Chapter 1
Had I known I was going to end up in a frigid Russian jail cell by day’s end, I’d have worn more layers. But of course, hindsight was a callous bitch with perfect vision, and the two of us had never seen eye-to-eye. To be honest, I still wasn’t sure what I’d done to deserve this shit. I didn’t mean that karmically either; I’d earned consecutive life sentences in that department and knew better than to appeal to fairness.
Killing people isn’t great for one’s chi.
Still, the day had started off innocently enough: a lukewarm cup of coffee, a bagel with cream cheese, and a relatively unremarkable trip to Logan International Airport. I’d met up with the S.I.C.C.O. squad’s off-duty Special Agent Leo Jeffries and his band of Freaky misfits, including their newest would-be recruit, my ex-lover and Boston P.D. Detective, Jimmy Collins.
“It’s a trial run,” Leo had clarified as we watched Jimmy shuffle through the automatic doors with a slew of black straps strung across his chest, his broad shoulders hardly straining from the weight of the three bulging duffel bags. The size of the bags made me wonder what the hell they’d packed. I knew it wasn’t guns, more’s the pity; airport personnel tend to frown on transporting firearms overseas, not to mention armed passengers. I ached to have my own private arsenal, but all I’d packed were the necessities: boots, tennis shoes, heels, a few mix-and-match outfits, and enough makeup to keep me from looking too much like a vampire. Between my extremely pale skin and bright red hair, it took a bit of work to make me look human, let alone a fresh-faced beauty. Watching Jimmy close the distance, his body looking remarkably fit beneath his button-down shirt and blue jeans, I wished I’d packed more.
Silly, but true.
“We needed to see him in action,” Leo was explaining, “but it had to be off the books. If our agency or his department found out what we were up to, we’d have a lot of awkward questions to answer. So here we all are. On…vacation.” Leo adjusted his carry-on bag. The swarthy, middle-aged man wore a pair of faded Levi’s, a plaid button-up, and a pair of hiking boots—nothing like the corporate executive look he’d sported the first time we met. With his boater’s tan, trim physique, and easy smile, he reminded me of a good-natured, highly capable HGTV handyman.
Personally, I wasn’t thrilled to find out Jimmy was tagging along, no matter what Leo had to say on the subject, but I couldn’t exactly bitch about it now; I was the one who’d suggested Jimmy reach out to Leo in the first place. “It’s fine,” I said, shrugging as if it made no difference to me, my bright Irish brogue at odds with my dismissive tone.
Leo cocked an eyebrow. “That was a lie.”
I sighed. “More like a half-truth.”
“Another lie.”
“Whatever,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“Since when can I read you?” Leo asked, sounding legitimately concerned as he searched my face. That was Leo’s thing, his ability—being able to tell when someone was lying. An insanely nifty trick for a federal agent, but a damned annoying trait in a human being. Of course, his current anxiety made sense: he’d never been able to read me before.
But then, a lot had changed since we last spoke.
“Hello Quinn,” Jimmy said once he was within speaking distance. Lakota—one of Leo’s subordinates and a self-described seer—trailed behind the notably tall black man, popping bubble gum. She wore baggy, boyish clothes that purposefully obscured her gender, her long, black hair tied back in a thick braid, face lean and makeup-less.
“Jesus, what the hell happened to you?” Lakota asked, staring wide-eyed at me like I’d caught the plague.
I glared at the newcomer but said nothing. Honestly, there was nothing I could say. The answer to her question was too daunting to tackle in the crowded airport terminal, and my shoulder was starting to ache from the strap of my own bag.
“I heard about Dez,” Jimmy interjected, filling the silence. “I just wanted to say I’m really sorry. My gran told me what happened. I was out of town, or I’d have come to the wake.”
I opened my mouth to reply, then shut it and looked away. For the second time in as many minutes, I was at a loss for words. My aunt Dez, the woman who’d raised me—not to mention a friend of Jimmy’s family—had been murdered almost a month ago. I’d managed to hunt down and irradiate her killer with one of the most powerful magical artifacts in existence, but that hadn’t proved as therapeutic as I’d hoped. In fact, I’d spent the last few weeks doing little else besides watching old movies Dez used to love and working out hard enough to collapse into bed every night. This was the first time I’d bothered putting on real clothes in weeks.
Basically, I was a hot, fit mess.
Which Lakota, the seer—whose ability made it possible for her to look directly into someone’s soul—must have immediately realized. Her awed expression told me all I needed to know about how shitty—how emotionally devastated—I looked.
“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Leo asked, still studying my face.
“Of course, I am,” I replied, forcefully.
Leo and Lakota exchanged glances.
“I invited ye lot to join me,” I said. “Not the other way around. Tag along if ye want. Or don’t. I don’t care.”
“She cares,” Lakota said.
“Yeah,” Leo replied.
I glowered at them both but didn’t respond. There was no point; between the two of them, they’d be able to cut right through my bullshit. I’d seen them in action, dissecting foes and friends alike with their abilities. Besides, Lakota was right. I did care. I needed them. There was no way I could march into Moscow and find my friend Othello—not to mention rescue our mutual friends—all on my own.
But that didn’t mean I was about to beg them for their help.
“Listen, Othello has been gone for over a month without a word,” I said, switching gears. “I don’t want to waste any more time. If you’re comin’, let’s go. The plane leaves in a couple hours, and ye can ask me whatever ye like once we’re at our gate.”
“Will you tell us the truth?” Leo asked.
“Do I have a choice?” I countered.
Leo shrugged. “Being able to tell when people are lying isn’t the same as being able to make them tell the truth. People lie to themselves far more often than they do everyone else.”
I sighed. “I promise I’ll try to be honest.”
“Good enough for me,” Leo said. “We ready?”
“Wait, where’s Warren?” I asked, just now realizing the remaining member of Leo’s entourage—the squad’s resident psychic—was conspicuously absent. It was his help I’d really been counting on, especially once we got to Moscow. Tracking missing persons wasn’t exactly my specialty, whereas having Warren along was significantly more efficient, like looking for a needle in a haystack, but with a magnet.
“He’s…on vacation,” Leo replied.
I frowned. “Didn’t ye say you’re all on vacation?”
“His vacation plans differed from ours,” Leo replied, pursing his lips.
“He’s shacked up with the wizard doctor who brought him out of the coma,” Lakota interjected. “That creepy lady you recruited.”
“Lisandra?” I asked, jaw hanging open at the thought of the stunning blonde playing patty-cake with the thin, reedy intellectual. “Why? How?” I spluttered.
“Apparently she finds him fascinating,” Leo said, sardonically.
Lakota shuddered. “It’s like watching a cat stare at a bug on the wall.”
I shook my head, cursing my luck. You see, several months back, after an altercation with a unit of highly-trained werebear soldiers, I’d made a deal with Lisandra to revive the injured Warren as penance for getting Leo and his squad involved in my shit. I’d owed them, and I hated owing anyone anything. But Lisandra, a wizard specializing in medical magic and member of the Academy—an institution that raised and trained wizards—had expressed a clinical interest in Warren’s gift early on. An unhealthy interest. These days she reminded me of a sexy, magic-wielding Dr. Moreau.
Warren had never stood a chance.
“We will need him,” I said, finally, letting my frustration show. Othello, who had promptly gone radio-silent after looking into the disappearance of my friend Christoff, his kidnapped wife, and Hilde, Leo’s second-in-command, would likely prove incredibly hard to find without Warren’s unique skill set. Even with the FBI and a detective on my side, Russia’s capital city was a disgustingly huge, moldy haystack.
We needed that magnet, Goddamnit.
“I know,” Leo replied, nodding. “But he insists Lisandra can drop him off whenever we need him. He even offered to have her do the same for us, but I shot that down.”
“I still think it would have been easier to use the Gateway,” Lakota huffed, referring to the magical doorways that made it possible for Freaks and Fae to defy physics and travel almost instantaneously between one place and another. Freaks, like Leo and his crew, were people— and creatures—with remarkable abilities who often lived on the fringes of society, intermingling with the rest of humanity as necessary. The Fae—my people, I guess you could say, though I still wasn’t sure how I felt about that distinction—were an entirely different race who originated from a realm that joined ours but bled over so infrequently they’d become little more than myth: elves, goblins, trolls, and gremlins. The stuff of dreams and nightmares.
“And if we get picked up by the Russian police? Without stamped passports? What then?” Leo threw his hands up, clearly reiterating an old argument.
“You’re just scared of Gateways,” Lakota challenged.
Leo glared at her. “That’s because they shouldn’t exist.”
I snickered, which drew the older man’s ire. “Sorry,” I said, holding my hands up in surrender, “I just haven’t heard someone use that line in a long time.” I really hadn’t. As far as I could tell, science seemed to have—by and large—given up on answering the questions posed by our very existence; trans-dimensional travel was really the least of it.
“We should get going,” Jimmy urged, eyes flicking about with the nonchalance of an off-duty cop, casually assessing potential threats. “We look conspicuous standing around like this.”
“No, you look conspicuous,” Lakota replied. “Standing around holding all that shit without breaking a sweat. Tell more people you aren’t a Regular anymore, why don’t you?”
Jimmy frowned but set down a majority of the luggage. Lakota was right; Jimmy didn’t look the least bit fatigued, despite how heavy all the bags had to be. A Regular—what you might call your average human being—would never have been able to do that. My guess was it had something to do with his recent transformation into what my house plant, the budding Tree of Knowledge, had called a Silver Fox. And no, not the dashing, sugar daddy kind. The monstrous, eat-you-literally kind. “My bad,” Jimmy said.
“Don’t worry about it,” Leo said, patting the man’s shoulder. “There’s a learning curve.”
“Oh, for sure. You should have seen Hilde when she first started,” Lakota said, chomping down on her gum. “Used to leave patches of ice on everything she touched. We had to use a hairdryer on the filing cabinets for at least a week.”
Leo smiled, but it was thin-lipped and pained. Lakota nudged him, jerking her chin towards the ticket counter. “Come on, let’s go get her back.” She strode off, not waiting for her boss to respond. “Oh, and pick up those bags, newbie!” she called, waving.
Jimmy scowled after her. “That kid is going to be the death of me.”
Leo patted him on the shoulder a second time. “You get used to it,” he muttered, then fetched his bag and left the two of us standing there, staring after the duo.
“Oy, Jimmy,” I said, trying to get his attention before we picked up our tickets. He turned to face me, cocking one eyebrow. He’d shaven both his face and his head since I’d last seen him, leaving nothing behind but marvelously sculpted bone structure—a face cast in gleaming obsidian. It was an admittedly severe look for the already imposing, muscular black man. And yet he appeared practically...serene. Nothing like the raging asshat I’d had to put up with lately. What had changed? “Listen,” I said, deciding our heart-to-heart could wait, “about what ye said earlier…about Dez...” I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Anyway, t’anks.”
Jimmy nodded, betraying none of the anger or derision I’d been dreading. “Anytime. You ready?” he asked, his question far more complex than it appeared on the surface. I could practically hear the other questions lurking beneath, like whether it was a good idea to take something like this on right now, or whether I could be counted on to act like a sane, well-adjusted person.
As if I ever had been.
“Aye, as ready as I’ll ever be,” I replied, answering all the questions at once.
“Glad to hear it. Maybe once we’re through security,” he added, “you can tell me why you smell different.” And—with that very obscure, but potentially offensive statement—he snatched up the bags and trailed after the two FBI agents.
Great. So, I had a human lie detector, a soul-gazer, and a bloodhound to answer to the moment we made it to the gate. The thought alone was enough to make me want to turn around, go home, and curl up on my couch. But I guess there were worse things than getting grilled about the train wreck that my life had become.
Like abandoning your friends.
I took hold of the collapsible handle and headed towards the ticket counter.
Moscow, here we come.
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