Summoned Chaos (3 page)

I’d been struggling for acceptance ever since.

“Marcus, I care about you,” Quinn continued, bringing me back to the present. “A lot. So please keep this in mind when I say that you need to get over yourself. Everyone has been through a rough patch. Yours may have been rougher than most, but you got through it. Burning bridges, especially now, is just stupid.”

I was silent for a few minutes as I absorbed her words. Hearing her admit her feelings made me tingle in my happy places, despite her admonishment. She was right. Then again, she normally was.

“You still there?” She sounded worried.

“Yeah. Just soaking it all in.”

“And messing with your scar, I bet.” Mock admonishment replaced her concern.

I pulled my finger away from the long, white line that ran down the right side of my neck and into the collar of my shirt. “No.”

She laughed. “You really are a terrible liar.”

I smiled, warmed by the musical sound of her amusement. “I wish you were here, Quinn. I could use the moral support.”

“I miss you too,” she replied. My heart sped up a few beats. Then she switched topics before we collapsed once again into an awkward conversation about our relationship. “How’s the research going?”

“Poorly,” I admitted. “I haven’t been able to dig up any additional details about your father’s trial. That’s partially because I’ve been run pretty ragged by these rifts. The other part is because I still haven’t been able to get approval for full Wizarding credentials.”

“You’re doing your best.” She couldn’t hide the disappointment in her voice. It stabbed like a knife in my gut.

I inhaled deeply. “My best apparently isn’t good enough. At least, not yet. If I can just cut through the red tape and get those credentials, I can access the secure files in the Research Library. Maybe then I can get a lead on who screwed over your father twenty years ago.” All I needed was a break. Just one piece of evidence to get the ball rolling. “If you have any more of his files, I could sure use them.”

“I’ll see what I can dig up.”

In addition to finding out who was behind the attack at the Homestead, Quinn and I had been investigating her father’s past, but we were getting nowhere. Two decades earlier, Simeon Fawkes had been conducting clandestine research on the dead for the Council’s R&D department. His mission was to determine why the Skilled lived longer than Normals. Without warning, his team was disbanded and he was imprisoned on trumped up charges of dark Necromancy. After his release a couple of years ago, he’d stayed under the magical radar.

Until Quaos.

Not only were they trying to steal Hexcalibur, but they’d reanimated a corpse using Simeon’s old research notes. Simeon fled to the paranormal back alleys known as the Underground because he knew the Council would blame him.

Which they did.

Putting a death sentence on his head for violating his parole was a bit of overkill, though.

The issue ran deeper than the Council’s overreaction. Raising the dead took significant amounts of power. Imbuing that corpse both with willpower and the ability to regenerate new cells—especially after I beheaded it—was unheard of. There was simply no way a group as powerful as Quaos could exist without someone on the Council knowing about it.

Our leaders were a lot of things, but blind wasn’t one of them. Quaos being involved in both the attack at my folks’ place and using Simeon’s old notes to resurrect a body
had
to be connected.

But knowing there was a link and finding one were two separate matters.

Despite all my efforts, Quinn’s father was still on the run with the Quaos zombie. Considering he’d been screwed twice in as many decades, I doubted he’d ever return.

And I was to blame.

Quinn had never held a grudge for dragging her and Simeon onto the case, but I still hadn’t forgiven myself. Had I not sought his advice after killing the zombie, he’d have never been connected with the body. And when the two of them fled to the Underground, I’d tried to prove their innocence, only to lead their enemies straight to them.

I wanted to tell her how sorry I was, again, that I’d let her down. That I was still hell-bent on keeping my promise to uncover the people behind her father’s betrayal. That I would do everything in my power to prove that I was worthy of her affection. But those were words for another time, preferably in person.

Besides, someone was coming down the hall.

“Listen, I need to run. Apparently the inquiry board has finished for the night.”

“Okay. See you soon.”

The line went dead. No matter how long we talked, it never felt like enough.

Maybe I needed to do something about that.

I shoved the phone in my pocket as the figure approached.

“Hey, Shifter,” Mick said. “Long day, eh?”

“Yeah. Those debriefs were painful.”

Mick rolled his eyes, then plopped down next to me on the bench. “I’ve never had a good experience in those chambers. Every time it’s the same questions. ‘How could this happen?’ ‘Who’s going to pay for it?’ Blah, blah, second-guess, blah. It’s easy to armchair quarterback a mission when you spend your days in a nice, cool office reading reports. Freakin’ politicians.”

I nodded.

“I heard you really gave them a beating.” He sounded intrigued. Maybe even a little awed.

“Lost my cool is more like it.” My chest tightened with embarrassment. “I’m an idiot.”

“Idiot or not, you apparently got the board riled up. Rancid Rancin was all sorts of pissed after you stormed out. They decided to postpone the next debrief until tomorrow just to give her time to calm down. Not that I mind,” he added with a grin. “Because it was mine.”

“Rancin’s had it out for me ever since I started working here at HQ. Maybe this was just my subconscious way of getting back at her. You know, a cheap shot before I retreated to the safety of my home.”

“Speaking of which, what are you still doing here?”

I shrugged. “I ran out of steam halfway to the exit. Wound up calling someone for moral support.”

“The girlfriend?”

I shifted uncomfortably. “It’s complicated.”

“Ah,” he said. We fell into silence, then he stood. “Well, I’m headed out. You should go home as well.”

“Good idea.” I heaved myself to my feet.

We plodded down the sterile hall. “So, aside from getting under Rancin’s skin, how’d your debrief go?”

“As expected.” I meant to sound nonchalant, but it came out aggravated.

“That bad, huh?”

“Yeah. I’ve certainly had better evenings. Even at HQ.” I ran a hand over my weary face. “I wonder what’ll happen to us.”

Mick shrugged. “I spoke with one of my buddies who works for Elder Watkins. Since Arbent is the leader of the team, he’s taking the brunt of all this. The Council suspended him for one month without pay, plus he will receive official reprimand from the Elders. The rest of us will likely get benched until further notice.”

“More like until they need another rift closed.”

“That sounds about right.”

The pressure in my head thumped against the side of my skull. “Man, what a mess.”

“Could have been worse. At least we didn’t lose anyone.”

I was hesitant to ask the question lingering on my lips, but forced the words out. “Any word on Alistair?”

Mick’s face was suddenly lined with exhaustion and worry. “Nothing good. That venom is nasty stuff and no one knows how to counter it. R&D swears they can create an antidote based on the samples we recovered, but there’s no telling if they’ll be successful in time. The Healers have him in an induced coma to slow the spread of the venom in his system.”

I felt sick. The kid wasn’t ready for the field, but he’d stepped up when it mattered most. And he’d been grievously wounded in the process. The scar on my neck tingled as if to remind me how fragile and unfair life can be sometimes.

“What’s your opinion?” I asked. “Think he’ll make it?”

“No idea. The fact that he’s still alive is good, but he has a rough road ahead if he’s going to recover.”

The poor kid.

“Who the hell puts a greenhorn on a rift team like that? Especially one who was clearly not ready?”

Mick shrugged. “Daddy has connections. Uh, no offense,” he added.

“None taken,” I replied, covering my discomfort with a forced smile. “Speaking of nepotism, how is Old Man Monroe taking all this?”

“Hard. He was at the family infirmary the moment we arrived with Alistair and refused to leave his bedside. He was still there when the Council recalled me for my inquiry. As much as I dislike the conceited jerk, my heart bleeds for the guy.”

I only knew the Councilman tangentially through my dealings with the rift teams, but he seemed like the embodiment of a stereotypical politician. Stiff and scheming, he was always around when something important was going down. Rumor had it he was a hard-ass, both with the policies he endorsed and the ones he opposed. But bureaucrat or not, he was still a father. I couldn’t begin to fathom what he was going through with his child on Death’s doorstep.

Hopefully, I never would.

We walked through the security point near the entrance of HQ, pausing to recover our gear from the guards. A lot of Council members, and from what I heard much of the Skilled community, questioned the use of Normals for the building security, but I respected the politics of the move. The two societies were only a couple decades into the peace accord, one that was signed after generations of us living in secrecy. The magically gifted Skilled had spent seven-hundred some-odd years in hiding after our massive civil war killed tens of thousands of innocent Normal bystanders. Most of them died at the hands of a version of the Black Death that had mutated when exposed to the unrestrained magic we used in the war.

Or, at least, that’s what the history books taught us.

Whatever the actual motivation, the Normals came after us with a vengeance under the guise of various forms of persecution. The Inquisition, the Crusades, the Salem Witch Trials and so on. The names always changed, but the mission was always the same: retribution against those who’d inadvertently wiped out so much of their population. In response, most of the Skilled went into hiding, practicing their craft in secret while wearing masks of Normalcy in public.

With the Reformation, however, greater effort was placed on meshing the two societies—the last thing any of us wanted was more conflict. The Delwinn Council, specifically the Elders who had final authority on all major issues, felt that hiring Normals to protect HQ sent a clear message that the Skilled were completely onboard with the union.

Mick certainly seemed to approve. He smiled at the pretty blonde who handed him his staff while the bored man with dark hair made me sign for my gun and sword. I strapped the holster to my thigh while Mick and the female guard chatted. It wasn’t until I chambered a round into the Glock that Mick tore his attention away from her.

His eyes widened with surprise. “You keep that thing loaded?”

“Trust me, when you need it, you don’t have time to load it.”

He shook his head, chuckling while I slung my sword onto my back. We thanked the guards as we departed, but Mick lingered while the lady wrote her number on his hand.

“Hey, I completely forgot to ask how you were feeling,” he said, jogging to catch up with me near the doors. “Any headaches? Exhaustion? Muscle pain?”

“Migraine,” I admitted. “And my body feels like I’ve run a marathon, but at least I’m mobile. If I’d tapped my Skill like I did today a couple years ago, I’d have been comatose for days.”

“Magical atrophy is something we all have to worry about, Marcus. Use it or lose it, right?” he added with a wink.

I found no humor in his comment. “I lost it hard. Getting back in shape has been harder.”

“It’ll take a while to fully recover. Spend time in the library, keep hitting the gym, and practice, practice, practice.”

“Mind, body, and Skill strong, Grasshopper?”

“More like ‘Do or do not,’ Padawan.”

I laughed, then winced as my skull throbbed.

“Here.” Mick placed the hand without the phone number on my head. He started murmuring and the heat from the Healing Spell melted into my skull. It felt like someone was massaging my brain with a giant down pillow. The warmth subsided, as did most of the pain.

“Better?”

I nodded, basking in the relief. “Thanks.”

“Anytime.” He turned back toward the door. “So what’s your plan now that we’re on the sidelines?”

“I’m not sure. Get some sleep, then check on my bees in the morning. You?”

Mick glanced at the guard. “We’ll see.”

I shook my head. “I doubt we’ll be benched for long. It’s just a matter of time before they’ll need us. We may not be popular right now, but we have the one quality the Council needs the most.”

“Experience?”

“A pulse.”

Mick’s booming laugh echoed off the walls. “True. Take care, Shifter,” he added, offering me his hand.