Malachi, Darby, and Burke looked at each other, then at us. “That’s quite a coincidence,” Burke said. “We’re missing Sensitives.”
Liam frowned. “What do you mean ‘missing’ them? As in, they’re disappearing from Devil’s Isle?”
“Not quite,” Malachi said, glancing at Darby. “Perhaps we should start at the beginning?”
She nodded. “So, the Veil was discovered forty-seven years ago.”
I didn’t let her go any farther. “Forty-seven years? The feds have known about the Veil for forty-seven years? How were we so unprepared?”
“It was still closed,” she said. “And it’s not like we can see through it. At that time, they weren’t entirely sure what it was, or what was behind it. That’s why Defense created a research team in the first place. When the Veil opened, Defense realized what was happening, what was behind it.”
“That’s when the Paranormal Combatant Command was created,” Burke said, and Darby nodded.
“And the Veil research agency was wrapped into PCC and became PCC Research. War was under way, of course, so Paranormals became the enemy, indivisibly. We didn’t know yet about conscription, or the Court, or Consularis.”
“And Sensitives?” I asked.
“That was more complicated,” Burke said. “Sensitives were too human to be considered true enemies, too Paranormal to be free, and too useful to be ignored. As you know, some were captured, interned. It wasn’t, unfortunately, the first time the feds have interned U.S. citizens, and people were afraid of magic, afraid of war. Unfortunately for them, PCC pretty quickly realized they needed Sensitives to close the Veil.”
I stared at her. “Sensitives closed the Veil?”
“They did,” Burke said.
I looked at Liam. “Did you know about that?”
He shook his head. “Not precisely, but it makes sense you’d have to fight magic with magic.”
“Exactly,” Burke said. “PCC told the Sensitives they’d recruited that they’d have immunity. That’s why so many helped. And because they were willing to ignore the obvious civil rights violations to help the larger goal—human survival. And you know what happened after that. The war ended, and the Magic Act was passed. Anything with magic became verboten. Criminalized. The interned Sensitives weren’t released. And the Sensitives who helped didn’t get immunity. They went into hiding.”
Darby nodded. “We—PCC Research, I mean—tried to get PCC to change its position. We knew about the differences between Paras. We knew Sensitives could manage their magic. We proposed Containment enlist Sensitives and Consularis Paras on a trial basis to track fluctuations in the Veil, help get us prepared in case it split again. But PCC didn’t want to hear that. They wanted us to tow the ‘enemy combatant’ line, and we wouldn’t.” She shrugged. “That’s when I got the ax.”
“For Sensitives, Containment thinks magic management is too risky,” Burke said, and Darby nodded. “They see us as unstable, uncertain. If we don’t control our magic, or not well enough, we turn into wraiths. That makes us dangerous.”
She looked at Malachi and Burke. “And so here we are, trying to fight the good fight.”
“‘We’?” I asked.
“Our allies,” Burke said. “Some Sensitives, some humans and Consularis Paras both outside and inside Devil’s Isle. We call ourselves Delta.” Burke formed a triangle with his thumbs and index fingers. “We’re in the Mississippi Delta, and in math, delta means change. That’s what we’re after—changing Containment’s view of Paranormals and Sensitives. Changing everyone’s view. And right now, finding our missing Sensitives—the ones who helped close the Veil.”
“Wait,” I said. “If they’re in hiding, how do you know they’re missing?”
“They’re in hiding from Containment,” Darby said, “but not necessarily from each other. There’s a loose network of Sensitives who keep in touch. Not all do, but having that connection is important to some.” She glanced at Burke. “We found out about, what, six months ago that one of the ‘networked’ Sensitives hadn’t checked in.”
“About that,” Burke said with a nod.
“That was the first indication,” Darby said.
Liam crossed his arms. “You have a theory about why they’re missing?”
“We believe someone is trying to open the Veil again,” Malachi said. “And we believe they’re using Sensitives to do it.”
It was our worst fear come true.
“Why do you think that?” I asked, my voice quiet but still echoing in the large room.
“Because the Veil is fluctuating more than it should be,” Darby said.
“Fluctuating?” I asked. “What does that mean?”
Darby pulled a small pocketknife from her jeans, flipped open one of the tools. She crouched, scratched a line through the dirt on the floor.
“This is the baseline,” she said. “Normal fluctuations in energy emitted from the Veil look like this.” With the tool, she drew a wavy line through the dirt that rose over and fell under the main line.
“Veil fluctuations are common,” Liam said. “The Veil is a boundary, a barrier. It shifts and changes.”
“True,” Darby said. “But there are fluctuations, and there are fluctuations.” She looked up. “We don’t have the full range of monitoring equipment that we used to. But as far as we can tell, and based on some triangulation, the energy currently looks like this.” She drew another line, and this one moved wildly above and below the baseline. The rises and falls were bigger, and they looked much more random.
“What would make them different?”
“The Veil didn’t open cleanly,” Darby said. “It wasn’t surgical; it ripped. So closing the Veil meant pulling those ragged ends back together. Seven Sensitives did that, and they encrypted the ‘seam’ to keep it closed. They used their particular magic to create an encryption—one that consisted of magical keys—that would act as an extra protection against someone trying to open it.”
“Which Sensitives did the encrypting?” Liam asked.
“We don’t know,” Burke said. “No one knows except the Sensitives who did it. That was part of the deal—so the knowledge couldn’t be used against them in the future.”
“We fear the Veil is fluctuating more wildly because someone has managed to break some of the seals,” Malachi said.
“Can you tell how many?” I asked.
“We cannot,” Malachi said. “This is the first time in history the Veil was, to our knowledge, resealed in this manner.”
“So you think the missing Sensitives and the Veil fluctuations are connected?” Liam asked.
Malachi nodded. “Yes, but we aren’t sure how.”
“How many Sensitives are missing?” I asked.
“Twenty that we know of,” Burke said.
Liam and I exchanged a glance.
“What?” Burke asked.
“Since my sister’s death,” Liam said, “I’ve been tracking wraith attacks across the city. They’ve doubled over the last several months.”
“How many?”
“Twenty-four,” Liam said. That was pretty damn close to twenty. “Was Marla Salas one of your missing Sensitives?”
“She was,” Darby said. “She was a good friend of mine.”
“How long was she gone?” I asked, realizing I hadn’t thought to ask Mrs. Salas.
“Thirteen days,” Darby said. “And she was fine when I last saw her.”
Fear bolted through me. Marla had gone from Sensitive to wraith in less than two weeks. That wasn’t very much time—and it suggested there wasn’t much of a defense to whatever was happening here.
“So could the missing Sensitives be ‘missing’ because they’ve been turned into wraiths?” I asked. “I mean, I don’t know how that would be possible,” I said, really meaning I didn’t want to know how it was possible. “But the numbers match up.”
The Delta folks exchanged glances.
“Not a theory I like considering,??
? Burke said, then looked at Darby. “Is that possible?”
She pursed her lips, considering. “If you denied them the ability to regulate? Or maybe forced magic into them somehow? Increased the absorption rate? I’d have to think through the precise mechanics, but like Claire said, the numbers are awfully close.”
On the upside, if someone else had done this to Marla—if it wasn’t some sudden failure on her part—there was still a chance I could control my magic.
“So assume you can do it,” Liam said. “Why would you want to?”
“So the perps can cover their tracks?” Burke suggested. “You want to open the Veil. You’re interviewing Sensitives who might have been involved, and you find one who wasn’t. You don’t want her talking about the interview, about the questions. So you discard her. If you turn her into a wraith, she can’t talk.”
“Not to be grim,” Liam said, “but why not just kill them?”
“Maybe you don’t like Sensitives and Paras,” Malachi said. “Letting Sensitives become wraiths, or making them become wraiths, puts more monsters on the street. Proves how dangerous they are.”
“Then why open the Veil?” I asked.
“Perhaps to attack,” Malachi said. “To be the first through the gate this time.”
To initiate war, he meant.
Something occurred to me. “The Sensitives who worked with PCC—they have control of their magic?”
Burke nodded.
I looked at Liam. “Maybe that’s why our wraiths are able to think and communicate to a higher degree—because they’ve kept some of that control. But who’s this cold-blooded?”
“We don’t know,” Burke said. “Someone who wants the Veil open, and who has access to PCC files—they’d need those to identify the potential Sensitives. To find the seven, they’d have to work their way through the list. That seems to be what they’re doing.”
“It needn’t be a human,” Malachi suggested. “It could be a dispossessed Paranormal. They aren’t opening the Veil to wreak havoc here, but to open their own doorway. And they don’t care who they hurt in the process.”
“Could be a human cult member,” Liam suggested. “There are still humans who think they can prompt the Second Coming by opening the Veil.”
Malachi nodded. “There are any number of theories. But we don’t have any concrete evidence of who’s behind it at this point. That’s what we need to find out.”
“Can you tell who else they might target?” Liam asked, moving incrementally closer to me, as though he could protect me from harm just by being nearer. I didn’t really mind.
“So far,” Darby said, “it looks like they’re targeting any Sensitives who worked with PCC.”
“Surely Containment knows about all this already?” I said. “About the Veil fluctuations? About the Sensitives?” I couldn’t believe Containment—Gunnar’s organization—would be so clueless.
Burke shook his head. “We’ve had to be careful what information we pass along, and how we do it. But we’ve figured out how to share the information with contacts inside Containment and two of its contractors—SecuriCrew and ComTac. They don’t think the fluctuations matter. And no one wants to believe there’s a risk the Veil will open again, that they’d have to face the trauma of war again. It’s easier to say we’re overreacting.”
They needed help. I’d heard everything I needed to hear. “I want in. I want to help.”
They all looked at me. I could feel Liam tense beside me, but he didn’t object. He’d have known better by now. Recklessly brave, and all that.
The last few days had changed my circumstances—they’d changed me. And it was going to be next to impossible to go back to just selling dry goods in the Quarter.
I didn’t know if my father had thought he’d lived a “big” life. I knew he was proud of what he’d done to keep the city fed and supplied during the war. I knew he was glad he’d been able to make a contribution. And yeah, I’d done the same thing, helped keep New Orleans alive, or at least my small corner of it. I’d stayed quiet. I’d worked hard.
But would that be satisfying forever? Now that I knew the truth, or at least some of it, about Paranormals and Containment, I didn’t think so. I wasn’t sure I could go back to that life.
Yes, it was a life I was thankful for. It was a life that helped me get over loss, and feel less alone when my family was gone. It gave me normalcy and routine, and kept me focused on whether we needed more needles or thread, instead of on what I didn’t have.
But it was way too late to honor my father’s request that I not intervene; at least I could fight on the right side.
“Why?” Malachi asked, head tilted. I didn’t think he was judging the question, but checking my motivation.
“Because if things don’t change, if we don’t change the way Containment deals with Sensitives, make them acknowledge we don’t have to turn into wraiths, I could be next.”
“I’m in, too,” Liam said. “She just beat me to it. Whoever is doing this has blood on their hands. My sister’s. Marla Salas’s. And they aren’t the only ones.”
Burke blew out a breath. “Good. We hoped you’d both feel that way.”
“For the record,” Darby said, “the pay sucks, because there is none, there are no benefits or sick days, and Containment could be on your ass at any time. But there is a lot of glory in keeping the Veil closed—saving humans from the monsters of the Beyond. No offense, Your Wingedness.”
“None taken.”
Speaking of His Wingedness, “If the Veil was opened,” I said, glancing at Malachi, “you could go home. You don’t want that?”
A shadow crossed his perfect face. “I’m a warrior. I lead my battalions, and the fight is not yet done. I did not choose to be here, but the fight has moved into this land.”
“Meaning the fight is now against Containment?” Liam asked.
“In a manner of speaking,” Malachi said. “It would, perhaps, be better to say that the fight is against ignorance.”
“And what’s the current agenda?” Liam asked.
“Tracking down the rest of the Sensitives who worked with Containment, even incidentally,” Burke said. “But it’s a slow process, and we haven’t been able to keep up. We’re still losing Sensitives.”
“We’ve got a friend in Devil’s Isle who has comp skills,” Liam said. “If you’re good with it, we can talk to him, have him search the network. Maybe he can find something about who might be targeted next.”
Burke glanced at Malachi and Darby, who nodded. “Good idea,” he said.
“So, how do we communicate?” I asked. “Or know when to meet?”
Malachi whistled. At his command, a milky-white pigeon flew down from the rafters, landed on his outstretched arm. There was a small leather band around one scaly leg. “Carrier pigeon,” he said, then gestured to the leather band. “A small message can be placed here.”
“I thought carrier pigeons were extinct.”
“You’re thinking of passenger pigeons,” Darby said. “They are extinct. Carrier pigeons are actually a type of homing pigeon, which is not.”
I looked at the bird, which turned its head in jerky, robotic movements. War hadn’t done much to lower the pigeon count in New Orleans, and since telephones were gone, it was a pretty ingenious solution. Humans had come a long way . . . and sometimes circled right back again.
Malachi nodded. “There’s a spot at your store where a bird could land? Where you could receive a message?”
I thought for a moment. “The courtyard windows. They’re away from the street, and the other buildings that face the courtyard aren’t occupied. There’s a flagpole outside the third-floor window. If you can get them to land there, that could work.”
He nodded. “When you take the message, you can insert another. The bird will fly back here, where we’ll retrieve it.”
“What if we need to get in touch with you before that?” I asked.
“Signal us,” Malachi said. ?
??You’ve got a postwar flag?”
That was the flag with gold fleurs-de-lis. “Sure.”
He nodded. “If you need to meet with us, hang it on your third-floor balcony. Someone will see it, send a note. And if we need to meet, we meet here.”
I nodded. “Easy enough.”
“In that case,” Darby said with a smile that looked pretty relieved, “welcome to the team.”
• • •
A warm breeze was blowing outside as we walked across scratching gravel to the truck.
“So, I guess we’ve joined a treasonous secret alliance.”
“That’s what it looks like,” Liam said as we climbed into the truck. He stuck the key in the ignition, pumped the gas until the truck roared to life.
He glanced at me. “I can’t say I’m thrilled about the possibility the Veil will open again—or that we’re the only thing standing between war and peace.”
“We have to start somewhere,” I said.
He looked at me, smiled. “That’s one of those things people say that doesn’t really mean anything. They just say it to make you feel better.”
“Yeah, they do,” I said. “And don’t you feel better?”
He grunted.
“What are you going to have Moses look for?”
Liam frowned. “I’m not sure yet. It’s not like he can search every instance of ‘Sensitives’ in Containment-Net. That’s probably thousands of documents.”
I smiled at him. “No. But he could search for ‘Marla Salas.’”
He opened his mouth, closed it again. “Damn, Connolly. That’s not bad.”
“It’s pretty damn brilliant, actually.”
Liam snorted, swerved the truck around an enormous pothole. “Don’t get a big head. I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”
“If we keep the Veil closed and save the world, do you think there’s any chance Containment will rethink its position on Paras?”
“Not immediately. They’re too invested in the narrative at this point.”
That sounded like something Tadji would say. “Right. Containment lies.”
“Put that on a damn T-shirt,” he muttered. “But in the long term? Yeah. Public opinion will eventually sway. It always does. And it sounds like we’re going to help it along. We just have to keep you safe in the interim. I mean, except for the treason.”