Agent of Chaos (Dark Fae FBI Book 2)

by Alex Rivers

“If we were swapped at birth, the Rix was my father.”

  Roan stared at me, the shadows around him thickening. “It’s possible.”

  The theory was possible, and I felt like I’d been punched in the gut, but I tried to focus. “Okay. So if she gets her power from a tree, how would we find this particular tree?”

  “You wouldn’t. It’s impossible to know which one she’s using.”

  Disappointment pressed on my chest. “That’s not particularly helpful.” I cocked my hip, trying to control my roiling thoughts. “Why are you here, anyway, and how did you know where to find me?”

  “Elrine told me where you were, and I’ve come to collect you. I can explain on the way.”

  Of course she had. Her tracking ability was quite unnerving. “What do you mean, ‘collect me?’ On the way to where?”

  “To the Cliffs of Albion. It’s a long journey, and we have to leave now.”

  “What?”

  “You promised that when Scarlett was safe, you’d come with me. She is safe. And the council is meeting soon.”

  My head was spinning. I couldn’t run off to the fae realm when I still hadn’t captured Siofra. “Does it have to be now?” I couldn’t leave now. Not with Siofra still slaughtering people across the city, vying for my attention.

  He clenched his jaw. “The council only gathers once every few months. They meet in two days by the Cliffs of Albion, outside of Trinovantum.”

  I blinked. “How long does it take to get there?”

  “Nearly two days.”

  “I don’t have time for a two-day journey to and from the Council. You didn’t tell me it was so far.”

  He shrugged. “You never asked. The Council won’t meet in the city itself. Too many spies. We must act before the king of Trinovantum tries to move further into the Hawkwood Forests. If he does, many Elder Fae will die, and he’ll gain more and more power. The Callach said your presence at the Council is key to stopping him.”

  My fists tightened. “I can’t spare four days. You want to stop the king. And I want to stop Siofra. She killed my parents, Roan. She has a sick vendetta against me, and she’s still out there, still killing Londoners right now. She’s doing it to get at me. Because of me, because I’m probably her changeling, and she wants my attention. Desperately. I have to stop her before anyone else gets hurt. Don’t you understand?”

  Roan narrowed his eyes, and his fingers tightened on the edge of the bed. “An excuse.”

  My jaw dropped. It was more than just an excuse. Peoples’ lives were in the balance. “Listen, Roan. Your whole plan hinges on the fact that a crazy old woman in the woods said I was a ‘key,’ and no one knows what that means. If she was such a brilliant prophetess, why couldn’t she give you more specifics? The bag lady who lives outside my apartment once told me her shopping cart full of cabbages would save the world. Guess what? I ignored her.”

  Roan’s eyes gleamed with dark gold, and I could see the flicker of horns over his head. “I realize the Elder Fae and Trinovantum politics don’t matter to you. But they matter to me, and to many other fae. Lives are at stake. And you are the key to saving them.”

  “I need one more day,” I said.

  “We don’t have one more day.”

  I crossed my arms. “I can’t go.”

  He stared at me, his jaw tightening. “You can’t break your promise.”

  “I’m not breaking it. I said I’ll come once Scarlett is safe. And I will. We defined no timeframe. I can come tomorrow. I’ll journey through reflections if I have to.” I couldn’t, though. Not without burning out my magic and trapping myself between dimensions.

  Shadows slid through his eyes, and the air around me cooled. “There aren’t many reflective surfaces in the wilderness, and none in the council hall, precisely so people like you can’t break in. I hadn’t expected you to be so faithless, Cassandra.”

  “People are dying in London. If you saw what I’d seen in the hospitals, you’d understand. Old women, children, dying of exhaustion from the dancing plague.”

  “Fae will die if you don’t come with me. I have a responsibility to protect them, to safeguard our realm from the king’s incursions. You are fae, too, Cassandra. These are your people. And before our current king, pixies like you once thrived in Trinovantum. We can revert to our former glory, but I need your help.”

  I was in an impossible situation, but I had to make a decision and stick with it. “I’m sorry. But you don’t know that fae will die, and I can see people dying all over London. It’s happening right now. We’re talking about a certainty versus a probability. If I don’t help London now, it will haunt me forever.”

  Roan rose from the bed, towering over me. His raw, primal power seemed to fill the room, washing over me in waves, and my stomach dropped. I’d pushed him too far. “Believe me, this will haunt you one way or another. You can’t escape your fate.”

  My throat tightened. Mother of Death.

  Roan moved swiftly past me, slamming the door behind him. The sound of splintering wood echoed through the room, and the plaster above the door cracked. I sat down on the bed, heart pounding.

  * * *

  I asked the barista in the café to make me a double espresso. The barista—a teen with a staggering number of facial piercings—handed me a cup dark as ink, bitter to the point of undrinkable, and muddy in texture. Exactly what I needed. At the chrome counter, I sipped it and tried to work up enthusiasm for the scone in front of me.

  Siofra had been raised in the Rix’s household. And that meant I was the Rix’s daughter.

  I’d killed my father without even realizing, like some kind of tragic Greek hero. The world seemed to tilt beneath my feet, and I took a deep breath, forcing myself to look around me at the coffee shop patrons, drowning the roar in my brain with random noise—the man sighing and tutting over his cell phone. A woman eating a cheesecake while sobbing silently. A blind man smiling at a woman, who caressed his arm lovingly. Slowly, I got my emotions under control.

  Focus, Cassandra. Get your shit in order. First, find Siofra. Then have the meltdown you’re clearly due for.

  I knocked back a long slug of coffee, as another thought began percolating in my mind. If Siofra was human, I could profile her.

  What did I know? She’d been stolen from her biological parents, raised by a man with twisted soul who had treated her as a slave. Now, she was following his footsteps. Rhyming poems—just like he’d written. Spreading chaos and fear, killing randomly. Sadism. She looked up to him, wanted to fulfill his legacy. Nurture, not nature.

  Now, she was taking it further. She was targeting me, as well. Not only trying to kill me. Trying to hurt me—the Rix’s daughter. She’d cleverly managed to isolate me from everyone who could help me. She’d abducted my best friend, letting me take the fall as the main suspect. The CIA had turned on me. She’d sent me on a task to break into the Tower—at the cost of Gabriel’s support. She’d pitted me against Roan in a battle to the death. She’d tried to flood me with guilt until I lost my mind.

  What else? Oh. She’d slaughtered my parents.

  Slowly, she’d been stripping me of the life she thought I’d stolen from her.

  I swallowed hard. Now, how could I find this bitch?

  I could try and trace the paperwork of the Whitechapel Mansion, where she’d hidden Scarlett. I could find out who rented it, who owned it. But that would probably require the police’s cooperation, and I couldn’t imagine Gabriel giving me that information at this point.

  Maybe there was some sort of magic to find a changeling. But that would require Roan’s assistance, and he was gone too.

  I only had myself.

  I could do this. I just had to think. What was she trying to do? Follow the Rix’s footsteps. Cause chaos, death…

  But the Rix had been clever about it. He had wormed himself into a place of human power—a high-ranking police officer. And from that position he had fanned the flames, making them grow, making the fire
spread.

  I sipped my bitter coffee. What if Siofra did the same?

  Maybe she’d joined the police as well. But it didn’t quite fit for Siofra. The way she’d hammered me with messages, determined to keep herself in my thoughts at all times, she was desperate for attention. As a slave in the Rix’s house, she’d probably been starved of attention. She probably always felt the need to prove herself, desperate for love, desperate to get everyone’s eyes on her.

  The media? Could be. She could definitely fan the flames from there, and get the crowd’s adoration. But would the Rix approve? The Rix had believed in raw power.

  It was more likely she’d go for a position of authority, try to prove herself to the Rix. But one that came with a lot of media attention.

  I closed my eyes, letting a sip of coffee roll over my tongue, and a random memory rolled around the back of my mind. A strange sentence. Something I should have noticed earlier, if I hadn’t been so desperate to get away from the CIA agents.

  The mayor, telling Gabriel she was going to get her car. The same mayor who, last year, had campaigned on a platform of London congestion, making a big show of riding her bike all around the city—all while slyly blaming immigrants for overcrowding, of course.

  Had she changed her mind?

  I’m going to get my car.

  That hadn’t been all she said, was it? I concentrated, trying to remember exactly how she’d phrased it. Typically, language was encoded for meaning, not for precise word choices. Just one of the things that made eyewitness testimony so unreliable, when memories were faulty. And yet, something about the way she’d spoken had been… odd. The phrasing had stuck in my mind. Why? I replayed the conversation in my mind.

  The explosions, the floods, the ravens, the plague. They’re all connected. It isn’t vague. I’ve seen zero progress so far… I’m going to get my car.

  It was a rhyme. She couldn’t have said “bike” because it wouldn’t have rhymed, and I remembered her idiosyncratic phrasing, because it had sounded almost like a song. Like a nursery rhyme—designed to be memorable.

  The explosions, the floods, the ravens, the plague

  They’re all connected, it isn’t vague

  I’ve seen zero progress so far

  I’m going to get my car

  Rhyming just for the sake of it. In my field, we called that clanging. Usually it was associated with psychosis, which did not fit the mayor’s profile. Even though she was a sadist, she was clearly sane. Still, maybe she’d adopted this method of speaking as a way of soothing herself, or just a compulsion borne out of her relationship to the Rix.

  What had the abductor said to me when I’d delivered the pelvic bone? “Well, you made it. I’m surprised, I admit.” Another rhyme.

  I pulled out my laptop, my mind buzzing with excitement. The mayor hadn’t done anything to stop the mass hysteria spreading. In fact, she’d encouraged people to take matters into their own hands. She’d linked the floods, the fires, the plague, and the ravens all together, and she’d allowed the hysteria to foment. She’d encouraged the idea that London was under a terrorist attack.

  I opened the browser, and searched for the video of her reaction to the first attack. I found it quickly, and listened to her words in amazement.

  Those people are attacking our homes and spreading fear

  They seek to disrupt our life and endanger what we hold dear

  But I promise you this!

  This fire is not something we will dismiss

  We will find the people responsible for this terrorist act

  and they’ll learn the full force of our impact

  I urge the citizens, if you know of anyone who might consort

  with those who harm us, do not hesitate to report

  Bingo. I began searching for articles about the mayor. She looked about fifty. Gray hair, sharp eyes, and a firm mouth, but that meant nothing. It could easily be glamour. I tried to imagine the blurry figure I had seen in Kent. Did it match this woman?

  I wasn’t sure, but her voice matched the mayor’s.

  According to the internet, she’d been elected in May 2016. And her previous political experience included…

  Absolutely nothing.

  There was a lot of talk about her belonging to a covert section of MI6, which both MI6 and the mayor denied. The denial had only fueled the rumors, of course. She’d probably spread them herself, acquiring a past that bestowed her with an aura of authority and ruthlessness. Especially in those times when people were scared, and facts didn’t matter as much as before. One of her biggest supporters had been none other than DCI Wood, AKA the Rix.

  An obsession with rhymes. A clear link to the Rix. Someone in a position of authority, in the center of the limelight. A person using the recent events to fuel the fire of hatred and fear in the city. Keeping very close tabs on the investigation.

  And that’s when I found an article that made me pause.

  “Mayor Hosts Mirror Exhibition in City Hall.”

  It was dated six days ago, and featured a photo of the mayor standing amidst dozens of artfully framed mirrors, her own reflection refracted around the glass, and a small, satisfied smile on her face.

  Chapter 31

  London’s City Hall jutted out over the Thames like a glass thumb, and gleaming sunlight reflected off its vast array of windows. A building of mirrors—the perfect place for reflective magic. As the breeze from the Thames kissed my skin, I hurried past a young couple in jogging gear, caught in the grips of the dancing plague, eyes terrified, bodies covered in a sheen of sweat. The young woman’s blond ponytail flipped and jerked in the wind, mouth strained in a horrified grimace. My stomach turned at the sight of them.

  If I could stop Siofra, maybe I’d be able to save them.

  I strode up to the front doors, ready to show my bag to the security guard. I’d removed the weapons earlier, strapping the Rix’s knife to my ankle.

  But when I reached the doors, I found no guard. In fact, the whole building seemed eerily quiet—no one at the front desks, no one walking through the lobby. Slowly, I crossed into the circular hall, glancing up at the modern architecture—a vortex of levels that spiraled up above me like the inside of a seashell.

  Siofra knew I was coming for her, and she’d followed my movements through the reflections. She could have stopped me anywhere she wanted.

  Maybe this is what she wanted.

  And there was only one place she’d be waiting for me. I followed the signs to the exhibition of mirrors, following the spiraling levels down to the exhibition hall. My footfalls echoed off the floor as I slowly descended, already catching glimpses of the hall of mirrors below me. Anticipation prickled over my skin as I reached the bottom floor.

  Dozens of mirrors lined the circular hall—some gilt-framed and antique, others modern and sleek, or inscribed with poetry. Some were tilted slightly so that their reflections intersected, infinitely reflecting each other. Another was curved, a half-shell shape. And in the center of the hall stood an enormous shard of mosaic mirrors, pointing up to the vortex like a pillar of light.

  Siofra wasn’t here, which didn’t surprise me. She was watching me through the reflections, and I was a fly walking into her trap. She’d make her dramatic entrance soon enough.

  I lifted my arms. “Well? I’m here!”

  I waited, my heart pounding, feeling completely exposed. As I tried to form a bond with any of the reflections, I felt them blocked, empty. Siofra was in control of them all.

  The mirrored shard shimmered, and slowly, an image appeared on the shard in the center of the hall—an enormous reflection of the mayor I had seen in the newspaper. An aging, formidable woman. Then, one by one, all the mirrors around me filled with the same reflection. She smiled at me, blinking her eyes, her expression oddly girlish.

  At the sight of her, rage burned through my veins. I wanted to rip her heart out of her chest and cram it into her stupid, smirking mouth. She’d murdered my parents. She�
�d tortured my best friend. She’d tried to slaughter half the city of London. Here before me, smiling and batting her eyelashes, was the face of true evil.

  She couldn’t hear my voice through reflections, but some things needed no sound. As fury ripped through my veins, I snarled at her, baring my teeth—a vicious, primal instinct.

  The multitude of faces around me widened their eyes, their mouths opening in feigned surprise. This woman who appeared to be in her fifties was acting like a child, and the sight disturbed me. And yet I had to get her much closer.

  And then, to my utter shock, eight of her reflections walked through the mirrors, their identical bodies emerging into the room.

  “You came here to play, fortal?” all eight said together, their voices echoing in unison. In sync, the mayors toyed with the edges of their jackets, swinging their shoulders playfully back and forth, their voices singsong. “You want to play with me now?”

  She’d surrounded me, and I felt the world tilting beneath my feet at the sight. Frantically, I looked around me, trying to figure out what was happening. This woman was a million times more powerful than I was. Eight mayors, and they all seemed to be regressing into childlike behaviors before my eyes.

  I had just one ace in the hole, one crazy-assed plan.

  I schooled my features to calmness, trying to mask the fear that lit up my body.

  “Afraid to face me alone?” I asked. “Eight of you against one of me?”

  “Well, of course,” they responded in unison, smiling shyly. “Who wouldn’t be afraid of the big, bad Cassandra Liddell? FBI Agent, beloved daughter. Admired and loved by all.” The mayors nibbled their lower lips, smiling coyly. “Cassandra Liddell the thief, the life robber, the murderess.” The mayors clapped their hands. “What’s your plan, dear twin? I can’t wait to see what you have in store for me.”

  “My plan is to stop you.”

  The mayors raised their eyebrows, eyelashes fluttering. “You want to feel my fear, though, don’t you? A monster like you thrives on fear. Feeds on it. Drinks it up when mothers and fathers are dying, because it feels too good to stop.”