Why here? Why now? Why me?
Okay, so the last one made me sound like a whiny brat, but I was genuinely curious if this was personal, or if the stars had finally aligned for them.
“If she comes from an old bloodline, there’s a chance her infertility battles were genuine. The taint is passed down to children of dark practitioners. With her fae blood, it might have been enough to make conceiving more difficult than she or the coven predicted when they placed her.”
“Liz hasn’t once wielded magic against us since she was captured,” I realized. “She can’t, can she?”
No wonder she hadn’t worn a more powerful adversary’s skin when we cornered her at the clinic where Ares held my family after kidnapping them. She couldn’t tap into that magic without risking the baby. She was forced to resort to glamour, a cheap trick in comparison.
The wonky bombs started making more sense too. Liz must have tried her hand at spell crafting without drawing on the dark powers she had been taught to wield.
Thankfully, those results had also sucked, and we caught her before she got the hang of it.
Mix in Ares actively working against her, and you got an operation that appeared to be amateur hour.
“Not if she wants her baby to survive.” Remy squinted. “Are you sure you didn’t see her use magic?”
Thinking back, I couldn’t say for certain. Things had moved so fast, and I admit I had tunnel vision then.
All that mattered to me in those moments was recovering my family and getting them to safety.
“Aside from the glamour…” I scrunched up my face, “…I don’t think so.”
“Then she had help.” Midas thought along the same lines. “It’s not like she doesn’t have the resources.”
“With the archive nearby, and the coven able to use it as their private transporter room,” I agreed, “Liz had access to any number of people who could have done the heavy lifting for her then gone back to wherever they came from without leaving a trace.”
By using the coven for her dirty work, she kept her hands clean and her scent untainted by her magic.
“Look on the bright side.” Remy winked. “This means she can’t hurt you without hurting the baby.”
“Plenty of people murder the old-fashioned way,” I reminded her. “Stabbings, shootings, poisons. All those kill without the benefit of magic.”
“Oh, to be mundane.” Remy’s expression twisted with pity. “Those poor suckers.”
With a firmer grasp on the situation, I texted Bishop the details from Remy’s report.
“The OPA is now aware of the situation.” I chewed my bottom lip, worried Bishop hadn’t mentioned this when we talked earlier. “We’ll send eyes in the field and give the Remys a break.”
“What’s the point in having seven selves if you don’t put them to work?” She jutted her hip then planted a fist on it. “They get cranky otherwise.”
Thumbs hovering over the screen, I pondered that. “Aren’t they just extensions of you?”
Head tipped to one side, she eyeballed us. “Have you met me?”
“You’re not cranky so much as homicidal,” Midas informed her. “Violence always improves your mood.”
“Eh.” A shrug rolled through her shoulders. “We can’t all be chocoholics.”
An incoming message vibrated the phone in my hand, and Bishop’s update left me cold.
>>All the cameras are down. A citywide video blackout. We can’t see a damn thing.
>How long ago?
>>Five minutes. Maybe six. I would have called you at the ten-minute mark.
Without knowing the Faraday had been targeted, the OPA had no reason to alert me unless the blackout spread or lasted longer than routine maintenance or a power surge could excuse.
>>Milo is hitting the streets and heading your way. Reece is running a diagnostic.
The OPA’s network of cameras, both our mounts and surveillance we mooched off the city, gave Reece a bird’s-eye view of Atlanta. Right now, he was flying blind. And that meant we would never see the coven coming.
Two
Reece, the true brains of the OPA operation, got back with me in record time. With bad news.
>>The cameras were hexed, that’s why the OPA’s private feed and the city feed are blown.
Unclear on the difference between a hex and a curse, I chalked them both up to bad mojo.
>Can you unhex them?
>>I put in a call to a local coven who’s done some work for us. Cross your fingers it’s an easy fix.
The slight evasion was a reminder I didn’t know who or what Reece was, and he wasn’t telling.
Good for him. I wouldn’t tell either. Often, it didn’t end well for folks who got too close to me.
>Thanks.
>>No problem.
I took out my frustration on a stale Tootsie Roll I found in my pocket. The way it stuck to the lining, and the blue fuzz on the edge, convinced me I had washed it with my jeans, but extra fiber never hurt anyone.
“Sir, we need to make a decision about the residents.”
Peeling myself away from my phone, I found three enforcers standing before Midas at parade rest.
“We can’t evacuate them.” His attention landed on me, tangible as a caress. “Hadley?”
“The coven would pick them off as they exited the building,” I agreed with him. “It’s too dangerous.”
“We’ll have to relocate them,” he said. “Bring everyone down to the lower floors and interior rooms.”
“Yes, sir.”
The trio of enforcers fanned out and began organizing the small-scale evacuation.
“I have to call Linus.” I blew out a breath. “Can I schedule a last-minute root canal instead?”
That would be less painful than admitting he had just left but I already needed all the help I could get.
“He would come back if you asked him,” Midas reminded me. “He offered to stay until this is over.”
Those had been his parting words before he climbed into his rental with Grier and set out for Savannah. A few days away from her city had taken its toll on her. She had no choice but to return and renew her bond to the land, and it would gut Linus to leave her while she was vulnerable.
“It never ends.” I leaned into Midas’s warmth. “There’s always some new horror on the horizon.”
“Way to get bleak.” A frown puckered Remy’s forehead. “You’re not wrong, but that’s still dark for you.”
Dark like the chocolate covering the espresso beans in Midas’s pocket. Frak. I was hungry.
“The city wouldn’t need me if it wasn’t forever on the edge of peril,” I joked. “Job security, right?”
“The sleep deprivation is getting to her,” Remy told Midas from the side of her mouth. “She’s loopy.”
Afraid she might be right, I ground the heels of my palms into my gritty eyes to keep them focused a few seconds longer. They were dry and sore and probably bloodshot. They were also the least of my problems.
“All I’m saying is, I can’t depend on Linus forever. Otherwise, he’ll be chained to me, and this city, for the rest of his life. I don’t want that for him. I don’t want that for me either. I want to show him, and myself, that I’ve got what it takes to do this.”