Terrestrial Magic (Jordan Sanders, #1)

by Marina Ermakova

  I resisted the urge to sigh. More of this ‘we’ business? When had these people decided they wanted to be some kind of special ops?

  “We’re not going to Tivoli, right?” Carter asked.

  Tony snorted and Luca shook his head. Agreed. No way.

  “Then what?”

  There was an obvious solution right in front of me. “A pretext of a diplomatic meeting. Make it seem like we’re trying to talk our way out of this.”

  “What if he has the same idea?” Hayley countered.

  Luca crossed his arms over his chest. “Then we’ll be ready for him. It’s not a bad plan. The Houses in central Italy don’t usually take the dangers of firearms into account, because we don’t often come into contact with them.” He paused. “And if it comes down to it, I might be able to take him.”

  “How?” Carter scoffed. “You don’t have enough magic backing you up to make a difference against someone like the Hercules.”

  Wow, this whole ‘Luca is a legend’ thing was really throwing Carter off-balance.

  A flicker of annoyance passed over Luca’s features. “Look, the House of Aeneas is a martial house. You’re physically strong, I get it. If one of us had to scale a cliff, you’d out-climb me any day. But I’m trained for combat, even without the help of any powers. You’re not.”

  I frowned at Luca. He’d misread Carter, who definitely wasn’t proposing to take his place in fighting the Hercules. But Carter threw his hands up, refusing to deal with this.

  And we had a plan of action, which put us in the middle of everything. Berti was bound to be happy. She and I apparently both had some serious control issues. I suddenly wondered if our similarities were why we’d never gotten along. If she couldn’t connect with me because I reminded her too much of her own weaknesses.

  I pushed that uncomfortable thought aside, focusing on our plan to draw out the Hercules. He would take the bait, I had no doubt. The real question was how the House of Hercules as a whole would follow up.

  LEANING OVER THE BALCONY in the Aventine’s main gathering area, the drop before me illuminated by the light of the setting sun, I decided it wasn’t such a long way down after all. A shadow fell over me, as the Remus settled nearby.

  “It is done,” he said. “Simonetta has scheduled this fake diplomatic meeting. You have a few days to ready yourselves.” He hesitated. “Are you ready?”

  Was I ready to put the problem of the Hercules behind me, once and for all? Oh, yes. “This needs doing.”

  The Remus let out a long, weary sigh. “I had hoped things would settle more peacefully than this. But I suppose this must happen.”

  He pushed off against the wall, took half a step away from me, then stopped. A shuffle from behind me had me turning around, to find Jessie had appeared again. She sent me a quick wink, before turning her attention to her uncle.

  “Just wanted to say I wouldn’t be around here for a little while,” Jessie said.

  The Remus grunted with disapproval. “You wish to do this now? With all of this happening? Do not be ridiculous.”

  “It’s just a few days...”

  “That is not what I mean and you know it.”

  Whatever it was Jessie was supposed to know, I didn’t. Which meant this was a personal conversation. Normally, I’d take this as a cue to leave, giving them privacy for their family thing. But the two of them had me boxed into the corner of the balcony, and I’d have to shove through one or both of them to get out. That was too awkward even for me.

  Maybe I’d just stand there quietly and pretend not to hear them? It wasn’t like I had another choice.

  “I’m breaking up with him,” Jessie snapped. “Okay?”

  Yep, I definitely shouldn’t be here for this. The sudden wave of embarrassment I felt at witnessing Jessie’s proclamation almost had me contemplating the merits of jumping over the wall, and plummeting off the cliff.

  The Remus paused. “Well, I suppose that much is reasonable. I am sorry that this is affecting your personal life.”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  The Remus turned to me, an apologetic smile on his face. “I apologize for discussing things you do not know about in front of you. It is unfortunate, but prior to everything that had happened, Jessie found herself a boyfriend from the House of Hercules.”

  She did what?

  I turned to her. “Your boyfriend,” I repeated flatly. “In the House of Hercules.”

  An uncomfortable feeling settled over me. Maybe I was being paranoid, but someone had blocked the cellular signal while we were trapped with the chimera. Someone who’d known about the House of Hercules’ plan.

  “We told her it was a bad idea,” the Remus continued, oblivious. “And it appears we were very much right.”

  “You don’t say,” I repeated, still staring at Jessie.

  Who wouldn’t meet my eyes, shifting her gaze downward. Like she had something to hide. Shit, maybe I wasn’t just being paranoid.

  “Is something wrong?” the Remus asked, looking between me and her.

  I couldn’t risk accusing her too quickly, but she was already making herself seem suspicious. All she had to do was shrug it off, act natural, and I’d never be able to prove anything. Certainly not to the Remus. He liked me, but she was family.

  Yet she wasn’t doing that. She stayed conspicuously silent, as the Remus’ frown grew more pronounced.

  I took a moment to clear any trace of accusation out of my voice, before speaking again. “Hey, by the way,” I started. “Just what happened to you, when Luca, Hayley, and Carter went after us in Tivoli?”

  A hint of uncertainty emerged behind the Remus’ eyes. “What do you mean? Jessie was part of the reason you got out of that place, yes?”

  “I made sure we’d arrive at a good time,” Jessie rushed in, speaking before I could. “When they weren’t being watched well. They didn’t need me to do too much of the physical work, they just fetched Jordan and Tony. That was it.”

  “Actually,” I cut in. “Luca and I didn’t want to upset anyone, but we had trouble getting away, towards the end. He nearly died. Someone else did die.”

  “I do not understand,” the Remus said, his attention locked onto his niece. “Where were you?”

  Jessie didn’t say anything at all.

  “Meeting your boyfriend?” I suggested.

  This time, her silence was damning.

  But I couldn’t leave it there. It had to be spelled out. “When the House of Hercules tried to kill us that first time, with the chimera, we couldn’t use our phones to call for help. Someone jammed the signal. It couldn’t have been them. They didn’t know enough about technology.”

  Even now, all she had to do was deny it, and the Remus would believe her. So she’d snuck off to meet her boyfriend when she was supposed to be protecting us, so what? That didn’t mean she’d tried to kill us the first time. But instead of putting up a plausible front, she froze up. She didn’t say a thing to deny it. And that was as good of a response as any.

  “Jessie?” the Remus asked quietly. Desperately.

  “You were working too slowly,” she told him. “I don’t want to be trapped here any longer, while you take your time pretending you’re going to do something. The fastest way for us to openly join with Rome’s society was for the other legends to threaten the humans. And for us to back the Romans up.”

  And there it was, out in the open. A confession. I’d already guessed, but my heart sank at the confirmation anyway. I’d liked her. I’d liked her, and she’d tried to kill us.

  “Why did you bother blocking the signal?” I asked her, suddenly tired. “All that did was cover their tracks. If you wanted to start something, you should have wanted everyone to know that it wasn’t an accident.”

  “Please,” she scoffed. “It would have been exactly as bad as it is now, with people clamoring to get back at the legends. Except the House of Remus wouldn’t have had the protection we have now, from helping you. And no one woul
d have known which legends were responsible, so any of us would have been fair game. We’re too close to Rome to risk that.

  “It needed to happen slower. The humans needed to start aggravating the legends by being aggressive. And if you’d all died out in the field, killed by legimals, people would have changed tactics. They would have started exterminating the dangerous legimals in the vicinity. Moving their territory further. Exactly like we’d wanted, but without all these pointless negotiations and politics. And maybe, some of the Houses would have eventually taken it as a threat, and started a war. But by then, the House of Remus could have easily stayed out of it.”

  So that was it. It was cold, brutal logic. And not even accurate logic. How was I always so wrong about people?

  “You will not go see him,” the Remus said. “You are confined to the Aventine for the time being.”

  She just shrugged and walked away, unconcerned. And why should she be? She’d gotten what she wanted. The lines were drawn with the House of Remus firmly on the human side. She was on the way to getting her wish, for a society where her House fit with the human communities.

  In exchange, her uncle had grounded her. And who knew how long that would last? She’d been part of the attempt to kill me and my team. And no one cared.

  No one, except us.

  I TOLD THE OTHERS ABOUT Jessie. The silence that followed told me no one had seen it coming.

  Tony shook his head. “She’d seemed—” He stopped talking abruptly, before shaking his head again.

  Carter hunched back in his chair. “But she’d helped us. Twice.”

  “Maybe,” Hayley said, with a soft coldness. “But only when she was ordered to by the Remus. And only when it didn’t interfere with her plans.”

  “She was pretty cool, you know?” Carter glanced towards Hayley, then me. I wasn’t surprised that he’d liked her too, what with the way she wantonly showed up when danger was afoot.

  I gave him a slight smile. “I know.”

  “I understand that this is upsetting,” Luca said, “but Jessie can’t be our priority right now.”

  “We can’t just let her get away with that,” Hayley protested. “Those were our communication systems she messed with, you know. Yours and mine, Luca. That’s vandalism!”

  He regarded her dubiously. “It’s considerably worse than vandalism, but sure, let’s go with that.”

  “Is this really the time to be worried about her?” Tony asked. “Jessie isn’t an imminent threat anymore, now that the Remus knows about her. The Hercules and what he might do are still the bigger problem.”

  I understood what Hayley was saying—if not the particular detail she’d chosen to highlight—but I had to agree with Tony and Luca on this one. It sucked that Jessie had done this, and I’d liked her too. She’d betrayed us. But we had other concerns, other enemies, to worry about first. I still had to take care of a man who’d had me walk into a room covered in blood, then served bloody red meat at the dinner table, for one. I was angry about Jessie, and I would deal with that at some point. But taking care of the Hercules was an imperative need.

  He was the cause of my nightmares. He was the reason I’d killed someone. He was still so very dangerous.

  I turned to my best friend, and gave her the best sympathetic look I could muster. “I say we focus on the Hercules for now.”

  Hayley met my eyes and nodded, seeming oddly pleased. “For now,” she repeated.

  The House of Hercules replied in kind to our missive, expressing an interest in avoiding further conflict. They weren’t any more sincere than we were, of course. They were the ones who threatened war in the first place. Whatever they wanted to happen at this meeting wouldn’t be good for us.

  But they wouldn’t expect us to give them trouble. Nothing I’d heard about the House of Hercules, or that I’d experienced in Tivoli, made me think they’d imagine us attacking them. They were stronger and more powerful. And they knew it, knew we were scared of them. That was the point of the room, after all, wasn’t it? To make sure we’d be too scared to mess with them. If they’d been the type of people to take us seriously, Tony and I might not have escaped.

  The reality of what we were doing sunk in, and for a moment, I was overcome by doubt. What was I doing? I was going out of my way to make trouble, instead of ducking my head and getting away from the conflict. Why couldn’t I just leave it all alone, and go home, stay in the safety zone for a while? No more danger, while this mess sorted itself out. For that one moment, I wanted to walk away from it all.

  I don’t know what Luca saw in my expression, but he certainly saw something. “Jordan,” he said, with a sudden intent. “If you want to handle the House of Hercules differently—”

  “No,” I responded, cutting him off. What was he even saying? There wasn’t another way. It was tempting to be safe. But not as tempting as it was to get even.

  “Are you sure?” Luca tried again.

  And the moment was gone. The doubt was gone. That ball of anger growing inside of me since we’d escaped Tivoli churned, and I felt the full force of it. We were coming for the Hercules. And he was going to have all of that arrogance, all that abuse of his strength, turned back on him.

  “Of course I’m sure,” I said, tossing a scornful glance Luca’s way.

  He held my gaze for another second, before his face fell. He nodded and looking away. Clearly, he wasn’t happy, but so what? None of us were happy with any of this. I wasn’t happy with anything that’d happened since we hit that invisible wall. Sitting this out was a great fantasy, but a not-so-great reality.

  I was so furious, I knew it was affecting my judgment. It had to be. And I didn’t care. I hated feeling like this, and I’d make it stop somehow. I had gone out of the safety zone more times than I could count. I’d had a few close encounters with dangerous animals. But I had never felt the way I did in Tivoli before. And if I had it my way, I never would again.

  Luca didn't like it, clearly. Luca could deal.

  I had a legend to take down.

  Chapter Nineteen

  WE AGREED TO MEET THE Hercules in a neutral location, somewhere between Rome and Tivoli. The place was just off the highway—presumably so we could make a quick getaway by car if necessary, instead of having to deal with back streets or whatnot. We approached a cluster of buildings colored in warm yellows and oranges, out in the open where they could easily be spotted from the back of a flying horse.

  And where said flying horse would easily be spotted as it approached.

  I surveyed the area, trying to catch a glimpse of the snipers who’d been positioned for our protection. It was probably a good thing that I couldn’t spot them, but it also left this tiny doubt in the back of my mind that they were really there. Trying to shake off that irrational bit of uncertainty, I followed my team inside, where we’d meet with the Hercules.

  Picking a neutral location meant this place was unmaintained, abandoned. So it wasn’t a surprise that we found a relatively bare interior, lit only by the natural light streaming in through several windows. A recently cleaned table stood in the center, surrounded by plain chairs. Yet a thick layer of dust lay over any hard-to-reach spots in the room. Tony sneezed a few times, and even Carter looked askance at the dust bunnies. But Berti sauntered in with her head held high, the tap of her cane echoing against the floor.

  Alright, then. As long as the building wasn’t going to collapse on our heads, that was the important thing.

  It wasn’t long before we heard the flap of wings and the strike of hooves against the concrete. My heart rate picked up as I strained to hear footsteps approaching the door, trying to contain the sudden urge to panic.

  This was it. This was really it, and there was no turning back.

  The door creaked open to reveal the Hercules, his frame large enough that he ducked to enter. My eyes immediately fell on his cloak, long enough that part of it trailed on the ground behind him. Its two flaps draped over his chest, the shape of the
fabric resembling paws. The top of his hood—disturbingly enough—was made up of a feline face.

  Something about it tugged at my memory, something from the old stories. And then I remembered.

  That was the moment I realized it’d all gone wrong, right from the very start. And it was my fault. I’d put us in this position, knowing it was risky. Because I was so angry, so driven to do something. So eager to prove I wasn’t helpless, to show that I could make the Hercules pay.

  Then he walked in wearing what could only be the skin of a lion—and not just any lion. Sure, the Houses didn’t exactly disclose their inventory of magical items to the public. But the stories of Hercules’ labors were common knowledge. And this matched the description perfectly.

  Carter leaned closer, so he could whisper. “Is that...?” he asked me.

  “Probably,” I said, voice tight.

  The skin of the Nemean lion, supposedly impenetrable. The original Hercules had defeated the animal by strangling it with his bare hands. Only after it was dead, did he skin it so he could wear its fur.

  We’d brought guns and bullets to kill the current Hercules with. Bullets which might not be enough, if he was wearing that.

  Berti didn’t miss a beat. “Hercules, please. The lion’s skin? To a diplomatic meeting?”

  “You will have to forgive me,” he replied. “But though I will deny it officially, your students have already killed one of my own. And I see they are armed with those shooting contraptions. Should things go well, we may all disarm and shake hands. But first, let us make things go well.”

  I barely heard his words, my mind still reeling at this new line of defense my enemy suddenly had. I’d assumed his House wouldn’t learn from their mistakes, because they’d underestimated us before. I’d thought of the House of Hercules as this consistent, non-changing entity. But they had learned, and they’d reassessed their approach after our escape.

  Why had I been so sure they wouldn’t change? Why did I bring my team here without a better backup plan? How the hell had anyone let me go through with this?