“I don’t know, then,” Grey sighed. He paced around the room, moving in and out of Sage’s field of vision. “Ava’s not a great general like you. Too many years spent pushing pencils. I bet she hasn’t seen action in more than a hundred years.”
Sage took a deep breath and called up whatever remained of her strength. She hated listening on the sidelines when she should be part of the conversation. She rolled onto her side and propped herself up on her elbow.
“Careful now,” Grey called out, rushing to her.
She swung her feet off the edge of the table and used the momentum to help her lift up to a seated position.
Grey was at her side, ready to catch her if she fell, but Sage managed to find her balance.
“I’m not going to go dark, am I?” She struggled to push the words past her chapped lips.
Devon shook his head. “I don’t think so. But you might want to take things slowly. You’re as white as a ghost. You must have lost quite a bit of blood.” He walked away for a moment, disappearing into his office. When he returned, he had a small box of coconut water in hand. “Drink this. It will help.”
“Do I have to? That stuff tastes horrible.” She grimaced. Matt had forced her to drink it on many occasions. That and a little B12 will cure what ails you, he’d say.
“Nature’s electrolytes. A perfect drink to help speed you into recovery.” Devon twisted a small cap and handed her the box.
Why does everything healthy have to taste like crap? She’d almost rather take the bitter medicine again than endure a full bottle of coconut water. “Don’t blame me if I gag.”
“Don’t you dare!” Devon threatened her with a look.
She took a sip, holding her breath as she swallowed. It wasn’t as bad as she remembered, or maybe she was just that thirsty. A sip turned into a chug before she wiped her mouth clean. Her mind suddenly flashed back to Zack, swiping his finger across her bloody neck and whispering in her ear. “Why didn’t Zack try to kill us?” she blurted out with disgust.
Grey shrugged. “He’s an opportunist. Probably didn’t serve his needs.”
“But won’t his people be in an uproar if they saw him let us go?” She asked.
Again Grey shrugged. “Not our problem. If they kill him for being a traitor, so be it. If they don’t, he’ll continue to inform to whoever pays his price.”
“Slimy little worm.” Sage choked down another gulp and grimaced.
“We all have our parts to play,” Grey said.
“And when you report their attack on you,” Devon stroked his bare chin, “then ASSET will be obligated to respond.”
“Vegas might be vampire-free by the end of the week.” Grey waggled an eyebrow at the prospect.
“Sounds a lot like war to me. Someone’s orchestrated it, and we’re all playing into their game,” Devon suggested. “Ava might not be a general, but someone out there is using us all as pawns.”
“So you don’t think I should report the attack?” Grey asked.
Devon’s brow furrowed in deep thought. Minutes went by and he still had no answer.
“The first thing they’ll ask is if I was in danger. Then if I got any information,” Grey said.
“And I’m guessing you didn’t?” Devon asked.
Grey shook his head.
But they had gotten something out of that trip. Sage struggled to push away the fog. Her memory was still sketchy. Zack had said something; he’d whispered it. “We did get something.”
Both pairs of eyes were on her the moment she spoke, but the memory hadn’t finished playing out. Zack had licked her wound. No. He’d run a finger through her wound. And said… No. It was before he tasted her blood. “Glamour,” she whispered.
“Is something we can see through,” Grey sighed with annoyance.
“No. He said a glamour of ink.” Sage struggled to remember his exact wording. “Not magic!”
“So then a disguise.” Devon filled in the blanks.
“Yes.” She nodded. “Whoever attacked only looked like a Terra. Wore the mark. That’s what he said.”
“And the only true identifying mark of a Terra is on your wrist,” Devon added. “So someone is walking around with a tattoo.”
They sat in silence again. Sage could almost hear the wheels working as the machinery of their brains went into overdrive. She sipped her drink, gagging as she forced it down. She wasn’t quite up to speed just yet, but already gaining strength. She sat a little straighter. Their kind were supposed to heal quickly; at least, that was what she’d been told. She had to have been made of tough stuff to have held up for as long as she had against Snaggle-tooth’s attack.
She hadn’t seen Grey fight, but he’d taken out three vampires all on his own and finished off her fourth. She owed him thanks for that. In lieu of praise, she might give him her trust. That was the crux of it all. Who could she be certain of in this whole new world of violence she’d been ushered into? “Who is trustworthy and who isn’t?” Sage found herself speaking aloud as her mind worked out the problem.
“If we knew the answer to that, our problems would be solved,” Devon snorted.
“Ava?” she asked.
“Has made questionable leadership choices lately,” Devon answered matter-of-factly, but not condemning her outright.
“She’s been around a good long time,” Grey added.
“But is she someone you trust?” Sage asked, hoping for a straight answer.
“Why?” Grey looked at her curiously.
One of these days that man was going to give her a simple yes or no. Clearly this was not that day. Sage ground her teeth, frustrated at having to qualify everything. “You say she got onto you for being nosey when the weapon came through Vegas. Punished you, right? Sage asked. “Made you babysit me.”
Grey’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t respond. Like a confused puppy, he looked at her curiously, as if needing more clarification.
Talking was hard enough as it was; why did he have to make her work for answers? “Okay,” she sighed. “What if Ava’s just using your best gifts?”
“I’m not sure if I should be insulted.” Grey looked even more like a confused puppy dog. “Are you saying my best gift is babysitting?”
Devon slapped a hand over his mouth, muting his laughter. If he understood her line of questioning, he could offer to help. Sniggering certainly wasn’t doing any good.
Sage took another chug of her drink and tried to streamline the chaos of her tired mind to deliver her point clearly. “What have you done since meeting me? Traded secrets with vampires, shades, elementals, and ethereals, right? You’ve gathered information on the weapon everyone is searching for, right? And all this time you’ve worked pretty independently from the standard operating procedures of ASSET. Right?”
A glimmer of understanding flickered to life in Grey’s eyes. “You think she’s armchair quarterbacking me?”
“I think you’re her best agent right now. You’re abrasive, rude, you don’t seem to care for rules–”
“Careful now,” Grey warned. “I did just save your newbie ass.”
“Let her finish. I’d like to see how many ways she can insult you before you blow your top.” Devon didn’t bother hiding his amusement. He wiped away tears from his eyes as he snorted.
“What I mean is,” Sage continued, “you’re the best kind of undercover agent. The disillusioned castoff.”
Grey’s brow furrowed even deeper now. “You’re not saying I’m–”
“Much as I’d like to hate you, and distrust you, and punch you in your arrogant face, you’ve always had my back. I hope I’m not wrong in saying I trust you to do what’s right. Ava might trust you as well, to make your reports on everything you’ve seen as my babysitter.”
“Oh, now you think you’re the chosen one?” It was Grey’s turn to laugh.
“I was close to Mark. Mark was close to Miranda. My mother. One of the last few people to have been with the weapon before it went missin
g.” That should have been obvious, but it wasn’t until she’d said the last word that everyone in the room got the point. She thanked the gods for that. Trying to get them to follow her train of thought had given her a massive headache.
“But you don’t know anything about the seed, do you?” Devon asked, but the look he gave her begged Sage to say no. “How could you?”
“I don’t,” Sage lied quickly. “But Ava doesn’t know that. She’d probably not trust me to answer her honestly if she asked, either. Trust is earned.”
“So she’s using me to get you to open up and reveal your secrets and connections?”
“It’s one possibility.” Sage shrugged. “My question, though, is do you trust her?”
Both men looked at each other silently. Neither one appeared willing to offer judgment. That didn’t bode well. They had more experience with Ava, years more. Sage had been rubbed the wrong way by her the moment she’d met Ava, but first impressions were not always accurate. Ava could very well have been cracking under the stress of upper management putting pressure on her to find the missing weapon. Or she could have been the one to order its use, and now that it had been lost in the scuffle, she was worried for her own safety.
“There’s one way to find out for certain,” Devon offered. “We feed her information and see what she does with it.”
THIRTY
The ride back to ASSET didn’t leave enough time for Sage to mentally prepare herself. She hadn’t fully committed to the idea of Ava being on the wrong side, but being short of a decent list of suspects left them grasping at any shadows. “I don’t like this idea.”
“Losing your nerve?” Grey joked, but even he had a worried edge to his words.
Sage fixed her hair after pulling off the helmet. “If we’re wrong, we look like idiots.” If we’re right, it could be even worse. She wouldn’t say that aloud. Gods forbid it be true.
“But isn’t that what’s expected of us?” Clearly practiced at the art of deception, Grey wore the mask of indifference well. “We’re ASSET’s flunkies.”
“You’re the flunky. I’m a newbie,” Sage said defensively.
“With the battle scars to prove it.” Grey pointed at her bandaged neck. “You might want to wear a scarf or something.”
She reached a hand up, gently grazing the massive bandage covering her wounds. How was she going to hide it? No one wore scarves in the middle of the summer. Leaving her hair down wasn’t an option. She could hardly stand clothes sticking to her with the heat. Thousands of strands of hair? Nope. That would be unbearable. There was no hiding it; she’d just have to wear the bandage proudly and deal with the fallout. “Matt is going to kill me when he sees this.”
“What’s your deal with him anyway?”
“Why? You interested?” She giggled, hoping to get a rise out of him.
“Not my type.”
“Is anyone?”
“No,” Grey replied flatly, slicking his hair back and putting the stupid fedora back on his head.
“Touchy about that, are we? Relationship troubles?” Was that stony exterior cracking a bit? Could there be a little humanity beneath the assholish exterior? If not, she could at least enjoy some fun time poking the bear. “Lonely? Brokenhearted? Either one explains your–”
“Don’t.”
Not exactly what she’d been aiming for, but her offhand remark had reached Grey’s soft underbelly, and it was definitely raw. “Okay, sorry. I was just–”
“No. You weren’t ‘just’…anything. I’m not your friend. I’m your partner. That goes as far as our mission. Not personal lives.”
“But you just asked me about Matt.” So much for a little friendly ribbing.
“You live with him. He could cause trouble for ASSET because he cares about you, romantically or otherwise.” Grey’s words were matter-of-fact, but she saw through them. If he didn’t want to talk about it, fine, but she wasn’t buying his pretense of being all about the mission.
Sage adopted his grim tone. “Matt won’t be a problem.”
“See that he’s not.”
They entered the elevator and rode it all the way to the top in silence. Rina was there, sitting at the reception desk, smiling when she saw Sage emerge. “They moved me out of the dungeon!” she said, and then caught sight of the bandage on Sage’s neck. “Oh, hell, what happened to you?” Rina rounded the corner and was at Sage’s side in a flash, inspecting her bandages. “Are you okay?”
“I’m good. It’s all good.” Sage shied away from Rina, feeling uncomfortable having someone so eager to invade her space. “We’ve got news…to report… for Ava… Director Williams. Where is she?”
“Are you sure? I think you should be checked out in the infirmary.” Rina took her by the hand, reeling her in for further inspection. “Just want to make sure it’s not still bleeding.”
“No. I’m fine.” Sage twisted away, breaking free of Rina’s grip. “We really need to talk to Ava.”
“Battle scars, Rina. You’d know all about them if you’d do some field work.” Grey’s comment worked to pull the attention away from Sage, who used the distraction to make him the middleman and avoid being pulled in again.
“I have been out in the field, remember?” Rina’s tone soured.
Grey shrugged.
Rina lifted her shirt. Through a thin layer of gauze a wound – red, raw, and recently stitched – ran across her belly, still swollen and puckering where the skin was working to heal. Her chest was bound tight with a medical wrap. “Fresh enough wounds for ya?” she sneered at him. “I’m not meant for field work. But I have tried.”
“You should be proud to have battle scars. We all earn them. Want to see mine?” He winked. Grey was a terrible flirt – if that was actually flirting. It almost seemed as if he were playing at it, a caricature of what he thought flirting should look like.
Rina didn’t seem to be buying it either. She rolled her eyes and retook her position behind the desk. “You’re going to have to wait a bit. Ava’s on a major conference call.”
With the desk as a barrier, Sage felt safe closing in to talk. “You know what it’s about?”
Rina might not have reacted well to Grey, but she perked right up when Sage spoke to her. She cupped her hands around her mouth and whispered, “Assistants know everything.”
“Really?” Sage wondered aloud.
“Well, we have to. I mean, how can the boss do her job without adequate help? So many details to remember and schedules to keep.” She bristled with pride and aimed her cocky gaze at Grey. He didn’t seem to care what Rina was saying. His attention remained locked on the office door, as if willing it to open. “Ava might be hard to work for, but the things she handles are so important.” Rina might not have done much fieldwork, but Sage had no doubts she had battle scars from dealing with the director, as many weapons as that woman kept in her office.
“It’s a good thing she has you, then.” Sage said politely, realizing that her question had gone unanswered. She might know things, like whom Ava was talking to behind those closed doors, but that didn’t make her a blabbermouth.
“Doing my part for the cause.” Rina shrugged bashfully.
“Us too.”
“I can’t believe you went out to see those vampires.” Rina sounded horrified again.
Sage’s hand found her bandages again. She cringed at the memory.
“They’re so dangerous.” Rina looked pitifully at Sage. “Does it hurt much?”
She must look like a weakling, babying her wounds. Sage took a steadying breath and let her hand fall back to her hip. “I’ll be fine.”
“What happened?” Rina asked.
“They didn’t want to talk. Still mad at us, I guess.” Sage shrugged.
Rina’s expression turned to sadness. “I’ll bet. So many attacks. People dying. It’s horrible.”
She sounded as if her father had died all over again. Sage could see tears in Rina’s eyes. She wasn’t much of a hugger, b
ut at that moment it was all she could do to avoid looking at the poor girl suffering in front of her.
Rina accepted the hug willingly, wrapping her arms around Sage’s neck.
Sage winced with pain and pulled back, her wounds tender even with the bandage.
Before Rina could apologize, Ava’s door opened and the queen mother herself glared from the doorway. “Report!”
Sage breathed a heavy sigh, steeling her resolve to deal with the director and hold her tongue.
Grey filed in with Sage close behind. She gave a passing nod of solidarity to Rina before closing the door behind her.
Ava strolled around to her desk and as she sat, she folded the screen of her laptop down. Sage remembered Zack’s words and looked for the mark of the tree on Ava’s wrist. It was there, surrounded by the lacework tattoos like gloves covering her hands and arms, just as she expected. But below it she noted another marking.
“Well?” Ava demanded.
“What does that mark mean?” Sage asked, staring down at the strange design. Was it letters? Numbers?
“Runes, dear,” she replied impatiently. “It’s the mark of my position and age. Have you not seen similar ones on Mr. Sorenson?”
“In truth, no. Mark always wore a watch on his wrist with a big fat strap.”
“Yes. That would help to avoid stupid questions, I guess.” She snorted, and the first real smile cracked her lips – amusement at Sage’s expense. “But I want to know about the vampires. I hear they weren’t very friendly.”
“What was your first clue?” Sage mumbled under her breath.
Grey cleared his throat. “The major covens are pretty mad we assaulted them.”
“As was evident by their attack on us.” Ava waved her hand around as if to say, Get to the good part.
“But we think we know why.” Grey let his words hang.
The Director’s eyes glittered with interest. “Go on!”
“The artifact that came through a little while back. Apparently some kind of weapon was employed – and then lost.”
A Weapon Of Magical Destruction Page 23
