****
The lower part of the Black Blade Guard Headquarters building held stables and a temporary prisoner holding area. Nine floors beneath the main building were made of concrete and steel. They had been built to house the huge metal, gas-burning cars people had once used to get around. Now the top two levels were used to stable the horses and mules owned by Blades or, like the three I’d hauled the gang in on, had been confiscated from criminals. Those animals would be temporarily stabled here, and then taken to the public city stables to be sold.
I paused at the stables, handing off Mal and the other horses to a stable-hand to be brushed and fed the promised oats. Luckily, all three teenagers were awake so I didn’t have to float any of them along on a current of magic. Untying their feet, I used the rope as a lead. I wasn’t surprised they followed along meekly. Fear was a palpable cloud hanging around them.
I led them down a flight of stairs to the processing area of the temporary prisoner holding facility. While the upper level of the stable areas had wide-open spaces between the walls that were covered only with wire mesh, the lower levels were completely underground, making them perfect for holding the dangerous paranormal criminals the Blades apprehended.
The criminals were held here until a tribunal was convened to decide their fate. Then they were either executed or transported to one of the prison compounds outside the city in the Outer Zone to work off their sentence.
I looked back at the squirming boys shuffling along behind me. As strong and powerful as they were, I doubted they would survive long in prison. The Blades established the work compounds as a way to contain paranormal criminals while making them contribute to the welfare of society. Each compound had a specialty: farming, manufacturing, or mining. The inmates worked to produce food or goods that were made available to the city-state district the compound was located in. The conditions were barely livable, the guards were cruel, and the prisoners were more so.
While there were other work farms established by the city-state’s senate and ran by City Guards, the criminals housed there were norms or non-violent, low-level mages. The prisoners at the Blade Compounds weren’t the worst paranormal criminals society had to offer. The worst offenders were executed with little delay, but they were only about one step down. You only went to a Blade farm once. If you offended again and were caught, you were executed.
While they had robbed dozens of travelers and merchants over the past few months and made quite a nuisance of themselves, these were not hardened criminals. They had only caught the attention of the senate when the wealthy merchant cousin of one of the senators was robbed. Normally, the City Guard would have taken care of such a minor offense, but the senator had thrown such a fit that the Black Blade liaison to the senate had agreed to send one of the best Blades out to investigate.
Thus, I had mucked through the mud and rain for hours tonight. As annoyed as I was, I couldn’t see condemning these kids to death, and I was sure that a council work farm would be as sure of a death sentence as execution.
Once I got them to the processing area, I split them up and interrogated each of them separately. The were-poodle was Georgie, the mage was Simon, and they gave the same story as Ralph. They had also clammed up and become defiant when the subject of others in their gang came up. The fear energy they gave off ramped up a few notches at the same time.
That, in itself, wasn’t uncommon. A lot of the gangs roaming the Outer Zones kept their members in line using fear and control. Ratting out your gang was a death sentence. That wasn’t the vibe I got off these kids, however. It was fear, but more like a concern for, not fear of.
I couldn’t explain why I was sure of that. It was one of the more peculiar manifestations of my power. I wasn’t an empath; I didn’t feel the emotions of others. When I concentrated, I could see the energy patterns that radiated from them, almost like an aura. While I’d met only a few mages with the ability to channel energy into offensive bursts, I’d never met another that could “read” the type of energy people gave off. But then, I hadn’t asked either. Even in this day and age, where magic was a scientifically proven fact and a part of daily life, having an unusual power could be dangerous.
It took me almost two hours to get the three of them questioned, processed, and into holding cells. Once they were settled in, I headed upstairs into Blade Headquarters. Though I sorely wanted a long, hot soak at a bathhouse and a clean change of clothes, I needed to report the success of my mission to my boss, Sam. I also needed to talk to him about the fate of the three boys I’d hauled in.
The building had been built in the height of the Tech Age and was thirty-three stories high, in addition to the nine underground levels. The building housed the headquarters of the entirety of the Black Blade Guard for the region. There was a headquarters in each of the Paranorm Council allied city-states. While a few Blades from other regions visited Nash occasionally, I had never been to the headquarters for any other region.
The headquarters’ offices were on the top five floors. The levels between held rooms and apartments for Blade operatives to use when they had to visit headquarters as a home base when not on assignment. Some, like me, chose to live in their family homes within the city, but many did not live within the city-state or did not have permanent homes elsewhere. The building also housed a healing clinic, a bathhouse, combat training facilities, and barracks for Blade Cadets.
I used the stairs to get back up to the ground level, and then crossed to the stairwell to go up to the main entrance of the building. From there, I crossed over to the crystal-powered lifts. The staircases were used primarily by cadets who lived on the first few floors and did not have clearance to access other portions of the building and by vampires that didn’t get winded just by the prospect of trudging up thirty flights of stairs.
I pushed up the barred gate that served as a door to the lift. Once inside, I pulled down the gate, flipped open the smallest pouch on my leather belt, and pulled out a small piece of intricately cut crystal.
On the wall, there was a series of numbers. Beside each, there was a hole. I pressed my crystal into the one next to the number thirty. The etchings on the crystal and the special spell charged into it by Blade Chargers worked together to activate the clockwork gears that pulled the lift car up and down via thick ropes and pulleys. A series of clicks, then a loud grinding, filled the small chamber before the lift lurched and slowly began to rise. After a few moments, the lift rumbled to a shuddering stop and I stepped out.
“Moon! Get in here!” Sam Harrison’s voice rumbled through the scry-crystal mounted on the wall next to the lift.
I hated when he did that.
Muttering under my breath, I made my way down the hall. Though the glow had gone out of the scry-crystal—meaning it was no longer activated—I knew that even over the clicks from typewriters and ongoing conversations in many of the offices on the floor, he’d still be able to hear me.
My boss used his keen were-leopard senses to monitor the comings and goings on the floor. It was a good practice, I supposed, but it always felt weird, especially since there were two long hallways and ten offices full of people between the elevator and his office.
I opened the door to Sam’s office without knocking and walked in without an invitation. His office, though the biggest on the floor, seemed small with the massive wooden desk in the middle of it and the just-as-massive dark-skinned man sitting behind it.
Sam appeared to be in his mid-thirties. But I’d known the big man all of my life and he’d never looked any different. I guessed he was older. A lot older. Shifters usually aged a little slower than norms and had a life span of around 150 years or so, but there was something different about Sam. One of my best friends was a five-hundred-year-old vampire that had been trained as a Blade shortly after he’d been turned. Sam had been his trainer. Everyone knew he was different, but no one knew exactly how, and no one questioned it. Even in a world of magic, vampires, and shifters, no
one dared question a six-foot-four-inch two-hundred-pound man with super-human strength and the speed and senses of a leopard.
“You’ve really got to stop doing that! You’re never going to get a woman if you make us all feel like we reek,” I said as I plopped down into the wooden chair in front of his cluttered desk.
“You do reek. Did you take a mud bath?” He scrunched his lean, olive-toned face in mock distaste.
“As a matter of fact, I did. Courtesy of the highwaymen on the West Trade Road.”
“Don’t tell me they got away.”
I rolled my eyes. “You know me better than that!”
Sam’s laugh was rich and deep. “I take that to mean they are safely in the prison hold awaiting tribunal.”
“Yes.” I shifted in the chair, leaning forward to rest my elbows on the edge of Sam’s desk. “They are in the hold, but I’m not sure a tribunal is the best thing in this case.”
A tribunal only had two possible outcomes—execution or council work compound.
Sam let out an exasperated sigh and leaned back in his chair, his hands clasped behind his head. “Okay, what is it this time?”
“They are kids, Sam. And don’t sit there and look at me like I’m some sort of bleeding heart. You know every time I’ve ever had a gut feeling about something like this, I’ve been right.”
Sam sat up straight. “I don’t think the feeling comes from your gut, but you usually are right. Tell me about these kids.”
Sam was one of the very few people that knew about my ability to read energy, but we rarely spoke about it aloud. One never knew when a paranorm with super hearing would be lurking nearby.
“Three boys, half brothers, all under nineteen. The two eldest are shifters, the youngest is a mage. Sam, this kid has offensive energy magic, and he almost kicked my ass with it.”
Sam pushed books and papers to the side to clear his desk a little and jotted notes down on the blotter.
“A lot of power, even a rare power, isn’t a reason to give mercy. Actually, it could be an argument for the opposite.”
I sighed. “I know, I know. But I think that would be a mistake. This kid has mega potential. He forms and throws balls of energy for fuck’s sake! I’ve never seen anything like it. I can’t get that much energy together without a wand to focus through and Cramer, that mage from Atlanta, could only form weak lightning bolts. This kid has power and a modicum of control over it. With training, he could be one hell of a Blade.”
“Okay,” Sam said. “But why do you think he would work for us? He’s been robbing merchants for months. You think he’s going to give up his gang? They rarely do.”
I detailed the reactions I got from each of the boys during interrogation and my ideas about what they may be hiding.
Sam stopped making notes. “So, you think they are protecting younger siblings?”
“Yeah, that, or younger and weaker orphans. Families don’t always share blood.”
Realization slowly spread across Sam’s handsome features. “I suppose you would know that better than anyone.” He paused, as if trying to decide whether to give in right away or make me work for it a little. “Okay, what do you propose I do?”
I smiled, knowing I had gotten my way. “I don’t know exactly. I can tell you this, that mage needs to be at the Academy. He has amazing gifts that need to be developed and tamed.” I thought a moment. “I can also tell you he won’t do anything without his brothers. And not one of them will accept the Academy, even if the only other option is death, unless they are sure whoever it is they are protecting will be well taken care of.”
Sam let out a long-suffering sigh. “What kind of talent did the shifters show?”
“Not terribly bright,” I laughed at the memory, “but pretty nimble. I caught them off guard with my defenseless female act, but I have a feeling if given half the chance, they’d be fierce fighters.”
“You do realize there is a problem. Councilor Nesbit has been shrieking for the heads of the highwaymen that attacked his cousin. There is no way he would agree to leniency.”
I smiled sweetly. “Of course he has. And he has every right to ask for the maximum punishment when or if those highwaymen are caught. However, I have no evidence these three, very young boys, could be those highwaymen. No loot has been confiscated, and nothing was stolen from my person. As the arresting agent, the only charges I can file against them are for attempted theft, resisting arrest, and assault on a Blade. As the Blade in question, I am open to more productive forms of rehabilitation for these three misguided youngsters.”
I think everyone on the floor could hear the thud of Sam’s forehead hitting his palms. He sat there like that for a minute, his elbows on the desk, his face hidden in his hands. When he looked up, his face was resigned.
“I suppose that is the testimony you will give before the tribunal if one is convened?”
I nodded solemnly. “Absolutely.”
He let out a loud sigh and leaned back in his chair. “Okay. I’ll take care of it. I’ll go down myself and talk to them. It shouldn’t be too hard to get dispensation to use entry into the Academy as an alternative to a tribunal and punishment. If this mage is as powerful as you say, then it won’t be hard to show that he would be an asset. And we can always use even moderately powered shifters.”
I grinned. “Thanks Sam!”
“Don’t thank me yet. They have to actually agree to it. I just pray their “gang” isn’t a whole town full of thugs!”
I laughed at his exaggerated grimace. “I’m pretty sure it’s not. And I have faith you can make them see the wisdom of making the right choice.” I got up and headed for the door. “Now, I’m off for a hot bath and bed.”
“Not so fast. I didn’t call you in for your report. I have an assignment for you.”
“Now?” I groaned and sagged against the doorframe.
“Yes, now. Right now, as a matter of a fact. I planned to scry you before I smelled you come onto the floor. I got a scry this morning from Sonny down at the city crematorium. It seems there is something wrong with a body that was brought in last night. He needs a necromancer down there. So, I need you to go as escort for the necromancer and officially witness whatever the problem is.”
“Wrong?” My curiosity was piqued. “And why call us instead of the City Guard? They would have been the one to take the body in. And why would he need a necromancer? He is one.”
“He just said it was something he’d never seen before, and he needed the most powerful necromancer available.”
I groaned. “The most powerful?”
“Yes, and Sonny knows Barroes works exclusively with the Blades.”
“Why me?” I asked the question, although I was afraid I knew the answer.
“Because Barroes asked for you.”
I groaned again. “Shit.”