history and geography courses I’d been forced to sit through in college. It had seemed incredibly stupid then, taking general education courses about world history when all I planned to do was teach kids how to use magic. Now I was grateful for the college’s insistence on stealing my money through mostly useless coursework. I could still picture the maps of the world with vivid, burning clarity, given how much I’d hated looking at them. They’d been useful when joining the Trust, and I’d studied international destinations enough to memorize the shape of most land masses.

  The soft sound of liquid sluicing across the metal made me crack one eye open. The blood began to trace the familiar outlines of continents across the steel. The regular seams in the metal made perfect dividing lines through my makeshift map. An especially thick gap served as the equator.

  Dominic stare
d in mild disgust at my creation when the blood settled a few minutes later.

  “You couldn’t have used something else?”

  I fixed him with a droll stare. “What would you have suggested? We’re short on options here. Come on. Let’s trace those coordinates.”

  The next few moments were spent pacing around the map, trying to find the coordinates that Findlay had indicated. Dominic came to a sudden halt near the bloody outline of France.

  “Paris,” he blurted. “The coordinates are marking Paris. Whatever he wants us to find must be there.”

  “Or whoever,” I said, finally giving voice to the hope bubbling through me. “You heard Findlay. He doesn’t have a choice. They must be holding Cat against him as a hostage. I bet that’s where they’re hiding her. It’s the only thing that makes any sense.” My heart soared at the thought. It would mean Cat was a prisoner, and her statement against me had been forced. And when we found her, I didn’t know if I’d hug her or slap her silly.

  “What if it’s not Cat? What if it’s a trap?”

  I spread my arms wide. “It can’t get much worse than this, can it? And I don’t think he would give me a gun if he were leading me into a trap, Dom. It must be her. Once we figure out what the third coordinate means, we’ll be that much closer to rescuing her.”

  “What about Elle and the cure?” Dom asked. “We promised the wolves we’d come back for them.”

  “We can deal with that later. After we make sure that Cat’s safe. Then Findlay will switch sides. You know we can’t beat the vampires without him. Plus, Cat knows more than anyone else about dealing with Valerius. Maybe she can help me control his outbursts.”

  Dom rubbed his jaw, which had sprouted dark stubble. He gave a slight nod of his head before turning back to the map. I was so absorbed dreaming about my family reunion that I didn’t register Dominic’s sudden inhale until he’d let the breath out on a curse.