I am left in an interrogation room befitting a televised police procedural. A metal table set between two uncomfortable chairs, one occupied by me and the other empty for now. The floor is concrete, the walls smooth and unyielding, the door strong enough to hold a rampaging werewolf from the looks of it. There is no window that suggests members of the Order will observe any interrogation that takes place, but I would not be surprised if they had other means to watch.
I have difficulty worrying overly much about that, however. The light in here makes me feel ill, or perhaps it is only my nerves. The cold light does not burn like the light flashed at me in Riley’s home, but it is too bright, just on the cusp of being too much, and my stomach churns and my eyes burn the longer I sit here in silence. I am suddenly cognizant of my very slow heartbeat, which speeds up slightly and thuds more acutely beneath my chest.
There is no way to know how long I wait in solitude. The room is underground, there is no natural light – a blessing considering my vampirism – and there is no clock. So I sit still, occasionally tugging at the shackles which still bind my wrists at the small of my back, though with not much hope they will suddenly break. All the while, I feel progressively more ill, not enough to worry about my overall longevity, but enough that mild discomfort turns to a throbbing, overall ache.
The door beeps, hydraulics hiss as it swings inward and permits Sheldon and Chiaki into the room. Both their expressions are impassive, although I detect a tightness about Sheldon’s mouth that tells me he is irritated about something. I open my mouth to ask about Riley, but Chiaki shakes her head, the gesture miniscule and a direct warning for me to stay quiet. I swallow the inquiry, feeling nerves flutter in my chest as I stare at the two of them.
“Where is it?” Sheldon asks with no further delay.
“Where is…what?”
His hand slips into the pocket of his slacks and withdraws a flashlight. He flicks it on and shines it on me, and like the larger light from Riley’s house, it immediately burns at my skin. I hiss and recoil in my chair and Sheldon turns off the light, but I can still feel my cheek itching where it was illuminated.
“Do not test me,” Sheldon warns. “Where is the actual relic?”
I’m utterly confused and I do nothing to hide this from my features as I stare at him in perplexity. “I…I do not understand,” I admit. The light comes on again and I shout out in alarm, twisting in my seat. “I don’t!”
“Mr. Sheldon…Stone has helped us in the past,” Chiaki says after the light goes out again.
“As he has helped Castillo in the past,” Sheldon retorts. “You were taken in by him and Averline before, Miss Ito, do not let that happen again now.”
“The…the relic,” I groan, the skin of my throat pulled taut with the movement of my jaw where it's been burned. “It is the real relic…”
“It is a tennis ball,” Sheldon says coldly.
“...What?”
“Where is the relic?!” Sheldon snarls, the composure in his face morphing to something sinister. It is not the malevolence of one who looks for any excuse to hurt another, rather…one borne of a tenebrous desperation.
I begin to say once more that I do not know, but it turns into a beleaguered cry as Sheldon again scorches my skin with the UV flashlight. My face must be a mess by now, my arms – exposed from my t-shirt, no better. For a second, I think he has no intention to stop before Chiaki shifts by his side, preparing to defend me again…I hope.
“I don’t think he knows,” she says as Sheldon extinguishes that dreadful light. “Have you had any contact with others who might have taken the relic?” she asks me.
I am nothing but pain, it’s hard to concentrate on her question as tendrils of smoke drift lazily upward from my flesh. I murmur something, I’m not sure what, I’m having a hard time thinking beyond the pain.
“Think sharply, Mr. Stone,” Sheldon’s voice rings in my ears, and I go rigid, expecting more agony from the light. “You better have an answer when we return.” He shows mercy, dropping the flashlight back into his pocket before he leads the way out of the room, Chiaki in his wake.
The tension of being left alone is absent this time, I find only relief in my solitude. The anguish of my burns dissipates somewhat now they are not being agitated further by the flashlight, but the majority will not heal until I feed. I do not know what to do now. I can’t imagine what Sheldon is really talking about, that the relic is a fake? A tennis ball? I do not own a tennis ball, and I cannot imagine Castillo or Gianna taking the relic or swapping it without my knowing. I checked my bag before going to Riley’s. Besides, Castillo didn’t know what it was when I showed him, it is useless to him, and Gianna takes nothing that is not offered to her. So then who disguised it? Who took it in the first place? Panic seizes me, perhaps the reason I have not seen signs of my family since the Archives is because James succeeded in getting it then! Could they be on the verge of completing their strange ritual? Will it be like Elena’s attempt to open Paradise, and leave another gaping wound in the city of Boston?
What will Sheldon’s reaction be if I tell him about the Bishops? My ties to them? It may lead him to knowing about my connection with Charlemagne…he may keep me here, locked away, tormenting me whenever he feels my answers are inadequate.
I try to pull my hands free with more desperation, to no avail. I could stand and pace, but I think it will just waste what precious energy I have left. I could try to flee when the door opens again, but this is Order headquarters, they must have means to handle such attempts and Sheldon has already proven he does not need much to turn to violence. I look around, yearning for some sign of escape, a crack in the wall that I can try to expand…anything. But there is nothing. This room is sealed tight, and the only things within it are the table and chairs and a shadow cast in the far corner.
Odd, really, the light is even overhead and none of the other corners have a shadow. This one appears too established, a perfect square that becomes a rectangle that looks like a door. I blink as I stare at it, then startle out of my chair when Muir’s head suddenly pokes through the wall.
“Up,” he orders savagely. “Now! I’ve triggered every alarm in this place!”
I scramble to my feet and rush towards the corner. I do not hear any alarm, but I don’t doubt that every Centurion, Sentinel and Enchanter in the building is alerted to the break in. Muir reaches out of the dark abyss, his hand grabs a fistful of my shirt and he yanks me into the shadow with him. I expect to see within the confines of the wall, but there is no impression of any infrastructure around us. Instead, it looks like we are suddenly in nature.
“Echoes of the past make great paths,” Muir says in a sing-song voice that is nevertheless tight with agitation.
He tugs on my shirt and I follow him without question, even if my mind is full of them. Is this…Beacon Street before Boston became Boston? Before settlers ever came to this area? We didn’t…time travel, I can still see vague shapes of today’s city around us, transparent and vague as a dream, sometimes looking more tangible, sometimes nothing but a suggestion of something real. “How did you reach me?” I ask. “How…did you even know I was in trouble?”
“Uh uh,” he chastises. “Not now, honey. Let’s get somewhere safe first.”
I nod, and follow after him, feeling disoriented as this path continues in much the same manner, of time sweeping forward then ebbing away; streets full of cars, carriages, horses that shift into cars again. Sleek and modern buildings shrinking, glass and metal becoming wood, spaces bursting between alleyways that were normally tiny. I wonder then if Muir could step out of this path when he pleased, and walk among the streets while they were little more than tracks of mud in soft grass.
My dizziness abates as we cross the ocean again, it is mostly unchanging and it relieves me to have an idea of our destination. My assumption that he is bringing me back to his flat is the right one, and while I am happy to be away from that interrogation room, Muir’s cold and Spartan home doesn’t elicit much comfort. These harsh surroundings only crystallize their sharp edges when Muir steps through a shadowy portal with me, out of his hidden path and into the world again. The colors are more vibrant now, and everything seems too rigid for a few moments while my mind recenters itself.
“I really must send the Order a thank you card,” Muir hums. I furrow a brow in question and he grins in the manner I’ve become accustomed to. “You look ravishing in shackles, baby.”
I sigh, but his quick rebound to his usual antics after the intensity of what I came from has a laugh escape with the sound, although it doesn’t hold much humor. “Can you get them off?”
“I should demand you let me get you off before I help you with those,” Muir tuts. He holds up a finger before I can say anything else. “I said ‘should’ not that I ‘would’. Wait here a moment.”
I watch as he goes deeper into the flat, turning a corner and going out of sight for a couple minutes before he remerges with a skeleton key. He comes towards me in that predatory manner that is both arousing and intimidating at once, lifting his hand to pat my shoulder before he steps behind me to work on the shackles. He stands too close, it's a wonder he can see what he’s doing at all, and I am very aware of his warm breath tickling the back of my neck.
“Are you sure we can’t have fun first?” he whispers playfully.
I grunt some sort of denial in return and he sighs and presses me no further on it. I can hear the key in the lock, jostling very lightly as Muir seeks a means to make it work. I’m beginning to have my doubts until I finally hear the click of the lock sliding out of place and feel the press of cold metal fall away from my wrists. I bring them forward and rub at them, eyeing the various burns that cover my arms.
“They did leave you a mess,” Muir says. “Poor thing.”
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“How did you know I was there?” I ask again.
“We are still connected, albeit only faintly now,” Muir replies, walking past me and towards the dark couch that faces the windows overlooking the city. I go with him and sit next to him, eyeing him suspiciously. “When you drank my blood,” he adds. “It’s only a faint connection, call it my Spidey senses. I felt your duress and followed it to Beacon Street.”
“But…how did you get in?” I ask. “I thought the Order would have defenses against the Fae.”
“Oh, they do,” Muir replies. “But I am not your typical Fae. If it was the Order’s main hub, you’d be fucked, my dear. And if you get yourself arrested again, I probably won’t have the same success in breaking you out, so do try to avoid the Centurions.”
Riley spoke of that hub before, after my turn and after I knew what he really did for a living. Boston’s headquarters were regional, there were more. Many more. Not just in the United States, but across the globe. He could not tell me where its original headquarters was, however. Although I still don’t know if it’s a matter of security, or if Riley himself doesn’t know either.
It’s something that isn’t prevalent to the situation at hand, and my mind recalls those questions inspired before my abrupt arrest. “You said you didn’t know anything about the relic,” I do not hide the accusation in my voice. “And yet…there’s a good chance it is Fae in origin.”
“I didn’t actually say that I didn’t know about it,” Muir says with a clever grin. “I said ‘all I’ll tell you is that it’s ancient’.”
“So, you lied by omission!” I exclaim, feeling my patience disappear entirely. I am still hurt, I’m worried about Riley, I’m worried about the relic’s whereabouts, and I cannot play these games with him on top of everything else.
“Oh Henry, you really don’t have much experience with my kind,” he sounds utterly remorseless. “Knowledge and information is power, I don’t give it out freely.”
“If you had told me, I might have done things differently,” I seethe. “As it stands, the relic is gone! Whatever I had on me was some mundane thing disguised as the relic.” Muir’s eyebrows inch upwards and I gasp. “You took it!”
“Mmm guilty,” Muir replies. “I just couldn’t let such a nice boy hold onto something that could so easily destroy him.”
“Where is it?”
“Henry…”
“Where is it, Muir?”
“Here, but not here,” Muir sighs. “It is in a safe that is hidden in one of my paths, so under my bed but not under my bed.”
“What is it?” I demand, leaning towards him but the action makes me wince, the burns in my skin making their presence well known again.
"A prison."
"What do you mean?"
“Let me take care of you first,” Muir insists. “You’re not well, you look dreadful.”
“I don’t care.”
“You should,” Muir huffs. “About not being well…okay, and about looking dreadful. I miss my handsome boy.”
“Stop!” I snap at him. “Just…stop. I can’t…take much more today.”
The lascivious playfulness leaves him. “I’m sorry,” and to his credit, he sounds very genuine. “But you should feed, Henry. There’s no telling how long we’ll be able to sit here in peace. If the Order does manage to track us here, you’ll want to be at your full strength.”
I see his point, but I know he won’t have blood on hand, and I worry about the effects his blood will have on me again. The alternative is to hunt, which is no alternative at all. As I agonize over the decision, he lifts his hand to his neck and I see his fingernails have become sharp. I part my lips; I think I intend to tell him to ‘wait’ but no sound comes out. The scoop neck shirt he wears already exposes the place where neck meets shoulder and it is here that he pierces with his sharp nail. The smell of his blood is as strong as a physical blow and my hunger, already stirring in the wake of my injuries, ignites through my entire being.
He beckons me closer and I succumb to the hunger. My fangs find his flesh, puncturing the shallow wounds his nails made and going deeper, allowing that blood to flow more readily. It’s a more poignant high than the first time. Perhaps for how close it is to that life line in his neck, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. I hear a heavenly choir, as if every item in his flat is singing, or perhaps it’s our souls, calling out to one another. His arms wind around me, pulling me into his lap before one hand trails roughly up my spine, the back of my neck, to my head before fingers bury into my hair. The other explores where it wills, and I do nothing to stop its roaming, focused as I am on that sweet, sweet oblivion. The pain leaves me, replaced by a strange itching sensation where my skin knits itself together where burns previously marred the flesh.
I do not want it to stop, because the mental anguish is gone too, but a sharp tug on my hair jerks my head back, away from his neck. I am met with his wide, electric eyes, pupils dilated, looking as blissed out as I feel. Then he pulls me in close again, my lips meeting not his neck, but Muir’s lips, and it feels as if I’ve waited for this kiss for a thousand years. It is like a poignant memory that remains unclear, something familiar and safe yet entirely foreign and dangerous at the same time, leaving me wholly submerged in the swirl of color and sound of his blood and passion.
He moves with such grace that I hardly realize he’s shifted our positions until I look up at him. I am lying on the couch now, and he is on top of me, his smirk sensual and triumphant as he guides my legs around his hips before he leans in to resume our heated kiss. I am not used to being the one in this position, and the sudden thought makes me think of my other shared kiss not long ago. With Riley, clumsy and ill-suited as it may have been.
It takes all my willpower to twist my head away and break away from those soft lips and clever tongue, and I must find a reserve of that willpower when Muir, undeterred, suckles at my exposed neck, trailing kisses and bites down its length. His features shift and morph, the delicate yet sharp features of Muir, the elongated features of his true form – I think it is his true form – then replaced by my imagining Riley.
“Stop,” my voice is breathy and plaintive, and I’m suddenly frightened he’ll ignore it, but he doesn’t. The erotic movements of his body, his lips, his encouraging sounds, ceases and he pulls back to look into my face, his expression one of bitter disappointment. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m sorry…but I can’t.”
“You can,” he says. “You’re choosing not to.”
“It’s not right,” I insist. “Not now.”
“Not now?” he asks.
“I…have to figure things out.”
He regards me for another moment, then smiles sharply, leans in to press a chaste kiss to my forehead and backs away entirely, getting up from the couch to stand at the window. “You’ll be the death of me,” he sighs dramatically. “I mean, look at me, acting like such a gentleman!”
I sit up slowly, my body flushed and still reverberating with the effect of his blood. That part of me wants very much to repress my thoughts of Riley and let Muir sweep me into passionate rapture. “I need…to rest, to sleep this off.”
“Your astounding erection?”
I do not need to inspect myself for verification of his jest. My entire body is still taut for him. Perhaps he takes pity on me, because he gestures to the bed behind the divide without actively looking at me. “Go, rest. I’ll keep an eye on things…in case we need a quick departure.”
⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅
I am not suddenly roused from sleep, so when I wake, I assume the Order did not find us. The wild effects of Muir’s blood are gone, replaced with that dull ache reminiscent of a hangover. I groan as I sit upright and swing my legs over the bed, feet finding solace in the cool floor below. Muir is laying on the other side of the bed, a book open in his lap that he closes now that I’m awake.
“Back from the dead,” he purrs.
“So it would seem,” I reply, lifting fingers to my face, I trace over smooth skin. There are no remnants of the burns at all. “I have questions.”
“I’m sure you do,” Muir sighs, setting the book down on the dark bedside table. “Very well, ask.”
“Why did you steal the relic from me? And how did you hide it for so long?”
“It is Fae in nature, and it is very dangerous. I was not confident you would keep it on your person, so I relieved you of the burden,” he replies with a half shrug. “Being Fae myself, who better to watch over it? As for how I hid the fake…Glamour.”
I take what he says to heart, mulling it over so I can form my next set of questions. For now, I go with the simpler topic. “What is Glamour?”
“Fae magic,” Muir says with a wink. “I have a Glamour on me now, my fair skin…my mundane ears and eyes? All a disguise, my pet.”
“So it is…an illusion?” I ask. “I saw…you after drinking your blood. Your skin was different and…”
“Green,” he says, waving it away. “Pointy ears, sharp teeth, ‘unnatural’ eyes and features, I could be the belle of the ball anywhere I went if we didn’t have to hide because mundanes are too stupid and bigoted to accept there’s different sorts among them.”
I blink, taken aback by the sharp tone of voice. Muir doesn’t seem the type who gets upset at many things, he’s too aloof and from what I experienced, treats everything as a game. A lewd game at that. This is genuine, however, and I can’t help but feel empathy towards him.
“But yes, it is an illusion. I used a very powerful Glamour for the fake relic, the tennis ball,” he snickers, but I cannot find humor in the situation considering the pains it brought me. “Unfortunately, while Boston’s headquarters may not have had the means to keep the likes of me out, it certainly has enough enchantments about the place that the Glamour would have been banished soon after they brought the thing inside.”
“I see,” I reply softly. “You said the relic is a prison…what did you mean by that?”
“Surely you know,” Muir grins. “You of all people must know.”
“I don’t,” I say, exasperation coloring my voice. “If I did, I would not be running around Boston and London trying to figure it out!”
Muir widens his eyes at me. “Okay, okay,” he mutters. “What do you feel when you hold the relic?”
I frown at him, but he doesn’t budge or make any indication he will bypass the questioning. “It’s…horrible,” I finally reply, thinking back to the feeling it inspired when I found it, and when I showed it to Castillo to see if he knew anything at all about it. “Dark and…toxic.” He calls it a prison, my parents seek it out in desperation, and the idea strikes me like a bolt of lightning as I look at him in dawning fear. “The Nathir?” He only looks at me, neither confirming nor denying my suspicion. “But…I always thought that my parents were mad, wildly grasping for power wherever they could!”
“Well, I can’t speak for your parents,” Muir points out. “But there is most certainly something contained in the relic.”
“Why should I know?” I ask. “What is it about me that leads you to believe I should know?”
“You are touched by that same darkness,” Muir says.
I am drawn up short by the statement, rigid where I sit as I look at him for signs he only toys with the situation yet again. I am overwhelmed once more, a cacophony of noise in my head as I desperately seek the best way forward in this growing bramble that closes tighter and tighter around me.
Then a cold certainty fills me. I need not get ahead of my parents’ plot, I only need to ensure they’ll never succeed.
“Can you destroy it?” I whisper.
“The relic?” Muir asks.
“Yes, the relic. That would be the end of it. Whatever my parents are trying to do with it, whatever darkness it contains, there must be a way to simply destroy it and be rid of it.”
Muir taps a finger to his chin, a blatant gesture of thought. “I suppose there must be a way, but it won’t be simple,” he says after a while. “And I assure you it’s not something I can do.”
I don’t know if I entirely believe him, he seems capable of a great many things, but I also find myself in desperate need of an ally now that Riley’s being kept away from me. Accusing him of further deceit is likely a quick way to have him dismiss me, and he does have good suggestions when he’s not teasing. I stand up suddenly, so quickly that he starts because of the movement. The last time we were together, it was his idea to go to the Archives to seek another copy of Magicks & Alchemy.
“Vasilisa,” I say.
“Bless you.”
I round on him; brow furrowed and ignore the feigned innocence in his expression. “The Head Archivist! If there’s anyone who has the power to destroy something like this relic, it must be her!”
“Don’t be so sure of that,” Muir warns me. “But…if she can’t destroy it, she’ll probably have a better idea of who or what can,” he concedes.
“Give me the true relic and bring me back to the Market, please!”
“Are you sure about this, Henry?”
“Yes,” I say firmly. “It is what I should have done the moment I found the damn thing.”
Muir nods and gets out of the bed and then down to his knees. I hear him rummaging under the bed, reaching far below where the actual floor is, then his clothes rustling as he sits up and gets to his feet again, holding the dreadful artifact. It seems even more poisonous now, as if it is angry. Perhaps it is, perhaps whatever is inside of it knows what we intend. I swallow and hold out my hand for it. Muir hesitates briefly, then hands it over to me.
I stare into its unfathomable depths, my jaw set and my heart sure. Looking up at Muir, I hold my other hand out to him, so he can lead me once more through one of his hidden paths. “This ends tonight.”