by Nazri Noor
Bastion chuckled again, sweeping one hand through his hair in that kind of gesture that I’d long recognized to be preening and patronizing, yet patently fake. Calculated. I gritted my teeth.
I sighed to myself as Bastion approached. I knew that his ego would have very much loved for me to acknowledge and fawn over his newfound Scion status, but I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction.
“This guy one of yours, Brandt?” I glared pointedly down at the man – barely more than a teenager, truthfully – squirming on the ground in his glowing restraints. “He’s attacked us twice now.”
“I don’t like this one,” Sterling said. “It’s got a mean streak to it.”
“I have a name,” the man snarled, still defiant and struggling despite his position.
Bastion sighed, shaking his head at us. “And that would be Donovan Slint. One of our Hounds. Relatively new hire. Good potential, except for what happened here tonight.”
“And on that other night,” Sterling said. “Back in Heinsite Park. Kid went invisible and attacked us for no reason.”
“I’m not a kid,” Donovan growled.
“But your behavior hardly makes you worth being called anything else,” Bastion said, his voice as hard as the steel gray of his eyes. “Going out on your own, defying Lorica protocol and your orders? That’s just stupid on its face.”
Wow. I’d never experienced that side of Bastion before. He was wearing his big boss pants surprisingly well. So authoritative and – I don’t know, commanding. Okay, maybe I even shivered a little.
“Do you even know who you’re up against?” Bastion continued. “These guys could have killed you.”
Donovan scoffed. “I handled both of them, no sweat. They could barely fight back. Can’t hurt what they can’t see.”
“That’s because we’re not in the habit of just killing everything we run into,” I said. “I could have let Vanitas loose. We might not have seen you, but Vanitas is like a heatseeking missile. He has his ways.”
Donovan’s face went still. “Vanitas?”
Bastion tutted. “The next time you think about stalking some rando – ”
“Hey.”
“Shush, Dust, let me handle this. The next time you think about stalking a rando, you might consider looking into his entire dossier first. It’s like you didn’t bother remembering any of your training. Dustin here has a sentient flying sword. He wasn’t kidding. If the Fuck-Tons hadn’t shown up when they did, you might have been chopped into pieces.”
Not to mention the dog, I thought. Damn. Donovan must have lucked out when Sterling tied Banjo to that lamppost. Maybe his bork of explosive death only worked within a certain range, or maybe he needed to actually see his victim. I tried not to shudder. Victim. Yeesh.
Donovan glared at me, his eyes black and piercing, but he pressed his lips into a tight line and said nothing more.
“Why are you after them, anyway?” Bastion said. “That’s another problem with all this. Nobody told me we were keeping an eye on Graves and his little friends. Not since the incident.”
He was talking about the time when I relinquished my hold on the Dark Room forever, in that fight against the Overthroat. And just in case it wasn’t clear to everyone present exactly what had happened, I made sure to very loudly explain how I no longer had a link to the Dark Room. I wanted that very crucial information to spread throughout the Lorica’s ranks, in some hope that they’d just please leave me the fuck alone. Herald was very helpful in that respect. I knew that he only had a small handful of friends at work, but he turned on the charm, spending more time around the water cooler or magical fountain or whatever fancy new doodad they’d installed in the break room after I left.
Donovan’s eyes traveled carefully between me and Bastion before he finally spoke. “There are those who believe that he still has one foot in the Dark Room. He’s just hiding that fact. And if we don’t take measures to keep an eye on him, then he might just use it, let it out again. Put us all in danger.”
Delilah’s words echoed in my mind, her voice whispering that something was asleep, not dead and gone. But what did that have to do with this? I scoffed, the panic bubbling in the pit of my stomach. “That’s ridiculous, and you all know it. I don’t know who’s feeding you that garbage, but it’s not true.”
Shut up, I told myself. Stop talking before someone sniffs you out. I bit my tongue, my glance flitting between Bastion and the Fuck-Tons. If any of them detected that I was lying, they didn’t show it.
Bastion gestured with his hand, turning his fingers upward. Donovan grunted, lifted telekinetically to his feet by Bastion’s power. Standing up like that, it was hard to imagine that this was the same invisible force that had both me and Sterling by the balls. He was lanky, the shortest in the bunch, and in many ways looked no different than I did in my first days at the Lorica.
“Nice hair,” Sterling said. Donovan’s black hair fell just past his shoulders, somehow tumbling in sleek waves despite the fact that the Fuck-Tons had practically wrestled him into the dirt.
“It used to be longer,” Donovan said, spitting a mix of blood and saliva onto the ground. “Before your little boyfriend here burned it off of me.”
Bastion pushed his fingers into his temples, shaking his head. “Slint. Jesus, but if there’s one thing you should keep in mind, it’s to know when you’ve been beaten. And soundly, at that. The more you run your mouth, the more trouble you’re getting into.”
“Also, I’m not his boyfriend,” Sterling added casually. “That would be Herald Igarashi. Works in the Gallery, you might have heard of him. Probably where you stole the devil dust and the bottled sunlight from.”
I elbowed Sterling. “Was any of that necessary information? You’re just putting Herald in danger.”
Sterling and Bastion locked eyes, then laughed. “Dust,” Bastion said, running one finger under his eye. “Igarashi, of all people, is more than capable of taking care of himself.” He clapped me on the back. “You should be more worried about yourself, if we’re being honest.”
I stuck my hands in my pockets and toed at the dirt. I didn’t like admitting it, but Bastion wasn’t wrong, considering the many, many times I’d unintentionally taken Herald by surprise and had very nearly been murdered by his superior reflexes and incredibly dangerous grasp of ice magic.
Bastion snapped his fingers, and two members of the entourage who’d come ahead of him came to retrieve a still-defiant, still-struggling Donovan Slint. You could tell Bastion was trying to hide how pleased he was with his power and authority. He looked even taller, somehow, and impossibly cockier.
Donovan exuded a similarly defiant energy as he was led away. He twisted around just long enough to lock eyes with me again, as if to say that this wasn’t over. There was a fire in his glare, a misdirected anger. I recognized the look in his eyes. Vengeance. Ambition. I lifted my nose at him and nodded. Bring it, I thought.
I held Donovan’s gaze long enough to watch him leave the alleyway – I don’t know, I guess to assert my dominance.
“So,” I said. “What happens to him now?”
Bastion shrugged, then folded his arms. “That’s up to the Heart to decide. But knowing how the Lorica works? They’ll probably assign him a senior partner, someone who can keep him on the straight and narrow, whip him into shape.”
“Are you serious? He attacked us. You really expect me to believe that the Lorica doesn’t have more serious consequences than that for its own employees?”
The Fuck-Tons tutted in unison. “Oh honey,” one of them said.
Bastion’s lips tightened. “I’ll level with you, Dust. The kid’s young, and dumb. Barely nineteen. But he can turn invisible at will, with enough talent that even your vampire friend here couldn’t sniff or sense him out. That makes him a remarkable asset for the Lorica.”
I stuck my chin out, staring hard. “I’m not convinced. That’s like a slap on the hand.”
Bastion tilted his he
ad. “Maybe you’re forgetting how lenient the Lorica has been with you, oh, only the entire time that I’ve known you. Infiltrating the Prism? Damaging the Heart’s crystal focus? Not to mention carting around a magical sword and backpack that were technically stolen from the Gallery. Should I keep going?”
My chin lowered a little bit. “I got it,” I grumbled.
“All I’m saying is that you should be the last person to talk about the Lorica making concessions,” Bastion said, not unkindly. “If it’s any consolation, yes, there’s a good chance we’re going to throw him in wizard jail for a while.”
My eyes widened. “The Prism? Are you serious?” I mean, Donovan pissed me off, but I wasn’t quite sure he deserved that, exactly.
“You’re forgetting that the Prism has seven levels,” Bastion said. One for every color in the visible spectrum, red being where they kept the most dangerous. “They’ll probably throw him in indigo, or green, at worst. Little bit of rehabilitation.”
“Is that where they’re keeping Delilah Ramsey, too?”
Bastion looked around furtively, then bent in closer. “I should have mentioned, but – Delilah slipped into a coma. It was her injuries. It’s a special case, but Mother and I are keeping her in a ward at home for now.”
I frowned. “That seems highly irregular.”
“Not as much as you think. Delilah’s status offers her a little bit of wiggle room. She and Mother knew each other. Used to be friends, but bad blood now, caused by Delilah’s position with the Society of Robes. You might think this is about privilege, but I don’t envy how Mother will deal with interrogating Delilah when she wakes up.”
“Well, you’re the Scion. I’m not going to pretend I know any better. And good thing about Donovan, because I don’t want this stupid problem rearing its stupid head and biting me in the ass in the future. I swear, Bastion. He comes after me again and I can’t be held liable for incinerating his ass.”
“And you’d be well within your rights to do so,” Bastion said. “But enough about this. There’s a couple of things you and I need to discuss.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” I said.
Sterling muscled his way between us, his leather jacket squeaking as he adjusted it and stared unflinchingly into Bastion’s eyes.
“Where he goes, I go,” Sterling said. I managed to restrain my smile. Protective Sterling was my favorite flavor of Sterling.
Bastion rolled his eyes and groaned. “Go figure. Fine, you can come.” He turned to the Fuck-Tons. “Ladies, thank you so very much for your assistance. Can I offer you a ride somewhere?”
“Oh, Sebastion.” Imperial patted the side of her gigantic wig, pouting. “You know well and good that we have to be at work tonight.”
“Truth,” Metric said. “The Leather Glovebox simply cannot function without us. It just isn’t the same in there without its two main scream queens.”
I gulped. “I’m confused. Who does the screaming, exactly?”
“Everybody,” Imperial said, dragging out the word. As one, the Fuck-Tons lightly touched the frames of their pink eyeglasses. The lenses flashed momentarily as they looked at me from head to toe, and back again. The two of them exchanged a knowing grin, favored me with a final cryptic laugh, then turned to leave for the Glovebox.
I blinked, my thoughts clouded by the fruity haze of perfume that lingered after they’d gone. Shit, was the perfume enchanted, too?
“What the hell was that about?” I said.
Sterling stretched his arms out, his joints popping, his jacket squeaking, and he yawned. “Poor, sweet Dustin,” he said.
“What?”
Bastion chuckled. “I can’t be sure, but I suspect those glasses they were wearing were enchanted. Lets the Fuck-Tons see things only people like the Lorica’s Eyes can see.” His eyes flitted quickly from my face, down to my shoes, then back up again.
The heat started flaring from my chest. “Wait. No. Do you mean they were checking me out? What were those things, like X-ray specs?”
Sterling folded his hands behind his head, still stretching as he sauntered out of the alley. “They could see that Hound, couldn’t they? That Donovan kid. I imagine they can see anything.”
“Oh, it’s not such a big deal, Dustin,” Bastion said. “There’s nothing under there that the Fuck-Tons haven’t seen before.” He turned to follow Sterling, heading towards the street, where a familiar, gleaming black car was waiting.
“That’s not why I’m bothered, though,” I said. “They were laughing, guys. The Fuck-Tons were laughing. Why?”
Sterling and Bastion glanced at each other again, then – like the Fuck-Tons, like a couple of traitors – walked on, laughing.
Chapter 12
We took the same car we rode to Bastion’s place the first time, that shiny black sedan with the really heavy doors that I later found out were so heavy because of the bulletproof windows. Huh. I guess even wealthy wizard families didn’t mind having that extra layer of mundane protection.
Our driver was the same white-haired, white-gloved chauffeur from before. Remington opened doors for us, even addressing both me and Sterling by name. He remembered. Impressive. Whatever the Brandts were paying Remington, it clearly wasn’t enough. I mean, the man had to deal with Bastion on the daily.
Then again, I’d seen Bastion’s interactions with the Brandt family staff, and he’d always been gracious with them, bordering on sweet, like he was running for office, but specifically as the head of the manor. However else Bastion behaved with the rest of the human population, it was good to know that his mother still raised him right.
His mother, who I noted was conspicuously absent as we entered their ridiculous family mansion. The first time we met, she’d drifted – quite literally, through magical means – right down the very impressive and very expensive looking marble staircase, making a grand entrance. Luella Brandt seemed like the kind of woman who liked to know who her son’s friends were.
On top of that, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that she was the type of woman who occasionally wanted to get to know her son’s friends a little more intimately than most mothers would. She was certainly pretty flirtatious with Sterling, at least in the beginning. Luella had that richly seductive cougar energy. A magical cougar, if you will, one that flies through the air and loves drinking whiskey.
Mother and son shared similar tastes, it seemed, since Bastion was also sipping on his own glass of whiskey on the car ride to the mansion. How Remington had the foresight to actually stock the car’s little bar with those perfect little spheres of ice, I’ll never know, but I guess that obscene amounts of money really did buy you exceptional service and facilities.
Remington mumbled something into a walkie-talkie as we approached Brandt Manor’s gates, which swung open to let us enter. As he brought the car up the majestic cobblestoned driveway, I couldn’t help drawing comparisons between Brandt Manor and the Ramsey House, like I even knew where to begin when it came to comparisons of that magnitude.
All I could conclude was that they were about evenly moneyed. The Brandts had everything the Ramseys did: the hedge maze, the tennis courts, and the greenhouse, which was approximately the size of my dad’s entire house that he rented. I shook my head. Rich people were nuts.
We got out of the car, and the little orb of ice in Bastion’s glass tinkled as he motioned at something in the distant darkness.
“Hmm?” I said, peering into the gloom.
Remington warbled something into the walkie-talkie again, and floodlights flashed open far across the lawn. I tried not to react when Sterling flinched and hissed at the sudden illumination. It was his reflex. Couldn’t be helped.
“The helipad,” Bastion said, nodding again, until I finally spotted the large patch of flat, concrete ground. “We were having it repaired the last time you visited.”
“Right.” I squinted at him, wondering why he was even bringing this up. He seemed to notice, and frowned.
/> “I was just being polite.” He scoffed, carefully deposited his empty glass in Remington’s hands, then thanked him. “We’ll be by the pool, Remington,” Bastion said in his soft, almost lilting talking-to-the-staff voice.
“Very good, sir,” said Remington, faithful driver, talented bartender, and for all I knew, secret assassin and combat butler.
Another staffer opened the mansion’s double doors for us, and as we stepped in the warm, scented air of old money wafted over us.
Not literally, of course. That’d be gross. You couldn’t see where, exactly, but someplace within Brandt Manor, someone had to be burning very expensive candles, possibly made from the oils of flowers that only bloomed one night a year, and only on the peaks of mountains that were exceptionally dangerous to climb. It was subtle, too, never too strong as to be overpowering, that smell that I could really only describe as French and floral. It was the subtlety that told you they were really, really, stupid rich.
“We can afford to burn more of these, but we won’t.” In the back of my head I took notes, because in my line of work, you never know when you might need to trick someone into thinking you come from money. I thought this all without laughing out loud, me, the same guy who crammed melon and Parma ham into his mouth like he hadn’t eaten in days.
Bastion’s eyebrow raised slightly when Sterling’s phone went off, but he didn’t seem to mind when he answered. The rest of the house was mostly silent, the only noise being our footsteps ringing across the marble floor, and the muffled, staticky voice coming out of the earpiece of Sterling’s cellphone.
I cocked an eyebrow at him, too. It was Gil. Sterling shook his head at me, then nodded, in a way that was meant to reassure me that everything was okay.
“Is everything okay?” I asked as soon as Sterling put his phone away, because I’m equal parts stubborn and curious.
“Oh, sure,” Sterling said. “Gil was just worried about the puppy,” he continued, placing extra emphasis on “worried” and “puppy.”
It was odd, knowing that our big, burly werewolf was scared of one tiny little corgi, but I got where he was coming from. We’d all underestimated Banjo.
