Terrestrial Magic (Jordan Sanders, #1) Read online

  “That makes it more important than ever to get a sample,” Hayley said, her voice laced with certainty.

  “We could just get some chimera hair samples shipped to us, and toss them into a basilisk’s biohazard zone,” I said, desperately trying to undo the damage I’d just done. “Same effect.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. We don’t know, because no one’s ever done it before.”

  She had a point. What a way for a plan to backfire. “What about the contamination of the chimera samples? The basilisk venom is supposed to kill pretty much everything.” Or something. I didn’t know the details, as I’d never studied a basilisk in my life.

  “That’s like anti-contamination,” Hayley said, waving off my concerns. “We’ll get nothing except whatever survived contact with the venom. But whatever it’s supposed to do to living tissue didn’t work on the chimera. If we’re lucky, we might even be able to figure out how the chimera tissue withstood the venom. So it would be really good if we could flash freeze it as soon as possible.” She gave me a pointed look. “Hint, hint.”

  “No, here’s a hint for you,” Tony snapped. “We leave now, and maybe we can get back to the safety zone alive.” Considering he’d just survived a chimera going after him on foot, that was surprisingly diplomatic of him.

  Hayley was less sympathetic, and argued right back. Before long, it turned into a full-on squabble and I was just too tired to prevent it. Carter wasn’t helping either, since he kept trying to defend both of them. Why, I had no idea. Meanwhile, Luca stared at them like he couldn’t believe either one, but didn’t venture into the argument at all.

  I knew I’d have to sort out this new plan of Hayley’s. What she was talking about really wasn’t my field, but I understood that this was a unique opportunity. And it was important. How many people died from basilisk venom? I didn’t know off the top of my head, but there had to be casualties. Basilisks could wipe communities off the map just by wandering in the wrong direction, if they really felt like it.

  And this one was here. Right outside Rome, in an area that people traveled through. Yes, we could issue warnings so that no one came here. But what would we do if the basilisk headed for Rome next? Or for the fields where we grew our food supplies? Or our water supply?

  How would we survive it?

  The more I thought about it, the more I realized just how big this was. When this was all over, I might live to regret it if we didn’t take this chance now. Or worse, I might not live to regret it.

  Why the hell did I have to make a decision like this immediately after almost dying? Could I handle one problem first, please, before worrying about the next one? I didn’t want to sound like a child, but it wasn’t fair.

  And yet, I wasn’t a child. I should be old enough to see the bigger picture when it’s practically shoved in my face. Damn it, Hayley might actually be right on this one. So I supposed it was time to voice my biggest immediate concern, especially with the argument between my two co-workers going nowhere.

  “If you could think beyond yourself for just two seconds—” Hayley was lecturing.

  “I only let two people talk to me like that,” Tony snarled. “One is my mother. And the other isn’t even on this continent.” Oh hey, that was a reference to his boyfriend in Japan. This battle was rearing up, if Tony was bringing up his personal relationships.

  It was about time for me to cut in. “Who’s going over there to get the tissue samples?” I interrupted.

  Silence.

  “There you have it,” Tony stated. “No one wants to get near more basilisk poison, especially for something as unnecessary—”

  “I’ll do it,” Hayley spoke up, looking oddly resolute. Oh, great.

  Tony reared back, incredulous. “Are you kidding me? You’re supposed to be the one who’s smart enough to stay out of stuff like this.”

  I didn’t think I’d ever heard Tony give Hayley—or anyone—a compliment before, even a backhanded one. And he was right. Volunteering to go into a biohazard zone, with a basilisk in plain view...this just wasn’t like Hayley. Which told me how important this was to her. Or how important this was, period.

  I hesitated a moment. “I’ll help.”

  I left a lot of the closest friends I had behind when I came to Italy. After living in the same place, always filled with the same people, for my entire life, I didn’t know how to deal with strangers. I’d never even imagined I’d meet strangers, other than potential enemies, before coming here. Tommy would have been way better at this than me. But I was the one who had to do it.

  In a way, Hayley, who was so open and willing to talk to people, even someone as hard to deal with as me, was all I had.

  Luca eyed each of us. Now that I’d gotten a better sense of his character, I had a feeling of where this was going to go. “I can—”

  “No,” I interrupted.

  He frowned. “But—”

  “Luca, please.” I held up a hand. “I saw the way you took off your biohazard suit. I’m not letting you actually come into contact with basilisk venom.”

  I headed over to the pick-up to look for more suits, which we had a conveniently large stock of. Hayley followed. Behind me, I heard Luca asking, “What’s wrong with the way I took off my biohazard suit?”

  But I wasn’t listening to them anymore. My energy was better spent fighting off the feeling that I didn’t want to do this, with the knowledge that it needed to be done.

  HERE I WAS, PUTTING on a biohazard suit for the second time within the same hour. If we got through all this, and I found out that tossing stray chimera hairs into venom worked perfectly fine, I’d be pissed.

  I felt a bit ridiculous for the amount of work I was putting in, at the scene of what could have been my assassination. Weirdly, the sheer bizarreness of it made everything feel more routine. Almost like what we’d just been through had been an overly-vivid bad dream and everything was back to normal.

  The basilisk still hadn’t come closer to us, although it shifted a little once Hayley and I got near the chimera. I trusted Carter to alert us if it made any threatening moves, but I still couldn’t help glancing at it every now and again, as Hayley and I got to work. It was pointed squarely in our direction. I didn’t have the best view of it, but the way its head was raised, the way I couldn’t spot any movement—I worried that it was too alert, paying too much attention to us.

  Maybe I was just getting paranoid, after everything. I forced my attention back to the chimera, hoping to get this over with. And between me and Hayley, we were doing pretty good. Time flew, and soon enough, we were finishing up.

  In the last few moments before we pulled back, I paused, taking in the chimera’s body. This was so different from that moment earlier today, when I’d seen her alive and glorious. It hit me that I’d come here to watch her, to learn from her. And instead, I’d killed her.

  It didn’t quite sit right with me. The extermination solution had already been tried, way back when the Boom had first happened, and it’d failed spectacularly. Now we’d mostly come to terms with the reality that legimals were here to stay.

  And we’d learned a lesson, or most of us had. Maybe we didn’t own the world anymore, if we ever did. But we could learn to live in it. Legimals might be here to stay, but so were we.

  So even though we’d won, today felt like a failure. We didn’t gain anything, didn’t learn anything, didn’t take any step towards a better future. We just...survived.

  Suddenly, I was glad that Hayley had pointed how much use we could get out of collecting tissue samples. We hadn’t come here to kill her, but since we did, it should make some sort of difference to the world.

  Leaving most of the body behind, we backed away from the dead chimera. Immediately, the basilisk settled down, lowering its head and slumping onto the ground. Concerned with whether or not we were planning on taking away its food supply? If we’d taken away the whole body, like for dissection or something, would we have encountered trouble?

&nb
sp; The idea was a bit unsettling. Not often was it a good thing, that we didn’t have the resources to pack up a large, toxic animal.

  After Hayley and I collected the samples and disposed of our suits, we headed back to the increasingly impatient group of guys. Luca fixed me with a curious gaze. “I’m wondering, isn’t anyone else concerned that someone tried to kill us?”

  Obviously. Why did he think I insisted on examining the wall in the first place? For fun?

  “Hold on, freaking what?” Hayley exclaimed, her eyes darting between the lot of us. “I thought the basilisk took out the chimera. When did someone try to kill you?”

  Right. We hadn’t actually told her about that yet, because we were all hopeless, apparently. I should have mentioned it earlier. We were way off our game if we weren’t even telling the new arrival about the very real dangers that might still be nearby, as far as we knew.

  Not that they’d be likely to approach a basilisk, but we still had to leave.

  With that thought, the desire to go home and dump this on someone else was back. I managed to push it away to deal with the wall and then with Hayley, but I was too tired to hold up anymore. I wanted to go and pretend nothing had happened, however irresponsible that impulse might be. I could be responsible later.

  “We’ll let Dr. Berti handle that,” I said. “None of us are exactly investigators, and the police can’t touch a case like this anyway.”

  Our mentor, Dr. Simonetta Berti, was the one with connections to various legends. She’d be the best person to figure out what was going on. Hopefully before it happened again, because twice was too much for me.

  I’d just hand over the evidence to her, and go back to doing things I was actually good at. Still, a part of me doubted Dr. Berti was any more qualified for this than we were, even as the rest of me just wanted to go home. I was so scared and frustrated and conflicted.

  Later. I’d think about this later.

  “We should report it, though,” Carter said. That was a good idea, at least. It was better if people knew where the basilisk had been sighted, and where its venom was. I wouldn’t want to be responsible if a busload of people came to the Villa dei Quintili sometime in the near future, and everyone died. We should call in a decontamination unit too, though we didn’t even have one in Rome. They’d have to drive all the way down from Milan.

  “Is any form of communication working?” I asked. The link with Hayley had cut out, but maybe it was back now that the walls were down.

  “I’ll check,” Hayley said, heading back to the pick-up.

  Tony took out his keys and held them up. “I’ll go with her.” I didn’t bother pointing out that he could have just given her the keys.

  Carter fiddled with his sling, casting inquisitive glances at the basilisk. “I could set up a tripod,” he muttered. “Maybe I’ll even get one good shot.” He stalked off towards the back of the pick-up, leaving me momentarily alone with the last member of our team.

  Luca, for his part, watched Carter’s retreat with a furrowed brow. I hadn’t thought very charitably of Luca up until this point, but he proved me wrong. So it was up to me to mend bridges, probably.

  “You did good,” I told him.

  He turned to me, face blank for a moment. Then something behind his eyes softened. “Thanks. You were pretty impressive yourself.”

  I nodded awkwardly. Now what? “No injuries?”

  He shook his head. Well, duh. He was in a pick-up the whole time. “You, though...” He frowned, looking at my leg.

  I glanced down and saw that I’d bled through the cloth. Well, that was going to be fun to deal with. Of course, now that he’d brought my attention to it, the throbbing came back—I’d been too focused on not poisoning myself to feel it for a good while there.

  “Let me grab some bandages,” he said. He left and returned with the first aid kit. Taking it from him, I put a layer of bandages over the cloth, not really knowing what else to do.

  “Jordan,” Luca said, something serious in his demeanor. “Thanks. For covering us.”

  I cocked my head at him. “I was out of the line of fire for most of it. You were the one who put yourself out there to get Tony out of danger.” I braced myself for what I was about to say, fixing my eyes on a point just beyond him. “Look, I misjudged you. I’m sorry.”

  “You really don’t have to apologize to me,” he said.

  “Yeah, I kinda do. What you did was brave and selfless if amazingly reckless, and I shouldn’t have treated you like you were any less committed to the team than anyone else.” I let out a breath, glad that was over with, trying to shake off my residual discomfort with the apology.

  Then I finally let myself look at him, surprised to find him grinning back at me. “I like how you call me brave and reckless in the same sentence.”

  His tone was teasing rather than offended, so I made a leap and decided to joke back. “What, they’re not the same thing?”

  That must have been okay, because he chuckled. “After watching you and Hayley cut up a legimal corpse covered in basilisk venom—with the basilisk creepily watching you do it—I’m not even sure I can tell apart good and bad ideas anymore.”

  His eyes met mine, and suddenly there was an intensity to the moment I wasn’t expecting. A connection I’d never felt with him—or hardly anyone—before. Possibly because I’d avoided talking to him at all, let alone reaching out to him like this. The air became charged, my skin tingled—

  And Carter came back just in time to interrupt. “It’s hard to get good pictures from this distance with an injured hand,” he complained.

  Wow, who knew? “No offense, Carter, but your photos are the least of my concerns right now.”

  “I guess,” he responded, halfheartedly. Sometimes I wondered if I worked in a lab or grade school.

  By then, Hayley was coming out of the car, having raised the alarm about this new biohazard. Which meant it was time to go. Provided nothing else mysteriously popped up to delay us.

  I wasn’t comfortable with my erratic roommate driving back on a Vespa, though. Or with her driving outside of the safety zone at all. Even Luca was more experienced, out here. “Hayley, ride back in the pick-up.”

  Her head jerked up. “But I have a—”

  “No, seriously,” Tony interrupted, from the vantage of the driver’s seat. “Get in the pick-up.” Oh, he’d regret that later. Reasoning with Hayley was a much better idea than dictating to her, though it wasn’t like I could blame Tony for being short-tempered today.

  Hayley crossed her arms, irritated, but she didn’t look like she was going to make an issue of it. For now, anyway.

  Carter was the obvious choice to drive the Vespa back for her, but as soon as my eyes fell on his sling, I remembered the problem with that. With a sigh of exasperation, I said, “Why’d you have to go and break your wrist?”

  I regretted the words immediately. They wouldn’t help, and all they did was voice my frustration in a way that targeted Carter. Clearly, Tony wasn’t the only one who’d lost his ability to use diplomacy, after the stress of today.

  Carter’s eyes widened in shock, a hint of betrayal behind them. “What? Okay, first off, my wrist is not broken, it’s just sprained. And second, you’re welcome.”

  “I’ll drive it,” Luca offered. I hesitated at the offer, as I didn’t know for sure that his recent attempt to turn the local wildlife into roadkill was a one-off thing, and not a habit.

  “What?” Hayley said. “I don’t want him driving my Vespa. I’ve never even seen him drive.”

  “We just saw him drive today,” Carter informed her, forgetting all about fighting with me in favor of talking about something he thought was cool. “Straight at a chimera.”

  The look on Hayley’s face was priceless. “What the actual freaking—”

  “No, no, it was awesome,” Carter insisted.

  Luca made a low, annoyed grunt, a stony look in his eyes. “Why are we even wasting time discussing this?”r />
  “Because you’re going to destroy my bike!” Hayley exclaimed. I was getting a headache, and Tony didn’t seem much better off. I could tell, because he was softly banging his head against the steering wheel. “Have you people seen the cobblestones out there?”

  “Okay, enough,” I cut in. I turned to Hayley. “Would you rather I drove your bike?”

  She looked horrified. Hey, I was not a bad driver. I was a careful one. Which actually made me the best choice out of all of these ridiculous people. “No, please don’t,” she said.

  Hayley, priorities. Enough said.

  “Then stop complaining.” That was enough to get her to quit arguing, and it was definitely about time. We’d stayed here way longer than any of us wanted to.

  Now we could finally leave, for Rome, and for relative safety.

  Chapter Five

  WE SPENT THE FIRST half of the drive filling Hayley in. The rest of it was quiet and tense, all of us probably contemplating our mortality.

  Even my serially talkative best friend kept her mouth shut, in a rare show of respect for the group mood. I periodically checked to make sure Luca was still following us on the bike, and hadn’t been swallowed by a giant snake, or anything. With the day we were having, I might not even be surprised. Otherwise, I used that time to try to process everything that had happened.

  A legend had actually tried to kill me and my team. There was no other explanation. But why?

  I’d lived in Rome for three years, and the legend communities generally left us alone. They had their own spaces, and they had their own followers. The ones that lived in Old Rome, right across the river from us, got regular visitors from human communities. There were even daily buses heading out to major locations like Piazza Venezia, the Pantheon, the Forum, the Ara Pacis. Hell, there were buses heading out to monuments ever further than that, like the Villa dei Quintili.

  Those buses carried armed security, but the weaponry was for fending off strixes and crocottas. There were never any violent conflicts between humans and legends. Even trouble between us and the roaming animals was somewhat uncommon, because everyone was careful and sightings were reported.