Chapter 9

Eligor floated in a state of semi-consciousness. He'd been dragged out of the little body that had been his vessel for the last ten years as they'd prepped to deal with the abnormals. Not that he was surprised it had been taken from him. That was what he got for turning on his own kind.

What a fool he'd been to think one of those monsters was not a monster. She'd fooled him, and . . . that was that. He'd believed she was kind and thoughtful, and he'd believed her lies. Maybe he should've been more like Susan. Maybe he should've been harder on them.

If he'd had a body, he would have groaned at that thought. He didn't want to be like Susan. No. That was not his way. He would never let it be his way. Better to be a trusting fool than to be cruel. No doubt, he'd be bottled up in Gardreel's storage room for the rest of eternity, stuck.

So certain was he that he'd be terminated, it came as a bit of a shock when a sound slipped out of him. He blinked and slowly lifted his head, opened his eyes, and stared at what was in front of him.

Glasses slid down his nose and he lifted a hand to push them back up. "What . . . is happening?"

The person who stood in front of him was as much of a shock as the noise he'd made. Her red hair was twisted off to one side, showing off a freshly shaved portion of her head. Green eyes locked on him as she lifted what at first he thought was a stick, and pointed it at him. No, not a stick.

"That wand was broken when you were brought in," he whispered.

"Ah, yes, so it was." She ran a hand over it, up and down in a way that he didn't understand but knew was supposed to be provocative. "But I fixed it."

His eyes widened and he searched the room. "What is happening?"

"Oh, well, I've been given a job," she said. "And you're going to help me."

Eligor swallowed hard and pushed to his feet. Not four feet tall anymore. The world gave a nauseating lurch as he stumbled around on legs that were practically as long as he'd been tall previously.

"Jesus Christ, what's wrong with you?" Easter snapped.

"Not Jesus Christ, about as far from that as possible. My name is Eligor." He put a hand on the back of the chair he'd been reclined in. "How am I here? How am I not . . . finished?"

She quirked a bright red eyebrow up. "You have a connection to Phoenix, don't you?"

"Well, yes and no—"

"Even without the token?"

"Yes, but—"

"And that means you can find her."

"Not the way—"

She reached out and jabbed the point of her wand against his heart. "You can find her, or we're both going back into that hell hole. Your mind stripped out of this body and cast into nothing, and my mind shattered by whatever torture they want to use on me."

She adjusted herself, a flicker in her eyes that Eligor knew. Susan hadn't let this one go, and even without the touchstone object, her mind was so broken she could be easily controlled. No, Susan hadn't let her go, not in the least.

But Easter thought she was free.

His heart pounded. "So why do they need us? Those that escaped are loaded with tracers in their bodies. A guarantee of finding them." That was how it was supposed to work. Then the Brutes would go after them.

He shuddered at the thought.

Easter looked him over. "Phoenix is smart. She fooled you for a year, didn't she? You think tracers will slow her?"

Eligor didn't so much as blink. Admitting he'd been fooled was such a dumb idea—even a dupe like him knew not to agree with it.

She smiled, a sharp, predatory smile that reached her eyes and made them gleam with a light that was rather unsettling. "Why do you think they unleashed me? Because of my good behavior? They kept my hatred of her alive for this very possibility."

He shook his head. "I have no idea—"

"Because she has already managed to find a way to cut off all the tracers they put in her. Sixty-six of them, and they all deactivated at once."

Eligor gaped. If he'd known that was possible, he would have gone with her. The reality was, he hadn't thought they'd make it more than a few miles before being scooped up, and he had thought only to buy her a little more time.

"What about the other two with her?"

"Them too. All tracers gone. That is a very bad thing for this place, isn't it? To have abnormals out there that know and understand, at least to some degree, what is happening here." She looked like she was about to say something else, but her eyes blanked out and he knew he was talking to Susan.

Her smile was manufactured. "Eligor, you will go with this abnormal. You will help her find the Phoenix and her friends. You will kill the two men. And you will bring the Phoenix back here."

He stared at Easter. "Wait, you don't want her dead?"

"No." Her voice was flat, monotone. "You will bring her back here. Easter will help you as she is the only one with skills that even come close to the Phoenix's abilities."

He found it interesting that the names the two abnormals had come in with were being used, not the names the handlers had given them, slip-ups just like he'd had. With difficulty, he kept his mouth shut and his throat from bobbing.

She stared at him. "You understand that your life will be in extreme danger while you hunt the Phoenix."

"I am not a fighter. That's what the Brutes are for," he said.

"You will have this." Easter held up a wristband and handed it to him. He took it and dangled it from one finger. She went on. "There is an emergency setting that will bring the Brutes to your aid when you manage to trap the Phoenix."

Eligor put the wristband on and it tightened automatically around his rather thick wrist. "You speak about her as if she is—"

Easter waved a hand at him and her eyes came back to life as Susan checked out. "Nix—Phoenix to you—is the most dangerous abnormal alive. She has been trained to kill since she was a child, and her kill count is in the thousands. She has killed demons, Magelores, and other abnormals no one else would dare even face. She has encyclopedic knowledge of weapons, explosives, guerrilla warfare tactics, body armor, and torture tactics as well as a strong connection to the mob world and the world of abnormal magic."

His jaw flapped open. "I know that was on her papers when she came in, but I saw none of that in her head! None of it!"

"Exactly." Easter slid her wand through a belt loop on her right side. "She is good enough that she fooled a mind reader. Or whatever the fuck you are."

He didn't realize he was shaking until the thumping of the chair legs on the floor made him look down. His grip on the back of the chair was white-knuckled and he couldn't stop himself. "She was truly all those things?"

Easter laughed, her eyes lighting up. "She is all those things and more, Eligor. You want to know a secret?"

He wasn't sure he wanted to know any more secrets. He couldn't wrap his head around the fact that the woman he'd been helping this last year was . . . evil. Because if what Easter had said was true, there was no other word for it. Except he couldn't shake his certain feeling that she'd genuinely wanted to help the other abnormals in the facility. He'd seen her soul, and it was dark, brilliantly dark, but not evil.

He couldn't be fooled, not like that. Maybe she'd kept secrets from him, but her intentions had an undeniable purity to them. Slowly the shaking stopped. "Yes, tell me the secret."

Easter smirked. "You're going to be traveling with someone . . . Just. Like. Her."

*_*_*

Carlisle Hospital fadedin the rearview mirror as Carlos drove us slowly away, staying well within the speed limit. Behind us, the hospital was lit up like a Christmas tree, and a series of large trucks peeled toward the parking lot only minutes after we left.

"My Rosita, was she in that facility?" He glanced at me, then back to the dark road in front of us, ignoring what was behind.

I shivered, not because I was afraid, but because there was nowhere on my body that didn't sing as if I'd been stuck inside a medieval torture chamber and had hot spikes driven into me. The boys rubbed at their necks and knees, but my entire body hummed with heat and pain.

"No, she wasn't there. I met all those who came in after me. There was no Rosita; they always changed our names to something similar, and no one came in that was Hispanic with an R name," I said.

His second question was no surprise. "Could you find her? I could get you a picture and I could pay. I have money."

I breathed through another ripple of muscle tremors before I answered.

"Possibly. Cowboy thinks there are other facilities like this one," I said. "But I have to find my own boy, Carlos. He's young, not even twelve years old."

"I'll send you with a picture," he said, the pain in his voice audible. "And if you find her . . . please. Just get her out. Please? I helped you."

He choked up on that last word and I closed my eyes, hating his pain. A father's pain, a mother's love, I understood that. I clenched my jaw, fighting off the part of me that wanted to ease his hurt. Caring about other people's pain was a good way to lose everyone I loved.

My boy had been taken from me once, and I had thought he was dead. For a long time, I'd lived in a fog, believing he'd been killed in a hit meant for me. But I'd found him. I'd found him, and I'd found Killian, a man I'd thought would stand beside me through anything that came our way. He had stood beside me until that last night.

The night he'd let me go.

My eyes snapped open, and I stared at the road in front of us, refusing to relive that memory. The shakes continued and I wondered if it was all from the machine or the distant memories trying to surface. I rubbed at my arms, trying to banish a phantom itch.

"Withdrawal from the drugs they had you on," Peter said. "You've got all the symptoms. Irritability, itching, paranoia." He grinned. "Maybe you were always like that?"

Dinah piped up. "Irritable and paranoid, yes, but that comes with the territory."

"They take us when we're sleeping, so we have to sleep in shifts." I changed the subject. Not because I thought the Magelore was wrong, but because there was nothing I could do but ride it out.

Cowboy and Peter nodded. Carlos looked at me again. I was in the front passenger seat, my dog's head in my lap, Dinah clutched in my left hand.

"Left-handed?" Carlos asked.

"Both," Dinah replied for me. "She's faster with her left, though."

Cowboy leaned forward. "Didn't you have two guns? I thought it was always two in the stories I heard."

I missed having two guns. Missed having Eleanor there to be the hard line when I needed her. "Yeah, I did. One was destroyed."

Destroyed saving me.

"You should get another," Carlos said quietly. It struck me that he was totally unfazed by the fact that my gun had just spoken. He hadn't reacted earlier, either, to her comment about Cowboy. I twisted in my seat with a grimace as a cold shiver ran through me, followed by a serious hot flash.

"Carlos." I stared at the side of his face, at the complete lack of nerves he was showing. Something had felt off about him from the very beginning. Too cool around abnormals and the way he'd given us the story about his daughter had rung true but also . . . not. I drew a deep breath, but he didn't smell like an abnormal.

"Yes?"

I stared at him, my thoughts whipping around faster and faster. "Who are you really?"

"I am Carlos." He didn't take his eyes off the road, but he frowned. "I'm not sure who else I could be?"

Peter snort-laughed. "Phoenix, you're too paranoid. He's human. I can smell it all over him."

Except the most powerful abnormals didn't smell feral or wild like the weaker ones. In fact, they smelled just like a human. Like nothing.

I had Dinah up and pressed against Carlos's head before another heartbeat passed. "Pull over."

He did as I said, cool as a summer breeze. "It is not as you think, Nix."

Nix.

The name only my friends dared to call me.

Carlos turned the car off, and as the engine idled to nothing, I lowered Dinah.

"Who and what are you?"

"Rio would like to speak with you," he said, and his image wavered, the aura around him sparkling and dancing like a heatwave over a road. A Hider was an abnormal who could mask his own abilities to appear human, and a strong Hider could also mask those around him. I'd seen the ability before. My surrogate father, Zee, had been a Hider, and one of the very best. He'd given me almost eleven years living as a mother to Bear before I'd lost him.

Cowboy gave a low whistle. "A Hider! Shit, dude, you . . ."

"That's why they didn't find us at the hospital," I said, the pieces of that tiny puzzle slipping into place. "You'd be about the only kind of abnormal safe from a purge like what has been happening here in North America."

He nodded. "But it wasn't enough to keep my daughter safe. She was too determined to help others, to try to figure out why this was happening and stop it. Her partner in the local department, he has been hunting for her with no luck. I sent him to New York. That seems to be where the last of the abnormals are in hiding."

I frowned. "Can you hide all three of us?"

"For tonight, then you must get to Rio. He is in New York too."

I went over what I knew about Rio in my head. At the time I'd stepped away from my father's business, Rio had been a small fry, barely a blip on the radar. Prostitution was his main money maker, hidden behind three strip clubs, but he'd dabbled in some money laundering. That was the minor connection he'd had to my father, washing the money as it came through the clubs.

That had been a long time ago, though—when I'd stormed back into the picture looking for vengeance, there hadn't been even a whisper of the Latin mob boss. Again though, I hadn't been looking for Rio then. I'd been looking for Mancini and my father.

Peter shook his head. "No, I'm not going to New York. They'll be looking for us there. It's a fucking hotbed of abnormals. Or it was."

Carlos motioned at the car. "May we continue? My wife has dinner waiting for us. Late, but I think you three need a good meal."

"Already eaten, thanks," Peter said with a pointed grin.

I eased back in my seat. "Drive."

Dinah settled on my lap and the dog got comfortable too. I traced her scars—the bite marks, but also several cuts from a razor-sharp knife. Those scars were perfect, clean, and as numerous as the ones from other dogs.

It felt weird, like touching my own skin, tracing my scars.

She sighed and melted into my lap.

Much as I wanted Carlos to talk to me, I didn't actually trust Peter or Cowboy. I was no fool. They were not my friends. Current partners, yes, but not friends.

In the real world, the Magelore and I would have tried to kill each other ten times over by now. And Cowboy? I would have walked by the squeaky-clean kid without a second look. He wasn't part of our world of darkness and death. Or at least he shouldn't be, despite his abilities. At the same time, I knew my odds at finding my boy would be better if they tagged along. Their odds of survival would be better too. If I left the kid behind, he'd be bagged and tagged again in no time. Peter might last longer, but not by much. He'd been taken near the beginning of the purge, not long after me as far as I could see.

Carlos drove through a lovely suburban area lit up with fake tiki torches and summer patio lanterns on most houses.

"Nice," Peter said. "You really live here?"

"Benefits of being a Hider," Carlos said.

My thoughts moved rapidly as we slid out of the car and followed him into his house. His wife was a petite woman whose curves met in the middle with a waist strapped in with a big buckled belt over her flowered dress. A perfect little housewife down to the styled hair and manicured nails. Very human looking. She smiled up at us, but I saw the strain in her eyes.

And the power that glittered back at me telling me she was stronger even than her husband.

"Two Hiders," I said.

She gave a slow nod. "Come in. Eat and talk. You are safe here."

Eat and talk, if only this was going to be that easy.