Ruby fever epb, p.23
Ruby Fever EPB, page 23
“Sometimes,” I told him. I had made enough to send plates to our guards. When I’d told Leon that my upset level was at eleven, I wasn’t lying.
My phone vibrated. I glanced at it. A text from Patricia.
We have a guest.
A video followed. I muted the phone and tapped play. Julian Cabera, the younger of Luciana Cabera’s brothers, in our office. A slack expression claimed his face. He’d clenched his hands into a single fist, staring at the floor.
“Problem?” Alessandro asked.
I showed him the phone and turned to the family. “Something’s come up.”
Alessandro rose.
“Leave the plates,” Arabella told us. “We’ll clean up. You cooked. It’s only fair.”
“I didn’t know you helped with dinner, cousin,” Konstantin said.
“No, but he made it possible,” Leon said.
Bern turned to Konstantin. “You should speak less.”
“The lack of respect for the crown is appalling.” Konstantin grinned. “I love it.”
His smile was bright, but it didn’t touch his eyes.
We hurried out of the house and down the path. The heat of the day showed no signs of abating. The air was still and ominous somehow, the way it felt before a thunderstorm.
We found Julian in the conference room, alone. Patricia favored a specific method when dealing with Prime visitors. She led them into a building, locked it, and watched them through security cameras. It minimized casualties.
Julian jumped off his chair the moment we walked through the door.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know where else to go.” He looked frantic. “I called the FBI, and they sent me here. They said you would handle it.”
“What’s going on?” Alessandro asked.
“It’s Kaylee.” Julian dragged his shaking hand through his hair. “I think my niece has lost her mind.”
Just what we needed right this second.
“What happened?” I asked, keeping my voice soothing.
“Four hours ago, Maria called from Sunnyside.”
“What’s Sunnyside?” Alessandro prompted.
“Um, it’s an estate, my parents’ estate, out in Sugar Land.”
Sugar Land was one of many small municipalities swallowed by Houston as it expanded, about twenty miles southwest of the city center. It started out as a sugar plantation in the nineteenth century and slowly grew into an enclave of affluent mansions and spacious upper-middle-class houses offering suburban bliss at a premium price.
“This morning, Kaylee left to visit her grandparents. We thought it would help her with her grief. Maria said that Kaylee went into the study with her grandfather and grandmother. After half an hour she went to check if they wanted anything, and the doors were locked. Maria went to knock and saw Ahmad, he’s my father’s nurse, slumped on the floor. He wasn’t breathing. She said there were thick black veins on his face . . .” Julian clenched his hands into fists.
Kaylee had attacked again. I expected to grab her once Arkan’s siege of the Compound was over, but she wasn’t giving us a choice.
“Then Maria knocked, and she said it was like her brain had exploded. She saw a sharp light and her ears started bleeding. She remembers someone laughing and she thought it was Kaylee.”
Julian drew a long shuddering breath and stared at me. “I’ve sensed her mind before. Something is very wrong. She doesn’t feel like a halcyon. She doesn’t feel like anything I know.”
“What happened next?” I asked him gently.
He swallowed. “Yes, um, I told her to get everyone out of the house. Elias decided to drive down and see if he could reason with her. He called me three hours ago and told me he was in the driveway and then the call cut off. I’ve called his cell, I’ve called the house, there is no answer. I don’t know what to do.”
He slumped back into the chair, defeated. “I don’t understand. She was never a mean child. She had no magic. We all knew it, but Luciana didn’t want to discuss it, so we just didn’t. She was so loved by everyone, the whole family. And she loves her grandparents. When Mother was in the hospital for a heart bypass, Kaylee stayed with her in recovery. And then a month ago Luciana announced that Kaylee had awakened. We were all so happy for her . . . how did it come to this?”
“Please excuse us for a moment,” Alessandro said.
We walked out into the hallway, shut the door, and walked to the other end, out of Julian’s earshot.
“He isn’t lying,” I said. “His hands are sweating, he’s breathing rapidly, his voice is elevated, and he keeps losing his train of thought. He is in genuine distress.”
“Agreed. However, it’s still a trap. He may not know it, but this is a setup designed to draw us out of the house. You, specifically.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Kaylee didn’t just decide to attack her ailing grandparents out of the blue. Her grandfather is on oxygen, and her grandmother uses a walker to get around. They’re both halcyons and aren’t a threat to her in any way. She went over there and took hostages, because you are our best chance at getting the hostages out alive. She’s trying to lure you to that house.”
Because with me there, we wouldn’t have to shoot our way in. I could sing the hostages and their takers right out.
The last two times I tried to use my wings, they came out black. What if I couldn’t sing again? What if instead of beguiling, I would screech and rip through their minds the way I had done with Gunderson?
I should have gotten that USB back from Bern. It had to be dry by now, but there was no time.
“What do you want to do?” he asked.
“We can’t ignore it. Julian might not know it, but he just made an appeal for help to the Office of the Warden. We are duty bound to offer assistance.”
“True,” Alessandro said.
“You are my Sentinel. What’s your assessment of this threat?”
“If we go, Kaylee will try to kill you,” he said. “She will have backup, although I don’t know who. Likely someone who can counter me.”
“How likely is Arkan to attack the house looking for Smirnov while we’re gone?”
“Very.”
I took a mental roll call of our available fighters. “We will need Cornelius and Matilda to contain Konstantin if he goes rogue, so Cornelius is out. Besides he is still recuperating. Involving Augustine means negotiations and waiting for his people to return from dealing with Arkan’s moles and that will take too long. Besides, this is a Warden matter. Do you want to take Leon with us?”
Alessandro shook his head. “No. I watched him grill the steak. He almost dropped the meat twice. He is hiding it, but those arcane vines he pulled off the car poisoned the hell out of him. Dr. Patel pumped him full of antivenom and you know what that does to the body.”
“And Runa is still half asleep.”
Alessandro nodded. “Arabella is the only one operating at full power.”
We fought and we won, but everyone was hurt and tired. We’d paid a toll. We would likely pay another before this was over.
“It’s you and me,” I said. “It will have to be enough.”
“It always has,” he agreed.
Chapter 13
“Walther Q5 Match SF.” I lifted the gun from its spot and showed it to Alessandro seated across from me on the bench. “Blue trigger. 9 mm. 17 rounds.”
“Walther Q5, blue trigger, 17 rounds,” Alessandro repeated.
The cabin trembled as our vehicle rolled over some pothole in the road. Scarab 17, one of the latest in Grandma Frida’s line of armored personnel carriers, didn’t provide the smoothest ride but it would roll over a mine like it was nothing. The inside of it resembled the Bus: two long benches attached to the walls with a weapon console between them, which I was currently mining.
I slid the Walther back into its spot and picked up the next gun. “Duncan Arms Little Brother, red trigger, 9 mm, 17 rounds.”
“DA Little Brother, red trigger, 9 mm, 17 rounds.”
“Maximum Defense PDX.” I lifted the light machine gun out. “Tan finish, 7.62x39 mm, 21 rounds.”
“Excuse me,” Julian said from his spot to the left of me. “Why are you doing this?”
“It shaves off time from the manifestation,” I told him. “It will help him summon weapons faster.”
It also helped when the specs of the firearm were said out loud. For some reason, Alessandro retained it better, and by now we had gotten the system down to an art.
Bladed weapons didn’t require a review. They were simpler. When Alessandro needed a blade, he called up something narrow and fast or something heavy and wide and the exact length or weight of the blade didn’t really matter. But the firearms were more complicated, so we assessed them to make sure he could replicate them fast. Once Alessandro summoned something, he couldn’t summon it again for at least twenty-four hours, so selecting the right guns required a balance between too many options and not enough versatility.
“Got it,” Alessandro said. “Next.”
“Mossberg JM 940, 12 GA, 10 rounds.”
Technically it was 9 rounds but when Alessandro summoned guns, they popped into his hands with a round in the chamber already. The beautiful thing about this shotgun was its speed. In the right hands, it fired almost as fast as a semiautomatic rifle.
“Winchester 1895.” I didn’t need to go through the specs. He knew the rifle.
Julian blinked. “It’s an antique.”
“Newer isn’t always better,” Alessandro said.
“What does it even fire?”
“.30–40 Krag,” I told him. “Next, Duncan Arms, Big Brother.”
I tapped the section of the console and it slid straight up, displaying the machine gun. It weighed eighteen pounds and I didn’t feel like taking it out.
“338 Norma Magnum, maximum range 2,300 meters, 700 rounds per minute.”
Arabella had christened it the Six Thousand Dollar Gun. Linus gave it to us for free, but the ammunition it ate cost $8.50 per round. It cost us about six grand to fire it for a full minute.
Julian stared at the machine gun as if it were a striking cobra. “Is this necessary?”
“We won’t know until we get there,” Alessandro said.
“This is my family.” Julian clenched his fists.
And this was exactly why I never took clients with us. Unfortunately, Julian had insisted. If we didn’t take him with us, he would follow us in his car. I could compel him to stay if I disclosed that I was the Acting Warden, but I didn’t trust him enough. Right now, we were just FBI consultants riding to the rescue.
“ETA five minutes,” Brittney called out from the front passenger seat.
Brittney was one of our private guards and the only aegis we managed to get on our payroll. The aegis mages were hideously expensive and very selective about who they worked with. Brittney was a Notable, meaning the magic shield she projected would stop an average handgun and absorb quite a bit of rifle fire, but a sniper bullet would go straight through it.
I glanced at the screen embedded in the hull above Alessandro’s head. It showed the feed from external cameras. We were driving through an estate neighborhood, a weird hybrid of rural living and suburbia. Huge houses sprawled on two- to three-acre lots, set way back from the road and protected by walls and gates. An affluent neighborhood. Their biggest battles were likely with their HOA and herds of marauding deer.
“This has to be a big misunderstanding,” Julian said, and I couldn’t tell if he was trying to convince us or himself. “I can’t imagine Kaylee would hurt her grandparents. It’s just not in that child’s nature.”
Human nature was a tricky thing. Five years ago, all I’d wanted to do was to scurry unnoticed through life, never causing conflicts, never getting into fights. Never drawing attention to myself. Yet here we were.
I had to make sure I didn’t screech.
Alessandro was watching me.
“She has a big heart,” Julian continued. “She was always a good girl. She wouldn’t do something like this.”
I didn’t ask him what “something like this” meant to him. He was too scared to go there. But I did need to redirect him, or he would become a distraction.
“Mr. Cabera, have you checked on your other family members?”
He gave me a startled look.
“You have a large family. We know where your parents are, and we think we know where your brother and your niece are. What about the rest of your relatives? Somebody just targeted the Head of your House.”
The Scarab turned. We were almost there.
“I don’t . . . I don’t know.” Julian’s eyes went wide.
“Please make some calls,” Alessandro said. “You can do this from the safety of our vehicle.”
“But don’t you need me?”
Normally I would have jumped at a chance to use an upper-range halcyon in a fight. But Julian’s hands kept shaking. Right now, he needed his own halcyon just to slow his breathing.
“We can fight,” Alessandro said, his voice firm and sincere. “But we can’t track down your family. You know them best. It would help us tremendously.”
“If you’re sure . . .” The relief in Julian’s eyes was painfully obvious.
“Absolutely,” I told him.
He took a deep breath. “Okay.”
The Scarab stopped.
I opened a small box attached to the wall of the cabin, took out two pieces of chalk, and stuck them in my pocket. I doubted they would give me an opportunity to draw an arcane circle, but it was always better to have the chalk than to not.
The view on the screen showed a paver driveway. Kaylee wouldn’t let us get through the doors of the house. She’d want a spectacle in front of an audience and whoever was with her likely preferred to target us in the open. The pavers of the driveway lay close together but not close enough for an arcane circle. The line would be broken. I’d need the screen.
Alessandro unlocked the rear door. Heavy metal clanged and the ramp slid to the ground. Brittney came from the front, dressed in full tactical gear complete with a helmet and bulletproof vest.
“Stay with Mr. Cabera,” I told her.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I undid the Velcro straps securing the roll of the screen to the hull and slid the cloth handles onto my shoulder. Made of dark plastic with several layers, the screen resembled a giant yoga mat, six by six when laid flat. It took the chalk like a dream. Circle mats like this one had existed forever, but common wisdom said that only circles drawn directly on unmoving surfaces, solid ground, the concrete roof of a building, and so on, were actually useful. Drawing a circle on a mat broke the magic continuity and failed to anchor it to the ground. Without that anchor, the circles were just chalk drawings. I had tested it myself, and the drop in power with an unanchored circle was dramatic.
However, last year I saw a recording of a powerful psionic using a mat on the grass. He’d managed to draw a House level circle on it, and it worked well enough for him to frighten hundreds of people into a blind stampede. I’d researched it, and Linus and I made appropriate modifications. The tube under my arm now was prototype #8. It worked, but it weighed almost fifty pounds.
I picked up Linus’ sword. The blade felt clunky in my hand but reassuring all the same. It was also the only weapon Alessandro couldn’t summon. The same inlay that enabled the weapon to generate a null field when primed with magic also short-circuited Alessandro’s powers. He could replicate it, but only as an inert hunk of metal.
I hefted the blade in my hand. Good to go.
Alessandro and I walked down the ramp. He held out his hand. I gave him my yoga mat—arguing with him about it was pointless—and we approached the gates.
The house, a two-story Texas Mediterranean, rose in front of us at the end of a long driveway. It could have been on the cover of a luxury real estate publication in any of the state’s large cities. Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, it didn’t matter. Rich Texas was rich Texas. You could drive through any millionaire neighborhood and find a monster just like this one: thirteen thousand square feet and way too many bedrooms and bathrooms mashed together by beige stucco walls under a red tile roof.
This particular variation featured a Roman style portico with columns protecting glass-and-wood double doors and a short turret to the right of the entrance with a wrought iron Juliet balcony. The driveway ended in a roundabout with a massive fountain in the center of it, its spire the same height as the house. An iron gate stood wide open at the mouth of the driveway as if daring us to enter.
“Can you feel her?” Alessandro asked.
“Not yet.”
We both knew Kaylee would zero in on me the moment I came into range. I was betting on a lifetime of feeling inferior. No matter how pretty and rich someone was, among the Houses, your magic was your primary asset. Kaylee had spent most of her life hiding her lack of magic power from her friends and her family. Crushing a mental mage would be the ultimate flex for her. Arkan must’ve told her about my powers and killing me would be doubly sweet. I was both a mental mage and a rival. I saw the way she had looked at Alessandro when he took my hand.
Nobody would be sniping us. That’s why we had left our aegis with the transport, guarding our civilian ride-along.
We strolled up the driveway, taking our time, me on the right side and him on the left. The protective shell I’d been growing around my consciousness was almost complete. My mind floated in a tightly wrapped ball of vines spun from my magic. I’d begun building it the moment we decided on this trip. Maintaining it sapped my strength, but I had magic to spare.
Alessandro stopped and put his arm in front of me.
A creature perched at the top of the fountain, gripping its spire with oversize clawed fingers. Seven feet tall, it resembled an ape, slabbed with thick muscle under long nasty black fur. Its face was a horrifying meld of a baboon and a lion with a simian nose, massive jaws, and tiny eyes sunken deep into its skull. Sharp black quills thrust from its back, bristling like the needles of some nightmarish porcupine.
