How Beauty Loved the Beast

chapter Sixteen



“Do you know any lawyers not attached to Ananke?” Travis asked impatiently over her voicemail.

Jolie sipped her morning coffee as she admired the view of Hauk sleeping peacefully in her bed. What would he think of them not just digging up his past but sending it back into court? He’d given uneasy permission for the first. But the second? He’d be pissed.

“This is big,” Travis’s voice continued. “I can’t see how his conviction will stick with all the murkiness surrounding his case and Operation Echis. At least run it by a good lawyer and see. But not one connected to Ananke. Their fingerprints are all over it. Afghanistan has billions in unexploited mineral wealth, and somebody’s using the military to get at it.”

If they could get Hauk’s conviction overturned? If he could be a legal citizen again? That would be worth pissing him off a little. Eddie, a friend of her family who was a few years older than her, had gone to Harvard Law. His parents were probably in Ananke up to their necks. But he was gay and decidedly out of the closet, despite his family’s lack of support. The Order might not have touched him because of that. She’d have to feel it out carefully, but he was a possibility.

“Check the— What the...? Gotta—” A static-y thump, like the phone was dropped, and the connection cut off.

Her nerves tingled, jolting the last of the morning tiredness from her. “Travis?” She tried calling his number.

Hauk stirred, likely awakened by her tone. “Everything okay?”

Travis’s phone went straight to voicemail. She checked her clock. It was after ten. They’d slept in longer than they’d intended. Worry made her grimace. “Travis left a message. It got cut off, and now he’s not answering.”

Hauk swung his legs out of the bed, already in go mode. “Think he got injected?”

“The voicemail was from late last night. He must’ve gone somewhere after the party. So maybe. But an injection wouldn’t stop him from answering his phone.” She shook her foot nervously. It was The Day. The rules were different. “Let me check if he came in to work.” She called downstairs to the valet station and asked to speak to him.

He’d been scheduled. He hadn’t showed. No phone call. Adrenaline kicked in, anxiety for her friend wiping the last traces of sleep from her brain.

Hauk saw her face and didn’t ask questions. “Let’s get home.”

* * *

The tension was touchably thick by the time Hauk and Jolie stepped into the Underlight’s common room. Dr. Echelson stood on a table with the rest of the Thing at his feet in solidarity. Though he’d technically stepped down until LaRoche had the potion figured out, the citizens of the Underlight, including Hauk, still looked to him as a level-headed leader.

LaRoche, even more haggard than before, sat off to one side at a table with his microscope, while Tally took blood samples from a line of volunteers.

Mercy was on her feet, arguing with the Thing. Hauk’s usual modus operandi was to go stand by his fellow soldier and ask questions later. So he headed her way.

“I can secure defenses here,” Mercy was saying. “We’re sealed in. There are pinch points. But we have to separate—”

“There will be no segregating,” one of the Thing reps said, voice insistent.

“I’m not segregating! I’m keeping us safe until LaRoche can find an antidote.”

“We’re not locking half the population...” His voice trailed off as Hauk stepped into the center of the room, Jolie right behind.

Mercy sighed. “Thank the Virgin you’re here. Maybe they’ll listen to you.”

He smirked. “Worried I wasn’t coming back?”

Jolie leaned against him, listening. Her touch felt odd at such a tense moment when he had to step into his military self. Odd, but a welcome reminder of why he did what he did—not for the sake of the fight, but for the people he needed to protect.

Not that Jolie was going to let him protect her.

Mercy hissed an exasperated breath. “Wouldn’t blame you if you did stay gone. Especially now that they’re refusing to separate out the people who’ve been potioned. Even knowing what it does.”

Hauk lifted his brow in surprise. Damned organization that let people make their own damned decisions, even when it put everybody else in danger.

He didn’t need a bench to stand above the crowd. He turned in a circle until he had everyone’s attention and said, “We all understand that Ananke’s formula puts you under their sway, right? Those who’ve been injected and don’t take necessary precautions will become a secondary attack force for Ananke to work against us from the inside. You’ve seen or at least heard how it works, how quickly the shift happens and how forcefully it’ll change you. For the safety of the whole Underlight, I request that you find a way to lock yourself up. If you don’t and you’re here, you will turn against your friends. If you’re elsewhere, you’ll go to Ananke’s temple and tell them how to find us.”

The buzz in the room became an uproar as people digested that. Several people shifted to a table on the side. Hauk sent a questioning glance to Mercy.

“People requesting the Underlight lock them up for the next twenty-four hours.” She sighed. “We’re going to have a crowded shop.”

“We’ll keep it under control together.”

Her frown darkened. “No. We won’t.” She held up a paper. “This was in Echelson’s office this morning.”

Hauk snatched it out of her grip.

“The attack will be tonight around sunset. We know it because that’s when they’ve ensured you’ll be elsewhere.”

Jolie crowded against him to read. The paper admitted they had Travis. If Hauk didn’t come for him at the temple at nineteen hundred tonight...

“They’re going to tattoo him,” Jolie said, face grim.

“It’s a trap, Hauk.” Dr. Echelson’s voice surprised him by its proximity. While they’d read the note, he’d come to stand right next to them. His voice was calm but urgent. “They want our best defense gone and you at their mercy. I know he’s your friend, but you’re not supposed to come back from this, and neither is he. What even guarantees they’ll keep their word? Travis could already be one of them. By going to him, you put yourself and all of us at greater risk.” He bowed his head. “I’ll lead by example and allow myself to be locked in the shop for the night. I beg of you to likewise think of the good of the Underlight and stay.”

“‘Never leave a fallen comrade,’ Doc.” Hauk shook his head. “I can’t not go.”

The professor’s lips thinned. “It’s a fool’s errand, Hauk. We need you here.”

Tally stepped up to the group and put her hands out between them. Her normal cheer was lost in exhaustion; even her hair, normally spiked into a pixie-like halo, had deflated. But her voice was firm, filled with an understanding and clarity well beyond her sixteen years. “Physically defending the Underlight is going to be a moot point if we can’t get the formula reversed. LaRoche is trying his hardest, but he doesn’t think he can do this. Not by the time we’ll need it, anyway. If Ananke has an antidote, that’s what we need more than any plan to keep us secure. A sample, notes on how they made the curse, anything that would give him a clue how to fight it. Without that, we’re sunk. The shop doors won’t hold back a crowd forever.”

Tally was right, but rescuing Travis and scouring Ananke’s laboratories for an antidote? That was asking for two impossible feats in one trip.

Two impossible feats that had to be done if he wanted a home to come back to. Hauk nodded, determined. “Mercy’s right. This place can be locked down tight, and she can handle it. They don’t know how to get in unless somebody tells them. Today we make sure everyone is accounted for. We make sure they understand the risks. We lock up as many infected people as will let us. We take whoever’s left and see who can fight. We barricade the entrances and post guards, in case somebody gets through. LaRoche and Tally will keep trying to combat the formula. I’ll go get Travis and the antidote, if there is one.”

“Me too,” Jolie said.

Hauk frowned at her.

“Together.” Her face was unyielding as she reminded him of his promise.

Reluctantly, he nodded. “Together. Now I’ve got preparations to make. Doc, pick somebody who’s been tested clean to come up with an alternate location to retreat to in case things go south. It’s imperative that only those who’ve tested clean know where it’s located. If Ananke brings the fight here, we’ll need a place for the refugees to gather that can’t be reported back. Anyone not willing to test can find their own retreat zone.”

The list of things that needed to happen to save the Underlight wasn’t daunting, it was just this side of futile. Dr. Echelson wasn’t wrong. Hauk was walking into a trap he wasn’t meant to get out of alive. As much as he hated putting her in danger, Jolie would be a strong asset tonight. She’d already proved she’d see a mission through, no matter what. Tonight they were getting out in one piece together or going down together. Possibly for good.

* * *

Hauk was crazy busy, organizing the barricades, planning a direct assault, discussing the defense plan with Mercy...so it wasn’t hard for Jolie to slip out onto campus. Travis had been smart enough to dump all the information he’d dug up onto a cloud drive they shared. With the little she’d skimmed, she thought he was right. They had a case.

So instead of moping around the Underlight all afternoon, she’d decided to video phone her friend the lawyer. She and Eddie had kept in steady contact until last summer, when Papa Marcel had passed away and Jolie had moved her life in a new direction. Of all the people from her old life, though, who might laugh and support her down wilder paths, Eddie—Edgar Marcus Reyes III—was top of the list.

He answered on the second ring. His smile was bright as she remembered, his brown eyes crinkling just a little more at the corners. “Red? Long time no see.”

She smiled into the phone and relaxed back onto the hillside, where sunbathers and illegal rollerbladers disguised her presence better than a suspiciously dark corner. “How ya been?”

“Working, working. You?”

There wasn’t time for a long catch up, so she cut to the chase. “Ever heard of Ananke?”

As if she’d hit a magic button, his friendliness morphed into lawyer face. “Greek goddess of fate,” he answered. “Why?”

Undaunted, she continued. “Are you in? It’s important.”

His façade stayed locked in place as he shook his head. “You?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Married into it and calling to invite me?” He only seemed partially joking.

She held her left hand up to the camera to show off the lack of ring. “Definitely not. Life’s taken a bit of a turn since I moved to Austin.”

“So I’ve heard,” he said. “The old Houston grapevine hasn’t completely collapsed.” His congenial expression came back in smaller measure. “Nah, I got introduced a long time ago. It was the main reason Dad didn’t want me to come out back when I was in high school. He feared it would ‘interfere with my prospects.’ I still could’ve been tapped, but I didn’t feel like throwing in with an organization that wouldn’t approve of my lifestyle. Plus, from what I’ve seen anyway, their politics in other ways aren’t up my alley. Why are you asking?”

She took a deep breath. Eddie’s words and demeanor rang true. She’d been right. “I have a new man, and he’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me. But he needs a lawyer who’s willing to take on a goddess. You up for it?”

He didn’t hide the surprise on his face. “You have a serious man?”

Jolie stuck her tongue out at him.

He grinned. “What’s the story? The case. You can tell me the other story later.”

“Oh, just an international conspiracy, a five-year-old mystery, seven deaths and a raging inferno. Again, I ask, you up for it?”

He blew out a curious breath. “You had me at ‘Oh.’”

* * *

Hauk stood in front of his ancestor altar, watching the smoke rise from incense cones and weave among the sculptures he’d crafted. He lifted the largest one, a Valkyrie-inspired piece with feathered wings and a longsword.

Val-kyrie, a “chooser of the slain” who winged fallen warriors to Val-halla, “hall of the slain,” to live in feasting and deathless fighting until the end of the world. They held a special place in Heathen myth, both comforting for their power to intervene and feared for their job of selecting who would die and where they would spend their afterlife.

Beneath the statue was the ring he’d crafted with a blooming rose in the center. The one he’d planned to give Jolie when he got up the courage to propose.

One day. One day.

He had a sense that day wasn’t going to arrive. In the Army he’d carried this weird superstition that he’d know the day he was going to fall. That it would have a different tang to it, a peace so strong he could march into battle, recognize what was coming and face it head on.

Like Odin walking into the jaws of the Fenris-wolf at Ragnarok.

Logically he recognized there was no sense or reason or predicting who was coming home with their soul intact and who was arriving in a bag. War was chaos. Yet his gut had never given up believing he’d somehow know.

Today, somewhere between barricading the south entrance and reviewing the guard assignments for each checkpoint, that serenity had washed over him like Valkyries whispering in his ear. “Today. Prepare yourself.”

He knew.

He would leave Jolie the ring. She could do with it as she pleased. The gods knew he had little else of material value to give. Now he had a vow to fulfill and only a few hours left to do it. The plans for the Underlight’s defenses were in place, and other hands worked to finish the final details. He had time.

He breathed deep of the altar smoke, a last communion with his ancestors before he joined them, and headed for the forge.