Dirty Little Misery (Miss Misery) (26 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

How did I escape Lucrezia’s curse? How did I keep getting past the compulsion and wards on the basement? Those were the answers Lucen, Devon and Dezzi wanted to know as we waited for the Gryphons to officially arrest Lucrezia and an ambulance to take away Andre.

“You know my gift is weird,” I told them. It was the truth, just not the whole truth, and it was evident from their expressions that it was getting thin.

“You’re human,” Devon mused. “It should work regardless.”

I said nothing to that, and was thrilled when the Gryphons arrived. I hadn’t been feeling like I needed their healers to check me out, but letting them do so meant a faster escape from the satyrs’ questions.

Once we got to the hospital, I asked around and found out Andre had a minor concussion. The nurse who informed me didn’t attribute it to a chair, but I knew it was probably my fault. One more thing to add to what would—no doubt—be some serious awkwardness between us.

Unsurprisingly, the Gryphon healers pronounced me fine, magically speaking. I didn’t feel so fine, however. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, I had a massive headache and every muscle was sore. The nurses gave me painkillers, and the healers told me to drink lots of juice and eat crackers to help me ground my gift. While I nibbled and drank, I had to fill Brian in on what transpired. Only after that was I allowed to leave.

Before I did, I stopped by Andre’s room. Judging by the expression on his face and the mortification I could sense rolling off him, I suspected that he wished he’d been pretending to sleep when I arrived.

“Hey, Jess. You all right?” Genuine concern laced his voice, but his gaze roamed everywhere—the empty wall, the curtained window, the ugly ceiling. Everywhere but me.

I chose to stare at my shoes, not so much out of my own embarrassment but because I thought it might alleviate some of his. “Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry about your head.”

“Yeah.” He snorted. “You hit me with a chair. If I recall, they’re your weapon of choice against Gryphons.”

“They are handy that way. I am really sorry.”

Andre held up a hand to cut me off. “You saved my life. No need to be sorry.”

“Well, I am. You stuck here?”

“Yeah. Docs want to keep me overnight for observation—the head and all. And Brian was kind enough to leave me with this—” he tapped a laptop on the bedside table, “—so I could get started on my report in order to pass the time. So, you know.” He brought the laptop onto the bed.

It was clearly a sign he wanted me to go. Just as well. “I’ll see you soon then.”

But I wondered if I would. I suspected any chance I had at a normal relationship with Andre was ruined. I was more sad that this probably meant I wouldn’t get to work with him in the future than I was at the loss of anything else. He was a great guy, but he wasn’t Lucen, and I wanted Lucen.

On that thought, I returned to his apartment and promptly passed out as soon as I hit my borrowed bed.

When I woke up the next morning, Lucen was sleeping, so I crept downstairs. I hadn’t seen him since leaving Purgatory last night. No doubt he’d been sucked into a satyr council meeting to discuss the Lucrezia situation. Although I was extremely curious about what the fallout from that would entail, there was something else occupying my thoughts.

The clock on the coffeemaker declared it to be noon. Taking an extra-large mug to the table, I turned on my laptop and finally checked the email Ben had sent.

I scrolled past the note he’d written and went straight for the good stuff—the files, particularly the one with my name on it. My coffee grew cold as I read. And read. And read.

After a while, I turned cold too.

Much of the data was corrupted and read like gibberish, and in some places information was clearly lost. But, on the whole, enough was available to figure out what was going on. This file contained my life, every detail from when I’d been enrolled at the New England Academy for the Magically Gifted.

Most of it was normal—the file had my grades, teacher notes and test scores. All the usual academic stuff. Then there were my yearly blood screenings and notes on magical aptitude. Also normal, for Gryphons. Where it started to get weird was the personality assessments. Over the years, someone had kept a running commentary on my behavior. I was described, among other ways, as having “a stubborn streak and determination that borderlined on recklessness”.

And finally, there was a different sort of running note. This first one was written when I was thirteen years old—by a Gryphon I had no recollection of ever meeting—and it described me as a good candidate for a “special service project”. A year later, this candidacy was formalized into a recommendation for something called the Philadelphia Project. Following that was a third note, signed by the same person. It only mentioned my candidacy hadn’t worked out and called me a failed test subject. Then, at last, on my eighteenth birthday, another note appeared. This one suggested that my transformation might not have taken because my gift wasn’t strong enough after all.

My transformation.

My fucking transformation?

I stared at the file, specifically at these last notes, forever. My coffee was forgotten. Everything was forgotten. Bile churned in my stomach as I read and reread the words on the screen. There was no way.

Yet I knew better. With trembling fingers, I opened Victor’s file. It was less complete than mine, but we shared significant similarities in the information it contained, and very similar magical profiles and notes. Victor’s “transformation” had failed too.

I opened the next, and the next, and the next. With each file, I hoped beyond hope that I’d find something in the corrupted data to make my suspicions fade. After what I’d gone through last night, I couldn’t possibly be fully functioning. I was tired and sore. I was reeling from the aftereffects of serious magic.

But I wasn’t stupid, as
le Confrérie
had kindly noted in several places.

I checked the dates on the notes and did the math in my head. The Philadelphia Project coincided with the summer I’d attended a Gryphon-sponsored summer institute there. A summer institute at which I’d allegedly had the flu and couldn’t recall what I’d done. And no coincidence, that was right around the time
all
my childhood memories became hazy, like they belonged to a different person.

I swallowed, unable for another moment to take my eyes off the file while I debated what to do. Truthfully though, there wasn’t much to debate. Right there in my file it said everything that made my decision inevitable—I was stubborn, borderline reckless.

That did it. I tore my gaze away from the computer and grabbed my keys. It was time to get wholeheartedly reckless all over Gryphon fucking Headquarters.

Actually storming a building when you had every right to be there and in fact were expected to be there so you could write a report on your recent activities was anticlimactic. I breezed through security, the dark expression I could sense on my face not bothering anyone. But no matter. One person in this building wasn’t expecting me, and to him, I could damn well storm.

I threw open the door to Tom Kassin’s office. He was on the phone, and he gave me a very annoyed
what are you doing?
look until he read my face. I imagined I looked a lot like Dezzi had last night—filled with a barely controlled murderous rage.

“I’ll have to call you back.” Tom hung up, and it pleased me to no end to sense that I’d unnerved him. Finally. “What brings you here, Jessica? I heard you had a late but productive night yesterday. I’m glad you’re okay.”

I shut the door behind me. “Yeah, I bet you are. Wouldn’t want your precious experiment to get herself dead, would you?”

Surprise passed over Tom’s face and settled in my mouth like ice. “Whatever you think you know—”

“Everything. You did this to me, didn’t you? It was
your
people. Your Gryphon fraternity.”

To his credit, Tom didn’t deny it. Then again, he ought to know I could detect lies. “You need to calm down.”

“Calm down?” I slammed my hands on his desk. “Are you kidding me? You ruined my life! You screwed with my gift. You made me some kind of misery-sucking freak. I trusted this organization, and you betrayed me.”

Tom picked a book off his shelves and dropped it on the desk by my hands. It was one of the ones I’d browsed through while sneaking into his office. The one that contained the weird prophecy crap. “You have no idea what we’re up against. The fraternity didn’t have a choice. It wasn’t a decision anyone in it wanted to make, but that’s the responsibility that comes with being selected for it. Sometimes we have to make regrettable choices and live with them.”

“Regrettable choices? You did experiments on kids. You’re sick!”

“They weren’t experiments with life-or-death consequences. We knew you would survive. We simply didn’t know if the magic would take.” He fell back into his chair. “How much do you know?”

I crossed my arms. “I told you—everything.”

“Really? How do you know so much?”

Because I stole your files?
At this point, I didn’t actually care whether Tom learned the truth, but I didn’t want to derail the conversation or risk getting Steph and Ben in trouble. The focus was supposed to be on Tom’s misdeeds. “I know you tried to transform me, and I know what happens when you try to make a pred out of a human with magical blood. It either doesn’t work and the person dies, or they become…”

“You.” Tom raised an eyebrow. “It did work on you, didn’t it? The experiment didn’t fail like the Brotherhood thought.”

“You had no right.” My voice quivered. Magic danced along my skin, and every hair on my body stood at attention. This much power was a head rush, yet I was so full of rage, I thought I might explode. For the second time in twenty-four hours, I felt on the verge of losing my mind. Once this nightmare was all over I wanted to find a beach, the sort of drink that comes with an umbrella, and a good book. I needed to relax.

But first, I kind of needed to kill.

Tom shoved the book my way. He should have been afraid of me, but what I tasted from him was a spicy anger, and his eyes shone with a craziness I’d seen before but couldn’t place. “There is a war coming, Jessica. A war the magi foresaw a long time ago. If we’re going to survive, we need people on our side who fight preds like we’ve never had to do before. That is the Brotherhood’s mission. That has always
been
its mission. And despite the urgency of what we had to do, you were never in any danger. The organization worked for over a century perfecting the spells involved, figuring out why gifted humans couldn’t be transformed under normal circumstances. We knew you and the others like you would survive, but until recently, we thought we’d failed anyway. Your gifts vanished. But then you showed up, and Victor Aubrey, and we learned we were wrong.”

“Oh yeah, you were wrong. You were wrong in so many ways I can’t even count them.” I paced in front of his desk, my hands clenching and unclenching into fists. “Is this why you’ve been so in my face about me spending time in Shadowtown? Why you were so afraid of me being around satyrs? Did you think I might relate to them, or that they might discover what I was?”

Tom got up, and I backed away from him. If he got too close, I might deck him yet. “You can spend time there because you’re invulnerable to their power, aren’t you? You can take it. You’ll be what they fear—our secret weapon.”

“I am nothing to you except the woman who’ll hit you if you come any closer. And to answer your question—no. Most of my life I’ve been as affected by their power as anyone.”

“But something happened recently to change that.” Tom almost smiled. “Something to do with Victor Aubrey?”

A zealot—that’s what I was dealing with. His half smile was the proof. He was as crazy as Victor, only in a different way. “You created me. You tell me. I’m just your lab rat.”

“Don’t be absurd. We made you better. Stronger. The Brotherhood toiled for ages to perfect what we did for you and for the human race. That’s why I’m here. As soon as we got an inkling of what you might be capable of, I was flown to Boston to investigate.”

“You didn’t make me better. You made me into a freak and an outcast. You made me miserable. You made me so it was impossible for me to have a normal life. And all the while you agonized over your own fucking choice, you never gave
me
one.”

Tom picked up the book again and pressed it on me. “Read this. I know you’re upset, but read it. See for yourself what’s coming. You’ll understand. You have to.”

I tossed the book away. “I understand nothing except that I’ve never been so disgusted in my entire life.” Then I spun around, aiming for the door.

The sound of a blade scraping a scabbard stopped me, and I couldn’t help but look behind me. Tom had removed yet another sword—one I hadn’t seen before—from its sheath. A jolt of fear ran through my blood, but it was nothing. A pinprick overwhelmed by my fury. My hands balled into fists.

Let him try.

The blade’s deathly black sheen cut a line across Tom’s pale face. Holding the hilt in a loose but confident grip, he flipped the sword to make sure I could see the glyphs etched on both sides of the blade. Once he was certain he had my attention, he slid it back into the scabbard. “Your disgust and your anger won’t change anything, Jessica. What’s coming is coming, and when it does you will need us as much as we will need you. Go ahead and walk out that door. When you’ve calmed down and walk back in, I’ll be here.” He flipped the sword around, holding the scabbard and presenting the hilt for me to take.

As if he could buy my forgiveness.

My hands remained in fists at my side. “Don’t count on it. I used to want nothing more than to be a Gryphon. Now I want nothing to ever do with you, or this organization, ever again.”

I charged out of his office, unable to take any more of this conversation. At the end of the hallway, I clutched the wall, fighting for control of my breaths. Tears pricked at my eyes. Reading those files and putting it all together had been one thing. Hearing Tom admit to everything, and without remorse, made it real.