The Siren Job (Stolen Hearts Crew Book 1) Page 4

“Catch…” I began.

  Fortunately, Feral’s reflexes were sound. The girl dropped straight into his arms, limp and lifeless.

  “Is she…?” Cory murmured with uncharacteristic concern.

  Feral pressed his fingers to the girl’s throat. “Got a pulse.” He looked up at the vent, then down at the girl. “Vent’s not happening, Roc. We need another exit.”

  I clenched my jaw. “Cory, get a garment bag from the wardrobe room and bring it back through the vent. Luxe, knock on the Sanctum doors. You’re about to find your Picmont.”

  “Hallelujah!” Luxe sang as he danced through the lobby of the mansion, trailed by Cory and Feral. The door guard stood up, eyes wide.

  “You found it?” the guard asked.

  “Of all places,” Luxe laughed. “Mother Glory had it all along!” He patted the garment bag slung over Feral’s shoulder. “Safe, sound, and off for final touches before the shoot tomorrow. You are a bunch of angels. Have a lovely night!” He blew a kiss to the guard.

  “Uhh, of course. No problem. Glad it’s taken care of.” He studied the trio with a keen eye. “If I could just check the garment bag, you can be on your way.”

  Luxe glanced back at Feral. I could see Feral’s arms tensing, ready for battle.

  I turned to Kit. “Run the failsafe.”

  My hacker grinned at me and hit a button on his computer.

  I checked the cameras in the office suite. The computer in the middle of the office began smoking ominously. Flames seeped out of the seams of the case.

  Fire alarms blared. The door guard jumped out of his seat, scanning over the security terminals on his desk.

  “Shit. You three get out of here. We’ve got a fire. I’ve got to get to Mother Glory.” The door guard scrambled from behind the desk, charging back toward the Sanctum.

  “Heavens!” Luxe yelped. My team scampered out the door unhindered.

  “All in a day’s work,” Kit sighed contentedly as he leaned back in his chair, fingers laced behind his head. “Knew that rootkit would come in handy tonight. Nasty little bit of software, just the thing we needed. I just wish I’d been able to plant it on the purple-haired menace’s machine instead of the nice linguist’s. She’s having a shitty enough day without her computer exploding on her.”

  “Well, I don’t think she’s going back to work tomorrow.” I shot him a sidelong look.

  Kit shrugged. “You’ve got a point.”

  I turned my attention back to the monitors. “Status report,” I barked.

  “We’re in the car now. What do you want us to do with the girl?” Feral asked. I could hear the slow roll of tires in the background.

  “Bring her back to the base. We need to debrief her. And find out what she really is.” I chewed at the inside of my cheek. “If she could read that scroll, she’s a lot more than just some random academic. Our client is going to be very interested in her.”

  Chapter Five

  Alex

  I sprawled in a broad, empty field of purple grasses. The sky was a warm shade of pink, and two suns cast their gentle rays on my face. The grass tickled my neck, like tiny feathers. A soft breeze blew over me, scented with the smell of old books and leather. I closed my eyes dreamily. I was so tired. I could rest here forever.

  Old books and leather.

  The scroll.

  I tried to sit up, but couldn’t. I was bound to the ground. Pinned. Darkness surrounded me. The air felt close and damp.

  I opened my eyes. Blackness. My fingers scrabbled at something that flexed. Fabric of some kind. I was in a bag.

  A body bag?

  Horror filled my chest. I screamed and scrabbled harder at the fabric.

  “No! I’m alive! Help me!” I howled. My nails caught on the long zipper.

  Lights blinded me as the zipper parted before my face. I squinted against it and gulped in fresh air to soothe my panicked lungs.

  “Easy,” a familiar voice said. “You’re all right. You’re safe now.”

  I blinked a few times, then looked toward the source of the voice.

  “Andres?” Relief, then confusion, then apprehension. “What the hell…where am I? And why am I in a body bag?”

  He favored me with a warm smile as he restrained a laugh. “Garment bag, actually. Sorry about that. We needed to get you away from Mother Glory as discreetly as possible.”

  I heard a snort from the other side of the room. My head whipped around, and I saw his skinny assistant covering his mouth with one hand. I looked back at Andres, who was glaring at his assistant with appreciable venom. He shook it off and smiled at me again. “How much do you remember?”

  I tried to sit up and failed. My body felt like a wrung-out dishrag. The darkened room swam before my eyes. I caught a glimpse of his other assistant, the muscular one. Jerome. I gasped and gripped the fabric of the bag.

  “You. You were there.” I stared at Jerome with wide eyes. “I…fell.”

  “And I caught you,” Jerome said softly. “Is that all you remember?”

  “I…”

  I felt the crinkle of aged vellum…not vellum…leather. The smell of ancient knowledge filled my lungs.

  The lines became words became thoughts.

  Became power.

  It filled me. Consumed me. Burned me from within until nothing existed but the words.

  Words have power.

  Words are power.

  I am the words.

  “Dude, her eyes are glowing again.” Another familiar voice. Toby? “Maybe questions aren’t a good idea right now…”

  I heard a rustle. “Dude. Seriously. Don’t touch…” Toby warned.

  A hand closed over mine. Warm, gentle, soft. It grounded me. I felt the words fading from my mind, echoing into the distance. I clutched at the hand, craving the contact. Craving the safety it offered. His other hand stroked my hair tenderly. I felt my eyes starting to drift closed, leaning my head into the gentle caress. It felt so good. So right. So safe.

  “You’re okay,” Andres said. “You’re among friends.”

  There was something different about his voice. Something calmer. There was no trace of camp, no flash, no flair. If anything, he sounded like the boys I’d gone to college with. Upper crust, hint of New York without it being grating.

  “I’m… where am I?” I snapped out of my trance and tried to sit up again. Andres rested his hand on my shoulder, gently pressing down.

  “Safe.”

  “For now,” his skinny assistant sniffed.

  “Not. Helping.” Andres glared at him again.

  “Seriously. How long do you think we can keep her here?” Skinny Boy jumped down from his perch on the corner of a table and paced the room. “We’re going to have to tell her eventually.”

  “Tell me what?” I reached up a hand and tried to shove Andres’ hand off my shoulder.

  The men looked at each other, then at me.

  “Umm…” Toby rubbed the back of his neck, then dropped his voice to an urgent whisper. “Amarok, we need you.”

  “Amarok. What the…Who’s…?” Before I could get the question out, a door swung open on the other side of the room.

  Hello, silver fox.

  I yelled at my brain for a moment. Yes, he was handsome, in a more mature sort of way. Salt-and-pepper hair, more silver at the temples, intense gray eyes, a lean jaw and lean frame, clad in a well-tailored suit. The second he stepped into the room, everyone stood at attention. If I’d been capable of standing, I probably would have too. There was a command to his presence that I felt on a very deep, primal level.

  It was hot as hell.

  Jesus, Alex.

  “Hello, Alexandria,” he intoned. “I wish we could have met under better circumstances.”

  “Uh-huh,” I managed.

  “I’m afraid you’ve gotten yourself caught up in some very strange goings-on.” He leaned against the edge of a table, resting his hands on either side of him. “Can you tell me what you remember about tonight,
starting from when you left work?”

  “Are you a cop?” I asked.

  Toby and Skinny Boy snickered softly. A sharp look from Amarok shut them up. The corner of his mouth flicked up in a wry smile. “No, I’m not a cop,” he said.

  “You’ve all been asking me a lot of questions. When do I get to ask some?” I squinted at him. “Who are you guys, really? And where am I?”

  Amarok closed his eyes for a moment, then regarded me with a resigned expression.

  “Kit, could you please tell her what we know?”

  Toby…Kit, I guess… flipped open a laptop and began to read off the screen.

  “Alexandria ‘Alex’ Martin, age twenty-six, born in Los Angeles, California to Ella Martin- Los Angeles resident- and David Martin- deceased. Attended Brown University on a full linguistics scholarship, received her masters, accepted into doctorate program, did not complete her defense due to father’s untimely death from pancreatic cancer. Vanished for six months, then reappeared at her mother’s tea shop, Little Leaves. Worked there for three months, then hired by Mother Glory to work as a translator for her world tour thanks to the intercession of…” Kit frowned. “Trixie Raymond, Mother Glory’s social media manager and royal pain in the…”

  “Kit. Focus.” Amarok’s voice sent a chill down my spine. It wasn’t the only thing chilling me, though.

  “How do you know so much about me?” I asked through gritted teeth.

  “There’s more,” Amarok said quietly.

  “David Martin, of the Connecticut Martins, had a second family, that you only became aware of in high school at the age of fifteen.”

  “Stop.” My teeth clenched tight enough to hurt.

  “He was married when he met your mother…”

  “I said stop,” I snarled.

  “…Due to family obligations. An arranged marriage to another hawk shifter. He married your mother, a human, in secret.”

  “I SAID…” My mouth slammed shut as his words sank in. “A what now?”

  I don’t remember sitting up, but there I was, a garment bag dangling off my shoulders, half-ready to punch Kit in the jaw when the words hit me.

  …another hawk shifter…

  …your mother, a human…

  “What the actual fuck are you talking about?” I growled.

  Amarok regarded me coolly. “How much do you know about your father’s other family?”

  I glared at him. “As little as possible. When I found out about them, I stopped talking to him.”

  Amarok bowed his head slightly. “A shame. He probably didn’t tell you much about who you really were, then?”

  I stared at him. “I’m really Alex Martin. Grad school dropout. Interpreter for Mother Glory. Scrabble champion, avid reader.” I wanted to have more of a snappy comeback, but that was really about it. I didn’t have much to brag about. No social life. No titles. One friend. I closed my mouth and glowered at him defiantly.

  Amarok studied me for a long moment, then sighed.

  “Easiest way is to do it, I suppose,” he said.

  Then, he turned into a wolf.

  The world turned upside down. One moment, a hot older man was sitting on a table, the next a large shaggy black and silver wolf looked up at me with Amarok’s eerie gray eyes. One moment, I was sitting on a table wrapped in a garment bag, the next sprawled on the floor, still wrapped in a garment bag but with considerably less dignity.

  I fought my way out of the bag and scrambled to the other side of the room. When I hit the wall, I turned and plastered my back to it, panting, searching for a weapon. I grabbed a folding chair and held it in front of me like a lion tamer of old.

  “Whazza… what…fucking…HOW?” I babbled.

  “Wanna really fuck with her?” Skinny Boy sneered.

  “Cory, don’t be a…” Andres started to say.

  Skinny Boy shimmered and vanished, replaced by a large black bird. He cawed at me, then croaked a mocking laugh as I swung the chair in his direction.

  “…Dickhead,” Andres finished emphatically.

  The wolf snarled at the raven. The raven squawked, then turned back into the skinny asshole. The wolf turned back into Amarok. I turned into a puddle on the floor, still clutching the folding chair.

  “You probably have a lot of questions,” Amarok said.

  I opened my mouth, then closed it.

  “I’ll do my best to answer them.” He stood and began to pace the front of the room. “Before there were humans, there were shifters. At least, that’s what the legends say.” He glanced my way. “I’m not a very religious man, myself.” He cleared his throat. “We were a bridge, between Earth and the heavens, between nature and the celestial.”

  “Then humans came and fucked things up,” Cory spat.

  Amarok gave him a long, cold look. Cory met his gaze for a moment, then flinched away and sat down in a folding chair, trying to look nonchalant.

  “Then humans came.” He gave a short, dry laugh. “And fucked things up. Their arrival severed our link to the celestial. They took it for themselves.”

  “I’m not following a bit of this, by the way,” I mumbled feebly.

  Amarok nodded at Andres. “Luxe, give it a try, will you?”

  Andres…Luxe…smiled gently at me. “There are two kinds of magic in the world. There’s nature magic. That’s us. Shifters are part of nature. We have a connection to the Earth in a way humans can’t fathom. We draw on its energy to heal. We can smell its magic on the breeze. We have the spirits of animals within us, and we can draw on the powers of those animals at will, but we also have the cognitive powers and creativity of mankind.”

  “Then humans came…and fucked things up,” I whispered.

  Luxe chuckled. “Humans skew the other way. To the other magic. With effort, and ingenuity, and sacrifice, they can reach beyond nature, beyond Earth to the stars and beyond, and seize power that way.”

  “Power best left beyond their grasp.” Amarok spoke up again. “We know the source of our power. The celestial powers… no one’s quite sure what fuels those. No one but the people who use the magic, who let it consume them.”

  “And you assume that it’s evil?” I asked. “Because humans use it? Because you don’t understand it?”

  “Because to use it, you have to sacrifice. Plants, animals, other humans. Your sanity. Your own soul.” Amarok’s eyes bored into mine. “Celestial magic devours those who use it from within. No one comes away from it intact. Not many humans use it, or know of it. Only the most powerful, the people who can get away with the greatest atrocities… they use it to grasp even more power. Then, it tears them apart.”

  A shiver ran through my body.

  “I… something happened to me tonight. The scroll…”

  Amarok nodded slowly. “Mother Glory tried to sacrifice you to the scroll. She wasn’t counting on one important factor.”

  “Hmm?” The horror had closed my throat.

  “You’re not human.”

  Chapter Six

  I goggled at Amarok. “The fuck?” I gasped.

  He gave a non-committal shrug. “You’re not human, Alexandria.”

  “The fuck I’m not,” I snapped. “I sure as hell don’t turn into a… a rabbit, or a bird, or a…”

  Amarok bowed his head. “I believe you.”

  “So…”

  He met my eyes again. “There are two ways half-breeds go. Two good reasons that shifters don’t breed with humans.”

  I felt strangely stung by that. “Yeah?”

  “The first way, the kid can shift, but has next to no connection with magic. Shifting’s all they get.” Amarok frowned. “Unless they get into the celestial magic. Then, they can just barely touch it, but they don’t have the reach that a full human has. All sparks, no flame.”

  “And the second way?” I knew I didn’t shift. A lump filled the pit of my stomach.

  Amarok’s eyes narrowed. “The second way scares the ever-loving piss out of shifters.” />
  I swallowed hard. “Why?”

  “You can’t shift. But you’re magic, through and through.” His eyes were hypnotic. “Your gift for languages. You’ve had that from birth, haven’t you? Early talker. Understood conversations you shouldn’t have. Read college-level books in the nursery.”

  I nodded silently.

  “Then, out and about, you understood everyone, no matter what they were speaking.”

  I nodded again. I remembered childhood trips to Chinatown, forays to the Mexican-owned grocery on the corner. Chatting with everyone as I clung to my mother’s hand. Watching her eyes grow wide with shock. Wondering why, when it was so easy to understand them, and why can’t you, Mommy? They’re just talking.

  “Have you ever heard of ‘the language of the birds’?” Cory asked. No sneer this time, just studying my face with intense eyes.

  “The divine language. The language medieval occultists believed…” My voice cut off. I cleared my throat. “The language of magic.” I shook my head dismissively. “Just a legend. I read about it in medieval history.”

  “Well, you’re half-bird.” Cory shrugged.

  I cocked my head. “You’re all bird. Does that mean you know languages too?”

  Cory shot me an annoyed look. “Nah. Some Spanish, some French, a little Italian. It’s like Roc said. You’re made of solid magic, being half-bird and half-human. I’ve heard stories about half-breed bird-kin speaking in tongues, or speaking to trees or rocks.” He regarded me thoughtfully. “Nothing like you, though. You’re a special kind of weird.”

  “Thanks so fucking much,” I muttered.

  Amarok cleared his throat. “You have a connection to magic that shifters and humans alike would kill for, Alexandria. You have the natural magic, the affinity for languages. I’d bet you don’t get many bruises or paper cuts, either. But you can also access celestial magic, in ways human occultists can only dream of.” His eyes were searching. I felt exposed. “I don’t know if Mother Glory knew you could, or only hoped you could, but either way, you touched celestial magic tonight. And it touched you back.”