Embrace, Entice, Emblaze (71 page)

His mouth twitched at the corner. I could tell he wanted to go

on the attack, but he restrained himself, moving away with each step I took toward him.

At my back, I felt the glow of Spence’s power and heard him yell 234

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out the usual spiel, offering the exile a choice. No surprise, the exile told him to eat shit.

The tall exile in front of me had a full view, and I could tell his instinct was to retaliate. He didn’t much care for the other exile, but he liked the idea of inflicting pain on us. That was obvious.

My phone beeped again. I was distracted for a second and

then…I was foggy, like all logic dropped out of my mind for a

moment and I couldn’t quite remember what I…was. It was just a

second, then all the doors in my mind reopened and I was myself again. But it was enough. The exile had disappeared.

“Hey, why’d you let him go?” Spence asked from beside me.

“I…I didn’t. He must have used some kind of mojo on me. One

second I had his number; the next I was— I don’t know— and then he was gone and you were beside me.”

“Memory?”

“I think so. He only got through my defenses for a moment— I

wasn’t keeping my guard up,” I said, now cross with myself. I

should have been better prepared, but I’d been concentrating on the physical instead of the internal.

A
rookie
mistake, Vi.

“Don’t beat yourself up. You did something right if he was

running away.”

But that was just the point: I hadn’t. And one more thing I realized: this wasn’t the first exile I’d seen flee. Outnumbered or not, the exile at the farmhouse had taken off too. But it just wasn’t in their makeup to run.

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“Hmm,” I said, not up to speculating with Spence right now.

Instead, I fished my phone out of my pocket. Onyx would be

delighted when he found out his text had caused me so much

trouble. “It’s the address for Nahilius.”

“This day just gets better and better.”

“Spence, you need a hobby.” I scrolled down my phone to the

next message. It was from Griffin.

We have a lead on the Scriptures. Can’t find Lincoln or Magda.

Let them know if you hear from them. Everyone at Hades now!

“Shit,” I said under my breath.

“Bad news?”

“No, good maybe. Just bad timing. We have to get back to

Hades,” I said as I walked toward the plane the exile had come from.

We were running out of time and there was still so much to do.

“But what about Nahilius?” Spence persisted.

I spun, close to falling off the emotional ledge I was already

balancing on so precariously.

“Do you think I don’t want to go after Nahilius? Do you think I don’t want to help Lincoln? I can’t be everywhere at once, Spence!” I yelled.

Spence looked down and didn’t respond. I turned around

again and proceeded into the mouth of the plane, getting back

to business.

Push
it
aside, Vi. Remember: no quitting!

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“Somehow, when the exile was inside here, I couldn’t sense him

as well.”

That’s why I couldn’t sense them at the airport.

“Yeah, I couldn’t sense him at all,” Spence admitted, a little deflated.

“What kind of plane is this?” I asked Spence.

“This
plane
? Oh, Violet, how can you not know what this is? I mean, this isn’t a
plane
; this is an artwork.
This
is a moment in time, an extreme piece of machinery that will— ”

“Spence!” I cut him off.

“You have no appreciation,” he said, now glum. “It’s an Antonov, the biggest military transport plane in the world. You need a tank in a hurry, this is your baby!” He overemphasized every word with supportive hand gestures.

“Do you need a moment alone with the plane?” I asked, on the

verge of being sick.

“Umm…no. It’s okay,” he said. I think he actually thought I was being genuine.

We walked inside. The inner shell was covered in silver metal

paneling.

“This is new,” Spence said, inspecting the paneling. “It’s everywhere.” He disappeared into the cockpit. “Even up here!” he yelled.

“And there are shutters that pull down over the windows as well!”

“It’s what they were talking about,” I said, joining him. “It’s titanium. Somehow it distorts the senses. It’s why I couldn’t sense them clearly at the airport and why that exile seemed to appear out of nowhere. They must be in one of these planes.”

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“Well, that narrows things down considerably. Antonov planes

are few and far between. I’d be surprised if there was more than one at the airport, though…” He trailed off.

“What?”

“This is a military plane, which means it’ll be in a restricted area.

It won’t be easy.”

“Lucky I have someone around who can pull off a wicked

disguise, then,” I said.

“Too true, Eden,” Spence said with a wink.

————

I sent Spence to meet up with everyone at Hades, telling him I

needed to run home first and I would meet him there.

Once I was on my own, I called Steph. She was at the library, so I jumped in a taxi.

I found her sitting at one of the big communal tables, though

I noticed no one else was sharing the space. It was strewn with books, which surrounded her laptop. Steph had claimed the whole area for herself.

I took in what, to me, was a windstorm of papers, highlighted

photocopies, and newspaper clippings, and felt more exhausted

than ever. It looked like it would be difficult to make any sense of the material and impossible to actually
get
to it all. But I should have had more faith. Steph is, after all, a genius of sorts. Not to mention her super- handy photographic memory she never

willingly flaunts.

“Dare I ask?” I queried nervously, worried that she would snap

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at me. This workload definitely went above and beyond the normal call of friendship.

Steph barely looked up from a newspaper clipping she was

reading. “Well, let’s just say the guy doesn’t have a Facebook page.

It’s not that it’s difficult so much as there is not any one piece of significant information about him. Only a few words here and

there. I’ve had to trace him through other people I think he has done this kind of corporate stuff to— you know, other victims.”

“Wow, I never would have thought to do that.”
Or known how
.

“The bottom line is, I’m not getting very far. All I can really tell you is that he’s been around, involved in a whole heap of

extremely profitable companies, and by the time he leaves or

disappears, they’re going under or already bankrupt. There always seems to be some scandal with the owner or a major financial

controller: Skase, Conrad Black. He’s been everywhere. Someone

else always ends up getting the blame and later, there seems to be a lot of mysterious deaths. One guy even jumped off the back of his yacht— Maxwell, I think, or something like that. It’s like the stuff you see on TV when a shady businessman gets blamed for

overpaying himself and stealing money on the side, but when it

comes down to it, the authorities can never actually find where he stashed the money, and six months later, you hear he had a sudden heart attack or similar.”

“Oh my God,” I said.

“Yeah, and while there’s always a fall guy, I think the one actually getting away with the money is— ”

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“Nahilius,” I finished for her.

“Exactly. The problem is, I can’t find much about Lincoln’s

mother here. The company was all run privately, and pre- Internet, which makes it hard.”

I remembered that Lincoln kept all his mom’s old company

documents in his spare bedroom at the warehouse. It was basically stacked to the roof with boxes. I felt for the key in my pocket.

Someone
had
interfered.

“Why don’t you just tell me or something?” I said, looking up.

“Vi? Honey, how are we on planet earth?” Steph asked,

watching me.

“Oh, sorry. It’s just, I had an idea and I get the feeling I wasn’t the first one to have it.”

“Seriously?” she said, catching on. “Messages from above?

Christ, Vi, you better watch out who you tell this stuff to. Even the God Squad might find some of your bag weird.”

I collapsed into the chair beside her. “I find it insane.”

She nudged me from the side. “You know, you don’t have to

carry the cross on your own.”

I looked at her blankly. I got the gist…still.

“You need to simplify. You’re trying to save everyone, but the

thing is, you can’t be everywhere at once and no one expects you to be.”

“I know, but Phoenix is going to get the Scriptures if we don’t get there first. Griffin thinks he knows where they are, which means— ”

“You have to go after them instead of going after Lincoln?”

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I dropped my head and tried to hold back the tears. Steph put a hand on my shoulder.

“Sweetie, you’re no good to anyone like this. You’re just going through the motions. You love him, anyone can see that, and frankly, you’re better with him anyway. If you have to go up against Phoenix, do you really want to do that without Lincoln by your side?”

With that, there was no stopping the flood. I started breaking

into snotty sobs. Letting the first tear out is always the mistake.

“It’s horrible. Loving him. Especially when…he doesn’t love me, Steph. You don’t love someone you don’t trust. He trusts Magda.”

“Bullshit! I mean, the guy’s being a dick, let’s face it. He should be working with you and trying to get the Scriptures, but we both know why he’s going after Nahilius.”

“We do?”

She gave me a gentle push. “What would you want to do if you

knew someone had hurt your dad and was potentially lethal to

anyone he came across? What would you do if you finally let yourself care enough about someone again and the one that had taken everything from you once before returned?”

“I…I don’t understand.”

“Yes you
do
, Vi. You just don’t want to admit it because then you’ll know exactly what you’re going to do.”

We were both silent for a bit. Steph passed me a tissue to mop

up the leakages. I thought back to the exile in the alley who told Lincoln that Nahilius was coming for what was his.

When I finally thought I might be able to open my mouth

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without letting Niagara Falls return, I took in a few hiccupped breaths and tried to let them out slowly, through quivering lips.

“He doesn’t want to be hurt again. He doesn’t want Nahilius to

take the person he cares about the most.”

“And?” Steph pushed.

“And that’s why he didn’t want me involved,” I said, trying to

calm my heart that was now racing, part horrified, part excited.

“Because?”

“Because…he cares about me the most.”

“
Because
he loves your ass in the epic sense!” Steph said, giving me a little job- well- done pat on the back. This was as far as her deep and meaningful would extend. “Right,” she said, standing

and starting to pack books away. “What’s the plan?”

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chapter
twenty

“And as soon as he came near the camp…Moses’s anger burned

hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at
the foot of the mountain.”

eXodus 32:19

Th e God Squad, as Steph was still tagging them, was sitting at what was becoming our usual table at Hades.

When I’d walked in, I was surprised to see Onyx at the bar chatting to one of the bar staff , semi-civil. He was dressed in pants and a black shirt; he was clean, recently shaven; and though he was sipping on what I was sure was straight bourbon, I was also quite sure he wasn’t drunk. Every time I saw him lately, he looked more…human.

Th ough he was still fll awed in many ways, he was defi nitely less insane, and though I wouldn’t ever want to test the boundaries, he seemed less sinister. Now, well…Now he was just mean.

Right on cue, as I walked by, he gave me an icy stare and looked me up and down.