o f31e4a444fa175b2 (2 page)

Nemesis and Nike (no,
not
like the shoes) hissed again, this time in pleasure at the magic pounding through all three of us. Electric-blue light danced in the air, increasing in brilliance and size until not even the mundanes could miss it.

I waited for the magic to reach a fever pitch and directed it into Nessa’s flesh and bones, willing it to seek out traces of blood. Several moments passed, moments that felt like an eternity, and then magical Hell broke loose.

The full force of magic rebounded from Nessa’s body and shrieked inside my own. Agony raced along every magical and physical nerve ending. I screamed in shock, scrambling to ground myself more solidly and funnel skittering energy into the earth. Never, not even as a punk-nosed apprentice, had I experienced anything like this. Magic did
not
rebel against a well-placed spell.

Trinity shouted in the background, ordering the uniforms to stay back and then trying to pierce my veil of pain. It was just the bit of reality I needed to remember what I’d been trying to do. Nemesis and Nike added their strength to my own, and we fought against the magic coursing through our veins, thrusting it along the cord of energy connecting us to the earth. Amphisbaena could amp up a Fury’s supernatural abilities and possessed a few of their own. Bit by agonizing bit, the magic obeyed our combined wills, flowing through that channel in a white-hot flood of light and dissipating harmlessly.

I dropped to hands and knees, panting as nerve endings continued to roar in protest. Trinity fell to the ground beside me, hands brushing my hair back and asking urgent questions. It took several more minutes before I could form a response.

“Oh thank the gods, it’s not Vanessa. That corpse is made of pure magic. There’s not a mortal bone in its body, and there never was.” Which meant it couldn’t be a Fury, since we start out mortal. I found myself torn between relief that the body wasn’t Vanessa’s and anger that someone would
dare
impersonate a Fury, even if only in death. “Some son of a bitch altered another person’s corpse to look like my best friend’s. And I’m going to find out why if it kills me.”

And
that’s
when the mind-shaking onslaught of full-on Mandate slammed against me with the force of a freight train. Now I would have to keep that oath even if it did kill me.

C H A P T E R T W 0

IT TOOK SOME WRANGLING, BUT I FINALLY
convinced Trinity to escort the body to the morgue while I ran home to regroup. Not to mention take an actual shower, since I hadn’t had the time earlier. Trin objected to my heading off alone so soon—strongly—but finally relented when I reminded her, “Hey, super-healing immortal badass here, remember?” Good thing she couldn’t read my mind or she never woulda cut the apron strings.

Truth was, I hurt like hell. Physically, magically, and most definitely emotionally. Even supernatural powers of healing can’t fully erase pain, especially not from magical backlash. Probably one of the ways the Powers That Be kept Furies (somewhat) humble.

My hands shook so much it took me three tries to get the key inserted in the lock of my Cambridge town house.

“Shit!” I muttered under my breath, tempted to just shift to Fury form and rip the gods-bedamned door off its hinges. But then I’d just have to pay for a new one later, and three front doors in one year was plenty, thanks.

I made a beeline for the liquor cabinet and my soon-to-be-best-friend, Jack. The cure for what ailed me. In light of the alcoholic gene running rampant through my mortal father’s family tree, damned good thing it was so hard to get a Fury drunk. Copious amounts of whiskey just barely took the edge off when I needed it most.

After my father learned I would be following in my mother’s arcane footsteps, he drank himself into an early grave. I still remembered running up the stairs to his office to tell him it had finally happened. I was sixteen and my Fury powers had stuttered into wakefulness just hours earlier. Granted, they’d almost pushed me into cold-cocking a smartass into the hereafter during final period (earning me a week of detention), but who the heck cared now that I had Fledged?

Apparently, Daddy Dearest did. He was waiting for me in the wingback chair behind his massive desk, the obligatory Scotch on the rocks resting in the spot where the ugly coffee mug my mother made him during her short ceramics phase had once sat. For years, since my mother had disappeared in the line of duty, he’d been an emotionless shell. But that day he’d finally let his anger, his rage and grief, loose.

When I told him proudly that I’d already pledged myself by blood and magic to the Sisterhood, he’d told me to leave and never come back.

I fled before I could do or say anything I would regret, though regret I did. That was the last time I ever spoke to my father. My brother, David, had found him, sprawled barely breathing in front of the fireplace, the next morning. Alcohol finally gave him the peace he sought so long—in the form of a coma that lasted for weeks until he slipped away forever...

So no big surprise that the alcoholic’s daughter sought it out now to soothe her once again bruised heart.

But not Scotch—never Scotch, and never on the rocks. The sound of ice clinking on glass could dredge up memories best left hidden, or at least ignored. Like now.

I returned the mostly full bottle to the liquor cabinet and dragged myself upstairs to the shower. Just shy of eleven
A.M.
Barely enough time to dress and grab a sack-o’-heartattack on the way to fill out the paperwork on that morning’s gruesome discovery. Just another day in paradise.

I STARED INTO THE SMUG EYES OF BOSTON
PD’s biggest asshole and tried to make sense of the words he’d just spit out in near-orgasmic pleasure. The four walls of his dingy hidey-hole challenged my tolerance for closed-in spaces, but damned if I would let him see that. His beady little eyes actually glowed as he watched my reaction to his pronouncement. I’d expected a commendation for the discovery I’d made. Not this BS.

“What the hell do you mean, I’m suspended? I should get an award for breaking through that frigging spell, not suspended?’ My voice rose an octave every other syllable. What in blazes was going on here?

“Without
pay.” Lieutenant Detective Tony Zalawski drawled the words so gleefully I almost offered him a cigarette. When his nasty, chapped lips peeled back to reveal even nastier yellow teeth, I decided the last thing he needed was another smoke.

Nausea settled in my stomach. Shit. Being suspended without pay was
not
a good thing. It would definitely go on my PD record, even if I was later exonerated. For what? That was the worst part; I had not a clue. Years had passed since I’d done anything that could even come close to warranting suspension. Mentally disemboweling Zalawski repeatedly didn’t count. “You can’t possibly be serious.

Cappy would never authorize this.”

Zalawski’s grin widened even more. Too bad I couldn’t just wipe the expression off his ugly face. The last time I’d given in to that urge nearly got me transferred to West Podunk, Massachusetts—yeah, the incident that almost got me suspended. The bastard knew he was safe from retribution as he sat there behind his crappy little desk in his crappy little office, which just made things even worse.

“You
really
pissed someone off this time, Holloway. Charges of misconduct have been brought against your sorry ass, so you better not show your face while the investigation is pending. Now, hand over your badge and sidearm.”

“But for what?” I tried to keep Rage out of my voice.

“It’s not
my
job to tell you that. Hand ‘em over.”

I slammed my badge and Sig Sauer (my last line of defense rather than first) onto his desk, my mind still not comprehending what was going on. How
could
it make sense of the fact. that, after several years of serving as arcane liaison with the Boston PD, and another five as Chief Magical Investigator, I was being mysteriously suspended—without pay—for making what could be the most crucial discovery in a baffling, three-year-old case? Or brand-new, to be more accurate. I didn’t believe for a second the body I’d examined earlier that day belonged to Vanessa.

Did someone higher up the food chain not appreciate the fact that I’d seen through the magical disguise? I shifted uncomfortably at that thought, since it suggested the attempted ruse might be an inside job.
No way,
I thought, gritting my teeth. Zalawski I’d believe it of Cappy or his superiors?
No effing
way.

Zalawski continued smirking as I stalked out of his hellhole of an office. I was surprised he hadn’t taken the opportunity for public humiliation by escorting me out of the building himself. That thought had a snarl exploding from my lips. Mortals took one look and scurried off in the opposite direction, civilian and cop alike. My fists clenched as I stomped down the crowded hallway and tried to bottle the Rage bubbling all too close to the surface.

Stupid jackass. I can’t believe
he
was the one to suspend me.

When Cappy—Captain—Peterson realized just how poorly the two of us got along, he’d taken to assigning Trin to my cases as often as possible. It stung that he’d assigned the asshole to suspend me now.

Especially since, if I were a full-blooded mortal, I would outrank Zalawski’s sorry ass. Why the hell hadn’t Cappy had the balls to do it himself, or at least hand off the task to Tm?

As if the thought summoned her, she materialized at my side. “Sorry, Riss. I just heard. Cappy’s battling it out with the feds, trying to get your suspension overturned.”

My footsteps faltered. “Feds? What do
they
have to do with this?”

“Bizarre, right? No one seems to know what’s up, but can’t miss the men in black no matter how secretive they try to be.”

I frowned while we trotted down the stairs. Feds, as a general rule, got involved only in magical crimes that crossed state lines, or high-profile cases that risked destroying the Peace Accord that ended the Time of Troubles. Or, as Vanessa had preferred to call it,
the
War.

Admittedly, it had been a full-on war in all but name. Fifty years ago, arcanes had begun emigrating to the mortal realm en masse. Not that the arcanes really had a choice, seeing how most of the Otherrealms were dying, and nobody, not even the wisest of Oracles or the Fury Elders, could figure out why, or how to stop the spreading plague.

Once the arcanes began to arrive in very large numbers, the mortals stood up and took notice. And when the Sidhe continued to treat humanity like the uncivilized pets they’d always considered them to be, things went to hell—and war—fast. Only the mundanes’ sheer numbers and technological might had prevented them from being completely wiped out by the Gens Arcana.

It had been the Sisterhood of Furies, who straddled the fence separating mortal from immortal and were committed to fostering peace between both groups, that had finally brokered the agreement ending the violence. One reason we were stretched nearly to the breaking point. We’d lost too many sisters forging that blood-soaked truce, the Accord.

“If the feds are involved, it must be something to do with the Accord,” I mused out loud.

At the bottom of the stairs, Trin leaned against the heavy banister and pursed, her lips. She ignored the blaring rise and fall of voices, curses, and all-out cacophony cutting through the lobby around us. “Hmm.

Wonder how the body of one arcane disguised as another could upset the Accord?”

“Good question. Why
would
the mortals care if someone tried to pass one arcane off as another? Just opens up a Migration spot they can sell to the highest bidder. What I’d
really
like to know, though, is why an arcane would bother.” My mouth and eyes widened as I remembered just how screwy the Fury tattoo had been. Surely any arcane who could disguise a corpse magically would be smart enough to get that major detail correct A mortal, on the other hand. . . To them, color variations on a tattoo would seem perfectly normal. “Unless it wasn’t an arcane who altered the corpse after all.”

Trin’s eyebrows rose. “You said it yourself: The body’s made of pure magic. Plastic surgery didn’t alter that corpse.”

I waved off that little detail, suddenly sure the flash of insight had been right on the money. “Trust me, Trin, when it comes to magic,
much
stranger shit has happened. I could list at least a half dozen ways mortals could pull something like that off, and those are just the methods I’m familiar with. There are darker ways to manage it. Like blood sacrifice to seal a deal with demons?’

“Demons? That’s crazy.” She fanned flushed cheeks with both hands. “You’re shitting me, right?”

I took off toward the main entrance, walking backward to address her questions. “It’s not as crazy as you think. Lucky for the world, few arcanes—and even fewer mundanes—have the ability to summon demons. And would I shit you about something so inpor—”

Thunder struck. Lightning arced into my back, lanced through my chest, and passed mere inches from my heart. I crumpled to the ground amid a sea of pain. Civilians screamed and dove to the floor while officers pulled weapons, herded people behind furniture, and struggled to figure out what was going on.

Trinity shielded my body with her own, sidearm aimed toward the door. Toward the now-shattered glass of the empty door frame, to be more precise. And that’s when shock gave way to realization.

“Holy shit. Some jackass
shot
me.”

Trin shifted in order to provide my body more, cover. “Stay down, Riss. Paramedics are on the way.”

I tried to tell her not to bother, but Nemesis and Nike recovered enough from their shock to get busy doing what they did best—adding their catalytic properties to my own magical abilities. In this case, superhuman healing.

That healing came with a hefty price. The agony dancing through my body doubled, then tripled, as magic pushed the foreign lump of metal out, then started knitting flesh and blood vessels back together.