BROKEN BLADE (20 page)

“You can’t tell me that they could have a werewolf in there, or a werecat, and that NH will still quietly sit and let them do…whatever. That they just
take
it.”

“You’d be surprised at what a were will do when it’s being pumped full of
Night
. Most of them are barely more than zombies.” Justin shoved off the wall, skimming a hand back over his dreads. “The witches are just as bad…they’ve got their own little army casting spells twenty-four seven, holding everybody under magical lock and key. Magic is either locked inside them or they trap them in a confinement spell so any magic they cast is slammed back at the user. Even the pacifists are treated like war criminals.”

The more I heard, the sicker I got.

“Where is this?”

He slid me a look, and then slowly shook his head. “Going there right now is insane, Kit. The two of us would never make it out alive.”

“So we just leave people trapped like that?”

A muscle twitched in his jaw. “For the time being, we have to. We’ve got another problem on the table. But…I’m working on it. I’d planned…” He shrugged. “I’m working on it. Right now, some of us are doing what we can…
quietly…
to spread the word about the dangers there. Hopefully it will save some people before we can figure out a better approach.”

The silver on his sleeves flared so bright, it almost blinded me. “But we have to be careful…anything we do will take time, and whether I like it or not, some of the people there
can’t
be let out.”

“What’s that mean?”

He lifted a hand and I watched as the silver threads winding around his arm spread out. They were sliver-thin—twined together and twisting around to make that dense, odd design. I had absolutely no idea how much silver he had worked into that thing. A hell of a lot, though. The threads separated completely and I realized then that nothing but his magic held that silver to his sleeves.

It formed a circle in the air above our heads and I lifted my gaze to stare at it.

“The metallurgist there…his magic is stronger than mine,” Justin said, his voice quiet and soft. “I could feel him from miles off and he made my teeth hurt. They don’t kill him because he’s a useful lab rat…plus, he’s hard to kill. They told me the Banner cops have tried to kill him four times, always using iron bullets. Each time, he shattered the metal before it could touch him.”

“Why did they try to kill him?”

“They first time was because Banner had been tracking him for over six months. When they finally caught up with him, he was using a human girl for a pin cushion.” Justin turned the silver threads into rain. I flinched as all those threads separated into pieces no longer into my pinkie and came hurtling down around us. It didn’t touch me or him, but I could hear it slamming into everything around, my desk, the carpet floor, the table, the couch. “He was using metal shards, no bigger than this to penetrate that girl’s body, over and over. She was still alive when they first arrived. She bled out before they could take him down.”

My eyes felt hot and my gut had long since got raw and nasty. “Is this place a hospital or a prison for the criminally insane?”

“Take your pick.” Justin bared his teeth at me. “But you could walk in there completely sane, and completely harmless. It won’t matter to them, as long as you’re not human. They’ll take you; they’ll break you and they’ll keep you until you die. Some of the people can’t ever leave, though—no other place could hold them and killing them isn’t…easy. Might not even be possible. Some of them have to be contained, like the metallurgist—he was born evil, I think. The magic just made him crazier. The metal made him meaner, fed his need for blood.”

“Did you worry that would happen to you?”

Justin stared at the silver littering the floor around us and then he looked up. I felt the soft, sighing whisper of his power dance through the air and then the silver gathered itself back up, winding into that graceful chain and returning to his sleeves. “I was already mean, Kit,” he said, smiling half-heartedly. “Maybe not homicidal, but I had a knack for killing things. And they were ready to leave me there if I didn’t agree to get trained. The metal was calling to me, taunting me…teasing me. If I didn’t say yes…”

Something sick crossed his face and he turned away. “I didn’t want to take the chance. I said yes. I gave the oath and they took it from me in blood. If I tried to leave before I fulfilled that commitment, I would have died. No second chances. No bargaining.”

Now
I
felt sick.

“And now?”

He shrugged and flicked a look at me. “Time was up right before the job went down with you and your…Damon. I was about to turn my shield in when I heard the rumblings, so I decided I’d stay and make sure things were clear there. Banner isn’t
all
a sick monster, Kit. The sickness is in the higher-ups and I figured if there were problems, I’d rather be in a place where I could get you help if you needed it.” He grimaced. “Sometimes I can’t decide if I regret that choice or not…if I hadn’t stayed, I wouldn’t have been around to rope you into that job. But if I had left Banner…”

I swallowed and turned away. “If you’d left, you couldn’t have brought Banner down on Jude. He was going to grab me at some point anyway, right?”

Justin didn’t say anything. But I suspected he saw it the same way I did. Jude was an opportunistic snake and he’d waited for his moment. He’d have made his move sooner or later.

Rubbing the heel of my hand over my chest, I stared at my weapons wall. During the evening hours last night, TJ’s wolves had dropped off more of my gear and I’d spent an hour putting them back up. It no longer felt so naked and I felt some measure of calm just looking at the familiar lines of each blade, the staff, the bow. Pulling one of my knives from the wall, I started to toss it, concentrating on that—just that—as I waited for my nerves to settle.

I wasn’t quite back up to my old speed, but I was getting there. And this time, I didn’t drop the blade. As it spun above my hand, I forced myself to think. “And now? What now, Justin? You’re clear with them?”

“Very.”

I didn’t look at him. “And safe?”

“Yeah.”

The edge I heard in his voice caught my attention and I grabbed the blade’s handle before I turned my head to look at him.

A mean smile slanted his lips. “I spent the past few years gathering every dark, dirty secret I could on the higher-ups, Kit. And there are a lot of them. Unless I do something that violates the charter, they can’t—and
won’t
—bother me now.” Then he shrugged. “There’s no reason for them to, really. They’re cold-blooded assholes, but they are efficient. They only focus on problems. I’m not a problem anymore.”

Maybe Justin wasn’t, but I sure as hell felt like being one.

What I was feeling must have shown on my face because he said softly, “Don’t.”

I just stared at him. Banner had made my life
hell
. And now to learn this?

“They’re too big for just a couple of us to take on right now,” Justin said quietly. “The entire system is fucked up, but once we get the poison out of it, it will work again.”

“And how do we get the poison out of it?”

A faint smile curled his lips. “Lots of ways to handle poison, Kit. But we’ve got bigger problems...”

His gaze moved past me to linger on the desk, the drawings, the pictures.

“Like Pandora’s Box.”

* * * *

I needed to breathe.

I needed to move.

I needed to think.

But I couldn’t leave the office until I knew what was going to come of the job.

I couldn’t know
that
until I talked to Pandora.

Isidore.

Whatever she called herself.

After the unsettling discussion with Justin, I tucked myself away behind my desk and tried to focus back on the job. 
Possible
job. Possible nightmare. Disaster in the making. Apparently, that was the sort of job I courted these days.

Pandora’s box, for the love of all things holy…

I went to start doing another search, trying not to think about Justin standing at the window and brooding, but before I could think about what to look for, a revelation came to me.

A moment, one of those random memories that come to you out of the blue.

I’d gone to a friend’s months ago. Right before my life had exploded and careened straight to hell. One of the Speakers Damon had been investigating had been a friend of mine…of ours, I guess. Her name was Es, and she was one of the strongest witches I knew. Stronger even than Justin, although her power was a different sort. Justin was a warrior; Es was a healer.

Banner
did
serve a purpose in our world—they hunted the NH problems that managed to slip past our notice, not that it happened often. Damon had come to their attention after several Assembly members had died and Banner worried the new Alpha was about ready to make a big power play—
if
that had been his intent, it could have been a dangerous situation. Damon had hundreds of werecats in his clan and he was smart, sneaky as hell.

Justin had come to me to clear Damon before they decided to execute him. It turned out that all of it had happened because of
me
. Damon had been killing Assembly members, all right. He’d been killing people who had spoken to my grandmother. All hail the evilest bitch in the world.

She’d been looking for information on me and those who had seemed at all
agreeable
to giving any information had shortly ended up dead by Damon’s hand.

Es had been the first one he’d spoken with—she’d told my grandmother to get fucked.

When I’d found all of this out, I’d almost been sick.

Pandora’s box
…

The memory tried to work free and my gut churned as I tried to avoid thinking about everything
else
that happened as a result of that case.

“They wanted you simply because they believe you can show them Aneris Hall.”

“None but our blood can find it. It’s like the fabled Fountain of Youth or Pandora’s Box.”

“Well, those aren’t quite so fabled…”

Not quite so fabled.

Narrowing my eyes, I hunched over my computer. It had been months since I’d seen or spoken to Es. But she’d sounded pretty damn certain when she’d said that.

Pandora’s Box wasn’t so fabled.

Did that mean she knew something about the box? About the bearer?

I typed up a message and sent it, keeping it short and sweet, hoping she’d do the same.

My head was a mess and I felt like I was walking on the razor’s edge here. I didn’t need to have anything else thrown at me, even if it was under the guise of well-meaning concern.

In case that didn’t pan out, I went ahead and sent Colleen a message, too, another short and sweet note.

Do you know anything about Pandora’s Box? Legit info, not myth or legend. Thanks, K.

That was it.

After I’d sent the message to her, I shot Justin a look. He had his head dipped, chin resting on his chest, posture deceptively relaxed. I knew better. There was so much tension, the air felt like it was going to crack. I hoped he’d be able to level off before our lovely new friend showed up. I was counting on
him
to be the steady one here. Me and steady hadn’t had a passing acquaintance in months.

I went to turn back to the computer but I hadn’t so much as thought about what to do next before Justin said, “Stop worrying, Kit.”

I looked up at him.

He was still in the same position, head down, eyes closed, slumped with his shoulder resting against the wall by the window.

“What?”

He shrugged lazily. “You’re worrying. It’s all but eating you up. You got enough to handle without worrying about me. I’m good.”

“You don’t look good.”

He slid me a faint smile then. “Not yet, but I will be. Just give me a few.”

I blew a slow, careful breath. “I can do that, but you need to understand…we can’t just leave things the way they are.”

“I know.” He nodded slowly, shifting his attention to stare back out at the dismal little square that made up my parking lot. “It’s just too big a job, too big a prospect for you and me to handle alone. And we’d have to be careful about who we trusted to help us if we take this on.”

I processed that. Okay, I could see where he was coming from there.

“You worry about this…figure out whether or not we should do this thing for…Isidore,” he said.

“You going to let me call the shots on that one?”

“Yep.” Once more, he closed his eyes and settled back into that deceptive, lazy slump. “Your gut knows more than the two of us combined. I’ll trust what you think is best.”

Chapter Fifteen

I felt her coming.

The air got heavy and tense.

The magic crackled; Justin’s responded to the energy dancing in the air and I thought I might choke on how much power was in the air.

It climbed higher and higher, seconds ticking away into minutes as her presence drew closer. She must be strolling along at a snail’s pace, letting us think and worry and brood, I thought.

Something on my computer chimed and I looked over, thankful for the distraction, but it wasn’t much of one. The message from Colleen was short and sweet.

No. Didn’t think it was anything more than a legend. If it’s real, I’d say don’t open the box
.

I grimaced and deleted the message, making sure it was gone from both my inbox and the drive.

No response from Es yet.

Just in case she decided to reply while Isidore was in the office, I shut the computer down and put my phone on silent. Wasn’t taking that chance.

“We going to let her know we’re aware of what’s up?” Justin asked.

I’d been wondering just that. Now, as I caught sight of her coming across the parking lot, I nodded slowly. “I don’t think there’s any way around it. I can’t do this, or even decide, without more info.”