by Cate Lawley
“I’m also super broken, in case you haven’t heard. Can’t eat blood, stunted fangs. Also your fault, as my progenitor. My existence makes certain members of the Society very uncomfortable.” I shrugged. “Or so I hear.”
Was I acting as judge and jury? Oh yes. And I didn’t feel the faintest flutter of remorse.
This was about justice. For so many people’s lives, both ended and damaged. This underground Society I’d joined, with its odd bureaucracy and funny traditions, its twisty rules and strange members, was my new world. And they said let him hang. I could do that.
20
ONE OF THESE IS NOT LIKE THE OTHERS
Turned out, Wembley had disappeared for reinforcements. And who did he reappear with? My favorite enhanced being, Mr. Clean, a.k.a. Anton the Silent.
We all piled into Anton’s black Escalade, complete with a security company logo on the door. I figured Anton for a bouncer—but upscale security guard worked, too.
“Are we at all worried that he’s back there tied up with bits of paracord?”
“Bewitched paracord,” Alex said. “And it’s only a few miles.”
The group lapsed into silence.
What seemed like seconds later, Alex was shaking my shoulder. “Wake up.”
I’d fallen asleep in just the few miles between Wembley’s place and the Society’s headquarters—I had to be exhausted. Whatever Alex said about what vamps could and could not do, I’d worn myself out wrestling with Bart the bartender. After having met him, and now that we were marching him to a well-earned death, the appellation “rat” seemed wildly inappropriate. He was both so much more and so much less.
Anton retrieved Bart from the rear of the Escalade, but as I moved to follow them inside, Alex stopped me.
“Wembley, you, and I are going to give testimony, and then we’re done. As an injured party, you’re invited to stay for the execution—but I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“I get it now, why people don’t like vamps.” My lip curled. “It’s the God complex.”
“Hey,” Wembley said with a hurt look. “I don’t have a God complex.”
Alex punched Wembley in the arm—hard. “You couldn’t. You’d have to choose a god.”
“True.” Wembley smiled good-naturedly, which made me wonder exactly how many gods he worshiped. Turning to me, he said, “Bart might have been of a particularly nasty variety of vamp due to his peculiar type of enhancement. Telepathic vamps always go wrong in the end.”
Great. Bart was basically my vamp dad. “Enhancements aren’t inherited through progenitors, are they?”
“Not at all. Genetics or a roll of the dice.” Wembley put his arm around my shoulders, and we headed inside. I didn’t comment, but Wembley was definitely propping me up. I was crashing hard.
Alex opened the door for us—so maybe it was obvious.
“Anyone want to tell me what we’re doing exactly? You said we’re giving testimony.”
“Just a briefing.” Alex sped up a bit to open the next door for us.
Yep. I must look pretty rough. “Oh! Any chance for some coffee?” Even the thought perked me up. We’d just left the retail store, and I stopped outside of Alex’s office door. “Please?”
Alex hovered, undecided.
“Bad idea.” Wembley had removed his arm when I’d stopped. He reached out now and placed his hand in between my shoulder blades.
I hadn’t even realized I’d been swaying until he steadied me. “See? I need it.”
And now I sounded like a druggie desperate for a fix. Caffeine was a drug. I shook my head. A tiny pick-me-up, hardly the same thing.
Alex sighed. “Fine. I have some instant for emergencies.”
I vaguely remembered batting my eyelashes for a second cup and reminding Alex of my awesome tolerance—three whole French presses before I’d even noticed the effects—to finagle a third cup. But he and Wembley absolutely cut me off after three, much as I begged for a fourth.
I was feeling positively lively by the time we made it back to the hallway. Everything was fantastic…up until the ghouly ghosty thing.
I squinted at Alex, cocked my head, and leaned close—but no matter what I did, the little ghosty thing was still there, clinging to his back.
Alex frowned at me. “What is it?”
“Um, you remember Great-Auntie Lula?” Alex gave me a brusque nod. “Well, it’s just…” I sighed. “Wembley? Can you give us a second?” I tapped him on the nose with my index finger.
Wembley closed his eyes and shook his head. “Clearly you can’t hold your coffee quite as well when you’re tired. All right. But hurry up.”
After he’d disappeared down the hall, I leaned close to Alex and whispered loudly, “There’s a ghosty thing hanging on to your back.”
A muscle leapt in his jaw and he scanned the hallway then turned hard eyes on me. “I know. But how do you?”
I blinked then shrugged. Maybe I shouldn’t have had that third cup. I really didn’t understand what was going on.
Alex ran his hands through his hair. “It’s just because I’m tired. They sense weakness. But, Mallory, you can’t say anything.”
I nodded. “Sure thing, chief.”
“I’m serious. It would be bad for me, but really, really bad for you.” He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “I’ll explain it to you tomorrow when you’re sober. But not a word tonight, okay?”
I stood up straight. “Absolutely. I can do that.”
And I lived up to my promise. We gave Cornelius a briefing, just as Alex had said: found the bad guy, bad guy broke in, captured bad guy—done.
And that was the testimony. Cornelius even cut me a check on the spot—once Alex had reminded him.
That was most of the tale, except… “How did Bart find me squirreled away at Wembley’s house?” I’d waited until we left Cornelius in his office. And I tried not to think where Anton and Bart likely were.
Wembley huffed. “And how did Alex get there so fast? I was passed out in the living room, so I didn’t call him.” He looked embarrassed. “He surprised me. Must have been in a hurry, otherwise he’d have done more damage to me.”
Alex turned to Wembley. “You have got to start training again. I had no idea you’d gotten so—”
“Complacent? Unaware? Unfit? I think my sabbatical has gone on a few centuries too long.” Wembley pinched the bridge of his nose. “Training at noon tomorrow?”
Alex clapped a hand on his back. “Done.”
“Okay—I’m really glad you guys have a workout plan set up, but if Wembley didn’t call you, how did you know to come to the house?” I let the “centuries” comment slide, but mostly because my brain simply couldn’t grasp the concept that Wembley was that old. Not in its current state.
“The hottie—ah, the blonde bartender from the bar called to see if I wanted to grab a beer after her shift.” Alex paused and gave me a curious look.
That was when I realized I was making a funny growling noise. I stopped and frowned. “What? I’m not allowed to be fake pissed that my fake boyfriend was getting hit on?”
“I won’t be so easily persuaded the next time you want a coffee hit,” Alex said. “But the whole point is that she mentioned Bart had come to work after Joe injured himself moving some boxes, and he claimed to have found your lost keys. She wanted to know if he’d called yet.”
“Huh, but there weren’t any… Ooooh.” I wrapped my tired but caffeinated brain around that thought. “But how did Bart get from ‘they’re onto me’ to ‘Mallory’s at Wembley’s house’?”
“The bartender, I’m sure,” Alex said.
I suppose we’d chatted about our plans; they’d hardly been top secret. But I didn’t specifically remember that. “And even if she didn’t think any of our conversation worth mentioning, all she had to do was have a stray thought, because Bart is telepathic.”
“Exactly.” We’d reached Alex’s office. He motioned to the door. “It’s late, and I need to get some rest.
”
I tried not to blink at the mention of rest, but it reminded me of the spirit creature that had clung to Alex’s back earlier. At some point, it had quietly disappeared. Interesting and odd. What had chased him away? Lack of success, I hoped.
I glanced at Wembley. “How are we getting home?”
“I’ve got it covered.”
He seemed sure, so I waved a goodnight to Alex and followed Wembley out to the parking lot.
A few seconds later, I stopped and gave Wembley the are-you-nuts look. “Anton’s Escalade?”
Wembley reached under the rear passenger wheel well and pulled out a hide-a-key triumphantly. “Absolutely.”
I didn’t mention that Anton was an enforcer. Or that he seemed to work for—maybe owned—a security company, that maybe this wasn’t a good idea. Because I just wanted to go home and get some rest.
The funny thing? Not once in thinking of home did I think of my condo. As I went to bed for the second time that night, this time on Wembley’s sofa, I felt comfortable. I felt like I was at home.
I didn’t give Bart more than a passing thought—he didn’t deserve any more of my time. I did think about Mrs. A and Liz. I also thought about the other victims.
And right before I fell asleep, I thought about a tiny spirit clinging to Alex’s back, whispering in his ear.
Two shakes later, a bright light shone directly in my eyes.
“Wake up.” Alex sat on the edge of the sofa backlit by sunlight.
“It’s a lie.” I pulled the pillow he’d removed back over my head.
“What’s a lie?”
“The sun.” My words were muffled by the pillow, but I didn’t care. The world was too bright. “I’ve only been asleep a few hours.”
“Try ten; it’s noon.” He tugged on the pillow, but I held it firmly in place. “I have carrot juice.”
“Really?”
“Promise. Besides, we need to talk before Wembley and his crew get back. They’ve made a supply run to fix the bedroom window.” His weight left the sofa.
I groaned. Then I remembered fragments of a rather unpleasant dream I’d had. I pulled the pillow off my head, ready to be blinded, but Alex had pulled the curtains. I sighed in relief. “Thanks. I had a rather unpleasant dream that involved you. I think it was you.” Shaking my head, I said, “Who knows? Dreams are weird. Bart?”
He sat down in an armchair a few feet away. “Executed last night.”
“Whoa—they don’t mess around. Good thing he was actually guilty.” I made a mental note not to ever be falsely accused—oh, right, I couldn’t control that.
“Expedited execution due to a confession of the accused. Truth extraction is rather…unpleasant, so he confessed to avoid the ordeal.”
I remembered that odd comment about the Inquisition and shivered. The Society might talk a big game about bringing in a new order… “Torture is notoriously unreliable. You guys know that, right?”
“Possibly, but we have a witch come in to verify all confessions.”
“This conversation is making me feel icky. I know we did the right thing by turning him over, but the Society is looking pretty shady. And don’t say it; I already know: you’re all working toward a better solution.” I sat cross-legged on the sofa and pulled the blanket up high under my chin. All of this talk about torture reminded me of a question I’d been meaning to ask for a while now. “Quick question about your sword.”
Alex pulled out his phone and checked the time. “Go ahead.”
“Does your sword talk to you?”
“My sword doesn’t speak to me, because mine isn’t actually alive. It’s imbued with magical incantations and the substance itself is an alchemic alloy—but it is most certainly not alive. Living things have will. They make choices. I don’t want my sword—a tool intended to serve my will—to make decisions.”
“Oh. Oops. Did Wembley pull a fast one on me?”
“Yeah, oops. I can’t believe he thought giving you Tangwystl was a good idea.”
“I could lock her up…” But the idea held no appeal. She’d been locked away for so long already, waiting for the right person. And she’d chosen me.
Alex sighed. “But you don’t want to, because you like her. That’s one of the other problems with living objects: you get attached. They have opinions and make choices, and you start to treat them like people. Tangwystl isn’t a person trapped in a sword—she’s a living sword. Don’t forget that.”
“Does that mean you think I should keep her?”
“A living sword isn’t my own choice for a sword, but I suspect you wouldn’t have fared so well in the confrontation with Bart without her.”
His comments were translating into a stamp of approval in my mind, so I was glad I asked. I liked Tangwystl. Sure, her vocabulary was seriously limited, but at least she spoke English. That seemed pretty cool, given how old she was.
“Also—this whole carrying a sword in public thing,” I said. “How does that work?”
“You’ll have to sort that out with her. Mine has incantations inscribed to conceal and store it.”
Store it…I remembered him driving in the car with no obvious sword. Sitting at my office desk with no sword. “Are you telling me your sword gets stashed somewhere until you need it?”
“Basically. And when it is present, most can’t see it. Better to ask Tangwystl your sword questions. I have no idea what she’s capable of.” He glanced at his cell phone. “You had a question about some dream? If you hadn’t taken forever to wake up, we’d have more time.” He gave me a narrow-eyed look. “Too much coffee.”
“I do feel a little hungover.” Which reminded me—I grabbed the carrot juice bottle from the coffee table and gulped down several swigs. “So this guy in my dream—maybe you, maybe not you—has no face. And he has these strings attached, like a marionette, but different because all the strings are to the guy’s chest—or maybe his torso? Which is weird, because marionettes have little strings all over, otherwise you can’t move all the pieces.”
“So if he has no face, why is he me?”
I finished the juice and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “I don’t know.” I peered intently at him. “But since you seem to think he is, too, why don’t you tell me?”
Alex leaned back in the armchair and propped his foot on his knee. “About what you saw last night—”
“The spirit.”
“The caffeine-induced hallucination.” He looked at me.
“Are you kidding me? I know what I saw, drunk on coffee or not.”
“This isn’t about me.” He rubbed his eyes with thumb and forefinger. “It’s not only about me. Vamps don’t see spirits.”
“Whatever. Vamps also survive by drinking blood, have great big serpenty fangs, and don’t get out of breath or cry acid tears. Newsflash: that garbage isn’t right.”
He looked nonplussed. “Acid tears?”
“Oh, yeah. I could totally bottle that stuff and sell it. Weaponized tears.”
Alex rolled his head back and groaned. “Keep that one to yourself if you can. But the spirits, you cannot tell anyone else. Communicating with spirit entities is a wizard power. Vamps don’t see spirits, can’t communicate with spirits.” He gave me a fierce, angry look. "Can’t control spirits. And if certain people were to think otherwise, that could cause a lot of problems for you.”
“And what about you and that thing clinging to you?”
“Gone. I just needed a little sleep.”
The futon in his office, the healthy food in his fridge, leaving half a glass of perfectly good scotch… “Good grief. You probably don’t smoke, jog every day, and take vitamins.”
“If it keeps them off my back—literally—that’s right.”
“Wild guess: not all wizards have this particular issue.” I flashed back to the image from yesterday. That thing was definitely whispering in Alex’s ear.
“No.”
I crooked my pinky and offered it. “Pinky
swear?”
“You’re kidding.”
“Since the only secret I’ve ever pinky sworn on is still safe twenty years after the fact, no, I’m not kidding.”
He squeezed his eyes shut with a pained look. But when he opened them, he hooked his pinky with mine.
I nodded grimly. “Pinky swear, I won’t tell yours, if you don’t tell mine.”
Alex sighed. “Pinky swear.”
Little blue-green sparks flew as soon as Alex said “swear.”
I yanked my hand back. “Whoa—what did you do?”
“Not me.”
The front door opened. Wembley was home.
21
BAREFOOT HERO
“We’ve got a window patch.” Wembley made the announcement as he came through the front door. When no one applauded, he sighed. “Well, I was excited about it.”
I stood up, stretched, and headed for the kitchen. “I don’t suppose either of you know what I did with that check last night?”
Alex and Wembley followed me. Alex pulled out his wallet and extracted a check. Handing it to me, he said, “Since you weren’t quite yourself last night.”
“Very appreciated.”
Wembley sat down at the breakfast table. “I’ve already eaten—you’re welcome—but I can keep you company while you empty my fridge of all consumable liquids.”
“Minus milk and eggs,” I said with a moue of distaste, looking at the contents of the fridge. “And I used to like eggnog so much.”
“And no steak,” Wembley said.
Alex peered over my shoulder. “Since when is steak a liquid?”
“Since Wembley’s amazing food processor can liquefy it.”
“Why…? No. Just no.” Alex pulled a small bottle of kefir out of the fridge. “Since you can’t drink it. Thanks.”
I hunted till I found the carton of carrot juice and started to chug it. About a quarter of the way through, I thought about taking a breath, then chugged another quarter. I took a gasping breath and asked, “What exactly is a window patch? Sounds kinda fancy.”
“Hm. Plywood,” Wembley said. “The guys are installing it now.”
