“Or?”
“Or your marriage will really only be a Legion assignment.”
With that said, Basanti walked away from me, swung a dead vampire over each shoulder, then walked downstairs.
She was right. The hollow ache in my heart told me that, even as my head tried to talk itself out of believing it. Marriage wasn’t a war, a battle where one party had to emerge victorious over the other. We shared in our victories—and in our defeats.
Just yesterday, my life had been perfect, but now it lay in shambles at my feet. And it wasn’t just about Nero. Maybe those reporters were right. Maybe I was a terrible angel, and try as I might to do right, I simply ruined everything that I touched.
My ringing phone interrupted my pity party.
“Lucy,” I said.
“Leda, there’s been another incident.”
“Where?”
“In the Frontier town of Beyond.”
“What happened?”
“Two fire elementals burned to death. And two ice elementals died from frostbite.”
Vampires poisoned by blood. Elementals dying by their own elements. None of this made a lick of sense.
“I’m on it,” I told Lucy, then hung up.
I spread my wings and flew off the balcony, back up to the airship. I was collecting problems faster than I could resolve them. Nero. Faris. Grace. The whole damned demon council for that matter, and my duties as Heaven’s Emissary to Hell. Failing Magitech barrier. Monsters surviving on this side of the wall. Supernaturals dying everywhere. Reporters. Hate groups. Everything!
Soon there would be so many problems weighing down my wings that I wouldn’t even be able to stand up, let alone fly.
13
Third Degree
Beyond lay at the edge of Harker’s territory. It was very affluent, a comfy suburb where people went to raise a family, rather than a typical rugged Frontier town where people stayed because they couldn’t afford to live anywhere else.
The town was certainly nothing like my hometown Purgatory.
Beyond was laid out in a tidy grid pattern of perfectly straight streets and cozy houses that pretty much all looked the same. There were schools and shopping malls, restaurants and gyms. The town even had its own ice rink.
As I walked with Harker down the street, the stark differences between this town and all the other ones on the Frontier were impossible to ignore. Those differences lay not only in the fancy facilities and perfect little houses. The mood was simply more cheerful here. Smiling strangers greeted us as we passed them on the street. They doted on Angel, who trotted beside us, her feline head held high as she basked in their attention. Even the sun seemed to shine brighter and warmer in Beyond.
And yet, despite all their money and cheer, this town had seen death too. Four elementals had died here today. Tragedy hit all kinds of places.
From a newly-established town like Inspiration, which was still building up.
To Purgatory, the poor town that had just managed to pull itself free from the oppression of the district lords.
To this fancy, middle-class suburban town that had been thriving for years.
“The fire elementals were found dead in that house over there.” Harker indicated a blackened plot with a blackened pile of wood, the missing tooth in an otherwise perfect row of houses.
Beyond lay within his territory, but I shared the Frontier with him and the other angels. The Legion considered the Frontier—and the Plains of Monsters—to be the key to the Earth’s future, and it wanted many angels on the job. That’s why earlier today I’d worked with Leila at Inspiration, a town in her territory. And it was why I was here now, working with Harker.
“The ice elementals, two sisters, lived in a house further down the street. They died in a freak snowstorm that hit their house—and only their house—this morning,” said Harker.
I looked at the burnt-down house. “It looks like the flames touched only the fire elementals’ house.”
Harker nodded. “Yes. It’s weird. A fire that big doesn’t just stay contained to one house like that.”
“And a summer snowstorm doesn’t hit only one house either,” I said. “This is magic.”
“Of course it’s magic, Leda. But a fire elemental dying by burning? And an ice elemental dying from cold exposure? Those are their elements. They are supposed to be resistant to them. They aren’t supposed to die from their own kind of magic. Just as vampires aren’t supposed to die from drinking blood. And technology isn’t supposed to turn against the witches who created it. Don’t you see? These cases are all connected. Something—or someone—is turning supernaturals’ own magic against them and killing them with it.”
“You think we have a serial killer on our hands,” I said.
Harker nodded. “And a prolific one at that. The first incident at Inspiration happened not even twenty-four hours ago. Two witches were wounded there, when their own tech turned against them; I bet the culprit meant for them to die, but something went wrong. Sixty-eight vampires died in Purgatory, poisoned by the life blood of their immortality. And four elementals died here.”
“This serial killer isn’t only prolific,” I said. “They’re arrogant enough to get a kick out of killing people with their own kind of magic. And they’re smart enough to figure out how to do it. But who would do a thing like this?”
A dark look fell over Harker’s face. “Far too many people, if they only had the chance. There are a lot of people who hate magic and hate the people who wield it.”
I thought of the hate crowd that had gathered outside the vampire nest in Purgatory. Harker was right. There were a lot of people out there who hated magic. And a lot of people who just wanted an excuse to hate something. Maybe this wasn’t even just one serial killer. Maybe it was the work of a larger organization.
“Wouldn’t these mysterious magic-hating perpetrators need to possess magic in order to kill people with it?” I wondered aloud.
“Not necessarily,” replied Harker. “They could have rigged the machines to overload. And they could have poisoned the vampires’ blood supply by injecting their prisoners with something.”
“And the elementals? A human could have set the house on fire and maybe even simulated a snowstorm with the right tech, but how did they overload the elementals’ resistance to their own elements? And how did they confine the fire and the snowstorm each to one house?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“And how does the monster Leila and I killed, the one who can survive on this side of the wall, tie in to all of this?”
Again, Harker said, “I don’t know.”
I sighed. “That makes two of us.”
“Perhaps our investigation of the two houses will provide some clues,” he suggested.
“I hope you’re right.”
We turned off the sidewalk and walked down the path to the burnt house. The fence that had once stood along the property border was no longer white or perfect or even still standing. Neither was the house. There was no building for us to enter. All that was left was to dig around in the burnt and blackened debris.
“How’s Bella?” I asked him, seeking out a happier note in this dreary scene.