Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Robin
A robotic female voice spoke with polite incomprehensibility over the PA system, but I didn’t look up from my phone. With one hand gripping my wheeled carry-on suitcase and my phone in the other, I re-read Amalia’s email for what felt like the hundredth time.
My cousin didn’t always send the most coherent messages. Her attitude toward proofreading was negligent at best, and according to her, the burden of figuring out typos and punctuation fell on the message recipient.
But punctuation or not, her meaning in her latest email was unmistakable.
Subject: OMFG
THE MPD DISBANDED THE CROW AND HAMMER!!! I just found out I don’t know anything more yet but HOLY HELL what is going on? Haven’t heard from Darius yet I hope he has answers because wtf
There’s no way you and the asshole can join a different guild.
When will you be home?
I looked up at the gate number suspended above the rows of uncomfortable seating. If my flight left on time, I’d be back in Vancouver tomorrow afternoon.
Other passengers were scattered amongst the chairs, while a constant stream of foot traffic and wheeled luggage streamed down the concourse toward other gates. Another announcement in Romanian sounded from the PA system.
I’d replied to Amalia’s email asking for more information—any information—but she must have gone to bed. She probably wouldn’t be awake for another few hours, though how she could sleep when our guild had been disbanded was beyond me.
My gaze returned to her email and the one sentence she’d punctuated with a period. “There’s no way you and the asshole can join a different guild.”
I wasn’t sure if she’d intended to convey a sense of ominous finality with that lone period, but I was feeling the effect anyway. She was right. A thousand times right. I wasn’t safe at any other guild. I needed the Crow and Hammer.
Why had the MPD disbanded it?
It had to be a mistake. I’d seen notices about the MPD’s “temporary” policies and changes in their treatment of guilds, and I’d heard even more alarming anecdotes from Uncle Jack, who now worked as an MPD consultant.
Still, it had to be a mistake. It might even be fixed by the time my flight landed in Vancouver.
I swiped away the email app, revealing my phone’s home screen. The background displayed my favorite photo of the eerie ice spires of the Sc?risoara Glacier Cave, and I smiled despite my state of anxiety.
Neither ice caves nor Romania had been at the top of my list of travel destinations, but then I’d made the mistake of telling Zylas that he wouldn’t like ice caves because they were cold.
He’d said he could handle cold better than a weak hh’ainun like me, and the next thing I knew, Romania had jumped to the top of our list. Of course, we’d seen way more than just the cave.
The Carpathian Mountains were utterly breathtaking, though not quite as overwhelming as the towering tepuis of Venezuela.
The gate agent announced something in Romanian, then provided the English translation. Boarding for my flight would begin shortly. A third of the waiting passengers stood, gathered their things, and shuffled forward to form a line.
As I looked back down at my phone, intending to pull up my digital ticket, the device chimed loudly. I almost dropped it, my heart instantly pounding, but the new message wasn’t an email from Amalia. It was a text from Uncle Jack.
ARE YOU AT THE AIRPORT?
I frowned. What was with him and Amalia abusing all caps? And why was he asking? He knew my flight schedule.
I started to type a reply when my phone chimed again.
GET OUT OF THE AIRPORT
My heart lurched, and from a dark corner of my mind, a familiar presence sharpened.
Zylas was paying attention.
I pushed to my feet and grasped my suitcase’s handle. My flight was departing in thirty minutes, and if I left the airport now, I’d miss it. But Uncle Jack wasn’t the joking type, nor was he prone to overreaction. If he was telling me to get out, then I’d get out and worry about the rest later.
Hitching my only other piece of luggage, a slim backpack, higher on my shoulders, I turned toward the concourse.
A group of people was walking toward my gate—and all of them were looking at me. None of them had luggage.
Unease crawled across my nerves. I didn’t move as the group spread out to form a half-ring, trapping me against a row of seats bolted to the floor behind me.
My phone chimed again. I slid it into my pocket as a lean woman in her late thirties with long, dark hair and a severe expression shifted closer, marking herself as the person in charge.
“Are you Robin Page?” she asked. She had an accent, but it didn’t sound Romanian.
Hungarian, Zylas supplied.
We’d gotten a tour of the Berca Mud Volcanoes alongside a group of friendly Hungarian tourists, so I didn’t doubt his identification.
“Yes,” I said, trying to sound mildly curious. “Is there a problem?”
She pulled something from her leather jacket pocket and showed it to me: an MPD badge.
I glanced at the other seven mythics surrounding me. Were they all MPD as well? I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen this many agents together outside of a precinct.
“As per the temporary bounty procedure, I’ve requested the assistance of local bounty hunters in this matter,” the woman said, answering my unspoken question.
“What matter?” I demanded, my heart rate kicking into high gear.
She swapped her badge for a sheet of folded paper. Everyone who’d lined up to board was looking over their shoulders at us as the woman opened the paper and held it up.
“As per Provisional Security Protocol 19-D004819, I’m serving you with a warrant for the seizure of your infernus. You are required to surrender it immediately.”
I stared at her. “My infernus? But I haven’t done anything wrong.”
That last statement was laughably false—my entire existence as a demon contractor was illegal—but there was no way she knew that … was there? My phone, stuffed in my pocket, chimed again.
“You can review the Provisional Security Protocol and the warrant on your own time,” the agent said flatly. “Please surrender your infernus now.”
I lifted my chin. “I don’t know anything about that protocol, but I do know about guild protocol, and you have to serve summons and warrants to my GM before you can serve them to me.”
The agent smiled coolly. “Don’t you know, Miss Page? Your guild was disbanded.”
“Then I’m entitled to assistance from a local community liaison who will stand in as my GM.” I pretended to look around, using the opportunity to scan for a possible escape route. “I don’t see a liaison. Didn’t you bring one?”
The smile had disappeared from the agent’s face. “Failure to surrender your infernus will result in your immediate arrest.”
Her free hand shifted toward her waist, revealing the near-hidden glint of handcuffs under the hem of her jacket. The seven bounty hunters shifted impatiently. How much were they banking on the assumption that I wouldn’t cause a scene or use magic in public?
I pointed at the document. “I want to read that. And I want my community liaison. Is there somewhere else we can discuss this?”
“Of course, Miss Page.” She gave a gracious sweep of her hand. “Follow me.”
The walk down the concourse was bizarre, with me, rumpled from an early morning and pulling a small suitcase, surrounded by a ridiculous entourage of plainclothes security, or so it appeared to the dozens of travelers who stopped to stare at us.
They walked in a loose formation around me with the agent in the lead.
We continued past all the gates and into a ruckus of voices, bins, roller conveyors, and metal detector beeps at the security checkpoint.
The agent led us to a door labeled “Security Secondary Screening,” opened it, and stepped aside to let me and my escort enter ahead of her. My grip on the suitcase tightened as I walked across the threshold. My other hand was in my sweater pocket, fingers curled around a metal rectangle.
The room inside was long, with freestanding partitions dividing the space into smaller sections. It appeared empty of other people.
The door clacked shut.
“Ori eruptum impello!” I chanted.
With a silvery flash, a ring of explosive force expanded around me, hurling the bounty hunters away.
As they crashed into each other and the walls, red light flared through the front of my sweater where my infernus was tucked out of sight.
The crimson streaked to the floor in front of me, then pooled upward into the shape of my demon.
Zylas looked as undemonic as any demon could. His blood-red, long-sleeved shirt and dark blue jeans were just as mundane as my clothes. His messy black hair peeked out from beneath a dark gray ball cap.
But his eyes glowed with crimson power and his long, thin tail lashed behind him.
“Incapacitate the contractor!” the agent shouted.
Zylas leaped toward her so fast that his movements were a blur. I sprang in the opposite direction, righted a half-collapsed partition, and waited beside it, ready to take cover if anyone fired a spell at me. But they never got the chance.
Men crashed into walls or crumpled from blows to the soft parts of their bodies. Exactly one mythic managed to use his magic—a pyromage who conjured a fireball to hurl at Zylas.
Zylas leaped straight through it, the flames snuffing out around him, and threw the man across the room.
With that, my demon was the only one left standing. Seven bounty hunters were groaning on the floor, and the MPD agent was slumped next to the door, shaking her head groggily.
Abandoning my spot beside the partition, I grabbed my suitcase and hastened across the room, dodging fallen mythics. Zylas dissolved into red light and streaked back into my infernus.
At the door, I looked down at the agent crumpled beside it. She squinted up at me, her eyes out of focus.
I cracked the door open, slipped through, and closed it behind me. Then I walked past the security checkpoint and into the arrivals concourse, heading for the airport exit.
Five minutes later, I was sliding into a cab. I gave the driver a hotel address in downtown Bucharest, then slouched into the seat, my backpack on my lap and my suitcase next to me.
With numb fingers, I slid my phone out of my pocket and unlocked the screen, finding three more messages from Uncle Jack.
The MPD is going after contractors. They’re using MIDs to track them.
They know your flights. YOU CAN’T FLY. They’ll be waiting for you.
Are you safe? CALL ME.
I stared at his messages. Was I safe? How could I be safe?
My guild had been disbanded. The MPD was trying to take my infernus. My demon had just beaten up an entire team of bounty hunters in an airport. And if I tried to book another flight home, the MPD would be waiting.
I was trapped in Romania with nowhere to go, no way home, and the MPD hunting me.