by Bryn Donovan
“No!” She lifted her head again, her beautiful brown eyes shining with tears. “Thinking of you going through that training. I can’t stand it.”
“Hey, come on,” he said gently. “I’m fine.” He hated to upset her, and at the same time, something inside him received her sorrow on his behalf like a precious gift.
“I don’t understand—” She stopped to sniffle. “You’ve been through all these horrible things, and you let yourself get tortured for practice. How can you still be so kind? And so open?”
He wasn’t sure exactly what she meant by that last part, but her praise filled him with warmth and light. “Like I said, most Knights go through it.” Nobody was looked down upon for choosing not to, though. There were hardly any skills more valuable than listening to your instincts and knowing your own limits.
“What about Mages?”
“Only the ones who go on missions all the time. And some of them can leave their bodies for a while.”
“What?”
If they’d been talking about anything less grim, he might have smiled at her incredulous expression. “Makes them look unconscious, and they don’t feel anything for a while. It can be useful.”
“Can Val do that?”
“Yes.” Jonathan took out his phone and glanced at it. No new messages. “No attacks so far. If you really reined it in, that was—it was amazing, considering.” He loved her fierce protectiveness of others. If it were tempered with control, she’d make a formidable ally.
No. She wasn’t going to be an ally at all. In the best-case scenario, she’d return to Phoenix and find a nice, normal job and ride her horse and go out for drinks with her friends and be happy. She deserved a carefree life. No doubt, she’d meet a new man. It would be easy for someone like her… But he couldn’t think about that or he’d lose his mind. God knew he probably shouldn’t have gotten involved with her in the first place, but he’d never been good at shielding himself from heartache, and he hadn’t been able to resist.
Cassie stood up and started walking. Jonathan followed her, not intruding on her thoughts. They came to a vast area of raised beds, where tall, bright green grass grew. “What is this stuff?” she asked.
“Rice.”
She fingered the green blades. “That training’s so awful. It can’t be worth it.”
He considered his reply. “For us, betraying the group, or giving up a fellow Knight…nothing could be worse.”
“I’m kind of jealous of you guys.”
Jonathan did a double take. “What?”
“No, I’m not. You have a horrible job,” she amended quickly. “It’s just…you believe in what you’re doing. You all trust each other so much.” She twisted one of the tips of the rice plants, about to break it off, but then she stopped and smoothed it out with her fingers. “I wonder what it’s like to have that kind of loyalty.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“It sounds as though you came close to unleashing your power,” Val said to Cassie the next day. Cassie had come to her office for another anger management session, escorted by Gabi, who didn’t seem to especially enjoy the assignment of babysitting a grown woman with a twitchy magical power. Cassie didn’t like the arrangement any better.
Val wore a blue dress with a ribbon-laced bodice that showed off spectacular cleavage and lace-trimmed shoes that appeared to have been stolen from Marie Antoinette.
“I controlled it,” Cassie said. “You taught me how.”
She looked sweetly unimpressed. “We already knew you could control it around Jonathan. Whether you can do it under other circumstances is another question.”
Fair enough. “But if I can learn how to not release the hounds, can I also learn how to do it whenever I want? Or call up more animals at once?”
Out of the corner of Cassie’s eye, Gabi straightened.
Val asked, “Why would you want to do that?”
“Jonathan’s told me a lot about the dangerous work you guys do,” Cassie said. “Sometimes you might need protecting.”
Val tilted her head. “Or other people might need protecting, right? Friends, family.”
“Yeah.” Cassie hadn’t thought much about that at all. Her friends and family rarely faced mortal peril. She understood why Val said it, though. Cassie wasn’t one of them.
The door opened and they all turned around. Jonathan strode in. “Lucia says to come to her office,” he told Cassie.
“We just got started,” Val protested.
“Yeah, sorry. She says they’ve discovered something big.”
Excitement sparked in Cassie as she stood up and followed him out of the office.
Val called after her. “We have a lot of work to do. Come back as soon as you can.”
Cassie found herself jogging to keep up with his long strides. “Slow down.” He did immediately. Of course, it was all she’d been doing for a while—running to keep up with her new surroundings and her own life, now that it had become entangled with Manus Sancti.
They passed a couple of men who greeted one another with a hug. Cassie asked Jonathan in a lowered voice, “Why do you all hug so much? Even the guys. The guys I know never hug.” Jonathan tilted his head, acknowledging the point. “When you were in West Point, and Army Ranger School, did you have to remember not to hug anybody?”
He gave a genuine laugh. “Yeah, you can touch women, but not men. There’s a few things like that. You have to act more—casual, I guess? You carry yourself differently.”
This fascinated her. “Did you get tired of pretending to be normal? A sonámbulo,” she corrected herself, proud that she had the term right.
“Of course.”
They reached the library. Almost as soon as Jonathan knocked on Lucia’s office door, she opened it. “Finally. I mean, Salaam.” The Scholar, in a plaid flannel shirt, leggings, and bare feet, smelled like she needed a shower. Actually, she’d smelled a little that way the last time, but Cassie wasn’t too sensitive about that kind of thing. Growing up around stables, one got used to ignoring odors. It was less ignorable now, and Lucia’s gorgeous green eyes were bloodshot behind her glasses.
Jonathan frowned. “We came straight here. Are you all right?”
Cassie asked, “Did you translate the other two pages?”
She laughed, a little manically. “I did. With help from Javier and Doug. Sit.” Cassie’s great-grandpa’s journal lay open on the desk to one of the pages full of strange syllables in the back. “We’ve translated both remaining pages. This one describes the location of various wells and talks about the best days and times, according to the stars, to do a ritual to appease the rain gods.”
“No wonder you’re so excited,” Cassie quipped.
Lucia grinned, her bloodshot eyes sparkling. “I’m only getting started.” With the same kind of delicacy she’d used before, she flipped to the next page. “This one—we still have more work to do, but it seems to be a famine spell.”
Cassie sat up straight. “I could end famine?” No wonder Lucia couldn’t sleep. This was it. They were going to solve world hunger.
“Ah, no. This calls down a spirit who causes famine. He most likely does not exist.”
“Oh.” If he did, Cassie didn’t want anything to do with him. She leaned back in her chair again.
“Anyway, the codex itself said that the spell probably doesn’t work,” Lucia added.
“Wait,” Cassie said. “How do you know that?”
Lucia held up a finger, as though to say she was getting to that. “We finally turned to studying Rodrigo De La Garza’s effects. There’s nothing special about the key—mass-produced in a tin factory in Durango, Mexico. No references to it the journal. The toy tank is from Spain, as I suspected. A memento of the war, no doubt. You didn’t mention there was anything inside of it.”
Cassie exchanged a look with Jonathan. “I didn’t know.”
Lucia grinned like a madwoman. From a box on a high shelf, she took out the tank and a smaller metal box and
set them on the table. They’d rolled the top of the tank back like the lid of a sardine can. “What the hell?” Cassie exclaimed. “I didn’t say you could tear it apart.”
Lucia froze, alarm washing over her face.
“She’s not really angry,” Jonathan reassured her in the warm, strong tone Cassie was growing to love. “Are you, Cassie?”
Cassie’s irritation burned away. She was going to have to be careful not to scare people. “No. It’s all right. What was in there?”
Lucia set the metal box on her lap, and it sprung open with a click. She had a tattoo like Jonathan, of course, with the tiny chips in it that could be programmed to unlock things. After placing it back on the table, she reached in as carefully as someone about to deactivate a bomb. She drew out a small stack of papers, maybe three by six inches apiece, all in plastic sleeves. Her hands shook as she slowly unfolded them on the desk. They connected like an accordion, and she spread them out to about a four-foot length on the table.
Inside their protective casing, the yellow-tan pages were rough around the edges. A rusty ink formed rows of rounded square symbols, smaller than the tip of her little finger. Boxes containing illustrations of monsters or perhaps human-animal hybrids interrupted the text here and there, executed in dingy blue, brown, and a startling bright red pigment.
Jonathan pressed his hands, in a position like prayer, against his lips.
“What is this?” Cassie asked Lucia, although she already knew.
“This is the codex.”
Goosebumps rose all over her arms. “Wow.”
“There’s even more.” She took out a piece of glass from the box, holding it up between her fingers and thumbs. “Fragments. Thirty-one altogether. We’ve preserved each one in a microscope slide.” A scrap of the same material as the codex floated between the thin panels of glass.
Jonathan asked, “When will you know if those fragments are from the same text?”
“We’ve already analyzed them. They’re written on the same kind of amate paper as the codex, and like the original, it’s written in blood.”
Cassie drew back. “What kind of blood?”
“Human,” Lucia said with a bright smile.
Cassie stared at the rusty glyphs. “That’s disgusting.”
“It’s unexpected. Although there are several European books written in human blood, none of the other Mayan codices are.” She shrugged. “Still, bloodletting and sacrifice were fundamental to the Mayans. They’re a key part of magic in most cultures, including many of the spells we do here.” His brow creasing, Jonathan nodded.
Cassie swallowed and realized her mouth was dry as desert dirt. “How old is this again?”
“It dates to 700 AD.”
Jonathan asked, “You’re positive this is real?”
“There is no question,” Lucia said. “Doug and I did several tests. It’s one of our most remarkable finds in, perhaps, fifty years.”
“You didn’t find it,” Cassie said. “You guys remember this belongs to me, right? Actually, to my mom.”
“We’re not thieves,” Jonathan said.
“Well,” Lucia countered, a mischievous dimple showing up in her cheek. “That’s not strictly true.”
“We don’t just take artifacts from anyone,” Jonathan protested. “Mostly governments and large corporations. They’re items that are dangerous in the wrong hands.”
“Not anymore,” Lucia said cheerfully. “But in earlier centuries, with the Medicis, and the Habsburgs—” She stopped as Jonathan glared at her. “Anyway, there’s no use arguing with me. Capitán Renaud will decide what happens to it.”
Unexpectedly, the animal of Cassie’s rage roared up against its bars. It’s mine.
She took a deep breath and repeated the soothing word in her head that Val had given her: Shanti, Shanti, Shanti.
Jonathan took her hand, helping to calm her further, and said, “Before anything else, we need to find out what it says.”
Good point. Cassie asked, “Do you think something in here will tell me how to reverse a spell?”
“Possibly. I’ve gotten permission to meet with Tom Lorenzo in Aquileia. He’s a palaeographist who collects and studies Mesoamerican inscriptions in particular.”
“He’s one of you guys?”
“No. But he knows us and works with us.”
“Kind of like Morty Silva,” Jonathan added.
Lucia nodded. “He did important work on our Codex Borgia, which of course was produced much later by the Aztecs.”
Jonathan asked, “Is that here? I thought it was in the Vatican Library.”
“They have an exceptionally good facsimile of one.”
Cassie picked up one of the microscope slides and examined the tiny fragment it held. “You’re not actually taking the codex to Italy, are you?”
“The original?” The Scholar laughed. “Oh, no. And I’ve been asked to keep the trip to see Lorenzo as quiet as possible.” She looked to Jonathan. “Capitán says you’re my point of contact for the trip. I’ll let you know as soon as the arrangements are final.”
Jonathan nodded.
Cassie asked, “Where’s Aquileia?”
“Northern Italy,” Lucia said. “Almost in Slovenia.”
It sounded inconvenient. “Couldn’t you just talk online?”
She placed her palms on the table next to the codex. “Too risky. No one must know we have this object here.”
It was a lot to take in. When Cassie returned to Valentina Vega’s office, her thoughts still churned. As soon as she said hello, Val said, “I think you should have some nettle tea.”
“All right. Are we supposed to call Gabi?” Even though Cassie didn’t particularly like being supervised, she didn’t want Val to get in trouble with her boss.
Val shook her head as she made the tea. “Capitán Renaud said she doesn’t have to stay for these sessions anymore.” This was good. Maybe he’d heard that even after Cassie had seen the horrible interrogation training, she’d kept it together. Maybe even if the codex didn’t have a reversal spell, they’d decide she wasn’t a threat to humanity anymore and soon they’d decide she could go back to her normal life.
Would that be the end of seeing Jonathan? She’d never believed in long-distance relationships, and managing one with a Knight of Manus Sancti would be a challenge, to say the least.
She shook off the thoughts. They’d found a priceless artifact, and she was thinking about dating. As Val made the tea, Cassie told her about the codex and Lucia’s trip to Italy. She felt a little guilty, as though maybe she should be keeping it a secret, but Lucia hadn’t instructed her to keep quiet about it.
The door slid open, and Capitán Renaud strolled in.
Val’s eyes widened. “Capitán.” She set down the teapot and touched the heel of her fist to the middle of her chest. He closed the door behind them by touching the panel next to the wall. Just as when Cassie had seen him last, he wore an impeccably tailored suit.
With a slight gesture, he indicated that Val could sit again. “Came to see how the training is going. She learning to control the spell?” He clasped his hands behind his back, regarding them like a general reviewing the troops. That made sense when it came to Val, but Cassie didn’t work for him.
“She’s somewhat volatile by nature,” Val said. Cassie felt betrayed by this, even though the Mage only spoke the truth. “But she’s learning fast.”
Capitán nodded without looking convinced and asked Cassie, “How long have you been here? A week?”
“Eight days.” It seemed like much longer. Her whole life in Phoenix, before she’d known about her powers, seemed blurry and somewhat imaginary, like memories from early childhood.
“You couldn’t have made much progress.”
Anxiety made her breath hitch. He could decide to do any number of things with her, most of them not good.
Val said, “Her response to the interrogation incident was progress. She’s extremely empathetic and has a
strong protective instinct, but she still controlled her emotions.”
Capitán gave a slight shrug. “She was with West. He can talk her down because she’s creaming herself over him.”
Cassie’s mouth dropped open at the casual crudeness of this. Did he always talk this way? Maybe he did. He’d barely spoken to her before now. Val blushed, at least.
He looked Cassie over with studied curiosity. “Not surprised they started fucking. West just lost his brother. She lost her marriage, her job. Whole life imploded. She bonds to her attacker. He feels guilty about attacking. Not to mention turned on—with her bound and helpless. Perfect storm of damage.”
Val bit her lip and stared at her pink patent shoes.
Cassie’s heart pounded faster. “You don’t know anything about me.” A lie. Everyone here knew everything about her. “Or about us.”
He raised his eyebrows as if pondering this. “You think that’s true?” he asked Val. “I think they’re two sinking swimmers. Mistaking each other for the life raft.”
“It’s more than that,” Val said quietly.
Cassie’s pulse skyrocketed. I need to calm the fuck down.
“Interesting,” he said. “Well, she’ll be here a while. Time will tell.”
“How long?” Cassie asked. “You can’t keep me here forever.” And he couldn’t keep her codex, either, though she sure as hell wanted to know what it said.
“I can,” he assured her.
“And you’re not wiping my memory, either.” The idea of this had been tormenting her, especially now that she’d become involved with Jonathan. Would it even be possible to remove Jonathan from her head? Somehow, her body—her soul—would remember.
“If we find a spell reversal, we help you do it. Then clear your memory of us. Return you to your former life. Most logical course of action.” He had the weirdest way of talking, in clipped fragments, as though he were reading Morse code aloud.
Cassie planted her hands on her hips. “Maybe I won’t do the reversal spell.”
He looked bored or amused. “We’ll persuade you.” The image of the naked man having a cardiac arrest flashed through her mind again. “Of course, if we don’t find a reversal soon? We’ll put you in a psychic coma. That way, you can’t do any damage. We find a counter-spell later, we wake you up.”
