by H. D. Gordon
My hands balled into fists and I stalked a couple steps closer, so that I was almost standing over him. “Is this why you came? To berate me?”
“You’re the one raising your voice,” he returned.
I scoffed. Was every male in my life determined to tell me what to do? The frigging Patriarchy could be so annoying sometimes.
“Look,” I said. “I’ll tell them if I see fit, and so help me God, Nick, if you utter a word about what you know to the others, I’ll make you wish the Brokers had caught you instead of me.”
Nick leaned back in the wooden chair I’d found him sitting in. “Threats don’t become you, Aria Fae.”
“Will you just leave?” I asked, shoulders slumping as the air whooshed out of me.
“You need to tell them,” Nick insisted.
“No, I don’t.”
“I believe she asked you to leave,” said a deep voice behind me.
I’d been so wrapped up in my anger at Nick that I hadn’t heard the door open, hadn’t even sensed Thomas behind me.
The two males stared each other down, and I rolled my eyes and tugged Thomas out of the doorway so that Nick could actually vacate.
“Oh my God, do not start beating your chests and measuring your man parts,” I said. I waved a hand at Nick. “Message received. Now, please?”
I felt no satisfaction when that jealousy touched Nick’s aura again, no smugness as he brushed past Thomas and finally left. He didn’t have to say anything else; his aura spoke legions.
Once he was gone, I shut the door behind him and turned to Thomas. “How much of that did you hear?”
“What was he talking about?”
I couldn’t lie to Thomas. I never had been able to, not since the moment we’d met. So I told him about the soul we’d tried to save from servitude, about how if there were an answer to solving this riddle, Nick and I would have found it all those years ago.
When I was done, Thomas pulled me into his arms and held me, rubbing my back and kissing the top of my head.
“We’ll find a way,” he whispered. “I’ll move the heavens and hells if I have to, but we will find a way.”
The team was eager to meet later the following afternoon. Thomas had made them all aware of our trip before we’d left, so no one would worry, but now that we were back, it was time to get the show on the road.
Under Nick’s satisfied gaze, I told them about the case we’d worked, about Genies, about how there was no known way of breaking a deal made with a Demon. Deals like the one I’d made with Saleos contained some of the oldest magic in all the realms, predating even Fae magic. Just as I’d predicted, this information did not serve to raise spirits.
“There has to be someone who knows something,” Sam insisted. “Someone who can help.”
My mind flashed back to that week after I’d made the deal, when I’d been closing the restaurant where I worked, and a man wreathed in shadows had come to visit. To offer help. He’d given me a card with a number on it, even when I’d insisted that I didn’t need his help, and had told me to call when I changed my mind.
Currently, that card was locked in the trunk in my apartment that I usually reserved for my suit and weapons.
“Have you talked to Caleb Cross lately?” Matt asked. He stood beside me and spoke low enough that I knew it was only for me, but the ears of several of the people in the room were strong enough to pick up the words.
I searched my mind for the last time I’d seen Caleb, and realized it had been quite a while. “No, but what’s he got to do with it?”
Matt shrugged. “Maybe he can’t help with your predicament, but the Cross Corporation seemed to be deeply connected to that lab of Halflings you found, so maybe he can help with theirs.” He nodded toward Nick and Vivian, who sat together on an old sofa at the other side of the room.
I nodded. “I’ll pay him a visit,” I said, feeling a pang of guilt when I realized I should have done so before now. Even though Caleb and I had not ended up being together romantically, he had always been good to me, and I considered him a friend.
Matt gave me a sympathetic look, as attuned to emotions as I was to auras. It was one of the qualities I admired in him.
I was just about to tell him this when one of the computers began to beep urgently over by Sam’s desk. We gathered around the computers as Sam slipped into her chair, pressing a few keys and scanning the screen.
She looked up at me over the black rims of her glasses, the color draining from her face. “There’s an active shooter at the Pleasant Hill Mall,” Sam said. “He’s taken several hostages.”
Call me crazy, but the first thing that went through my mind was that this was something I could handle.
Black SUVs and other police vehicles dotted the big parking lot, the area having been shut down to civilians.
I crept along the rooftop of the Pleasant Hill Mall, listening in on the swat team as they made swift plans to enter. Three PHPD first responders had gone into the building already. None had come out.
I tugged my hood down lower over my head, the sky quickly melting into the twilight blue of early evening. I knew from my eavesdropping that the shooter was holed up in a clothing store called Millie’s on the second floor, near the food court, and that he had at least ten hostages.
While the police tried to negotiate, I made my way over to the door that led in from the roof. With a twist of my wrist, I snapped the lock on the knob and made my way inside.
My heart thudded heavily in my chest. I was not bulletproof, but my suit was, and that meant that the only place I could take real damage would be the face. Not that this wasn’t a possibility, but the real danger was to the hostages, so I needed to tread carefully.
The sound of screams and two gunshots had me picking up my pace.
“You okay?” asked Sam’s voice through my earpiece.
“Fine,” I whispered back. “What’s the word?”
“At least ten hostages,” Sam answered. “Be careful.”
I grunted my agreement, sweat trickling down the center of my back as I got closer to Millie’s.
“There’s a door on the east side of the store that connects to The Shoe Box. The lock on the door there is controlled through a network, and so are the security cameras. I’m looking at it right now. I’ll open the door for you.”
“Anyone there?”
“Not yet. But go quickly. I don’t think the gunman knows about it, but I’m sure the PHPD do.”
I made my way around to The Shoe Box, finding the emptiness of the place creepy. I didn’t realize until this moment that malls always had a certain buzz to them, the sound of people talking and moving about. Now, the fluorescent lights illuminated every corner, but the shelves and racks sat untouched, the registers unmanned. It was like a scene from some post-apocalyptic movie.
I followed Sam’s direction to the door on the western side of The Shoe Box, and heard the lock there disengage as Sam worked her magic.
“You have eyes?” I asked.
But before Sam could answer, another gunshot shattered the silence, making me cringe at the closeness.
“Yes,” Sam said. “Millie’s has several cameras…. He just killed his first hostage.”
Chapter Eight
God help me, but I almost turned tail and ran.
The sound of the gunshot was too similar to the sound of thunder, the fear of the hostages flowing out in an overwhelming wave, even through the thick wall between the stores. Worse than those things, however, was the rage, the utter hate that flowed off the gunman.
Only once in all my life had I felt anything like it, and that had been when I’d faced Leonard Boyce on the Grant City Bridge all those months ago. I didn’t need eyes on the situation to know that the only reason the gunman was drawing this out was because he was enjoying it. He had no plan to let any of the hostages live, and afterward, he was likely going to kill himself.
Despite all my training and everything I’d been through—or
perhaps because of everything I’d been through—for a few heartbeats, I froze.
“Maybe I should let the police handle this one,” I whispered, staring at the knob of the door that led into Millie’s, unable to bring my hand up and turn it.
Silence held for long enough that I wasn’t sure Sam had heard me.
Then, she said, “Okay. Come on back, then.”
As if the Fates were trying to mock me, another gunshot sounded, more screams. The gasp from Sam was enough to tell me that my hesitation had cost another person their life.
So I pushed aside my fears and opened the door.
I was let into a storeroom. The emotions from the hostages in Millie’s were even more powerful here. My mind wanted me to pause, but I overrode those impulses and pushed forward.
“Tell me when his back is turned, Sam,” I said.
“Aria…Are you sure? If you’re not sure, you shouldn’t do this.”
“Sam, just tell me when.”
Sam sighed. “Okay.”
She told me the positions of everyone in Millie’s, both gunman and the hostages, the obstacles between me and the target. A handful of heartbeats later, my moment came.
The gunman was turned away, his back to the storeroom door, his barrel toward the hostages.
I drew a final breath and opened the door.
My body was in motion before my mind had time to question my actions, just as I’d been trained to do a long time ago. The speed with which I was able to move was the reason I had such an advantage over the humans who were currently moments away from forcing their way into the back of the store. So many things happened at once, but with my superhuman abilities, the scene took on a slow motion quality that only seemed to occur in the most tense of situations.
Just ahead of me, around a rack of clothing, the gunman had the barrel of his handgun aimed at a middle-aged woman with short hair and big eyes. Tears streaked down her face, smearing her lipstick and mascara. Behind her, six other hostages of various ages were curled up along the wall, their auras bright with terror. On the ground beside where the middle-aged woman now kneeled were three bodies. A glance told me that two were already gone, but the third—a teenager with glasses flecked with blood—was clinging to life.
I tightened my grip on my staff, the weapon swinging through the air split seconds before the gunman squeezed the trigger another time. His howl of pain and surprise came on the heels of that magnificent boom, but the staff had knocked his aim off, and rather than going through the kneeling woman’s head, the bullet embedded itself in the laminate flooring.
“Run!” I yelled at the hostages, and didn’t look to see if they obeyed.
Now that the gunman knew I was here, he raised the gun in my direction, but this time my staff knocked it free of his hand.
The psycho tried to tackle me, but I sidestepped his attack and wrenched his arm up behind his back before moving into a neck lock. He clawed at my arm around his throat, but I locked it into place by grabbing my left wrist in my right hand and flexing my left bicep. He gasped for air, and would have passed out in less than thirty seconds.
Would have.
At that moment, the swat team burst through the back door, shouting commands. I had all of two seconds to make a decision—to let go of the gunman, or to maintain my hold.
“Get on the ground!” the first responders shouted.
“I’ve got him,” I gritted out.
I’d barely uttered the words when a gunshot sounded. It was so sudden and unexpected that it took my brain several seconds to catch up to reality, even as the warm wetness splattered my neck and face.
I blinked, the sound of the gunshot ringing in my ears, the sharp scent of iron filling my nose.
The struggle of the gunman stopped abruptly, and he became a dead weight in my arms. I drew a single breath, and watched as his aura blinked out, as he slipped out of my hold and thudded to the ground.
I stared down at his body, and then looked up to see the wide eyes of the officer who’d shot him.
“Why?” I heard myself say, though the word came out choked.
“Get on the ground!” the responders repeated.
“Time to go,” Sam said into my ear, and the lights of the store cut out, casting the place into darkness.
If not for Samantha telling me to move, I might have stood there gaping. Either way, the scene would be branded into my mind.
I didn’t go back to the warehouse.
I didn’t go back to my apartment, either.
Instead, I went to the rooftop of the old Scout Building, a spot hard enough to reach that I was guaranteed solitude. As I scaled the side of the structure, the wind tugging at my cape and hood, I focused only on the climb, on the sounds of the city around me.
Night had fallen. I reached the top of the Scout Building and stood silent for several seconds. I didn’t know when exactly, but at some point, I’d ditched the tracker and earpiece in my suit. I needed to be alone.
The sound of the gunshot, the screaming of the victims and the shouts of the swat team, the dying of the gunman’s aura, they ran through my head on a loop. I bent at the waist and gripped my knees, my breaths coming in harsh gasps.
His blood was still on my hands, on my face.
I broke into a run and leapt off the side of the building, looking for water—any kind of water—so that I could wash the gore off.
The bay was the closest option. I didn’t even care that it smelled like fish and garbage. It was better than the irony tang of the disturbed man’s blood.
And disturbed is putting it lightly. His aura had been so dark, so full of ugly, that just being near him had taken a real toll. As an Empath, I always absorbed some of the emotions of those near me, and making physical contact with them only increased the exposure.
When I’d put the man in a neck lock, all that he’d been feeling slammed into me, and it was this that had me bending double. The kind of agony he’d been in, it didn’t make his actions right, not by a long shot, but it made the whole situation all the more tragic. He’d been so broken, so lost, sure that the whole world was against him.
“Why?” I asked again, though I knew I was the only one listening.
I wasn’t aware of how I’d gotten there until I was staring at my reflection in the water. The tide was high, so all I had to do was stoop and scoop some of the water into my hand. I rubbed it across my face, and my palm came back red.
I scrubbed the blood away from me, rubbing hard enough to leave my skin red. Then I collapsed to my bottom, sitting cross-legged on the old dock, staring at the reflection of my masked face.
I wasn’t able to summon the courage to stand and leave that spot for several hours.
It was not because of the death I’d once again come face-to-face with, but because I had come face-to-face with the inevitable fact of my own.
I sent Sam a text to tell her I was okay, and to request some space.
She texted back immediately, telling me she would inform the others. I loved her for her respect of my privacy, among a million other things.
When I made it back to my apartment, I slipped in through my window, shedding the Masked Maiden suit and locking it away in my trunk, wishing I could lock bad memories inside with the same ease.
I went over to my door, stretching out my sixth sense toward Thomas’s apartment and sensing him inside. I thought about going to him, but opted for a shower first. Though I’d washed the visible evidence of the man’s blood from my face and hands, I could still smell him on me.
I sat in the shower for a long time. Eventually, I slid to the tiles, drew my knees up to my chest, and wrapped my arms around them. I stayed like that until the hot water ran out, until my skin was pruned and every trace of irony scent was down the drain. At some point, I finally dragged myself out.
Outside my window, the night seemed darker than usual, the city wreathed in shadows. I was so absorbed staring into the abyss that when a small crack and pop sounded b
ehind me, I nearly jumped out of my skin.
I spun, brows furrowing as the air stirred in my apartment, despite the fact that the single window was shut tight. Snatching my staff up from where I’d left it leaning against the wall, I stood at the ready. It took me longer than it should have to realize what was happening. In my absence from the supernatural world, I’d nearly forgotten what a portal even looked like.
But this was a portal, all right, and someone was opening it right into my bedroom.
Well, my bedroom/living room/kitchen.
I readied myself for whatever should come through, eyes narrowing and fingers tightening around my weapon. A circle of swirling air formed in front of me, tugging a few strands of my hair toward it and blowing the pages of a book I’d left open on the windowsill.
The whole process took a few seconds, but it was enough to make my pulse jump and my stomach twist.
Then, from the center of the swirling portal, a figure appeared, stepping out as if from the pages of a magazine.
Beautiful and powerful and more than welcome.
My old friend Surah Stormsong, Queen of Sorcerers and Tamer of Beasts, had come to visit.
Chapter Nine
The staff slipped free of my hand, clattering to the ground and rolling until it was resting in the crook between the wall and floor.
The Sorceress Queen followed its movement with sharp violet eyes, one fine brow arching.
“Aria—”
She was cut off when I threw my arms around her. The Queen let out an oomph! and then a small chuckle. “I missed you, too,” she said. She cleared her throat as I buried my head in the thick velvet of her cloak. “You’re very strong, Aria,” she added in a slightly strained voice.
I loosened my grip immediately, stepping back from her and cursing the moisture gaining in my eyes.
When Surah took sight of my face, sympathy filled her aura, and she let out a low breath. She’d cut her lavender hair since I’d last seen her, and it curled around her beautiful face. There was a glow to her, a strength that I’d always admired, and it had only grown brighter in the time we’d been apart.
