by Ella Summers
“No, I didn’t know, but now, looking back, I’m not surprised that she’s special. He had a way of leading me to special children.”
“He?”
“Never mind.”
“The time for secrets between us is over,” I told her.
“We’re family. From now on, only the truth,” agreed Bella.
“Ok,” said Calli. “A long time ago, I had a friend. Every so often, he sent jobs my way. He was the one who sent me to the orphanage where I found you, Bella. And because he warned me not to take a job, I was home when Zane’s mother stopped by and begged me to take him in. He hooked me up with the treasure-hunting gig that led me to Tessa and Gin. I don’t know how, but he always manipulated things so that I found my children. One of his jobs led me to you, Leda, on the streets of Purgatory.”
I mulled that over.
“I’ve always known my children are all special, but I didn’t know how,” Calli said. “Zane a telepath. Bella the granddaughter of the Dark Lord of Witchcraft. Tessa and Gin so special that people were going to war over them back when they were only four years old.”
“And me?” I asked her.
“I don’t know, but you are special too. I’ve witnessed your potential firsthand, kid. Even when you were a child, I knew there was something special inside of you, just waiting to happen. The Legion has been good for you. You’re finally realizing your potential.”
I chuckled. “That was hard for you to admit, wasn’t it?”
Before going independent, Calli had worked for the League, the largest bounty hunter organization on Earth. The free spirits of the League weren’t overly fond of the Legion of Angels and their black-and-white world order.
“It’s not just about the Legion, Leda. I was afraid to let any of my children go. Because, as you know, danger befalls special people in this world. Trouble follows them. Evil is drawn to them. Monsters seek them out—of both the beastly and human variety,” she said. “Each of you has a great destiny, but great is a far cry from good. You are each meant for something special, something that will change the world. Something you might not survive.”
“Aren’t you being a tad melodramatic?”
“No. I was afraid for you when you joined the Legion, Leda. And then it turned out that my fears were realized, that someone had manipulated you into joining.”
“It all started with Zane’s abduction,” said Bella. “That was the beginning of the journey for each of us. For Zane. For you, Leda. For me. And for Gin and Tessa. It all snowballed from there.”
“Ever since I took you all in, I’ve wanted nothing more than to keep you safe. I swore to protect you in every way I could. And yet when Zane was taken, the hard, cold truth reared its ugly head: I am powerless to protect any of you. I can only watch as each of you is taken from me, one by one. As you’re each thrown into mortal danger. And now Gin and Tessa are gone too.”
Tears fell down Calli’s cheeks. She’d always been our mountain—so strong, so unmoving. It hurt to see her like this.
“Calli…” I choked up on the teardrops of my bleeding soul.
Bella added her tears to mine.
“Ok, enough of that now.” Calli wiped our tears away. “Legion soldiers are supposed to be tough, right?”
“Well, I guess I’m just a rebel.”
I wrapped one arm around Bella, the other around Calli, and drew them into a deep hug. Hugs had a magic unlike any other; potions healed the body, but it was hugs that had the power to heal the soul.
Finally, I pulled away, clearing my tight throat. “We will get Gin and Tessa back,” I promised, the conviction ringing in my voice as surely as in my heart. “We’ll find Zane too. And I’m not going anywhere. Honestly, Calli, I’m surprised at you. You should know better. You should know that I’m far too stubborn to die.”
Calli brushed her own tears away. “That’s true.”
Calming my emotions, I rubbed my red eyes. “And I never seek out trouble,” I added with a smirk.
Bella snorted.
“You’ve always told yourself that,” Calli chuckled.
“No, I always said it for your benefit,” I told her. “But since we’re all being honest now, I should rephrase: I only seek out trouble when absolutely necessary.”
“Which is why you’re dating an angel,” Bella said with a sweet smile.
“Actually, I only did that to freak out Mom.”
We both laughed.
“Ok, you comedians.” Calli’s eyes twinkled. “In all honesty, Leda, I’ve come to recognize that your angel gets you into less trouble than you get him into.”
I blinked. “Did Nero just get Calli’s stamp of approval?” I asked Bella.
“As close to it as he can get,” my sister replied.
“Great. I’ll have to tell him Calli loves him too. We can invite him to dinner after we rescue Gin and Tessa.”
“Just how did the Pioneers find out their magic was special?” Bella asked Calli.
“Hardwicke,” Calli said darkly. “I recognized him. He was there, fourteen years ago. Back then, he was a member of Hellfire’s war band that hunted Tessa and Gin through the jungle.”
19
Crossfire
I thought about Calli’s story the rest of the ride back to Chicago. My sisters had magic, something powerful enough that warlords had gone to war over it. Their magic was unlike anything this world had ever seen, Hardwicke had said. What did that even mean?
Back at the Legion building in Chicago, I found Jace in his sister’s office, sitting at her desk. He’d told me earlier that he was using it while she was away. His hair was disheveled, his eyes unsettled, constantly flickering from one point in the room to another. I’d never seen him look so stressed.
“Any news on Davenport?”
“No.” He bit out the word.
Jace thought it was my fault that Davenport had gotten away, but I hadn’t been lying when I’d told him there was no way I could have made it to the deserter. There had been too many soldiers. Even if my path had been clear, I’d never had made it all the way up the walls to him before he slipped away. He was too fast, and I couldn’t fly. I wondered how he’d gotten way up there so fast.
“We’ll find him,” I told Jace.
He rose to his feet. “I spoke to some of our Pioneer prisoners.”
There was no doubt as to what he meant by ‘spoke’. After all, he was the son of a Legion Interrogator.
“The deserter has disappeared without a trace,” Jace continued. “We can’t track him, and no one knows where he was going.”
“You’re not going after him,” I realized.
“No.” He didn’t look happy. He’d been tracking Davenport for months. Catching the deserter was important to him—and to Colonel Fireswift, who hated traitors even more than he hated me.
“The First Angel has decided that we have bigger fish to fry,” Jace said. “The Interrogators will question our prisoners to find out where the rest of the kidnapped teenagers are being held. Then we will free them.”
“But not before you destroy the Pioneers for daring to defy the gods.”
Save the prisoners and punish a whole ban of traitors all at once? Nyx was nothing if not efficient.
“That’s how things are done, Leda. All threats to the gods’ order must be obliterated. If criminals get away with defying the gods, then others see that. They will think the Legion is weak. More criminals will rise, swarms of them, too many to control. A plague of crime will consume the Earth. More innocent people will get hurt. I know your sisters are important to you, but they are just two people. Many more will suffer if we don’t put everything into stopping the Pioneers’ rebellion.”
He had a point. Centuries ago, when the world fell to the monsters, many people had turned on one another. Back then, it had been every man for himself. Crime rose as gangsters competed in the scramble to the top, battling one another to fill the power vacuum. That continued until the gods stepped in and br
ought back order. So as viciously merciless as the Legion could be, they were looking out for the greater good. Sometimes the greater good meant not making any single person important; it meant making the collective of people important.
I was all for serving the greater good—most of the time. But Gin and Tessa were not random numbers in a casualties-of-war spreadsheet. These were my sisters we were talking about. They were important to me. Very important. The Legion could make the Pioneers their priority, but I was making Tessa and Gin mine.
The thing was, if the Legion found out about my sisters’ magic, they would suddenly make them a priority too. That just wasn’t the sort of priority we wanted. If their magic was really so unique, the Legion would turn them over to the gods, who would use my sisters for their own purposes. People had gone to war over their magic; their powers surely weren’t something as innocuous as making the world’s best pizza.
In that way, Jace’s indifference toward my sisters was reassuring—because that meant the Legion didn’t know about their magic. As long as there were other kidnapped people still missing, my sisters blended into the crowd. They didn’t stand out as special. The Legion was more focused on people like the missing daughter of an angel. She was just a few months shy of her twenty-second birthday, when she could join the Legion and claim her magical legacy.
Jace met my gaze, his eyes hard. “I know that look.”
“What look?”
“That look of calculation in your eyes.”
“Oh?”
“It’s the same look you got just before you went off alone to rescue General Windstriker on the Black Plains during our first mission. It’s the look you get when you’re about to take matters into your own hands.”
I snorted. “That’s my default look. I always take matters into my own hands.”
“For once, let the Legion Interrogators do their job instead of going off your own reckless adventure,” he said, his voice almost pleading.
“Now what would be the fun in that?” I countered with a smirk.
“I’m serious, Leda.”
“Of course you are.”
A heavy sigh rocked his chest. “If you get yourself into trouble, I can’t protect you from my father’s wrath. I’ve already covered for you enough as it is.”
“What do you mean by ‘covered for you’?”
“My father wasn’t happy to learn that Hardwicke is dead. He would have been a valuable source of information.”
And that’s why Calli had killed him, so the Legion wouldn’t find out about Gin and Tessa—or how the Earth’s criminal underworld was going to war over their magic.
“I told him Hardwicke was killed in the crossfire,” Jace continued. “Because if he knew it was you, he would find a way to punish you.”
I didn’t doubt that. That’s why I’d said that I’d shot Hardwicke, to protect Calli from the Legion’s wrath. And now Jace was covering for me.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I told him.
A smile twisted his lips. “Sure I did. If my father killed you, he’d ruin our competition. And I want to see the look on your face when I get my wings first.”
“Keep on smiling, Fireswift. You’ll need these happy memories to make it through the day when I win.”
“Oh, really? From where I’m standing, I’ve already won.”
“Then you must be standing on your head, doofus.”
“Watch your mouth, Lieutenant,” he snapped, but a hint of amusement tainted his sharp rebuttal.
I drew my mouth into a smile. I could tell from his shaking shoulders, Jace was trying really hard not to laugh.
“Have you ever considered that I’m just letting you think you’re winning?” I asked. “Then, at the last moment, I’ll jump out ahead, leaving you in the dust.”
“There’s little time left for your miraculous save, Pandora.”
True. He had just two levels to go before he became an angel, and I still had three. Plus, right now I had more important things to worry about than leveling up my magic. Like saving my sisters.
And I wasn’t doing very well on that task either. I still had no idea where Gin and Tessa were being held. I’d broken Hardwicke’s mind, and he hadn’t been lying when he’d said he didn’t know where they were. Maybe some of his soldiers would know. Maybe they’d overheard something during a prisoner transfer. That was an awful lot of maybes.
“Your mind is somewhere else,” Jace said seriously.
“Yes, sorry. As fun as this competition between us is, I have a lot on my mind right now.”
“Understandable. You should give your mind a break and try to get some sleep while you still can.”
He had a point. I hadn’t slept much last night. And who knew when we’d have to head out again.
“I’ll let you know as soon as I know anything,” he promised, setting his hand on my arm.
I forced a cheerful smile; lately, it had been hard to keep my spirits up. “Thanks,” I said, then I left the office.
But I didn’t go to my room. My mind was too busy, buzzing with worries. Sleep would be impossible. I hurried down the hall, my body as restless as my mind. There was only one remedy for that.
I went to the training hall, hoping to tire myself out. I found Meda and Maya waiting for me there instead. Though the sister goddesses were dressed in identical green satin dresses, their accessories differed. Meda had embellished her dress with a gold belt; potion vials dangled from it like tree ornaments. She wore a slender dagger at her waist as well. Silver strands of gemstones hung from her sister Maya’s belt. And they were both wearing gold headbands set with emeralds.
“You have quite a problem,” Meda said.
Her tone was very relaxed, very casual, but I knew there was magic beneath those innocent, sweet facades. The two sisters were powerful and dangerous goddesses.
“You should ask your sister Bella to look at the potion the Pioneers take to gain their powers,” Maya said.
And then, before I could respond, the goddesses were gone. Talk about cryptic. I couldn’t decide if they thought they were helping out, or if they were just being purposefully vague. But on the plus side, they hadn’t tried to kill me. I was going to call that one step up from my most recent heavenly visits.
I browsed through the training programs on the panel and selected one called the Wall of Woe. Now that was a great name.
As soon as I activated the training program, a telekinetic barrier slid out of the floor, swallowing me in a glowing blue bubble. I poked it with my finger, and it nipped back with a hiss. It seemed like I was supposed to break through the barrier by neutralizing the telekinetic energy.
Someone stepped into the gym, but I couldn’t make out the face through the blurry barrier.
“You’re not sleeping,” Jace’s voice spoke over the hum and hiss.
“My mind is too busy to sleep.” Thinking back on what Meda and Maya had said, I decided to go out on a limb. “Have your people looked at the Pioneers’ blood?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Hardwicke told me the Pioneers supernatural powers come from a potion.”
“Before he attacked you and you had to shoot him.” Jace was not buying my story.
“Yeah, well, you know me. I talk to people in battle all the time.”
“I know. But they don’t always talk back. Especially not to volunteer important information.”
“He didn’t exactly volunteer it willingly.”
“Oh?”
“I might have crushed his mind like a nut and squeezed his secrets out of him,” I admitted.
Jace was quiet. With the blurry blue bubble blocking my view, I couldn’t gauge his reaction very well. I couldn’t even see his face.
“Jace?”
“You crushed his mind,” he said slowly. “While fighting him.”
Actually, while fighting him, I’d mesmerized him with my hair. And as he stood there frozen, I’d cuffed him to the wall.
But al
l I said was, “You’re not the only one who can multitask magic, hotshot.”
“Have your abilities been evaluated yet?”
“Evaluated?”
“Scored. Not everyone possesses all magical abilities equally. We all have our strengths and weaknesses.”
“Magic and counter magic.”
He nodded. “Eventually, the Legion evaluates all of us who survive long enough. It’s how they decide where to put us, where we’ll be the most useful. People with powerful witchcraft magic go to the Legion research laboratories and hospital departments. Elementals with earth and metal magic become the Legion’s blacksmiths. And people with exceptional siren magic become Interrogators.”
“I think I recall a few memos about testing on my schedule,” I said. “But I’ve missed all my appointments so far. I’ve been a little busy stopping psychopaths to play lab rat.”
“If my father finds out about your siren magic, he’ll make you an Interrogator.”
I didn’t want to be an Interrogator. “I don’t think I have the right temperament for the job.”
“He won’t give you a choice.”
“Then it’s a good thing you’re good at keeping my secrets.”
He fell silent again.
“Jace?”
“I’m still here.”
“So what did you find in the Pioneers’ blood?” I asked him.
“Nothing. No traces of magical substances. In fact, their blood was completely human. It was devoid of magic.”
The Wall of Woe zapped me. I gave it the evil eye. It shifted from dark cerulean to a blue so light that it was nearly transparent. I could finally see Jace. The haze of the bubble made his face glow; there was an unnatural glossy sheen to it, like all his features had been partially blurred out.
“That’s impossible,” I told Jace. “Hardwicke’s guards all possessed supernatural powers. Some of them could wield more than one supernatural power.”
