by Rob Cornell
On the way home, I picked up a six pack of Bell's Stout. I needed a nice, thick, chewy beer, and I thought I deserved it. At midnight, Odi and I sat in my living room, just chilling in the silence. Every sip of my stout relaxed me a little more. My mind was still racing though. It felt like it would race for another three days at least. If that were the case, I was gonna need a lot more beer.
Odi put on a fresh T-shirt, covering what remained of his scars. Before he'd put it on, I'd noticed that by the time we got home, the scars were nearly gone.
After we enjoyed the silence for a while, me sitting on the couch, Odi sitting in a nearby chair, both of us just staring into our own thoughts, I finally decided to ask him about the scars.
“You're healing pretty fast,” I said.
He shrugged. “I guess so.”
“Using magic to help?”
He scrunched up his face and thought about it for a moment. “I think I am.”
“You mean you don't know?”
“It's not anything I'm doing consciously, but now that you mentioned it, I can feel it. It's weird. But yeah, I can feel it.”
I sipped my stout straight out of the bottle and thought about that, rolled that around in my mind like I rolled the beer over my tongue. Healing on a subconscious level. The only time I could do that was when I was sleeping. Otherwise, I really needed to focus my energy to close even the smallest cuts. Healing was a pretty big deal. That's why there were certain people that focused almost entirely on the art.
“How much healing is the vampire in you?” I asked.
He shrugged one shoulder. “I can't tell. Is there something wrong?”
“Not wrong,” I said. “Just…different.”
“I always prided myself on being different.”
I laughed and took another swig. The beer tasted damn good. It had been a while since I'd had a stout. And Bell's was one of the best craft beer makers in the state of Michigan.
“So what about you?” Odi asked.
“What about me?”
“How does it feel not to have any vampire blood in you?”
“It feels…different,” I said and smiled.
“Look at us, a couple of different guys.” He pursed his lips and stared at the floor for a moment. “What about me?”
I raised an eyebrow. “You're going to have to be more specific.”
He looked me in the eyes. “You don't have special blood anymore. You're not the Unturned.” He hesitated to say anymore, and dropped his gaze again.
It dawned on me what he was talking about. “You're talking about food.”
He cringed. “You make it sound gross, dude.”
“Sorry. Would sustenance work better?” I winked, but he missed it.
“How am I going to…?”
“We'll figure something out. Trust me.”
Odi scratched the back of his neck, his face tight. “Okay.”
We sat in silence for a while again. Nothing awkward about it, just a couple of guys relaxing, coming down after being kidnapped and chained up by a coven of black witches, stealing souls back, stopping deadly rituals, curing myself of a vampire infection. You know, like any other Friday night.
As I drank my beer, I kept coming back to Odi's subconscious healing. It was a sign that he was a powerful sorcerer. Plain and simple. Which meant I'd have to step up his training, work with him hard to help him get control of that power. I sometimes forgot the level of strength he carried magically. Maybe, if I kept studying with Urvasi, I could start passing down some of her tricks to him. Hell, maybe I could convince her to mentor us both. With all that power inside of him, I worried that I might not be able to do him justice, that he was more sorcerer than I could handle.
“What are you thinking about?” Odi asked.
I shrugged and set my empty beer bottle down on the coffee table. “The future.”
“Okay, dude. I'll hit the fridge and get the last of your tasty blood, and we can drink a toast to the future.”
“Sounds—”
A thump at my door cut me off. Not a knock. Sounded like someone kicking it.
I gave Odi a cautious glance then stood. I'd had two stouts, and with as tired as I was, I had a decent buzz going. After all that shit with the witches, I was entitled to some wooziness.
Odi stood, too. He made a move for the door, but I held out my hand to stop him. I pressed a finger to my lips to signal him to stay quiet. I slowly crept towards the door. On my way, whoever was out there kicked the door again, three times in quick succession. Unfortunately, I didn't have a peephole. So I moved to the front window and parted the curtains, trying to get a view of my front porch. My visitor was out of sight from my angle.
Another kick. “Come on, Light.” The door muffled his voice. I didn't recognize it.
I crept toward the door while drawing on my magic. I held out my hand and ignited it with bright orange flame. My energy felt thin, though, and I worried I didn’t have the juice to put up a good fight. A lot depended on who the hell was at my door and what they wanted. But it seemed like there was only one way to find out, so I readied myself and yanked the door open.
Jonah Jackey stood on my porch, his face pinched as if something hurt.
And in his arms, he carried the limp body of Fiona Templeman.
Chapter Thirty-Two
I opened my mouth to ask him what the hell, but he just shoved past me into the house and took Fiona to the couch, where he laid her down.
She was awfully limp. Looked like dead weight. I felt a twist in my gut, and my breath caught for a minute.
Once Jackey had her down, he turned around to face me. “Close the fucking door.”
Taken off guard, I didn't know what to do besides what he told me to. I shut the door, and for some reason locked it. Just seemed, instinctively, the right thing to do.
Odi stood there looking as stunned as I felt. He stared down at Fiona's still body.
“What's going on?” I said, my voice soft and a little shaky.
Jackey shook his head and walked away from the couch without a word. His eyes were watery behind his horn-rimmed glasses, his skin ashen. He also carried an electric smell with him, which made me suspect he'd been in a magical fight very recently.
I crossed the room to the couch and looked down at Fiona. Her skin was washed of any color, her blond hair messy and snarled. She was too still. She wasn't breathing. I knew she was dead, but I still felt for her pulse. Her skin was cold. I tried to swallow the knot in my throat, but it stuck. I shook my head as if I could deny what was going on and make it all go away. I couldn't deal with this. I didn't know how to feel. I dragged a hand over my face, and my palm came away wet. I turned to Jackey.
“What happened?”
He pressed a fist to his mouth and shook his head as if he couldn't stand to say the words.
“Come on,” I growled. “Tell me.”
Jackey let his hand drop to his side, swallowed, and squared his shoulders. “We were staking out Orosco,” he said.
He scrunched up his face as if he'd been punched in the gut.
I had an idea of what came next, but I wanted him to say it, I wanted the details. “Then what?”
“We were tailing him through Pontiac. Fiona and I. Somehow they made us.”
“And?”
“They must've called for reinforcements,” he said. “We got ambushed. And Fiona…”
I waited.
Jackey closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. “One of them threw a spell at me. Fiona stepped in the way, and the spell struck her dead instantly.”
I ran a trembling hand through my hair. “How did you get out of there?”
“I didn't,” he said. “Not exactly.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
He pressed his lips together, and his eyebrows came together. “They let me live,” he said. “They wanted me to take Fiona with me to the other members of the resistance. As some kind of warning.”
; I studied him, trying to see any sign of a lie. He seemed to be telling the truth, but the story sounded thin. I suspected there was more to it.
“That's it?” I asked. “They just let you go?”
He looked down, refusing to meet my gaze. “No. They made me beg for my life.”
I looked back at Fiona. A whole lot of memories threatened to drown me. The feel of her skin against mine, the smell of her hair, the curve of her waist as I held her against me. And then, the other memories. Like the moment she took her place at Logan Goulet's side. Her betrayal. And the hole she left in my life, and that I hadn't yet learned to fill. The hole was small though, compared to the one left behind by the loss of my mother. It had been easy to ignore while I'd let my obsession for revenge distract me.
I knelt down in front of the couch and stroked her hair away from her forehead. I traced her lips with my fingertips. Then I leaned forward and kissed her cold cheek.
“Why did you bring her here?”
“Because you needed to see it more than any of my people,” he growled. “Now will you join us?”
I looked over my shoulder at him. He had taken off his glasses and was absently cleaning them with his shirt, but his gaze seemed as sharp as ever.
“I don't think I'll be any good to you,” I said.
“After this, we need you even more. Fiona put a lot of herself into our cause. I think she was more dedicated than even me. When the others…” He slipped his glasses on, shook his head. “My people need to feel like there's a chance. You could give them that.”
“I know you think I'm some kind of symbol,” I said. “But things are different now.”
He furled his brow. “How so?”
I thought for a second, unsure how much I wanted to share. I had hated having the reputation as the Unturned, but I had to admit it had its advantages. Still, I didn't see any reason to deceive Jackey.
“I'm not unturned anymore,” I said. “The infection is gone. I'm cured.”
His lips parted slightly. “How?”
“Magic,” I said with a wry smile.
“I don't know what to say.” He let out a short, derisive laugh. “I suppose, congratulations.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” I said.
He laughed again, a little less derisively this time. “Maybe you're right. I'm pinning too much on you. But I want you to know it isn't just the Unturned business that makes me want you at my side. In fact, that's a small part. You're a Light, Sebastian. I'm not sure you understand how much weight that name carries in the supernatural community.”
I did, but when you're fighting vampires, stealing from a dragon, putting an end to evil conspiracies threatening your city, trading souls, battling witches, and losing your parents… I'd spent a lot of time focusing on survival in the moment. I hadn't had a chance to remember the past.
“My parents were good people,” I said. “Grandparents, too.”
“And every generation before that. Damn right.”
I turned back to Fiona. For a long time, I had wanted closure with her. I had thought that closure might involve doing something I would regret, but someone else had done it for me. But I never really would've hurt her. It had all been bluster.
After betraying me, she had tried to do the right thing, tried hard, in fact. And while I hadn't been able to look past the rift she had torn between us, others had—first the global ministry, next this resistance unit. And she had given her life to their cause.
Was it time for me to accept the pain she had brought? Time for me to let go and do what was right? To continue what she had sacrificed herself for?
I stood slowly and turned around.
Jackey looked tense and uncomfortable. But he looked me in the eye.
“I could still help,” I said.
His eyes widened. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, dude,” Odi said, his voice bright with surprise. “You sure?”
“Put me to work. I'll do what I can.”
Jackey narrowed his eyes and stroked his chin. Then a smile dawned across his face. “Didn't you say Orosco had personally tried to recruit you?”
I smiled myself, seeing where he was headed. “That's right. He thought the Unturned could help bring the vampires back into the fold.”
“That would definitely make them stronger.”
Odi looked back and forth between us. “Are you talking like going undercover?”
Excitement lit Jackey's eyes. “The Ministry offices in the RenCen are locked down too tight for anyone to get in. And after getting caught tailing him, we won't get another chance to catch him on the outside.”
Odi gaped at me. “You're just going to walk in there? By yourself?”
“It's the only way,” I said.
“It's insane.”
Jackey nodded. “It's a huge risk.”
I glanced at Fiona's still body. “There's no point in fighting for a cause if you're not willing to take risks.”
“All right then,” Jackey said. I could hear the excitement in his voice. “I'll contact my people and set things up.”
“What about me?” Odi asked.
“You don't have to be in on this,” I said.
“Pfft. I'm your padawan, remember? I go where you go.”
“We can find a place for him,” Jackey said. “We'll need an extraction team, and his shadow walking could come in handy there.”
An extraction team. If I went into the belly of the beast to assassinate Orosco, there would be no getting out. But I didn't say anything. I didn't want Odi to worry.
But I would have to make sure he was taken care of once I was gone.
I happened to know someone who was good at that kind of thing.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Immediately after sundown Odi and I met with Jackey and his crew in the parking lot of a Meijer grocery store. They had a white cargo van and two compact cars with them. In the back of the cargo van they had a chest with a whole lot of firepower—shotguns, assault rifles, handguns. All the good stuff.
We went over our plans. Mine didn't take much describing—turn myself in, get close to Orosco, and melt his face.
Jackey went through his elaborate extraction plan. I only half-listened because I didn't really think we would need the plan. I wasn't even sure how powerful Orosco was. For all I knew, he would melt my face before I melted his. Either way, my odds of getting out of there, successful or not, were pretty damn slim. Even if I took down Orosco, I would still be surrounded by his people. They weren't just gonna let me walk away. Not like the Wicked Witch of the West's soldiers who turned sides the moment Dorothy melted her with a bucket of water. But the idea was, if we took out Orosco, the lack of leadership would make taking out his disciples a lot easier.
I sure as hell hoped it worked. I'd hate to give my life to a lost cause.
Once we got our stuff straight, I said goodbye to Odi and took off for the cemetery.
I summoned Urvasi, and we had a quick conversation that I could tell made her feel uncomfortable. But it was necessary.
After that, I drove downtown straight to the Renaissance Center where the Ministry had its main office among the three floors they occupied in the famous central tower. I'd been to the Detroit Prefect's office a few times now. Although, each time it had been a different person in the office. Seemed like lately, the Ministry was going through prefects like they were tissues and the Ministry had one hell of a cold.
I knew they had wards set up throughout the building to detect anyone with magical abilities or even a small whiff of magic around them. The moment I stepped into the lobby, I had two people come up to me on either side. They were both men, wearing sharp black suits and black ties. If I hadn't known any better, I could have mistaken them for government agents. But I could feel the zing of magic on both of them. One had a hand with a ring on every finger, including his thumb. A mage. They liked their trinkets, it was where they derived all of their power. The other one didn't have any of the bli
ng, so I figured the magic I was feeling was probably innate. It meant he could be a sorcerer like me. It could also mean that he wasn't really human. With this new leadership, who knew what kind of creatures the Ministry would recruit now?
The friendly gentlemen, who didn't say a word to me, just grabbed me by either arm and guided me toward the elevator.
I tried to give them my signature charming smile, but they might as well have been dragging a bag of laundry for all the attention they gave me.
We went straight to the Ministry's main office.
Looked like this could be easier than I thought.
Orosco's female assistant sat behind a large desk, wearing a big grin, and a large talisman around her neck, the pendant almost the size of a saucer. As my new friends and I came into the office, the assistant stood.
“Welcome Mr. Light,” she said. “Mr. Orosco will be so happy to see you.”
I grinned. It was totally fake, but she didn't seem to get that.
“And I can't wait to see him,” I said.
She gave a small nod to each of the men on either side of me. They let go and moved to stand on either side of the door leading into the prefect's office. The assistant skirted around her desk, went to the door, and opened it for me.
Inside, I saw Orosco standing in the center of his office on the ornate rug that had been woven by fairies, a very rare piece of decoration that I always found troubling when I saw it in the office. It must've cost a fortune, and I thought the Ministry's money could be better spent in other ways.
But I was no politician, and had no interest in those kinds of things.
Orosco held his hands out at either side of him. He wore a pair of khaki pants and untucked white button-up shirt. He had the shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows and the top two buttons of his shirt undone. It was business casual in the prefect's office tonight.
“Mr. Light,” he said in a deep voice that sounded a little dramatic to me. “At last, you have come to your senses.”
“I hope there's no hard feelings about what I did to your guys,” I said with a smirk.
Orosco laughed. “Not with me. Elton? Let's just keep the two of you apart for a while. And as for Paul…” He shrugged, eyes shining like someone about to deliver the punch line to a joke. “I doubt we'll hear any complaints from him.”
