She pulled a small, clear plastic box from a pocket in her cargo vest, dropped the Collodi tick into it, and replaced it in the pocket. “Try to see it from my perspective, Trent. You come out of nowhere, a complete stranger who claims to have no knowledge of magic whatsoever, and then you start killing gargoyles like a pro and fending off the Black Knight with powers no one else possesses. You can see how that might make me suspicious. I had to be sure I could trust you.”
“And what if that thing was yellow instead? What would you have done?”
“This.” She extended her arm. A wooden wand shot out of her sleeve and into her hand.
I blinked. “A magic wand? Seriously?”
“Scoff all you want, but the Endymion wand is stronger than you think,” she said. “It would put you into a deep sleep before you knew what hit you.”
I doubted that. I don’t sleep, and I was pretty sure no wand would change that. “You had that thing all along but you didn’t think to use it on the gargoyles, or the Black Knight?”
“It only works on humans. Against anything else it’s just a pointy stick.” She tucked the wand back into her sleeve. “Look, I don’t expect you to understand, but this mission Thornton and I are on is too important. If the box falls into the wrong hands, a lot of people will die. I can’t let anything get in our way, or anyone.”
I sighed and sat down on the love seat again. “The box. Everything comes back to that damn box. What’s in it that’s so important?”
“Something ancient, and powerful, and extremely dangerous under the right conditions. You’re safer not knowing any more than that. Anyway, right now I’m a lot more interested in talking about you. A man with no memory of who he is. It takes a lot to surprise me, but I honestly didn’t see that one coming. It could explain a few things, though.”
“Like what?”
“Why the ward around the warehouse didn’t affect you, for one,” she said. “There are a small handful of immensely powerful magicians in the world called mages. They’re the only ones who can carry magic inside themselves without becoming infected. They’re powerful enough that certain spells don’t work on them—illusion spells mostly, like wards. They can see right through them. Given the things I’ve seen you do, it makes me wonder. What if you were a mage before you lost your memories? If you were that powerful, there might be some kind of subconscious connection with the magic inside you, almost like muscle memory or a survival instinct that kicks in when it’s needed.” She sighed then and shook her head. “But no, mages are much older. You can’t be a mage without decades of advanced study. Frankly, you don’t look old enough to be one.”
“Maybe I’m older than I look,” I said. “I could have lived a healthy lifestyle. Lots of vegetables and jogging.”
Bethany smirked. “Somehow I doubt that’s the answer. But when this is all done and we’ve got the box back safe and sound, I can ask Isaac to look into any reports of magicians or mages who went missing a year ago. Who knows, maybe he’ll find something.”
I stared at her dumbly for a moment, not sure what to say. I hadn’t expected her to want to help, especially without asking for something in return. I wasn’t used to anyone giving a damn. When I finally found my tongue, I said, “You’d do that for me?”
“We’re not so different,” she said. “I don’t know much about myself, either. I never knew my parents, or where I came from. I spent my whole childhood being passed from one foster home to another, waiting to be adopted, but it never happened…” She paused, absently touching the thick hair over her pointed ear. I could only imagine what it must have been like for her, passed over time and again for adoption because she was different. She must have felt like as much of a freak as I did. When she spoke again, she wouldn’t meet my eye. I could tell she wasn’t used to opening up like this. “I learned pretty fast not to get attached to anyone. Either they’d get adopted away or I’d get shipped off to another home. I spent a lot of time alone, looking for ways to pass the time. That’s how I discovered I had a natural aptitude for engineering charms. It’s funny how boredom and self-preservation can bring out your hidden talents, isn’t it?”
“It’s not everyone who would help out someone they don’t know,” I said. “Thank you.”
She opened the door and smiled at me. “You saved my life twice now, Trent. The least I can do is help you get yours back.”
I watched her walk out of the room and close the door behind her. Bethany kept surprising me. One minute she was an icy battle-axe, interrogating me like a cop and hiding gross, lie-detecting bugs on my body, and the next she acted like a friend, like she actually cared and wanted to help. The former I could handle, I was used to adversity, but the latter left me feeling conflicted and unsure of myself. I didn’t know how to deal with the sudden surge of warmth I felt toward her.
I looked at the photos on the dresser again. Morbius stared back at me through unknown years, strong, sure of himself, a natural-born leader. Ingrid had referred to him as mage. Could I be a mage, too, I wondered? Was it possible I was a mage so powerful I’d found a way to cheat death? But then, what had happened to me? How had I lost my memories? Bethany didn’t think being a mage was the answer, but I held onto it like a drowning man. Because if I was a mage it meant I wasn’t a freak of nature. It meant I wasn’t alone.
I felt like I was soaring inside. There was so much more to tell Bethany. So much more I hoped she could help me discover. For the first time I could remember, I felt like I’d found a place where I belonged, where I could be happy. For the first time, I felt truly alive, which was an odd thought for a man who can’t die. I felt like I was a part of the world around me. A world that suddenly felt wide open.
The grip of my gun peeked out at me from the pocket of my leather jacket. Damn. How was I going to tell her about Underwood? If I told her the truth about why I came to the warehouse, there was no way she’d still want to help me. Worse, I would be drawing her deeper into my own mess, putting her in more danger than she already was. There were consequences to knowing about men like Underwood.
He was still waiting for me to come back with the box. Probably, he was already wondering what was taking so long. It was only a matter of time before he sent Tomo and Big Joe to come looking.
What the hell was I going to do?
Fourteen
The bathroom at the end of the hallway was filled with pink bottles of hand lotion, baby-blue tubes of facial cleansers, and hanging sponges that looked like great puffs of lace webbing on a string. As I washed the last of the blood and dirt from my hands and face, I noticed the shower curtain was decorated with images of giant sunflowers. The whole room smelled of perfume and powder. It was hard for me to imagine it belonged to the same woman who had once fought and defeated a giant six-armed lizard-man from another dimension. And yet, despite the strangeness of it, it was also oddly comforting. This was a home, a real home, and a far cry from the cold cement walls of the fallout shelter. This was how people were supposed to live.
Walking back to my bedroom, a flash of light in the darkened hallway caught my eye. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that the door to Bethany’s room was slightly ajar. Through the sliver of open space between the door and the frame, I caught a glimpse of her moving through the room. She’d taken off her cargo vest. I’d grown so used to seeing its bulky form covering her that I was surprised at how slim she was without it.
She turned her back to me and pulled her shirt off over her head, revealing a tattoo of a fiery bird that covered her entire back. Its burning wings reached across her shoulder blades, its talons framed the base of her spine. Was this the work of the nine-hundred-year-old shaman with the L.A. tattoo parlor, I wondered? The ink work was so vivid that even from where I stood I thought I could make out the shape of each feather.