“Progression?” I asked.
Ezra inhaled and exhaled slowly, clasping his hands together. “Dulcie has certain qualities now. The qualities of vampirism … and other races as well. I don’t know how Meg has—”
“What is she capable of? Exactly?” I asked. I had to know if she was vampiric, lycanthropic, draconian, or dryadic, and Hades only knew how many other kinds of creatures were involved, or how many bloody fatal characteristics she currently carried in her. I had to know what she had to defend her now, if it came down to it.
If you have to fight her, I thought. Which was true.
But Ezra didn’t elaborate on that. “I’m afraid I wasn’t present for that portion of her life. So I can’t say what she’s done, or how she accomplished it. And I do apologize for that. I should have watched her, I should have known she would become something unsavory if I left …” He trailed off. His regret sounded genuine. It showed in his face, which was twisting slowly into a grimace.
“Unsavory? That’s what you call this?” Bram asked.
But I wasn’t listening to him. No, I was thinking about why in the world Ezra would feel obligated to babysit Meg. “Are you …?” I started to say as I glanced up at him.
Ezra chuckled bitterly and nodded, folding his hands together, examining the creases in his porcelain skin. “Yes,” he said. “I am Meg’s maker.”
Bram scowled. “And the fool who brought her back, no doubt. Making all of this possible?”
Ezra’s face fell a touch further and he nodded. “I am.”
“Back?” I asked, looking between them.
Ezra sighed. “An unfortunate incident occurred,” he replied, “a little over a hundred years ago. There was a fire. Meg was badly injured and it was too far beyond her own capabilities to heal, despite how old she was. I discovered her and helped her, and … well, now here we are. And to be fair,” he added, looking pointedly at Bram, “she did ask to die.”
“You blame me?” Bram seethed.
“No, of course not,” Ezra said, holding up his hands. “Meg is her own master in all of this.”
“What do you mean, she asked to die?” I demanded.
Bram groaned. “I had the opportunity to kill her after the fire,” he said. “Permanently. But after she betrayed me, I had no intention of gifting her with any such release.” He shook his head, obviously angry with himself. “I left her there to suffer throughout the rest of eternity. And this idiot—”
“Did not know how far she had fallen,” Ezra finished for him. “And I am still trying to remedy the situation.”
“You want to kill her now?” I asked, my tone sounding dubious. “Your own progeny, your daughter? You want her to die, even after you saved her?”
“Yes,” Ezra said but the word seemed to pain him. “I do. I must.” He sighed—a genuine sound this time, and full of anguish and regret.
“Why?”
“Because it is the duty of a father to care for his daughter,” he said slowly. “And to clean up the messes he allowed her … or taught her how to make. I am responsible for her, and, therefore, I am responsible for the destruction she has visited upon the world. She has become much too powerful,” he continued tersely. “She hungers for more power and she is too dangerous.”
“How dangerous?” I asked.
Ezra shrugged. “She longs for an overturn of power—she wouldn’t have summoned every ruling house from here to the Silver Marsh if she didn’t. It would be most prudent for us to assume she intends to inflict the worst damage she can until she attains it.”
“Hold up,” I said, “Ruling houses? I thought Meg sought control of the ANC for the sake of the potion rings, in order to control all the portals.”
Ezra looked at the little, brown door isolating us from the rest of the party and sighed.
“The ANC is just an obstacle to whatever her ultimate plan is—perhaps it involves the portals, perhaps not, but Meg already has access to more portals than any of us could count. She doesn’t need them, but perhaps she has reason for controlling them. Or at least, to prevent anyone else from controlling them.”
“And the potion rings?” I asked. “Where are they in all of this?”
Ezra scoffed. “Just another dog to tie up in the yard. The potion kings and their employees are minor organizations with substantial power in the Netherworld—Meg recruited them, lied to them, and set them to perform some menial tasks in the back of nowhere to keep them out of her way. If they knew what she really wanted, she’d have an outright war on her hands.”
“And what does she really want?” I asked.
“I’m not entirely certain, but it is likely something with long-term consequences that would put a significant damper on life as we know it,” Ezra said. “She is the matriarch of the House of Vogahn. I don’t expect you know that name?”
I did, actually. It was an old, Netherworldian name, and rather important too, part of the original hierarchies that existed before Earthly influence and the ANC came into being. It didn’t take me long to parse out what that name meant in context. “Oh, shit!”
“Oh, shit, indeed.” Ezra sighed mournfully as he crossed his arms, casting his eyes almost absently at the blank wall. He shook his head. “Whatever she is up to has everything to do with the order that came before the human democracy. It’s centuries old by now, but Meg would surely remember those days well. And apparently,” he added, gesturing to the party we could no longer hear, “they remember her too. Fondly enough to kneel to whatever cause she’s stirred up in their richly conservative minds.” His expression curdled. “But I digress,” he interjected, “we should be on our way.”
I moved forward—grabbing the black journal almost as an afterthought. Ezra grimaced at me.
“What?” I said. “Meg will notice we’re gone before she notices this is.” I held the journal up—and a vague tingling sensation filled my fingertips where they touched the leather. “That’s weird.”
Ezra didn’t hear me. He had Bram’s arm over his shoulder and was helping him climb back into the briefcase. Bram’s pallor hadn’t changed, but he looked nauseous.
Ezra cocked his head, listening for something. “Someone is coming,” he said. “A very drunken someone, so you’d best hurry.”
“Um, sorry about this,” I said as I squished myself around Bram. Ezra closed the zipper above us, and everything went dark. Our arms were tangled together, our thighs pressed against each other, and our hands and fingers bent around themselves. Our extremities were closer than either of us could have ever dreamed they’d be.
“Move your knee, Vander,” Bram hissed when Ezra lifted the briefcase.
I felt the part of my body pressing against him the most and stiffened. “That’s, um … not my knee.”
There was a long silence.
“We will never speak of this,” said Bram.
I gulped. “Agreed.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Sam
I sat in the backseat of the SUV, my hand on my throat, grimacing. We were driving out of Splendor to the illustrious City of Angels, where Casey’s mother apparently worked as the Head of the Preternatural Division. That meant she stood guard over the largest and most versatile of all the government regulated portals.
Marcus was driving—Kent had begged for the wheel, but Judy produced a small, reddish something from her pocket and told Kent to sit in the back and play with that instead. He complied rather happily, lighting and gutting the flame on a small, metallic wick poking out of the object’s side. A bomb, probably, and not as friendly as it looked, but he refused to let it go off. Rowena sat beside him, staring out into the dark, the magic under her skin prickling. Maybe she was getting itchy for a good clean kill. The skeleton-god creature that scratched her soul and gave her the magic was an unfriendly something-or-other with a fondness for death. It flowed through Rowena’s veins, making her ever so slightly more bloodthirsty than the average person.
Casey—his soft eyes stari
ng out of a face made infinitely more angular by shadowed stripes—was sitting beside me. He was half-lit by the streetlamps and the light of Judy’s phone as she skimmed through news articles on some website while grimacing. I couldn’t imagine the world view could have been very pretty at the moment.
My throat prickled—not so much with bad magic as the remnants of Dagan’s touch. He had a magic all his own, the liquid malice and parched sunlight of creatures not meant for any particular world, monsters whose very nature dictated their wants for unsavory things. His soul, or whatever mass of congealed essence comprised what should have been his soul, was twisted, dark, and broken, a grasping thing that you dared to touch at your own peril. If it touched you, brushing against you physically, or delved into your mind to show you something just as dark, it was like inhaling sand. Something that stayed with you, choking you, and making every breath rattle like you were sick with something. It corrupted whatever it touched from the inside.
It sounds a little melodramatic, I know, but it’s true. It’s a feeling of violation regardless of the demon in question … But when that demon happens to be Dagan, suffice to say, it’s way worse. So much worse.
So I was jittery and jumpy, relegated to a place far back in my brain, puzzling over Dagan’s vague notion of Dulcie’s location. I was still accepting the knowledge that he’d been close enough to touch me, and was totally unprepared for anyone or anything to get within five feet of me.
“You, um … you doing okay?” Casey asked, and I almost leapt out of my skin. “Sorry,” he said.
“No, you’re fine,” I said, sighing. I ran my hand over my face, rubbing my temple and suppressing a sudden burning urge to scream. Hades, just breathe, Sam. It’s not like Dagan actually did anything to you.
Yeah, but what I saw is traumatic all on its own. I didn’t imagine those visuals would leave my head anytime soon.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Casey asked again, only softer this time. His mouth was a firm, grim line, and his eyes were staring, but I couldn’t tell at what.
“Yeah,” I said, not looking up. “Totally.” Liar, liar, ANC on fire. I gestured vaguely to my rib, knowing damn well that wasn’t what he was talking about. “Doesn’t hurt too much at all.”
“No, I mean …” He sighed, clearly unsure how to phrase his next question. “I mean, with … did anything … happen in there? Anything that made you uncomfortable?”
“Um …” I said, frowning at him and cringing into myself. The orgy was the least of my problems, but thinking about it was still extremely unpleasant. “Nothing happened. I just … watched.” Yes, perfectly eloquent, Sam. Tell the nice, young man that you just watched an orgy while you interrogated a demon about your homicidal best friend. He’ll find it endearing.
“So you’re okay then?” He eyed me narrowly.
I inhaled and I exhaled. I developed an excruciating awareness of my heart and its sudden desire to explode from my chest. “I,” I faltered. Use words, Sam. Full sentences. Come on, you can do it. “It wasn’t … fun.” Okay, that’s true enough.
Casey took a deep breath and seemed to gather his thoughts. “Well, I think it’s important to say that you’re uh,” he started, “you’re safe now.” He was staring at me and blinking slowly, his eyes rock-steady. I lost myself in them for a moment, swimming in their color and their cosmic immovability.
“Thanks,” I said, my bones melting under his gaze like beeswax. He seemed so … not exactly fragile, but vulnerable, like he was as unfamiliar with emotional stuff as I was. I couldn’t help but wonder about the last time Casey James had a girlfriend. As it was, neither one of us knew how to act around the other. It was fairly obvious that we were attracted to one another—at least, that’s what I thought. As far as Casey was concerned, it seemed like he was trying to play doctor and the handsome, not-exactly-a-stranger all at once, uncertain where the line was drawn.
He squeezed my hand and smiled.
I blinked. Siphons aren’t capable of glamour. This was just me looking at a massively attractive doctor and deciding it was too much trouble to look away. I managed a weak, “Thanks,” but it came out as more of a whisper than a word.
He lowered his hand to the seat—still wrapped around mine—and sighed, making a visible effort to relax. “Hell of a day.” There was a vague sense of the moment breaking into little, bite-sized pieces, but I couldn’t decide what I wanted to happen next, if anything. Did I expect him to kiss me right in front of his team?
Yes. Yes, I absolutely did.
“Has it only been a day?” I asked.
“Technically, it’s been two,” he answered.
“So, your mom …” I started.
“Is the acting Head of the Preternatural Division,” Casey said. “Yes.”
“And she …” is your mom, I thought stupidly.
“Has access to a government regulation emergency portal generator? Yes.”
I nodded, trying to think of something else to say. There was a strained tension hanging between our words—not an angry feeling, just afraid. The very human urge to shatter a necessary silence. To talk while there was nothing we could do but drive and stare at the road, or at each other. Finding something to say, anything, and saying it before the silence got too deep to swim out of.
I lived inside silences like that. Usually, I just let them pass. However, tension is a lot easier to brush off when you’re all alone.
“What’s it like?” said Casey. “Having competent magic at hand?”
“You’re …” I nearly corrected him with you’re competent, you just need practice, or something equally contrived. But he wasn’t. Siphon magic, contrary to public knowledge, was designed to be exactly as lackluster as it was. I let the sentence die on my tongue.
“I know,” Casey said, and he hiked his voice up into falsetto. “At least I’m pretty.”
I snorted—a deep, back-of-the-throat gargle of a laugh. Casey laughed too.
“It’s, uh,” I said, pushing my hair out of my face in an almost hysterically cliché movement, but I had hair in my face, so sue me. “It’s nice, I guess? And useful. Kind of irritating, sometimes.”
“Irritating like how?”
“Like in the office.” I shook my head. “Printer gets jammed or something, or somebody gets blood on their clothes. Like maintenance stuff that everybody thinks I can easily fix by just snapping my fingers. Little stuff, and it’s easy, like, really easy, but sometimes, it’s irritating to be the … I don’t know, the—”
“Office mom?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
Casey chuckled. “I get that. Try being the only certified doctor in a room full of creature-techs. Everybody asking if lycanthropy is contagious or airborne, or if getting scratched by a vampire is going to make them immediately bloodthirsty, asking if dryads can get the clap …” He shook his head. “Not a whole lot of fun.”
“Can dryads get the clap?” I asked.
“They can carry it, but in practice, they’re immune.”
“Huh.” The more you know. “What’s it like being a …” Hmm. Doctor or siphon? “A doctor?”
“In general? Good,” he said. “It’s … I don’t know, reassuring, I guess. Being the person in the room that always gets called when something goes wrong.”
We both sighed at once and looked at each other, grateful for this … understanding. The shared realization that this was awkward, and we were both desperately trying to fill the silence with anything that didn’t matter, anything we could quickly brush off and forget. Anything that had nothing to do with the world blowing itself to high hell all around us, or blithely accepting its demise. Trying to talk about ourselves and each other without reaching for the deeper stuff, like the reality of our own existence, because it would inevitably lead us back here, to the SUV and Casey’s elite team of crazy people. I was tired of the catastrophic nonsense that dragged all of us here.
Casey smiled. I smiled, too. Maybe it was my imagination, but
the tension seemed to dissolve then. Taking a backseat, I agreed to exist quietly in the absence of a proper distraction. I wanted to say something, an outward acknowledgment of this moment, the one I was certain we were having. Something like, “We’re so lame,” or “The job be killing me, right?” But nothing I could think of seemed appropriate.
Then Casey just said, “Yeah. Me too.”
And that was enough.
He squeezed my hand. “It’s quite a drive to LA,” he said. “You should get some sleep. You … uh …” He laughed. “You look like you need it.
“You don’t look so hot yourself.”
Casey opened his arm, gesturing for me to lean against him, and smiling gently, placidly, like it was the most normal thing in the world for a person to do. “I would never accuse you of not being hot.”
I blinked, and we both laughed.
“That sounded smoother in my head, I swear,” he said.
I leaned into him, laughing softly, and nestled myself into the crook of his arm, resting my head on his chest. Listening to his heartbeat, I was soothed by the steady thump-thumping of a man walking the razor’s edge of excitement. I let my hand fall to his stomach, and it beat faster. So did mine.
Casey kissed me. Just on the top of the head, fiddling with my hair, but it was enough to jolt me with a shock that went straight through me. “We can do this,” he whispered.
I closed my eyes. We. Nice word.
Really nice word.
And then. An explosion.
The SUV jerked and sputtered, tipping halfway onto its side, and slamming into something hard. A fizzing flash flew past my ear and Kent cursed, clamoring past me to grab it as it soared through the air. The bomb.
Gravity was pulling me in the wrong direction, sideways and up, while my seatbelt dug into my shoulder. The sour, acrid smell of gas hung heavy in the air, swimming up my nose and making me gag. For a moment, all I could hear was white noise, a high-pitched ringing, the whine of a siren screaming between my ears.