I sat in the media room of our warehouse. My head buzzed. I’d taken some of the awesome painkillers Daniela sent home for me. They killed the pain, but brought a slight feeling of dizziness and I kept wanting to spin to the right.
My family dealt with my new purple face about the same way they dealt with the fact that Mad Rogan had kissed me in front of everyone before leaving to his HQ across the street. Nobody said a thing.
I missed him. He’d been gone for less than two hours and I missed him. That was just sad.
I formally told Cornelius that Olivia Charles was the person who’d pulled the trigger and murdered his wife. David Howling helped, but it was Olivia who took over the minds of Rogan’s people. Cornelius equally formally thanked me and offered to release me from my contract with a full payment.
“No,” I told him. “I’ll see it through.”
“Okay,” he said quietly.
He and Matilda then went off to the kitchen. He was cooking her something special for dinner.
My mother was going over the plans for the assault. Both of my sisters sat in the room quietly. Leon studied the image of the ranch on TV. It had been recorded from the air. Cornelius and Bug had attached a camera to Talon’s harness.
The building rose out of a clearing like a foreboding Spanish fortress, and that’s exactly what it was: a massive rectangular structure complete with observation towers, thick walls, and sheltered passageways. Bug reported both M240G and SAWs, M249 machine guns.
“How much armed personnel?” my mother asked.
“They estimate close to a hundred,” I said. “Some former soldiers, some private security forces, and some civilian employees.”
“Why doesn’t Rogan just collapse it?” Leon asked.
“Because it would kill everyone inside. You don’t just destroy a fort filled with people. You give them a chance to surrender.” The buzzing in my head made it hard to concentrate. “Some of them probably have no idea what they are involved in.”
“But it would be safer,” Leon said.
“That’s what bad guys do. We’re not bad guys.” At least some of us were not. I wasn’t that sure about myself anymore. “Also Cornelius’ contract specifies the right to confront Nari’s killer. Basically, we can’t kill Olivia Charles.”
“Contracts are important.” Leon nodded.
I looked at my mother.
“Leon,” Mom said. “A man is a man because he has a set of principles. He has lines he doesn’t cross. It shows discipline, commitment, and willpower to do the job. A man is someone who can be relied upon because he holds himself to a higher standard. That’s how you get respect. You need to sit down and figure out where your lines are, or you will grow up to be one of these assholes everyone despises because they would strangle their own relatives for money.” She looked at my two sisters. “The same goes for you. I said man because I was talking to him, so take the same speech, put woman in it, and use it to come up with some guidelines for yourself.”
Nobody said anything.
Catalina cleared her throat. “Nevada, can I talk to you?”
“Sure.”
“In your office.”
I forced myself off the couch, walked to my office, and sat into my chair. Catalina and Arabella followed me.
“There are over a hundred people in that building?” Catalina asked.
“Yes.”
“And they are armed?”
“Yes.”
My sister squared her narrow shoulders. “Then I’m coming.”
“Absolutely not.”
“What if you get shot?” Catalina crossed her arms on her chest. “What if Rogan or Cornelius get shot? Or one of their people?”
“We’re all adults. We . . .”
“I’m not losing you because of this thing. These people came here and tried to kill us. They tried to murder Matilda.”
“Which is fucked up,” Arabella volunteered.
“Language,” I told her.
She shook her blond head. “Oh, shut up, Nevada, you swear like a fucking sailor.”
“I’m twenty-five,” I growled.
“Well, I’m fifteen and I have more to swear about than you.”
“If I go,” Catalina yelled over the two of us, “nobody will have to get shot!”
“No,” I told her.
She faced me. “Yes.”
“You can’t control it.”
“Yes, I can.” She raised her chin. “I’m better at it.”
“Oh yeah?” I tilted my head. “Can you disengage?”
“Some,” she said.
“She doesn’t have to disengage,” Arabella said. “I’ll get her out.”
“You will get her out in front of a bunch of people, all of whom will see you. Have you two lost your minds?”
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Arabella said.
“We know,” Catalina added.
“Know what?”
“Mom told us about Tremaine,” Catalina said. “We know about the other grandmother.”
I rubbed my face. They had a right to know, but I really wished Mom would’ve waited. Silence lay between us like a big heavy brick.
“What will happen if she finds us?” Arabella asked.
“Bad things.” I didn’t want to elaborate.
“How are we going to protect Mom?” Arabella asked. “Also, she thinks that I’ll end up in a cage.”
Decades with no information and then all the information at once. Thanks, Mom. “Mom will be okay and nobody will put you in a cage. Once this is over, we’ll form a House.”
They stared at me. They looked so different—tall willowy Catalina with long dark hair, and short athletic Arabella with blond curls. How the hell they managed to have an identical expression on their faces, I would never know.
“Our own House?” Arabella asked.
“Yes. If we form a House, she can’t touch us for three years. That’s enough time to get established.”
“We won’t be forming any Houses if you’re dead,” Catalina said, her voice flat. “I’m coming, Nevada. You can’t stop me.”
“Yes, I can. You’re a minor.”
Catalina raised her chin. “I’m a Prime.”
“So am I.”
“Yes, yes, we’re all special,” Arabella said. “But she is right. What if you get shot? Who will take care of us? Who will bring us sushi?”
“I’m doing this,” Catalina said. “I’m not letting them hurt you or Cornelius, or Matilda, or anybody else. My way nobody has to get hurt.”
That’s what I must’ve looked like eight years ago, when I told my parents that they wouldn’t be selling the family firm. That I would take it over and keep it afloat. And I did. I’d been seventeen too.
She was right. If she got involved, we’d cut casualties and injuries down to a bare minimum.
“Fine.” I leaned back. “You’ll do this and then you’ll do your best to disengage.” I turned to Arabella. “You will get her out. You won’t hurt anybody. You will grab your sister and get the hell out of there. No heroics.”
She made a high-pitched squeak. “Okay, boss lady!!!”
“We’re not telling Mom about this,” I said. “We’re not dropping hints and we’re not making cute comments.”
Catalina and I looked at Arabella.
“I won’t say anything.”
“Okay,” I said. I hoped I wouldn’t regret it.
They left my office and I called Rogan. He answered immediately. “Yes?”
“We probably won’t need to besiege the fort. My sisters will be coming.”
He didn’t answer for a long moment. “What should I plan for?”
“A strike team big enough to contain Olivia Charles. But we won’t need to storm the castle.”
“You sure about this?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t sound thrilled.”
“I’m not.” This probably wasn’t a good time to explain all the difficulties Catalina’s magic caused. “All we need to do is get Catalina to a gathering of people large enough within the fortress. The more people, the better. Trust me?” I hadn’t meant for it to sound like a question.
“Okay,” he said.
Silence stretched. I wanted to see him so badly.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“In my office. Where are you?”
“Outside your front door.”
My heart sped up. I got up, lowered the blinds in my office, locked the door between the business hallway and the rest of the house, and opened the front door. He took the phone from his ear and came inside. We walked into my office. I shut the door behind us, and then his arms closed around me and tomorrow disappeared. He kissed me, long and eager. Memories of him lying next to me naked swirled in my head. I kissed him and kissed him, nibbling on his lip, licking his tongue, stealing his breath . . .
My phone chimed. I ignored it.
His phone beeped.
The intercom came on, Bern’s voice spilling from it. “Nevada, where are you? I need to talk to you. This is urgent.”
Rogan’s phone beeped again, then again, then emitted a high-frequency electronic whine. He growled and put it to his ear. “Yes?”
A tiny voice on the other end said something urgent. Rogan rolled his eyes. “Yes. Yes. No. Handle it. Yes.”
He turned the phone off and tossed it on the table. It went off again. He stared at it as if it were a snake.
“Take it,” I told him.
He turned to me. No trace of Mad Rogan remained in his face. There was just a man and he was frustrated as hell. “When this is over, any place. Anywhere you want.”
“Is that lodge in the mountains real?”
“Yes.”
“Take me there,” I told him.
Ten minutes later I walked into the Hut of Evil to find both of my sisters standing over Bernard’s computer.
My cousin’s face was pale. “Augustine sent this over.”
He clicked a key and a video filled the screen, showing the ultramodern interior of Augustine’s MII office. The camera sat just behind and to the right of Augustine. The door stood open. The normally opaque glass walls sectioning off his workspace were now transparent, and from this vantage point we could see all the way down to the receptionist’s desk. Lina was gone. Instead a young man occupied the chair, busily working on his computer. I’d never seen him before and he probably didn’t know I existed.
A tall woman strode into the hallway, her face lined with age. She held herself ramrod straight, her silver hair carefully styled, her dark brown eyes challenging anyone in her way. Two bodyguards followed her, dressed in suits, both square jawed with identical short haircuts and identical expression.
Augustine stood up. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Tremaine. To what do I owe the honor?”
She stared at him, her eyes measuring him with the deadly precision of a raptor sighting her prey. Icy claws gripped my spine. This is it.
Victoria Tremaine turned without a single word and walked back the way she’d come.
I wore a Scorpion bulletproof vest, a helmet, an urban assault outfit, and boots. Rogan’s people offered me a light machine gun but I stuck with my Baby Desert Eagle. It made me feel better.
We’d gone to ground in the Texas scrub on the edge of the perimeter fence bordering Olivia Charles’ fortress. Ahead a lone guard sat in a booth.
I felt like a turtle. How in the world had my mother and grandmother worn this gear for years?
Next to me Arabella, wearing the same outfit I did, pursed her lips together and took a selfie. Ugh.
“Do you remember the exit route?” I asked.
She nodded. “We go north, quick sprint, five miles over the brush, to Rogan’s helicopter. I got it. Stop worrying.”
A limo slid down the road and stopped before the gate.
“Are you sure this will work?” Cornelius asked.
“Yes,” I told him.
Cornelius worried me. He’d brought no animals and no weapons that I could see. His face was calm, his eyes distant. Something odd was taking place in his head.
“It’s just that your sister is so shy,” he murmured. “I’ve been at your house for a week and she barely spoke to me.”
The limo’s window rolled down. I couldn’t see into it from this angle, but I knew who was inside. Melosa in the driver’s seat, ready to snap her aegis shield up at a moment’s notice; my sister in the passenger seat; and Rivera in the back, armed to the teeth.
The guard said something.
Come on, Catalina. You can do it.
The gate swung open. The guard left his booth and stood next to the car.
“Okay.” I got up to my feet.
A few yards down, Rogan stepped out from behind a tree. If things went wrong, he planned to level the booth and the guard with it. I brushed the twigs from me and trotted to the limo. Around me Rogan’s strike team—six people he’d handpicked—fell into place. Cornelius shrugged his shoulders next to me.
Rogan joined us. We jogged to the limo, where the guard waited. He saw us and winked. His face shifted and Augustine’s familiar perfection took his place. “You brought children, Rogan? This is a new low for you.”
“What are you doing here?” Rogan asked.
“I wouldn’t miss this. What—and let you have all the glory and information to yourself?” Augustine pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Shall we?”
The limo moved ahead. We followed it.
A second checkpoint loomed ahead.
“Is it a real soldier this time?” I asked.
“Yes.”
The limo stopped, the window rolled down, and I felt magic shift in the distance, a mere splash of it, like a raindrop in the night. The soldier left his booth and walked next to the limo. We rolled on up the road to the guardhouse at the doorstep of the fortress. They saw us. Weapons snapped up.
The soldier waved at the guards. The limo stopped again. The guards put away their weapons and joined the second soldier.
“What is your sister, exactly?” Augustine asked.
“You’ll see.” There was no name for it. No talent like this had ever been recorded. But it wasn’t something you would ever forget. “Just don’t look at her directly once she starts.”
The soldiers unlocked the massive front doors, then one of them wandered over to the side of the limo and opened the door. Catalina stepped out. The soldier waited behind her, his face relaxed, attentive like a bellhop at a luxury hotel. Melosa got out of the car. Her eyes were wide like two saucers.
Catalina turned and waved at us. I sped up, trying to close the distance. An older man in a grey uniform with a bearing of a soldier smiled at us.
“Are you her friends?”
“Yes,” I said.
“That’s so nice. Come on, I’ll show you inside. It’s lunchtime.”
Catalina squared her shoulders and stepped into the fortress. Two sentries rose from their seats. The older soldier waved at them. “Come with me.”
We walked through the narrow hallway, turned right, turned left. My mouth tasted like a copper penny. I should’ve never let her do this. Ahead an open door revealed a large cafeteria.
The strike team around me put in their earplugs and halted. We’d gone over this maneuver during the planning stage. If they walked into that mess hall, we’d have no strike team left. Rogan, Cornelius, Arabella, Augustine, and I followed Catalina in. I’d told them it was a bad idea. They’d decided they would do it anyway.
At least sixty people sat at the tables, eating. Everyone stopped and looked at us.
My sister smiled. “Hi!”
“Hi?” a woman said from the nearest table. “Who are you?”
“I’m just a kid.”
Every pair of eyes watched her.
“I go to Cedar High. You wouldn’t believe what happened to me in algebra class yesterday.”
Rogan looked at me.
“Watch,” I mouthed.
“I was sitting at my desk and Dace Collins just broke up with his girlfriend.”
Sixty people in the room and not a single one was eating. They held completely still.
“He did it right in front of the whole class. She cried. It was so uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to do.”
The room fell silent.
“Dace Collins is an asshole,” a man on the left said.
“Yeah, what the hell?” a young guy on the right said. “What kind of a little punk does a thing like that?”
“You don’t worry, sweetie,” the first woman said. “Don’t stress out about it. He isn’t worth it.”
“How dare he put you in that position? You shouldn’t have to feel embarrassed for him and his girlfriend,” another woman said. “Do you want us to go and get him for you? Because we’ll go right now.”
The older soldier nodded at the crowd. “Jake and Marsha, go get a vehicle out of the motor pool, find this Dace, and bring him here. We’ll have us a little talk and teach him how to treat a lady.”
“No, no, that’s okay,” Catalina said. Getting Dace Collins would’ve been a tall order, since he was a character on Liars , the latest teen soap opera. “Would you like to hear the rest of the story instead?”
“Yes,” several voices said at one. “Yes, please.”
They moved toward her, forming a tight semicircle.
“That’s close enough,” she said.
They didn’t want to stop, but they obeyed.
“I really want to tell you the rest of the story, but can we get the rest of the people here? They might want to hear what happened.”
The older soldier spoke into his radio. “All personnel report to mess hall immediately. I repeat, all personnel, report to mess hall immediately.” He looked at Catalina, his face and smile soft. “They will be here right away.”
“Oh good. Please sit down.”
They sat on the floor as one, devotion shining on their faces. Next to me Cornelius tried to bend his knees. I grabbed his arm and hauled him upright.
“My friend is going to make a hole in that wall right there.” Catalina pointed to the far wall. “So we have more light.”
“That’s a great idea.”
“Yes, more light never hurts.”
I nudged Rogan. He raised his hand. A gap sliced through the far wall, cleaving a twenty-five-foot hole in the reinforced concrete.
“Bigger,” I murmured. Arabella would need a fast exit.
The gap grew to forty feet.
“Bigger.”
The wall exploded.
“Thank you!” Catalina said.
“You’re so nice,” one of the soldiers told Rogan. “I’m glad she has nice friends like you.”
“Is that your brother?” a woman wanted to know.
“No, it’s my sister’s boyfriend.”
“You have a sister! That is awesome. I have a sister too.”
More people poured into the mess hall. An athletic man with a long scar across his face led the charge. He saw us and narrowed his eyes. “What the hell is going on here?”
“She’s telling a story,” the older soldier said. “You’ve got to hear this, Gabe. It’s a hell of a story.”
“Have you all lost your damned minds?”
“Welcome, Gabriel,” my sister said. “Welcome, all of you.”
Gabriel’s eyes softened. He raised his hand. A shy smile tugged at his hard face. “Hi.”
“I was telling you about Dace,” Catalina said. “Yes. Dace is one of those neither-here-nor-there guys. He isn’t smart and he isn’t athletic. He just kind of bums around the school and tries to look edgy . . .”
They stared at her with rapt attention.
“We have to go,” I murmured.
Rogan startled, as if coming awake.
“Wait,” Augustine said. “I want to hear the end of this.”
“No, you don’t.”
“No, really, this is fascinating,” Cornelius whispered.
Rogan locked his right arm on Augustine’s shoulder, his left on Cornelius, and dragged them out the door.
“You’ve got this?” I asked Arabella.
She nodded. “They won’t get her.”
I walked out and shut the door behind me. The strike team had closed ranks and kept walking, herding Augustine and Cornelius down the hallway. We were twenty yards away before either of them stopped looking over his shoulder.
“What was that?” Augustine asked, stunned.
“Love,” I told him. “They love her.”
“Is that why Matilda likes her so much?” Cornelius asked.
“No. Catalina never uses her magic on those close to her. Matilda likes her because my sister is nice and takes care of her. We have about thirty minutes. The longer they stay near her, the more they love her. Eventually they’ll want to touch her. They’ll want a piece of her clothes or better yet a chunk of her hair or a finger. She can’t stop it. In twenty minutes Arabella will have to get her out of there, or they will rip her apart.”
“But what about Arabella?” Cornelius asked.
“She and I are immune. She is our sister. We already love her as much as we can.”
We ran through the narrow passageways, going through the place room by room. As soon as we cleared the mess hall hallway, Cornelius began to hum to himself. It was an incessant, almost hypnotic tune. It didn’t sound like any song I’d heard before. Maybe all this pressure had finally made him lose his mind.
Three people jumped us. The strike team took down two, while Rogan collided with the third and broke him like a rag doll. The man slumped on the floor, breathing fast, his right leg bent at an odd angle. I crouched by him.
“Where is Olivia Charles?”
The man’s hands curled into fists. He strained, but my magic was too strong. “Down the hallway to the bottom floor. She is in the room at the end of the hall.”
We left him in the hallway, sobbing.
Eight minutes later we reached the room, a vast empty space, its walls and floor completely black. I had seen a room just like it before, at MII. It was painted with chalkboard paint. A half-finished circle marked the floor, the piece of chalk lying discarded next to it. Olivia Charles was nowhere in sight. We spread through the room. No doors besides the one we had come through.
Rogan’s radio came on. “SWAT is en route,” Bug reported. “Three vehicles.”
Lenora Jordan must’ve gotten tired of waiting. I turned to Rogan and kept my voice low. “We have to find Olivia now. SWAT can’t see Arabella. They will try to kill her.”
“She’s here,” Cornelius said.
He was standing by a wall. Rogan and I moved to stand by him.
“Are you sure?” Rogan asked.
“Yes,” Cornelius nodded, his eyes clouded. “She’s here.”
Rogan looked at the wall. It trembled.
Colin, a short dark-haired man, snapped his gun up. Rivera gripped him in a headlock, before Olivia forced him to do anything else.
I faced the wall, gathered my magic, and struck at the mind behind it.
Power punched me, gripping my mind in a steel vise and wrapping me in pain. All I could do was hold it at bay.
Colin stopped struggling and clamped his head.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rogan on the floor by my feet. He was taking off my left boot, then my right.
“Sir?” Rivera said. “You could break the wall, sir?”
“Never disturb two mental mages locked in a duel,” Augustine said. “If you kill one, the other might end up with no mind.”
The vise squeezed my mind, red hot.
I just had to hold. As long as she held on to me, she couldn’t get to anyone else.
My bare feet touched the floor. Rogan moved around me, drawing.
She was crushing my mind like a nut.
Magic snapped into life under me. It was like landing on the surface of a pond, but instead of water, its surface was pure power. Rogan had drawn an amplification circle. I sent my magic into it, surrendering a little more of myself to the pain, and it bounced back into me, making me stronger. Magic coursed through my veins. I bounced again, and again, and again. Five. Any more and I’d expend too much.
I snapped the vise. It shot back and clamped my mind again, turning into shackles.
The room vanished. I stood in a vast dark cavern. Light pooled in a circle around my feet. My hands were glowing, a pale almost white light with a faint touch of yellow. To my side, I saw other shapes: a pale gold that felt like Cornelius, a brilliant blue beacon that had to be Rogan, and a conflicting clash of pale white and grey that must have been Augustine. Before me another humanoid shape stood in a similar circle, her light pulsing with violet. Beyond us in the distance, two more shapes waited, one pale and light yellow, like me, and one knitted of pure furious red. Catalina and Arabella.
What is this? Where am I?
The enemy magic squeezed me, trying to crush me.
I snapped the shackles. The violet presence recoiled and struck again, wrapping invisible chains around me, trying to tether me. I reached deep inside me and let the magic explode. It tore out of me, a powerful flood of light.
My body shook under the strain. She was wrapping her will around me. I felt myself unraveling, retreating further and further into the center of myself.
The light of my sisters waned.
I had to win. I would win. I had to know who the invisible puppeteer was, pulling all of the strings behind the scenes. I had to meet Caesar, because if I failed, he would keep sending people after my family. I had to know.
More chains spun out of the darkness, trying to contain me.
No. You won’t bind me. You can’t control my mind. I’ll be free.
I pushed. I had to win.
The first chain snapped, breaking. Then another and another.
Nobody controls me except me.
The chains broke. The other glowing figure screamed. My magic reached out and gulped her in a single swallow. The cavern exploded around us, shattering.
I opened my mouth and let my magic speak. “How do I open this door?”
“There is a panel on the left side,” Olivia Charles’ wooden voice replied from some hidden speaker. “The code is 31BC.”
The year the Roman Empire was born.
Rogan opened the panel and entered the code. Something clanged within the wall. It slid aside a couple of inches and stopped.
“Why didn’t the door open?” A low gnawing ache began within me. My magic still wasn’t at one hundred percent after I had drained myself down to nothing shocking David Howling. I was about to run out of power.
“I’ve disabled the mechanism from the inside.”
“We’re out of time.” Rogan raised his hand. “Are you clear?”
I let go, pulling my magic back to me. “Yes.”
The section of the wall trembled. Hairline cracks split it with a thunderous snap. The separate chunks of the wall shivered and streaked between us in a controlled starburst, revealing a small room. Inside it within an amplification circle stood Olivia Charles. Her gaze fastened on me. “You!”
“Me.”
Her gaze shifted to Rogan. “Enjoy your pitiful triumph. It won’t last.”
I reached out and looked into her mind. Crap.
“She’s been hexed,” I said. “She has what we need, but it will take a lot of time to pull it out.”
“How much time?” Rogan asked.
“Days.” It would take me that long to regenerate enough magic to take her hex apart.
“No,” Cornelius said in his eerie voice, his word suffused with emotion. “She murdered my wife.”
Conflict churned in Rogan’s eyes. We needed Olivia. We needed her badly.
The muscles on his jaw locked.
He’d promised.
Rogan opened his mouth. “I stand by my word. She is yours.”
“Let her go,” Cornelius told me.
I released her. Another moment and I would’ve lost my hold.
Cornelius looked at Olivia, his face pale. “You took Nari’s life away from her. You took my wife away from me. You took the mother from my child.”
Olivia sneered at him. “What will you do, you pathetic little man? You’re not even a Prime. Will you summon a litter of puppies to lick me to death? Go on. Show me.”
“When my grandfather came to this country,” Cornelius said, “he took a new name, one that would be familiar to his new countrymen.”
Olivia crossed her arms on her chest.
“Our real last name isn’t Harrison. It’s Hamelin.”
A low sound like the noise of a waterfall came from behind us, insistent and oddly disturbing.
“We’re not named for the place where we were born. We’re named for the place where years before Osiris serum was discovered our ancestor became infamous for his magic.”
Cornelius opened his mouth and sang a long wordless note. A black wave burst into the room. It shifted and moved, charging forward, not uniform, but made of thousands of tiny bodies.
Olivia Charles screamed, terror raw in her voice.
Cornelius’ voice rose, commanding and beautiful. It reached right into your chest, took your heart into a cold fist, and held it still. The wave surged between us and swarmed Olivia, burying her body. She shrieked and flailed, but the rats kept coming, thousands and thousands of them, until she became a swirling mound of fur. There was nothing I could do but stand there and listen to her being eaten alive while the Pied Piper of Houston sang like an angel, mourning the love of his life.
I sat in my office and watched the correspondents on Eyewitness News lose all cool over a still shot of Olivia Charles’ skeletal remains. How they had gotten it, I had no idea. Houston PD had that scene wrapped up tighter than a straitjacket. By the time we exited the building, my sisters were gone and the majority of the fortress guards with them. SWAT found them later, wandering through the brush, weeping, and telling stories of the girl and a thing that stole her. Nobody could adequately describe the thing, only that it was huge and monstrous, which was just as well. We’d dodged the bullet.
Lenora demanded Rogan’s and Cornelius’ presence for a debriefing and mounds of paperwork. I wasn’t invited, for which I was grateful. I went home, hugged my sisters, ordered pizza, and fell asleep on the couch before it arrived. It was afternoon now—I had slept straight through the morning and would’ve slept longer, but Grandma Frida got worried and put ice on my face to make sure I “wasn’t in a coma.” It was time to settle with my client, who was due to walk through my door at any minute. He’d spent the entire day today moving out.
I hadn’t heard from Rogan. No calls, no messages, nothing. It was less than twenty-four hours without contact, but I had the most unsettling sense of déjà vu. He couldn’t disappear on me again.
As if on cue, Cornelius walked through the door separating the office from the rest of the house and knocked on the glass wall of my office.
I clicked off the broadcast on my laptop. “Please, come in.”
He came in and sat in the chair.
“How do you feel?” I asked him.
He thought about it. “Relieved. The anger is gone. All I have left is grief. Thank you for everything you’ve done.”
“You’re welcome. I’m glad that you’re relieved.”
“If I can ask, why the change of heart?” Cornelius said. “You were adamant before that you didn’t want to contribute to the killer’s death.”
“David Howling sent a death threat to Matilda.”
Cornelius sat up straighter. “Why was I not told?”
“Because it was designed to throw you off balance. I was concerned about your mental state. You weren’t sleeping and you kept carrying mysterious sacks into odd places.”
“They were grain sacks,” Cornelius said. “Rats need a lot of food to grow from a mischief to a swarm.”
“Mischief?”
“That’s the proper term for a group of rats. A pack of dogs, a murder of crows, a mischief of rats. They are misunderstood creatures. In reality, they are intelligent colony animals. Studies have proven that rats will feed caged companions before eating, themselves, for example. But people have an instinctual fear of them, so I kept the exact method of my revenge to myself. And no, I wasn’t unhinged.”
“It was my call and I made it.”
He nodded. “Please continue.”
“When Howling confronted Rogan and me in the circle, he assured me that he didn’t enjoy child murder and that he would tie that loose end with minimal pain.”
Cornelius locked his jaw. “Did he?”
“I realized that as long as he and Olivia Charles lived, your daughter wouldn’t be safe. I also realized that Olivia would never permit herself to be captured and interrogated. I don’t know why, but their devotion to this new Caesar is absolute. When Howling spoke about his new vision, his face lit up. They truly believe they are patriots. Patriots don’t turn state’s evidence. They become martyrs. I could wash my hands of it and let you and Rogan do the heavy lifting or I could come and help. I chose to help and I’ll live with my decision.”
I opened the file and handed him the bill. “This is your final bill.”
He looked at it for a moment. “That’s it?”
“Yes. You will see the final breakdown of hours and expenses below. The dress charge has an explanation. Due to the circumstances beyond my control, I was unable to return the dress in a timely manner, so I was charged an additional fee of two thousand dollars. Because these circumstances happened as the direct result of the investigation, the surcharge was passed onto you. With your $50,000 deductible applied, your final bill comes to $7,245 even.”
Cornelius pulled out his checkbook and wrote a check to me. Usually I didn’t deal with checks, but I had no doubt that his would be good.
“Thank you.”
I signed the receipt and passed it to him. He looked at it. “Somehow it just doesn’t seem like enough.”
“You could pay more, if you want, but I suspect you may need that money. What will you do now?” I didn’t add “since your wife is dead.” Nari had been their primary breadwinner.
“I’ll find a job,” he said. “I was hoping to ask you for one.”
“Me?”
“Yes. I’ve seen what you do. I believe I would be an asset.”
I blinked. Nobody outside my family had ever asked me for a job before. If I could get him, I’d dance with joy. Between the birds, the cats, and the ferrets, we could expand our surveillance while minimizing the risk. We’d take in twice as much money.
If. That was a huge if.
“I would love if you worked for us.”
“I sense a but,” he said.
“You’re a member of a House and your magic is incredible. I can’t possibly pay you your worth.”
“How do you normally handle your payroll?” he asked.
“It depends on the case. Bernard is paid by the hour. He doesn’t typically see a case through from the beginning to the end. Usually his services are required on an as-needed basis. Sometimes my sisters take individual cases and earn commission upon successful resolution. The firm takes thirty percent of the fee, the contractor takes seventy. We provide dental and medical.”
“I would work on commission,” he said.
“It wouldn’t be that much money to begin with.”
“I have a cushion,” he said. “In fact, you provided me with one. I came into the office prepared to write a check for half a million.”
“I thought I explained our fees.”
“Yes.” He smiled. “But I didn’t expect you to stick to that arrangement.”
“Well, this is one point you will have to take into consideration. What you quote to the client is what you get. We have rules. Rule One, we stay bought. Once we’re hired, we don’t switch sides. Rule Two, we don’t break the law unless there are extremely unusual circumstances. Rule Three, at the end of the day we have to be able to live with our choices.”
Cornelius considered it.
A loud thumping came from outside. When Rogan finally did show up, I would have to discuss the whole turning-this-area-into-an-army-camp thing. At some point I would have to return to normal business without all this racket. If he showed up. Worry squirmed through me. Maybe he’d changed his mind.
No. This was just anxiety talking.
“Agreed,” he said. “When can I start?”
It was Wednesday. I’d need at least a few days of downtime.
“Next week,” I said.
“Until next week, then.”
He got up and offered me his hand. I stood up and shook it.
“I’ll let myself out.”
He left and I sank back into my chair. We’d just acquired our first permanent employee.
I heard the door open. The thumping noise blasted into the room. This really was too much.
“Nevada!” Cornelius called, trying to out-scream the mechanical roar. “I think this is for you!”
What now? I got up and stepped into the hallway.
An odd-looking military helicopter sat in the middle of the intersection, its spinning blades blasting the street with man-made wind. Rogan was walking toward me.
What . . .
He closed the distance and grabbed my hand. “Come on.”
“Come on where?”
“You said you wanted to see the lodge.” He grinned.
“I have no clothes.”
He winked at me. “You won’t need clothes.”
Heat warmed my cheeks. “I need to tell my family . . .”
“You can call them from the air.”
“But . . .”
His blue eyes laughed at me, warm and light. “Come with me, Nevada.”
I clamped my mouth shut and ran with him to the helicopter.
