by Anna Windsor
“I don’t get it.” Andy dug her fingers into the edge of the mattress, feeling the soft cotton of the spread giving beneath her stabbing nails. “You’re always bitching because I don’t spend enough time at Motherhouse Kérkira, and now you’re telling me not to come hang out for a few days?”
“To hide? No.” Elana patted Andy’s knee. “And even if you intended to renew yourself and plot some deranged assault on Motherhouse Greece, Kérkira is not a restful place for you, any more than this brownstone or anywhere else in your life. These places won’t offer you the soothing you seek.”
Andy briefly wondered how Bela, who had never been happy at Motherhouse Russia, would find any solace there. And Camille—she hated Motherhouse Ireland, but that’s where she had gone. Motherhouses might not be ideal sanctuaries, but they served as second homes for Sibyls, so Andy supposed her quad would be as happy in those spaces as any, especially since Motherhouse Russia and Motherhouse Ireland had no Dio-shaped holes in the fabric of their energy. There was slim to no chance that the other Mothers would gainsay what Motherhouse Greece had decided, Andy knew that—but maybe Bela and Camille would be persuasive. Maybe somebody would have an idea they hadn’t considered.
So why do I keep feeling like it’s me who’s supposed to fix this?
“Where am I supposed to go?” she murmured, but Elana didn’t answer. Motherhouse Greece popped into Andy’s mind, but she didn’t think she could take on all the Greek Mothers by herself.
“You should go to the place where you’re most at home,” Elana said, sounding way too confident that such a place existed.
All Andy could do was stare at the old woman. “That’s nowhere. I don’t have a home like everybody else. Not since my life became so changed.”
“Home may not be a physical location for you.” Elana’s smile had a softness to it that probably saved her from a lot of cursing and screaming. “Not now, anyway. Home may be a person.”
Andy stopped looking at Elana and studied her boring ceiling instead. “You’re not even bothering to be cryptic now.”
“Why aren’t you with him right now, when you need him more than ever?” Such a simple question, and so hard to hear without bursting into tears. “Are you angry with him?”
“No. Yes. A little.” Andy sighed. “I acted like a bitch to him earlier because I just couldn’t stand to feel another thing, especially when I’m confused about my own emotions. My flow’s all … crooked.”
Elana kept one hand on Andy’s knee, and the contact seemed like the only thing holding her on the planet. “Then I suggest you start by straightening yourself out before you try anything else. Your course of action from there should become clear.”
“That doesn’t solve the problem of me being such an ass to him when we got back from Greece.”
“I imagine he feels that was his fault, and that he deserved it. From what I’ve seen of him, he’s as good at taking responsibility for the actions of the entire universe as you are.”
Andy brought her full attention back to Elana. “Wait a minute. You keep telling me I am responsible for whatever happens in the universe.”
“For your part of it, yes.” Elana took her hand off Andy’s knee and shrugged. “But don’t take me so literally.”
Andy couldn’t help glaring at the old woman even though she knew Elana couldn’t see her doing it. “I might have to kill you one day.”
The smile she got for that threat had absolutely no softness at all—more like hungry amusement, or worse yet, carnivorous glee.
“You’re welcome to try,” Elana said, and she never stopped smiling.
Less than an hour after Elana left, Andy had taken a shower, pulled on a pair of jeans and her favorite yellow blouse, tied her hair back, and asked one of the patrols outside the brownstone to give her a lift to the townhouse. The other car stayed behind to loop the block and keep an eye on things. A few times on the drive, Andy thought she had a sense of … something. Some sort of energy making contact with her. She touched her iron crescent moon pendant and let her senses expand, but no images came to her, and no sense of any real intrusion or attempt to overcome the charm’s protective capacity. Only her own quad could track her as long as she was wearing her necklace, at least as far as she understood Camille’s explanation of how the protections worked.
She realized she was probably picking up the building tension in the city, the ramping up for war between crime families and the agitation in the paranormal communities because of the strange murders, or maybe even the presence of the Host. Word got around, no matter how tightly the OCU tried to control information. If they really did have a leak in the ranks, who knew what stories had already hit the streets.
The two OCU officers who had driven her to the townhouse parked their car in one of OCU’s reserved curbside slots. They walked with Andy through the gate and up one of the two staircases that carried through the big white columns that marked the building’s entrance. She glanced up at the American eagle stamped in bronze across the stones directly over the door. The bird was still hanging around, wings outstretched as usual, gleaming in the afternoon sun
At least one thing still seemed normal in the world.
She pushed open the door, and almost instantly she heard Neala’s eager “Aaaandy!” ring across the polished herringbone hardwood floors that covered most of the downstairs. A puff of smoke barely preceded the little girl hurling herself into Andy’s outstretched arms.
Make that two things normal in the world. She gave Neala a big hug and carried her forward, into the big main entry room of the townhouse, where she could see all the halls leading off to the different sections of the ground floor. Maybe if she kept paying attention, she’d find even more—like the harried look on the face of the young fire Sibyl adept who was trying to work on Neala’s training. The young girl, probably little more than twenty years old, had brown hair and matching eyes, and Andy wouldn’t have been surprised if she already had a few gray hairs thanks to Neala’s wicked intelligence and stubborn insistence on having her own way.
“Battle now?” Neala asked, but before Andy could answer, she saw Jack and Saul Brent wrestling a handcuffed OCU officer down the nearest hallway toward one of the interrogation rooms. The guy was struggling pretty hard, and the patrol officers with Andy went to lend a hand.
“No, honey. Not today.” Andy hugged Neala one more time, grateful for yet another dose of normalcy. Then she glanced at the adept, her heart beating like it used to when puzzle pieces to a case started snapping together. “Did Jack and Saul just catch the leak in the OCU?”
The adept gave her a clueless shrug and apologized. She must have just arrived from Motherhouse Ireland for today’s tutoring session, and she probably had no idea what was happening in New York City.
“Battle?” Neala asked again, drawing Andy’s focus back to her pert, freckled face and her pouty frown. Smoke drifted away from both of her little shoulders as Andy set her on her feet. “Pretty, pretty, pretty please?”
Andy glanced down the hallway toward the interrogation room. “Sorry. Like I said, I can’t today.”
“Ethan’s gone with Uncle Creed. Mom’s gone. We can have fun. Please?” Neala was getting cranked up, but she wasn’t over the top yet.
Andy hated to disappoint her, but she just didn’t have the energy or patience. “No, Neala. I have too much to do this afternoon. It’ll have to be some other time.”
“You actually do have lessons, you know.” The adept sounded frustrated, but also like she intended to be kind and permissive if Neala didn’t try her too awfully much.
Good luck with that, Andy thought.
“Boring.” Neala pulled away from the adept’s grip and flounced off through the main hallway. The adept had to run to keep pace with her, and the smoke in the air got a lot thicker before the two of them headed downstairs toward the gym.
Andy started for the interrogation room, then thought better of it. The friction between her and Jack mig
ht disrupt what he was doing, and if that officer was their leak, Jack needed all his concentration and attention to do his job. It would be better if she waited for him in his office. She reversed course just about the time the interrogation room door opened and Saul Brent came jogging out, ponytail bouncing with each step and his T-shirt and flexed biceps revealing rows of tattoos.
Saul sent an officer up the stairs, obviously with information to hand over to the Sibyl running the communications platform today—OCU’s version of Sibyl dispatch. Then Saul headed for the main dispatch room near Jack’s office, and Andy followed him and listened as he and the dispatcher worked out changes in patrol routes and groups, fast and efficient, and communicated them to OCU officers out in the field.
When Saul finished, he spied Andy and gave her a smile, but the expression didn’t hide the simmering anger Andy didn’t have to be psychic to sense. Saul gestured toward the interrogation room. “Little bastard’s name is Simmons. We narrowed a list of possible suspects, then set them up with some false intel that gave him away—but not before he handed the Coven our schedule for the rest of the week. We just shook stuff up to keep everybody safe.”
“Simmons.” Andy didn’t even think she knew the guy, which felt weird. Once upon a time the OCU had been so small and close-knit she knew everybody’s birthday, social security number, and identifying marks. “How did he get compromised? Or more importantly, why did he sell out? Was it money?”
Saul leaned against the dispatch room door. “Not money this time. Power. He has some low-level elemental talent. From what we got so far, Simmons was part of your OCU SWAT team on the Seneca stock-trading raid. The Coven apparently breached the basement to do their own operation on Seneca and his thugs, realized we were there, and took off—but not before Griffen picked up Simmons’s elemental skills. He approached Simmons later and offered to train him to reach his ‘real potential’ and ‘full power’ and made out like Simmons would be superstrong and all that bullshit assholes like Griffen use to beef up a stooge. Griffen told Simmons he’d help him in exchange for a little information, of course.”
“Of course.” Andy took this in, feeling cool blasts of surprise and the sensation of eddies of water beginning to swirl together into one big, clear pool.
If we hadn’t done that stock-trading raid, Griffen might never have noticed this Simmons guy. Then the next raid on Griffen’s HQ wouldn’t have been compromised, and Dio—
Andy swallowed hard and broke off that thought before it killed her. “I’ve been telling the OCU since I got changed into a Sibyl by that little freak Legion flunkey that we need to screen OCU officers for elemental talents. We need to train the ones with paranormal abilities ourselves, because if we don’t, our enemies will.”
“We’ve got to get a plan together for that and get it implemented. Yesterday.” Saul pushed himself free of the dispatch door and pointed down the hall. “Want to help us with Simmons? The guy would probably tell you just about anything to get Jack out of his face.”
Andy’s muscles twitched and her feet actually started to move before she got hold of herself and gave Saul a thumbs-down. “Thought about it, but I should sit this one out.”
Saul’s expression told Andy he thought she was blaming Simmons for Dio’s injury. That was fine with her. If she got face-to-face with the bastard, she couldn’t promise she wouldn’t want to beat the hell out of him, or take his arm just so he’d know in real, living color what he’d done to someone else.
“I’ll wait in Jack’s office,” she said. “When you’re finished, let him know that I’m here.”
“Okay.” This time, Saul looked surprised, which confused Andy. Jack had never acted like he shared much of his personal life, even with his friends, so the fact that Saul might already know they had a sort-of fight perplexed her.
But … she supposed if Jack opened up to anyone, it would be Saul, or maybe John or Duncan.
“Later,” Saul said.
Andy watched as he jogged toward the interrogation room, wondering how upset Jack had been when he got back to the townhouse. Guilt tugged at her insides as she headed into his office—and stopped cold in the doorway.
“What … the … fuck.” Her accent sounded double-thick as her words seemed to echo through the cleaned-up, boxed-up space.
All of Jack’s shit was in boxes. He was packed.
He’s just changing offices again, the nicer part of Andy’s mind tried to tell her, but she ignored that optimistic voice because she knew it wasn’t true. He was gearing up to get out of New York City, and by the looks of this office, he’d been working on that a lot longer than the short span of time since he left the brownstone.
He’d come back from Motherhouse Russia without saying a word to her, and he’d started getting his crap in order. Probably already had the transfer arranged. So, what—he was just going to let her show up at some point in the future and find him gone?
Her face felt so hot she wondered if she could channel fire and burn something down. “The asshole’s running out on me.”
The one thing she had asked him to do was tell her if he got ready to run. Didn’t he promise he would? Just a little notification.
Fuck.
Who was she kidding?
This felt like a huge betrayal. She’d thought they were closer than this. He’d told her he loved her. She’d told him the same thing. The time for running should have been long past over, unless—
Unless he didn’t love her like she loved him.
The heat on Andy’s face moved all over her body, and two seconds later she started to drip from her elbows and knees. Sprinkler heads started rattling, and the water main to the townhouse gave a low, stressed groan.
Christ. Reality sucks.
Andy didn’t know whether to cry or wash away the wing of headquarters where Jack was questioning Simmons. Smoke drifted through the door of Jack’s office, but Andy ignored it. She had to get the hell out of here. Screw Elana. She’d go to Kérkira for a while. She had to go somewhere. It was way friggin’ obvious she had no home here, not with this man.
And I thought …
The emptiness opening inside her hurt too much to bear.
She turned around and walked fast out down the hall, then through a thick cloud of smoke in the main entry room and an even thicker cloud of smoke by the front doors. She was all the way down the steps, out of the gate, and half a block away from the place before she took another breath, before the tears started falling and her head started aching and shit, but she was drawing way too much water in her wake.
She stopped on a small side street and turned to send some of the rushing stream of water back to where it came from, and she thought she saw a movement at the building’s corner.
Andy frowned. Squinted. Saw nothing. Sensed nothing. She walked straight back to the exact spot where she thought she’d seen the flicker of motion, but all she saw was pedestrians trundling past on their way to wherever.
At least the mistake distracted her from crying like an idiot and making impromptu rivers—but her head pounded and her heart ached, and she wanted to get back to the brownstone in the worst way.
Running seemed like a good idea, but she hadn’t gone ten steps when she heard running steps behind her.
This time she whipped around without even slowing—and she definitely caught a quick blur of movement. Something ducking, pushing through a tall wooden gate into a private alley.
She had her SIG and her dart pistol, one in each ankle holster, and she drew them both before sprinting straight to the alley.
The gate’s latch was locked from the inside.
“Whoever you are,” she shouted, “whatever you are, you picked the wrong day to fuck with me.”
She kicked the wooden gate with all of her stored anger and sadness, and sharp pains ricocheted up her leg. The wood splintered and gave. So did at least one of her toes, but Andy didn’t care. She ground her teeth and used her sneaker to shove the gate open hard,
intending to smash anybody hiding behind it. The wooden panel banged against the fence and tore loose from its top hinge as Andy plunged into the alley. A tiny figure tried to leap away from her into the shadows, but Andy tracked it easily, grabbed it, brought both weapons to bear—
Dead center on Neala’s little freckled nose.
“Shit!” Andy jerked the weapons skyward as Neala let off a giant puff of smoke and set the broken gate on fire.
“I just wanted battle,” the little girl wailed as Andy jammed her weapons into their holsters, then dropped to her knees in front of Neala. “Play at your house?”
“I had no idea you followed me. That was so dangerous!” Andy grabbed Neala and hugged her tight. “Your mother’s going to kill us both, you know that, right? Where’s your tutor from Motherhouse Ireland? You didn’t hurt her or lock her up in some closet, did you?”
Neala pulled back and started to answer, but her eyes went wide and her mouth came open, and little flames coursed all across her shoulders and arms.
Dread spiked into Andy like so many knives.
She yanked Neala to her again, but before she could turn to see what was behind them, something sharp jabbed into her arm and burned like hell.
“Wha—” Andy tried to ask, doing all she could to keep hold of Neala.
She never finished the word before she hit the pavement.
Simmons looked like a six-foot sniveling weasel with a black crew cut.
Jack hated weasels.
He really wanted to kill this quivering animal, but he couldn’t let himself beat a man chained to a chair no matter how much damage the fucker had caused.
The whole room smelled like sweat, and Simmons had buckets pouring off his forehead.
“Want me to unhook you?” Jack asked, trying to sound polite.
“No.” The asshole’s answer came out too fast.
“Too bad.” Jack leaned forward and folded his arms on the small stretch of table separating him from this jerk he wanted to choke so badly his fingers ached. “Tell me what else we need to know before I go get some Sibyls, and maybe an Astaroth or a Curson.”
