Mortal Secrets, page 21
Yesterday the underground Market had felt like some bizarre shopping mall. Today it felt like what it actually was—an old maze made of narrow tunnels and full of menacing strangers, all packing some kind of weapon. Here either you dealt, or you were dealt with.
I missed Zel’s looming figure by my side. He had been an anchor in the storm of my troubles. Annoying, but solid and there. There was no feeling lonely when Zel was around, no spiral descent into despair—he kept me too busy and irritated for that.
I took the stairs down into the lower level and gagged as soon as I cleared the last step. Rancid air assaulted my nostrils, burning down my throat in some unholy mixture of acid decay and overwhelming dampness. Just how many small animals had been sacrificed to achieve this effect?
The Archivist’s door stood closed. I used my elbow to hit the buzzer, so covered by grime you could barely tell its original red color. I refused to remember that I had hit it with my bare hand twenty-four hours earlier.
The door opened without me having to yell at the Archivist’s assistant. The air changed from gag-inducing to dusty-stale as I hurried across the lounge of horrors and into the small hallway. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught something moving in the shadows behind the restroom’s frosted glass.
I threw myself into the metal door at the end.
It opened soundlessly. I stumbled onto the metal landing and down the steps. The room was a hundred times darker than the last time, the pool of light from the desk lamp a thousand times smaller. More of a penlight, really. As my eyes adjusted, the shapes and contours of the items strewn around and on the shelves started to take shape. The shadowed ceiling was arched and impossibly high. There was a macabre, ghoulish quality about it, as if I had stepped into some old crypt instead of an old storage room.
Goosebumps broke over my arms. Once again, I found myself in a cement box. But there was no Cooper to save me here. No Zel to offer feathers in exchange for safe passage.
Suddenly, I was nineteen again, realizing what an idiot I’d been for coming down here for information, no matter how important, because there was an excellent chance I would never taste open air again.
But I had made it out then, and I would make it out now. I had to.
When all else fails, bravado.
I walked up to the desk with renewed determination and glared at the Archivist. She was wearing a different sundress today, a white crocheted one that gathered all the light in the room like a specter.
“Archivist,” I said as her mouth opened to say my name in that discordant sing-song way of hers.
She said it anyway. “Ana Calliope, Ana Calliope.”
Silence descended. We stared at each other, the minutes stretching like the longest marathon.
Fine, I’d break it first. “There’s more to the Vow of Conquest than what you told us.”
The Archivist tilted her head. “I didn’t think I’d see you again so soon.” A glance behind me. “Where is your delicious lover?”
Hah, she thought she’d caught me off-guard with that one? “Loving himself somewhere else.”
That hadn’t come out right.
She brought a finger to her mouth and ran it back and forth across her lips, eyes slightly unfocused. “Unfortunate.”
I slammed the desk with the palm of my hand. “What else did you not tell us?”
Instead of flinching like any other normal person, she flattened her hands and torso on the desk and slithered forward until her face was inches from my hand.
It took everything in me not to jump back.
A familiar itch spread from my shoulder blades down my arms. “Tell me, Archivist.”
During my time in the Hunters’ basement, I had gone through every piece of information we had gathered about the Vow so I could use it to convince the boss to look into it, and something kept nagging me about our conversation with the Archivist.
“I told you all I knew,” she replied, slinking back into her chair.
“You answered what we asked, but it’s not really all you know, is it?”
She began poking at the eyelets in her dress. “Certain details might’ve come to light since.”
I drummed my fingers on the desk. “Like what?”
“Like a few mouthfuls of blood.”
This time, I did snatch my hand back. “No.”
“You won’t notice it’s gone,” she said with a pout.
“I like my blood where I can spill it.” My hand returned to the desk, my fingers tracing the swirls of the wooden surface. “But there is another option.”
“A tooth?” she said excitedly.
Seriously? “No body parts.”
The pout reappeared. She crossed her arms. “Then we have no deal.”
“What about knowledge? I can show you something Kurtz Warner didn’t know about.”
“That unwholesome gutter maggot son of a rotting rat and an overripe melon,” she muttered, swirling her chair side to side.
“The same one.”
She stopped and fixed me with her glass-like eyes. “You promise? He didn’t know?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
“You first.”
“No, you.”
“No, you.”
She wrenched a drawer open. “Heads or tails?”
“Heads.”
A big coin flew in the air. She snatched it and slammed it onto the desk. “Tails,” she said, way too greedily. She probably had somehow tracked the sides of the coin. When her hand came up, a set of crossed bones stared back at me. Yep.
“Go, go,” she urged, throwing the coin over her shoulder and clapping her hands. Her eager gaze darted between the pockets of my jacket and the ones in my jeans.
I unzipped my jacket and took it off. This was a big risk. A huge risk. Unlike Malthuk, the Archivist was not soul-bound to an agreement. She could do whatever she wanted with the information. But it was my hope that the greed that shone in her eyes was the same greed that would keep everything she learned to herself like one of her treasures.
The T-shirt went next, and then my shoes. The Archivist’s expression didn’t change, but she leaned forward, as if spellbound.
“What is it?” she hissed, her gaze roaming my naked skin.
I let the itch go free. Power surged, eating its way through my veins, down my arms, my spine, my legs. My hair flew forward as my red wings snapped into existence, framing my body and brushing against the piles of items on both sides of us. The shadows surrounding the desk turned a dark red as the light reflected off my crimson feathers. My fingers curled into deep crimson claws and my toes followed, my calves straining against my jeans. Instinct thrummed in my veins, singing its happiness at being allowed to run free. And mixed within, the wails of the souls, begging for release.
I had tried so hard to keep my identity secret.
But when it came down to it, while I would never hurt my friends, the summoners would when they got their hands on the Book or the Vow. And I had to do everything in my power to protect them.
“Oh, oh, oh, oh,” said the Archivist. Possibly for the first time in her life, she looked completely shocked. Her mouth hung open, her eyes huge and round, brows encroaching on her white hair. A small twitch ran through her fingers, as if her digits were trying to grow claws, too.
Then, very slowly, she lifted her left index finger and made a swirling motion.
Dutifully, I turned around so she could see my wings in full.
“No touching,” I warned, sending her a stern glare. While it was exceptionally hard to pluck a feather from an angel wing—I may or may not have tried it in the past—I wouldn’t put anything past her.
“The Blood Angel,” she whispered with a cackle. “Living right here, and nobody knows but me!”
Good thing I was giving her my back so she didn’t see my wince. Turning to face her, I tapped the desk with my claws.
“You know what I can do,” I told her. “So unless you want to end up in my wings, tell me everything you know about the Vow of Conquest and the Book.”
The Archivist’s hand crept slowly across the desk. “You have killed?” she asked, salivating, as if she was asking for my vintage.
“Yes.” The word came out before I realized what I was saying.
The hand got closer; I fought the urge to slap it away.
“How does it feel?” she asked in amazement, beginning to lean over the desk.
“Like I lost part of my soul.”
I did slap the advancing hand away, then. With a cry of joy, she snapped it back and rummaged through the drawers with her other hand. She slammed a heavy roll of tape on the desk and began to tear pieces off and stick them on and off the hand I’d touched.
Press, rip. Press, rip. “How convenient if you lost your soul,” she said gleefully, “since you have so many others to fill the void.”
The words were like a bucket of cold water. I tucked my wings away with a snap and a current of air, retracted my claws, and reached down for my clothes.
“Tell me about the Vow and the Book,” I repeated, tugging the T-shirt over my head before crouching down to lace my sneakers.
Done lifting any possible Red Angel traces off her hand, the Archivist carefully collected the lengths of tape and put them in a plastic box. “After you left, I did some more research and contacted my client with the good news.”
I looked up from zipping up my jacket. “What good news? What did you discover?”
She had returned to her placid pose, leaning against the back of the chair, fingers linked on her lap, tongue running lazily across her teeth. “You said it yourself. It’s probably sitting under someone’s TV or in some random shop like the Keys & Bits.”
I stared, dumbfounded. “What?”
She nodded gravely. “I know, I know, I should’ve made sure before jumping to conclusions, but there was so little time!”
What conclusions? What did it have to do with what I’d said? Oh. Oh. “You think the Vow might be a piece of Cyra’s actual body, not her reincarnation? Her heart?” Since hearts carried the most power.
“Easy mistake to make. Her soul line has been known for the occasional show of power, so it made sense it would be a reincarnation. Didn’t occur to me it might be the actual thing, its existence forgotten in time except for that greedy, sniveling trash-panda piece of unwanted refuse too disgusting even for worms and farmers.”
“I gave you the idea,” I said, still dazed. “I told you how to find the Vow.”
“Thanks. Owe you one.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
I tore off, scrambling up the stairs, running down hallways, uncaring of who recognized me, until I stood outside in the cold night air.
I had to warn the Hunters. No, screw that, I had to warn Sol and Gloria.
My hands shook as I took refuge underneath the small awning covering one of the service elevator doors. A guy in a trench coat made to move toward me, but I gave him the finger, and he went back into his hidey-hole. Bad idea to talk with people coming out of the Market if they didn’t feel like it.
Sol answered on the third ring.
“Ana?” she asked warily, probably afraid someone had gotten a hand on my phone.
“Yes, it’s me,” I told her.
“Ana!” she exclaimed. “Are you okay? You haven’t answered your phone all day. I went to the apartment and you weren’t there and I was so worried.”
“I’m fine. I’m not at headquarters anymore.”
“Why would you be there?” she asked sharply.
“Was Ramón a pest today?”
There was a snort. “When isn’t he? I’ve been ignoring his calls all day. Bet he’s stewing nicely. Mom told him she wasn’t getting between us and that he was on his own trying to find me. Why?” she asked, suspicion back in her voice.
“Nobody told you?” The thought that I had been locked in that cell for almost a day and nobody but a few Hunters had known was chilling to the bone.
“Told me what? What’s going on?”
“Ramón thinks I’m working with Zel to steal the Sword, so he put me in the basement.”
“What?” I flinched away from the phone. “I’m going to kill him,” she yelled. “What is wrong with him?” There was a pause, as if she was getting herself back under control, before she spoke in a more steady tone. “Tell me where you are, I’ll come pick you up.”
“No, he might be following you.”
“I’ve been MIA all day. Believe me, if he knew where I was, he’d have found me.”
“It’s too dangerous to be associated with me right now. Plus, if Cole tells them that you helped me keep him captive… By the way, he’s gone. Did you free him?”
“Don’t worry about Cole. Tell me where you are.”
“Sol, those hearts in the back room of the store,” I said, attempting to change the subject. “They’re not very old, right? Like maybe a couple of hundred years? Four hundred tops?”
“Sure,” she answered, momentarily distracted. “Those are there for show.”
The way she said those earned my attention. “She still has more in the safe?”
“Yeah, all the special finds are in the safe.”
I traced circles on the brick wall. “But nothing really old, right?”
“A few pieces. I haven’t seen them in a while, though. She’s showed me how to get it open, but doesn’t get rich clients often, and you know she does those transactions while the shop is closed.”
“And a lot of people know that she has old stuff?”
“Otherwise she’d do no business.”
My hand flattened against the bricks. “Do you think she has really old hearts? Like ancient level stuff?”
“Yes.”
Dammit. “Sol, you can’t go near the shop. Tell Gloria to stay away, too.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“The summoners got told the Vow of Conquest is an old heart. I’m afraid they’ll go visiting the stores.”
There was a long silence.
“Sol?”
“Where are you?”
“I don’t want to involve you any deeper. Let me deal with this.”
“I’m not useless, you know,” Sol answered, hurt in her voice. “I can help.”
“I know you can, but these are summoners, Sol. They’re not exactly friendly people. If you stand in their way, they won’t think twice of removing you.”
“As I said, I’m not one-hundred percent useless. Besides, I can run interference with Ramón if he shows up. What are you going to do, catch a ride at four in the morning and go break into Mom’s shop? That’s your plan, isn’t it? I got keys.”
I hesitated. “I don’t know…”
“Just tell me where you are. We’ll figure it out together.”
The truth was, I was tired of feeling so alone. Sol was right—she wasn’t useless, and she would know if any angel or demon came near her. Doing things on my own had gone so spectacularly well, perhaps it was time to try new things.
I told her where I was.
Sol arrived thirty minutes later, driving her mom’s Civic.
With Cole in the back seat.
I gaped while Sol leaned over and popped the passenger door open. “Get in,” she urged.
Warily, I went in, staring at Cole the whole way. “What is he doing here?” I whispered.
“I can hear you,” Cole said, looking outside the window.
“What are you doing here?” I asked in a louder voice, turning in the seat to get a better look at him. The seatbelt pressed into the bruises from the Market fight, reminding me that I was walking roadkill.
“He called me a few hours ago, looking for you,” Sol said, her attention on the street. “I was as shocked as you are.”
“So you didn’t free him?”
“Gloria Reyes freed me,” Cole said.
Sol grimaced. “What he said. Turns out Mom comes up to air the place and take a nap a few times a week.”
“Oops.”
“Yup,” Sol said grimly. “I forgot about that.”
“Was she very mad?”
“I told her it was a prank gone wrong,” Cole said.
I was immediately suspicious. “Why? Why aren’t you at headquarters getting us into trouble?”
He returned my stare with a frown. “I did go to headquarters. I was going to tell Ramón and the boss about you, but…” He hesitated.
“But?”
He sighed in frustration. “Nobody wanted to talk to me. Nobody even missed me! I was gone for like a day and nobody noticed.” He huffed loudly. “And then everyone thought I was full of it so they wouldn’t call Ramón for me. They acted like I’m trash.”
Sol and I exchanged a fast glance. Her lips twitched.
“I’m going to do my own thing now,” Cole announced, looking straight at me. “I’ll keep your secret if…”
Yeah, he was definitely using singular your. Not the secret about Sol helping me kidnap him or me offing a summoner, but the one about me being Red Angel. I held my breath. “If?”
“If you find this Vow and I get credit for it.”
“You know about the Vow?” I asked in shock.
“Dude, I was sitting right there in the next room while you talked about it.” He ignored my need to cover my face and weep and kept talking. “We find this thing, I turn it in, and they’ll all take me seriously.”
Zel popped up next to him.
We screamed. The car swerved. Cole yelled obscenities while holding on to the oh-shit handle. My heart pounded in my throat as I tried to climb higher into my seat, and Sol’s eyes were about to pop out of her head, her hands squeezing the life out of the wheel as she tried to get the car under control.
A few seconds later, she slowed down. The sound of heavy breathing filled the car.
“What was that?” Cole shouted in a high pitch, attempting to put as much space away from Zel as the seatbelt allowed.
Zel’s smile was so big I could count all his teeth. “I have come to appraise the situation,” he told us in the smoothest tone in the universe.
