Teleportation is a complex mixture of talent, magic and luck and typically Doris, as experienced as she was, had plenty of both. However, in her rush to eject us from certain death, she’d had little time to prepare for the spell and we’d ended up a fair walk away from my apartment, landing roughly in Boston Common, scaring away a flock of frenzied pigeons. As we dropped from the sudden burst of swirling dark clouds and landed hard in the grass, a homeless man perched on a nearby bench sat up and studied us curiously before shrugging, shaking his head, and lying back down to return to slumber.
I swallowed the bile, my eyes pressed closed, my entire body awash with pain. I tried to steady the jack hammering ram of my heart as I drew in deep, calming breaths, but none of it worked. To Doris’s credit, she somehow wasn’t completely beside herself, though she rested on her knees in the grass, staring at the ground as if she were looking at some strange, alien terrain.
“D— Doris?” I stammered to speak. She rocked gently on her knees, then turned her palms over and looked absently at them, as if they were the pages of a book that might actually provide answers. “Doris.” My voice firmed. Finally she lifted her head and looked over at me, but didn’t seem to recognize me, at least not immediately. “We need to go,” I said. “Back to my apartment.”
“N— Not safe.”
“I’ve been keeping Loren there ever since she showed up. We’ve been off the radar. It’s safe. Safer than most.”
“They’re— they’re more powerful than— far more powerful than—”
I stood and grimaced as I felt a stab if sickness in my guts, but somehow managed not to puke again. “They’re powerful,” I replied, “I won’t deny that. They’re also completely insane.”
“You say that as if that’s a good thing?”
“It’s not a good thing. Far from it. In fact, it’s downright frightening.”
“So what are we going to do about it?”
“Do about it? What could— I mean— you saw what happened back there. That entire room was nearly eviscerated. Helena and Connor— oh dear God, Connor.” Doris’s voice cracked and she slumped, almost hitting the ground before I intercepted her and held her aloft. “Connor was a descendent to the Darkheart throne. I can’t believe they would be so blatant.”
“Aren’t they descendants, too? Wouldn’t that make Connor some sort of— relative of theirs?”
Doris nodded. “Didn’t stop them from attacking Loren.”
“I know. It won’t stop them from coming after her again— or us. We need to get back to my apartment. Back to safety.”
“They know who you are, Gus. They know how to find you. How long do you think you can keep yourself hidden— or any of us, for that matter?”
“Probably not long, especially after tonight.” I helped Doris retain her delicate balance as we made our way diagonally across Boston Common and toward Boylston Street. Thankfully, at that late hour of the night, road traffic was minimal and foot traffic was even less, so we more or less had that part of the city to ourselves. My mind raced with possibilities, but my first priority was getting back to my apartment. Like it or not, Doris was right, things were escalating and time was of the essence. “Between you and me,” I continued as we approached the sidewalk, the entrance to the underground T station to my right. “I think what happened tonight is just proof that the walls are closing in. The twins are getting desperate, that is the only explanation I can come up with for what they did. They are lashing out, desperately and violently.”
“That also means they may actually risk a direct attack on you, even if it’s in the middle of the city, surrounded by the human population.”
“That’s why we need to get back. Why we need to move and move quickly.”
“Where exactly are we going to move to?”
“I haven’t quite figured that out yet— but I do have some ideas.” While that last statement wasn’t a lie precisely— it also wasn’t exactly the truth. I did have some ideas. However none of them were especially good.
#
A quick Uber ride had made the trip from Boylston Street to my South Boston neighborhood a bit less arduous and fifteen minutes later I was unlocking my front door and pushing it open so Doris could enter. I wasn’t sure exactly how far away sunrise was, though I suspected we had an hour or two, which might give us a little time to get our bearings before the phones started ringing. I was glad to see that Sammy wasn’t there yet, nor was Indigo, a fact that didn’t really surprise me, considering her newfound responsibilities.
As we settled in, I once again started brewing a fresh pot of coffee, wondering, not for the first time, when we might actually get a chance to grab some sleep. The bedroom door opened and Loren stepped out, her fingers curled around the corner of the hallway as she peered out in our direction.
The night’s events must have been written on our faces because her expression fell almost immediately, one hand moving to her mouth.
“What happened?”
For a moment, I considered— well— not lying, necessarily, but certainly not telling the God’s honest truth, but as I looked at Doris and she looked back at me, I knew that wasn’t an option.
“It was— a bad night, Loren.” I wasn’t entirely sure how to tell her what had happened.
“How bad?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“Do I want to know?” She closed her eyes, her head shaking. “No.” Her lids peered open again. “But I need to know.”
Doris stepped forward and took Loren’s hand in hers, pressing them tightly together, a loose tear spilling down the left curve of Doris’s cheek. “Loren, dear— my sweet Loren.”
“What?” Loren’s voice quivered, her lips trembling. “Just tell me.”
“It’s Connor.”
Loren’s eyes squeezed shut as if perhaps she’d be able to block the bad news by not looking at it. “Is he—?” Her face was torn with emotion and I had to fight myself not to rush forward and embrace her, to gather her in my arms and hold her until the horrors passed.
“He’s gone, sweetheart. He— he’s gone.”
“What happened?” The quiver started to fade, hardness replacing the tremble. Her eyes opened, revealing the steel glint of her stern stare.
“It was Ricard and Lucinda. We were meeting with the resistance. Eight of them total. Connor was there. From what Helena said, they were going to attempt to use him to re-establish the seat of power. As a rightful heir to Nadella’s seat.”
Loren’s knees buckled and Doris bent low to hold her upright, then quickly maneuvered her to the couch where she slumped.
“This is— it’s all— this is my fault.” She buried her face in her cupped hands, her shoulders shaking. “If I hadn’t turned my back— If I hadn’t left the coven—”
“Stop,” Doris insisted, making room to sit next to her. “Stop. If you’d stayed— if you’d stuck around— I suspect your brother and sister would have already dealt with you by now. You were a threat to them. This is how they respond to threats.”
“Were a threat.” Loren lowered her hands and looked at Doris through her tear-streaked eyes. “Doris, I still am a threat.”
“I know.”
“So what are we doing here? Why are we just sitting here?” She looked over in my direction.
“I’ve been using a masking spell and a protection spell. It conceals us from supernatural detection, and—”
“Gus.” Loren stood straight, her spine rigid. “I found you through a damned social media advertisement. Your face is in half the newspapers in the city. They are going to find us.”
“I know,” I insisted. “I’m trying to work that out.”
“They’ve probably allowed us to fly under the radar so far because we weren’t directly confronting them. But now? After tonight? After tonight, all bets are off. After tonight—”
A fist hammered at the door, cutting off the rest of Loren’s statement in a single sweep. All eyes stared at the door, a mixture of apprehension and horror framing each of our shocked expressions.
“Gus Savage?” a voice echoed from beyond the all-too flimsy wooden slab. “This is Agent Fenric. I need to talk to you.”
#
“Now is really not a good—”
“I’ve got two guys in the hospital, Savage, I suggest you make the time.” Agent Fenric filled the gap between my open door and the frame, her face a strange shade of red.
“I’m not sure how that’s—”
“You know damn well how that’s your problem. Both you and your little girlfriend.” Fenric pressed closer, trying to peer over my shoulder and into the apartment. “Is she here?”
“Agent, it’s like five in the morning.”
“I figured she spent the night.”
“Okay, she’s like— half my age. Well— a lot more than half my age, but you understand what I mean.”
Fenric closed her fist and pressed it to the door frame, then leaned in as close as she possibly could, her voice a hushed whisper. “Listen to me. Either you let me in and we have a friendly conversation about what happened the other night, or I’m going to walk away and come back with a warrant and a tactical team. Trust me when I say that neither one of us will like how that conversation ends.”
I sighed, but one look at her face told me that trying to argue the point was not going to get me anywhere. There was too much going on to add a warrant and a tactical team to my list of hassles. “Fine.” I pushed the door closed, unhitched the chain, then opened it again, stepping away to give her a clear path to inside. Doris and Loren had rushed off to my bedroom, and sequestered themselves inside, not wanting to get in the middle of whatever this was about.
The moment I shut the door, Fenric wheeled on me. Ever since her move to George’s Island, she’d traded in her various power suits for a more casual look and today she wore a black t-shirt and black khaki pants, a visible holster clasped to her belt. Thick combat boots covered her feet, and her biceps stretched the fabric of the cotton tee.
“You want to explain to me why the hell you and that girl beat the snot out of a few of my men the other night? You want to explain that to me?”
“Uhh— they started it?”
“Don’t give me that shit, Gus. They found you both neck deep in a drug den with some junkie draped over your girl’s shoulder. Practically dragging her outta there.”
“It’s a long story.”
“You know who was in that drug den, Gus?”
“Yeah, I had some idea, having, you know— just walked out of it.”
She closed her eyes, her jaw flexing as she pressed her teeth just a little bit too tightly together.
“Listen,” I continued, holding up my hands in an expression of pseudo surrender. “We were just trying to help this girl out. Next thing we know, black vans are screaming at us, guys are jumping out, flashing weapons around. We just sort of— reacted.”
“I’ve got one guy with a separated shoulder and another guy with three broken ribs. Six thousand bucks in taxpayer dollars to repair those vans. And I got one of my guys on the scene naming you as the one who attacked them.”
“Okay, clearly there’s a difference in opinion here.” I walked toward the kitchen. “You want something to drink?” I removed a bottle of whiskey and set it on the counter.
“I’m not drinking whiskey at five in the morning and neither are you.”
“Oh.” I looked at my wrist, which didn’t even have a watch. “Right. Sorry. It’s been— a rough night.”
“Has it really?” She crossed her arms.
I froze for a moment and decided that maybe I’d said a little bit too much. “Uhhh, yeah. Stayed at Doyle’s a little too late, you know how it is.”
“Not really.”
“Oh, man, you’ve gotta try it. Every third Thursday is open mic karaoke— REO Speedwagon is my jam—”
“I swear to God, Gus, if you don’t shut up, I’m going to break your nose.”
My lips clamped shut and I gestured for her to speak.
“Look,” she continued, walking into my kitchen as her eyes lingered on the bottle of whiskey. Finally moving past it, she went to the coffee maker and dumped out the grounds, then started gathering the ingredients for a fresh pot. “It might not seem like it sometimes, but you and I, we’re on the same side.” She dumped grounds in the filter, placed the filter in the machine, then ran some tap water into the empty pot, using it to fill the maker. “Ever since that shit at Fort Warren— over on George’s Island. Ever since then, things have escalated. You see it, too, I know. Now, more than ever, we have to be a team, right?” She craned her neck and looked over her shoulder. “I mean, we are a team, aren’t we?”
There were days I wasn’t so sure about that, though I wisely, for a change, kept my mouth shut.
“When I send guys out onto the streets, nine times out of ten, they’re hunting vampires, okay? For the most part, we know how to handle vampires.”
They really didn’t, but again— silence maintained.
“So when my guys are out there, facing down enemies who can do all sorts of crazy shit— shit they’ve only seen in movies. I gotta know someone out there has their back. I gotta know if they stumble upon you or some of your friends that— well— you’re going to be on our side.”
“I guess that all depends on if your team decides to wave assault rifles in my face.”
“Dammit, Gus.” The coffee pot gurgled behind her. “They were about to raid a vampire nest. You come stumbling out of there with what looked like a dead girl slung over your shoulders, what do you expect them to do?”
“I don’t know? Not wave guns in my face?”
“Vampires don’t give us that luxury.”
“There are a lot more than just vampires out there.” I leaned forward, looking around conspiratorially, then whispered in her ear. “There are humans, too. Actual people. With actual constitutional rights.”
“Remember what I said about breaking your nose?”
“I remember.”
She sighed a single, exasperated exhalation, then lifted her chin, looking at my dirty ceiling.
“I’m not sure you appreciate who your friends are, Gus. How anyone outside your little inner circle isn’t necessarily your enemy. I’m trying to help you.” She dropped her gaze. “If you knew some of the things that my bosses wanted— what the upper echelons in the United States government are asking— you’d realize that right about now, I’m your best friend.”
“I guess we see friendship differently.”
At some point during the conversation, the coffee pot had stopped brewing and she’d filled her cup, which steamed in her hand.
“So, how close is Doyle’s to Salem?” Fenric was looking into the dark liquid within her cup, as if she might see a picture of the future form there.
“What?” I shook my head, confused.
“You said you stayed late at Doyle’s tonight. I’m not familiar with Doyle’s. Is it anywhere near Salem?”
“Why would you ask that?”
“As you might appreciate, Gus, the PSRD has evolved in the last few weeks in many different ways. One of the ways in which we’ve evolved is our signals intelligence.”
“I don’t follow.”
“We have ways to analyze digital traffic, landlines, cellular, and broadband, and algorithms that dig through that traffic in order to paint a picture of potential supernatural activity.”
“Sounds pretty shady, if I’m being honest.” I pushed past her, retrieved a mug, and filled it up with some coffee of my own.
“Shady or not, it’s been remarkably accurate over the last few weeks. And I have to tell you— earlier tonight— or this morning, as the case may be. We saw quite the picture painted in a particular neighborhood of Salem, Massachusetts.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Would I lie to you?”
“Two months ago, I would have said no way— but recently? Gotta be honest with you, Fenric, I’m not so sure anymore.”
“I haven’t changed, Gus. I’ve been given more leeway, more resources, more money. These are all good things, I don’t know why you have to spin it into negatives.” She shook her head and frustration radiated off of her.
“You’ll have to forgive me if I have doubts about the priorities of the government when it comes to the supernatural world, Fenric. I think we’d both agree that their motives are suspect and as an arm for that government, your motives are equally suspect.”
“I see.”
In the moments after I said those last words, I wondered if perhaps I’d gone a little bit too far. In a way, Fenric was right— we’d always walked opposite sides of the line between the supernatural world and the human one, but we’d at least been close together, within arm’s reach. It seemed as though she was drifting further away, and who knew, perhaps I was, too.
A rattle of the front door doorknob jolted in my ears, my shoulders tensing. I’d meant to send texts to both Indigo and Sammy, asking them not to come into work, but I’d gotten wrapped up with Agent Fenric. But it wasn’t even seven in the morning, what were they doing here that early? I set my mug down and reached for the knife still tucked into the sheath at my belt and strode around the front desk and toward the door as I heard a key playing in the lock. It opened before I got there and three figures pushed through, two familiar faces, which stopped me in my tracks.
Sammy stepped in first and held the door so Indigo could come in after him— then coming in behind Indigo was— Miranda, her friend, who we’d lifted from squalor in the vampire nest she’d taken up residence in, stoned out of her mind.
“What are you all doing here so early?” I asked, more confrontational than I’d intended. Sammy spotted Fenric in the kitchen and froze, a narrow gaze slicing toward me.
“Are we— interrupting something?” he asked.
“Nothing important.” Fenric shrugged and took another drink of her coffee but held the mug in curled fingers as she moved past me and toward the entrance. “Indigo, right?” She diverted her attention to the young female vampire, who held a backpack slung over one shoulder. I made a mental note to ask her how she’d traveled here during the early daylight hours, but figured she’d just wrapped herself up in several layers and those layers were stuffed into the small, black backpack dangling from her arm.
“Yeah?” Her voice was more suspicion than anything else.
“Gus and I were just talking about you.” She gestured toward me with her coffee mug.
“You were?” She eyed me with barely contained contempt.
“No, we weren’t.”
“And you must be the third suspect.” Fenric looked past Indigo and straight at Miranda. I felt terrible for the young woman, her skin still pale, a shine of sweat across her broad forehead. A tangle of brown hair was swept back into a ponytail, and her chapped lower lip was pressed between two rows of yellowed teeth. She was wearing some of Indigo’s clothes, but her all-too-skinny frame nearly swam within the layers of flannel patterned fabric.
“S— suspect?” She looked warily at Indigo.
“Don’t mind Agent Fenric,” Indigo replied and rolled her eyes, “she’s not real police.” She walked past Fenric and me both, then straight toward the kitchen, Miranda following her like a child might follow its parent.
“I’m not sure that’s a hill you want to die on,” Fenric said after her, though Indigo was already immersed in pouring two cups of coffee.
“Seriously,” Sammy said, his arms crossing over his broad chest, “what is this about?”
“It’s about how your boss Gus and his little friend over there put two of my agents in the hospital the other night. How they were spending their evening in a well-known illicit drug den frequented by vampires.”
“I’m sure that’s an exaggeration.” Sammy looked at me for confirmation.
“Actually,” I replied, “that’s more or less accurate.”
“Ahhh, so you admit it.” Fenric set her cup down hard on the desk. “Now can you admit you were in Salem earlier tonight? Can you admit you know something about the chaos that happened there?”
I felt all eyes on me. Neither Indigo nor Sammy were fully aware of the situation in Salem, and neither of them had especially known that I’d traveled there a few hours ago. I parted my lips to respond when a thought occurred to me— a thought born out of the events in that Salem bed and breakfast and the fear that had gripped not just me, but Loren and Doris in the wake of the battle there. It was possible that the answers to some of our questions stood right here in my apartment. But was that a favor I really wanted to call in?
“Okay,” I finally said, trying to sort out the jumbled mess in my mind. For all I knew, Ricard and Lucinda were calling in a horde of Shades at that moment, that any sliver of darkness could contain a lethal assassin, ready to leap out and skewer all of us at a moment’s notice. Loren had been right, I wasn’t exactly difficult to find these days even for someone without access to magic location spells. “I’ll tell you what you want to know. But I need a favor first.”
“What sort of favor?” Fenric lifted the mug again and took a sip, glowering at me from over the lip of the mug.
“I need you to provide protection. A temporary place to stay for Indigo, Miranda and Sammy.”
“Excuse me?” Indigo drew back. “Shouldn’t we have some say in whether or not we want to walk off with little miss jackboots over there?”
“Honestly? No. Not yet anyway.” I sighed. “Agent Fenric is right,” I finally continued, “I was involved in something earlier tonight. In Salem. It— didn’t go well.”
“What does that mean, exactly?” Indigo stepped forward, her anger replaced with concern. “Are you okay?”
“Physically, yes. Mentally— I’m not sure. But the important thing is, I went up against some very powerful adversaries and lost. And the even more important thing is, I’m concerned they’re going to come after me. And if they come after me, they’ll be coming after you and I don’t want you caught in the crossfire.”
“Seems to me, if it went that badly, then maybe you need our help, not to ship us off to some detention facility.”
“I’m not shipping you off to a detention facility.” I shot Fenric a look. “At least I better not be.”
“I’m sure we can find some place without iron bars.” She couldn’t conceal a wry smile on her face and I was starting to regret ever asking for this favor in the first place.
“Gus, this isn’t cool,” Indigo insisted, storming toward me. “You can’t just toss us away when things go badly.”
“This isn’t just things going badly, Indigo. These people are deadly— they’re dangerous— and they’re vengeful. It’s not a fight you want to end up in the middle of, I promise you.”
“That should at least be our choice.”
“Not this time.”
She tensed like a coiled spring and for a moment I was worried she might sprint for the door. Perhaps the only thing that kept her there was Miranda’s presence, her shadow, standing in the kitchen, looking uncertain about the trail of this strange conversation.
“Indigo,” Fenric said, softening her tone. “I was joking about the iron bars, okay? If Gus needs a favor— needs a place for you to stay— I’m obligated to do him that favor. It won’t be prison, it will just be— protection.”
“Please, Indigo.” I tried to keep from pleading. “It’s only for a— short while.” I hoped she didn’t detect the air of falsehood to that statement. The truth was, I had absolutely no idea how long it would be. The battle with Ricard and Lucinda had only proven how over-matched we were and I saw no reason to expect that to change anytime soon.
“So, what? We’re just going to shut down the business?” Sammy gestured toward the front desk. “I can’t answer phones or respond to tip lines while I’m locked up in some dark room.”
“We can bring your equipment,” Fenric promised.
“I can forward the phone line,” I said, though I felt uncertain about that approach myself.
“I would think if you can work out of this rathole, you can work out of anywhere.” Fenric smiled, though her humor seemed lost on everyone else in the room.
I felt an unrelenting pressure building in my temples, the feeling that all of this was taking way too long. For all I knew Lucinda and Ricard were approaching, perhaps just around the corner, trying to be as stealthy as possible as they planned how to rip the flesh from our skeletons. In my mind, I saw the ease with which Ricard snapped Helena’s neck, the sudden thrust of a shadow blade impaling Connor in the chest. A matter of seconds and the two leading members of the ramshackle resistance had been eliminated. How easy would it be for him to do the same to Sammy— or Indigo— or anyone else, for that matter.
“We need to go,” I insisted. “You need to go. Right now.”
The severity of the situation seemed to finally soak in and Indigo nodded briskly, then drained her mug of coffee in one quick swallow. She hefted the backpack to her shoulder and nodded toward Miranda, who looked at me with suspicion, but followed along.
“Oh,” Indigo said as she approached the door, “can you bring the car a little closer? I’m— sensitive to the sun.”
Fenric rolled her eyes. “We’ll take care of you, don’t worry about that.”
Sammy, Indigo and Miranda filed out into the hallway, though Fenric lingered behind, her glower of frustration all but replaced with a look of appreciative concern.
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
“I— don’t think so.”
“Whatever this is, Gus, you shouldn’t have to face it alone. It sounds like maybe you can’t face it alone.”
“I won’t.”
She studied me for a moment but seemed to understand. “And this is about Salem? What happened there earlier?”
“It is. And please, do me a favor— stay out of it? Just for a little while?”
“We have better gear than we did last time,” she promised, referencing a particularly harrowing night by the docks in South Boston. She’d sent a tactical team in to help me face down a vampire sorcerer and had lost half a dozen of her agents in the process. I was still haunted by the images of that night, a rage of violet magic searing human flesh, casting operatives aside like rag dolls.
“I appreciate that. For now— please— leave it to me. If I change my mind, I’ll let you know.”
“All right.” She stepped toward the door. “This other business— the stuff about the vampire nest and about my men in the hospital?”
“Yeah?”
“We’re not done with that, Gus. I meant what I said. We are on the same side, we damn well need to start acting like it.”
“I know and I’m sorry. I promise, you do me this favor and—and-- I’ll make it up to you.” I nodded my understanding, though it was a superficial gesture. At one point I truly believed that Fenric and I were completely aligned, both wanting the same thing. I wasn’t sure about that anymore, and I hated leaning on her for favors like this. But desperate times and all that.
“We’ll talk about that later,” I said. “I promise. For now please— get them somewhere safe— and somewhere as far from here as possible.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this scared, Gus.”
“It’s not fear— it’s caution. These people are dangerous.”
“You best fill me in later.”
“I will.”
Fenric sighed, seemingly still conflicted about whether she was making the right choice. Finally she nodded wordlessly and went out into the hallway, the door banging closed in her wake. Almost instantly, the floorboards creaked behind me and I turned, seeing Doris and Loren emerge from where they’d been concealing themselves in my bedroom.
“So what’s the plan?” Loren asked, leaning on a bent arm, looking almost weaker than ever.
“When I come up with one,” I responded, feeling a heavy weight in my chest, “you’ll be the first to know.”