by Alex Rivers
“So am I.” The line went dead. It was only a few moments before I caught her sprinting across the street. She came to an abrupt stop by my side, breathing heavily. “Where are they?”
I pointed far down the street. “Woman and the little boy.”
She squinted. “You’re kidding.”
“No, that’s definitely them.”
“Okay. Let’s get them. Stay quiet.”
Before I could protest, the two fae turned a corner, and Scarlett immediately broke into a sprint.
I followed, easily matching her pace. For a human, she moved shockingly fast. And yet, with all the terror igniting my veins, I was still holding back. “I think you should let me handle this alone.”
“What are you talking about?”
I didn’t exactly have an explanation for her. I wasn’t going to tell her I was a pixie. Not yet. “Never mind.”
My heart hammered against my ribs as we ran. Whatever happened, I would keep Scarlett safe. When we rounded the corner, she halted abruptly. Only a few people lingered on this narrow, winding road, and none of them were our culprits.
“Damn it!”
“There!” I pointed further down the road. “Maybe they turned onto the next street. Lime Street.”
Scarlett didn’t say a word, just sprinted again, nearly knocking over a fleeing businessman. I followed until we took a sharp right.
This time, we found no one on the cramped street except the fae. And they were close—too close. The woman paused, her fingers twitching, head cocked. She glanced back at us, then raced away like a speeding car, her hoofed feet galloping over the pavement. The child’s flaming wings fluttered and he rose into the air, soaring away from us.
Immediately, Scarlett and I broke into a sprint, and now I was certain she was more than just a CIA officer. Her body was a blur of motion beside mine, her crimson hair trailing behind her. We moved like hurricane winds, but the two fae were just as fast, racing for an enormous Victorian hall. The ornate stone sign above the arched entrance read Leadenhall Market. Inside, fire raged through the faint shops, and smoke bloomed into the air, black as a cauldron. Soot blackened the remaining windows, and shattered glass littered the ground.
The fae didn’t stop, plunging into the smoky hall. As we sprinted after them, I resolved to get Scarlett out of there alive. Nothing else mattered.
Inside the hall, toxic smoke scratched at my throat, burning my eyes. A coughing fit racked my body. I kept running, but I could no longer see Scarlett in the haze. My eyes teared up. Where the hell was she?
A primal scream echoed in the passage. Through the black smoke, the fae child swooped at me, wings blazing in the haze. Quickly, I ducked, staring at the child’s dark eyes, his mouth twisted in a horrifying grin. When I rose again, I caught sight of the trail of flames left by his wings. He swooped again, clawing at my face with twisted talons. Pain seared my forehead where he ripped my skin.
I reached into my handbag and pulled out an iron knife—not an ordinary knife. This one burned with malice and anger, yearning for violence. A fragment of the Rix’s soul lay trapped in the blade, and it whispered in my skull. When I held the cursed thing, its voice sang in my bones, demanding blood, blood, blood.
The fae boy swooped up into the air, then turned mid-flight, plummeting at me, a flurry of burning, screaming rage. I slammed the fae blade up in his direction, striking him between his ribs. He jerked back, shrieking in pain and fear, then fell to the ground, his head smacking on the pavement.
Yes, the blade hissed in my mind. More.
As I stared down at him, a dark smile curled my lips, and battle fury rippled over my skin, making my legs tremble with wrath. The boy was my enemy. Enemies deserved no mercy—only pain and death.
Gripping the knife, I stared at the fae child, my lip curling. His dark eyes blazed with terror.
The fae were extraordinarily strong, hard to kill. But iron could kill them easily, poisoning their body, corrupting their magic. All fae feared iron, and this one was no different. Panicking, he scrambled up, then fled. Chase him, the knife hummed. Kill him.
My body jerked after the flying fae, but I stopped myself. I hadn’t come here to murder fae children. Maybe I shouldn’t be listening to the evil knife.
I gritted my teeth, thinking of Scarlett, and shoved the toxic thing into the handbag. Still, it screamed in my mind, Pixie whore!
The smoke thickened, and the heat of the inferno raged around me. Sweat trickled down my forehead.
“Scarlett!” I shouted, my voice hoarse as the smoke ravaged my throat.
I took three steps before a window shattered just before me, and a burst of flames exploded into the avenue. My heart skipped a beat, and I jumped back, the searing flames too much to bare. Hell itself seemed to blaze all around me. When I glanced behind me, my world tilted. Flames encircled me, blocking every possible escape route.
I stumbled, pulling out one of my compact mirrors. I blinked, trying to see through the smoke. I linked with the reflection, watching it shimmer. From within it, I searched for another reflection, an image of Scarlett. For a moment, I saw nothing but the smoke, until at last a mane of auburn hair appeared. Scarlett was flattening herself against the corner in an archway, a gun in hand. How did she get to have a gun in the UK?
The hoofed woman stealthily moved behind Scarlett, her approach masked by the shriek of sirens. She grinned, revealing a row of brown teeth, like rotten fence posts. Just as she lifted a curved blade, a plume of smoke blocked my view.
I let the reflection’s gravitational pull draw me in, and I leaped through the reflection, the mirror slipping over my body like liquid mercury. Ignoring the dizziness, I leapt out of a window across from Scarlett, screaming, “Scarlett, behind you!”
The woman swung the knife in a perfect arc. Instead of turning around, Scarlett simply rolled forward, and the blade whistled above her head. It crashed into the nearby window, shattering it to pieces.
Scarlett leapt onto her feet, raising her gun at the fae. She blasted out two deafening shots, leaving behind a high-pitched whine in my ear. The woman jolted back as one of the shots hit her, and she screamed in pain. Her eyes blazed with licks of golden flame, mirroring the inferno.
Scarlett shot again, but the woman dodged. Scarlett let off another shot, missing her again, and the woman bounded forward, slapping the gun out of Scarlett’s hand. In a blur of movement, she punched Scarlett in the stomach. Scarlett folded over, gasping, and molten rage burned through my veins.
Okay. Time to get out my psychopathic knife.
I pulled the blade from my bag, and it hissed in satisfaction as it felt my fury. Just as she was raising her deadly hoof above Scarlett’s head, I flung it at the woman. The blade found its mark in her side, and as she roared in pain, the knife screamed in my mind for more, more, more!
Her flickering eyes snapped wide open, and she fumbled with the iron knife. She pulled it from her side, then let it fall to the ground. With a final, angry stare, she galloped away.
“After her,” Scarlett gasped, thrusting her gun at me. “My gun has… iron bullets, take it. Don’t let her get away. Go!”
I hesitated, looking around. Not far from us, another window shattered. I could hardly breathe, and blood trickled from Scarlett’s lips. She’d been hurt, bad.
Instead, I crouched down, grabbing her around her waist. “We have to get out of here.”
As I helped her to stand, she groaned. “You stupid, sentimental asshole,” she muttered, leaning into me. “I’m not important. We needed to grab her.”
“You might not be important, but I loaned you that white shirt months ago.” I blinked the smoke from my eyes, pulling her along as fast as I could. This place could collapse at any moment. “It’s covered in blood and dirt. Last time I lend you anything, Scarlett.”
As I pulled her along, she let out a pained laugh. “Sorry.” As we neared the exit, she stopped, coughing into the crook of her elbow. “Wait.”
She yanked her arm from mine and opened her jacket, pulling a small, metallic gadget from her pocket. She limped toward the raging flames that licked the side of the halls.
Idiot. “Scarlett! Fire is bad. Let’s go.”
“These flames aren’t natural.” She held her gadget at the fire. “They might have a magical imprint.”
The smoke seared my lungs. “A what?”
“We’ll talk about this later. Hang on.”
She waved the silvery gadget in front of the flames until it emitted a high-pitched beep. Then, she shoved it back in her pocket, tears streaming down her face. “Now we can go.”
At last, we stepped out of the inferno into the cooler air, and sirens whined through the streets of London. Through the smoke, I could see armed police with shields rushing along the main road.
Scarlett looked at me askance. “How did you find me in there?”
I swallowed hard. Given the speed at which she’d run, I was almost starting to think Scarlett could be fae, too. At least, maybe I hoped she was like me, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to delve into this yet.
“Just luck,” I said.
“Right.” She coughed into her arm. “You should get back to your headquarters, Cass. And I have to get back to the London Station. We both have a billion hours of debriefing ahead of us.”
“You want me to debrief the FBI attachés about…” I waved my hand at the building, unwilling to say the word fae in front of her. “About what just happened.”
“Of course. Get back to your unit, wherever it is. Mine is in the embassy, and yours is… well, it should be in the embassy with the rest of the FBI overseas office, but if that type of unit existed there, I’d know about it. Obviously, you all hoped to remain hidden from the CIA. As if, Cass.”
I frowned, my eyes tearing in the smoke. The FBI attachés already thought I was crazy. I wasn’t about to run back into their offices and start spewing stories about a child with flaming wings and a woman with hooves. “I’m not part of a…” I cleared my throat, still unsure where Scarlett stood on any of this. “Special unit. I’m just a profiler.”
“Right. Of course. Well, I’m sure you have someone to report to. We’ll connect again tomorrow.” She turned, disappearing into the smoke.
Chapter 3
After a nearly-sleepless night in Gabriel’s guest room, I spent the morning obsessively reading the newspapers. The headlines were doing their best to stoke the panic in the city, and at least one paper claimed to have identified the culprits—two human men. Of course the paper didn’t say “human;” most people take that for granted. They’d been photographed carrying bags while having dark skin, so the evidence was damning.
In the past twelve hours, nationalistic fury had shifted from simmering to incendiary. According to a columnist for The Sun, refugees should be greeted with gunships instead of rescue boats. She described them as “cockroaches,” and said Britain needed to rid itself of this scourge.
Wonderful. This wouldn’t end poorly at all.
Around noon, Scarlett texted me, asking me to meet her at the US embassy late that afternoon. Before leaving Gabriel’s to head east, I slipped into a black dress and a pair of comfortable flats. The underground was still shut down, and the streets blocked from traffic. That meant a hell of a long walk through the city.
After almost an hour and a half of walking, I found Scarlett standing outside the embassy, looking nearly as exhausted as I felt. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her auburn hair lay in a tangled mess over her leather jacket—the same clothing she’d been wearing the day before.
Sucking on an oversized coffee, she led me through the various checkpoints to the lower levels. She seemed to have completely shaken off her injuries. The embassy buzzed with frantic activity, and people streamed from room to room. As we walked, I glanced around me furtively, hoping to not run into any of those attachés I’d been avoiding. Scarlett led the way to a small elevator. Once the doors closed behind us, she quickly entered a five-digit code on the keypad, and we began descending slowly.
After the elevator ride to the bowels of the building, I followed Scarlett down a bleak, gray-walled hallway, our heels clacking over the marble floor.
Scarlett rubbed her eyes. “How long did you have to spend debriefing? I swear I had to describe the goddamn hooves four hundred times. They were relentless. Were they like cow hooves? Horse hooves? Goat hooves? Like I’m a fucking farm animal expert. I don’t know. They were just hooves.”
I took a deep breath. Okay. So she’d definitely seen the hooves. How much did she know? “I didn’t participate in a debriefing. The FBI doesn’t know about the… the hooves.” The only interview I’d done had been with Gabriel, who’d been relentless in his questioning about what exactly I’d seen, and how I’d used the knife.
She shot me an irritated look. “Sure, Cass.” She took a sip of her coffee. “I probably wouldn’t have slept last night anyway. You know what the body count is now? Seventy-three, not to mention the hundreds of people who had their arms and legs blown off. Not feeling great about life today.”
I knew her well enough to know she felt guilty about this. “It’s not your fault, Scarlett. You got here as soon as you could, and you didn’t have enough information to stop it. Neither did MI5, or Scotland Yard, or the FBI. No one was able to stop it.”
“I know,” she mumbled, clearly unconvinced.
A lump rose in my throat. I felt more determined than ever to stick it out here in London, to help stop this from happening again. Neither the fae nor terrorist attacks were my area of expertise, but I’d do what I could. “Now we have more information. Maybe the next time, our terrorists will try to recreate another historic disaster. Bubonic plague or something. We’ll be more prepared next time.”
“True. There was Boudicca’s burning of Londinium, several plagues, Bloody Mary’s purges… They have a lot to choose from.”
At the end of the marble hall, we neared a set of steel doors, and I glanced at my friend. “So, what exactly are we walking into here?”
“The CIA’s London branch has two units. One is assigned to the UK humans. The other… well.” She shot me a meaningful look. “I think you know what it’s assigned to.”
I raised my eyebrows, my mind churning. Scarlett had seen the hooves. She had a gun with iron bullets and a wand-like scanner that read magical imprints. She had said the word Trinovantum earlier, and seemed to know about the fae. The winged child and hoofed woman with fence-post teeth hadn’t fazed her.
I had a general idea of what was going on here. Scarlett’s unit was in charge of the fae. Maybe Scarlett was fae herself, given her super-human abilities. Beyond that, I had no clue, and yet I still felt the need to play along. “Right. Of course.”
Scarlett pressed her hand to a fingerprint scanner. The doors opened, revealing a white-walled rectangular hall. A bulky blond man walking by stopped dead in his tracks, eyeing me in suspicion.
“Hi, Tim,” said Scarlett.
“Who’s this?” Tim frowned, his knee jerking. He seemed like he’d imbibed about five coffees too many.
“She’s with me,” she said. “We have clearance.”
Tim glared at me for a minute before nodding. “Okay.”
Scarlett led me through a stark marble hall, our footsteps echoing off the ceiling. When she reached a black door, she opened it, motioning for me to enter. As Scarlett closed the door behind me, I stepped in, surveying the space. A white table stood over a rich blue carpet. On one wall hung a map of London, and another sketched map hung on the opposite wall. I crossed to the rough map, staring at it in amazement. I recognized the locations—the palace, the Hawkwood forest, the river that flowed from west to east, mirroring London’s own Thames.
“Obviously, you know what that is,” said Scarlett.
“Trinovantum,” I said quietly.
Scarlett pulled out a chair, taking a seat. “What
do you know about it?”
I sat next to her, not entirely ready to answer her questions. In lieu of wine, perhaps a glass of water would be a good start for this discussion. I poured myself a glass, my hand shaking slightly, droplets of water spattering the table.
“Okay, I’ll start,” Scarlett said. “My unit is in charge of all Seelie and Unseelie operations on the globe—obviously, that’s mostly the UK and Ireland. We had reason to believe that the fae were planning an attack on London, but we just didn’t know where or what. In an effort to stop the attacks, I’ve been authorized to negotiate an inter-agency cooperation with your unit.” She raked her hand through her auburn hair. “Unfortunately, we were a little late on the Great Fire attack.”
“My unit,” I repeated. “I’m guessing you don’t mean the Behavioral Analysis Unit.”
She arched a quizzical eyebrow. “No. Your real unit. Whatever it is you call it. The Federal Unit for Counter-fae Knowledge? Probably not. Unfortunate acronym. What do you call it?”
“The FBI doesn’t know about any of this.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Scarlett tapped her fingertips on the table. “A week ago we received an interesting tip-off. An American case officer apparently killed the Rix, the second-hand man of the Unseelie king. At first we thought it was one of our guys. You know how it is with the CIA—it’s hard to keep track of all the operations, especially since almost no one tells anyone anything. Then it turned out that the fae-killer was a federal agent. Agent Cassandra Liddell from the FBI. And I was like, no way. I know her. That is a chick who threw birthday parties for her cat until she was twenty-three, and played A Tribe Called Quest in our dorm room nonstop until I wanted to break her laptop. Apparently, she’s in a counter-fae FBI unit I never knew existed, and she killed the Rix. Badass.”
“Right. But there is no counter-fae unit.”
“Listen, Cass, I’m not saying you have to spill everything right now. You have to get clearance. I get that. You feds like your paperwork. Submit form 607/A, working with the CIA on magic shit, in triplicates. But just do whatever you need to do, because there’s some major stuff going on, and seventy-three people already died. So we need to quit fucking around and get some work done.”
