Copper Veins (26 page)

Which meant that she had let him call her that.

Mom couldn't care less what Max called Juliana, and she'd had enough of our debates. She grabbed Juliana's shoulders and demanded, “When did you last see my Beau?”

“A few weeks ago,” Juliana replied. “He was transferring facilities. He was an even worse prisoner than you,” she added with a nod toward Max.

“My Beau,” Mom murmured. “Scrappy as ever.”

“Transferring facilities?” Micah repeated. “In which world?”

“This world,” Juliana replied. “He's been here since his capture. They couldn't risk Mr. Corbeau contacting his allies in the Mundane world.”

Micah rubbed his chin and smiled. “Then I know where your father is.”

As it turned out, there was only one human-run establishment within walking distance of the Whispering Dell—the Museum of Human Triumph. Everyone, both human and not, knew about it since it was the only edifice built by human hands that existed in both the Mundane and the Otherworld.

“No,” Max said when I mentioned it. “There are two. The Peacekeepers just want you to think it transcends the veil.”

Just another lie told to us by our government, then.

We traveled across the metal pathways to the museum—for some hard-to-accept reason, we had taken Juliana along for the ride. Max had insisted that she come, and Micah agreed that having someone who knew their way around a Peacekeeper
facility might be useful. I'd ended up relenting, but not because I particularly wanted her to come along. I just wanted to hurry up and find Dad.

We also made one small stop to depositing what was left of the shifter outside the village gates. Mom had insisted that the creature be blinded.

“Strike its eyes out,” Mom had said. “I do not want it to ever torment a grieving widow again.”

Max had taken care of that.

After we had gone as far as the metal path could take us, we trudged along a packed dirt road. It hadn't rained in some time, and our footfalls were stirring up miniature dust devils. Micah led our little procession. Mom strode beside him, asking him all sorts of questions about Mundane museums and shapeshifters. I lagged behind, partly because I was still pretty beat after my adventures with the Queen's Lace and partly to eavesdrop on Max and Juliana.

“So you hid some intel on Sara's computer,” I heard Max saying. “Not bad, Jules, not bad at all.”

“It was the only thing I could do,” Juliana murmured. “I knew Sara was the only one who could help you, but I couldn't tell her outright.”

They walked in silence for a few minutes until Max said, “You never betrayed me.”

“No,” Juliana said, “I never did.”

“Then why were you defending Langston back at the rally?” Max asked. “Is what Mike said true?”

“Mike pretty much just spouts lies,” Juliana
murmured.

“Then you're not marrying him?” Max pressed. She must have given him a look, because he continued, “Mike said you and Langston were getting hitched.”

“Oh. That.” I glanced backward and saw Juliana chewing on her lower lip. “That won't be happening.”

“Why not?” I asked, dropping back so I was beside her. “You two looked so happy.”

Max reached behind Juliana and whacked my arm, but I ignored him. Juliana stared at me for a moment before she explained. “Mike just says that to get the crowds riled up,” she mumbled.

“What about the baby?” Max pressed.

“What baby?” Juliana retorted.

“At the rally, Mike implied that you were pregnant,” Max explained.

“That…that was another lie.” Juliana raked her fingers through her dark hair and looked straight ahead. “No babies or weddings are in my future, not with Langston or anyone else.”

“Too bad,” I said. “You'd look good in white.” Juliana stopped and stared at me, unsure if I was taunting her or paying her a compliment. “I mean it. Just like that portrait of your mom in the dining room.”

Juliana nodded, but her eyes were wary. Before either of us could speak further, Micah announced that we had arrived.

Before us stood a dilapidated concrete structure.
It looked like it had been abandoned years ago, or at least long enough for vines to partially obscure the windows and doorways. The walls bore ugly black stains and part of the ceiling had fallen in.

“
This
is the Museum of Human Triumph?” I asked, staring at the crumbling concrete and rotting doorframe. There wasn't even a door, just a few splinters where one might have been. “You'd think they'd mow the lawn.”

“This facility doesn't have a regular maintenance staff,” Juliana offered. “It's very difficult to maintain a magic-free space in the Otherworld.”

I felt my brows travel halfway up my forehead, but Micah said, “She is correct. The land itself will try to destroy such places, with the ground attempting to swallow the structures. The vines and trees will rip it apart, if they can.”

“Maybe that's why it's concrete,” Sadie mused.

“It's concrete because most Elementals can't affect concrete,” Juliana said. “Even stone Elementals have a hard time manipulating it. The Institute only lasted as long as it did because of the wards set around the perimeter.”

I stared at Juliana, simultaneously wanting to ask her more about what the Peacekeepers had done to my kind and slap her for speaking about us in such a detached manner. In the end, I decided to just push ahead. Finding Dad was far more important than her questionable loyalties.

“Come on,” I said, picking my way through the underbrush. “Dad's waiting.”

We crept inside the museum and soon learned that the interior was just as dilapidated as the exterior grounds. The museum looked nothing like the Institute, which was a bit of a surprise. It also didn't look like any museum I had ever been in, what with its rows of small, cell-like rooms. This place looked more like a containment facility than a repository of art and history, but it wasn't like the high-tech laboratory Max was kept in. This museum was nothing but plain stone.

“This way,” Juliana said, indicating a left turn. “The cells are always deep inside, where there aren't any windows.”

I shuddered, my own captivity still too fresh in my mind. Then we were in the offshoot corridor, and we darted as one back to the wider hall. Three armed Peacekeepers were standing in our way, and they had their plastic guns trained on us.

“Trap,” I shrieked as Micah shoved me behind him. I wasn't having that, not after what had happened with Old Stoney, and I yanked Micah's arm until he was standing beside me. Before I could ask Micah how we should combat plastic, Mom raised her hands.

And the plastic guns disintegrated.

“What the…” I murmured, clutching Micah's arms. “How did that even happen?”

“She's going to kill them,” Sadie whispered, her eyes trained on the Peacekeepers. Mom had somehow wound the three guards together, their arms and legs now resembling Celtic knotwork.

“I never kill when I can make an example,” Mom said. She flicked her wrist, and the knotty guards were flung halfway down the corridor. “Now, let us find my husband.”

Mom stalked down a dusty corridor, leaving the guards, who now resembled pretzels more than anything else, whimpering.

“Come along, children,” Mom ordered. “My Beau is waiting.”

We followed Mom down the corridor, stepping over the knotted-up guards in the process. I could have been wondering how long they'd stay like that, if there were more guards up around the next bend, what would happen when one of them had to pee. Instead, all I could think about was what Juliana had said back at the manor.

Juliana had been the one responsible for all the confidential information on my work computer, the very same information that had led to me finding Max and freeing him from his living hell as a Peacekeeper lab rat. The very same information that would have meant Juliana's death, had anyone caught on to her.

All this time, I'd thought that she'd betrayed not only me, but my entire family. Juliana really had been my first real friend at a time when most either avoided me because I was rich or because I was the weird girl who dyed her hair the color of mud. But Juliana had never been like that—she'd always liked me for me, not just for my outer appearance. Then, I saw her working at the Institute, reading printouts about the experiments carried out on Max, and I'd felt like a fool.

I felt like the only friend I'd ever had was just using me.

When Max and I had seen her onstage with Langston at Mike Armstrong's rally, I'd had no reason to doubt what Mike said. It seemed perfectly natural that Juliana, the niece of a popular politician, would end up marrying another politician in the same party. I mean, Juliana had looked terrible, but then if she'd been pregnant she might have been sick. That could have accounted for the dark circles under her eyes, maybe even the weight loss…

I sighed and laced my fingers with Micah's. I just didn't know what to think.

“Cover,” Mom hissed, shaking my thoughts loose. I glanced down the corridor and saw a full complement of Peacekeepers headed toward us. For the first time, I missed Jerome.

“Weapons?” Max asked Mom.

“Same,” she replied. Having a warrior queen for a
mother was quite handy in these situations.

“Can you take apart that many at the same time?” I asked. There had to be two dozen Peacekeepers with guns, and that was a lot of plastic for Mom to unbind all at once.

“I can handle at least half,” Mom replied, then she looked toward Micah and Max. “I trust you boys can handle the rest?”

Micah straightened his back and frowned, but he knew better than to give Mom any backtalk. “Maeve, I will certainly assist you. Please, work your spells as you see fit.”

Mom smiled—Micah had charmed Mom right from the get-go—then she raised her hand and wiggled her fingers. When the guards began shouting, I knew she'd done something good.

I poked my head around the corner, and saw the guards covered in melted plastic that used to be guns. The smart ones had dropped their weapons once they realized what was happening, and had only suffered superficial injuries. The ones that weren't so swift were screaming under a mess of molten plastic and…metal.

“Dude,” Max said. Micah turned toward Max and raised an eyebrow—I imagined he had never been addressed as such before. “Feel those bits of metal in with the plastic?”

Slowly, Micah's scowl became a smile. “I do. Shall we?”

“We shall.”

With that, Micah and Max stepped into the hallway in full view of the Peacekeepers. Despite Mom's assurance that she could down half of them, around fifteen were still standing.

“Hey fellas,” Max said as he called the metal bits out from the plastic slop. “Any of you remember me?”

Based on their garbled shouts, some did. Then, they didn't.

As those guards fell to the ground, Micah rushed forward. It seemed that recent events had left him with some lingering anger issues to work out, and I watched as he decimated the remaining seven guards in a rather messy manner.

“I got more,” Max said when it was over. “I took down eight, and you only got seven.”

Micah arched a silver brow. “And?”

“Winner winner, chicken dinner,” Max said, then he started checking the guards' bodies for signs of life. Micah looked at me but I only shrugged—far be it from me to understand why my older brother said the nonsense he said. If it wasn't for his mark, I'd have wondered if he was switched at birth.

Once we were certain that those guards were definitely not going to be spilling our secrets, Micah straightened and fixed Juliana in his gaze. “Which way to the cells?” he demanded.

“This way,” Juliana replied, leading us past the guards' bodies and toward the interior of the building.
Mom followed directly behind Juliana, and then Max sidled up to Micah, the two of them scanning the corridor for threats. Having no other options, Sadie and I took up the rear and picked our way past the bodies.

The corridors were eerily silent, and we didn't find a single guard…which made sense, since this obviously wasn't a top priority location. Still, I could have done with taking out a few more creeps.

Eventually, we turned a corner and were faced with a flat concrete wall. “Did you get lost?” I asked Juliana.

Juliana ignored me and started feeling around the wall. “The access panel is camouflaged,” she explained. “They're usually…ah.” She made a twisting motion with her hands, and something that resembled a comlink panel under a glass dome appeared. She fiddled with the edge for a moment, then she swore. “This one doesn't have a passcode, it uses a physical key. We're going to have to search the guards for it.”

Who needs keys?
Max's hand shone copper, then he stepped forward. “Cover your eyes,” he said as he pulled Juliana aside, then he turned his head away and smashed the dome. My awareness filled with metallic sensations, sensations I hadn't had a few moments ago.