Flawless//Broken (11 page)

He taps the ring and I watch in awe as its little legs scuttle as if it’s alive. The beetle on my windowsill springs to life too, scrabbling up the frame and digging its claws into the wood. It settles in, then goes still again. I open my mouth to say something just as the high-pitched scream resounds from the living room.

“Whoops,” Lake smirks. “You might wanna explain them to Ellie.”

“Explain? How am I supposed to -”

More screams, and I hear Ellie start smacking the wall with a broom.

“Thanks a lot,” I snap as I brush past an extremely smug looking Lake. Ellie is hysterically smacking the wall, the beetle way tougher than the straw. It keeps crawling across the wall and settles on the doorframe to my room. Ellie follows it, freezing when she sees me.

“Mia! Mia, there’s these disgusting bugs all over the house!”

“It’s okay,” I put my hands on her shoulders. “You’re okay. They’re okay. Everybody’s okay.”

“They’re huge!”

“They’re not bugs, El. They’re - I know it sounds crazy, but they’re sensors. In case anybody tries to break in.”

“But, but they moved! They’re alive!”

Lake comes from behind me and murmurs; “Should I give her some memoriam?”

“No!” I snap at him. Ellie sees him over my shoulder and clears her throat.

“Excuse me? Who is this?”

Lake pushes past me and makes a little bow. “I’m Lake, princess. We met before, but you were regrettably unconscious. No less beautiful, though.”

“Why were you in Mia’s room?” Ellie frowns, then starts to smile. “Unless -”

“No,” I cut her off quickly. “Lake is my…”

“Cousin,” He says smoothly. “I’m visiting from Arkansas for the week. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Oh, so you’re Lake. Nice to meet you too,” Ellie nods. “But what about these bugs? How are they moving like that?”

“High tech!” I say. “Lake works for some people who make artisan…security cameras…and stuff.”

The crease between her brow gets huge. “Why do we need extra security? This is already a pretty secure building.”

“I just worry, you know?” Lake pats me on the head like I’m twelve. “She’s in a big city for the first time. Her aunt keeps bugging me to make sure she’s safe, so I came here to do what I could.”

Ellie looks to me for confirmation. I nod. She stares at Lake for a second more before sighing.

“Alright. I wish you gave me a little more warning, though. And maybe a warning before you disappear for two days and I freak the fuck out?”

“I told you, Lake surprised me and took me camping. There was no reception! I’m so, so sorry.”

Ellie huffs. “I’m just glad you’re safe. I forgive you. Sort of. But you’ve gotta make it up to me.”

“Your wish is my command,” Lake smirks and Ellie rolls her eyes, used to getting hit on like a fish is used to water.

“Dinner, tonight,” She says. “Wherever I wanna go.”

I exhale with a smile. “Sure. As long as we get dessert.”

“Twenty desserts,” Ellie corrects, then throws her arms around me. “I’m sorry I freaked out. But I just…I just get worried about you too, you know? It’s not just your aunt and cousin.”

“I know,” I say, my stomach sinking as I hug her back. “I’m sorry. You deserve better.”

She pulls away and lightly punches my arm. “Shut up.”

“Aw, true love,” Lake coos. I flip him off and Ellie laughs, and for a moment the world goes back to being normal. We go back to being normal young adults, laughing at a stupid joke a boy said. But the illusion only lasts for a moment. Ellie leaves for her morning classes, and Lake and I are left with silence and his boot knives and the constant reminder he’s protecting me. He hid his hip knife well from Ellie’s sharp eyes, but it swings out as he sits on the beaten-up couch.

“You wouldn’t happen to know what Silveria Enterprises is, would you?” I sit opposite him. He nods.

“The Sage Council’s front corporation. Established in 1828, under the guise of a metalworks factory. Before that, they were a blacksmith’s guild.”

“What do they do now?”

“Electronics, mostly. Parts for cars and computers and phones. They’ve got fancy buildings in every major first-world country, pretty much. New York, London, Madrid, Paris, Seoul, Moscow. The list goes on and on. That’s just the outside, though. On the inside, they keep tabs on every alchemy performed in the world - and every alchemist. And there’s a helluva lot of them.”

“And when they find something amiss, they send you.”

Lake smirks. “You’re catching on quick. Consider me impressed. And slightly aroused.”

I gag and he laughs.

“Seriously though, you’re right. The Reapers are basically alchemy police. Most of what goes wrong involves homunculi, but other times it’s an alchemist making illegal love potions, or mind-control devices to use on bankers to get quick money. There’s things you can and can’t do, just like anything else in the world.”

“Like kill a bunch of homunculi?” I ask, thinking back to what Darius did.

“Most alchemists don’t know how to do that. I mean, they know how to make homunculi-repelling charms, but the Mutus can just make homunculi who are immune to those. There’s some alchemies that always have and always will kill them or drive them off, though.”

“Like the one Darius made.”

Lake nods, then laughs and shakes his head. “That was a fucking doozy of a Pointblank, I’ll tell you that much. Silveria’s still trying to figure out just how big the radius was.”

“So why did they give me money?”

Lake looks surprised. “For your Azoth. Duh. You gave Azoth to Darius, right?”

My mouth makes a little ‘o’. “The Sage Council is the one who pays us?”

“Yeah. And pretty damn well, if you ask me. Better money the stronger your Azoth is. I bet they dropped a damned goldmine on your head.”

“I
am
the goldmine,” I remind him, and he laughs. He’s interrupted by his ringing phone. He picks up, says a few short quips, and looks to me.

“Darius wants me to tell you to use that money to buy a nice dress.”

“For what? And why won’t he just call me himself? I’m sure my number is on the resume Reeves took.”

Lake asks Darius that question. There’s a pause, and then Lake looks up. “He hung up.”

“First he drags me into his world, then he tells me I’m the most important Azoth ever, and now he’s ignoring me?” I snarl. “I don’t get him at all!”

Lake smirks. “It’s just how he is - always pushing people away. I’m the only semi-friend he’s got. His other friends…well. Let’s just say when you live for six-hundred years, you get to see a lot of your friends die. And then you stop wanting to make them, so you won’t have to see them die all over again.”

His words strike me right in the heart. I never even considered that. The idea of it - staying isolated to stop experiencing pain - is not unfamiliar to me. I did the same thing. I still
do
the same thing. The only difference is I do it because I don’t trust anyone. It’s lonely. I know that much. I’ve barely survived doing it for nineteen years. I can’t imagine doing it for six hundred.

“Why do I need a dress?” I ask.

“For the showing. The fancier the dress, the more you stand out.”

“I don’t want to stand out. Never have, never will.”

“Everybody wants to stand out,” Lake laughs. “Everybody wants to be the center of attention. They just don’t admit it. And you actually get the chance to be! So stop being so freaking modest, and let’s get your ass to the mall.”

We leave the apartment. Lake’s parked his beautiful, vintage motorcycle on the curb, and he hands me a black helmet with a devilish smile.

“Hope you’re the clingy type. I drive fast.”

I laugh and hop in the seat before he can. “And I drive faster. Gimme the keys, slick.”

“You’re kidding,” He chuckles, and throws me the keys. “You don’t like being noticed, but you know how to drive a motorcycle? You’re a constant surprise.”

I rev the engine and smirk. “And you’re being paid to be a constant pain in my ass. Let’s go.”

It’s been a while, but riding a motorcycle is like riding a bike…with a motor. Dad only ever had motorcycles, and I snuck on them and learned when I could. The mall is crowded with families going to watch a movie on a Friday afternoon. Lake pulls me into Gucci and Armani, the clerks fawning over his handsome face and looking impressed at his claims that I’m a rich heiress from France. I shoot him a dirty look, and he just winks at me. Every mink-lined silk dress they throw at me I refuse. It’s too much, too fast. Lake’s too busy flirting with a blonde clerk to notice when I duck out to a store with dresses that couldn’t feed a third world country for a month. I browse, and remember just how much I hate shopping, and malls in general. They always remind me of the one day Mom decided to come back into my life. And all the people’s eyes on me make me uncomfortable - I’m convinced they’re looking at my scar. I would just wear the dress Mom got me to the showing, but after wearing it to the club and getting attacked, it’s ripped at the bottom and smells like blood. And I can’t stand the smell of blood. Not since the night I left the trailer park.

“Hey there, Gloomy.”

I whirl around. Lake’s just behind my shoulder, smiling jovially.

“I’m not gloomy,” I protest.

“You’re cute when you pout,” He singsongs.

“Your judgment is awful. I’m not cute, either.”

“Oh, come off it. You’re damn gorgeous and you know it,” Lake scoffs. “All that dark hair, and your legs go for miles. Five guys in here gave you the double-take.”

“Then they must be looking at you,” I say, pointing to my scar. “Because I’m not exactly considered prime real estate.”

Lake smirks. “That’s all about to change, trust me.”

I finger a gold-sequined dress. Too flashy. I pick up a dark blue one. Much better.

“I don’t want to be prime real estate,” I murmur. “I just want to move on. Try to leave my past behind. I can barely think about my future, let alone about dating someone.”

And besides,
I finish in my head,
No one deserves a sinner like me.

“You sound like Darius,” Lake sighs, and looks at the dress I hold. “Look, just because your pasts are shitty doesn’t mean you can’t have fun stuff in your life. It’s okay to lighten up once in a while, you know?”

“I don’t deserve to ‘lighten up’,” I whisper. “Not after what I’ve done.”

Lake’s quiet. He rifles through the rack and hands me a simple, v-neck white dress with a flowy skirt.

“It’s exactly my size.”

He smirks. “I might be shit at advice, but I’m good at figuring out a women’s measurements.”

The dress is so beautiful, so perfect, I can’t be mad at him for long. It’s practically the opposite of Mom’s dress. A fresh start. After I pay for it, Lake buys us pretzels, and we eat them on the way back to the motorcycle, the sun setting in a fire-red nuclear explosion on the horizon.

“I was fifteen,” Lake says, watching a group of teenagers in all-black hanging out on the steps of a department store. “My Dad went to jail and my Mom followed him real quick. Grandma couldn’t afford to support me anymore on her tiny disability check, so I left. Came here, to San Francisco. Dealt drugs to get by. Got caught up with the wrong drug lords in the wrong part of town. I would’ve been dead if Darius hadn’t found me when he did.”

My heart twists with the nonchalant sadness in his voice. Lake looks up and smiles at me.

“You fall real far, and deep, and all the lights in your life go out one by one. You want more. You want something, anything. You get sick of the world, of failing. You try to destroy yourself because no one else will do it for you.”

His profile is proud and dark against the setting sun.

“But then, there’s a light. Someone gives you a second chance. You get to start over. The Reapers gave me that. I could make something of myself with my own two hands, save people, make a difference. I hope being an Azoth gives you that, too.” He massages the back of his neck, embarrassed. “Maybe that’s selfish of me, huh?”

I smile for the first time in a few days. “Not at all.”

PART NINE

NINE

Chapter 9

NINE

The alley was drenched in blood.

Five police officers taped off the crime scene, their cars doing a better job of keeping the crowd at bay. People craned their necks to get a view of the macabre - taking pictures with their phones and whispering to each other in hushed tones. Some demanded to know who died, others demanded to know if it was a serial killer. This was the second body in two days.

A shadow hung on the brick wall of a nearby grocer’s. It had depths other shadows didn’t - all the glittering lights of the city were quickly swallowed by its velvet darkness. To the normal passerby, it looked like a spray-paint adventure gone wrong; one solid black puddle doodled on the wall. But to those sensitive enough, or to those involved with Alchemy, tangled whispers could be heard coming from it - an eldritch language that was all at once seductive and ruthless and completely unintelligible. The shadow moved too quick for the eye to follow, jumping from the shadows thrown by parked cars to shadows clinging under billboards, coming ever close to the crime scene. It waited beneath a taxi, then leapt at the first police officer’s shadow to walk by. It rode the shadow past the police tape and jumped out, settling in the shadow of the mutilated corpse. The shadow felt with all its tendrils, observing without eyes. The corpse was a man. When he’d been alive, his name was Terrence Marble. At forty-seven, he’d accomplished little - his wife had left him when his gambling became excessive. He was a bouncer for a building nearby - the shadow sensed heavy bass and the smell of alcohol in his memories - a club.