Misery Happens (4 page)

“Can it?” murmured Azria as she hitched her bag over her shoulder.

I shook out my abraded denim, hoping there was enough fabric left to keep my jeans on. “It can always get worse. There’s been no zombie sightings yet. Right?”

Lucen cringed, and I shrugged. Whatever. There was a reason I didn’t do optimism.

* * * * *

My body still ached by the time we reached headquarters, but Azria’s spells were working. The scabs and skin flecks that decorated my hands were disappearing, and I assumed the rest of my injuries were too. I had survived this much. As for the rest of the night’s events, well, that remained to be determined.

Headquarters was a madhouse. The Gryphons were mobilizing every resource at their disposal and calling in every one of their agents, charm specialists or healers they could drag off their normal jobs and put to work. The National Guard helicopters that had been circling overhead since the sky reddened, and their constant
thump-thump
, had been augmented to include two of the Gryphons’ own.

Olivia Lee, Director of the Boston office, must be spitting salamander fire. She was already less than thrilled that the Brotherhood had moved many of their resources to her building, and with no wonder. They were a secretive, high-ranking bunch, which was enough to annoy anyone. Plus, they were using up a lot of Boston’s conference rooms and lab space, and undoubtedly drinking coffee that came from the Boston office’s budget. That they were now poaching her agents for their projects had to smart.

Of course, it wasn’t just the Gryphons who were alarmed. Gunthra, the goblins’ Dom, was at headquarters, along with Dezzi and the Upper Council satyrs, and they were all trying to figure out how to help. In a way, it was inspiring. I only wished it had taken something less than the potential end of the world for this sort of cooperation. In fact, if everyone had been cooperating a couple weeks ago, we might not have been in this situation at all.

“Jessica.” Tom pounced on me the moment I limped through the door of the conference room. “We need to talk.”

I collapsed on a chair to give my legs a rest. “I’m fine by the way, thanks for asking. How did you survive the shootout?”

He ignored my sarcasm, but judging by the dark lines etched into his face, he hadn’t fared well mentally. “You’re up and moving, and that tells me what I need to know. We have bigger problems than social etiquette.”

“Fair enough. How’s the fury hunt going?” Although Lucen had rushed to get us here, we’d missed the briefing Tom had called. As Tom had explained to me over the phone during the drive, there was no time to waste talking.

Tom shut the conference room door and ran his fingers through his hair. It was just the two of us and piles of notes, books and photographs spread over the table. Rather ominous. “I’ve convinced the others to nominally bring in Director Lee. We need her assistance—and this office’s assistance—to canvas and blockade the city.”

“I don’t disagree that the director should have a clue what’s going on, nor that she’s very competent. But given what happened, bringing more people on board seems risky.”

“You’re referring to our leak problem.”

My eyebrows shot up. That was exactly what I was referring to, but I hadn’t expected Tom to suggest it. I’d made the case that a leak existed weeks ago when we were ambushed in Phoenix, and Tom and the rest of the Brotherhood had been in denial. “Excellent. They say the first step is admitting we have a problem. And before you start accusing the satyrs, I strongly suspect the person is a Gryphon.”

“I’m aware.”

Right. I’d made my case for that too. “Yeah, well, I consider tonight to be more evidence that I’m right.”

Tom regarded me curiously. “Why is that?”

I’d had a lot of time to think about what bothered me during the fighting at the terminal, so I laid it out. “The furies came armed with regular guns, which is really unusual. Preds almost never fight each other like that since the bullets aren’t lethal. That tells me they were expecting Gryphons to be there when we met the new satyrs, and
that
suggests to me the leak was a Gryphon. The satyrs weren’t aware you were planning on providing extra security until right before we left.”

Tom nodded slowly, swirling the remains of a mostly empty coffee cup around. “Well reasoned.”

I gazed longingly at the coffee dregs. It had been a long night, and it was far from over. Feeling like I’d been hit by a tractor trailer didn’t help. “Was that a compliment? I’ll take it. If that wasn’t your logic, though, then what changed your mind?”

“The fury we captured.”

I cursed silently, annoyed to have missed the interrogation. “What did he say?”

“That they got their information from the Gryphons.” Grimacing, Tom pushed away the cup and stretched his arms. “Normally, I wouldn’t put much faith in anything a fury said, but we had some strong lie-detecting charms on him. Plus, after what’s happened before, it adds up. I don’t like admitting it, but I’m not blind.”

I bit my lip and refrained from making a joke. When I’d first met Tom, I’d thought he was a crazy zealot, putting his infuriating organization ahead of people—including innocent children like I’d been—and blind to the consequences. But it wasn’t
Le Confrérie de l’Aile
he cared about. It was his mission, and I could respect that, although it would take a swarm of imps to make me admit it.

“So what are we doing about it?” I asked. “It has to be someone who was involved in the Phoenix plans since we were ratted out there too. There’s only, what, maybe ten people who knew about tonight and who had also been part of that mission?”

Tom motioned to the closed door. “Which is why I’m only sharing this information with you. We will find out who it is, but for the moment, we don’t have the time to go searching for our leak. Every resource has to be put toward finding the Vessel.”

I gritted my teeth. Much as I wanted to find this leak—the person who’d gotten me kidnapped and almost killed on more than one occasion now—Tom was right. “Did the fury tell you anything else that might help?”

“No. He seems clueless. He doesn’t know who the leak is and he doesn’t know where Raj is taking the Vessel.” Tom got up as the conference room door opened.

In strutted the Upper Council satyr who’d arrived tonight. Her white leather suit was smudged with dirt, but she’d otherwise put herself back together. No mutilated jeans, bloodstains or a dirty face for her. Seriously, how did she do it?

She clasped her hands together. “My understanding is that the Gryphons are trying to find the Vessel before the furies can destroy it. In that case, I have more information about this Vessel that you obviously need to know.”

Chapter Four

“What information?” Tom asked.

The Upper Council satyr’s head snapped his way, and only then did I realize she’d been addressing her comment to me. She raised a well-plucked eyebrow in Tom’s direction then returned her gaze to me. “Somehow the furies were able to ambush my arrival. Rumor has it there is a leak in Boston. Do you trust this man?”

Next to her, Tom’s face turned as red as the sky outside, and in spite of everything, I had to repress a giggle. I was so used to being bossed around by the Brotherhood and ignored by Claudius that there was something incredibly funny about the situation.

I struggled to my feet and held out a hand toward the satyr. “Yes, Agent Kassin is one of the only Gryphons at the moment I’m willing to trust. Claudius said your name is Raia, right?”

“Yes, it is. A pleasure, Jessica.” She pressed her hand lightly against mine, once more filling my imagination with a teasing sense of warm spice. Then Raia motioned her head toward Tom. “I detected no reason to suspect your friend, but one can’t be too sure under the circumstances.”

I refrained from disclaiming Tom as my friend since I could already taste his annoyance.

Scowling, he shut the door, but the blood was draining from his face as his regained control of himself. “Information about the Vessel should be shared with Agent Blecher, as well.”

“Ingrid Blecher is the Gryphon in charge of this mission,” I explained to Raia. “She’s probably not the leak either.”

Raia took a seat next to me, arranging her thick, black hair artfully over her shoulders. “That may be, but it is you, I understand, who is acting as the liaison between my people and the Gryphons. I will liaise with you, and you may pass the information on to whomever you believe is appropriate.”

I caught Tom eyeing me, torn between amusement and insult, but I couldn’t respond without Raia noticing. So I sat back down and folded my hands. “Okay, so let’s liaise. What do we need to know?”

“Both good news and bad news.” She cast her dark eyes in Tom’s direction as he joined us at the table. “Your concern about the furies destroying the Vessel is ill-founded. The Vessel cannot be destroyed.”

“Is that the good news or the bad news?”

Raia tapped her fingers together. “I consider it both. You need not be concerned about losing the Vessel for good, but nor will you be able to prevent others from using it in the future if that is your hope.”

“I’m assuming your people have attempted to destroy the Vessel then.”

“On numerous occasions, specifically to prevent the possibility of it being reused. All attempts proved unsuccessful.” Raia’s phone vibrated on the table, but rather than answer, she drew a light pink nail down its length. The phone fell silent, as though soothed by the gesture. “When Claudius informed us what was happening here, more recent attempts were also made. Again, they were unsuccessful.”

Interesting, but satyrs weren’t furies. The former excelled in seduction; the latter in destruction.

I studied Raia a moment longer, contemplating how to tactfully question the satyr’s magical qualifications in this regard. She was clearly as powerful as Claudius and possibly older. So far she also seemed far more reasonable than him, but seeing as I’d only spoken with her for a couple minutes, I wasn’t counting on my impression lasting. Since she wasn’t being overtly rude, however, I preferred to remain on her good side.

I took a deep breath. “Don’t take this the wrong way because I’m sure your people were thorough in their attempts, but furies excel at this kind of thing. I don’t think we can count on them failing.”

Raia smiled in a way I found difficult to discern. “I take no offense at being told I’m not as destructive as a fury, but I think you’ll find I’m quite right about this. Attempts to neutralize the Vessel’s threat were not the work of a moment. We have tried for centuries.”

“I hope so.” I rubbed at my itchy, healing arms. “Tom, if Raj has to keep this thing away from us and he can’t destroy it, then he’ll have to hide it. That should give us more time, shouldn’t it?”

Tom shrugged. “It might. We’ll need to involve more people in brainstorming about where he might hide it. Even with our agents scouring the city using detection charms, this search could take days that we don’t have.”

“Then all things considered, I suggest we omit your pals in the Brotherhood from the discussion. We need people who we know aren’t the leak and who know the city.”

He nodded but was clearly not pleased. “Gather your friends. In light of the leak most likely being a Gryphon, I’m going to restructure the teams I have doing the search to make sure all
Le Confrérie
members are paired with a local Gryphon. No one is tipping off Raj again. You have ten minutes.”

Damn it. While I understood the need to hurry, that was barely enough time to grab a cup of coffee.

* * * * *

Raia bowed out of further discussions with polite excuses, and it was just as well. Her expertise lay elsewhere. While I shuffled my way to the break room for caffeine, I texted Lucen, telling him to gather Dezzi and whoever else he thought would be appropriate.

Ten minutes later, with coffee obtained, I returned to the conference room to find Tom along with Ingrid, Lucen, Dezzi, Gunthra and another goblin. None of them appeared happy to be there, but personally, I was relieved. Claudius was nowhere in sight.

To my surprise, Olivia Lee was also there. Her neat, dark hair was tucked behind her ears, and her lips were thin with distaste for the company, but I sensed she wasn’t as unhappy to be called upon as the others. She had good reasons to want to be involved.

“I decided Director Blecher should be kept informed,” Tom said, “since she’s in charge of this mission. And Director Lee since she’s providing resources and presumably is very familiar with Boston’s magical community.”

“Fine with me.” As I told Tom earlier, I couldn’t imagine Ingrid was the leak, and I was certain it couldn’t be Olivia.

“I should be kept informed of what?” Ingrid asked in her German accent.

This was not the time to bring up the leak, so I evaded that part of the answer as best as I could. After filling everyone in on what Raia had shared, I added, “We need people who know Boston well to suggest where Raj might successfully hide the Vessel.”

Olivia bristled. “His success is not guaranteed. The teams have only been searching for an hour, and the detection charms don’t have a long range. We need more time.”

“I’m sure your charms are strong enough to get wind of it eventually,” Lucen said, “but time is something we don’t have a lot of. If I were Raj, I’d simply throw the thing in the Bay. We can’t possibly keep a watch on the entire coast, and if he did that, it would take ages for anyone to find it even if the charms pointed us in the right general area.”

“Not as long as all that, I’d hope.” Ingrid studied the city map someone had tacked to the wall. “The agents searching the city are using very powerful magic-detecting charms, as Director Lee said. The satyrs haven’t disguised the Vessel’s magical signature the way our people once did. It would stand out, even deep under the water.”

“For now,” Dezzi pointed out. “But if Raj and company do choose to use similar spells, we have a limited search window. The sort of magic involved would be time-consuming, but they might have begun the process before tonight. We still need to hurry.”

I was getting sick of being told we had a limited window. We’d been racing the clock for so long I’d forgotten what it felt like to stand still. “Then if I were Raj, I’d temporarily hide the Vessel somewhere that would make it hard for it to stand out while I got to work. Somewhere it was surrounded by lots of powerful magic, like a charm shop in Shadowtown.”

I rested my head in my hands while everyone debated this idea and tossed out more of their own. The caffeine wasn’t doing much to help me wake up physically, but as my body continued to heal, I felt mentally stronger. But would it be enough to do what I was considering? There was only one way to find out.

“What if I can track Raj?” I suggested as the conversation came to a lull. “It’s not as ideal as tracking the Vessel itself, but he’s the most likely person to have it.”

Seven heads swiveled my way, and Lucen frowned. “Is this a reference to what happened at the airport?”

I fortified myself with another swallow of coffee. “In a way. Raj is in my head, or I’m in his. Ever since what he did to me in Europe, there’s some kind of connection between us. I used it to track him when he left the terminal tonight. Maybe I can use it again.”

Tom and Ingrid exchanged unreadable glances. “But he was close by earlier,” Tom said. “He could be anywhere at the moment.”

“He’s somewhere in Boston,” Olivia added quietly.

Tom sighed. “Jessica, you didn’t think to mention this before?”

“I didn’t realize what was going on before. Look, I know Raj could be anywhere, but since I’ve become aware of the connection, I can sense it. If I concentrate on it, I might be able to use it.”

The room was silent, then Dezzi nodded. “Then I say it’s worth the attempt. The rest of us can continue prioritizing where we should search, and Jessica can try her method.”

“I agree.” Olivia couldn’t hide her dislike of agreeing with the satyrs, so she didn’t bother. “The more options, the better. Jessica, what do you need to do this?”

Good question. I thought a minute, trying to imagine anything that would be useful, but as I’d never attempted anything like it, I hadn’t a clue. “Just a quiet room.”

Tom volunteered his office for me, and I left the Gryphon-to-Gryphon and Gryphon-to-pred tension behind, gladly. Shutting Tom’s door, I chose a clear spot on his cluttered floor to sit. Then I closed my eyes and breathed deeply a couple times.

This was not going to be easy. My nerves were rattled, and the air was practically electrified with the city’s tension. This very same buzz had kept me up at nights when the red sky first hit the East Coast. While exhaustion had finally enabled me to sleep regardless, my blood continued to tingle with the emotions.

Come on, Jess, and focus.

Although I was aware of the connection between Raj and myself, I was unable to clarify it. With my eyes closed, visualizing the bond as a rope was usually easy. It always appeared the same too—a glowing cord. Yet not tonight. Tonight there was no magical glow. No easy-to-define rope. Behind my eyelids, there was only blackness that disappeared into more blackness. There was a heaviness to that nothingness too, a purpose or a presence. An awareness.

My heart beat faster with fear as I became more and more convinced the darkness hid Raj’s black eyes. That somehow, on the other end of our connection, he was doing the same thing.

Ridiculous,
I reminded myself.
It’s just the fear and anxiety surrounding me playing havoc on my senses.
Yet I couldn’t shake the sensation, and more things that shouldn’t be possible were happening too. The bond stretched and tightened as though Raj was moving farther away. But surely Raj was already far enough away that if he was moving, noticing the motion would be impossible. This motion wasn’t smooth either, but jerking. It was almost as if he was tugging on the bond.

My fingers curled around the loose fabric of my jeans. Was this purposeful? Had Raj sensed me as well?

The cautious side of me urged me to open my eyes and give up, but I ignored it. While the idea that Raj was staring back at me through our connection creeped me out, if he was, ignoring his ability to do so did no good. Bonds between addicts and preds went both ways, and I suspected this bond was just a strange version of one. That meant open eyes wouldn’t save me. Only finding Raj and killing him or forcing him to cut the connection would.

That opened up a whole new conundrum. If I’d somehow made Raj aware of our connection, and he did cut the rope too soon, I’d lose my chance not just to find the Vessel but to find him. Although the Vessel was my larger goal, this was also personal. I owed Raj some salamander steel to the heart.

Focus.
My mind was drifting again, fear obscuring my ability to sense the bond.

The trouble was, the more I struggled to sense the bond’s direction, the harder it became to notice it at all. I grasped at it with my mental fingers, and the rope turned to smoke. Frustration built in me, overpowering the fear. I had to relax.

“All magic works on the same principles,” Lucen once explained during the few lessons he’d given me. “With a little experience, you’ll notice you use the same tricks over and over again.”

And what was the hardest trick of all to learn? That there was a difference between focus and effort. Sensing magical energies required concentration. But magical energy hated to give itself up to people searching for it. If you tried too hard, the power retreated into the shadows.

That was my problem. I had to let go of the idea of searching for the bond, of wanting to will it into the shape I needed. I had to maintain my awareness, but let
it
show itself to me.

I swore there was nothing more difficult than trying not to try, especially as I felt Raj’s dark eyes staring at me and my forehead tingled with the sensation. As my anxiety over the Vessel poked at my brain, letting go of my desperation became ever more challenging.

When I finally succeeded, however, everything snapped into place at once. I couldn’t form an image of the bond, but all the power was clearly defined in my gut. I jumped to my feet and spun around in Tom’s office, identifying the direction.

Relief would have to wait. Hoping I could hold on to the sensation, I shuffled back to the conference room like a sleepwalker—eyes open but otherwise dead to the outside world and fearful of any more distractions. Director Lee and the goblins had left the conference room, and conversation broke off as I entered. I stood at the head of the table, barely conscious of everyone staring at me, and pointed. “That way. Raj is in this direction. Someone needs to drive me.”

“That way is Shadowtown,” Lucen said, breaking the surprised silence. “Makes sense.”