Gray Dawn, page 13
“Colby not in Blay’s hand.” Blay ran a zigzag pattern, tracing her evasive maneuvers. “Colby get Blay in big trouble.”
I should have warned him not to trust her where Clay was concerned. The kid was as loyal as they came. I shouldn’t have believed she would hang back when there was the slightest chance of recovering him.
“Clay,” Colby hollered at him. “Do you remember me?”
The tension drained out of him, and he stood there, transfixed by her. “Moth girl.”
A pinch of hurt pleated her features when he didn’t call her by name, but she soldiered on.
“That’s right.” She pirouetted above his head, careful to remain out of reach. “Did you miss me?”
“I…” Clay cocked his head to one side. “Moth girl left.” His lips pulled down into a frown. “I was. Glad.”
The broken language confused me when Clay had always sounded like a detached version of himself in the past. Not that he had spoken to me, exactly, but I had heard him converse with the director often.
Catching Blay’s eye, I motioned for him to hold steady while she tried reasoning with Clay.
“I was glad too, but when I got home, I missed Clay. I missed you. I had to come see you.”
“Clay,” he repeated. “I’m not. Clay. He’s. Not me.”
Muscle flickered in his jaw, and he clenched his hands, but he couldn’t get out the rest. That was when I understood. He was fighting. For her. Clay, the real Clay, was doing his best to claw his way out.
How? How was this possible? How could he defy orders?
“You are Clay.” Colby fluffed into a sphere of white fuzz. “The director doesn’t want you to remember, but you do. I can tell. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have hidden me from him. You knew I was in danger from him, and you protected me. That wasn’t following orders. That was following your heart.”
“Moth girl…” He wet his lips. “Go be. Safe. With. Your friends.”
“You are my friend,” she insisted, refusing to back down. “Part of you knows that.”
“Col…by.” He gripped both sides of his head. “I don’t…” He hit his knees. “I can’t...”
“Clay?” I stumbled forward, numbed by shock. “Is that really you?”
“Stop me,” he panted. “Please.” He dug his fingers into his scalp. “Don’t let him…”
“I understand,” I rasped, my heart beating in the roof of my mouth.
“Bjorn.” He choked on the name. “He…”
Pungent magic filled my lungs as Dad joined us, and his presence snapped the tether on the golem.
An agonized roar burst out of Clay, and his arms fell to his sides as he rose wearing a smooth expression. There was no recognition in him now. Just a blank mask and a jut of determination in his chin.
Oh, yeah.
This wasn’t good.
The director must have ordered him to take down Dad if he got a chance, and here was an opportunity.
“We need to smudge his shem.” I marked the symbol with a finger on my forehead for the wargs’ sakes. “Break those lines, and he’ll freeze like a troll exposed to sunlight.”
Magic would have made this easier, but oh well. I wasn’t afraid to get my hands dirty. I could do this, with or without that extra zing in my touch. I had to believe that, to trust that I was enough on my own.
The Mayhews waited until the golem burst into motion to charge him. Marita knocked her shoulder into his as Derry mule kicked the bend of his knees. The golem fell sideways but ducked into a roll that kept a grinning Marita from connecting her fist with his face.
Before he straightened to his full height, I leapt onto his back. Impact was like jumping off a bridge into a dry creek bed, but I held on, linking my arms around his throat and my legs around his sides.
“Rue.” Dad launched skyward, but he was too late to stop me. “Let him go.”
“Not until I finish this.” I got my hand as high as the golem’s cheek before he clamped down on my wrists. “Do your worst.” I stretched my fingers, reaching higher. “I can hang here all day.”
A cough exploded out of me when my back hit the dirt. Wait. Dirt? He had flung me over his shoulder so fast, I hadn’t seen it coming. I felt it, though.
Ouch.
I jerked my head higher in time to see Dad arrow into Clay’s spine, knocking him onto his hands and knees. Dad clung to his back, reached around, and raked elongated claws across Clay’s forehead.
The change was instant and heartbreaking as Clay froze on the spot, stuck until we redrew his shem.
Colby lit on his bald head, spread her wings wide, and hugged as much of him as she could hold.
“When it’s time,” she hiccupped, tears in her voice, “I want to reanimate him. I remember how.”
Eyes downcast, Blay positioned himself behind Clay, watching over Colby in her grief.
“You’ve done it before?” Dad climbed off Clay. “Drawn his shem?”
“I taught her to the last time he was damaged.” I had been so proud of her. “What are you thinking?”
“That a loinnir is a remarkable being,” he mused. “Colby’s love for Clay must have been etched into each stroke. She left a mark on him. On his soul. Not enough to override my father’s command, but perhaps it tethered some fragment of Clay’s consciousness to his body.”
“If anyone could do it, it’s Colby.” I never ceased being amazed by her. “She loves him as much as she loves me.”
“The reverse is also true.” Dad surprised me by giving Clay that much credit. “Her power, if that’s what caused this, couldn’t have stuck if he didn’t feel the same.”
“How do we move him?” I crouched next to Clay and rested my hand on his shoulder, tempted to follow Colby’s lead and throw my arms around him. “He needs to be kept somewhere safe until we can wake him.”
“I have an idea.” Marita had shifted back while I rode Clay like a bucking bronco. “You might not like it.”
Short on time and options, I spread my hands. “I’m open to suggestions.”
“We can schedule a pickup for storage.” She drew a hand through her hair. “Have him bubble wrapped for his safety and everything. He can be taken to a secure facility until you’re ready.”
The secure facility was where I had sent my collection of dark artifacts for safe keeping. I didn’t want them on me, and most couldn’t be destroyed. Like the Hunk. The best I could do was keep them out of circulation.
Never in a million years had I envisioned Clay joining those odds and ends in my personal vault.
“No.” Colby sent her antennae bouncing with the force of her head shaking. “You can’t do that.”
“He won’t know.” I rested a hand on her back. “He’s not aware of what’s happening now, and I promise we won’t fix his shem until we can take him somewhere nice to wake up. Maybe even back home. Or on the farm.”
“You’re sure he won’t wake up?” She didn’t loosen her grip a fraction. “I don’t want him to think he’s alone or that we forgot him. He might get scared if he doesn’t know we’re coming back.”
The scars of her past, the reminder of what the Silver Stag had done to her, ached when she was upset. I could see the similarities between then and now and why she wanted assurances Clay wouldn’t suffer as she had.
“He won’t even blink until you fix him.” I gently scooped her into my palm. “I don’t want to leave him behind either, but I would feel better if I knew he was safe.”
“You’re sure he’ll be okay?” She searched my face. “You promise he’ll sleep through this?”
“I give you my word, little one.” Dad stepped forward. “Golems are empty shells without magic to act as a conduit for their energy.”
“He’s not a shell, and he’s not empty.” Tears rolled down her furry cheeks. “He’s just sleeping.”
“I apologize.” Dad pressed a hand over his heart. “I misspoke.”
While Marita made the necessary arrangements, which entailed her and Derry hanging back until after a hauler arrived for Clay, Dad and I walked under a tree to discuss next moves. Colby, who hadn’t forgiven me for agreeing to send Clay away, sat with him while we waited.
Had she seen this before, she would understand this was his time of peace. It was after he woke, after he learned what he had done, that guilt and remorse seeped in until he drowned in his own helplessness.
“I saw someone.” I broke the silence. “He was spry for the director.”
“I don’t see the director allowing himself to be deposited into a field, so it must have been a driver who got spooked when I detonated the car.”
“That would explain the running away.”
“You didn’t pursue him?”
“Too risky.”
“You understand,” he said slowly, feeling out the words, “that what I said earlier…about you being defenseless against my father…” His gaze swung to mine. “Your magic doesn’t define you.”
“Thanks, Dad, but no. It wasn’t that. Clay turned up before I got very far, and I couldn’t risk turning my back on him.” I stood straighter. “That reminds me. How do I look magic-wise?”
“The second anchor came free, but it cost you.” He shook his head. “I’m not sure we should proceed.”
A distant ringing noise clamped my jaw shut while I listened for its origin.
Before I could pinpoint it, Blay jogged over with Asa’s phone in his hand and passed it to me.
“Where is your phone?” Arden scowled at me through the screen on video chat. “We called and called.”
“I didn’t hear it ring.” I patted myself down but didn’t feel it either. “I must have dropped it.”
“I have it.” Dad presented it to me. “It fell out of your pocket.” He grimaced. “It was smoking.”
“That would explain why I missed the call.” I couldn’t power it on. “Your magic fried it?”
“Mine, the Hunk’s, or some combination of the two.”
“Lovely.” I shoved it into my back pocket, returning my attention to Arden. “What’s up?”
“Now that I know you’re alive?” Her brow wrinkled. “Fergal is ready for you.”
“Isiforos.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “The Kellies.”
I hadn’t forgotten them but having my brain lightly broiled had toasted my immediate thoughts.
We had time before the transport arrived to fetch Clay, so I found a nice tree and sat with my back against the trunk while she passed the phone over to Fergal, whose pinched expression didn’t bode well.
Concern bubbling up for Isiforos, I broke the ice. “What did the witch have to say?”
“He confirmed Isiforos was acting under a geas. Isiforos has no memory of his actions. He was shocked when we played the security footage for him and he saw himself perpetrate the crimes.”
“How was he spelled?”
“The tattoo he got in Beverly was a Trojan horse. Based on that particular spell, a short phrase was likely used to activate him. Once he heard it, he would have been receptive to orders. He would have snapped out of it after completing the task he was given.”
Thumping my head against the tree, I called myself ten kinds of fool for it never crossing my mind the tattoo was malicious. Well, in more ways than one. It had led us right into a trap, caging us in Faerie while the compound was brought to its knees, and I had assumed that had fulfilled its purpose.
“Does this mean he was the one who put the director on the phone with Clay?”
An activation phrase meant he could have been deployed multiple times before his actions drew notice. Much like Clay, he would have lost his free will when his master took the reins. He would have followed orders to the letter. Including not remembering what he had done, if that was what they wanted from him.
“He can’t recall the specifics,” he gently reminded me, “but it seems likely.”
“As likely as him being the reason we’re missing a guard? Luca must have had Isiforos create a scapegoat to maintain his place in our inner circle for as long as possible.”
Having witnessed the aftereffects of Clay coming to, learning what he had done under the director’s influence, and then having to make his peace with it, I felt sick on Isiforos’s behalf.
“How do we neutralize it?”
“The witch says the tattoo must be removed, magically, to destroy the compulsion.”
As sacred as tattoos were to Miserae daemons, I regretted the necessity, but we had to stem this tide.
“Do it.” I would bear the weight of the decision and the burden of his anger once he was himself again. “He’s too great of a security risk otherwise.”
“There’s one more thing.”
“There always is.” I wondered if I was too young to retire yet. “What else?”
“Bjorn was released from his cell.”
Understanding crashed into me, reminding me of what Clay had tried to tell us.
A bitter pill stuck in my throat, making it hard to swallow. “Isiforos?”
“I spoke to Agent Merkle, the guard on duty. He received a direct order via email from Isiforos shortly before the attack on the Kellies. Isiforos must have sent it during the chat before the attack.”
A troubling thought stirred in me, and I leaned forward. “How long ago was this?”
“Six hours, give or take.” He hesitated. “We weren’t notified because Bjorn’s off the books.”
We hadn’t wanted a paper trail that the director’s loyalists could follow to free his number-one stooge. As usual, what at first seemed like a good idea had bitten us on the butt.
Intruding on my thoughts, he said, “I’ll let you know when the compulsion has been broken.”
“Thanks.” I ended the call to find Asa standing on my periphery. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“That the director dropped Clay in our laps as a distraction so Bjorn could spirit him away?”
The director knew I couldn’t resist an opportunity to save my friend, that trying not to hurt Clay would buy him time to get away. After the wig-tracking-spell fiasco, he was probably glad to be rid of him once he realized we wouldn’t give up on him easily.
“Why would Luca free Bjorn?” I drew my knees to my chest. “What good would that do her?”
Had there been more to Clay’s warning? Too bad we couldn’t wake him up to ask, but the risk of triggering situational orders from the director was too great.
“Bjorn is with the director?”
Jerking my head up, I spotted Colby gliding in for a landing on Asa’s head. “We think so.”
“He was a prisoner for a while, right?” Her antennae shot upright. “Long enough to leave DNA?”
Witches, and anyone who spent time with them, learned fast not to leave any hair, nail clippings, blood, or saliva where an enemy might find it and use it against them. That, or they died. Often horribly. Bjorn, as close as he stuck to the director, knew better than most to never leave parts of himself behind. But it was a different beast entirely when you were isolated in a cell. Disposal options were more limited, and no one would hang around to clean up after themselves in an enemy lair if the cell doors swung open to set them free.
Not even type-A Bjorn. His devotion to the director was borderline obsessive, but he wouldn’t have hesitated to book it out of there.
“Yeah.” A grin broke across my face, and I sought out Dad. “Can I borrow your magic?”
“Of course.” He glanced between Colby and me. “I would be happy to hunt Bjorn down for you.”
Poor Dad probably thought this meant I was letting go of the idea of having the other anchors removed. Nope. I had just about talked myself into going again, actually. But I was happy to rely on him for spells I couldn’t perform for myself at the moment. The rest? Well. He would figure it out soon enough.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
While the black witch began the painful process of removing Isiforos’s tattoo, Fergal drove out to where the prisoners of our personal war against the director were being held to collect the material required to track Bjorn. He would be with the director. Of that I had no doubt. The giant had a one-track mind where his master was concerned, which made Bjorn an ideal beacon.
The plan was for Fergal to overnight what we required, which meant we had hours to burn.
Back at the hotel, Colby sat on the couch with the laptop, a frown knitting her brow.
“Find anything else?” I stretched my arms over my head. “Any giant red arrows pointing toward Luca?”
“Most of this information is useless,” she admitted. “It’s like when Clay and I were gone. You had no clue where we kept the passwords or accounts or anything else. You couldn’t use any of the resources issued under your pseudonyms to make tracking your movements harder. You were stuck with the Bureau card or paying out of pocket for any purchases.”
Either of those were easy to track for anyone who knew me by Rue Hollis and had the faintest computer skills and access to the Black Hat database. The Bureau credit card got used anytime I had a big business expense or wanted people within the organization to be able to find me. Like when I showed up to work cases. But I only used my personal debit card at home, in Samford. It would be an absolute last resort for emergency spending before I touched it and allowed the taint of this life to touch the one I left behind.
Nan might have been a bit shortsighted with her revenge scheme by cutting Luca off instead of leaving it all in place, giving us the means to track her. That, or it had been a ploy. Maybe Nan wanted us to waste our time cracking her codes instead of doing the legwork required to find Luca before she took her revenge a step too far.
As I thought about it, I began to feel lighter, more certain. “What I’m hearing is, Luca is a sitting duck.”
When Nan made the mistake of hacking the Kellies, she allowed Colby to return the favor. Colby had the master list of Luca’s aliases, and their attendant credit cards. The primary one had been deactivated after New Orleans, but without Nan to issue new ones, Luca only had those identities to choose from.
“She won’t have Nan to cover her tracks,” Asa agreed. “Colby can trace her if she uses any of the cards on file.”
