Ruby fever epb, p.6
Ruby Fever EPB, page 6
“I can now order around the highest level of state law enforcement. I suppose that’s a benefit.”
A very dubious one. Law enforcement didn’t like interference.
“In life, backup is rare. Knowing that is part of being a grown-up. Do you know what I would tell you if you were one of my soldiers?”
“What?”
“Handle your shit.”
I stared at her.
“You’ve been with Linus over eighteen months. You’ve been professionally trained. You have experience, skills, and power, and you know the procedure. Treat whatever it is like any other case.”
“Linus . . .”
“Linus will live or die on his own. There is nothing you can do to help him, so put him out of your mind. Concentrate on what you can do.”
I looked at my desk. She wasn’t wrong.
“What happens if Linus dies?” Mom asked.
“I become the Warden.”
“Which you would eventually anyway. He isn’t going to live forever, Catalina. None of us will. That’s why there is no backup. They want to know if you’re ready to do the job.”
“I’m not sure I’m ready.”
“In battle, when your officer dies, you don’t have the luxury of asking yourself if you’re ready. You assume command because you’re next in line and lives will be lost if you don’t. I have faith in you. So does Alessandro, and the rest of the family, and Linus. He picked you for the job. So, sweetheart, do whatever it is you need to do to get yourself right. If you need to cry, cry. If you need to go to the range, you know where the ammo is.”
I got up and walked over to her. “Can I have a hug?”
Mom opened her arms, and we hugged. She kissed my hair.
I almost cried. She used to hug me like this every time my magic leaked, and someone lost themselves to obsessing over me. She would hold me and tell me that it would be okay, that with practice I would get better. Mom always believed in me without any doubt.
“You and your sisters, you three are so different, and somehow you’re all the same.”
“How are we the same?”
“All of you can do anything you want if only you manage to get out of your own way. You especially. You need to get out of your own head, Catalina. You overthink everything. Put yourself on rails and go forward.”
“Okay,” I promised.
The door swung open, and Arabella stuck her head in. “Why is the conference room locked?” She saw me and Mom. “Are you getting Mom time? What happened? Something bad happened.”
“Close the door,” Mom told her.
Arabella retreated and shut the door.
“Are you ready or do you need a minute?”
“I’m good.”
Mom nodded. “I know. Let’s go do this.”
The entire family had gathered in the hallway, filling it wall to wall.
Leon, tall, lean, dark haired, with a dark tan and a white smile, leaned against the wall, because if there was a vertical surface present, my youngest cousin felt compelled to prop it up. Next to him Bern, his brother, larger, with broad shoulders, a muscular build, and hair that turned dark blond during summer and light brown in the winter, wrapped his arm around Runa. Her hair was blazing red, her eyes were green, and her skin was so pale that we all teased her about glowing in the dark. Bern carried a laptop and Runa held a tablet.
To the right, by the conference room, Arabella crossed her arms. Petite, tan, with an hourglass figure, my sister wore a black-and-white floral Jacquard dress with a crew neckline, fitted waist, and flared skirt. She paired that with black pumps. Her blond hair, which she recently toned to a cool ash shade, rested on her head in an artfully loose updo, which she called “the most popular girl in church hair.” She must’ve had a high-profile business meeting this morning.
Behind them, Grandma Frida frowned at her phone. She was about the same height as Mom, but they couldn’t be more different. Grandma Frida was slender, bird-boned, with a halo of platinum curls. Her mechanic coveralls were stained with a fresh smudge of engine grease. Mom was solid, with light brown skin, dark hair, and dark eyes, which turned distant when she measured the distance for a kill shot.
Just behind them Cornelius waited, dressed in light summer suit slacks and a grey vest that fit his trim body with custom precision. He’d rolled the sleeves of his white dress shirt up to his elbows. His blond hair was slightly ruffled. Cornelius always dressed impeccably, but no matter what he wore, unless the occasion was really formal, he managed to look effortlessly casual. Gus, his massive black-and-tan Doberman, sat by his feet. When we met Cornelius and Matilda, they’d had another Doberman, Bunny, but Bunny and Matilda were the same age and after years of faithful service and a lot of playing, Bunny was slowing down. Gus was one of the puppies he had sired, which was why Leon insisted on referring to him as Gus Bunnyson.
Patricia Taft, our security chief, stood beside Cornelius. In some ways, they were polar opposites. Cornelius was artfully disheveled and appeared nonthreatening. Everything about Patricia was precise, from her dark brown hair put away into a French braid to the beige pantsuit that complemented her brown skin. She wore the pantsuit like a uniform, and she projected confidence and authority that made people fall in line when they saw her coming.
Alessandro emerged from his office carrying a plastic container with a lid. He saw me and made a trapping motion with the container. Jadwiga. Right.
I held a key up. “I need you to form a single file line.”
The family stared at me.
“You have to enter the conference room one at a time, watch where you put your feet, and check your chair.”
Bern turned to Leon.
“What?” Leon batted his eyes at him in pretended innocence.
“You know what,” Bern told him.
“Why?” Mom asked.
“Because a very rare spider escaped its containment in the conference room this morning. It’s an endangered species. It’s also worth a quarter million dollars.”
“Perfect,” Arabella said.
“My deepest apologies,” Cornelius said, looking troubled. “I’ve spoken to Matilda.”
“If you see the spider, please don’t squish it.” I unlocked the door and stood aside. “Yell, and Alessandro will trap it.”
“I’ll definitely yell,” Runa said. “But I can’t guarantee the no squishing part.”
“Try,” I told her.
The family filed into the conference room. I waited for a scream. No shrieks came. Alessandro crossed the hallway, the plastic container in his hands, and invited me into the conference room with a sweep of his hand. I walked in, checked my chair, and took my place at the head of the table. Alessandro sat on my right. Patricia sat on my left.
Bern set the laptop at the end of the table and tapped some keys. Connor and Nevada appeared on the screen mounted on the far wall. My brother-in-law was in his work mode, dressed in black and doing his best to loom. Connor was a large man, with dark hair and intense blue eyes, and he radiated menace like a space heater radiated warmth.
My older sister waved at us. Her honey-blond hair was braided away from her face. She wore a white dress, which meant she either was about to go out or had just come back from somewhere, because Arthur Rogan and white dresses did not mix. My nephew was thirteen months old, and we all suspected that someone had switched him with an Energizer Bunny when nobody was looking. He’d learned to walk, and as soon as he could take a couple of steps unassisted, he decided he had places to go and things to do and when that failed, he levitated things to himself. His control was a bit wobbly and sometimes his sippy cups opened in midair.
“Is the feed off?” I asked.
Runa passed the tablet to Bern. He flicked his fingers across it. “Yes.”
No record of this meeting would be made.
I kept my face neutral. “At 11:02 this morning Luciana Cabera was murdered at the Respite.”
The room went completely silent.
“The attacker was likely a Prime telekinetic, who impaled her with two spikes, one through the chest, one through the mouth.”
I tapped my phone. The screen on the wall behind me showed Luciana Cabera pinned to the wall in all of its HD gore. I let it sink in and tapped the phone again. The image of a spike extracted from the body filled the screen.
I looked at Connor.
He raised his voice. “Jeremy, clear my schedule for the next week and find Bug.”
“We suspect that the telekinetic is Xavier Secada,” Alessandro said. “The weapon and the manner of the murder fits his MO.”
Xavier’s portrait appeared on the screen. Of average height, Xavier was lean and pretty. Some men grew more masculine in their twenties, and Xavier had done some growing up, but his face still retained a slightly androgynous beauty. The first time I saw him, five years ago, I thought he looked like a singer from a boy band. His bronze skin glowed with a perfect tan. His chestnut brown hair was cut in a flattering style, the kind that screamed, “I go to an expensive salon, and I enjoy it.” His dark eyes were arrogant and cruel, and the smirk on his lips told you he had a high opinion of himself.
“That little shit,” Grandma Frida said.
“Xavier’s involvement means the murder was committed with Arkan’s blessing,” Alessandro continued. “At this point we don’t know what motivated him to have the Speaker murdered. Arkan prefers to remain in the shadows and when he has to eliminate a public figure, he typically arranges an accident or makes them disappear.”
“The Respite is owned by Linus,” I said. “Shining a searchlight on Linus isn’t convenient right now, so we moved the crime scene.”
Arabella pivoted toward me. “Why? What happened to Linus?”
Mom raised her hand and made a simmer-down-now motion. “He will be fine. Don’t freak out.”
“What’s going on?” Arabella’s voice spiked. “Will somebody tell me what happened?”
“I will if you stop talking for a second.” I took a deep breath. “Sometime in the last twenty-four hours, Linus was attacked in his home. Pete is dead.”
Arabella sucked in a sharp breath. Sadness touched Mom’s face. She and Pete had been friends. Bern looked alarmed, which almost never happened. On the laptop screen both Connor and Nevada went expressionless. My sister had picked up her husband’s habit.
“Linus made it to the vault,” Alessandro said. “The attacker was a mental mage, because Linus took two double doses of Styxine.”
Grandma Frida whistled.
“Is he conscious?” Connor asked.
“No,” I said.
“What’s Styxine?” Runa asked.
“It’s a mental defense drug,” Connor said. “Military issue. It takes your consciousness completely off-line. The mage can’t kill you if they can’t sense your mind. It can render you permanently comatose, so it’s a last resort.”
“Can we give him something?” Arabella demanded.
“No,” Mom told her. “We have to wait for him to wake up on his own.”
Arabella squeezed her fists. I needed to move past the “Linus might not wake up” part.
“He activated the siege protocol, which I disabled to get him out of the vault.”
“Where is he now?” Runa asked.
“In the spare bedroom upstairs in the main house,” I told her.
Arabella jumped up.
Mom pointed to the table. “Sit.”
My sister sat.
“Dr. Patel is with him,” Mom said. “When the meeting is over, you may see him.”
Alessandro leaned back in his chair. “We’re going on high alert. Nobody goes anywhere without an escort or backup.”
Patricia nodded. “Very well.”
I looked at Bern. “Linus’ house with all of its toys is defenseless unless we can bring the security system back online.”
There was enough firepower under that house to topple the government of a small country.
“I’ll handle it,” he said.
“I’ll go with him,” Runa said.
Runa was a Prime venenata, a poison mage, and she loved Bern. My cousin couldn’t have asked for a better bodyguard.
“Thank you,” I said. “Leon, I’ve handed the Cabera investigation to Agent Wahl. I’d like you to shadow him. Watch him, let me know what he’s doing, and keep him safe in case Arkan makes a run at him.”
“Will do.” Leon glanced at Runa. “Have fun bodyguarding the nerd, while I babysit the FBI.”
She snorted.
I texted him the address of the warehouse and looked at Connor and Nevada. “It would really help if we had some cover story for why Linus isn’t available.”
“No problem,” Nevada said.
Connor looked at me. “Let me know the moment you see Xavier.”
As soon as this meeting ended, he would unleash Bug, his surveillance specialist, onto the city of Houston. Bug was relentless and he processed visual information at superhuman speed. Xavier didn’t know it, but the moment he found himself in Bug’s crosshairs, his little outing would be over.
“We have another problem,” Alessandro said. “For reasons unknown as of now, the Russian Imperium has taken an interest in this situation.”
I tapped my tablet and Konstantin popped onto the screen in all of his uniformed glory.
Grandma Frida sat up straighter. “Well!”
“Mother . . .” Mom growled.
“I’m old, Penelope. Not dead or blind.” Grandma Frida grinned. “Besides, I always loved a man in uniform.”
“For the love of God,” Mom muttered.
“Who is he?” Leon wanted to know.
“Prince Konstantin Leonidovich Berezin, of Blood Imperial,” I said. “Nephew of Emperor Mikhail II. Son of Grand Duke Leonid Sergeyevich Berezin, who is the Director of the Imperial Security Service.”
Nobody said anything. We all just stared at Konstantin’s image for a long moment.
“This is not good,” Connor said.
My brother-in-law, master of the gentle understatement.
“We don’t know why the Imperium has chosen this moment to become involved,” I said.
“We will shortly,” Alessandro said. “Meanwhile, I want to stress the risks involved.”
He picked up my tablet, fiddled with it, and Augustine Montgomery appeared on the screen. He was tall and lean, with platinum-blond hair cut with razor precision and the face of a demigod. His expensive white suit fit him like a glove, and he looked at the world through a pair of thin wire glasses with amusement and slight derision.
Augustine started out as the owner of our business loan and our boss and potential enemy and ended up becoming a friend. It was friendship on his terms, but friendship, nonetheless. House Baylor and House Montgomery were allies, despite being business rivals, and the fact that Augustine and Connor had been roommates and friends in college only sealed that alliance tighter.
Alessandro nodded at the screen. “Could you describe Augustine for me?”
“Stuck up,” Leon said.
“Business oriented,” Bern said. “Competent.”
“Ruthless,” Arabella said. “But fair.”
“Smart,” I added. “Dangerous. Good at deception.”
“Compassionate,” Runa said.
We all looked at her.
“He is, to a degree. If it wasn’t for him, Ragnar might not be here.”
Augustine was the one who convinced me to drop everything and rush to a hospital roof in the middle of the night to pull Runa’s brother off a ledge with my magic before he did something that couldn’t be undone.
“Anything else?” Alessandro asked.
“Beautiful,” Grandma Frida added.
Alessandro tapped the tablet. A video started on the screen showing a gym empty except for two young men. One was Augustine—tall, platinum-blond hair cut short, and a face that was just a hair short of absolute perfection.
Something was slightly off about this Augustine. He seemed younger. I couldn’t put my finger on any specific detail that indicated his age. He just gave an overall impression of a man in his early twenties, just like the present-day Augustine gave an overall impression of a man in his early thirties. But it wasn’t the age. It was something else.
I scrutinized the image. He was barefoot and dressed in a simple white T-shirt and dark shorts. What was it?
His opponent, a tall dark-haired man, turned and we saw his face. Connor. For a moment I didn’t recognize him, but his blue eyes were unmistakable.
He looked like a different person.
This Connor had all the same features that my brother-in-law did, but the man in the video lacked Connor’s trademark intensity. Connor exuded menace. The man on the screen had none of it. He held himself with relaxed ease. Pre-war Connor, before the seismic shift that turned him into Mad Rogan.
Nevada turned to Connor. “When was this?”
Connor squinted at the screen. “Day after graduation. A week before I shipped out. Where did you get this?”
“That’s not important,” Alessandro said.
“Yes, it is. I don’t have this.”
Nevada looked at Bern. “Tell me you didn’t hack the MII server?”
Bern looked at her for a moment. “Of course not. That would start a war.”
“You got it from De Silva,” Connor said.
Nevada glanced at him. “Who’s De Silva?”
“He’s the one filming.”
On the screen Augustine and Connor squared off.
“Ready?” Augustine asked.
“Any time,” Connor said.
Connor was enormously strong and almost as fast, and once he got going, he was capable of devastating power. Present-day Augustine was as tall as Connor, but he had to weigh fifty pounds less. If you put them side-by-side, Augustine would seem almost fragile by comparison. The idea of them sparring seemed absurd. How did this even happen? Did Augustine lose a bet?
“Today, ladies,” a third male voice said off camera. “Let’s start this tea party.”
On-screen Connor grinned. “Still waiting . . .”
Augustine’s hands came up. The muscles on his arms flexed.
The feeling of wrongness crystallized. This Augustine was larger. His shoulders were broader, his arms more muscular, his legs hard and defined. Standing across from Connor, he was only slightly leaner. Oh my God.
