“It was never our intention…,” the lost one said with a quiver in her voice. “We serve a goddess of honorable death, not this arbitrary carnage. Selene tried to warn us … but we didn’t listen. We owe her a terrible debt.”
“Okay, then here’s the plan: You ladies track down Graham Edwards. Whatever he’s doing … make him stop it. Park him some place safe, and don’t let him out of your sight. Meanwhile, Selene and I will go to Rafe’s apartment. There has to be something there—something we can use. Even if he doesn’t have the Void Portal, we might find something we can use against him, or against Caedis. Or even against Damastes, in the long run.”
“What does that long run look like, for you and him?” asked Selene with a note of dread in her words, and a crinkle of resignation on her forehead.
“I don’t know yet. Obviously killing me won’t get rid of him.” She gestured at the headless corpse still draining on the floor. “Damastes said his sister’s still out there—she’s just lost a vessel, and she’ll have to pick someone else to ride. So it’s not as easy as suicide,” she added wryly. “We’ll have to pull him out of me one way or another, and once we do, we’ll need a place to put him. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
“No, you’re right. First things first.” Selene nodded. “The sisters will go collect Edwards—the news said he was withdrawing to the family’s weekend home in Scarsdale. You and I can scour Rafe’s place. We’ll meet back at your apartment—Nora’s apartment—in a few hours. Will that work?”
Indigo tried not to sag down into a little puddle of beat-up flesh. “It’d damned well better.” She wiped at her sweaty face with the back of her hand and sighed. “It pretty much has to.”
16
Rafe’s apartment building was not what Nora had expected. She would almost have thought it was the wrong building, except that she had tracked the address down through Rafe’s teacher’s certificate and security info, and New York City’s tax database—she could always be sure those guys would never let a taxpayer slip through their fingers.
She stared up at the building. It looks like mine. He’d made himself the most powerful of the inner circle of the Children of Phonos without their ever knowing it, yet his apartment looked more like something she’d expect from … well, from a public-school teacher. Obviously he knew better than to tip his hand while he was still waiting for his big payoff. Still, she’d sort of expected his place to be more … sinister? Flamboyant?
Whatever. His taste and motives didn’t matter—it was just something to stick in the back of her mind. For now.
“You think he’s home?” she asked Selene. When no response came, she glanced over to find herself alone, a side door shutting behind Selene.
Nora sighed and raced to catch the door, following Selene up the stairwell to the fourth floor. The hall outside Rafe’s apartment was quiet. Too quiet? No, not really—she was just on edge and still a little tired from the fight at the NYChronicle. The trip across town hadn’t provided much of a rest, and she had bruises and aches everywhere.
In the fourth-floor corridor, Nora slid into the shadows. She was about to enter the apartment that way when Selene turned the knob and pushed the door open an inch. The apartment was as silent as the hall, but that unlocked door screamed trap.
“Unlocked,” Selene said. “Wait here while—”
“No.” Indigo flowed into the darkness and rode the shadows through the gap. No alarm, no attack … Nothing moved, but there was a smell.…
“Impatient?” Selene murmured. “Or are you showing off?”
Indigo continued along the shadows inside the unlit apartment. Another step … Something plinked onto her arm. She pulled back quickly and saw a red spot near her elbow. A drop of bright blood. She looked up. There, on the ceiling was …
Nora as Indigo had torn the cultists apart at the warehouse, but even she winced as she recognized the pulpy mess. A clump of bloodied flesh, plastered to the ceiling. She swallowed her revulsion and pushed on, taking one more step, almost to the end of the hallway. She noted spattered blood on walls and ceiling. She kept to the shadows and then peered around the corner—
A wheeze stopped her. Just one wheeze, but when she focused, she caught the sound of shallow breathing.
“Took you long enough,” Selene whispered at her ear.
Indigo paused. The signs of blood. That clump of flesh. The labored breathing. It all suggested they weren’t the first ones through that door. It also suggested a trap, perhaps a lure to get her racing to the aid of whoever had been hurt without stopping to think. Preying on the same compassion that had led her into her life as Indigo in the first place. She knew better—this was Rafe Bogdani’s home, and the sorcerer had already demonstrated his knack for deception and skillful traps. Even knowing someone could be around that corner, near death, while she and Selene stood here, listening to the breathing growing shallower by the second, she had to remain calm and in control.
“Do you want my advice?” Selene whispered.
Indigo didn’t answer. She did trust Selene—knowing the woman wouldn’t stand there calmly, letting Indigo take charge, if one wrong step could prove fatal to their goal. But Nora was the investigator—Selene was the sword of justice—and they needed answers as much as action. This was her domain.
Indigo slipped around the corner, into a small room—a home office, it looked like. There, across the floor cluttered with debris, Captain Fritz Mueller huddled in the corner at the end of a swath of blood. His mouth worked with a small, wet sound, eyes glazing, chest covered in blood.
His name had been on the list she had given to Sam. Mueller, the late and unlamented Detective Mayhew’s commander, child trafficker, cultist, using his position to protect the guilty and line his own pockets. She felt no compassion for him. He’d sent Mayhew after her at the hospital, would have sacrificed poor, trusting Symes. He was the last of the local cabal’s inner circle, the last of the people who’d attended the original ritual. So what was he doing bleeding out on Rafe Bogdani’s floor?
Indigo surveyed the room. No weapon seemed to be in sight, nothing that could cause this damage. Then she spotted something on the floor. It almost looked like a speck of light, and as she watched, it faded, leaving nothing. She was turning toward Selene when she caught sight of three other balls of light, larger, sparking on the floor beside Mueller.
“Magic,” Selene said. “He set off a trap. That’s the shrapnel.”
Indigo flowed as shadow toward the three pieces.
“Don’t—” Selene said, but stopped as Indigo lowered herself to one knee, examining. “Just don’t touch.”
“I wasn’t planning to. I’ve seen Rafe’s magic in action before.” Up close, she could see the spheres spinning almost too fast for the eye to detect. Like whirring saw blades of pure light. “Brightness seems like an odd trap to secure an office against ordinary trespassers.” But not against a shadowy one. Had this been for her?