4. Fourteen

Chapter 4

Fourteen

A s he followed the kid—Cym, he corrected himself—down the stairs leading from Fourteen's apartment into the open space of the warehouse he owned, he kept a close eye on the kid's gait, noting Cym no longer looked as vulnerable as a week-old kitten.

Cym didn't appear to be limping, but then Fourteen wouldn't have appeared so if he'd been damaged. Showing off weakness to a stranger was likely to get him killed, so he powered through minor injuries until they healed. Cym might not operate that way, but Fourteen wouldn't discount it. If they had to run, Fourteen would be ready to carry him again if necessary, but it would be his last resort.

The first time he'd touched Cym had overloaded Fourteen's senses. Carrying Cym to his SUV had been disorienting and difficult—he'd had to stop and put the guy down several times to regain his equilibrium. Otherwise, he couldn't have guaranteed no one had followed them.

While working on the mess Cym had made of his feet, Fourteen had drifted in and out of lucidity. He remembered talking with the boy, but he couldn't have told anyone what it had been about. It should have bothered him more than it did. Was he so used to what The Company had done to him that missing time was a normal thing?

Unexpected emotion roused itself, but not toward Cym. It started in his chest, hot, bright, and sharp. It raced through Fourteen's body, making the tips of his fingers tingle and his face burn. After being trapped so long in the cold of his mind, the heat of emotion was a shock to his system. It was all-consuming and powerful—but so was the cold. In seconds, his conditioning kicked in and swallowed the feeling, assimilating it into nothingness.

What the?—?

The hole in his mind throbbed, fighting for Fourteen's attention. Did the feeling have something to do with The Company and their tinkering?

Again, the feeling flared in his chest, and again, his conditioning swallowed it down. It seemed like it took longer the second time, giving him a chance to give it a name.

Rage.

Something about being with Cym or, more specifically, touching him, called out to something important Fourteen had lost. Fourteen wasn't sure he wanted his conditioning to win.

"Who are you?" Fourteen kept his tone quiet, but it still caused Cym to flinch.

"Starting with the hard stuff first, huh?" Cym paused on the stairs and looked back at him.

"It wastes less time," Fourteen said pointedly.

"Fine." Fishing around in his pockets, Cym pulled out a hair tie, gathered his hair into a messy knot, and continued his descent. Several shorter strands escaped imprisonment to frame his pale face. "I'm a less-than popular-member of the Blaike family—a fusty but prominent family of witches in the magical community, or as we call it, the Other." He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned to face Fourteen, clearly waiting for something.

"And?"

"I'm waiting for you to tell me I'm crazy." Cym pulled his hood up to cover his hair. Fourteen nodded at the precaution in approval, Cym's hair was an unusual shade and likely to draw attention.

"And I'm waiting for you to answer my question. When you finish telling your story, I'll draw my own conclusions."

Cym shook his head in bemusement. "I will, but, um, where are we?" His hand gestured to the cavernous warehouse they were in.

"South Boston. I own this warehouse. Technically it's supposed to be used for storage, but I use it when I have a job in the area. Or, I did. Now that you've seen it, I'll have to sell it."

"I'm sorry, I didn't know."

"Don't apologize. You weren't conscious when I brought you here. It did its job; now it's done." Fourteen walked toward the enormous, black SUV parked inside the nearly empty warehouse, leaving Cym to follow in his wake.

"Subtle." Cym snorted indelicately, making him appear far older than he looked. Fourteen hadn't been trying to—groping unconscious people was not his thing—but he was pretty sure he'd felt some muscles on the guy's small frame when he'd carried him earlier. The kind children didn't have.

"It also does its job." Fourteen unlocked it and got in on the driver's side. He liked his ride. Cym could walk if he had a problem with it.

Cym opened the passenger side door and got inside. "It's better than walking, I guess. You did a good job on my feet, but the Granary Burying Ground is miles from here, and without shoes…" He winced.

"We can stop and get you shoes." What did Cym need from a cemetery?

"There's no need. We're going to get my stash bag, which, hopefully, has a pair of shoes in it, among other things. I hid a few around town when I first got here. This is the only one left."

Fourteen was impressed at Cym's foresight. He didn't imagine many civilians could have made it as far as Cym had. If a normal person thought of having even one place to leave supplies in case of an emergency, it would be unusual. Having several showed serious forethought and good survival instincts.

"Jeeze, it seems even bigger inside," Cym said, looking small and out of place sitting in the passenger seat. He had to tuck the shoulder strap under his arm to keep it from going over his throat, and, once again, Fourteen was given the impression Cym was very young. Another uncomfortable emotion clamored inside of his chest, and he allowed the cold to swallow it.

"How old are you, really?" Fourteen blurted out.

It was relevant information that was pertinent to the situation. Cym had said society considered him a man, but he was from a different society than Fourteen. Fourteen had been to countries where the age of majority was sixteen, and if Cym was sixteen, he really shouldn't be on his own.

That was the only reason he cared. Definitely.

"Back to story time, I suppose. Okay, you drive and I'll talk. Do you know how to get to the cemetery?" When Fourteen nodded an affirmative, Cym began. "I had my nineteenth birthday six weeks ago."

Fourteen tried not to feel relieved. Tried not to feel anything—something that was getting harder than he wanted to admit. Fourteen focused on starting the SUV and piloting it out of the warehouse as Cym talked.

"A month or so before my birthday, my cousin Astin came to me for the first time in years. He told me that my mother Elanor was dying. Being head of the family, this was causing quite a stir among the rest of the family. You see, powerful witches don't die easily, and Elanor is a very powerful witch—most of the women in my family are. It came as a surprise to everyone when she started fading." Cym was quiet for a minute and looked out at the boats in the harbor as they drove out of the marine park.

"Witches are beings with a direct line to the Source—the pool of magic where all life comes from. If a witch doesn't die from an accident or foul play, she or he will keep on going until their soul can no longer connect to the Source. Once this happens, the witch will fade away and vanish into nothing.

"Witches with little power live as long as norms—or humans—do. A powerful witch like Elanor should have lasted a long time. My guess is that she's older than most of us were led to believe, though she seemed to have been taken by surprise by this as well, so I could be wrong.

"According to Astin, once everyone found out Elanor was fading, they held a ceremony to divine who was supposed to be the next head of the Blaike family. Being born from magic means we're ruled more tightly by it than other creatures. The universe decides who holds the mantle of power in each family, and it chose… me." Cym's voice cracked on the last word. It was a hopeless little sound that shot through Fourteen's defenses like they were made of air.

"So they decided to kill you?" Fourteen wrestled with his control, but the harshness of his voice betrayed his anger.

Cym looked at him sharply, startled by his intensity.

"Why?" Fourteen brought his voice back under his command, and it sounded composed once again, but his hands gripped the steering wheel tightly. His conditioning was definitely taking longer to kick in.

"Astin claimed they wanted me to abdicate. It isn't unheard of, but it isn't common either." He gazed intently at his hands, as though he was expecting them to burst into flame at any minute. "It doesn't always work—like I said, the universe is the one who ultimately decides in these matters—but I would have gone along with their plans. I know I'm in no fit state to rule the family."

"Why not?" Fourteen's instincts told him this was the part he'd been waiting for.

"Isn't it obvious?" Cym huffed impatiently, though Fourteen could tell he was blustering, putting off spilling his secret for as long as he could.

Fourteen gave him an impassive stare.

"I'm a monster." Cym looked up hesitantly from his hands to gauge Fourteen's reaction, but when Fourteen rotated a hand in the universal gesture of keep goin g, he straightened his spine and said, "Look, you've been incredibly tolerant of me and my condition, but you can't say you haven't noticed anything."

"Assume I haven't noticed anything monstrous, and fill me in." Miraculous, perhaps.

Cym frowned, looking mutinous, but complied. "Fine. I'll give you the whole sordid scandal. The morning of my eighth birthday, I came into my magic. It doesn't usually happen at a specific age, so no one was expecting it. I hadn't noticed anything unusual, other than the normal excitement that birthdays bring, so I was a bouncy bundle of happiness when I found my family waiting for me in the breakfast room. It was covered in fairy lights and streamers and all my favorite foods were weighing down the table, ready for me to enjoy them. I walked in ready and willing to receive all the happy attention a spoiled, rich child tends to get on his birthday, but instead, my mother nearly killed me.

"The only reason she didn't succeed was because she tripped over my aunt who was attempting to attack her. In fact, the entire room broke out into a horrible brawl the moment I walked into the room. So, instead of having a celebration, my family nearly destroyed itself right in front of me.

"I ran away as soon as the fighting broke out, expecting someone to come after me and explain it was all a big joke or something, but no one came to find me until the end of the day.

"It shouldn't have been hard to find me because any adult witch can do a simple tracking spell. Eventually, my mother's servant Emily came to the tree I'd been hiding in and ordered me to come down but told me to keep my distance. She brought me to Elanor—my mother—who was waiting for me in the garden." Cym went quiet and looked at the oversized cruise ship entering the harbor, squinting in the early morning light as they drove past it. Maybe he wanted to be on it.

Fourteen had worked on a cruise ship once. He'd had to pose as a cabin steward in order to get close to a target who had chosen to live out the rest of his life on a boat. Once Fourteen had granted his wish by drowning the mark in a bowl of lobster bisque, he'd had to jump overboard and swim twenty miles back to shore in the dark.

The swim had been incredibly irritating, and Fourteen wouldn't have minded if he'd been made to forget it, but he didn't get a say in such matters.

"Elanor made me stay far away from her too, so when she told me how disgusted she was by my magic, she'd had to shout it loud enough for everyone on the estate to hear." Cym's hand reached up absently and started twisting an escaped strand of long, baby-blonde hair around his fingers. "She told me I was an abomination who had to be kept away from everyone. Apparently, that happens sometimes in older families if a child is born with warped magic that can't be controlled." Twist, tug, twist.

"They fixed up a new place for me to stay in a different part of the estate where I could live safely away from everyone else. Emily herded me to the old training house. Until they had a new, better training house built, it had been the place where everyone in the family learned how to control their magic. It was a good choice; the wards aimed toward keeping dangerous magic contained were still active. I lived there for eleven years." Cym's voice was so soft he had to strain to hear the last part.

"Your family locked you away for most of your life and then expected you to abdicate?"

Cym nodded. "And I would have! I went through their big, creepy ritual with the giant bonfire and the long-winded phrases in Latin, but it didn't work. The whole family had shown up for it, and when it was done, all we had to show for it was a series of fights that kept breaking out because people kept getting too close to me." His hair was wrapped so tightly around his fingers that they were white-tipped with blood loss.

A sharp pain reared behind Fourteen's left eyebrow as he struggled to understand. "And the people in your society, they just allowed your family to lock up one of its children?"

Cym frowned. "I was pretty young when I was locked up, so I don't know all the ins and outs of magical society. From what I do remember, the Blaike family is kind of high on the totem pole among the Other. I remember hearing a lot of bedtime stories about family members defeating some really scary creatures. Outside of the Guard—our version of the police—we were supposed to be the best at fighting these things. A family as powerful as the Blaikes doesn't get asked a lot of questions about their inner workings." He bit his lip, and Fourteen noticed it was frayed. This was obviously a habit he indulged in often.

Magical society didn't sound much different than regular society to Fourteen. The weak and innocent always fell through the cracks. He felt the hole in his mind stir uncomfortably, and to distract himself, he asked, "What made your family think the ritual didn't work?"

"The spell they cast to divine who would succeed Elanor created a stone that showed my face in it. After the ritual they made me do, the image didn't change, but instead, it started to glow. It was pretty obvious the universe was clear about its wishes."

"How close do people need to be to become affected by you?" They were almost to the cemetery, so Fourteen slowed the car down, wanting to finish the conversation before they retrieved Cym's belongings.

"It isn't an exact science. It seems to vary from person to person. Some people can be in the same room with me and only become highly irritable. Other people can be across a long hallway and want to kill me. It made for a lonely childhood."

"I can imagine."

Interesting. Fourteen had gotten about as close to Cym as a person could get, but the only reaction he felt was more akin to grace than anger.

"I ran back to my room after the botched ritual, intending to feel sorry for myself for a bit, but I found a note on my bed that said, They are going to kill you . Underneath it was a list of ways to foil various spells. The most useful was the one on tracking spells." Cym's hood had fallen back down to his shoulders unnoticed. "So I ran away."

Fourteen circled around the block looking for a place to park. Even at dawn, parking in Boston was a bitch. "Considering how sheltered your life has been, that couldn't have been easy for you." He left the unspoken question hanging in the air for Cym to answer or not as he willed.

Cym blushed. "I read a lot. Like, a lot, a lot—we're talking two books a day here, easily. My favorites are fantasies and spy stories." He squeezed his hands together tightly and hunched his shoulders as though expecting ridicule, but when none was forthcoming, he perked up and continued. "When you have nothing better to do with your time, eventually you plan out an escape route, even if you never intend on using it. I don't imagine the family could have been more surprised than I was that I actually managed it."

After pulling the SUV into a good spot, Fourteen turned his body to face Cym. "I'm not." Fourteen reached out to pull Cym's hood back over his hair, and his already flushed cheeks turned a deep crimson. When his thumb accidentally brushed Cym's skin, he welcomed the rush of sensation that broke over him. The smell of rain, the sound of a purring cat, and then it was gone. Maybe it was because he was now familiar with the phenomenon that he didn't lose himself completely this time.

Cym's shoulders relaxed, and his mouth turned up in a half smile. "It wasn't as hard as you might think. No one expected me to run because they thought I was a complacent child who would do whatever they told him to do. I wonder how long it took for them to realize I was gone?"

Fourteen shrugged. "Depends on when they were planning on killing you." Fourteen realized he had chosen the wrong words when Cym's face turned a sickly gray color.

"Yeah." After a long pause, Cym said, "Let's go get my stuff, okay? The best way to foil a tracking spell is to make a significant alteration to your body—it causes the spell to give a null result. You could shave your head or cut off a thumb, but the easiest way is to completely change your outfit. So the sooner I can get to my spare clothes, the better." Cym struggled to free himself from the seatbelt, once again emphasizing his tiny frame.

"Wait." Fourteen's cold voice made Cym freeze. "You stay here while I look around."

Fourteen got out of the car and did a quick survey of the scene. As he scanned the surrounding area, he realized he didn't like how quickly Cym had jumped to obey his order. Cym shouldn't be so trusting toward someone he had just met, even if it did make Fourteen's job easier. They would need to talk about that later. If it had been another one of his colleagues chosen for last night's job—Rust, perhaps—Cym would already be dead.

Fourteen's stomach became a cold rock at the thought, and once again, the unexpected emotion was nearly paralyzing. This time he welcomed his conditioning when it finally roused itself to remove the feeling. Emotions had no place in the field, and right now he was riddled with them. Fourteen stood still and drew deeply on his training, draining himself of all thought and leaving nothing in his mind except the job.

Only when his mind was as pristine as a frozen tundra did he walk over to Cym's side of the vehicle and open the door. "I'll be right back, you'll be safe in here."

"Wait—"

Fourteen closed the door on Cym's protest and pushed a button on his key fob. He'd made a few modifications to his SUV—one of them being he could turn the car into a miniature fortress with the push of a button. No one could get in—or out.

Ignoring the sound of small fists pounding on the door, Fourteen did a circuit all the way around the cemetery. His inspection told him it was an open space, walled in by buildings on all sides—one of the random spots of green in the city.

The whole place was dotted with trees in the early stages of blooming. It was probably pretty, but Fourteen only saw what an assassin would see—exposed branches that left little place to hide. It was still too early in the day for any of the businesses to be open, so it would be easy to spot someone out of place. A lone jogger was doing a lap of the cemetery with her dog. She looked benign, but the best assassins always did. Fourteen waited for a long time after she left before deciding the place was as safe as it was going to get.

When he got back to the SUV, he pushed another button on his key fob and saw Cym tumble out of the back passenger door, falling ungracefully onto the sidewalk. Fourteen approved of the fact that Cym hadn't sat passively waiting and wondered if he had tried to break a window. It wouldn't have worked, but it would have been the first thing Fourteen would have tried. He offered Cym a hand to help him up, but it was ignored.

Cym's hair had fallen out of its bun and was a shining mess over his face and down his back. Hurt, childlike blue eyes projected worry and confusion but no anger. Fourteen would have been furious. "Why did you do that? They have magic you don't understand. If you don't have me with you, you won't know what to look for." He jerked his hair over his shoulder and twisted it until it looked painfully tight. "Do you have any idea what my family would do to you if they knew you were helping me?"

"I'm pretty tough." Fourteen rapped a fist against the chest armor lining his jacket. "As far as I can tell, magic is just a weapon—one I may not understand, but a weapon just the same. The person wielding it is the real danger to look out for. That's where I come in. It's what I was trained to do."

"Just… don't lock me in the car again, okay?" Cym's voice shook with emotion, but he looked him right in the eye. Fourteen saw a glimmer of the anger he'd expected earlier. "I… I don't like that."

Damn. Cym had just told Fourteen he'd spent most of his life locked up, and he had turned around and done the same thing to him five minutes later. Fourteen rubbed his forehead in frustration. "I… apologize. I'm not used to thinking of people as people. Targets or opponents, yes, but not people." Fourteen extended a hand to help Cym up, not knowing what else to do. "Keeping someone alive is new to me."

Cym stared at his hand pensively before finally taking it and allowing Fourteen to help him stand. Though he didn't deserve it, he basked once again in the glow of peace that flowed from Cym's body to his. It was then that Fourteen realized he was hooked.