Mad Rogan’s face looked like it was carved from granite.
Now was my chance. I stopped singing and smiled. “Come here.”
They did, tripping over their own feet, trying to cluster around me.
“It would make me happy if you went to the bus,” I told them.
They moved as one.
Alessandro picked the elderly woman up and carried her to the Scarab. Julian ran out and held out his arms. Alessandro handed the elderly woman to him, turned around, and walked back to where Kaylee was still clawing her way across the driveway.
The Grinder still spun in place. Alessandro walked six feet from it, unhurried, scooped up Kaylee into a fireman’s carry, and leisurely strolled back.
Xavier let out a silent scream.
Alessandro gave Mad Rogan a wave and deposited Kaylee at my feet. She hugged my legs, her eyes shiny and bottomless. “I love you so much, I’m so sorry. For everything. So sorry. Do you still like me?”
I patted her hair.
Alessandro hugged me to him like I was his greatest treasure.
Xavier’s nose was bleeding. He clenched his fists, every muscle in his body rigid, straining. His mouth opened. He must’ve howled at the top of his lungs.
The Grinder didn’t shift an inch.
The circle under Xavier’s feet winked out like candle blown out by a draft. Xavier had exhausted his magic. There was no more power to fuel the circle.
He gaped at the Grinder in pure horror.
The Grinder turned, smoothly, as if it weighed nothing.
Xavier just stared.
The cylinder spun into a blur and streaked back toward Xavier. He threw his hands out in a futile attempt to stop it. It rolled over him.
There was no sound. No scream. Just red blood on the blades.
Chapter 14
I sat on the bed with my laptop in front of me. My wet hair spilled over my shoulder.
We’d come home an hour ago. Alessandro showered, and Dr. Patel treated two wide gashes on his back and the scratches on his chest. The wounds had bled all over the place but were relatively shallow. A couple of years ago the sight of them would’ve made me panic and now I was just grateful they weren’t worse.
Konstantin was waiting for him outside the infirmary when we came out. I let them talk and went to our house. I was spent.
I’d yanked my magic from Kaylee quickly enough to stun her mind but not so fast that her psyche would suffer permanent damage. She would be sleeping for the next three days, possibly longer, which was fortunate, because I had no idea what to do with her. I needed to buy some time. Detaining her wasn’t an option due to her power level. Normally Linus did whatever it was, and the National Assembly came and took charge of the criminal Primes. He didn’t quite pass that part of the job down to me. For now, we stuck her in the infirmary. If the hostilities dragged on, we would have to induce a coma.
Before I broke free, Kaylee told me everything I wanted to know. Arkan had made her into a Prime. She had enjoyed her new power for almost four months when her mother came to her and told her they needed to kill Linus. Luciana had set up a meeting. They walked right into Linus’ office, where Kaylee was supposed to attack Pete while her mother planned to pacify Linus with her halcyon powers so they could kill him too.
Except Linus never gave them the chance. The moment Luciana began building her magic, Linus took off. Her initial assault had barely grazed him.
Pete managed to pull out his gun, but Kaylee killed him before he could do anything with it. Luciana told Kaylee to run, picked up the gun, and went to hunt down Linus. Kaylee took off, and a few minutes later her mother carefully walked out of the house and joined her.
Pete’s gun finally made sense. Luciana had picked it up and planned to shoot Linus with it, but she didn’t count on the vault, and Linus, who was reeling from the mental assault, must’ve been slower than usual trying to get down those stairs, lock himself in, and activate the defense systems. It bought Kaylee just enough time to escape. Sometimes we overlooked the simplest explanations. Kaylee got out alive because she could sprint like a rabbit.
Untangling my power from the rest of the Caberas and their staff members took a lot longer and by the end of it, I was drained, both magically and physically. We had gotten most of the story out of them in the process. Kaylee had taken her grandparents hostage, killing two of their employees when they tried to intervene. When Elias arrived, she had lashed his mind as well. The only reason he was alive was because he had expected an attack and fortified himself. For all of her raw power, Kaylee had no idea how to fully penetrate the defenses of an experienced and well-trained mage like her uncle. He took a single blast and played dead.
The two Cabera brothers collected their parents and their staff, and Julian took everyone back to the Cabera mansion in River Oaks, while Elias stayed to supervise the cleanup of his parents’ house and to make funeral arrangements. Neither of them expressed any desire to take possession of Kaylee. They would likely draft her excision documents the moment they got home.
When I went into our house, Linus’ USB waited for me on the table. Bern or Runa must’ve brought it by.
Linus was still unconscious. It should’ve depressed and worried me, but I was too numb.
I had taken a shower, which made me feel a bit better, put on a long T-shirt and a fresh pair of underwear, and climbed onto the bed with my laptop. And then I stared at it for about five minutes.
I wasn’t sure why I hesitated. I wasn’t afraid. I was . . . weary and wary. Both.
Nothing good ever came from ignorance. I slid the USB into the slot, accessed it, and fast-forwarded the video to the point I remembered.
“Very shortly you’ll be facing a crisis, if you aren’t already. You’ve concentrated on only one aspect of your powers, but your magic is more complex than you realize. The black wings are the first manifestation of the problem, and it will become worse in times of emotional distress.”
Linus leaned back. I recognized that pose. He was in his teaching mode.
“An ice mage attacks while hiding in a crowd. How do you find him?”
“He will be the one with the fever.”
Magic altered the natural laws, but it didn’t destroy them. An ice mage drastically lowered the temperature of the targeted body of water, and while magic dealt with most of the displaced heat, some of it slipped through. The air around the ice mage would become noticeably warmer. If they kept it up long enough, they would start to sweat, and their face would flush.
“We define ice mages as those who freeze, but we could also define them as those who inefficiently generate heat through displacement.”
Where was he going with this?
“The siren beguiles and seduces. Our magic is named for her, but she also has a counterpart.”
Alessandro slipped into the room and stopped. I paused the video and patted the blanket next to me. I didn’t want to hide anything from him.
He approached, pulled off his boots, and sprawled on the blankets next to me. I scooted closer to him. He put his head on my bare thigh. I restarted Linus’ magnum opus.
“. . . she also has a counterpart. The harpy.”
What?
“The harpy flies on black wings. When she emerges, she doesn’t coax. She destroys.”
“The harpy?” Alessandro murmured.
“Your magic is survival based,” Linus said. “From the moment you were born, it began assessing the environment and attempting to eliminate those it perceived as a threat. From speaking to your mother, I know that you’ve encountered some people who have been unaffected, like your pediatrician. People like that truly had your best interest in their heart. However, they are very few and far between.”