“Why?”
“Because I’m going to search the rest of her place and I didn’t want you to risk brain damage by any more unconscious falls.”
He muttered something unintelligible but distinctly grouchy and I turned, quickly scanning the room. Nothing here but a glass coffee table and a bland gray couch. I’d spent a couple of nights there after I’d gotten trapped in the Center, cleaning up a poltergeist this fall. The couch was both ugly and uncomfortable. Someone seriously needed to teach Raquel a thing or two about interior decorating.
I hoped I’d have the chance.
“You two look around here and the kitchen. I’m going to look through her room.”
I walked in and my breath caught. I’d never been in Raquel’s bedroom before; now there was no question in my mind why I hadn’t been invited. Prominently displayed on her wall was a framed series of photos from when Raquel was a young woman. They looked suspiciously like engagement pictures, her black hair loose and flowing and her smile brighter and happier than I remembered ever seeing.
And the guy with her was Lend’s dad.
Didn’t see that one coming. And, oh bleep, what would Lend think knowing that his dad had been very serious with one of Lend’s least favorite people in the world? Or at least I assumed they were very serious, given the number of photos that they were sucking face in.
“Well, that’s interesting,” I said.
“What’s interesting?” Jack called from the other room.
“Something is interesting?” Lend shouted.
“No! Nothing! I mean, nothing important. Keep looking.”
“I found a vacuum,” Lend said.
“Brilliant!” Jack answered. “Just what we needed!”
Sighing, I went for the bed, surprised and pleased to see a deep green bedspread instead of white or gray. Shoving the top mattress to the side, I felt around and…my fingers closed around a file folder.
“Bingo!” I shouted, pulling it out and praying it wasn’t filled with love letters or some other equally horrifying thing. “Between the mattresses!”
“See?” Jack said, leaning against the doorframe. “Told you I was useful.”
“We’ll see.” I walked out into the living room and sat on the floor against the closet door. “Oh, Lend, in the hall we saw Anne talking to an unnamed Unseelie faerie about me. Apparently she’s helping them keep me from making a gate.”
Reth’s attention snapped to me. “Are you sure it was an Unseelie?”
“Yup. The faerie was in the Dark Court, standing beside the queen. And I know I never saw her at IPCA, not even when they called all their named faeries in.”
“Perhaps this trip was not a waste after all, then,” Reth said. “We should go and inform my queen immediately.”
“Not yet. Please.”
He nodded sharply, but his eyes promised I’d have to pay him back soon.
“What do you think that means?” Lend asked.
“I dunno, but it’s big. It goes against everything IPCA does to work with paranormals like that.”
Lend’s voice sounded tired, even muffled by the closet door. “Okay, that’s something, I guess. What did you find in the folder? I’d really, really like to save Raquel and then nab a dark faerie who can break this curse.”
I opened the folder, pulling out several sheets filled with Raquel’s precise cursive penmanship. Oh, bleep, they were love letters, they were totally going to be…I could feel my cheeks burning by the time I realized that these papers were not anything close to love letters.
I passed the first page under the closet door as I pored over the second. It looked like a detailed accounting of werewolf and human IPCA employees: dates of when they started, specific duties, and for each…a date of disappearance. I flipped through sheet after sheet of names and information and dates, passing them on to Lend. Reth was standing in the middle of the room, again filling it more than his size made possible, while Jack juggled coffee mugs.
“Anne” was written at the top of the last page, followed by hastily scrawled notes about things Raquel had noticed, changes she’d seen, conversations she’d overheard. People whose names even I recognized—mostly politicians, and, bleep, the vice president of the United States?
And then, the final line: “Must convince Evie to help Light Queen or all will be lost.”
Well, that was fabulous. Way to be cryptic and a traitor, Raquel. “Looks like Raquel joined Team Force Evie to Do Supernatural Crap.” I passed the final sheet under the door and folded my arms as I waited for him to finish reading.
I closed my eyes, stewing over everything. What could make IPCA violate their own charter and work with unnamed faeries? What did they have to gain by conspiring with the Dark Court and keeping me from opening a gate? “I don’t get it. Why does IPCA care what goes on with gates?”
Lend shouted, his voice excited. “They don’t want you to open a gate because they’d lose their power! What would IPCA be without faeries? Nothing. It wouldn’t even be IPCA anymore, it’d probably dissolve into all the various factions again. And there’s no way transportation is all they’re using the faeries they control for. What if they’re using the magic to mess with the whole world? Influence people, control politics?”
I nodded my head, eyes wide as what he was saying sunk in. “They could do anything with what they have now. If I open a gate and the faeries they control leave the world, all that influence and magic is gone. Done. No more power, no more money, no more nothing.”
“So why work with the Dark Court?” Jack asked, catching one of the mugs with his foot. “Shouldn’t they be working against all the faeries to keep everyone here?”
I snapped my fingers. “Because! IPCA helps the Dark Court, and the Dark Court makes sure all the Light Court and other paranormals stay here forever! IPCA never has to lose control. Reth himself said the Light Queen would never attempt to make another Empty One.”
“But even if the Dark Court manages to leave, the Light Court still has you,” Lend said.
“It was pretty clear from the conversation we overheard that one way or another I’d be dead.”
Something smashed to the ground. Jack looked at me, all the mugs forgotten. “I’m not going to let anyone kill you.” He grinned. “If I don’t get to, no one should.”
“I’m touched.” But I couldn’t help smiling back at him.
After a few seconds Lend said, “But what about all these disappearances she has listed? What do they have to do with anything?”
“I wish I knew.” Actually, I kind of wished I didn’t know any of this. Lend and I were cursed to the ultimate long-distance relationship, we weren’t any closer to Raquel, IPCA had gone crazy, powerful immortal creatures and a covert international government agency were gunning for my death, it looked like I would have to help Reth’s side no matter what as the lesser of two evils, and I was pretty sure there was no way I would be getting those car-financing back-pay checks from IPCA now. The rate my luck was holding, Reth’d probably make me a permanent brunette by tomorrow.
ICE, ICE, BABY
What time is it?” I asked Jack.
He leaned into the kitchen. “We’ve got about twenty minutes before David’s friend said Raquel’s trial starts.”
“Do you know where she’s being tried?” Lend asked.
“Central Processing.” I tried to keep the sadness out of my voice. At least I wouldn’t have a hard time finding it. “I’m going to go to the hearing.”
“What?” Lend, Reth, and Jack all said at the same time.
I shrugged. “Either all IPCA is in on this and we’re completely screwed no matter what, or Anne is acting on her own, in which case we might have an advantage with our new information. Regardless, that’s the only place we know for sure Raquel will be before she potentially disappears forever. I’m going to go, and I’m going to get her back.”
I expected Lend to freak out, to yell that I couldn’t do it and it was too stupid to even co
nsider. Which was why his soft voice saying “Okay” caught me off guard.
“Wait, okay? Seriously?”
“Seriously,” he answered. “I want this stupid curse broken more than anything. And I know you need to help Raquel. If anyone can do this, you can.”
I beamed, suddenly flush with warmth that he believed in me that much.
“What can I do?” he asked.
“For this to work, we need to find a computer system to break into.” I looked up at Jack. “I don’t suppose either one of you have previously undisclosed hacker abilities?”
Jack shook his head. “Not one of my many talents, sadly. But if you have a cherry stem I can show you a really cool one.”
“I’m not great,” Lend said. “You need Arianna.”
“I think you’re right. Jack, can you take Lend back and bring Arianna here?”
“But—” Lend started.
“No, there’s not anything you can do here. Go back home and figure out what, exactly, your mom and the others want me to do. If I’m going to make a decision about them, I need all the information I can get. Also please put some clothes on because sleeping, nude Lend is a huge distraction I can’t deal with right now.”
He laughed. “Okay, fine. Be careful. And come back soon.”
“I will.” I stood and walked into Raquel’s bedroom, then into her walk-in closet just to be safe. This wasn’t a good time for Lend to pass out.
“I’ll be back!” Jack yelled out. I was about to go tell Reth my newest Save Raquel plan when I noticed half her closet was filled with the clothes I’d left behind. It was touching that she’d kept them, and just what I needed to cheer me up. Bleep if I was going to stage a rescue in a freaking pantsuit.
“…for the unauthorized release of a Level Seven paranormal, for the aiding and abetting of known IPCA fugitives, and for—” Anne’s voice grated to a complete stop as I walked into the room.
I smiled cheerily at the shocked faces looking down at us from a raised platform that curved along the far end of the huge, circular room. Eleven people, all from different countries, sat along the polished, dark wood table. They were each dressed impeccably in suits, the women with no-nonsense buns. I wasn’t sure, but it looked to me like most of them were exhausted under their severe exteriors.
As for me, I was in my best hot-pink shirtdress with a big black belt, matching black boots (worth the pain), and sparkly silver tights. I wasn’t going for subtlety.
“What are you doing here?” Anne-Whatever Whatever asked from her spot in the center of the table, her jaw nearly unhinged in shock as the door slid closed behind Reth and me. I kept my hand tucked in Reth’s elbow; in this lion’s den, Reth was a bit like a security blanket. A crazy, magical security blanket who would probably hurt me again soon but for now would definitely hurt these people if they tried to hurt me.
There was a lot of hurt potential, really.
“I’m here to represent the defendant,” I said.
Anne recovered quickly. She pulled out her communicator and typed something into it, smiling smugly at me. But then she looked down at her communicator and her smile turned into a frown. She pushed the buttons again; nothing.
“The communications system is down,” she snapped, glaring at a vampire standing in the corner. He had a typically handsome glamour, dark hair and nearly black eyes, but both his faces—the glamoured one and the corpse one underneath—looked confused.
“I don’t know—” he started, but she cut him off with another glare.
“Fix it.”
He pulled out his own communicator and started tapping furiously. I so owed Arianna, that undead little genius.
“Shouldn’t we get down to business?” I asked. For the first time I let myself look over to the side, where Raquel was sitting on a simple, hard chair. She didn’t have a massive desk to hide her, and seemed shockingly small there all by herself. Her suit was rumpled and some hair had escaped her perpetual bun. She met my eyes and looked impossibly sad. I wanted to hug her, but I had to wait.
“Evie, please,” she said. “Leave.”
“By all means, stay,” Anne said. “Have a seat. We’ll take care of you next.”
“Yeah, see, I think someone else is going to be on trial next.” Baring my teeth at her in a grin I pulled out my file folder. “I’ve got some interesting reading here. And I even brought copies for everyone so you don’t have to share.”
A distinguished-looking South African man on the end shook his head. “What is this? Another farce?”
“No, but bonus points for using a funny word. You really want to read what I have here. Anne, you’ll be especially interested, since you have a starring role.”
“Enough. Rhia—”
Reth quickly flicked his wrist at her; her mouth kept moving, but no sound came out. It was one of the most satisfying things I’d ever seen. Sure, that trick had sucked when he used it on me, but I wholly approved of it now.
“Whoops. I forgot to mention these are now closed proceedings. There will be no summoning of faeries, or my faerie friend will make sure it’s the last thing you ever say.” I walked forward, setting one of the photocopied sheets in front of each Supervisor. Several of them glared at me, but a few actually looked interested. One, a Chinese woman named Hong Li who had a bad habit of patting my head whenever we met at holiday parties even after I grew taller than her, actually looked amused.
Maybe not everyone here hated me, after all.
“Now, as you’ll see, the top sheet is a detailed record of everything that Raquel has discovered about Anne’s extracurricular activities.” I stepped back and watched, holding my breath. This was the critical part. Either this was going to blow the top off Anne’s operations, or the rest of them were already in on it and I was going to have to figure out a new tactic, stat.
Hong Li skimmed the paper, then sat up straighter, putting on reading glasses and scanning it again. She looked up at me. “What proof do you have?”
“The evidence Raquel has gathered, which includes names—dozens of names—of missing people that have been filtered through IPCA, and my personal eyewitness account of Anne talking and making deals with an unnamed faerie of the Unseelie Court.”
Anne slammed her fist down onto the table, still mouthing words furiously.
Hong Li looked back at me. “Evie, you have a history of lying and misleading this organization. How can we trust you now?”
I stared at her, willing her to see my earnestness. “Because I have no interest in any of this. If I wanted to disappear, I could have. If I wanted to burst in here and break Raquel out, I could have done that, too. But I thought it was more important that you all understand exactly what Anne is doing, and just what it means for the rest of the world if she’s successful. She’s using you—everyone, the entirety of IPCA—for her own ends. And surely things haven’t changed so much since I left that you’ve all forgotten why IPCA is here in the first place: to make the world safer. Not to help evil faeries, not to conspire with governments, and not to imprison and punish a woman who’s done nothing but try to fulfill the Charter to the best of her ability.”
Hong Li turned to look at the other Supervisors. Several looked outraged, still reading the sheets. One, a woman with a shock of curly red hair, looked terrified, all the blood draining from her face. And a couple of them looked entirely impassive.
“Let Anne-Laurie speak,” Hong Li said to Reth.
I turned to him, noting the slightly murderous expression on his face that flitted there after she gave him a command, and squeezed his arm. “Go ahead.”
He flicked his wrist, and Anne cleared her throat, standing. “Surely you aren’t going to believe the words of a paranormal girl known to have betrayed everything we stand for. Do I really need to go over her crimes yet again? She’s a stupid teenager with an inflated sense of self-importance and a dangerous level of arrogance.”
The handsome black man raised an eyebrow. “Be that as it may, thes
e are serious charges, and I think it merits discussion. There have been many breaches of protocol since you were made Lead Supervisor, and I for one vote for immediate review.”
“I agree, Baruti.” Hong Li turned to Raquel. “Do you have more evidence to back up the claims here?”
Raquel sat up straighter in her chair. “I do.”
“Very well, we’ll—”
“That’s enough,” Anne snapped. “We’re done here.”
“Excuse me?” Hong Li asked, indignant.
“I said we’re finished. I deny the motion for review, and rule that Raquel is to be immediately and permanently locked up. As for the Level Seven, since she has proven she is no longer useful to IPCA in any capacity, she will be bagged and tagged and put into seclusion at a secret location.”
Hong Li slapped her hand against the table and stood, too. “Since when can you—”
“Since I am the only person here with any vision or sense of the direction IPCA needs to go to continue to protect the world. If you want to cow to the ramblings of an aberration of nature, please feel free to join her. I am not about to let her destroy what we’ve built here.”
“How can she destroy anything?” a blond man with impossibly square shoulders and a thick German accent asked.
“She’s currently working with a rebel group to subvert our work. And aside from that, she’s actively trying to open a gateway to another realm, which, in and of itself, could be disastrous for our world, but aside from that would allow all faeries to leave. Which would leave us entirely without their particular skills, and I think you all understand what that would mean. IPCA would dissolve. We would no longer be able to function at any capacity, leaving the world unprotected and at the mercy of the various paranormal elements we work so hard to contain.”
To my horror, the blond man looked like he was actually weighing her words. The redhead trembled—where had they even gotten her?—and a couple of other Supervisors were nodding.
Endlessly (Paranormalcy) Page 13
