Anastasia chuckled as she walked over behind the tree, Timor and the Weir tagging obediently along behind her.
“Not to worry,” she said warmly. “They won’t notice me, I’m sure.”
She was right, of course, and they didn’t. There were three of them, dressed in grey and dark blue, their faces obscured by smudge paint and darkness. It didn’t matter. She still recognized them.
“Taos Cartel.”
Timor turned to look at her, his expression strained.
“What? You can’t be serious!”
“I am,” Anastasia said icily. “They are Taos Cartel members, no doubt about it. They could only be here for me. We have traitors in the Black Sun. Clearly, Terrie is not the only cartel that has been compromised.”
“Assassins,” Timor said softly, watching them disappear back into the brush, moving steadily toward Anastasia’s house. “Here for the future head of the Black Sun. They mean to put the whole cartel into disarray. Maybe even start a civil war.”
Anastasia emerged from behind the tree, following the path the assassins had taken, a respectable distance behind. Donner and Blitzen pressed against the blooming skirts of her dress, and she was grateful for their presence. She could walk confidently in front of Timor, her servant, which was important. Because the dogs would do the worrying for her. And there was indeed much to worry over.
“Two teams that we know about,” Anastasia reminded him. “There could be more. They aren’t here for me exclusively. The Taos cartel fields twenty-two combat capable operators. If they are making a move, then it makes no sense not to hit me with everything they have.”
“Are you going to recall Renton?” Timor asked nervously, checking his long Russian army coat, no doubt confirming the presence of the various implements of his trade. “He could be useful.”
“No, I like him where he is,” Anastasia said thoughtfully. “If they are hitting multiple targets, I am willing to bet that Alex is one of them. But I do have to warn someone.”
She had Brennan, the only other competent telepath she had on campus, relay the call to him. The man she wanted to talk to wasn’t a telepath, but thanks to the Etheric machinery implanted in his brain, he could download protocols at will from the network. Since he was a precognitive, he was always listening when he needed to be, because he knew that he would need to be.
“Gaul.”
“Anastasia. I assume I know why I’m hearing from you?”
“Yes. I have five of them over here, two teams. I’ll take care of them. Nevertheless, I thought you should know — they are members of the Taos Cartel, and there could be fifteen or so more of them in Central. Proscribe the Taos Cartel. I officially withdraw the Black Sun’s protection.”
“Understood. Don’t bother taking them alive.”
Anastasia broke the connection and smiled. As if, she thought. Questions had to be answered, and it wasn’t as if Gaul and his Auditors planned on sharing information with the Black Sun when they dragged their own prisoners down to the cells.
“This works out well,” Anastasia said, satisfied. “Alright, Timor. Take the first group as they leave the woods. And if you can leave one of them alive…”
Timor acknowledged her with a nod, and then ducked on ahead, moving at a jog. She gave a curt command in Norwegian, the Weirs’ mother tongue, and they glided into motion, spreading out to Timor’s flanks, moving quickly through the leaves and the darkness.
16
“Hello!” Alex yelled over the near deafening music, waving like a total idiot, and then shoving his hands in his pockets, so they couldn’t embarrass him any further.
Eerie blinked, looking briefly confused.
“Hi…”
Alex stood in the doorway.
“What — uh, what are you listening to?” Alex asked, over the thunderous, robotic bass.
“The Glitch Mob,” Eerie responded seriously, after glancing at her laptop. “Do you like it?”
Alex shrugged, at first trying to figure out if that was the artist or the song title for, then deciding it didn’t matter. Eerie put music on his mp3 player all the time without him even realizing it, since he hit shuffle every morning when he put his headphones on. Because he’d asked about it, he was pretty sure he would hear the song again eventually.
“You won’t believe this,” Eerie said softly, from where she sat stretched across a small couch in the corner of the room, her tongue stained as blue as her hair from Pixie Stix, “but I actually tried to clean up.”
If she had, he couldn’t imagine what it had looked like before. There were two narrow paths through the clutter that led to the small couch on one side of the room, and the unmade bed on the other. The rest of the floor was covered in a layer of software cases, DVDs, and articles of discarded clothing. The desk in the corner groaned under the weight of several different computers and displays, and the wall behind it was at rat’s nest of cords and black boxes with green blinking lights. The monitor's glow provided the room's primary source of lighting.
“Thanks for inviting me,” Alex said lamely, shrugging out of his sweatshirt and then casting about for a place to put it, while she changed something on her computer that turned the sound down. He settled for tossing it on the bed, and then moved to sit down next to it.
“No,” Eerie said, holding out her hands. “Come here, silly.”
“O-okay,” Alex stammered, picking his way careful across the floor littered with things that looked like they might break if he stepped on one of them, stepping over the pile of discarded candy wrappers that surrounded the couch. Eerie waited for him, her expression blank and ambiguous.
She lay sideways across the cushions, with her head on one arm of the couch and her legs thrown across the other, her shoe dangling from one foot. She wore striped stockings that ran almost all the way to her wrinkled blue skirt, with only a sliver of white skin showing between. The tank-top she wore was blue, with the phrase ‘Fever Ray’ printed across it, which he assumed was a band. One of the her sleeves drooped down her arm, revealing her round, unblemished shoulder. Alex stopped at the edge of the couch, but she reached up and pulled him down onto the couch beside her, tangled up with her in the small space. Alex was so surprised and satisfied that he was afraid to say anything, for fear of messing the situation up somehow.
“Alex, could you move your arm a little bit?” Eerie asked, red-faced. “You are crushing my chest.”
“Sorry!” Alex said, straightening up as a reflex, almost falling off his precarious perch on the edge of the couch before she grabbed him and pulled him close again. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to — I didn’t know where my hands were…”
“It’s okay,” Eerie said softly. “You’re allowed to touch. Just not crush, that’s all.”
“Oh,” Alex said, feeling his cheeks burn. “That’s, uh… I thought maybe you were mad at me.”
“Because you are being all cozy with Emily in class?” Eerie asked, her voice low and musical. “Or because you kissed me and then you didn’t talk to me again afterwards?”
“Well, both, I guess,” Alex said, rolling on to his side so that his head was facing hers, almost uncomfortably close. He could feel the air move when she breathed. “I feel bad about all of it, so I’m pretty sure it couldn’t have made you feel good.”
“No, it didn’t, really,” Eerie admitted. “But I didn’t bring you here to fight.”
“No?” Alex couldn’t keep his disbelief off his face. “Look, I need you to know, Emily is only my friend, whatever she thinks. I… I like you, Eerie.”
“That is good,” Eerie said, putting her finger to his lips. “Now show me how much.”
He tried. There was a long kiss, sometimes deep, sometimes with only their lips touching while Alex struggled to catch his breath. Eerie ran her fingertips under his shirt and down his spine, and it tingled and made him arch his back, pressing himself urgently against her. She kissed him again, pushing her small tongue into his mouth; the taste of blue-raspberry artificial flavoring, and seconds later a wave of euphoria, of disarming excitement and sensation across the broad palette of his senses, pleasure scrawled in neon letters on the walls of
