Chapter 9
I missed my tiny apartment.
Xavier’s temporary safehouse had heated floors, a fucking wine fridge, every game console known to man, and a living room set up like a movie theater.
Ivan plugged his computer into a giant double monitor to read his comics from a fancy gamer chair that offered heat and massage, and Peanut Butter had claimed one of the velvet-upholstered chairs as his royal throne.
Angel, the traitor, said, “This is nice,” as the place was easily three thousand square feet.
Could I ever afford this sort of luxury? No. Hell, even when I’d dreamt of owning a house with a little yard that could fit me, Ivan, Grandpa, and now Angel it hadn’t been this big. With windows forever, even if they stared out into hazy colored lights.
Outside, the necropolis pulsed with a strange bioluminescence like downtown Shanghai, the glow washing over the imported Italian tile like a movie special effect.
The distant high-rises where shadow things slithered between buildings made my magic stir uneasily, but as we were in Xavier’s district, a refurbished mall, a thick supernatural barrier encased the building.
As long as it kept Ivan safe, I was fine living inside the bubble of Xavier’s creepy power.
The murder twins wandering the halls and Xavier stopping in from time to time. Angel at my side, Ivan was happy, and that was what mattered. Never mind the upcoming TFW week that hijacked my anxiety.
The discussion with Ivan about Nox had gone about as expected.
Ivan held Nox aloft, waving the cat back and forth like it was a ragdoll instead of a Maine Coon. “Explain again.”
Nox dangled limply, the picture of feline boredom.
“He’s a fae dragon,” I said for the tenth time. “The intel on them is short, but I think he can mimic whatever he wants.”
“Why a Maine Coon? Peanut Butter is a tabby,” Ivan pointed at the orange cat curled up in the chair.
I had a theory about that. “I was watching videos on TikTok about Maine Coon kittens.”
Ivan blinked at me, then turned the cat to stare at him. “Looks like a cat. Feels like a cat.” Ivan buried his face in Nox’s belly, inhaling dramatically. “Smells like a cat. Angel?”
“Smells like cookies and bad decisions.” He paused. “Wait, that’s Jude I’m smelling.”
I flipped him off as Ivan laughed and set Nox down, unbothered by whatever secrets the fae carried. At the borrowed apartment, Nox slept in Ivan’s bed. Any time I left the apartment, even to cross the long walkway to Angel’s place, Nox appeared on my back again as a tattoo.
The murder twins, and even Xavier, barely glanced at the cat and only ever remarked that I smelled like fae when my secret shadow became skin art. Like the little bastard knew exactly how to hide in plain sight. A skill I needed myself.
When we’d left the apartment that morning, the murder twins vowing to keep my brother safe, my back tingled with Nox’s familiar warmth.
“I’d prefer he stay with Ivan,” I’d told Angel on the way to work. The little creature didn’t seem to have a lot of magic of his own, but maybe he could help Ivan hide if trouble came knocking.
“I’d rather you have him,” Angel disagreed.
“The team might notice if books start appearing out of nowhere.”
“He improves your shielding.” Angel parked us in the ramp at work, and we headed down to gear up for our week across the Veil. “And I like you breathing.”
Other than sleeping for nearly twenty-four hours straight and fucking like bunnies, Angel and I spent the weekend poring over books magically gifted with knowledge of all things supernatural.
From a guide to Veil Herbology to shielding techniques to world ending offensive spells.
The latter I’d shoved under the bed and was grateful when the damn thing vanished into the ether again.
I tried to practice a handful of spells, though weirdly, my magic needed less structure than the books mapped out and more mental direction, which became exhausting by late Sunday.
I needed a book on magic theory. Angel asked Nox for something on structure versus unstructured, but the cat blinked at us.
Either he didn’t have anything, or he had no idea what we were talking about.
My magic, used to create shields and basic skills, was shaky at best. Angel suspected I needed to be across the Veil to pull more magic out of the air. I worried it meant someone needed to die. The whole necromancy thing was more unnerving because all I really knew was lore.
Did I want to control animated corpses? No.
Was it useful to obtain knowledge from the dead? Yes. Sort of. Ghosts—those were a weird sticking point. Angel said most SVs could talk to ghosts but couldn’t raise a corpse. Did that mean I wasn’t an SV? Or a super-powered one?
Thankfully, the military hadn’t come knocking. Though I’d exchanged numbers with Hardy, and he’d been keeping me updated on the attack on my place. Mainly that nothing had happened since I left, though they had members of their team regularly checking in.
“You’re brooding,” Angel observed, buckling his tactical vest as we loaded the SED transport van.
“I’m reflecting.” I yanked my gloves on too hard, the leather creaking.
My gift, if I wanted to call it that, made me nauseous just thinking about it.
I knew better than to ignore the magic thrumming under my skin.
Burying my head in the sand just meant getting blindsided later.
But did my personal fae-dragon librarian have to be such a ruthless taskmaster?
There had to be a middle ground between Basic Warding for Beginners and Zombie Battle Tactics: Raising Your Own Undead Army.
At least focusing on my class status and little brother provided a sane distraction. “Ivan will want to stay.”
“With you,” Angel said, unbothered.
“No, at Xavier’s apartment.”
Angel paused mid-motion. The van’s interior lights caught the amber flecks in his eyes as he turned to me. “Ivan doesn’t want marble countertops and fancy gaming systems, Jude. He wants his brother.”
The words hit like a punch to the ribs. Before I could deflect, Angel stepped closer, his voice dropping below the chatter of assembling agents.
“Is that apartment nicer than yours? Sure. Like a palace or a museum. Who wants to live in those? Home isn’t a place.
Not like that. It’s where you feel safe, and sometimes it’s a person that creates that for you.
Even my apartment stopped being a home the moment I scented you. ”
I fumbled my helmet. “Holy Christmas! Warn a guy before you...”
He kissed me hard enough to knock my head against the van wall. Whistles erupted around us. “Eventually you’re going to have to accept the words that make your heart speed up.”
“Aw,” Tiana said from her spot in the corner of the truck, surrounded by monitors. “How sweet.”
“Enough to give us all cavities,” Ezra griped.
“Suck it, dog boy,” I threw at him, annoyed by the audience.
“Pretty sure you already have,” he snapped back.
“Children, children,” Wade grumbled as he started up the van, Bobby in the passenger seat up front. Remi curled himself in one of the tiny bunks, looking like he hadn’t slept all weekend.
“You okay, Remi?” I asked.
He waved a hand at me, not opening his eyes.
Angel finished gearing up and hit a button. A screen lowered from the roof and displayed a map. Talk about high-tech vans. I sighed as he tapped the map display, gathering everyone’s attention.
“Assignment is to monitor the new tear. Reports say it’s stable, but we’ve got movement on the other side. We’re to observe, document, and if necessary, redirect any supernaturals getting too close to the breach. We don’t need to be herding things back through suburban neighborhoods again.”
“New tear?” I asked, wondering if there had been another after Brandon’s apartment building had been dragged across.
“The one through the apartment,” Angel said, reaching out to rub my shoulder. “The whole building is across now, but the expansion has stopped.”
My stomach flipped over. “I thought the locations got messed up when it happens.”
“It has, but we’ve had a few things cross that had to be collected and returned. There’s a barricade up on the other side, but it doesn’t always keep stuff from coming over. Which means we’ll have to drive the long way around, but it’s safer to keep the other stuff out.”
“We spend a lot of TFW weeks parked by new tears and investigating small stuff close by to help where we can,” Wade added. “We’re spread too thin to do more.”
“Right now, there are eleven new tears in the state,” Angel added. “This one is the most recent, though to have that many at once is a lot.” He sighed. “I’d rather be investigating in the office than lassoing supes. But we either all take a turn, or let the military take over.”
“Which is asking for war,” Bobby added.
“Fuck,” I cursed.
“Number one rule in the field?” Angel asked.
“No man left behind,” Ezra said with a growl, his gaze on me.
“I didn’t leave you behind,” I reminded him. “I broke you out of magic-dissolving goo. You and glitter boy over there.”
“Second rule is to sleep when you can,” Angel interrupted. “We’ll have rotating shifts between us and the NHV team.”
I stared at Remi, wondering for a minute why he was on our team and not theirs since he was fae, but then I saw a glowing mark on his right arm. He hadn’t had it on Friday. Holy fuck.
“Remi?”
He turned, his normally vibrant fae eyes dull and distant. Sweat beaded at his temples despite the van’s chill.
“Chip sickness,” Ezra said, turning his back to the sleeping area as he took a seat behind Bobby. “It will pass. Those who straddle the line between HV and NHV either accept the chip or reject it.”
“I’m not NH enough for them,” he muttered absently, tucking himself into the bunk. “Wake me when something interesting happens.”
My eyes locked with Angel’s, and I hated that he could see the revulsion twisting my features, the way my hands shook with barely contained horror at what they’d done to Remi.
Marked him. Like livestock. Like prey. Which stirred my own internal wrath at the glowing red band wrapping my bicep.
A brief memory of chills, nausea, and vertigo when I’d been handcuffed to an exam table in the morgue after getting my chip made me queasy.
Memories of my power awakening or chip sickness? I shuddered just remembering it.
Angel hauled me against the solid warmth of his body as we braced on the bench. The van lurched forward, carrying us toward the tear between dimensions. All I could feel was the phantom ache of that brand on my arm and the eruption into chaos that my life had been since.
The only thing keeping me grounded in that moment, from turning into a puddle of insanity between panic attacks, was the man at my side.
How had he existed in this world his entire life and not launched himself off a cliff or into the void?
Was it too soon to tell him how much I cared about him?
Was it love? Why did the idea of that scare me so much?
I breathed deep as we approached a familiar tear, and Bobby hit the overhead lights, which cast a swirling glow as we entered the rift.
Angel held me tight, and I let my helmet rest on the seat to bury my face in his shoulder and breathe his scent as the world stretched for a half second around us, spitting us out across into a landscape that could have been from an alien invasion novel or the latest dystopian thriller, fascinating and terrifying all at once.
Especially when the shadows knew my name.