Chapter 16
brADLEY
The problem with sitting around and doing nothing was that, despite the near-death experience, no one was listening to me when I said that the end of the world was coming.
Falcón, when pressed for information about what the MEA was doing, pointedly removed a small glass vial from her jacket and placed it on the kitchen table where I was sitting.
Inside, something brassy colored clinked against the side of the glass. I blinked at it, frowning.
“What is that?” I asked.
“That, Mr. Brooks, is the bullet that was lodged in your chest before Gallows here found you.” As far as dramatic statements went, Falcón’s worked wonderfully.
Elaine gasped behind me, Griffin hissed through his teeth next to me, and Brigette looked nearly a shade lighter than the paper of her favorite library book.
Everyone started speaking at once, and Falcón managed to look above it all, staring down at us as we clamored like children needing to be heard.
“I trust”—she lifted the small vial—“this sufficiently explains why all of you are being kept out of the investigation. We are going to get Williams for attempted murder, and likely, since he’s so overconfident, we will be able to get him for the mundane murders as well.
Despite how it looks, the MEA is in a very good position here.
I will not have any of you jeopardizing what should be a very easy conviction. ”
“You’ve made your point,” Griffin growled.
“Are you sure I have?” Falcón looked around.
“Because if I find out that any of you have left this safe house, if any of you decide vigilante justice is the way forward, then we will have to have some very uncomfortable conversations. Uncomfortable conversations that even Brooks money cannot help you escape from.”
“Director, we understand,” Elaine said congenially. “After the events of last night and most of yesterday, we are in no hurry to risk anyone’s life when we have full faith that the MEA will resolve the situation easily.”
“Good. I’m glad we’ve come to an understanding.
That is the only reason I have returned your…
belongings.” Falcón stood, straightening her jacket, glancing meaningfully at Griffin and Julian before nodding to the agent in charge of monitoring us.
Then she swept out, taking the two extra agents with her and leaving me with the empty feeling of having just barely escaped a tsunami. The others didn’t look much better.
“I need a drink,” Julian said. He looked around. “Anyone else?”
“It’s ten o’clock in the morning,” Elaine said. She took one of the spare seats at the table. “I’ll have two.”
Julian moved around the kitchen, which was surprisingly well stocked in alcohol for a safe house.
Perhaps most people were like us, and with a lack of electronics, or any other form of entertainment, turned to alcohol.
With a flourish, he added twists of lime to two glasses before sliding one in front of Elaine and taking a healthy sip from the second.
Griffin was grumbling in the corner, his jaw clenched as he paced back and forth. The MEA agent eyed him with a frown, and I put on my best smile.
“Perhaps it’s best if you… uh, checked the perimeter? Is that something an MEA agent might do?” I asked.
With one last glare at Griffin, our observer took his leave. At once, the temperature in the room dropped, Griffin immediately calming down before glancing significantly at the corners of the room.
“You know, I think I’ll have a drink, too,” Brigette said loudly. “Do they have the makings of margaritas?”
“This man once made me the best Mai Tai I’ve ever had, using nothing but a can of peaches, some bathtub bootleg, and what I’m pretty sure was a stunted lemon. He can make you a margarita.” Griffin clapped Julian on the shoulder. The other man grinned and set to work.
Once he got the blender going, Brigette pulled out her notebook, writing a few quick lines of spell work as Elaine swanned around the kitchen, yelling loudly over the blender about what a delicious drink Julian had made, and did he have any interest in becoming a private bartender?
About halfway through Elaine’s complicated story about a bartender she and her friends had taken on a private jet, only to find out the man was, in fact, a misplaced accountant who had gotten on the wrong flight, Brigette nodded.
She waved a hand through the air, executing her spell and grinning.
“The monitoring systems should be enjoying a nice, boring conversation. As long as our friend stays outside, we can talk in peace.”
Julian turned off the blender. He gave the mix that was in it an experimental sniff.
“I wouldn’t drink this, unless you don’t mind losing most of your stomach lining.”
“I quite like your style, Brigette. I think when this is all over, you and I shall become very good friends.” Elaine sipped her drink, looking at the front door. “For all of Director Falcón’s bluster, I have to notice that there was no mention of any defense against the Hive.”
“The MEA believes Williams is up to something, but they still don’t believe in the Hive,” Griffin said. He crossed his arms—the strong, powerful arms that had held me last night, keeping me grounded when everything else was spinning out of control.
I couldn’t think about that now, couldn’t think about what would happen to him when the Hive did come, when he would try to protect me from them. But I had read the historical records. Nothing could protect us when the Hive came.
Reaching out, I wrapped my hand around his forearm, and he looked down, his expression relaxing into a smile. It wasn’t a happy one, but at least we both knew where we stood now.
“We need to stop him from summoning the Hive Father,” I said. “I won’t ask anyone to do it with me. But I’m going.”
“Fighting an enemy that hasn’t been seen in hundreds of years? How could I pass something like that up?” Julian asked.
“And I absolutely wouldn’t forgive myself if I walked away now,” Elaine said.
Brigette looked down at her hands, twisting in her lap. “The MEA has all of our notes. Even if we did try to figure out where JA Williams is planning his ritual, we are starting from scratch.”
“Are we?” I challenged.
Brigette smirked, pulling out a stack of papers from a pocket dimension hidden within her jacket. “Oh, well, you can’t expect me to reveal all of my secrets in front of strangers.”
Elaine draped her arm over Brigette’s shoulder.
“Now, you know better. None of us are strangers. We’ve fought the Hive together!
That makes us family! Closer than family, if we’re counting the cousins that Bradley and I detest. I mean, honestly, who thinks that wearing white after Labor Day isn’t a rule up there with wearing it at a wedding! ”
“An absolute travesty,” Julian said.
“Exactly! And we have to be related to them!” Elaine’s smile was genuine, and Julian laughed into his drink.
I picked up the top piece of paper, turning it in my hands. It was a photo from our research. We had narrowed it down to one of three locations before we had been so rudely interrupted by the MEA.
“Three locations,” I said. “We can handle three locations.”
“Three locations while evading the MEA and being ready to fight whatever goons Williams has on hand,” Griffin corrected. “This isn’t going to be a walk in the park.”
“But it’s not impossible,” I said.
“No, not impossible,” Griffin confirmed. “So, which of the three do you want to start at?”
For the safety of anyone the MEA had hidden in a safe house, I genuinely hoped that it was easier to sneak out of one than it would be to sneak in. In the end, our escape was strangely anticlimactic following our dramatic agreement in the kitchen.
With the distraction of a small fire in the bathroom that kept our minder busy for a few minutes, we simply walked out the front door.
With Julian’s car still sitting in front of Bradley’s apartment somewhere across the city, Griffin found us another vehicle.
No one asked who it belonged to, really. And then we were on our way.
The first location was an absolute dud. An empty warehouse, rats startled by our entrance. The second location was slightly better, and we found an illegal card game with some of Moraira City’s most powerful mundane citizens.
Luckily, Elaine and I were familiar with some of the players, and that smoothed our way inside so that we could verify there was nothing happening but plenty of money changing hands.
The drive to the last location was tense, Griffin’s hands fisted on the steering wheel, Julian cradling his sword in his lap, his fingers running over the patterned sheath.
Elaine was reapplying her lipstick, checking her eye makeup, and making plenty of noise about what sort of dinner we should go out for afterward.
Beside her, Brigette caught my eyes in the rearview mirror. She was the one who had the least reason to be here, and I wouldn’t blame her if she simply slipped out of the vehicle at the next intersection.
Instead, her lips twisted up into a smile that I matched. She might be a thief, and I might be a researcher, but neither of us could let someone destroy the world.
Griffin turned his head, and I reached out, wrapping my hand around his wrist. In the cramped car, it felt like a very loud motion. I could feel the weight of everyone’s eyes on us.
The final location was at the edge of the city, a beachfront house that Williams owned for entertaining purposes. Every week, society columns were filled with photos from parties at the house. As we drove up the street, it was eerie seeing all the darkened houses around us.
“We’re being watched.” Griffin’s voice was low.
In the back, Julian tensed, clearly agreeing. Griffin stopped at the bottom of the drive, the motor humming before he turned it off.
“Last chance to walk away.” Griffin glanced in the rearview mirror, and I felt something warm in my chest because he knew I had no plans of leaving.
Julian opened his door, sliding out before Elaine followed him onto the gravel of the drive. Brigette caught my eye again just before opening the other rear passenger door, and my hand trembled only a little before I managed mine. Ominously, the gate swung open.
As soon as it did, I felt a tickle at the base of my skull, something in my brainstem buzzing. Around us, shadows seemed to come to life, melting into three dimensions before they began running at us.
In the slices of light from the streetlamps, I could see they were mundanes, or at least people dressed like mundanes.
Their mouths were open in screams, their eyes too wide, and just as Julian raised his sword, and Griffin pulled out his brass knuckles, I heard a chittering sound in the back of my head.
Elaine and Brigette were already in motion, throwing spells, their magic bright lights in the darkness. I squinted past the fireworks display of power. Somewhere, there had to be more of Williams’s helmets. Somewhere, there was somebody controlling these men and women.
The buzzing in my head became almost violent, and I gritted my teeth, my fist closed tight. The buzzing became words, whispers of chaos, the promise that they could feed, their hunger would finally be sated if they ripped us limb from limb, tore the flesh from our bodies.
I followed the whispers, let them lead me down a path of darkness until…
“There!” I screamed, pointing to a spot even deeper within the shadows of the darkness. But the others were busy, too caught up with trying to restrain or disable or keep the people from hurting themselves.
I took a jerky breath, squaring my shoulders before I sprinted around the edge of the fighting, feeling fingers tearing at my clothes, nails scratching my skin.
I had to get to him. I had to get to—then I was on him, he raised his gun too slow, and I could feel the power in my hand when I placed it on top of his helmet.
Sleep. The word was a command, an order, and the man went down instantly. He was on his knees, his helmet cracking in two, head slamming into the concrete driveway, and I couldn’t even regret the pool of blood where he had bitten through his lip.
Sleep. I let the order flow through me, flow through the quiet night air, and felt the people being controlled drop one by one.
Julian said something like a prayer, and Elaine gasped my name in shock. I turned toward the house, dark and looming at the top of the twisting driveway. We needed to keep going.
Somewhere in that dark house, I could feel a voice. Not like the one in the helmet. It was something more sinister, a promise and an order that wanted to send me to the ground.
I locked my knees, refusing to go down. I knew who that was. I knew what it meant.
Even if I’d never heard the voice before, it was clear that we were too late.
The Hive Father had awakened.