Terrestrial Magic (Jordan Sanders, #1) Page 7

  But this...

  I’d become unfamiliar with the idea that I had to be afraid of the people in the communities around me, instead of only the animals. Worse still, there really wasn’t any kind of legal mechanism in place to deal with this sort of thing here. Which meant that we only had Dr. Berti on our side, to figure everything out.

  Dr. Berti and her understandably limited experience with attempted murder. I really, really wanted to believe she could fix this. But the more I thought about it, the less confident I became.

  She was a great scientist, before deciding to branch out in a more political direction. She’d clearly achieved results and forged relationships in both her fields. But how were any of her connections supposed to be useful here?

  This was just a nightmare. Legends were our neighbors. We didn’t have trouble with them, and didn’t want any. Why would anyone capable of helping my team want to get involved in a mess like this? They’d be too afraid of what they’d find.

  Soon enough, we reached the city. Everyone visibly relaxed once we crossed the bridge into the safety zone—Rome was bisected by the Tiber River, which served as a natural boundary for us to police. After a brief stop at the holding station to drop off our weapons, we rode further in, finally safe after everything.

  Old Rome, across the river, wasn’t all that overrun by legimals anymore. But in the early days of the Boom, we’d retreated to the younger neighborhoods on this side of the Tiber for safety. Legend communities had taken advantage, and established themselves amongst the ancient ruins, in places that held meaning and power for them. Not that they didn’t hold meaning with the human population, but there wasn’t much we could do after they’d already moved in.

  Present day, the Tiber signified security, every time we came back from the field. Nothing got past the border guards. I checked behind us again, figuring if Luca was fine now, he’d probably stay that way. My eyes fell on his form close behind us, both him and the bike still intact.

  “Where to?” Tony said.

  The stinging in my leg made the answer pretty obvious, much like I imagined Carter’s wrist was doing for him. “The hospital. Hayley, would you call Dr. Berti and give her the basics?”

  She nodded, digging for her phone in her backpack. Even though there was no reason for her to refuse, I still felt a weight lift off me, that she took the responsibility onto herself. I wouldn’t have to repeat the story more than necessary. And Hayley actually got along with our mentor, which meant she’d handle the conversation better.

  In a matter of minutes, Tony had us across the bridge to Tiber Island, and we stumbled out of our respective vehicles. The island boasted a proud history with medicine since the 3rd century B.C., with the construction of a Temple to Asclepius, the Greek god of healing. The hospital was built in the 16th century, still operational five hundred years later.

  Its location today—right in the middle of Tiber Island, on the river between Trastevere and Old Rome—meant it was often the first place anyone returning to the safety zone went if they needed treatment. The hospital took up a good half of the tiny island. There wasn’t much room for anything else, except a modest security force to man the bridge to Old Rome, in the event that something dangerous tried to cross. That wasn’t common, but it wasn’t unheard of, either.

  On our way into the building, Tony gave Luca a quiet, grudging “thanks.” Luca just nodded in response.

  “So Hayley,” I began, as something occurred to me. “Why did you end up going after us, anyway?”

  “The communication cut out, and I couldn’t reach you guys,” she explained. “I got worried. Normally, I’d have told Simonetta, and she’d have sent someone, probably Pradip, out with another comm device to check on you guys. But she’d stepped out on some political meeting thing, and I called Pradip but he wouldn’t pick up. So I didn’t know what else to do. I took an extra gun from the outpost—”

  “Which you will never do again,” I cut in.

  “You wanted me to go out there unarmed?” Hayley questioned, looking surprised.

  “No, I’d have preferred it if you got someone else to go out after us. Or at least not gone alone.” Plenty of locals knew how to handle themselves when leaving the safety zone, but Hayley was not one of them. She didn’t venture out unless it was with a bus full of people, Carter and myself usually among them. “But whatever, continue with the story.”

  “Okay, so I took the gun and headed out after you guys myself, because what if something had happened, and I didn’t do anything to help? Good thing I came along, too.” Why was that, again? “Or we wouldn’t have any samples from the chimera.” Oh, right.

  We checked ourselves in and gave the minimum required explanation for how we’d obtained our injuries. All of us got taken away to be looked at, even Hayley. My wounds were treated and I was subjected to some toxicity testing stuff—or so I thought, anyway. Hell if I knew anything about hospitals.

  After a little while, I was reunited with my field team plus Hayley. And found Dr. Berti in the waiting area, harassing a nurse for information. She wore a neat suit—threadbare, like everything these days, but much nicer than most people had anyway. The lines on her face were made more pronounced by her worried expression. Some days, it took me aback, how she looked so much older than she actually was. Not that this was too unusual for the generations that survived the apocalypse.

  Pradip stood behind her, looking exhausted and possibly not sure of where he was. He was also dressed nicely, though not by Dr. Berti’s standards. Still, his dress shirt had only a few rips in it, and he’d even bothered to have them stitched over.

  Dr. Berti rushed over when she spotted us, relying on her cane to maintain her balance. Her eyes passed over me to land on Hayley, and I felt a familiar, frustrating pang of regret. My mentor and I were polite to each other, but she and my best friend actually got along.

  It was childish to feel jealous. The distance between Dr. Berti and I had as much to do with me as it did with her—neither of us were the most open people, and neither of us knew how to draw others out. But I still couldn’t help feeling a poisonous resentment over the connections she could make with other people, but not me.

  “What exactly happened?” Dr. Berti asked. “A basilisk?” And so we proceeded to detail to our mentor how someone had tried to kill us via rampaging chimera, on our way out of the hospital.

  All things considered, her reaction was rather understated. She listened quietly while we told the story. Then she excused herself, walked to her car, and locked herself in the passenger side. Okay.

  We waited, unsure of what to do. Somehow—I wasn’t sure how—Luca and I ended up making eye contact. He raised his eyebrows, glancing in Dr. Berti’s direction. I shot him an amused smile in return, noting the surprising lack of awkwardness in our interaction.

  After a few minutes, my mentor opened the door and peeked out.

  “I’ve called an acquaintance, and I am arranging for some counseling on this matter,” she informed us. “There isn’t anything more for you to do now, and you must all be tired. Go home for the night. And come back to the office tomorrow morning.” Then she shut the door again without waiting for a response from any of us. I wasn’t going to complain about that, since I was definitely tired.

  And since there was nothing dangerous about going home, assassins or no.

  We were safe in the city. The security systems were state of the art, all in the interests of preventing legends from sneaking in and doing whatever they wanted with their magic. They could still get in—opinions varied on how often that happened—but any egregious use of their powers in the city would probably be caught by at least one system. And the police response time to those alerts had to be seen to be believed.

  Hayley and I said our goodbyes and headed for her Vespa. The rest of the field team took the pick-up, so they could get back to their original rides. Pradip stayed. ‘You must be tired, go home’ never applied to him.

  “So
,” Hayley began once we were alone. “I know you’re dealing with some really heavy stuff right now, but we need to have a serious conversation about something else.” Since her tone maintained its usual flippancy, I had no idea where she was going with this.

  “Alright,” I said.

  “You and Luca actually looked at each other, on purpose. And you smiled. It was weird.”

  “It’s not that weird,” I defended. Which was futile, because Hayley knew better than anyone how I tended to avoid anyone holding Luca’s job. “Don’t we have better things to worry about?”

  “I just want to know whether it’s platonic or romantic.”

  “What are you even talking about?” I said, flushed with embarrassment. “I’ve literally only started making eye contact with the guy today.”

  Her breath hitched, a pulse of alertness passing through her. “Shit, I was just trying to mess with you. I mean, you never date. But look at how defensive you got. Wow, it really is romantic, isn’t it? This is so exciting, I can’t even tell you. Did it happen before, after, or during the chimera attack?”

  “Nothing happened at—wait. During? How would that even work?”

  Her responding smile was diabolical enough to make me regret asking. “That would make for the best story. You saved each other from the clutches of death, and realized as you gazed deeply into each other’s eyes that it was meant to be. Tragically, you only noticed each other right before one of you had to risk your life to save the other—You know what, forget the truth. That’s what I’m telling people, if you guys ever get together. Maybe even if you don’t.”

  What the hell. Worse, that sounded like the kind of thing she might actually do. I tried to come up with a way to respond, but I literally had no idea how to react to this.

  Hayley, used to my falling out of a conversation I didn’t know how to handle—especially when she took it to the weirdest places—got on the Vespa without pushing for a reaction. We were nearly home by the time I realized she’d successfully distracted me from dwelling on what had happened today, replaying it in my head again and again, as I tended to do.

  Not long after we arrived at our apartment, Dr. Berti called. She told us to come tomorrow, packed for a potentially extended visit to a local legend, a close associate of hers—the Remus, residing in the Aventine area. She wanted this attempted murder situation resolved so we could continue with our work without fearing for our lives, and apparently didn’t think hiding out in the city would achieve that.

  Hayley and I turned in for the night, resolving to worry about packing the next day. Personally, I thought we were safer in the safety zone than on Dr. Berti’s trip, which didn’t make me eager for it. But safer in the short term wasn’t the same as safer in the long term, and I already knew this needed to be fixed. Tomorrow was soon enough to worry about it.

  IN THE MORNING, FIFTEEN minutes saw me packed and ready. With nothing else to do, I grabbed a cup of hot lemon water and headed over to Hayley’s room, anticipating the inevitable chaos. It was every bit as bad as I thought, clothes thrown all over the room. I dodged a flying pair of boxers that belonged to one of her exes—a vague recollection came to me, of an embarrassing moment some months back when I’d stepped out of my room at night and stumbled upon a half-naked man wearing them.

  Then she grabbed a familiar white bottle that didn’t normally go in a suitcase. “Why are you packing bleach?” I asked.

  “Hey, it can’t hurt,” she said, and proceeded to stuff it in alongside her clothes, somehow managing to crumple them even further. This was the one similarity between her packing skills and mine—neither of us understood the concept of folding.

  But then I remembered where we were going and why, and the comfort of normalcy faded. “This was bad, Hayley. Really bad.”

  She paused in her packing, still holding the shirt she’d picked up. “Yeah, I’ve been getting that impression. It sounded...well, I haven’t actually been going out into the field with you guys, but it sounded a lot closer than anything else has been, so far.”

  “It’s more than that. The whole time I’ve been here, we went in knowing the precautions. There’s never been another situation where we’d completely lost control.”

  It was relatively simple, dealing with the five terrestrial animals I researched. Don’t approach crocottas, wear sunglasses so as not to get hypnotized by a scitalis, and stay out of the tree line so a jaculus doesn’t attack you. Report muscaliets to the fire people, especially if they were burning trees. Keep a gun on hand to scare off strixes.

  The crocottas were the biggest of them, and they weren’t any bigger than dogs. Strixes...well, strixes could be incredibly dangerous in the wrong circumstances, or so I’d heard. But we’ve never had any trouble getting them to keep their distance. None of those animals were poisonous or venomous, let alone whatever the basilisk was. None of them acted as a high-power flamethrower. But suddenly I had chimeras and basilisks to deal with, in addition to magical killers.

  Out of nowhere. Just like that.

  I enjoyed the freedom of being able to leave the safety zone, knowing that we just had to be practical and it wouldn’t be a big deal. That our lives were ultimately in our hands. Where I grew up, we stayed on our territory to stay safe, and that wasn’t always enough. It hadn’t been sustainable.

  Coming to Rome was supposed to be different. There were places left in the world where things weren’t getting worse every year, and this was supposed to be one of them. Those places gave us hope that it was possible to reestablish a future. And now even that wasn’t certain?

  My plan was to find a way to bring mom, dad, and Tommy over here. That was my long-term goal, my reason for being here. All of the cache I’d rack up from my accomplishments would go towards that. The area they were living in, where I’d grown up, was gradually evacuating. It wasn’t secure enough to support the population it had anymore. And Italy had been the perfect place to run to, until yesterday.

  Suddenly, all of the plans I’d made to give my family a future felt far more fragile. I didn’t even know how to begin explaining what that felt like, so I didn’t try. Instead, I turned my thoughts to the more immediate concerns.

  “Someone actually tried to kill us,” I told Hayley. “Deliberately. And they almost succeeded.”

  “You’re scared,” Hayley said. “I’m scared, and I wasn’t even there. But, Jor. What are we going to do about it?”

  “I don’t know.” I almost wished there was something obvious I could do, about anything. Something to make me feel like maybe my actions could change whatever happened next. But there wasn’t. I didn’t even have much hope this would get resolved, one way or another. “And it’s not just me, it’s the whole team. Now we have enemies going after us, and Dr. Berti’s going to take care of it, but what could she possibly do? This isn’t exactly in her skill set.”

  Hayley tossed aside what she was doing and sat on the bed, giving me a self-satisfied grin. “You think we should be doing something ourselves. I cannot express how happy this makes me. So, what’s it going to be, oh valiant leader?”

  Whoa, what? How was that a logical progression to this conversation? As far as I was concerned, I’d been expressing my insecurities post-assassination attempt. Expressing my frustrations with the lack of any mechanism to address the problem. Not proposing...well, anything.

  I studied Hayley, sitting there and smiling, brimming with cheerfulness. She had definitely come up with that too quickly. “Were you waiting for an opportunity to take matters into your own hands?” I asked, suspicious.

  “No, I was waiting for you to take matters into your hands.” She crossed her arms. “You’re the frontiersperson, after all.”

  “That’s not a word.”

  She dropped the glib façade for just a moment, a serious light entering her eyes. “You and Carter will always seek out your adventures. But it’s far too dangerous as long as this is hanging over you. I don’t trust anyone else to deal with this.
You and Simonetta have to handle it. It can’t be left undone. Please.”

  A helpless discomfort rose within me at her show of vulnerability. Hayley worried way too much about us when we were out in the field, but she generally tried not to show it. I knew her parents had died in a legimal-related incident when she was young, and that she’d been raised by her aunt. But that was the extent to which she’d talk about her past. Any moment when she put aside the flippancy and put herself out there was few and far between. I couldn’t help but feel the pressure of it—except I didn’t know how to do what she wanted.

  So I pushed back, protesting. “This is a criminal investigation, not a border dispute.” Not that I would know how to handle a border dispute just because I was from the frontier, but I had to pick my battles. Crimes weren’t even remotely in my area of expertise, and poking around like an amateur would only make things worse. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Not a border dispute? Really?” She raised an eyebrow. “And why is this happening, anyway? Because Simonetta is sending people outside of the safety zone? Outside of our territory?”

  Now she was just twisting the evidence to fit what she wanted it to. We had no idea why this had happened, and it certainly wasn’t in a fight over territory. Maybe Tony had pissed off some legend during an interview and they took way too much offense. Maybe they just didn’t like our research for some reason. I didn’t know, because we were dealing with a crime and—this was the important part—I wasn’t a detective. All I knew was that this was an attempted murder, end of story.

  “Look, border disputes don’t happen here. In Italy, humans and legends have this kind of thing sorted out.” She should know this, since she’d lived here as long as I have.

  “They haven’t happened here yet,” Hayley corrected. “Because we all stay out of each other’s territory uninvited. So far.”