CHAPTER TWO

“Liam’s not in New Orleans,” Malachi said simply. “He couldn’t have done it.”

“There’s supposedly physical evidence he did,” Gavin said. “And Liam and Broussard had a bad history. That seems to be enough.”

Liam was a bounty hunter, or had been, and Broussard had been his handler before their relationship had soured. Because Liam understood Paranormals weren’t all our enemies, Broussard believed Liam was a traitor to humankind. That was the kind of attitude Delta was fighting against.

“Tell us what happened,” Moses said, crossing his arms.

“Broussard didn’t show up for a shift at the Cabildo,” Gavin said. Containment headquartered in the historic building on Jackson Square. “Containment sent someone to take a look, and they found him in his house. It was bloody. His throat had been slit.” He paused, seemed to collect himself. “The knife was one of Liam’s—a hunting knife I gave him. Had an engraved blade. And ‘For Gracie’ was scrawled on the wall—in Broussard’s blood.”

The silence was heavy, mixed with eddies of horror and fury.

Gracie was Gavin and Liam’s late sister, a young woman killed by wraiths. Her death had haunted them, and that was one of the obstacles that had stood between me and Liam.

Moses narrowed his eyes. “Someone’s setting your brother up.”

“That’s how it reads to me.”

“Bastards,” Moses spat. “Scum-sucking bastards for using your sister like that.”

“Yeah,” Gavin said, running a hand through his hair. “I can’t argue with that.”

“Why set Liam up?” I asked. “Containment doesn’t have anything against him—or didn’t. Do they know he has magic?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” Gavin said.

“Maybe Containment didn’t arrange the frame-up,” Malachi said. “Maybe the killer did. He or she could have a vendetta against Liam, or may not care who’s blamed, as long as it’s directed away from him or her.”

“Yeah,” Gavin said with a heavy sigh. He looked tired, I realized, his skin a little paler than usual, his eyes shadowed with fatigue. “I lean toward that. Containment’s issued a bounty for him.”

“Gunnar wouldn’t do that.” Gunnar Landreau was second-in-command at Containment, and one of my best friends.

“He wouldn’t have a choice,” Gavin said. “An agent’s been murdered, and the evidence points to Liam. Gunnar’s hands are tied. Containment’s already been looking for him. Now that the bounty’s issued, the search is going to get more intense. Containment is also looking for Eleanor.”

“For leverage,” I said, sickness settling in my belly.

“Probably,” Gavin said. “I hear they’ve been through her place in Devil’s Isle, tore up what wasn’t already torn up after the battle. I haven’t been to Liam’s, but I imagine it didn’t fare any better.”

“How do you know all this?” Moses asked. “You talk to Gunnar?”

He shook his head. “I just got back into town, had a drink with a source at the Cabildo. That’s where I got the details.”

“You’re here to warn us,” I said. “Because now they’ll want us for another reason—to find Liam.”

Gavin nodded. “Containment’s been looking for you, but they haven’t been looking very hard. They know you helped in the battle; Gunnar knows you helped. But with this, they’ll double their efforts to take you in.”

Moses snorted. “They can try.”

“We’ll be careful,” I said. “What are you going to do about Liam?”

“We’re going to warn him,” Gavin said. “Me and Malachi. That’s the other thing we wanted to tell you. We’ll be gone for at least a couple of days, more likely three.”

“You know where Liam is?” Moses asked. “I mean, specifically?”

The bayous and marshes of southern Louisiana covered thousands of square miles. They were also isolated and difficult to get through.

“We know where they were,” Malachi said. “Erida checks in when she can.” Erida was a goddess of war and one of Malachi’s people. She’d accompanied Eleanor into the bayous. But to make it harder for Containment to find them, Erida, Eleanor, and the other Paras moved frequently. “I received a message three days ago. By the time we get to that location, she’ll have moved again.”

“It’s a place to start,” Gavin said with a nod. “That’s all we need.”

“They could follow you back to him,” I said. “That might be their plan—to send you running to him, to Eleanor. And if they find him, they might find the others.”

I didn’t know how many Paras lived in the bayou, but I knew their existence needed to remain a secret. Given the smile on Gavin’s face, he wasn’t very concerned about that.

“They might think we’ll lead them to Liam and the others. But I’ve walked through PCC recon camps without being spotted. If I don’t want to be seen, I won’t be seen. And I’m fairly confident Malachi has the same skills.”

“I do,” Malachi confirmed. “It’s not without risk. But we can’t not warn them of what might be coming. Of the storm they may be facing. And we can’t wait until Erida checks in again.”

I had a sudden image of Liam on his knees in front of the cypress house, hands linked behind his head, gun at his back. Whether from fear or premonition, a cold sweat snaked up my spine. Because Liam Quinn was still mine.

“I’m going with you.”

“No,” Gavin said automatically. “It’s too dangerous.”

I gave him my best stare. “You want me to remind you what we faced down five weeks ago? What I faced down?”

“I don’t mean physical danger; I know you can hold your own, not that I’m eager to throw you into a fight.” He moved toward me. “Like I said, Containment wants you even more now. Parading you around isn’t the best idea.”

“I wouldn’t be parading,” I said flatly. “And they’ll expect me to be in New Orleans. Near the store, near my friends. They won’t be looking out there.”

“Claire might help Liam,” Malachi said. “Could be good for him.”

“And he’ll string me up if anything happens to her,” Gavin said, flashing him a look. “You want to take that punishment for me?”

“If Liam wanted to keep an eye on me,” I said, “he could have stayed in New Orleans.”

Gavin opened his mouth, closed it again. “I can’t really argue with that.”

Moses snorted. “That’s a damn lie. You’d argue with a signpost just for the fun of it.”

“That’s the Irish in me,” Gavin admitted.

“That’s the mule in you,” Moses corrected. “Anyway, I think it’s a good idea.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “Gets her off my back for a little while.”

I just rolled my eyes. I’d missed one day of visiting him since the battle—during a gnarly tropical storm—and he’d hounded me for a week.

Gavin tapped his fingers on the countertop as he considered. Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap. “Give us a minute?” he said, glancing up at Moses and Malachi.

Not one to take orders from Gavin, Malachi looked at me. When I nodded, he gestured to Moses, and they walked into the next room, leaving us alone.

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” Gavin said, then held up a hand when I started to argue. “I don’t mean by Containment.”

He softened his tone. “He hasn’t been gone very long, not really. And if he’s trying to come to terms with his magic, he may not be ready for company.” He paused, and my stomach clenched at what I knew was coming next. “He may not be ready for you.”

That was the other side of the coin. The possibility that time had changed his mind, or his heart, had been gnawing at me. And the teeth grew sharper each day that passed without a message.

But it was a risk I had to take. I’d given him time and space to cope. Now it was time to act. To flip the coin.

Gavin must have seen the hurt in my eyes. “Liam wouldn’t feel good about running away. About bailing on you, on New Orleans, on me, on the life he was finally beginning to build here. But that doesn’t mean he’s ready to come back.”

I nodded. “I know.”

“And you still want to go?”

I turned to lean back against the counter, crossed my arms. “I don’t like that he left. I know why he did it, but I don’t like it. And I don’t feel good about being left behind, probably any more than you do.”

Gavin didn’t answer with words, but there was no mistaking the quick flinch. Liam had hurt both of us. He might have had his reasons, but the pain was still there, the wounds still fresh.

“But he’s in danger,” I continued. “Eleanor’s in danger. I’m not going to sit on my ass in New Orleans while you guys do the hard work.” I looked over at him. “If it was me out there, he’d look for me. Even if he thought my feelings had changed.”

He looked like he wanted to argue, but realized there wasn’t anything to argue about.

“And Containment?”

“You suddenly a coward?” I asked with a grin.

He puffed out his chest. “I’m not afraid of Containment. Or anything else. But still.” He made a vague gesture in the direction of my hair. “Your hair . . . It’s noticeable.”

Rolling my eyes, I pulled my long red hair into a bun and unsnapped the Saints cap I’d fastened to the back of my jeans. Then I stuffed my hair into it, adjusted the fit.

“Boom,” I said, and flicked the cap’s bill. “Instant disguise. I won’t get caught.”

“You willing to stake your life on that?”

I lifted my brows. “I’ve been staking my life on it since I learned I had magic. And since the battle. You think I’ve spent that time underground?”

“Not according to what Malachi’s told me.” He glanced over at me. “I saw the billboard on Magazine. ‘Free the Consularis. Seek the truth.’ And a pretty little triangle in the bottom corner. The Greek symbol for delta.”

“It’s amazing what you can do with seven-year-old house paint.”

“It was one of Reveillon’s?”

“It was. Now it’s one of ours.”

Gavin shook his head, but there was pride in his eyes. “He ever tell you you’re stubborn?”

“Connolly,” I said, grinning and reminding him of my last name. “I’m also Irish. And you know I can handle myself.”

To prove my point, I raised a hand, gathered up the tendrils of power that lingered in the air, and used them to lift the robot off the counter and into my hand. When it was in my grip, I scratched a bit of grime from its body.

“You’re getting better,” Gavin said. “Smoother.”

I had gotten better, both at controlling it and expelling the leftover magic to keep it from wrecking me.

“I’ve been practicing.” Robot still safe in my palm, I looked up at him. “We go, we talk to them, we come back. An easy two days,” I said, repeating his promise. “Three at the most.”

“Rude, using my words against me.”

“Handy, giving me words to use.”

Gavin leaned on the countertop, muttered something in the Cajun French he and Liam used when their emotions ran high. But my arrow had found its mark. “Fine. We meet at Moses’s place at dawn.” His expression changed. “In the meantime, Malachi said you have a place to stay. A place that’s safe.”

“He’s right.” The fewer the people who knew about the former Apollo gas station my father had rehabbed, the building where I now lived, the safer it would remain. It had to stay safe because it was the last bastion of a trove of magical objects my father had saved from destruction. So I wouldn’t give Gavin any more details.

Gavin nodded. “I figure you, like Liam, had reasons for the choices you made.”

I narrowed my gaze. “Now who’s using words against whom?”

•   •   •

Gavin left. “We’ll talk,” Malachi said, and then he was gone, too.

“Was he telling you or me?” I asked Moses.

“Could be either,” Moses said. “But I’m pretty sure he meant you.”

Moses and I packed up the things we’d found, then closed up the house again. We walked in silence through the alley that bisected the block.

“Did you know Broussard well?” I asked as we moved through shadows made by the high afternoon sun. It wasn’t exactly discreet to walk through the city in broad daylight, but there were so few people in the neighborhood—and the sound of anyone was so easily heard in the silence of the city—that we usually risked it.

“Not well,” he said, pausing to kick at a shining spot of metal in the gravel. “Knew enough to stay away from him. Saw the world as good or bad. You were either on his side or on the wrong side.” Apparently not impressed by whatever he’d found on the ground, he started walking again.

“Yeah. Liam said something similar. You know anyone who’d want him dead? Maybe any Paras in Devil’s Isle?”

Moses snorted. “Who didn’t want him dead? But hated him enough to take him out? No.” He stopped and leaned down, pulled a random bit of wire from a patch of scraggly grass, regarded it with a nod, stuffed it into his bag. Moses had never met an electronic component he didn’t like; he’d had a store of discarded radios, computers, televisions, and every other available gadget in Devil’s Isle before it had been destroyed.

As a woman estranged from her store, I could sympathize.

“Humans,” he said when we were moving again, “think they’re the only things we think about. Seven years we’ve been in Devil’s Isle. We’ve got lives and worries, probably the same kind of crap humans worry about.”

Malachi had warned me once not to make assumptions about Paras. He’d been right then, just as Moses was right now.

“So who does that leave? Did he have enemies?”

“You mean other than Liam? They want to frame him for this, they couldn’t have picked a better fall guy.”

“Yeah. No love lost there.” I glanced at him. “Maybe you could poll your Para friends? Find out what they know?”

“How would I do that? They’re in Devil’s Isle, and I’m out here in the wasteland.” But he took a big huff of fresh air and held it in for a moment, as if savoring the sensation.

“I know you and Solomon communicate,” I said. Solomon was the Paranormal kingpin of Devil’s Isle. He was also Moses’s cousin.

“That would be illegal. And risky.”

I stopped, gave him a dry look. It took a minute, but eventually he withered a little, hunched his shoulders.

“I’ll find out what I can.”

“Good man. And I guess I’m going into the bayou.”

“It’s a good decision.”

I looked back at him. “I thought you were opposed to it.”

“The danger, yeah.” He lifted a shoulder. “But not the idea. It’s Liam, and you’re Claire. I may not be people, but I got a sense of how they work.”

“He may not want to see me.”

Moses rolled his eyes.

“He left,” I pointed out.

“You know why he left.” His voice was low, quiet, and a little bit sad. “He’ll want to see you. He’ll need to see you.”

I hoped so. Because I didn’t really have a backup plan.

“Look,” he said, “let’s just put it out there. He left, and even if he has his reasons, it’s real damn hard not to take that personally. But you haven’t been whining and moping. You got your shit together, and you hung out with me.” He pointed a stubby finger at me. “Now you go find that boy, and you call his ass out.”

I thought of Gavin’s warning. “What if he won’t talk to me?” The words spilled out and with them the fear.

“Well, fuck that,” Moses said, and started walking again. “He’ll talk to you, if only because he’s gotta face this Broussard situation. He may have his issues, but he’s not a coward.” He looked at me speculatively, onyx horns glinting in the sunlight. “I figure he gets a good look at you, he probably remembers how good he had it.”

That made me feel better. “And what are you going to do while I’m gone?”

“Try and get my damn comp up and running. Managed to find a working power supply, but I still can’t get the OS to boot.”

We reached the end of the alley, prepared to turn right down the sidewalk, and stopped short. Across the street, a man in fatigues sat inside a Containment-branded jeep. Another man walked toward him, opened the front passenger door, and climbed inside. RECOVERY was printed in large letters on the side.

Moses and I were the types they wanted to recover: Paras and Sensitives who weren’t in Devil’s Isle, where we belonged.

“Shit,” Moses said, stepping back into the shadows. “We wait here or run?”

There was no way to tell if they were here for us—if they’d followed us across the neighborhood—or if there were others on the hit list today. “Wait,” I said. And watch. Figure out what they did, and which way we’d need to run.

The sounds came first, high-pitched and spitting with anger.

“A wraith?” Moses said.

But as two agents dragged the man out, I realized we weren’t that lucky.

The man they’d found wasn’t a wraith or a Sensitive. He was a Para, short and slender, with elfish features, pointed ears. His name was Pike. He was a friend of Liam’s who’d helped protect Eleanor when she’d lived in Devil’s Isle.

“I didn’t know he made it out,” Moses said, voice tight with concern.

“Me, either.” I hadn’t seen Pike during the battle or in the brief time after that I’d been in the Quarter, and I hadn’t been back inside Devil’s Isle since. If he’d been on the streets the entire time, I hadn’t seen him there, either.

I didn’t know Pike well. If Liam trusted him, Pike was smart enough to be careful. But Containment had ways of finding people. I glanced up and around, looking for the magic monitor, found it hanging on a light pole across the street. The light blinked green. The power was on in this sector of the city, and Pike had done something magical, which tripped the alarm.

I started forward, but Moses’s fingers tightened on my arm. I tried to shake him loose, but he held firm. He may have been small, but he had plenty of strength.

“Let go,” I said. “I have to help him.”

“You can’t just run out there. We’re outnumbered.”

“I can use magic.” I could clear a path for Pike, get the agents out of his way, and put him somewhere safe—as long as I could do it quickly. I could use only so much magic without having to manage its side effects.

“Okay,” Moses whispered, “let’s assume you get out there and kick some ass with your magic, and they don’t take you into Devil’s Isle. Gavin already told you they’ve moved you up the most wanted list. You do this, you definitely can’t risk going into the bayou.”

And wasn’t that a shitty choice? I felt angry, guilty, helpless. “We can’t just let them take him.”

“He’ll go back inside,” Moses said. His voice was quiet. “There are worse places for him to be.”

“Even if freedom’s the other option?”

“There’s a time and place,” he said. “And out here on the street, in broad daylight in front of operational magic monitors ain’t either of those.”

Pike hadn’t stopped struggling, so the agents forced a jacket on him—a special restraint usually used to control wraiths—and moved him into the back of the vehicle.

A moment later, they climbed inside and were gone. When the neighborhood was quiet again, the birds began to chirp.

“We’ll talk to Lizzie,” Moses said. “Make sure she’s got an eye on him.”

Right now that didn’t feel like much consolation.

•   •   •

It had been a gas station—a corner business with atomic-era architecture and a couple of garage bays. It was now a bunker and a secret archive of banned magical objects. And my home sweet home.

Inside, there were long wooden tables and shelves along the walls, each holding priceless and completely illegal weapons, books, masks, and other items. My father had hidden them here to keep them away from Containment bonfires.

For now, I was outside and above the magic. I lay on a blanket on the roof, where the low walls gave me cover from Containment patrols.

Tomorrow would be the first night I’d spent out of New Orleans in years. My father had refused to evacuate, even when the city was bombarded. We’d lived together in a house until he died, and then I moved into Royal Mercantile. After the Battle of Devil’s Isle, I’d walked to the gas station and spent the first of many nights here. It had become my home, my new piece of New Orleans.

Tonight I watched the sun sink in the west, sending streaks of brilliant orange and purple across the sky. The sight was beautiful enough that I could nearly pretend the world was whole again. But nearly wasn’t enough. Nothing—and no one—in the Zone was whole anymore.

The gas station sat on what had been a busy road. But in the weeks I’d been here, I’d seen fewer than a dozen people nearby. An older couple lived up the street in a double camelback. A man lived two blocks up in the kingdom he’d made of a former Piggly Wiggly. Everyone else had been moving: passersby, nomads, Containment officers.

“I understand I missed some excitement.”

I jumped at the sound of Malachi’s voice, sat up to find him standing behind me, his body a dark silhouette against the brilliant sky. “You have got to stop doing that.”

His wings retracted, changing his shape from Paranormal to human. “You have got to listen harder.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised; Malachi had a habit of visiting me at night. Darkness reduced the chance he’d be seen, and I think he enjoyed the company and the quiet. I hadn’t let him inside the building—too many secrets there—but I’d given him the address. I knew I could trust him to keep the location secret, and I didn’t have to worry about his evading Containment if they somehow found out about it.

“Containment agents found Pike,” I said. “They took him in.”

He walked toward me, sat down on the edge of the blanket. His body was big and warm, and he smelled faintly like woodsmoke. “Moses told me.”

I stared hard at the horizon, guilt punching through my chest. “I should have helped him.”

“There’s a time and a place.”

“That’s what Moses said.”

“He was right. We have to pick our battles. They aren’t all winnable.”

I glanced at him. His face was inscrutable, his golden eyes shimmering in the fading light as he scanned the horizon, as if keeping watch for marauders. “Is that a lesson you learned here, or in the Beyond?”

“Here,” he said thoughtfully. “In the Beyond, we were in power and took much for granted.” He glanced at me. “I’ve told you it was an orderly society. Rigidly so. If it hadn’t been so rigid—if we’d been able to evolve, to change—perhaps we’d have been able to prevent the war.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe the Court would have been dissatisfied with everything you offered to do. Sometimes the ones who cry loudest for war don’t really want change. They just want the fight and the power.”

He nodded. “Humans and Paras are very similar in that respect.”

I sat up, crossed my legs. “You didn’t object to Gavin’s request—to leaving New Orleans and traveling into the wilderness. Is that a winnable battle?”

“I don’t know. But I’ve been in that particular wilderness before. There’s a lot to recommend it.”

“I don’t like snakes.”

Malachi smiled, ran a hand through his tousled curls. “Then the bayou may not be the best place for you.”

“What is?” I asked. I didn’t really fit in anywhere right now. “What’s the real story about Broussard?”

“I don’t know anything beyond what Gavin said. But whatever it is, Liam seems to be the key.”

“The key to what?”

“I don’t know. Something important enough to kill a Containment agent for. Or something important enough to frame Liam for. Or both.”

I looked up at the stars that had begun to pierce the settling darkness. “Life is never simple.”

“Death is simpler.” He smiled a little. “But too simple for most.”

“At least everybody gets a turn.”

He lay back, looked up at the stars. “That’s one thing we certainly all have in common.”