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If you want us to survive, kill your wife and your unborn daughter. Do it to save the family. It was no longer shocking to me. I had seen worse. Fear made people do terrible things. But it bothered me so much. This was my family. I came from this.
“There was a massacre,” Linus said. “The Duncans retrieved me and my mother’s body and returned to Scotland. They had a funeral for my mother. The official report said she died during an automobile accident while on a holiday in Greece and her husband’s body was lost at sea. It was a dark time. I don’t remember any of it or my parents. My first memory is getting to ride a pony by the castle walls.”
I knew that his grandfather had raised him, but I had no idea how deep the wound was.
On-screen Linus leaned forward, his expression grave. “The Makris family is not to be trusted. If they ever approach you, kill as many as you must to break yourself free. They fear you because they think your existence will drag their sordid history to light. Do not look for them to find answers to your magic, do not approach them, do not correspond with them. They will stop at nothing to murder you if you come into contact with them. Do not open that door.”
Wow.
“I know you have questions about your magic. I will tell you everything I know. 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 . . .”
A man screamed outside, his voice dropping into a tortured gurgle.
I yanked the USB stick out of the computer, shoved it into my pocket, and ran to the window.
The outline of a twenty-foot-wide arcane circle smoked on the ground. Two corpses slumped inside it, their skin turning green, the trademark sign of Runa’s work. In the center of the circle, a pile of reddish flesh steamed. Bones stuck out of it. Human bones. A teleportation mage could teleport themselves, but teleporting another person required complex arcane circles and a lot of preparation, and a slight miscalculation or variation in weight could make it backfire.
I dashed across the house to the front door. In the doorway, Runa and Bern were looking at the three corpses. A horrible stench rolled from the circle, like rotten fish being steamed. I had smelled a failed teleportation once before. It wasn’t an odor you would ever forget.
“. . . question them,” Bern said.
“Bernard,” Runa said.
She used his full name. He was in trouble.
“If you teleport me into the house of your enemy and give me one second, I’ll kill everyone I see. Even if you shot me as soon as you saw me, you would die immediately after. I love you too much to gamble with your life and I’m responsible for the safety of everyone under this roof. I stand by my decision.”
“I agree,” I told them.
“See? She agrees.”
“I also concur,” Cornelius said, approaching from the other hallway, Gus trailing him. He must’ve come inside at some point. “When there is an intruder in your house with a gun, you don’t shoot at their feet. You shoot to kill.”
Bern sighed.
I leaned past his broad back to look at the circle. The closest green corpse had long dark hair wound around her head in a kind of crown. I knew that hair. Melanie Poirier, one of Arkan’s combat mages. If Runa hadn’t nuked her immediately, we would have had a hard time neutralizing her.
Arkan risked a teleportation in broad daylight. Why? His hits were usually well planned and carefully executed. This seemed rushed, almost like a knee-jerk reaction to something. What could have upset him enough . . .
It hit me like lightning. I spun around and sprinted back to the study.
“What?” Runa yelled.
I didn’t answer.
I got to the study, yanked the keyboard to me, clicked the Warden Network, and typed in my login. Runa, Bern, Cornelius, and Gus ran into the room, followed by one of the Warden guards.
“What’s going on?” Runa demanded.
I didn’t have time to answer. The network accepted the login. The Warden interface unfolded in front of me. I accessed the databanks.
“Catalina? What happened?” Runa asked.
Ignat Orlov, alias Arkan, known associates. I scrolled through the list.
No . . .
No . . .
Trofim Smirnov.
I clicked the name. The dossier opened. The familiar face stared at me from the screen. A slender, stooped white man in his forties who looked like he was expecting a surprise punch.
Fuck.
I grabbed my phone from my pocket and called Patricia. No answer.
Bern grabbed me by the shoulders and held me still. “Explain.”
