So certain was he that he’d be terminated, it came as a bit of a shock when a sound slipped out of him. He blinked and slowly lifted his head, opened his eyes, and stared at what was in front of him.
Glasses slid down his nose and he lifted a hand to push them back up. “What . . . is happening?”
The person who stood in front of him was as much of a shock as the noise he’d made. Her red hair was twisted off to one side, showing off a freshly shaved portion of her head. Green eyes locked on him as she lifted what at first he thought was a stick, and pointed it at him. No, not a stick.
“That wand was broken when you were brought in,” he whispered.
“Ah, yes, so it was.” She ran a hand over it, up and down in a way that he didn’t understand but knew was supposed to be provocative. “But I fixed it.”
His eyes widened and he searched the room. “What is happening?”
“Oh, well, I’ve been given a job,” she said. “And you’re going to help me.”
Eligor swallowed hard and pushed to his feet. Not four feet tall anymore. The world gave a nauseating lurch as he stumbled around on legs that were practically as long as he’d been tall previously.
“Jesus Christ, what’s wrong with you?” Easter snapped.
“Not Jesus Christ, about as far from that as possible. My name is Eligor.” He put a hand on the back of the chair he’d been reclined in. “How am I here? How am I not . . . finished?”
She quirked a bright red eyebrow up. “You have a connection to Phoenix, don’t you?”
“Well, yes and no—”
“Even without the token?”
“Yes, but—”
“And that means you can find her.”
“Not the way—”
She reached out and jabbed the point of her wand against his heart. “You can find her, or we’re both going back into that hell hole. Your mind stripped out of this body and cast into nothing, and my mind shattered by whatever torture they want to use on me.”
She adjusted herself, a flicker in her eyes that Eligor knew. Susan hadn’t let this one go, and even without the touchstone object, her mind was so broken she could be easily controlled. No, Susan hadn’t let her go, not in the least.
But Easter thought she was free.
His heart pounded. “So why do they need us? Those that escaped are loaded with tracers in their bodies. A guarantee of finding them.” That was how it was supposed to work. Then the Brutes would go after them.
He shuddered at the thought.
Easter looked him over. “Phoenix is smart. She fooled you for a year, didn’t she? You think tracers will slow her?”
Eligor didn’t so much as blink. Admitting he’d been fooled was such a dumb idea—even a dupe like him knew not to agree with it.
She smiled, a sharp, predatory smile that reached her eyes and made them gleam with a light that was rather unsettling. “Why do you think they unleashed me? Because of my good behavior? They kept my hatred of her alive for this very possibility.”
He shook his head. “I have no idea—”
“Because she has already managed to find a way to cut off all the tracers they put in her. Sixty-six of them, and they all deactivated at once.”
Eligor gaped. If he’d known that was possible, he would have gone with her. The reality was, he hadn’t thought they’d make it more than a few miles before being scooped up, and he had thought only to buy her a little more time.
“What about the other two with her?”
“Them too. All tracers gone. That is a very bad thing for this place, isn’t it? To have abnormals out there that know and understand, at least to some degree, what is happening here.” She looked like she was about to say something else, but her eyes blanked out and he knew he was talking to Susan.
Her smile was manufactured. “Eligor, you will go with this abnormal. You will help her find the Phoenix and her friends. You will kill the two men. And you will bring the Phoenix back here.”
He stared at Easter. “Wait, you don’t want her dead?”
“No.” Her voice was flat, monotone. “You will bring her back here. Easter will help you as she is the only one with skills that even come close to the Phoenix’s abilities.”
He found it interesting that the names the two abnormals had come in with were being used, not the names the handlers had given them, slip-ups just like he’d had. With difficulty, he kept his mouth shut and his throat from bobbing.
She stared at him. “You understand that your life will be in extreme danger while you hunt the Phoenix.”
“I am not a fighter. That’s what the Brutes are for,” he said.
“You will have this.” Easter held up a wristband and handed it to him. He took it and dangled it from one finger. She went on. “There is an emergency setting that will bring the Brutes to your aid when you manage to trap the Phoenix.”
Eligor put the wristband on and it tightened automatically around his rather thick wrist. “You speak about her as if she is—”
Easter waved a hand at him and her eyes came back to life as Susan checked out. “Nix—Phoenix to you—is the most dangerous abnormal alive. She has been trained to kill since she was a child, and her kill count is in the thousands. She has killed demons, Magelores, and other abnormals no one else would dare even face. She has encyclopedic knowledge of weapons, explosives, guerrilla warfare tactics, body armor, and torture tactics as well as a strong connection to the mob world and the world of abnormal magic.”
His jaw flapped open. “I know that was on her papers when she came in, but I saw none of that in her head! None of it!”
“Exactly.” Easter
