by D. D. Chance
“Okay, ah, right,” Liam said in a rush, falling in beside us. “I gotta tell you this then. You know how Frost was acting weird about the whole collective idea? Like first he was into it, then he wasn’t, then he got all squirrelly? I figured there had to be shit out there he wasn’t telling us. So I did some research and, um, not to get super personal, but ah…did you guys, I mean, well…did you—”
“We had sex,” I said, putting him out of his misery. Tyler turned to me then back to Liam, surprise evident on his face.
“How did you know that?” he asked Liam. His words were tight but not upset, more surprised.
Liam blew out a long breath. “Well, so sex automatically amps up the magic of the Twyst trials’ teams, right? But we’ve got ridiculously little data on its effect on collective members. Wellington doesn’t teach it, doesn’t acknowledge it, and if there’s a co-ed group of students going through, the academy doesn’t even breathe the word ‘collective’ in their general direction. That could explain why we haven’t had any females in the program for, like, twenty years plus. I only found references to co-ed collectives in the archives after a serious deep dive.”
“Seriously?” Tyler asked, while I tried not to gape. “Having sex can amp up everyone in the collective?”
“What do you mean, the Twyst teams?” I put in, but Liam was shaking his head—clearly in response to Tyler. He also was blushing, and it made him, if possible, even more adorable. No. I corrected myself. No, it did not.
“I couldn’t find anything on the team as a whole, so I honestly don’t have any idea, but you got jacked up, so—clearly there’s something there. But mainly what I wanted to warn you about is, well…shit.” He sighed, his cheeks now flame red. “If what I read was correct, forming a co-ed collective results in a sort of compulsion on the part of members of the team to, ah…want to hook up. For the sake of the team. Just so you know.”
Now it was my turn to redden as a wave of mortification swept through me. Did this explain the completely inappropriate urge to merge I’d developed regarding the other members of the monster hunter squad? And did this mean it wouldn’t ever go away?
My brain struggled to wrap itself around that concept as Tyler stared at Liam, openmouthed. “Wait a minute, are you telling me you want to hook up with Nina?”
“Hey,” I protested. “I’m standing right here.”
“No,” Liam insisted, then he flushed even more. Liam, I decided, was a terrible liar. “I mean, yes. Sure. But I won’t. Because that would be wrong. And weird,” he continued, stammering now. Tyler wheeled around to face me.
“And you want to hook up with Liam?”
“What?” I managed, blinking fast as something flashed over Tyler’s face. He murmured a word I didn’t know, and the truth came spilling out of me.
“Well, no. Not exactly. Like, Liam is perfectly great—and hot. Totally. I don’t want to be with him because I’m with you and that isn’t right, but there is some sort of strange sort of vibe I’m feeling, I have to admit and— Hey,” I snapped, gaining control of my mouth again. “Did you just throw magic at me? Because that is not cool.”
Tyler blanched, but Liam was staring at both of us now. “You did, Tyler,” he said. “You totally spelled her, better than I’ve ever seen you cast a spell, ever. It was like automatic.” He turned to me, his excitement trumping our combined awkwardness.
“Tyler’s a baller, one of the best spell casters I’ve ever seen, but he can never remember actual spells for shit. I pretty much always had to be around to give him his line, and once I do, he’s awesome. But that spell he just dropped on you—I don’t even know it.”
Liam’s gaze grew more distant, and for half a second, it occurred to me that he might want to hook up with me just to upgrade his skills. I shook off that thought.
“Why am I not upset about this?” Tyler asked in such confusion that we both turned toward him. He spread his hands.
“Because I’m not. I’m not upset at all. In fact, my main reaction is how cool that would be if you two got together.” He turned to me. “I know that sounds horrible. I don’t mean it to, but that’s how I feel.”
I shrugged, lifting my hands as well. “Yo, I’m the one who is fighting a weird attraction to your best friend. You don’t have to explain anything to me about how bizarre this is.”
“How could Frost not have told us?” Tyler demanded, his tone still wondering. “This is kind of a crucial detail to withhold.”
I had to agree with him, but Liam held up his phone. “Maybe that’s why he’s calling us all together. Maybe he figured it out and wanted to let us know before we stumbled on to it ourselves.”
Tyler groaned, shaking his head before he started to laugh. “Okay, well, that will pretty much qualify as the most awkward conversation ever.”
Liam grinned. “Yeah, but I’m kind of stoked to see how he handles it, right?”
With that, he turned and fell into step with us again, and we walked on to Lowell Library, Liam and Tyler chattering back and forth about the other impacts of the day’s, ah, work. As weird as this all was, I couldn’t help being intrigued as well, like this bizarre group attraction was something happening to other people, not to me—or Tyler. Hell, Tyler and I had barely established our own relationship. How would it work if there were suddenly three other people involved?
It wouldn’t work. Full stop.
“Guys,” I said abruptly. “I don’t think we should tell Zach and Grim about this. I think it’s too weird. I can handle it. I know you can. But the others may not even feel anything, right?” I said this last to Liam who, for the record, didn’t look too convinced, though he nodded. “So don’t think it’s something—”
“Agreed,” Tyler said abruptly. He looked hard at me. “Your rules, Nina. Always yours. You want to act on this particular bit of crazy, you do. You don’t, then you don’t.”
“I’m absolutely down with that,” Liam agreed. “Full stop.”
“Ah—fantastic, then,” I said, but I couldn’t help staring for a second longer than I should have at Liam’s mouth, while feeling intensely aware of the warmth of Tyler’s hand in mine, his thumb caressing my palm. Then Liam started grilling me about the particular hue of Tyler’s eyes during his transformation, and the last moment of awkwardness whisked away.
By the time we reached the library, Frost was waiting at the door, once more clad in khakis and a brown work shirt, his heavy beard a bit shaggier than I remembered it, his face worn and weary. His eyes looked like they’d been staring into computer screens for three weeks straight.
“Where are Grim and Zach?” he asked hoarsely, and I blinked. I think it was the first time he’d ever called them by name on first reference.
“They’re in the middle of their battle finals,” Tyler said, clearly startled by the question.
Frost jolted. “That’s right. Fuck.”
I didn’t know the man well, but based on Tyler’s and Liam’s reactions, clearly his use of a swearword was also somewhat unusual. He turned on his heel as the guys stared after him.
“Well, I don’t have all day,” Frost snapped over his shoulder. “You’ll have to brief those two when they’re done. When did the battle start?”
Liam checked his watch. “They’re about an hour into it. They should wrap in another thirty minutes or so.”
“Let’s hope they get done sooner,” Frost said, only it seemed like he was muttering more to himself, not us. “Check that. We’re going to make a side trip. We need more gear.”
With that, he strode up to the elevator and punched the button with his fist. Everything about him screamed urgent energy, and Tyler, Liam, and I all exchanged wary glances.
“Ah…what’s going—”
“It’ll wait for the briefing,” Frost rubbed a heavy hand over his brow.
The elevator opened, and we all filed in, the tension thick enough to cut. We dropped down to the basement, but the elevator kept going easily another two flo
ors before it finally stopped. Liam’s eyes had now popped wide. Frost hit two buttons at the same time, and the doors whooshed open onto a dimly lit chamber filled with floor-to-ceiling shelves.
I could almost feel Liam’s rush of questions building up, but Frost lifted a quelling finger.
“Yes, Liam, it’s a secret sector. No, you didn’t need to know about it before now. No, you wouldn’t know about it at all except for I don’t have time to screw around here. We’ve got to move. Liam get the weapons, short, flat bladed daggers, smooth edges, nothing curved, nothing jagged. Tyler—” Frost turned to Tyler and stopped short as if seeing him for the first time. “What the hell happened to you? Are you on something from the chem lab?”
Tyler grimaced. “Um, no I’m not,” he said, the words heavy with emphasis.
“Then what’s wrong with you? You look like you’re taking steroids.”
“And he threw magic spells from memory,” Liam put in helpfully. “Just pulled ’em right out of his hat.”
Frost jerked his glance toward Liam, the intensity of his glare wiping Liam’s grin off his face. “You know what’s going on here? If so, spit it out. I don’t have all day.”
“Yeah, Liam,” Tyler drawled, clearly enjoying his friend’s sudden horror. Liam look like a deer caught in the headlights. “Spit it out. Since you’ve got all the answers.”
I hid my own grin as Liam floundered another second more, flushing scarlet. Then he spoke.
“So, ah, after you didn’t seem so keen on us forming a collective, I did some more research and…well, it seems like with certain collectives, though not all, there is a bonding effect that is similar to the teams at Twyst—”
“Jesus wept,” Frost blurted, his face going pale as he held up both his hands. “Those stories of magic amplification are locked in the apocrypha. How’d you get them to unlock for you—never mind.” He turned to me and scowled. “What’s important though, Nina—it’s not true. It can’t be.”
Beside me, Tyler whispered a stream of soft, shirring words, and the entire room illuminated with a hundred different floating globes of light. Some of them red, some blue, and some a brilliant white, exposing every corner of the chamber.
“Well, ah…it’s kinda true,” Tyler offered.
26
“Stop that,” Frost growled, lifting a hand and making a sharp, cutting motion. Instantly, the room returned to its previous gloom. “There are light-sensitive artifacts in here.”
“Yeah, but—”
“But your point is well made. I got it,” Frost snapped. He glared at Tyler. “What effects are you noticing so far?”
“Size, recall, some improved spell casting, and apparently, my eyes glow pretty,” Tyler said this last with a grin.
Frost grunted. “All right then. Keep a careful watch. I’ll want a complete log.”
He turned to me. “What about you?”
I blinked. “There’s nothing about me,” I said, genuinely surprised at the question. It was the first time it even occurred to me that maybe I should have upgraded as well. Despite my best efforts, my mom’s warning clamor sounded in my ears again. Run. “I haven’t changed at all.”
Frost’s grimace didn’t make me feel any better. “Fair enough. That doesn’t affect our mission today, though. Liam, knives. Tyler, you get the tech. We want decorative pins that look like jewels. There will be a box of them labeled something else entirely. Over there.”
Frost waved in the general direction of the far wall, and Tyler stared for a moment at the overstuffed shelves. “We don’t have all day, gentlemen,” Frost bit out. “Move it.”
Tyler and Liam took off, and Frost turned to me, his face positively mournful as the guys moved out of earshot. “Ms. Cross…Nina. I owe you an apology. I should have more thoroughly investigated the ramifications of you joining the collective. I didn’t do the research first, and ignored my own misgivings.”
He spoke with such resignation that I felt my stomach clench. Run! I wasn’t going to tell him about my mother’s warnings, but that didn’t mean I didn’t need some clarity. “What exactly is in the apocrypha?” I asked. “I mean, I get that all this is weird, but you’re making it sound like it’s a really bad thing.”
“Not bad exactly, but we’re dealing with old magic. Old, unpredictable magic—which Tyler, of all people, should have known.”
Something in his voice caught me up short, and I frowned at him. “Really? Tyler was as surprised as anyone at what’d happened to him.”
“The circumstances of it, maybe. But perhaps not the value of a female member of the collective. He’s read every piece of Arcanum there is on how to amplify his magic, and that information is out there, even if it doesn’t include this…unorthodox element. He probably expected the team to get energized as a result of the Collective Run with you.” He glanced at me. “He ever mention a power surge, something he noticed between the two of you?”
“Um, no,” I lied. Every time we’d kissed, there’d been a mini environmental disaster. Of course, Tyler had noticed it.
Was that why he’d kept after me so hard to enroll?
And if so…how did that make me feel?
I wasn’t sure, but not especially good, at least not until I learned more. “Where is this apocrypha book?” I asked. “Seems to me I should read it more thoroughly.”
“And I wish you could do that,” Frost agreed. “Unfortunately, as Liam may or may not realize yet—there’s very little of it left. The relative pages on the outcomes of male-female bonding within the collective, whether physically or emotionally, have been largely destroyed.”
“Destroyed?” I gaped at him. “Seriously?”
He nodded. “Yes. And it gets worse.”
I snorted. “Oh really? Because I’d like to see how that’s poss—”
“No male-female collective has been authorized in more than fifty years—and I finally learned why. Apparently, far too often, they turn on each other soon after bonding, causing injury, even death. When this happens, the female members of the collective never make it out alive. On that score, the archives are absolute.”
Run!
My mom’s long-ago objections were starting to make more sense. I blew out a long breath. “Well, you’re right. That’s worse. But back up a step. You said that there are physical and emotional bonding options—?”
“Hey, I found something,” Tyler effectively interrupted us by calling out from across the room. We turned, and he held up a small, round wooden box. “It’s labeled jacks, but there are stickpins inside with jeweled tops.”
“Bring it.” Frost turned to Liam. “What do you have?”
Liam offered a tray of knives of varying lengths, all of them flat bladed and straight, none of them curved.
“Excellent. Now, before we go, say nothing about this room until I say the word. Not even to each other. Trust no one.”
Liam looked like he wanted to argue, and Frost pointed at him. “No one,” he said.
We rode back up the elevator in silence, and emerged into the hallway as Grim and Zach strode in. Grim’s eyes narrowed immediately as he took in Tyler, then his gaze shifted to me. He curled his lip but said nothing, while Zach rushed on excitedly, his dark eyes practically sparking.
“We totally nailed it,” he said. “They threw four different generations of ragers at us, and we took them all down. It was epic. If we both don’t get straight As, I’m going to lodge a complaint.”
He practically bounced on his toes. “So what’s the deal? Why’d you need us all here?”
At this point, we were all walking at a fast clip, until Frost turned into the monster hunting war room tucked behind the stacks. The long table was filled with books as before, and the screen showed a map of Boston. But now emerging from Boston Public Garden, there was not one line, but six.
“Wow,” Liam said. “Somebody has been busy.”
“Not somebody. Somebodies,” Frost said.
“And not a random somebod
y either,” Tyler said. Everyone turned to him, and I thought again about what he’d known or not known about me, and the impact I might have on the collective. Had I been some sort of battle strategy to him all along?
Oblivious to my growing disquiet, he continued. “I may have a lead on who this guy is. Was. When he was alive, anyway.” He shared the barest minimum of his impromptu séance with the Perkins ghosts, and by the end, Liam was bent over a laptop, typing furiously, while Frost’s eyes had gone wide and thoughtful.
“William Perkins…” he murmured.
“I’m getting nothing so far, which screams manipulation,” Liam said from his laptop. “Friggin’ first families and their friggin’ issues with scandals.”
“Keep searching,” Frost ordered. “But the who of the monster is less important than what it’s doing now. The Boston Brahmin has replicated like a multiplying genie, and his attacks are escalating by the hour. Assaults are leaving victims bloodied and battered, and we’ve had our first near death. The young man is in a coma.”
“A coma,” Tyler groaned. “Caused by someone in my family.”
“Not your family.” To my surprise, it was Grim who spoke up. I turned to see his pale-gold eyes fixed on Tyler, his stance tense with readiness. “Whatever animated the corpse is acting here. Not the corpse.”
The words were flat and unassailable, and Tyler nodded, resolute. “Fair enough. Who’s the victim?”
Frost sighed heavily. “We’re working on that, but it’s slow going. The young man is apparently one of the legacy students, a Choate, I’m told, and—”
“Choate,” echoed Tyler. “Liam, cross-reference it. Any slurs leveled to the Perkins family by the Choates or their relatives? Wouldn’t be in any sort of formal media, but maybe a gossip paper. Letters, maybe.” His hands were working, fingers moving through the air, as if he was taking its measure. Was he talking to the Perkins ghosts again? There was no windstorm, but as Tyler turned and stared at the wall, the rest of us exchanged uneasy glances.
