CHAPTER TWELVE

It was already scorching by the time I got to Moses’s place. It didn’t help my mood when I learned it was missing one magically enhanced human.

“Liam was supposed to stay here,” I said to Moses. “He shouldn’t be wandering around New Orleans alone.”

“He left a note,” Moses said, offering up the small sheet of paper pulled from a notebook, the edges still frayed.

“‘Went to take a look,’” I read aloud, then looked at Moses. “A look at what?”

“He’s here because Broussard’s dead. My guess? Broussard’s house.”

My eyes narrowed. “He should have stayed in the damn bayou. Should have stayed there where Eleanor could keep an eye on him. And he certainly should have stayed here with you until someone could watch his back. Gunnar told him not to go over there.”

“If you were in his position, would you do anything different?”

I growled, then glanced around. “Malachi?”

“Sent a pigeon.” In the Zone, they were one of the most reliable ways to pass messages. “Said he was going back to Vacherie to check in on the Paras.”

I nodded. That meant I was closer to Broussard’s place than Malachi was, so it was up to me to find Liam. At least I’d get a look at the scene of the crime.

“You better get moving,” Moses said. “I’ll stay here in case he comes back.”

“You get anything else out of that Icarus file?”

“I’m still looking. Quit rushing my genius.”

Everyone was grouchy today. “Stay here, lay low, and keep geniusing.”

He grinned toothily. “I got canned foods and a working comp. I don’t need to go anywhere else.”

Whatever kept him safe.

•   •   •

Broussard made a good living, if his place was any indication. There wasn’t a lot of money in the Zone, but he’d managed to get into a gorgeous house in the Garden District just a stone’s throw from St. Charles and not far from Gunnar’s.

Broussard’s house sat behind a fenced front yard full of palm trees and hedges, and a long driveway that would have made plenty of New Orleanians jealous, before or after the war.

The house was an ivory box with symmetrical windows and blue shutters. Double stairs curved up to a red front door. And yellow police tape marked it as a crime scene.

I stood beneath an oak tree on the neighboring property, watching for any sign of Liam. If he was in there, he was being quiet about it.

“At least he hasn’t lost his damn mind completely,” I murmured. I crept along the hedge that divided the properties, looking for a way in. I found a floor-to-ceiling window already pushed open. Probably how he’d have gotten inside.

I darted across the yard and slipped through the window, which opened into a dining room. Pine floors, plastered walls with crown molding, an enormous inlaid table with curving chairs, an antique rug. The ceilings were high, as were the doorways.

I moved into the hallway, the walls lined with paintings in gilded frames. This was the kind of house my father would have loved to live in, if he’d been able to keep an antique for more than a few days, instead of putting it in the store for sale.

Across from the dining room was a formal living room with the same windows and molding, a brick fireplace that stretched to the ceiling, and a hearth of shiny tiles in shades of green.

The floor above me creaked. I took the double staircase to the second floor.

Liam stood on the landing, staring at the wall.

I was prepared to lay into him—for leaving Moses’s house alone, for walking into a crime scene—and then I saw what he was staring at.

FOR GRACIE was painted on the wall in what looked like blood, and there was a stain the same color on the floor in front of it.

Liam’s body was rigid, his eyes blazing with anger, as if he might be able to burn the letters off the wall by strength of will alone.

“Liam.”

His body jerked, but he didn’t turn around. He hadn’t heard me come in, which proved he shouldn’t have been here alone. He might not have heard hunters, either.

“Are you all right?”

“Would you be?”

“No,” I said. “No, if I saw the name of someone I loved spread across the wall, an excuse for someone else’s murder, I’d be absolutely furious. But still. You shouldn’t have come without Gunnar’s okay. Without him clearing a path.”

He turned, looked at me for the first time, and I gasped before I could help myself. His eyes glowed golden, fury and grief battling on his face.

“I couldn’t wait anymore. They’re using me, my family, to hurt people. I want to know why.”

I nodded. I couldn’t argue with that. And since we were already here, we’d might as well investigate.

“All right,” I said. “What do we know?”

He looked back at me, the question clear in his eyes.

“I came here to find you, and I did,” I said. “I’m not going to leave you here alone with Containment roaming around.”

I didn’t mean that as an insult, as a snipe because he’d done exactly that to me after the battle—he’d left me in New Orleans, with Containment roaming around. But it sounded that way, and silence fell again, thick and uncomfortable.

Big-girl panties, I told myself, and walked closer to the wall. “Is it blood?”

I could feel his gaze on mine for a minute, evaluating. And then he shifted his attention back to the wall. “Yes. Don’t know if it’s Broussard’s, but you can smell that it’s blood.”

I could, now that I’d gotten closer. I looked over at him. “The name and the knife are the only facts that tie the murder to you. You ready to talk about the knife?”

“No.”

I sighed. “Then let’s bypass the evidence against you for the moment. Let’s see if there’s something here that tells us about the actual killer. Maybe we’ll find something out of place, something that suggests why Broussard was targeted.”

His expression didn’t change much, but he nodded.

“All right, then. The writing.” The letters were written in big, wide streaks, not unlike the way business names and slogans might have been painted onto store windows once upon a time.

“The letters weren’t written with just a fingertip.”

Liam looked at me. “What?”

I held a finger in front of the wall. “The line’s too wide.” I fisted my hand, held it against the wall. “And that movement’s just awkward.”

“Maybe they used something they found here.”

We looked around. There was nothing on the landing, no pots of faux flowers or knickknacks that could have been adapted to the task.

“Maybe they came prepared,” I said. “To kill Broussard, and to blame someone else for his murder. To blame you for it. So they brought a paintbrush or something. And maybe they were sloppy about it. See any fingerprints?”

Liam stepped closer, peered at the wall. I did the same thing. But if there were fingerprints, I couldn’t tell from a look at a dark second-floor landing.

“Can’t tell,” he said.

“Me, either.”

I stepped back, looked at the stain on the floor.

“His throat was slit. Effective, and I guess kind of intimate, because you have to be up close. But it’s also not very heat of the moment. You don’t accidentally slit someone’s throat. That’s not something you build up to in a fight. That’s something you come here to do.”

“And why?” Liam asked. “Money? Love? Punishment?”

“Not money,” I said. “There are plenty of nice antiques down there, and none of them were taken.”

“You do know antiques.”

“I do. Granted, it’s hard to get rid of antiques in New Orleans right now. But if the perp’s willing to kill for money, why not grab a couple of things on the way out?”

“You’re right. I don’t see anything obviously missing.”

“As for love, you know anything about him being in a relationship?”

Liam shook his head. “No, but I don’t think I would have.”

“And we don’t know anything about punishment. Maybe Icarus matters, maybe it doesn’t. We don’t know yet.”

“That’s pretty much it.” His gaze locked onto his sister’s name again, and I decided it was time to get him away from this spot.

“Let’s look around,” I said.

The hallway split left and right. “I’ll go right.”

“Then I’ll go left.”

We parted in the middle of the landing. The hallway on the left had several open doors. Bathroom, which looked pretty standard. What I supposed was a guest room, since it held a perfectly made bed, a nightstand, and a bureau. I checked a couple of drawers, found nothing. And nothing in the closet, either.

A long linen closet filled the other side of the hallway. I pushed open one sliding door. Most of the cubbies and hanging bars were empty, except for one tower of shelves that held folded sheets and pillowcases. I gave them a quick pat-down, but didn’t find anything interesting.

The hallway ended in a doorway, the door half-closed. I listened, ensured that nothing was moving on the other side, then pushed it open.

And found Broussard’s office.

“Here we go,” I murmured, stepping inside.

The room was big, an enormous curving desk nestled in an octagonal bay window. Hardwood floors, a heavy credenza with bookshelves on the other side of the room. A couple of potted plants, a nice rug in the middle of the room.

The books were old, with leather spines, and they weren’t about any particular subject. Probably ordered them by the yard to fill up the space.

I moved around the desk. Old-fashioned leather blotter. Pen cup. Memo pad. All of it monogrammed with an equally old-fashioned “B.” But there was no pad of paper, and there was no computer. I pulled out my penlight, shone it on the desktop, and found a perfectly clean square where a computer had once been.

“Crafty,” I murmured, then sat down in the desk chair—also large and leather. Being careful not to leave fingerprints, I used the hem of my shirt to pull open the left and right drawers, found the usual desk-drawer stuff. Paper clips. Scissors. Stapler. The middle drawer was a keyboard tray. The keyboard was still there, the cord dangling loose at the back.

I looked through the rest of the room, didn’t find anything interesting. If Broussard kept secret or controversial information here, it wasn’t in his office. Or at least not anymore.

•   •   •

“His computer’s gone,” I told Liam when we met on the landing again. “You can actually see the edges where the dust had gathered.”

“So they took his comp and didn’t bother to clean up after themselves.”

“That would be my guess. You notice anything else missing?”

“No—although I’ve never been in here before, so it’s hard to say. But there’s nothing obvious. No blank space on the wall where a picture was removed, no wall safe with the door hanging open.”

“Would have been super handy to find one of those, maybe with a little scrap of paper with the bad guy’s name on it.”

Liam grinned. “Handy, but unlikely.” His expression darkened when his gaze fell on the wall again. “Nothing of value taken, and nothing obvious missing but his computer. He was killed expediently and the perp seemed to be prepared. That confirms our theory—that Broussard found something he wasn’t supposed to, and someone didn’t want him looking at it.”

“Icarus, maybe.”

“Maybe. The computer would be a help. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find that they’ve hooked it up to Containment-Net and Moses can somehow backtrack into it.”

That would be lucky, and stupid of the perp. But if this was a Containment matter, it was certainly possible.

“You clean up after yourself?” Liam asked. “No fingerprints?”

I shook my head. “I’m good.”

“Then we should get out of here,” he said. “Containment could come back anytime.”

Unfortunately, we’d already overstayed our welcome.

•   •   •

They roared through the front door. Three of them—two men and a woman, all three dressed in black fatigues and combat boots, hair clipped short in military fashion, Containment patches on their arms.

All three pointed guns at us.

“Hands in the air,” said the man in front.

“No problem,” Liam said, lifting his hands as we walked down the final flight of stairs into the wide hallway. “I’m glad you’re here. We’ve got some information for you.”

I managed not to blink, figured he had a plan, and tried to look relieved.

The agents looked momentarily confused, but they were well enough trained that they stayed in position, weapons still pointed. “What information?”

“We saw someone running out of here with a box. Not sure what was in it.” Hands still in the air, he pointed at me with a finger. “We saw the tape around the house, figured we better see what was happening. They ran out past us, knocked her down.” He bobbed his head toward the open window. “Headed downriver, I think.”

The Quinn boys were definitely crafty. And disturbingly good liars.

“You’re Liam Quinn,” said the female agent. She glanced at me, my hair. “And you’re Claire Connolly. We’ve seen your pictures.”

Liam frowned. “I’m not sure what you—did you see the man running? With the box? He looked like a looter, honestly. Ran back down St. Charles?”

The agents had their doubts, but the earnestness in his voice was convincing, even to me. Like synchronized birds in flight, they simultaneously looked out the window.

Liam took the opportunity. He ran forward, taking down the agent in front, then sending the other two off balance. They hit the floor like bowling pins.

“Go!” Liam shouted to me, and began to grapple with the man on the ground.

I didn’t have a weapon, not that getting into a gunfight with Containment was a good idea. But I also wasn’t about to run and leave him alone with three agents and the same number of weapons. I wasn’t that much of a hypocrite.

The two of us would still be outnumbered. But at least the odds would be better.

The female agent was closest, so I went to her first, used the same trick Liam had, and tried to haul her to the floor.

Already off balance, we landed in the dining room doorway together. I smashed my elbow, felt the vibration in the nerve in my teeth. The fingers on my right hand went numb, so I grabbed at the gun with my left, tried to wrangle it out of her grasp.

“Stop!” she yelled, and tried to kick me, but I kept my grip, and my focus, on her hand. I slammed it against the floor, once, twice, a third time.

The gun bounced loose.

I was up in a moment, grabbed it, was about to aim it in Liam’s general direction, when a bus hit me from behind.

I’d forgotten about the third agent. And that wasn’t smart.

He was at least two hundred pounds of bulk and muscle. I hit the floor on my stomach, his weight added to that, with enough force to push the air out of my lungs and send the gun skittering across the room. He moved to his knees and pulled my wrists behind me.

“I told you to put your goddamn hands in the goddamn air!” he said, nearly yanking my shoulder out of joint.

I didn’t want to use magic. Not like this, not in front of Containment agents who already believed we were monsters.

But the woman was on her feet, going for her gun. Liam was still tangled up with the second agent, fists and sweat flying as they grappled. If they took us in after this, we’d be in trouble. Not only a Sensitive and a murder suspect, but fugitives who’d resisted arrest and injured officers in the process.

I didn’t have a choice, and that just made me angrier.

I tried to gauge my best options, then gathered up filaments of magic that waited at the ready to be twined and used. To be manipulated against humans.

Alone in the air, the evanescent strands weren’t powerful enough to trigger a magic monitor. But gathered together, as I was doing now, they were. An alarm began to wail outside, and the monitor issued an audio warning. “Containment has been alerted. Containment has been alerted. Containment has been alerted.”

No shit, I thought, and reached out mentally toward the room across the hall, threw the magic at the ornate poker beside the brick-and-tile fireplace in the living room, and zipped it toward me so fast the air sang from the movement.

“Watch out!” The agent scrambled off me. “She’s using magic!”

I reached out with the poker and knocked the gun from his hand. It skittered across the hardwood and beneath a sofa. Out of easy reach.

“Good enough,” I murmured, and gripped the poker like a baseball bat. “Who’s next?”

The air exploded, pain searing across my biceps like God’s own fire. I looked back and saw the female agent literally holding the smoking gun.

“You shot me.”

She’d calmed down, concentration and heat back in her eyes. “You’re Claire Connolly, a Sensitive. You’re outside Devil’s Isle in direct violation of the Magic Act. You will put the weapon down and surrender yourself into the custody of Containment.”

“Containment has been alerted. Containment has been alerted.”

I ignored the irritating drone of the alarm, the violent throb of pain in my arm, and stared back at her. The flame of my anger was hot enough to scorch anything in its path.

“I’m Claire Connolly, a Sensitive. I helped warn you about Reveillon, and I fought in the Battle of Devil’s Isle.” I pointed a finger at my chest. “I took him down. And you want to arrest me.”

She wet her lips nervously. “I’m ordered to take you in. You have magic.”

“Not by choice.”

“I’m ordered—”

“I don’t give a crap about your orders. One of us is going back to the Cabildo today, but it won’t be me.”

When I felt the other agent moving behind me, I decided we’d had enough talk.

There was more magic in the air, and it waited to be used. Yearned to be used. I knitted it together, wrapped the tendrils around her gun, and yanked it out of her hand. Whatever I felt about Containment, given how much trouble we were already in, I wasn’t going to pull a gun on her, so I stuffed it into my jeans.

I saw the shifting of her eyes, but didn’t realize until it was too late that she was passing a message to her partner.

He hit me first, grabbing my legs and sending me to the floor. She piled on top, ripping her gun out of my jeans with a scrape against my skin. And then her weight was gone, and he grabbed my arms again and put a knee in my back, mashing my face and chest into the hard floor. I couldn’t see, could hardly breathe, couldn’t even think about magic.

That’s when the world went hot.

It was a kiss by lightning, an embrace by pure electricity. Power subsumed me, coated me, and very nearly drowned me. Had I been stunned? Shot not by a gun but by one of the electric stunners some Containment agents carried?

It took a moment to realize this wasn’t human power.

It was magic. Pure and barely controlled.

It was Liam.

I shifted my gaze to look, could just barely see him across the room, standing over the unconscious body of the other agent. The agent on my back couldn’t see him; he was too focused on wrangling the handcuffs I could hear jangling behind me. It was better that he hadn’t looked, that he was completely oblivious to the golden gleam in Liam’s eyes, the fury on his face.

His magic burned like fire, with a rawness that I hadn’t felt from Malachi’s magic. But I still wasn’t sure what it could do. What he could do with it.

He taught me quickly enough.

He condensed his power, his magic, and wrapped it around mine. The same way I braided filaments of magic to manipulate them, he braided the forks of our magic together, and then he used it. He lassoed the agent on my back with the magic and lifted him into the air.

Gasping, I turned over and watched the agent floating upward, his eyes wide with shock.

Liam was controlling my magic. Directing it and making it stronger by adding his own to the mix, like he’d turned up the volume on my own telekinesis.

And then Liam, or I, or the two of us together, tossed the agent across the room like a discarded toy. He flew into the opposite wall, knocking down a gilt-framed portrait on the way, then hitting the floor, eyes closed.

But the envelope taped to the wall—an envelope that had been hidden behind the painting—remained.

It would have to wait.

The female agent aimed the gun again, fired twice in quick succession.

My arm was up and moving before I could register the sound, and certainly before I could grab magic out of the air. I held out a hand, slowed the bullets to a crawl, and then a stop. And then I brushed them away. They clinked to the ground.

“I didn’t ask for this,” I told her. “Go back to the Cabildo and tell them that.”

Tears wobbling in her eyes, she climbed to her feet and ran for the door.

Liam released his magic.

As if that had been holding me aloft, too, I fell to my knees, breathed heavily as silence fell over the room, sunlight glittering through the dust we’d raised during the fight.

I looked down at my fingers, half expecting to see power pouring out like white-blue plasma and my skin charred from the heat. But they were fine. I’d been filled with magic, but my body seemed to be holding. At least for now.

“You’re all right?”

I nodded, didn’t look at him. “I’m fine.”

“Your arm?”

Right. Adrenaline had muted the pain, but it came back now with a vengeance. I winced, rotated my arm and took a look. There was blood, but not a lot.

“Just skimmed me.” I looked up. He was sweating from the effort, his knuckles bruised, the hem on his T-shirt nearly ripped off, and there was a cut across his cheekbone. “Are you okay?”

He nodded. He still hadn’t come closer, so I figured I needed to be the one who said it.

“You can manipulate the magic of others.”

He winced at “manipulate,” but there was no helping it, since that was exactly what he’d done. “Yeah.”

“Handy.” And potentially dangerous, especially in the wrong hands. I didn’t think his were the wrong hands, though.

“I didn’t hurt you?”

I shook my head, which made it throb with pain. “Just a little worn-out. I’ll be fine. Packs a powerful punch.”

“Yeah.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I’ve been working on that. Not perfected yet.”

He looked at the empty bit of wall space—and the manila envelope taped there.

Then he walked to me, offered a hand. He seemed surprised when I didn’t hesitate, when I put my hand in his, let him pull me to my feet.

We approached the wall and Liam pulled the envelope away, was about to run a finger under the sealed tab when a new siren cut through the quiet. Containment had arrived. Again.

“That’s our cue to exit,” Liam said. He slid the envelope into his shirt, then tucked in the hem to keep it safe. He quickly rehung the painting, then looked at me. “You ready?”

I nodded.

This time, we ran together.