I glanced over to see the glint of sweat at his temple. “Hands off, then.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” he snapped.
I flinched. “Did I do anything particular to piss you off, or had I just forgotten what an a-hole you are?” I glanced at a sign for I-90. “And where are we going?”
“You want to get the magic out, and that’s what we’re gonna do. On one condition, though: I get to keep it once it’s back in the relic. That’s the payment for my help, and if you whine about it—”
“I don’t have the relic.”
The tires squealed as he pulled over to the side of the road. “What the fuck, Mattie? Where is it?”
“Ben has it. He—”
“Of course he does,” Asa said, his voice dripping with contempt. “And where were you gonna meet him?”
“Meet him?” My eyes burned with tears. “You think you’ve got it all figured out, don’t you?”
“Look who’s talking.”
I’m not a violent person, but it was really tempting to smack him. The only thing that stopped me was the brittle feeling inside my chest, as if my rib cage were about to splinter under the pressure of the magic and the storm of emotions surrounding it. “I don’t know where he is, Asa. After it happened, I—”
“You got separated when Zhong’s thugs found you?”
I buried my head in my hands. He wouldn’t even let me get a word in edgewise—he was too busy making up his own story.
“You’d better find him,” Asa said. “I want the relic whole, and magic flows best into bodies.”
“But the relic isn’t a—”
“You said it was the original, and the original is a body part, right? With something this huge, I don’t want to risk trying to transfer it into a vessel that can’t contain it. Dangerous for everyone.”
And especially him. If the magic was unleashed, Asa would feel it the most. Considering how he was treating me, it was kind of tempting to tell him we’d have to risk it, but I didn’t know what would happen to me in that scenario, either. “Let me use your phone. I’ll try to call him.”
Asa fished what looked like a disposable phone out of his pocket and handed it to me without comment. I punched in Ben’s number, but it went straight to voice mail. I started pressing keys to text him.
“Don’t,” said Asa. “If they have him, we don’t want them to know what we’re up to.”
“I’ll see if he left me a message.” He knew I didn’t have my phone, but it would be the quickest way to communicate with me. I dialed my own voice mail while Asa nervously checked the van’s side and rearview mirrors, his fingers drumming on the wheel.
“Mattie,” said Ben’s voice a moment later. “I don’t know when you’ll get this, but I need to talk to you. I’m in trouble.” He sounded out of breath, and I could hear the noise of the city in the background—and the clang and rattle of a nearby train. “I know I messed up big-time, but if you ever loved me at all, you’ll put that aside until this is over. Brindle’s people are going to kill me if I show up with an empty relic and no magic. And if I don’t show up at all, they might go after our family, just like they went after me to get to Asa. Please.” Here, he cursed and I could hear the sounds of sirens wailing as they passed by wherever he was. “I ditched the car because someone was following me, and I’m at Union Station. I’m supposed to meet Brindle’s people at the DuPage Airport by eight. I’m begging you. For the sake of your mom and dad, if not for me.”
My mouth had gone completely dry. “Ben’s at Union Station. Brindle is expecting him at the DuPage Airport in”—I glanced at the clock on the dash—“three hours.”
Asa slammed the car into gear and pulled a U-turn that nearly resulted in a collision with a taxi. Gracie whined from the backseat. “Sorry, girl,” he said in that voice reserved only for her. And then it went flinty again as he gave me a sidelong glance. “Brindle, Mattie? Really?”
“I didn’t set this up, Asa!”
“So Ben’s your fucking pimp now?”
“My pimp? That’s low, even for you.”
“Well, I’d hate to disappoint.”
“Are you angry at Ben, or at me?”
“You’re gonna force me to choose?”
Hurt and bitterness welled up like acid at the back of my tongue. “He said they’d go after my family if we didn’t give them the relic.”
“And that surprises you?”
“No,” I said, my voice hoarse. “But—” I winced and rubbed at my chest.
“I’ll figure it out.” We were now speeding along I-90 North, back toward downtown. “But if Brindle’s people find Ben first, all bets are off. Especially if Reza’s there.”
“So you’ll just let them have Ben now, after all you did to save him?”
“You think I still give a fuck?”
“I know you do. You’re here, aren’t you?”
“You don’t know shit, Mattie.” His jaw was rigid as he took the exit at top speed. “I’m gonna make a lot of money off this, and I deserve every penny.”
“What happened to you?” I blurted out.
He chuckled, dry as the Las Vegas desert. “Let’s just get this done so you and Ben can go live happily ever after. Again.”
I couldn’t breathe past my sadness. My treasured happily-ever-after had been blown to pieces. And the part about it that hurt most? It had happened days ago. I hadn’t even realized the truth until it was literally forced into me.
“Right,” I choked out, clenching my fist over my diamond ring once again. “Let’s get this done.”
“Daria’s gonna hide out in Joliet, but I think she can help us get the magic back into the relic, since it’s Sensilo.”
“She did say it was her favorite. But this stuff . . . Asa, it’s already broken at least one conduit, and maybe two.” I wasn’t sure about Marcus.
He gave me a sharp glance out of the corner of his eye. “Two?”
“Just trust me. I’m not sure I’d want her to risk this for me.”
“We might not have a choice. Not many conduits are strong enough. I only know of one or two others who could take it.” He turned a corner, and the columned facade of Union Station loomed ahead. “But we can—” He pulled over abruptly and stared at the building. “Fuck me,” he muttered.
“What’s wrong?”
“At the moment, finding the right conduit’s the least of our problems.”
I peered at the front of the station, wishing Ben were just there in plain sight. “Just tell me.”
“You sure Ben’s in there?”
“I only know what he said in his message.”
Asa shifted in his seat and wiped his sweaty forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. “Then this is not gonna be fun.”
“Was it ever going to be fun?”
“Point taken.” He turned to me. “But that building is crawling with naturals, Mattie. And I’m guessing every single one of them belongs to Zhong Lei.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
I looked down at my bare feet, my ill-fitting dress, my skinny limbs that had already gone above and beyond tonight. I rubbed at the brittle, sharp pain in my chest. Save yourself, Ben. He’d burned me so badly that in that moment, it wouldn’t have been hard to walk away. But Asa had said that the best receptacle for the magic inside me was the original relic—the gold-plated gallbladder or whatever of the original sorcerer. “What are the odds they already have it, and him?” I asked.
“Decent. There are at least four of them in there. One of them’s a sensor. Probably Tao.”
“But Ben isn’t a natural, and the relic itself is empty right now. Tao probably couldn’t sense him.”
Asa frowned at the building. “Fair enough. You want to go in?”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ll be there.”
I arched one eyebrow, and his smile managed to be both feral and cocky. “You’re gonna have to trust me,” he said.
I shuddered. “I don’t
think I trust anyone right now.”
Asa’s smile disappeared, and he gave me a searching look. It was so intense that I had to turn away. I didn’t want him to see how badly I was hurting, how close I was to losing it right there in his passenger seat. I’d lost enough tonight—my understanding of Ben, my secret fantasy of Asa. Both men had betrayed me in their own way. But only one of those men had done it intentionally and callously. And Asa was just . . . Asa. This wasn’t his problem.
Asa leaned forward to catch my eye. “Hey. Look at me.”
I sighed and obeyed.
“I’m not going to leave you behind, okay? You go in there and find Ben. Gracie and I will do the rest.”
I laughed as I glanced back at the pit bull. Her ragged ears were perked as she watched Asa for instructions. “I guess I’m in good hands, then.”
When I looked back at Asa, something had shifted behind his eyes. He muttered something unintelligible, then reached across me and opened my door. He was staring out the window as I climbed out.
I gritted my teeth as my bare, scraped feet carried me across the city street, past the parking barriers and bike racks, between the columns, and into the cavernous great hall of the station. It was around five in the morning, and there were no passengers around. I scanned the room for people lurking behind the long wooden benches on either side of me as I trudged up the center of the space, headed for the concourse. I wanted to call Ben’s name, but I figured that might be kind of a giveaway.
I was just passing an alcove that housed an ATM when a hand shot out and pulled me inside. Ben was pale and his hair was mussed. His hands were shaking as he released me. “Are you okay?” he whispered.
“Do I look okay?”
He blinked at me and then made the wise decision not to answer the question. “I wasn’t sure you’d come. The way you took off . . .”
“Do you have the relic?”
He patted his pocket and gave me a hopeful smile. “I knew you’d change your mind after you had the chance to think about it. I bet we can rent a—”
“That’s not how it’s going to go, Ben,” I said quietly, peeking out of the alcove before returning to him. “I called Asa.”
“What? You can’t be serious.”
His contemptuous tone spurred a rush of anger inside me that had me doubling over in pain. “Serious as the heart attack it feels like I’m having right now,” I snapped. I slapped his arm away as he tried to help me upright again.
“I should have guessed you’d go running straight to him. But we don’t need him, Mattie. If you really feel like you want a magic sensor, Mr. Brindle could probably find a freelancer, and when we get to Vegas—”
“We’re not going to Vegas, Ben! We’re getting out of here, and then we’re going to get this magic out of me and go home. Asa knows a conduit in Joliet who can help us. He’s going to take the relic once the magic is back inside it. He’ll know what to do with it, and he’s taking it as payment for helping. End of story.”
“What? That’s bullshit! We’ve come this far, Mattie. We can’t give up now,” he said, coming forward to take me by the arms again.
I backed up so fast that my head hit the wall. “You want the magic? Come and get it.” I whirled around and marched out of the alcove. I hadn’t seen any sign of Zhong’s agents, but the longer I hung out in one place, the more chance Tao would have to sense my presence. Asa had said he would have to be very close, but the way my chest was feeling, I didn’t trust myself to contain it.
I pulled up short when I saw that three people were now sitting on the bench facing the alcove. Two of them looked familiar. One was Zhi, an Ekstazo healer and Zhong’s mistress. Asa and I had smuggled a relic full of her magic out to Zhi’s ailing mother in Colorado last year, in exchange for information about Ben’s whereabouts. Next to her was Tao, looking even more sickly and strained than he had the year before. Daria had told me he stayed high on Ekstazo pleasure magic just to keep him going, and I knew from a brief encounter with magic-sensing power that it felt like needles working their way along my skin. Asa had his own way of dealing with it, but Tao looked as if it were slowly killing him. Still, his dark eyes focused on me the minute I stepped into the open. The man sitting next to him, a short, stocky guy with bright-blue hair, stood up as Tao muttered something in his ear.
“The two of you will come with us,” Blue Hair said with a smile, sauntering toward us.
I glanced behind me to see Ben at my shoulder. “Don’t listen to him,” I started to say, but Ben stepped forward and threw a punch at the guy as soon as he was within reach.
For a split second, I was impressed that Ben had been able to throw off the influence of Knedas magic—until I realized Blue Hair wasn’t a mindfucker; he was a Strikon. The guy caught Ben’s punch in midair, and Ben cried out as if he’d been stabbed. I took a step back to run, but the Strikon caught me by the arm. My mouth dropped open as my whole body rebelled, every cell screaming so loudly that I couldn’t make a sound. I fell to my knees, unable to breathe. Ben wrapped his arms around me and lifted me from the ground, holding me against his broad chest. His panicked voice yanked me into awareness again, but the pain didn’t go away. It wrapped itself around the knife in my chest and pushed the agony deeper, until my bones themselves felt like they were going to shatter.
“What the hell did you do?” Ben shouted. Then he turned to yell at a security guard. “Don’t you see this? Help us!”
The guard merely gazed blankly at us and walked on.
Blue Hair waved his hand in front of my face. “I didn’t give her that much. It should have faded as soon as I let her go.”
“Don’t touch her again, Bai,” Zhi said. “She doesn’t look well.” She didn’t look that well, either. Her exquisitely beautiful face looked pinched and pale, and I wondered what had happened to her in the months since Zhong had found out she’d helped us find Ben. “Welcome back to Chicago, Mattie. I apologize for the crudeness of our hospitality. Especially because I have been told that you brought us a present.”
“Oh, this is awkward,” I said between agonized breaths as Ben held me up. “I actually forgot it back at the hotel.”
Zhi gave me a pained smile. “We mean you no harm. We only want the magic and the relic, and you will both be free to go.”
“Frank Brindle will have something to say about that,” Ben said.
Zhi and Tao jumped to their feet, and Bai sidled close enough to make Ben groan. “You work for him?” Bai asked. “What are you? A conduit? Another reliquary?”
“I’m Mattie’s fiancé,” Ben said. He held me a little tighter, and I forced myself not to squirm to escape. As angry as I was at him, I didn’t want to be responsible for his death. Also, I wasn’t sure I could stand on my own.
“Oh. This is the brother of Asa Ward,” Tao said, his voice flat. “He’s not a natural.”
“Then he’s not useful,” said Bai. “Wouldn’t it be easier to eliminate him?”
Zhi tilted her head. “That is Zhong’s decision to make. He may wish to make a deal with Asa.”
I fought the urge to glance around. Asa had said he would be here. He’d said he would back me up. Where was he?
“We’d better get going,” said Zhi. “People will soon realize the station is actually open.” Her statement made me look around again. A few passengers were trickling in, but their gazes seemed to drift over us as they passed. Somewhere around there, there must have been a Knedas agent. He or she had clearly influenced the guard, who was now chatting up an equally oblivious ticket agent not thirty feet away.
Tao stepped into the aisle and turned toward the exit, then froze. “Wait.”
Zhi approached him and rubbed his back, making the rigid set of his shoulders relax. “What is it?”
“Strikon. I . . . over there. Approaching.” Stiffly, he turned back toward the concourse. “Moving fast.”
“Bai, go with Tao.”
We all turned as Tao and Bai headed for the hallway
that led to the north and south concourses. Tao was scanning the left side of the hallway, partially hunched over and leaning forward as if he were about to charge. Or fall on his face. He looked a little unsteady. “It’s . . . it’s . . . there!”
We all stared at the entrance to the men’s bathroom, and that was when Gracie charged out of it, sprinting along the hallway toward us with a jangly metal collar fastened around her thick neck, a large heart-shaped pendant dangling in front of her chest. In the moment of stunned silence that followed, Asa leaned out from behind a column only a few feet away from the two agents. He had a straw pressed between his lips. Just as Tao turned around, Asa exhaled forcefully, and a little white projectile flew out of the end of the straw, hitting Tao in the side of the face. He clapped his hand to his face and screamed, which was when Asa nailed him again, this time right in the eye.
“Spitballs?” Ben muttered as Bai whirled around and charged Asa, who calmly raised what appeared to be a water gun and squirted the Strikon right in the face, stopping him in his tracks.
Asa leaned close to Bai and whispered something in the guy’s ear, and Bai immediately took off running, straight toward the concourses.
“Please tell me you didn’t just tell him to step in front of a train,” I said as Asa stalked toward me.
He winked and then looked right past Ben, his gaze settling on Zhi. “Thought we were friends.”
“You don’t know what he did to me,” she said in a choked voice. “You don’t know what he’ll do.”
“I can guess. But you can tell him you had no choice.” He walked up to her and squirted her in the face before she could reply. “Go after Bai,” he said softly. “He’s going to be dancing on a table in the first class lounge, and odds are he will be naked.” He held up the water gun and waggled his eyebrows. “This is some seriously good shit.”
Zhi set off at a jog, running right past Tao, who was whimpering and rubbing his eye, which had swollen shut. Asa’s saliva had been saturated with his magic, which Tao, already filled to the brim with the same kind, was extremely sensitive to. He tried to get to his feet as he saw his comrades abandoning their attempt to capture us, but he was too unsteady to manage it.