Terrestrial Magic (Jordan Sanders, #1)

by Marina Ermakova

  Following the sentry’s lead as he continued searching by ground, I wondered what his goal was here. We passed under an arched opening in an ancient wall, and finally reached the ruins of Hadrian’s Villa. If Tony were lost, he wouldn’t go here. But if he’d wanted to escape without outside help, he might try to hide somewhere among the crumbled bits of ancient buildings.

  Which meant the sentry didn’t believe this was an accident anymore. He was looking for an escapee. I took solace in the knowledge that Tony wouldn’t actually be here.

  Past a large pool of green water, the ruins became more pervasive, providing a convenient amount of cover. After a while, I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for anymore. If I was going to try (and inevitably fail) to escape, I might as well get it over with. “What would you say if I said I needed to go to the bathroom?”

  His booming laughter filled the space. “I can’t prove you’re lying, can I? But I can take you somewhere with only one way out.”

  Well, that wasn’t fair. It didn’t even give me a chance.

  Assessing the ruined buildings, he settled on a small structure that was closed on three sides, and waved me in. He stationed himself at an angle where he’d be able to see me leave, but wouldn’t be able to see me inside. I’d be stuck.

  It wasn’t like I’d actually expected to escape, but this was just plain silly. Did he have to pick an enclosed ancient structure for this? For someone who had declared his love of history earlier this very day, he was surprisingly willing to let me pee on it.

  Moving inside, I took stock. The walls were too tall for me to get over. There were some jutting bricks and small holes—trying to use them to climb only ended with my ass hitting the ground hard enough to sting.

  And that was that. It was over.

  The team was still expecting me, so I sent a quick text to Hayley. “Can’t get away. Sentry knows. Leave.” If Tony had reached her, he’d explain the context. I was counting on that. Even if I couldn’t get away—as much as it hurt to think that—at least the Hercules wouldn’t gain any more hostages.

  I didn’t dare take too long. The last thing I wanted was for the sentry to get suspicious and catch me with my phone. So I didn’t wait for Hayley’s reply, instead trusting her to listen and get out of here. She was smart. Practical.

  The memory of the text she’d sent me, where she said she didn’t want to be alone, flashed through my mind. I pushed it back, refusing to consider the possibility that anything might be compromising her judgment right now. After all, she’d made sure to have Jessie along to keep her and the others from getting caught. She wasn’t taking any risks.

  I was the one responsible for getting Tony and myself away. If I couldn’t hold up my end, she’d know better than to risk more people falling into the wrong hands. Maybe we’d come up with another plan and try again, but this one was over with.

  “I see you didn’t try anything,” the sentry told me once I came back out of the building. “That’s disappointing. Are you not supposed to seek out danger? Where’s that adventurous spirit I’ve been hearing so much about?” He made a disapproving noise. “You don’t have much of a personality either, do you? At least the lad showed some daring.”

  Yes, I was so very concerned with his opinion. I didn’t even bother to reply.

  The sentry snorted. “Figures. Let’s go find my son. I’m sure he’s given up all hope of tracking down the lad by now.”

  Fine with me. I’d use the time we spent looking for Alcides working out another plan. Maybe bringing my team in again would be too dangerous, but Jessie could drop off a bike somewhere, since she wouldn’t get caught. It’d be up to me and me alone to get out. But at least I wouldn’t be putting anyone else at risk while doing it.

  It was a nice, comforting plan, and I wanted to believe it was possible. That I could escape before the Hercules decided to make an example of me. So at least for a little while, I let myself indulge in that dream.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I FELT MY FEET DRAGGING as I trailed after the sentry, still astride his flying horse. The ruins started to blend into each other, becoming indistinguishable. I’d been on my feet for a long time, and it was taking its toll. Not that I’d be able to rest anytime soon—I still had a good, long march back to Tivoli to look forward to. Yay.

  I passed another of the many ancient ruins surrounding me—and an arm grabbed me from behind, a hand covering my mouth. Yanked behind a crumbling building before I had time to feel anything other than an instinctive panic, the arms suddenly let me go. For a moment, my mind blanked.

  Then Luca leaned past me, doing a quick survey of our environs, and everything came together. Him being here was logical, if I accepted the premise that he was completely fucking senseless. First he charged a chimera with a pick-up. Then he tried to force his way into every dangerous expedition we came up with. Now this?

  Somebody thought he was a knight in shining armor, and needed to have the concept of a workable plan explained to him.

  I boiled with frustration, but Luca barely took a moment to glance at me as he handed me a pistol. Gesturing for me to follow him, he moved. And, disastrous lack of planning or not, there was no good way out of this. I had to follow his lead and hope he wouldn’t end up as trapped as I’d been.

  A few minutes later, a deep, thundering laughter sounded from behind us. “So, you’re good for some sport after all!”

  It was inevitable that he’d notice I wasn’t behind him in a matter of moments, but hearing his voice still sent a thread of apprehension churning through me. Damn.

  Luca and I both ducked towards the closest ruin with roof coverage, grabbing for each other along the way. It looked like we’d had the same thought—that the sentry would take to the air to find us, and would watch from above for any movement.

  “A handgun?” I whispered to Luca, wondering when he’d started a firearms collection.

  He shrugged. “We need to be mobile.”

  Sidling towards the edge of our cover, he peeked out carefully. His hand grasped mine, and he tugged me closer. “On my signal, we run.”

  I squeezed his fingers in affirmation. Counting my breaths to stay calm, I waited one, two, three—

  “Now,” he said, already in motion, pulling me along after him. We sprinted, and the seconds stretched out before me. Luca shoved us down behind another ruined wall, as we waited for a sign that the sentry had seen us.

  I muffled the sounds of my panting with the edge of my shirt, waiting for him to descend on our hiding place. But my breathing steadied, and we remained unmolested.

  This could work. If we were lucky, this could work. The sentry didn’t think much of me. Hopefully, he thought I’d holed up close to where I’d disappeared from, too scared to go anywhere. Putting distance between us like this was risky—he must have been watching, waiting for me to make a break for it—but our best bet nonetheless.

  We settled into a rhythm. Luca took careful glimpses from behind cover, gauging the direction that the sentry was facing. Then we’d move, fast, to another nearby location. Again and again, Luca made that measured decision, balancing how long we had before the sentry’s eyes turned our way again with how far we had to go.

  I wouldn’t have been able to do it. Split second decisions, where the timing was so critical, weren’t my thing. I needed space to think, a moment to go over the options. I couldn’t react the way Luca did. But Luca was handling it admirably.

  This was...enough for me to regain a measure of confidence. Tony was out. Luca’s razor-quick judgment was giving us a chance to escape as well. And Jessie’s power would let us flee the scene without being spotted.

  Then the tree line stood before us, tantalizing with the thick, consistent cover it would provide. We were so close. Once we reached it, we’d be able to move more freely. Without knowing where we’d gone or how far we’d gotten, the sentry couldn’t keep a good watch past that point. Not without risking our escape in a different direction.


  We moved, one dash for the next bit of cover, then two, then three. Until we were almost there. I could picture it in my mind, us traveling through the woodland so far from where the sentry had lost track of us, that he’d never find us again. Meeting up with Hayley and Tony, getting in the car, driving back to somewhere I could feel secure.

  From my vantage point, I caught a flicker of the sentry’s movements, the wings of the pegasus beating powerfully as he made a wide sweep over the area. He had no idea where we were. My heart beat fast, my breaths came out heavy. My fingers intertwined with Luca’s—and I felt the moment Luca started to move, the slightest turn of his foot, the lightest tightening of his hand on mine.

  Then we were running together, approaching the tree cover, angling with the buildings for just long enough that I spotted the sentry out of the corner of my eye—turning. Turning fast enough to see us. The pegasus whirled in our direction, and he made a throwing motion with his arm.

  My mind immediately drew up the trajectory for such a throw, adjusting it as I caught sight of a dark gray object flying in our direction—and a cold fear set in, as I realized the object was moving to connect with Luca’s head. Unless I could throw off Luca’s movements, now, fast, while I still had the chance.

  Our hands still clasped tightly, I dug in my heels and pulled back at him, shifting our momentum enough to send us both crashing towards the ground. Something hard and sharp collided with my stomach, and for one discomfiting moment, I couldn’t get any air in my lungs. The next second, the strong thud of cracking wood reached my ears. Luca and I both shifted to look at the source—the rock that had missed my teammate but hit a nearby tree. We stared at the site of the impact, incredulous that it had actually embedded itself into the wood.

  There wasn’t a question of running now. We wouldn’t have made it. I took the moment to stand, while the scion of Hercules leisurely flew over to us.

  Beside me, Luca drifted closer, a strange melancholy in his eyes. “Sorry,” he said.

  He was apologizing to me? For what? Well, besides getting himself captured, which come to think, he really should be sorry about.

  “When this is over,” he continued, “give me a chance to explain, okay?”

  The oddness of his statement was enough to draw my attention away from our impending doom. Give him a chance to explain what?

  But then the Herculean sentry landed in front of us, laughing again, the sound so abrasive it set my skin crawling. Shit, I hated that laugh. “So, you’re not so boring after all! Too bad I missed, but that was good, pushing him out of the way. Perhaps you will try to run again? I’d love to take another shot at him.”

  Personally, I was terrified. But Luca projected a solid calm, meeting the man’s eyes with way more confidence than was warranted. “You almost killed me,” he said, the words firm and even. Because when have Luca’s reactions to anything ever been sensible?

  “Yes,” the sentry agreed with an eagerness I didn’t like. “And a great kill it would have been. Next time, I’ll make sure the girl isn’t fast enough to save you.”

  “There had better not be a next time, if you want to avoid a diplomatic crisis.” A hard edge emerged in Luca’s voice that I’d never heard before. The subdued confidence he usually held himself with transformed into something more forceful, more belligerent. In that moment, it was almost like he was someone else. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

  The sentry blinked at him in confusion. “Are you all right in the head, boy?”

  A cold grimace spread over Luca’s face, and that sense of wrongness grew. Luca wasn’t like this. I’d seen him earnest and passionate, frustrated and angry—but he always ran hot, not cold.

  “No thanks to you,” Luca said. “The House of Aeneas has this situation under control, and you are interfering with our work.”

  I heard the words, but I couldn’t make them mean anything to me. There was this faint buzzing in the back of my mind, the feeling that this couldn’t be real.

  A flicker of uncertainty passed over the sentry’s features. “You aren’t a legend,” he said.

  But it made sense. With a dawning sense of horror, I realized just how much sense it made.

  Luca’s insistence that the House of Aeneas wasn’t responsible, the reckless stuff he was willing to pull. The stories of legends living in human communities for years without being discovered. The suspicions our local legends had about Dr. Berti.

  Sending someone to spy on my mentor and find out if their suspicions were founded? A completely logical move. And not even that hard. We cycled through people holding Luca’s current position regularly. He just had to wait for a job opening, and be willing to go outside of the safety zone.

  “Don’t annoy me,” Luca said, sounding like a stranger. “I am Lucius of Aeneas’ lineage, and our House will demand restitution for a number of things. The instigation of conflict between the legends and humans, for one. Interfering with our own work, for another. And, of course, endangering the life of an heir to the House, with that ridiculous chimera rampage. Imagine the consequences should I not return after coming to Tivoli.”

  And just like that, any lingering sense of denial either I or the sentry had harbored evolved into resignation.

  The Herculean man clenched his jaw. “All right. No disrespect meant. We were not informed of your plans, so we can’t be held accountable for that. But we certainly don’t want the problems your death would bring. I apologize for exposing your identity to one of your targets.”

  Meaning me. The mention of myself in the conversation jolted me back into reality. Sure, Luca was apparently some kind of legend spy, and this was my first exposure to that secret. But I was still in danger from this man from the House of Hercules. And Luca—he’d just shifted from an ally to a total unknown.

  “As for restitution,” the sentry continued, with a newfound hopefulness in his tone. “I can start with that now. The House of Hercules will take care of the girl for you. You go back to your human group, tell them you couldn’t save her, and we’ll make sure she never manages to reveal what she knows. That way, your own personal mission remains concealed, and we can coordinate from there. We’ll do this favor for you. Tell your House that.”

  I tensed, suddenly very aware that I still had a gun in my hand. The gun Luca—Lucius—had handed me before he’d known he would blow his cover. Firing it would be faster than throwing a rock. Even with someone preternaturally strong doing the throwing.

  “I think you’ve interfered enough with my mission,” Luca informed him dispassionately. “I’ll handle this myself.”

  “But why?” the sentry asked, with earnest surprise. “I can make sure she’s dead as easily as you can.”

  With my death the subject of discussion, and the man’s attention laser-focused on Luca, I didn’t think. I lifted my arm and pulled the trigger.

  GUNFIRE ECHOED ACROSS the space, loud and powerful. The pegasus reared and flew off, while the bulky figure of the Herculean sentry toppled off its back. I was frozen in the moment I’d shot him, barely daring to breathe. Afraid it wasn’t over, and just as afraid that it was.

  I’d never shot an actual person before. Targets, yes. The ground, so I could use the sound to scare away potentially dangerous animals. Even the chimera’s death had been a first for me, and I hadn’t been happy about that, either.

  And now I’d shot a person.

  Luca didn’t hesitate. While I stood, shocked at what I’d done, he rushed at the fallen man. Pulling out a knife as he lunged towards the body, he made sure the sentry was dead.

  With a shaky breath, I grabbed the gun with my other arm, so I was holding it in a solid, two-handed grip. I aimed the weapon resolutely at the ground, because no matter how tempting it was to point the weapon at a potential threat, this was Luca for God’s sake—and I’d had it drilled into me never to point a gun at someone I wasn’t ready to kill.

  Oh hell, Luca was a spy for the House of Aeneas. What wa
s I supposed to do?

  I hadn’t known he’d had it in him to kill anyone, but the unflinching way he’d sunk his knife into the sentry’s body put paid to that. Apparently, he didn’t want to expose himself to the House of Hercules any more than he did to us. A part of me was disturbed, though it wasn’t like I had any room to judge. I’d shot the sentry without any regard as to whether or not he’d survive.

  Still, I wasn’t entirely sure what Luca would do anymore. Why not cut his losses and make sure I couldn’t tell anyone what he was? I didn’t want to believe he would, but I didn’t want to believe a lot of things. Like that he was a legend, and had been spying on us the whole time. I’d as much as told him myself that Dr. Berti planned on circumventing the legends. Then to top that off, I had to go exposing the Remus, too.

  Damn it, where did Luca stand in all of this? He helped us get away from the chimera, but he’d been trapped in there too. He’d been at as much risk as any of us, thanks to his cover. The assassination attempt wasn’t his House’s doing, so he must have wanted to find out who was responsible as much as we did. But that was before he learned about Dr. Berti’s plans.

  He’d still come here, for me and Tony. To get us out. What could he possibly have to gain from that? He knew who was responsible. The House of Hercules had already been exposed, by that point—but the taint of suspicion might still fall on other Houses. Did he want to be the guy to save us, giving legends some credibility?

  No, that didn’t make sense. If he wanted that, he’d have sent someone who wasn’t undercover to help us. I didn’t know. I absolutely didn’t know.

  Luca remained crouched by the body. “Jordan,” he said, a twinge of self-deprecation in his voice. “I did ask you to let me explain, after. I can’t do that if you shoot me.”

  “I’m not even pointing the gun at you,” I said, the words just barely loud enough to reach him.