“Are you all right?” Alessandro asked, his voice deepened by the armor.

“Yes. How?”

“He won’t tell me how, but this is one of my suits,” Linus said. “They’re stored fifty feet under us in an armored vault and taken out only for special occasions. Quite remarkable, really.”

Alessandro gently set me down. The power armor whirred, split along the seams, and hydraulics lowered Alessandro to the floor. He stepped out and brushed imaginary dust off his suit sleeve.

He’d tried to save me from Linus. I was unconscious for barely a minute, maybe two, and the two of them had nearly murdered each other.

“It’s not polite to play with other people’s toys,” Linus told him. I couldn’t tell if he was upset or amused. Either way, it wasn’t good.

Alessandro shrugged. “Sometimes it’s necessary.”

“This wasn’t one of those times.”

“I’ll make that determination for myself.”

My arm hurt like hell. I rubbed it, expecting a brand or a burn, but no blemishes marked my skin.

“Normally you would undergo weeks of training, but there’s no time.” Linus stood next to me and raised his arm. “Think of your magic as a bubbling fountain and use it to push the vine to the surface.”

A double circle appeared on his forearm, formed by a vine with tiny leaves. In the middle of the ring a five-point star glowed, outlined with vine shoots.

I raised my arm and concentrated. Slowly, hesitantly, the vine shifted within my arm, a dense elastic ring. It was an odd feeling, not pain exactly, but discomfort and a sense of wrongness. I wanted to claw at my arm until I got that thing out of me.

“Push harder. You are a Deputy Warden. You now outrank every law enforcement officer in Texas, except for me. You can take over any investigation at will. You can compel testimony from all members of the Texas Assembly. This is your badge. This is authority. Believe in your right to wield it.”

I focused on the vine within my arm, sending a current of magic underneath it. It shone through my skin, a single ring containing a star within. I held it for a long second and let it fade.

Linus turned to Alessandro and held out a tablet. Alessandro took it and scanned the contents. He glanced at Linus and pressed his thumb to the screen. The tablet chimed.

“I just hired him as your bodyguard until this investigation is complete. He doesn’t have the same power as you do, but it should shield him from most of the ramifications.”

Linus poured himself a couple of fingers’ worth of whiskey from a decanter, drank it, and stared at the exosuit. “Well, that’s settled. The real question now is how am I going to get it back into the vault without damaging the floors.”

Chapter 13

“Leave it,” Alessandro said. “It will disappear once I’m out of range.”

“By disappear do you mean it will teleport back?” Linus asked.

“No, I mean it will cease to be.” Judging by the set of his jaw, disclosing the details of his magic brought Alessandro actual pain.

“Is this a copy of my suit or the original? I don’t wish it to disappear, if it’s the latter.”

Alessandro unclenched his teeth and waved his hand. “It’s a copy.”

Linus stroked his beard. “How peculiar. You see, the suit is keyed to my biometrics. You shouldn’t have been able to use it. How exactly did you manage that?”

Alessandro gave him his dazzling smile. “It’s magic.”

Smartass.

“Where did you find this charmer?” Linus asked me.

“In an abandoned mall. He followed me home. Could we please stop talking about the exosuit?” I asked.

“Why don’t we sit down?” Linus said.

I landed in the nearest chair. My head felt woozy and the room kept trying to crawl sideways. Linus poured two more glasses of whiskey and handed them to us. Alessandro sat in the chair next to me and inspected the amber liquid.

“Thirty-year-old Scotch whisky,” I warned him.

As hilarious as watching eight-hundred-dollar whiskey come out of Arabella’s nose had been, I didn’t want him to repeat her experience. Linus was offended enough as it was, and I didn’t savor the prospect of listening to another lecture about the unsuitability of aged Scotch spirits for shot taking.

“Single malt.” Linus held his glass up to the light and smiled.

Alessandro sipped from his glass. His face took on an appreciative expression. “Exquisite.”

“There may be hope for you yet. A very slim hope.” Linus leaned back. “The Office of the Warden was founded with the singular purpose of protecting and preserving the integrity of the Osiris serum. Over the years, its role has been expanded to respond to the most egregious crimes committed by the members of the magic public. We do not concern ourselves with run-of-the-mill House feuds, murders, kidnappings, and such. A crime comes to our attention only when it puts the survival of humanity or the National Assembly at risk.”

He paused to take another sip.

“I’m not qualified for this position,” I told him.

“Actually, you are, which is ironic considering the situation. You have power and investigative experience, and your House has very few ties to the rest of the families, which makes you impartial.”

“Is this going to cause difficulties for you?” I asked. I should have brought this up earlier. Now it was too late. Not my brightest moment.

“On the contrary. The selection of a deputy is left to my discretion. They’ve been after me for years to train someone. In my defense, I did offer the position years ago to a certain telekinetic you know quite well. He declined. So I do believe the National Assembly will be overjoyed and I won’t have to endure any more questions about whether or not I plan to live forever.”

Rogan had passed on the job. Should I have passed on it too? “Why did he turn it down?”

“He didn’t want to be accountable to anyone but himself. Which conveniently brings us to my next point: rules and limitations. You are subject to my orders. You will not undertake any investigations, follow any leads, or make any decisions in your official capacity without consulting me. Please bear in mind that every action you take means I’ll have to explain or defend it before the National Assembly. Do not reveal your position as Deputy Warden without my permission to anyone.”

“Can she breathe without asking you?” Alessandro asked.

“A more important question is can you keep her breathing in the immediate future?”

“I’m going to leave the room,” I said. “You two can brawl and settle this. Would five minutes be long enough?”

Alessandro rolled his eyes. “I won’t need five minutes.”

Linus shrugged. “Good, because you won’t last five minutes.”

They stared at each other.

I sighed. “Can we get to the warped, please?”

“Each sample of the Osiris serum is synthesized using DNA from an actual human being,” Linus said. “It follows that each strain bears a particular genetic marker. Eighteen months ago, the Northern Vault was breached. Five samples of the Osiris serum were stolen.”

I hadn’t heard anything about it. It wasn’t reported online or in the news.

“The recovery of the serum is our highest priority. Our society functions because we all agreed that the serum must be locked away. If it were to become widely available again, the world would drown in violence. It’s the Pandora’s box of our age. War, political upheaval, crime, pandemics; every sin a civilized society sought to eradicate would be released.”

“Have you recovered any of it?” Alessandro asked.

“No.” Linus grimaced. “About twenty years ago a sample of the serum was stolen from China and used in experimentations by a private laboratory connected to a temporary alliance of three French Houses. They sought to bolster their magic abilities. They succeeded in refining the serum to produce a new variant, 971, as it came to be known. The 971 serum strengthens weaker inherent magic but warps the subject beyond the limits of humanity.”

“So the human subjects went from duds to magic-capable monsters?” I asked.

“In essence, yes. The lab was destroyed by the combined actions of the international Assemblies, and all of the research was eradicated.”

“Clearly not all of it,” Alessandro said.

Linus grimaced. “It would appear to be so. The 971 serum contained DNA from a powerful magic user. Everyone altered by it exhibits the same genetic marker. Fullerton informs me that the bones in your plastic bin have that marker and the marker from one of our stolen samples.”

“Explains the jump.”

The two of them looked at me.

“Diatheke rapidly expanded over the past year, probably by using overpowered warped magic users. Biomagical research takes time, and the information related to the serum is strictly controlled. Analysis of the serum alone could take years, never mind synthesis of a new variant or clinical trials. Eighteen months isn’t enough time to go from zero to viable warped mages. However, if Diatheke gained access to the 971 serum and the underlying research, they could springboard from it. They likely used a pure sample of the Osiris serum and the 971 serum to create their own new variant.”