Blackhearted Betrayal (11 page)

Not that
that
had stopped me from taking her psycho ass out.

“This job
won’t
be boring, but it
will
be way more dangerous than anything we’ve done before, which is saying something.”

He rubbed his hands and gave a distinctly maniacal grin. “
Ex
-cellent.”

“Dammit, Charlie, I’m serious.”

“So am I. You should
know
that by now, darling.”

I let out a long-suffering sigh. “You are hopeless, Andrulis.”

“So my mother claims. But, just like her, you love me anyway.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, since you’re obviously so completely bored out of your mind, you’ll be happy to hear we need to get going like five minutes ago.”

“Wait, the job is tonight?” He glanced to the oversized flat-screen TV that currently had some reality show paused midscene. “But we’ll—I mean, I’ll—miss the rest of
Surviv
…”
Aha! So he does have someone stashed inside his bedroom.
Funny how much he sounded like Trinity, who never missed an episode of the nation’s ultimate reality show. His voice trailed off at the mock glare I turned upon him. “Okay, okay, shit. You’re such a slave driver. At least let me change.”

Less than five minutes later, he had presumably said his good-byes to his clandestine lover and was garbed in black cargo pants, matching tee, and biker boots, and we were speeding in his very large Hummer toward the
branch of the Boston PD that housed the Magical Crimes Unit. My
baby
, if anything could be called that, since I’d cajoled and pushed until Boston’s Finest finally approved the budget and gave me the go-ahead to form the unit from the ground up.

The MCU now consisted of me as Chief Magical Investigator; Trinity, as deputy chief; Milo Cass, the supposed mortal who possessed a tiny amount of Warhound blood, giving him several minor supernatural perks, which he concealed from everyone except Trinity and me because of discriminatory disclosure laws; a husband-and-wife pair of literal Night Owls (the form they shape-shifted into thanks to the Hawaiian goddess Hina), Kale and Mahina Iwalani, who covered the night shift; and three other part-time arcanes I called in to cover shifts as needed.

Despite his greenness, I had high hopes for Cass. He was the only mortal (okay, mostly mortal) besides Trinity who we hadn’t scared off in a matter of days.

We stopped by the Arcane Morgue in the basement to pick up Sahana, who would work herself into the grave (ha) if I didn’t keep careful watch. Her Death magic would consume her life force if it could, but I was in the process of pulling as many strings as possible to hire her some arcane lab techs she couldn’t accidentally kill if they had to interrupt her work. In the meantime, we arcanes in the MCU made it a point to check in with her regularly. A less than ideal stopgap, but it’d have to do.

Sahana had fortunately ditched the corpse she’d been working on when I called and moved to paperwork in her office; just because I didn’t puke at the sight of dead bodies didn’t mean I enjoyed watching autopsies.

“You forget about the meeting already, Sahi?”

She blinked up at me, unfocused eyes slowly clearing as they settled upon mine. “Ah, no. Course not. Though I
am
surprised you called one for tonight. Aren’t you supposed to be over in La-La Land.”

La-La Land.
The pet name some arcanes gave to the Fury slice of the Otherrealms that outsiders so rarely saw. “This has to do with my business there.”

Sahana’s gaze sharpened even further. As caught up as she got with her powers, the woman was no fool. “Spill it then, Riss. What on earth can
I
help you with that touches on Fury business?”

My lips twisted wryly. “You mean what
under
earth can you help me with?” She just looked confused, as did Charlie, but no way was I repeating myself more than necessary. “Come on, our fourth is meeting us in my office. I’ll tell all there. Scout’s honor.” Ignoring the fact I’d never been any kind of Scout.

The PD was relatively quiet at that time of night, though by no means deserted. Mortal officers nodded as we passed, giving a double take at my being dressed in black leather rather than red but being too intimidated to comment out loud. Sahana, however, had no such qualms. She shot me a sidelong glance after the third officer stared as we passed him on the steps leading toward the MCU several floors above the morgue. “I thought something seemed different, but seeing everyone look at you like you’re wearing only underwear just made it click. Black leather and black tats can mean only one thing. You’re in Nemesis mode. No
wonder
you called an emergency meeting.”

Just then one of the last voices I wanted to hear at that moment drawled from the top of the stairs. “Gee, how
nice
of you to call an emergency meeting without me. And here I thought
we
were partners.”

My heart sank, but I forced myself not to show it. “Hey, Trin, thought you’d be home by now.”

She seemed slightly out of breath, as if she’d hurried there from somewhere else. Knowing her, that probably wasn’t far off the truth. “I
was
, but Kale and Mahina called me back for an abduction case. Some idiot pedophile snatched a half-Sidhe girl who looked about fourteen years old.”

I winced. “Mortal, of course.”

“Of course. An arcane perv would have
known
better. The
fourteen-year-old
turned out to be closer to fifty; some vigilante who’d caught the creep snooping in her neighborhood and decided to make an example out of him. Dude’s still alive—barely—but his family’s making noises about charging the
girl
with attempted murder.”

I snickered. “They’re welcome to have his attorney explain to a jury exactly
why
he snatched and tried to molest an apparent fourteen-year-old.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

We’d reached the top of the stairs by then. Her glance slid past me to Sahana, paused briefly upon Charlie, before turning back to me. “Nice new threads.”

I shifted uncomfortably, bracing for the knock-down, drag-out to come. “Hey, Sahi, Charlie, mind waiting for us in my office? Mac should be there.”

Trinity nodded, expression excruciatingly blank. “He is.”

They gave us measuring looks but didn’t argue, clearing the stairwell landing and disappearing down the hall and leaving me to face someone who could be every bit as scary as my mother, mortal or not. She didn’t mince
words, either. “What the hell, Riss? I’ve got to find out you called an
emergency meeting
behind my back by catching your little brother sneaking into your office? I thought we were past your trying to
protect
me.”

“I’m not—”

“Bullshit!” She smacked the fire door so hard that the sound echoed up and down the stairwell. “It
always
comes back to your thinking mortals can’t pull their weight against arcanes. Here I thought you trusted me enough to hold down the fort while you did your Fury thing, and you’re back here checking up on me
already
—and in secret—”

“Jeez, Trin, would you
shut up
for a minute and
listen
?” My exasperated tone and none-too-polite words had her doing just that. The way her lips trembled in rage signaled it wouldn’t last for long. “I
do
trust you to look after things. I’m
not
here to check up on you. This has
nothing
to do with police business and everything to do with my
Fury thing
, as you so charmingly put it. We’re just meeting here because the fewer arcanes who see me in my
new threads
right now, the better.”

“Oh.” Her voice grew really small, and her cheeks flushed. “Um, sorry for jumping to conclusions. It’s just—”

I waved that off. “I’ve given you reason to doubt in the past; I know that.”

“So then, what’s up with all the black? Not that it isn’t hot, but I thought—unlike your tats—Fury leather only came in one color.”

“Usually. With one exception. I—right now I’m serving as a Nemesis.”

She frowned. “What, like your snake?”

“Same name, whole ’nother ballgame. A Nemesis is like …kind of like a U.S. Marshal drafted by the gods
to investigate and hunt down one of their number who has broken immortal law.” Trinity twitched at that. How she could
still
claim to be an atheist after everything she’d seen and heard was beyond me. “Just focus on the Marshal bit. I’m tracking down a badass for my arcane superiors. The new threads are temporary, and I’m on a deadline.”

She got a determined look on her face. “I could—”

I shook my head emphatically. “No, I’m sorry, but you can’t. I need you here, Trin. Honestly. It’s not busywork. Someone’s got to smooth over things with the pervert’s family.”

She sighed. “True, that.”

“And you literally
can’t
come where we’re going: Mortals wouldn’t survive the trip.”

She still looked none too happy but didn’t press the issue. “Fine, then, I’ll just get back to Kale and Mahina. At least I know you’ll be in good hands with Charlie.”

Something in her voice seemed odd, but I passed it off to residual prissiness from the whole being mortal thing. “Yeah, you saw how much ass he kicked at the illegal cloning factory.”

“Yeah, there
is
that. Seriously, though, watch your back.”

“You, too.”

She took off down the stairs—I assumed Kale and Mahina were waiting for her at Mass General’s arcane emergency room—and I decided to switch to mortal form to keep a lower profile the rest of my time in the PD. Probably should have done it sooner, but that damned Fury vanity streak had done me in; being a Nemesis was just so freaking cool. Yeah, yeah, I can be as big an idiot as anyone else.

I turned to open the door and head down the hall to my office. Or at least, I
tried
to, only to bounce backward when the door wouldn’t budge. “What the—” Instinct kicked in and I spun, expecting an ambush of some kind. Instead, I saw someone unexpected coming up the stairs behind me. My newly awakened and possibly traitorous grandmother, Nan.

SHOCK PUNCHED ITS WAY STRAIGHT TO MY
stomach, and I staggered. Decades had passed since I’d seen her looking so hale and hearty, this lovely and
alive
. In the hospice she’d always been a frail pile of bones lying unresponsive upon her bed. The Oracles moved her regularly, of course, cared for her to the best of their abilities, but even among arcanes a coma patient was a coma patient. Now, however, Nan stood tall and proud, a good half foot above my own height. She wore the red leather Fury uniform I hadn’t seen her in since my childhood—back on that fateful day she and Mom went hunting Nan’s sister, Medea, who had lost her battle with magical Rage and Turned Harpy. They’d succeeded in their quest—putting the former Fury out of her misery—but at too high a cost. Losing Nan to her coma just before my mother vanished for years had been
agony to endure. It also left me to Stacia’s nefarious clutches, which I’d only later learned had been precisely her plan.

“My, my, my, lassie,” Nan said now in her lilting Scottish accent, “but aren’t
you
a sight for sore eyes?”

Hearing her speak helped me conquer my bewilderment. “N-Nan?”

She stopped a step below me—putting us on eye level to each other—and smiled. “Of course it’s me, lassie. Surely you’ve been expecting me?”

“I—I …” Okay, maybe I’d only
partially
conquered my bewilderment. “Of
course
I’ve been expecting to see you, but Mom said—”

Nan shook her head sadly. “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear, lassie, not even from your mother.”

Okay, that
lassie
thing was starting to unnerve me. Nan
had
often called me
lass
growing up, but rarely
lassie
after I explained why her doing so made me want to bark like a collie. I had vague recollections of someone else’s calling me that, but couldn’t quite dredge up a face or name. I focused on Nan’s flowing red hair—odd, she’d always worn it tightly braided along the crown of her head—and familiar blue eyes. The exact shade shared by Mom, Cori, and me; a thought which had me remembering our shared danger. “
What
is going on, Nan? What were you
thinking
to challenge the Moerae days after waking from a coma?”

She raised a hand and gave a soft chuckle that sounded huskier than usual. Déjà vu struck again. That wasn’t Nan’s laugh, but it
did
seem familiar. “Slow down, lassie. I
am
only newly awakened.” When this didn’t produce answering amusement, she sobered. “Gods’ truth, Marissa, I hadn’t planned for things to go this way, but since they
have …I hate to be the one to break this to you, but your mother just can’t be trusted. Something’s
wrong
with her.”

I managed to mask true emotion behind a poker face. If
that
wasn’t the pot calling the kettle black …The more Nan spoke, the more convinced I became that Mom was right. This wasn’t Nan—not the Nan we’d known and loved. “Why do you say that?”