Carson gazed back at me levelly. “The problem with you, Sunshine, is that you are so honest, you never expect anyone to tell you a lie.”
“Did
you
know what the Jackal was?” I asked, my voice cracking. I knew there were other people in the room, was aware of them pretending not to listen, but they seemed very far away.
“No. I had no idea.” A chink opened in his armor, and a little bit of last night’s Carson came out. “You don’t have any reason to believe me, of course.”
True. But he also didn’t have any reason to lie at this point. And I had more important things to do than burst into tears or kick his ass. Or kick his ass and
then
burst into tears.
The phone on the librarian’s desk rang. Everyone stared at it like a piece of alien technology. “When did the phone start working again?” asked Marian.
“I don’t know,” said Smith, picking up the receiver. He listened for a moment, then held it out to me. “For you.”
I was, I suppose, expecting it to be Taylor. I managed not to fall over when I heard Devlin Maguire’s voice rumbling through the line.
“Miss Goodnight,” he said, “I am reliably informed that my daughter is inside that building. You have discharged your duty by leading us here—though perhaps with more drama than I would have liked.”
At his words, the rope of obligation fell loose from my psyche. I’d become so accustomed to the constant tension, I swayed a little before regaining my footing. “Reliably informed by whom?” I cared less about the geas and more about seeing Alexis safe. “Did they say where?”
“That is no longer your concern.”
His dismissal made me angry and distance made me brave. I turned my back on the room and hissed into the phone. “I know you knew about the Oosterhouse Jackal the whole time that Alexis has been in danger. Now she’s in here with a bunch of madmen. You should value your family a little more, Mr. Maguire.”
I was looking at him on the computer when I said it. I don’t know how he knew—how did he know we were in the library in the first place?—but he raised his gaze to the security camera and looked right back. “Our business is done for now, Miss Goodnight. Please, if you would be so kind, put my son on the line.”
At that casual “for now,” I bridled my anger and handed the phone to Carson without further comment. It was a short conversation, consisting of only single syllables on Carson’s end before he hung up the phone and addressed the library refugees.
“The, er, terrorists occupying this building have agreed to let you go. The police are going to send the armed response team up the fire stairs to come get you. Stay put until they get here.”
“Terrorists?” Lab Coat echoed. “Mummy-raising terrorists?”
“What about you?” asked Marian. “You said
we
should stay here. What are you going to do?”
He caught himself rubbing his bruised shoulder again, and dropped his hand. “I’m delivering part of the ransom so they’ll let my sister go.”
The others reacted with worried acceptance as Carson walked out of the office. I stormed after him, much more vocal about my opinion of this idea.
“What part of the ransom?” I asked, following him to the laptop, where he pulled out the flash drive. “The book? That wasn’t part of the deal.”
He capped the flash drive and put it in his pocket. “You really think that matters? It’s part of making the Black Jackal, if you want to split hairs.”
“We can’t give them the real flash drive,” I argued. “We have to give them a decoy.”
“
We
are not doing anything.” He retrieved the spear he’d brought from the ancient America wing, then picked up one end of the table with his free hand and swung it out of the way. I wasn’t sure what that was supposed to prove. That he could channel Neanderthal strength? How much would that help against lions and Jackals and backstabbing brethren?
“You need me to watch your back,” I said, sliding between him and the door.
“
You
need to stay away from the Jackal,” he said. “I heard your aunt’s warning, too.”
He didn’t retreat from the door, which meant he didn’t retreat
from me. I wasn’t used to having to plead my case. People either listened to what I had to tell them, or they didn’t and I didn’t care.
I cared a whole lot now. About stopping the Black Jackal and the Brotherhood, about protecting Alexis, and about Carson.
“You
know
there’s got to be a double cross in the works. You need one person there you can trust. If not for your sake, then for your sister—”
He took me by the shoulders, gazing down at me with surface calm and fathoms of emotion below.
“Stop. Talking.”
“But—”
“I need you to promise something. If anything happens to me, get into Maguire’s house. Tell Agent Taylor that if he needs probable cause, look into the Beaumont Corporation. There’s a safe in Maguire’s office, behind the bookshelf. That’s where he keeps my mom’s soul. Let her go for me, okay?”
His measured composure frightened me more than an impassioned plea. “You know I will. But why does this sound less like making a plan and more like saying goodbye?”
My worry made him relent with a soft laugh. “I’m not planning to jump into Mount Doom with the One Ring or anything. But I might be in jail. And you probably won’t want to see me again. So I’m making a contingency plan.”
“Don’t be an idiot.” He still held my shoulders and I started to push him away but somehow ended up holding on instead, grabbing a fistful of his shirt.
“Ow.” He covered my hand with his. “Johnson left some bruises there. Be careful.”
“Be careful?” I socked him, in case
that
got through his stubborn head. “You’re talking about facing an überghost who can raise the freaking dead. Why would you not take along someone who can
vanquish
ghosts, you jackass?”
“I’m going to miss these pet names of yours, Sunshine.”
“No you’re not, because I’m going with you.”
I yanked my hands from his and tried again to push him back a step. But as my fingers touched his shoulder, a shock raced along my nerves, raising gooseflesh and shivers all over me. Not good shivers, either.
Remnant shivers.
“What is that?” I demanded, with a rising note of … of
everything
. Panic, betrayal, hysteria. Because I’d felt a shock like that from living skin only once before—when I’d touched McSlackerson’s tattoo in the St. Louis museum.
The Black Jackal’s mark.
Carson closed his eyes and sighed, an exhale of regret and inevitability. “That was a mistake I made. And it’s why you can’t come with me. You want to send the Jackal back to the afterlife, and I can’t let you do that. Not yet.”
I couldn’t make those words make sense, and I couldn’t make myself move away as he brushed back my hair—and I couldn’t resist as sudden darkness dropped the floor out from under me.
The jackass had whammied me. There were strong arms holding me and a warm kiss on my neck and a whisper in my ear, “Don’t hate me too much, Daisy. And don’t forget about my mom.”
And then nothing.
“D
AISY
G
OODNIGHT, YOU
are under arrest for the obstruction of a federal investigation, evading custody, conspiring to commit motor vehicle theft …”
There might have been more, but Agent Gerard’s voice merged with the buzzing whine in my head. The armed response team had arrived. I was stretched out on the couch in Marian’s office, and Gerard looked like the devil himself in the red emergency lights.
“You can’t arrest her while she’s semiconscious,” said Agent Taylor. I hadn’t awakened at the armed forces busting through
the door, but at Taylor’s hand on my shoulder. I’d nearly cried at the sight of his familiar, loyal face.
I nearly cried for a lot of reasons. The headache beating at the inside of my skull was the least of them.
I was angry and hurt and mad at myself for
being
hurt, but most of all, eating up all those emotions like a lion in the pit of my stomach, was worry for Carson. Almost as much worry as there was fury.
How far back had he betrayed me? If he’d been in on the Brotherhood’s plan, he was an
impossibly
good actor. And there was no faking the animosity between him and Johnson. But all the same, he’d been keeping secrets from the start.
Don’t you ever want to take that guy and boot him into an early hell?
Carson wasn’t after power. He was after vengeance.
“We need to go, sir,” said one of the guys in black fatigues. Taylor and Gerard had them on, too.
“Just give me a sec,” I said, sitting up slowly. More slowly, maybe, than necessary. I needed time to think.
Taylor crouched beside me, watching me like I was going to break. Behind him I could see my museum comrades closing ranks on Gerard.
“You can’t arrest her,” said Lab Coat. “She saved us from those mummies. And a big-ass lion.”
“Sir,” said Captain Fatigues, intervening between the nerd and the agent, “you’ve been exposed to a hallucinogenic substance, and we need to get all of you out of here and to medical attention.”
Gerard had already turned back to me. “Where is your buddy, Peanut? Reenacting
Die Hard
downstairs?”
I tried to glare up at him, but it hurt my head. “Don’t. Even. Start.”
“Sir,” said Taylor, standing to face the senior agent, “may I remind you that Miss Goodnight has been a hostage for forty-eight hours. And that we found her unconscious in a building under siege by terrorists”—Gerard gave a snort, and Taylor ignored him—“so we might cut her some slack.”
Gerard looked apoplectic, and I really didn’t want to be arrested, or to get Taylor in trouble. So I played my ace. “Be nice to me, Special Agent Gerard,” I said. “I can get you probable cause on Devlin Maguire.”
Captain Fatigues stood in the door. “We really can’t waste any more time, sir.”
Gerard gave me a long glare, as if he resented me for giving him what he wanted. Finally he stalked off to join the others in the reading room. Taylor took my hand and pulled me to my feet. I overbalanced and caught myself on his chest. It wasn’t on purpose, but it was convenient.
“I can’t leave,” I whispered.
“Daisy,” he said, steadying me by the shoulders, “you have to. Once you’re all safe, the armed response team is going to go in after the hostiles downstairs.”
“They can’t.” I stepped back out of his hold. “Forget that Carson and Alexis are down there somewhere. So is a monster—a madman who can do things you can’t even imagine.”
“That’s why the professionals are going to handle it.” He was using his calm-the-overwrought-witness voice and I didn’t like it. “They’ll do everything they can to keep the civilians safe. We’re not letting Maguire into the building to negotiate, and I’m not letting you—”
“Maguire!” I wrestled my voice down, because I did sound overwrought and I didn’t like that, either. “He can’t come in here!”
“That’s what I just said.”
“He’s been involved since the beginning! He knew about the Black Jackal, and he must have known about the Brotherhood.…”
“You mean the kidnappers?” asked Taylor, looking at me like I’d really gone off the rails. “You’re not seriously suggesting he kidnapped his own daughter, are you?”
“Maybe.” It did sound crazy, but it had gotten Carson and me on the hunt for the remnants of Oosterhouse. More than that, it had gotten me
here
, to open the Veil for the Black Jackal.
“But why?”
“Power. I don’t know—I haven’t got that all worked out yet. Something about the symbiotic relationship …”
Now I was just babbling thoughts as they came to me, thinking out loud. Captain Fatigues appeared again in the doorway, like a dad calling curfew. “Agent Taylor,” he said, in a don’t-screw-with-me tone, “everyone else is gone. You’re the last out.”
Taylor took my arm to steer me toward the exit, but he didn’t rush me. As soon as Fatigues’s back was turned, I whispered, “I
swear I’m not going bughouse. Bullets won’t do any good here. In fact, dead people will make this about a million times worse. This is World Series weird, Jack. You have to trust me.”
We had a bargain that I couldn’t call him Jack until I was eighteen. This situation called for jumping the gun.
And it worked. He stopped in the doorway and faced me, grave and conflicted. “Daisy, if you don’t toe the line, I’m not sure I can keep Gerard from arresting you.”
“Jack.”
I used it again. “If I don’t stop this guy, Chicago will be a ghost town.
Literally
.”
He studied me closely, his face hard angles in the red emergency lights. “You’re serious.”
“I never joke about ghosts running rampant through the streets. Ghosts of mobsters, ghosts of the great fire, ghosts of Mrs. O’Leary’s freaking cow. The sleeping dead pulled from their graves and every shred of their spirit erased from existence. All to fuel magic. Big, real, take-over-the-world
magic
.”
Another too-long inventory of my face. If we weren’t such good friends, if the world weren’t in such trouble, I might blush.
“And this isn’t just about one guy in trouble?” he asked, stabbing me in the heart.
“No! What am I?” Outraged. That was what I was. “I’m not some lovelorn twit. It’s about saving the city and every remnant soul in it from a megalomaniac with delusions of godhood.”
And also a guy too stubborn to admit he needed saving.
“I didn’t mean lovelorn,” said Taylor, proving he did know me after all. “I know that you would risk anything for just one soul in danger. But for a whole city, I’ll go with you.”
I threw my arms around him in a relieved and rule-breaking but completely justified bear hug. After a second, his arms wrapped around me so tightly my bruises squealed. Or maybe I’d made that sound, because he eased off, but didn’t let go. “You need to stop scaring the crap out of me, Jailbait.”
Yeah, I probably needed to stop hugging him, especially if he was going to call me that. But the uncomplicated security felt so good that I let myself indulge a moment longer. It was a good thing no one else was there, or my badass image would be wrecked forever.