Entice

by Jessica Shirvington

  The tall exile in front of me had a full view, and I could tell his instinct was to retaliate. He didn’t much care for the other exile, but he liked the idea of inflicting pain on us. That was obvious.

  My phone beeped again. I was distracted for a second and then…I was foggy, like all logic dropped out of my mind for a moment and I couldn’t quite remember what I…was. It was just a second, then all the doors in my mind reopened and I was myself again. But it was enough. The exile had disappeared.

  “Hey, why’d you let him go?” Spence asked from beside me.

  “I…I didn’t. He must have used some kind of mojo on me. One second I had his number; the next I was—I don’t know—and then he was gone and you were beside me.”

  “Memory?”

  “I think so. He only got through my defenses for a moment—I wasn’t keeping my guard up,” I said, now cross with myself. I should have been better prepared, but I’d been concentrating on the physical instead of the internal.

  A rookie mistake, Vi.

  “Don’t beat yourself up. You did something right if he was running away.”

  But that was just the point: I hadn’t. And one more thing I realized: this wasn’t the first exile I’d seen flee. Outnumbered or not, the exile at the farmhouse had taken off too. But it just wasn’t in their makeup to run.

  “Hmm,” I said, not up to speculating with Spence right now. Instead, I fished my phone out of my pocket. Onyx would be delighted when he found out his text had caused me so much trouble. “It’s the address for Nahilius.”

  “This day just gets better and better.”

  “Spence, you need a hobby.” I scrolled down my phone to the next message. It was from Griffin.

  We have a lead on the Scriptures. Can’t find Lincoln or Magda. Let them know if you hear from them. Everyone at Hades now!

  “Shit,” I said under my breath.

  “Bad news?”

  “No, good maybe. Just bad timing. We have to get back to Hades,” I said as I walked toward the plane the exile had come from. We were running out of time and there was still so much to do.

  “But what about Nahilius?” Spence persisted.

  I spun, close to falling off the emotional ledge I was already balancing on so precariously.

  “Do you think I don’t want to go after Nahilius? Do you think I don’t want to help Lincoln? I can’t be everywhere at once, Spence!” I yelled.

  Spence looked down and didn’t respond. I turned around again and proceeded into the mouth of the plane, getting back to business.

  Push it aside, Vi. Remember: no quitting!

  “Somehow, when the exile was inside here, I couldn’t sense him as well.”

  That’s why I couldn’t sense them at the airport.

  “Yeah, I couldn’t sense him at all,” Spence admitted, a little deflated.

  “What kind of plane is this?” I asked Spence.

  “This plane? Oh, Violet, how can you not know what this is? I mean, this isn’t a plane; this is an artwork. This is a moment in time, an extreme piece of machinery that will—”

  “Spence!” I cut him off.

  “You have no appreciation,” he said, now glum. “It’s an Antonov, the biggest military transport plane in the world. You need a tank in a hurry, this is your baby!” He overemphasized every word with supportive hand gestures.

  “Do you need a moment alone with the plane?” I asked, on the verge of being sick.

  “Umm…no. It’s okay,” he said. I think he actually thought I was being genuine.

  We walked inside. The inner shell was covered in silver metal paneling.

  “This is new,” Spence said, inspecting the paneling. “It’s everywhere.” He disappeared into the cockpit. “Even up here!” he yelled. “And there are shutters that pull down over the windows as well!”

  “It’s what they were talking about,” I said, joining him. “It’s titanium. Somehow it distorts the senses. It’s why I couldn’t sense them clearly at the airport and why that exile seemed to appear out of nowhere. They must be in one of these planes.”

  “Well, that narrows things down considerably. Antonov planes are few and far between. I’d be surprised if there was more than one at the airport, though…” He trailed off.

  “What?”

  “This is a military plane, which means it’ll be in a restricted area. It won’t be easy.”

  “Lucky I have someone around who can pull off a wicked disguise, then,” I said.

  “Too true, Eden,” Spence said with a wink.

  • • •

  I sent Spence to meet up with everyone at Hades, telling him I needed to run home first and I would meet him there.

  Once I was on my own, I called Steph. She was at the library, so I jumped in a taxi.

  I found her sitting at one of the big communal tables, though I noticed no one else was sharing the space. It was strewn with books, which surrounded her laptop. Steph had claimed the whole area for herself.

  I took in what, to me, was a windstorm of papers, highlighted photocopies, and newspaper clippings, and felt more exhausted than ever. It looked like it would be difficult to make any sense of the material and impossible to actually get to it all. But I should have had more faith. Steph is, after all, a genius of sorts. Not to mention her super-handy photographic memory she never willingly flaunts.

  “Dare I ask?” I queried nervously, worried that she would snap at me. This workload definitely went above and beyond the normal call of friendship.

  Steph barely looked up from a newspaper clipping she was reading. “Well, let’s just say the guy doesn’t have a Facebook page. It’s not that it’s difficult so much as there is not any one piece of significant information about him. Only a few words here and there. I’ve had to trace him through other people I think he has done this kind of corporate stuff to—you know, other victims.”

  “Wow, I never would have thought to do that.” Or known how.

  “The bottom line is, I’m not getting very far. All I can really tell you is that he’s been around, involved in a whole heap of extremely profitable companies, and by the time he leaves or disappears, they’re going under or already bankrupt. There always seems to be some scandal with the owner or a major financial controller: Skase, Conrad Black. He’s been everywhere. Someone else always ends up getting the blame and later, there seems to be a lot of mysterious deaths. One guy even jumped off the back of his yacht—Maxwell, I think, or something like that. It’s like the stuff you see on TV when a shady businessman gets blamed for overpaying himself and stealing money on the side, but when it comes down to it, the authorities can never actually find where he stashed the money, and six months later, you hear he had a sudden heart attack or similar.”

  “Oh my God,” I said.

  “Yeah, and while there’s always a fall guy, I think the one actually getting away with the money is—”

  “Nahilius,” I finished for her.

  “Exactly. The problem is, I can’t find much about Lincoln’s mother here. The company was all run privately, and pre-Internet, which makes it hard.”

  I remembered that Lincoln kept all his mom’s old company documents in his spare bedroom at the warehouse. It was basically stacked to the roof with boxes. I felt for the key in my pocket.

  Someone had interfered.

  “Why don’t you just tell me or something?” I said, looking up.

  “Vi? Honey, how are we on planet earth?” Steph asked, watching me.

  “Oh, sorry. It’s just, I had an idea and I get the feeling I wasn’t the first one to have it.”

  “Seriously?” she said, catching on. “Messages from above? Christ, Vi, you better watch out who you tell this stuff to. Even the God Squad might find some of your bag weird.”

  I collapsed into the chair beside her. “I find it
insane.”

  She nudged me from the side. “You know, you don’t have to carry the cross on your own.”

  I looked at her blankly. I got the gist…still.

  “You need to simplify. You’re trying to save everyone, but the thing is, you can’t be everywhere at once and no one expects you to be.”

  “I know, but Phoenix is going to get the Scriptures if we don’t get there first. Griffin thinks he knows where they are, which means—”

  “You have to go after them instead of going after Lincoln?”

  I dropped my head and tried to hold back the tears. Steph put a hand on my shoulder.

  “Sweetie, you’re no good to anyone like this. You’re just going through the motions. You love him, anyone can see that, and frankly, you’re better with him anyway. If you have to go up against Phoenix, do you really want to do that without Lincoln by your side?”

  With that, there was no stopping the flood. I started breaking into snotty sobs. Letting the first tear out is always the mistake.

  “It’s horrible. Loving him. Especially when…he doesn’t love me, Steph. You don’t love someone you don’t trust. He trusts Magda.”

  “Bullshit! I mean, the guy’s being a dick, let’s face it. He should be working with you and trying to get the Scriptures, but we both know why he’s going after Nahilius.”

  “We do?”

  She gave me a gentle push. “What would you want to do if you knew someone had hurt your dad and was potentially lethal to anyone he came across? What would you do if you finally let yourself care enough about someone again and the one that had taken everything from you once before returned?”

  “I…I don’t understand.”

  “Yes you do, Vi. You just don’t want to admit it because then you’ll know exactly what you’re going to do.”

  We were both silent for a bit. Steph passed me a tissue to mop up the leakages. I thought back to the exile in the alley who told Lincoln that Nahilius was coming for what was his.

  When I finally thought I might be able to open my mouth without letting Niagara Falls return, I took in a few hiccupped breaths and tried to let them out slowly, through quivering lips.

  “He doesn’t want to be hurt again. He doesn’t want Nahilius to take the person he cares about the most.”

  “And?” Steph pushed.

  “And that’s why he didn’t want me involved,” I said, trying to calm my heart that was now racing, part horrified, part excited.

  “Because?”

  “Because…he cares about me the most.”

  “Because he loves your ass in the epic sense!” Steph said, giving me a little job-well-done pat on the back. This was as far as her deep and meaningful would extend. “Right,” she said, standing and starting to pack books away. “What’s the plan?”

  “And as soon as he came near the camp…Moses’s anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.”

  Exodus 32:19

  The God Squad, as Steph was still tagging them, was sitting at what was becoming our usual table at Hades.

  When I’d walked in, I was surprised to see Onyx at the bar chatting to one of the bar staff, semi-civil. He was dressed in pants and a black shirt; he was clean, recently shaven; and though he was sipping on what I was sure was straight bourbon, I was also quite sure he wasn’t drunk. Every time I saw him lately, he looked more…human. Though he was still flawed in many ways, he was definitely less insane, and though I wouldn’t ever want to test the boundaries, he seemed less sinister. Now, well…Now he was just mean.

  Right on cue, as I walked by, he gave me an icy stare and looked me up and down.

  “Ha, no wonder you seem to be partner-less these days. Wardrobe counts, especially when your face looks like that.” He snapped his fingers in my face.

  “Go to hell, Onyx,” I said, not stopping.

  “Already there, thanks to you,” he called after me. I ignored him.

  Griffin was deep in conversation with Nyla and Rudyard when I approached. I got the distinct impression from the look on his face that I wasn’t invited to be part of the secret whispers. Neither was Zoe, Spence, or Salvatore, who were all jammed down at the far end of the table, playing with coasters. I’m pretty sure it was a drinking game, the one where you balance the coaster on the edge of the table and have to flick it up in the air and catch it on the spin in one movement; otherwise, you drink.

  Steph and I had tried it one night, but never got past the first attempt. It probably wasn’t the best game to play when we’d already had too much to drink and didn’t know what we were doing. We ended up in hysterical laughter. Steph, who can’t hold her alcohol at all, actually fell off her chair and stayed under the table laughing until we got kicked out of the seedy little bar where underage kids could get away with drinking. I can’t even remember how we discovered it, but Steph made the place famous at our school, and now it’s where everyone hangs out.

  Except us. We’re stuck in Hades.

  I felt a twinge of guilt. I’d been asking so much of Steph. Just because I was bound to this life didn’t mean she had to be. I wouldn’t be surprised if she ended up hating me. I made a mental note to do something really thoughtful for her to say thank you.

  What gift really says, “Thank you for tracking down the insane exiled angel that is tormenting Lincoln”?

  “Hey,” I said, pulling out the chair beside Zoe.

  Zoe and Salvatore exchanged a glance when they saw me.

  “What? What now?” I asked. But I already knew it wasn’t good news. They kept looking at each other, as if waiting to see who would draw the short straw. Zoe hitched a shoulder and flung her hands on the table. Her wristbands made a blunt whacking sound on impact.

  “We went to the farmhouse with Beth and Archer and it was all cleared out. We couldn’t really sense anything but definitely felt something odd as we got closer to the airport. Anyway, there wasn’t much else we could do without tipping them off, so we got back early and decided to see if we could fit in a training session over at Lincoln’s…”

  Zoe looked down nervously.

  “And?” I prompted, while dreading where this might be going.

  “Well, when we got there, the door was open so we just kinda walked right in—we didn’t think to knock.”

  Salvatore coughed loudly. Zoe rolled her eyes. “I didn’t think to knock,” she corrected, giving Salvatore a cold glare. “I mean, everyone’s just been coming and going from there, so I didn’t expect to interrupt…”

  Oh no…please, God, don’t do this to me.

  Spence shifted in his seat. He was dreading the same thing I was—he knew how much it would hurt me. I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek and stared at the spot just over Zoe’s shoulder.

  “Was he with Magda?”

  “Yeah,” she said, but then taking in the look on my face and the trepidation on Spence’s, she straightened in her chair and started waving a hand in the air. “Oh…Whoa. I don’t mean…yuck! I didn’t walk in on them naked or anything…Yuck! Now I’m going to have freaky mental images all night!”

  “Then what?” Spence and I asked together.

  “They were loading up,” Zoe said with a shrug, as if compared to the alternative this was now simple.

  I had no idea what she meant and looked around to the others. Salvatore shimmied closer in his chair.

  “They were armoring themselves. Guns, in fact,” he said in his Italian English.

  What was Magda thinking? Is she really that desperate to get her claws into Lincoln that she would drive him to murder?

  “Do you…” I swallowed through a suddenly dry mouth. “Do you guys know what happens to exiles if they’re shot?”

  “It doesn’t return them. I know that much,” Spence said.

  “I think it
’s meant to hurt like hell, not kill them, but it’s a kind of torture,” Zoe offered. “Some Grigori use them—guns—to help get the upper hand, but it’s frowned upon.”

  “Cowardly,” Salvatore said.

  I shot him a fierce look.

  “I am sorry, Violet. This may have been the not right wordings.”

  And yet, I had a feeling it was exactly what he meant. As much as I wanted to defend Lincoln, I couldn’t.

  Griffin, Nyla, and Rudyard chose this point to move down to where we were sitting.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting. We were just trying to double-check our research. We believe we know where the Scriptures are.” Griffin looked at me. “Are you okay? Spence filled us in on the plane situation.”

  “Yeah. I’m good,” I lied, knowing he would let me.

  Even when you can tell someone isn’t being honest, you have to pick your times, decide when you will and won’t call them out on it. This was one of the won’ts.

  “Is it commonly known that titanium does something to shield exiles against our senses?” I asked, embarrassed for not knowing more.

  Griffin sat down beside me. “No. It’s not general knowledge and we had no idea it could be harnessed in this way.”

  “So you knew about it?” I asked, wondering how many other things weren’t “general knowledge.”

  Griffin spun a glass of Coke in his hand. “I knew. But up until today, we believed the only people who knew were Grigori leaders.”

  “So how did Phoenix figure it out?” Spence piped up before I could ask.

  “I’m not sure,” Griffin said plainly. Then he looked around and his expression turned quizzical. “Where’re Lincoln and Magda?”

  I shrugged and tried to play it cool. “Your guess is as good as mine, boss.” Which was as close to the truth as I could get.

  “Well, we can’t wait for them,” Griffin said, shaking his head but not really surprised.

  “Back to the Scriptures,” Zoe said impatiently. “Where are they?”

  Nyla, Rudyard, and Griffin all looked at one another and then back to us.