Magic Edge (17 page)

“I’m not the only one.”

Alex ignored the retort. She didn’t want to consider the possibility that he was right.

“I don’t trust you,” she repeated. “But it seems I have no choice. I need you to escape. I’m in no condition to fight my way out alone. So we’ll work together. For now. I’ll decide later if I need to kill you.”

Logan looked at the trembling finger she’d pushed into his face. The iron was giving her the jitters.

“Are you quite finished now?” he asked her.

Alex stumbled forward and threw up in the corner. She straightened, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Now I’m finished,” she told him.

“Thanks for not throwing up on my shoes.”

“You’re welcome.”

He wrapped his arm around her back, supporting her as they walked out of the cell. One of the guards opened his mouth to say something, but one hard look from Logan convinced him that keeping quiet was the smarter option.

“They look even more afraid of you than they did before,” Alex whispered to him as they walked up the stairs.

“Yes. Their leaders’ son is far more frightening than their enemies’ assassin.”

“So they’ve just been doing whatever you say?” Alex asked, looking at the exit at the end of the very long corridor. Had it really been so long on the way in?

“Since I walked out of Sarth’s office, yes, they’ve followed what few commands I’ve given. But it’s only a matter of time before they find the bodies.”

As if on queue, the base’s alarm blared to life, its deafening cry scraping out what was left of Alex’s eardrums.

“That would be it,” he said as they started moving faster toward the exit. “Have the effects of the iron worn off?”

“Not really,” she replied. “Do you have my sword?”

“Yes.”

“And my knives?”

“Yes. They look good on me.”

Alex nearly laughed, but the pair of Convictionites who jumped in their path sobered her right up. Logan engaged them, while she tried not to fall onto the sword he’d put into her hand. Bullets bounced off the walls of the corridor. The rest of the Convictionite force was closing in. Logan stabbed the two men in front of them, then grabbed Alex’s hand and pulled her outside. Night had fallen.

“How long was I unconscious down there?” she asked.

“Most of the day,” he said, pushing some garbage dumpsters in front of the door. “This won’t hold them long. And there are other exits.” His eyes drifted upward.

Logan tugged on her arm, yanking her out of the way of the storm of Convictionites rappelling down from the upper balcony. She didn’t have to wait for him to tell her to start running. Her brain wasn’t still muddled enough to stay in that alleyway. And she hadn’t recovered enough to be reckless anyway.

“I think I’ve been shot,” Alex said, touching the wet spot on her shoulder.

She ran beside him, following him closely as he darted down another street to avoid a flood of Convictionites.

“You think?”

“My mind’s still wonky. It’s cut off feeling to most of my body.”

“Count yourself lucky,” he said. “Because I’ve definitely been shot, and it hurts like hell.”

“They’re surrounding us.”

“I’ve noticed.”

Their escape options were dying fast. She could feel the Convictionites closing in, their numbers swelling into a swarm. A swarm of nasty, evil hornets. Or zombies. There was nowhere to run, but could they fight?

The Convictionites stepped onto the street, their gunfire lighting them up in a halo of death. There were dozens of them, too many to fight off. Alex’s adrenaline kicked into full gear, pumping the magic inside of her into a frenzy. It bubbled and popped beneath her skin, trying to burst out.

But she couldn’t let it. Sure, she’d frozen the jerk in the corridor solid, but this was outside. Here, there were witnesses. Witnesses who didn’t belong to a hate group. Her face had become famous—or at least infamous—in Zurich. News that the Paranormal Vigilante possessed magic would spread. It would spread to the Magic Council, and they would dig until they figured out what she was.

A bullet whizzed past Logan, barely missing his head. She had only two options: die here, or use her magic to save them—then be killed anyway when the council found out.

Alex couldn’t see the Convictionites, but she could hear the song of their hatred growing ever louder. She and Logan were completely surrounded.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Blood and Chocolate

ALEX TOOK A deep breath, channeling the magic inside of her. It rolled and crashed like stormy ocean waves, bubbling beneath her skin. The sweet scent of burning bark tickled her nose. She wound her magic up tighter and tighter. Any second now it would erupt. She needed to push it out in a single, explosive burst that hit all the Convictionites closing in on them.

If only she knew what she was doing. But she’d spent too long hiding her magic in the darkest, deepest corner of herself, where no one would ever find it. She’d never learned to master it. She had no experience and no finesse. All she had was raw power.

That would just have to be enough. She lifted her arms over her head…

“Wait,” Logan said, taking her hand. “This way.”

He pulled her into the nearest building and closed the door behind them. Outside, boots crunched over stone and low voices rumbled beneath the buzz of a broken streetlamp. Alex waited until the sounds of the Convictionites had faded away, then looked up. They were standing inside a dark foyer. Half a dozen potted plants were tucked into a corner beside the large, open staircase. The soft, feathered fingers of the fern leaves tickled the gold railing.

“Where are we?” she asked Logan.

“Somewhere we can hide until they give up and return to their base,” he replied, heading toward the stairs.

Some answer. Wherever they were, it sure looked fancy. Maybe an upscale apartment building. Its ritzy residents wouldn’t likely appreciate the intrusion. Maybe one of them had already triggered a silent alarm.

“Is this such a good idea?” she asked as they walked up the stairs. “I mean, what if someone living here sees us and calls the police. Or their private security. That would draw the Convictionites’ attention, and then they would storm the building and—”

“Alex.”

“Yes?”

“Relax. I live here.”

“Your apartment is across the lake. I’ve been there.”

“Yes,” he said, staring at her. “You have.”

Alex kept climbing the stairs, pushing images of a steamy rooftop rendezvous out of her head. They weren’t even real—just a dream that he had no way of knowing about.

“You’re blushing,” he said.

“Am not. I’m flushed from the whole running-for-our-lives thing.”

“I see.” He kept his eyes forward, away from her.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong.”

“You’re avoiding looking at me,” she said.

“Do you want me to look at you?” he asked, turning to her. His eyes smoldered with green fire, his stare so intense that she couldn’t help but look away.

“Um, so, why do you have two apartments?” she said.

A smile lingered on his lips. “It’s just the nature of my work. I often work late, and if I’m on this side of Zurich, I don’t feel like trekking across the city to my usual apartment.”

“Oh. That makes sense.” Unlike her stupid comment.

They’d reached the top floor. At the foot of the dark wooden door sat a beige mat with a picture of three black daggers. Nice.

“Don’t get many visitors, do you?” she asked.

He unlocked the door and swung it open. “Wipe your feet. You have blood on your shoes.”

“So do you,” Alex told the assassin, but she scraped her soles against the prickly mat anyway.

She followed him inside. This apartment wasn’t as ostentatious as the District 2 one. It was more subdued. While the other one was ultramodern, this one had a sort of classic charm to it. The furniture was antique and rustic, the walls were covered in wood panels, and the scents of pine needles and wildflowers hung in the air. There was even an old-style oven in the corner of the living room. A pile of wood was stacked up beside it. In short, the apartment looked like a page out of Swiss Chalet Living.

“I like it,” she told him. “Though it doesn’t look very assassiny.”

He pulled the curtains shut. “That’s not a word.”

“Sure it is,” she said, flicking her ponytail over her shoulder. The tip was crusted hard. It might have been dirt, though Alex had a feeling it was blood. Maybe even her own blood.

Logan walked up behind her with whispered steps. “Can you feel anything?”

Alex reached back to brush her hand across the bullet wound. “It’s starting to wake up.” She cringed. “And you were right. Not feeling anything is better.”

“Come on.” He tapped his finger on the dining room table. “Let’s take a look at that shoulder.”

She sat on the edge of the table, watching as he took out a black box. “That looks ominous.”

“First aid kit.”

“In assassin colors,” she pointed out.

“What can I say? It matched my outfit.”

“Which one?” she teased, reaching for the box.

“All of them.” He caught her hand and set it on her lap. “Now be still while I look at your wound. It looks like the bullet only grazed the skin.”

A sharp jolt of pain shot through her arm.

“Did that hurt?” Logan asked.

The wound thumped in time with her pulse. “No,” she said through clenched teeth.

“You’re a terrible liar, you know. I can’t believe you managed to keep a wrap on your magic for so long. How did you fool everyone?”

“Not everyone is a professional cynic.”

“The Magic Council is full of professional cynics,” he said.

A sudden jolt shot through her, its icy fingers freezing her heart. “Are you going to tell them?”

“You are a first tier mage.”

Alex didn’t dispute the statement. She didn’t say anything at all.

“The Magic Council requires any mage Tier Five or above to submit to testing,” he continued. “The bounty on an unregistered mage is not insignificant.”

She slid her hand down to the knife strapped to her thigh. Her heart was pounding so hard in her ears that she could barely hear him speak.

“But it’s not worth my time,” he finished, dousing her wound in alcohol.

Alex bit down hard on her tongue, swallowing a scream.

“I’ve run into a few unregistered mages over the years. In our world, magic is power and magic is money. No one hides their magic unless they have a damn good reason.” He dabbed gauze softly against her wound. “I won’t share your secret.”

“But if the Magic Council were to offer you more money…” She stopped. Why was she bringing this up? It would only make him suspicious.

“The Magic Council is nothing but a club of self-righteous dictators. If you ask me, they’re almost as bad as the Convictionites. I’m not going to let you be a pawn in their power game.” He taped a bandage to her shoulder. “There. All done. Now, if you would be so kind as to do me.”

“Uh, sure,” she said, sliding off the table.

As he pushed himself up, she checked him out. Checked out his wounds, that was. Not him. Half a dozen tiny tears had decimated the front of his running shirt. They looked too small to be bullet holes, though. More likely, they were shards that had broken off the walls during the Convictionites’ storm of bullets.

“Take off your shirt,” she told him.

Good call. I think the assassin likes a woman who knows how to take charge.

Alex ignored the voice. Logan lifted his arms and pulled the shirt over his head, tossing it neatly over the back of the nearest chair.

“Yeah, it looks like brick shards,” she said quickly, keeping her eyes focused on one wound at a time—and not on his naked chest.

Trees, not forest,
she told herself as she slid a sliver of brick out of him.

“So, how long do you think the Convictionites will search the streets before they give up and return to base?” she asked him, dropping the sliver into a metal pan.

“A few hours at least. I did kill their base leader. And you killed his second-in-command.”

Alex nodded, trying really hard not to touch anything but the tweezers.

“We should probably spend the night here,” he said.

The tweezers slipped from her fingers. Logan peered over the edge of the table.

“You dropped your tool,” he said.

“Yeah, sorry about that.” She swiped the tweezers off the floor and squirted them once more with alcohol before returning to work. “I…I think I’ll be ok if I just hurry to the train station and—”

“Alex.”

She looked up—which was a mistake. He was giving her that same smoldering stare again. The one that made her brain disconnect from her body.

“You’ve been uneasy around me all day,” he said. “What happened?”

I dreamed about us getting hot and heavy on your roof terrace.

No, not that. Anything but that.

“You weren’t honest with me about who you are,” she blurted out.

“Neither were you. I’d say we’re even,” he replied coolly. “But you were uneasy before that.”

“Assassins make people uneasy.”

He laughed. “You’re too reckless to be rattled by anyone, even an assassin with my reputation.”

Alex shrugged—casually, she hoped.

“You’re attracted to me,” he said.

“You flatter yourself.” She pulled the last shard out of him and dropped it into the pail. “All done,” she said with a bright smile.

He caught her by the wrist before she could turn away. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“What?”

He nodded toward the bottle of alcohol and the pads of gauze.

“Oh, right.” She wet a piece of gauze with the alcohol and dabbed the first wound.

“I am too,” he said after a few seconds of heavy silence.

She taped a bandage over the wound and moved onto the next one. “Are what?”

“Attracted to you.”

“Logan, it’s been a long day, and I really don’t want to talk about this.”

“But it’s not just that,” he continued. “You’re the only person I’ve known who can survive in my world.”

“That might have something to do with your choice of profession.”