Authors: SM Reine
Benjamin shuddered. What details did Elise need? Did she need to know that Michele was a pyrokinetic witch, and that she tried to burn Lucas’s house down? Did she need to know that Lucas was so scared for his family that he pissed himself? Did she need to know the way he was pushed through a window, and how certain he was that he would die?
“Michele tried to kill him,” he finally said. “She almost did it.”
“So he killed her instead,” Elise said.
“Leticia shot,” Benjamin said, holding out a finger. The wife had come out of the kitchen with Lucas’s gun raised, her feet planted, her baby kicking a foot into her ribs. “Bang. Michele’s face went…” He sucked in a hard breath at the memory. “Michele didn’t die—so Lucas drew the knife. He couldn’t let her tell the Union what his wife tried to do.”
The shower shut off. Anthony would be out soon, so Benjamin hurried to finish.
“You have to understand, Elise—everything you think about your friend is true. Lucas is good. He’s
so
good, and the world needs him. But I made a mistake. I told Michele things she didn’t need to know, and it made good people have to kill another good person.” His hands were shaking. Tears burned hot down his cheeks. “If they took Lucas away, he would die. They would investigate and find the truth of the story, so Leticia would die, too. And their children would have no parents.”
Elise’s face had gone stony. “Why haven’t you told the Union this?”
“Because then they will want to know what I told Michele,” Benjamin said. “But I can’t tell them. They get pieces of it through this fucking collar, but not the whole story, and they can’t have it. Nobody can.” He could see the question in her eyes, so he said, “Not even you. And definitely not James.”
They stared at each other for a long, long time.
Benjamin wasn’t psychic, so he couldn’t tell what Elise was thinking. But he knew her well enough to guess. He had seen so much of her life, from the times her mother carried her as a fragile infant into Isaac’s battles, to the first time she held a knife, all the way through to the time she would die—not so far from where they stood in time. He had witnessed her first kiss and first heartbreak and first job out of college. He had seen her in the garden and watched her spill blood on the earth again and again and again.
He loved Elise, just as he had loved Michele. She had no secrets from him.
And he saw her considering the story. Trying to decide if he might lie. Hoping it was true, so that she could trust McIntyre again.
The bathroom door opened. Anthony emerged naked, with a towel wrapped low around his hips. When he realized he wasn’t alone, he went rigid. “What’s going on?”
“You,” Benjamin said. His eyelids drooped half-closed, and he took a deep breath in. Anthony had been flitting in and out of his mind for hours.
Anthony set a hand on the lamp, like he was thinking about attacking Benjamin. “Who is this?”
“A precog,” Elise said. “He sees the future.”
“You do?” A light sparked in Anthony’s gaze. “Really?”
“The Cubs will never win the World Series. But I don’t need to read the future to know that,” Benjamin said solemnly. It was his standard, half-joke response to someone announcing his special abilities.
“If you know that, then… what do you see for me?”
Benjamin almost felt bad for him. Almost. “You’re not in her future.”
Anthony looked like he’d been slapped.
“I’ll save McIntyre,” Elise told Benjamin, ignoring her boyfriend.
Of course she would. “The night guards switch at four in the morning,” Benjamin said. “I shouldn’t help you. Gary’s already going to be mad at me.”
She nodded slowly. “I understand.” Elise waved the knife at his collar. “I can’t open the lock. But you knew that.”
He smiled weakly. “Even when I know the truth, I still have hope.” He took a step toward Elise—he wanted to hug her and apologize for everything, especially the things she didn’t know yet—but she took a step away from him, shielded Anthony with her body, and raised the knife.
So much for hope.
“Thanks for telling me,” she said. Her voice was cold.
Benjamin opened the front door and gave her a small smile that wasn’t happy. “I’ll see you around, Elise.”
P
ART
T
HREE
Hero
XIII
E
lise waited outside
the Union compound and watched the guards patrol the perimeter. Like Flynn promised, they changed shift at four o’clock. When the nearest kopis stopped to speak with his replacement, she used the opportunity to sneak inside.
She stayed low and beelined for the center of the compound. She avoided illuminated tents, ducked around shadows, and found McIntyre’s trailer guarded by the kopis named Boyd. He had a gun nestled under one arm, but his hands were occupied with a cup of coffee while he read a magazine. He clearly wasn’t expecting trouble. Not so deep in the compound, and not from the outside.
Elise crawled behind him and stood silently.
He hummed to himself, turned the page, and rocked gently back on his heels.
She slammed her fist into the back of his head.
It didn’t take much force to bounce the brain against the skull, and it dropped him in an instant. She snatched the gun out of the air before he hit the ground. His cup bounced with a hollow
thunk
and spilled coffee across the dirt.
Boyd didn’t get up.
A quick search of his pockets yielded zip ties, and she bound his wrists before dragging him into the shadow underneath the trailer.
Then she slipped inside.
McIntyre hadn’t been black-bagged again, but he was still naked and bound, and he slept upright against the wall. He stirred when she opened the door and light fell on his face.
He flinched. His eyes opened. They were puffy, swollen, and bloodshot. Two days of beard growth shadowed his face, and his lips were cracked. “Took you long enough,” he said.
Elise cut him free and helped him to his feet. “Let’s go. We don’t have long.”
“Is the Union letting me go?”
“No.” She peered around the door. Another kopis was passing, so she held out a hand to keep McIntyre from proceeding. She held her breath until he was gone.
“But you believe me,” he said.
Her lips tightened. “I found the Union earpiece in your house.” Before he could respond, she moved outside. Boyd groaned and shifted beneath them. “Okay—come on, let’s hurry.”
McIntyre hurried to keep up with her as she jogged down the path between trailers. His motions were stiff and sluggish. “I wasn’t—”
“No more lies,” Elise said, keeping her voice low. She crouched behind the corner of a tent. McIntyre followed suit. The kopis who had passed earlier wandered turned the bend, and as soon as his back disappeared, they followed. “It’s insulting. I know what you and Leticia did. Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”
“What, and let you give my pregnant wife over to the Union? I love her, Kavanagh. I would do anything for her.”
Elise swore under her breath. “You can’t think that I would turn your aspis over to the Union.”
“You’ve made it clear that you don’t think much of me, my wife, or our family. And you’ve got a sick sense of justice. You would give James to the Union if you thought he had done something worth it.”
Anger burned hot in her gut, but a light turned on in the tent beside them before she could argue. Voices murmured inside. Dawn was approaching, and the Union was starting to awaken.
One by one, lights turned on in the trailers and tents around them, and the distant noises of activity drifted over the compound. But their path was clear. She hurried away from the tent, and McIntyre followed closely.
She rounded the corner and came face-to-face with a line of kopides.
Each of them was armed with rifles, and each of them was aimed at Elise. Zettel stood in the back with his arms folded and a smug smile.
Elise scanned the guns, and she calculated.
She was fast, but not faster than a bullet. Certainly not faster than six bullets.
Slowly, she lifted her hands over her head.
“Tell me why the Warrens are empty this morning,” Zettel said.
Elise had just broken her friend out of custody, and he wanted to know where the demons were hiding? Interesting priorities. “Because the summit is over.”
“We’ve got another sixteen hours. There hasn’t been a single goddamn meeting.”
“Not that
you’ve
attended.”
Zettel’s eyes turned to slits. One of the armed kopides shifted uncomfortably, but he grew still at the commander’s hand on his shoulder. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Everything’s worked out, and it’s none of your business,” Elise said. “I’m taking McIntyre, and I’m leaving.”
“Hard to leave when you’ve got more holes in your chest than Swiss cheese.”
“Then shoot us,” McIntyre said.
Nobody moved.
“See, I don’t think you can,” he went on. “That’s not in the Union’s directive. We’re assets that HQ wants to control. I’ve got contact information for more than half of the current active kopides—that’s at least triple what you have.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. We don’t have authority to shoot most humans,” Zettel said. “But a murder suspect? His accomplice? We could shoot them. And you can see why trying to escape might make you look very guilty.”
Elise’s pulse hammered as scenarios whirled through her mind. The commander was closest—she could probably take him down before anyone fired, as long as she moved fast. But if she twitched, bullets would fly. Even if she didn’t get shot, McIntyre would drop.
A voice broke through the cool morning air.
“What are you doing?” Ramelan ambled over to study the situation. He was shadowed closely by Veronika, who looked about as interested in the armed men as she was in the dirt beneath her feet. She studied her fingernails. “This doesn’t look good.”
“We have it under control,” Zettel said stiffly.
“Oh?”
“We’re about to arrest both of them. Or shoot them. I haven’t decided.”
“Come now,” Ramelan said. “You know who she is. You know
what
she is. You can’t kill her. Have them drop their guns.” When Zettel didn’t speak, he lowered his voice, like he was soothing a rabid dog. “You have no evidence either of them killed the recruiter. There is no justice in this.”
“She did
something
,” Zettel said. “She drove off the infernal and ethereal delegations. I know she did it.”
Ramelan’s eyes met hers. There was understanding in them. “She did exactly what a greatest kopis is supposed to do.”
His words resonated through the encampment. One of the guns dropped, and then another, and another. Zettel didn’t try to stop them. Instead, he waved at the others, and they stood down.
“Are we finished?” Veronika asked with a sigh. “I have things to accomplish today.”
Ramelan shrugged. “That’s up to Gary.”
“HQ has given you ultimate authority,” Zettel said, like he was admitting something painful and unpleasant. “It’s your decision.”
“Excellent. Then we’ll be going. Elise?”
Ramelan walked them out of camp, and Zettel took one of the other kopis’s guns before following them. “You don’t need to do that,” Ramelan said.
“I’m not letting them out of my sight. Who knows who will show up dead next?” Zettel asked.
McIntyre teeth groaned as he gritted them. He wasn’t an angry guy—that was Elise’s job—but the Union had obviously earned his animosity. His entire body vibrated with angry tension. But he was too smart, too controlled, to lash out against Zettel.
They were just a few short feet from the perimeter. So close to freedom.
Elise barely breathed until they passed through the fencing, which hummed with electricity. Her shoulders relaxed as soon as they were on the other side.
She faced Zettel. He wasn’t following them.
“Let’s get out of here,” McIntyre said, but she didn’t immediately move.
“Wait—that kid. Benjamin Flynn.” Elise swallowed, and her throat felt like sandpaper. She didn’t ask favors well. “Let him go, Zettel.”
He waved the gun. “You’re done making demands. Get out of my sight.”
“This isn’t a demand. Consider it a… strong suggestion,” she said. Zettel didn’t waver. “Is the Union keeping slaves?”
“He’s here by parental consent.”
“He’s miserable.”
“Miserable?
Miserable
? Do you want to know what misery is?” Zettel pointed at his own throat. “Before we collared him, his parents were desperate. Their son was going crazy. He averaged four microseizures an hour, and two grand mal a day. No treatment worked—nothing but Union technology and the best magic our witches have. If he wasn’t with us, he might be brain dead by now. Is that misery?”
“So you’re keeping him against his will as a humanitarian gesture.”
“No,” Zettel said. “We’re keeping him because we need his prophecies. Nobody else approaches his precision. The things he knows… your selfish, petty mind can’t comprehend it. But what’s good for us is good for him.” He raised the gun again to aim it straight for her. “And like I said. You’re not in any place to make demands.”
McIntyre stepped in front of the gun. He didn’t have to say a word.
Zettel’s finger slipped over the trigger.
Ramelan put a hand on Zettel’s arm, but he addressed Elise directly. “He’s right. The world needs to know what Flynn knows.”
What
did
he know? The question nagged at her. What truth had Michele Newcomb thought to be worth killing a stranger? What would drive good people to murder?
“Let’s go,” she told McIntyre.
Zettel didn’t drop the gun until they were out of sight. Ramelan stayed with them well into the desert. “Thanks,” McIntyre said once they were clear of the perimeter.
Ramelan inclined his head. “You’re welcome. I was only a few minutes from staging a release, myself.”
“You know each other?” Elise asked.
McIntyre shrugged. “I know everyone.”
“Is it true, Elise?” Ramelan asked. “Is the summit over?” She nodded. “What’s the conclusion?”