18

My breath caught when I heard Nyx speak my name.

“I like Leda,” she told Nero. “And I see you share my appreciation.”

“She is a competent soldier, though unorthodox,” he replied. Wow, that was high praise from him.

“I see the way you look at her, Nero. You need to get yourself under control. Take her to your bed and be done with it. This is just making you agitated.”

He said nothing.

Nyx chuckled softly. “You tried that already, didn’t you? And she turned you down.”

“Yes.” He didn’t sound like he shared her amusement.

“Well, try something else,” Nyx said without sympathy. “Not everyone goes all wide-eyed and falls on their back for us.”

“She is resistant.”

Which was just another word for stubborn. A nicer word. Why was he never this nice when talking to me? Why did he have to always be such a hard ass?

“Have you tried compelling her?” Nyx asked him.

“Yes. It doesn’t work on her. She’s immune.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. If she weren’t, I’d have been able to make her stop mouthing off long ago.”

Nyx laughed. “Perfect. Not since the early years of the Legion have we had someone join who possesses a natural immunity to an angel’s compulsion.”

If this immunity was so rare, that explained why Nero had looked surprised all those times I didn’t fall under his spell like everyone else.

“I remember how your immunity used to annoy me,” Nyx said to my surprise.

But I shouldn’t have been surprised. Nero was insanely powerful, and he was even more stubborn than I was.

“This resilience makes her a valuable soldier,” Nyx continued. “I see you’ve been training her extra. Good. She has the makings of a great angel.”

“Yes.”

“The two of you have something else in common. I saw how she reacted to the Nectar. You are the only other person who ever had that reaction. It makes me wonder… What do you know about her parents?”

“Nothing. She’s an orphan. She doesn’t remember them.”

“Someone with that kind of power doesn’t just drop out of the sky. It’s in her blood,” said Nyx. “Help her get through the Legion. We will need soldiers like her in the days to come. Things are about to get interesting.”

“The demons.”

“And so much more,” Nyx said in the unnecessarily cryptic style I’d come to expect from angels. “But we have more immediate problems at the moment. Get this mess with the witches solved and settled, Colonel. I’d hate to execute them all.”

I withdrew, hiding behind the door, holding my breath as Nyx passed out of Nero’s office. I watched her stride down the corridor, her steps strong, her demeanor confident in the knowledge that she owned this place and everyone in it. Nyx was a delightfully odd combination of sweetness, beauty, humor—and hard, cruel angel.

I turned to peer through the door. Nero was sitting at his desk. Even though I’d just learned that he was two hundred years old, he looked so young right now, so forlorn. Like he didn’t know what to do. Driven by this intensely human need to comfort him, I walked into his office.

“What is it, Pandora?” he asked, looking up at me. That lost boy was gone. The hard, calculating, perfectly-in-control angel was back.

“We couldn’t find any connections between the witches,” I said. “But we thought if we could get the backgrounds on the victims, we might find something there.”

“I will have the files prepared and sent over to you.”

“Ok.” I squeezed my hands together, then realized how nervous that made me look. So I tucked them behind my back. “Great.” I gave him a hesitant smile.

“Is there anything else?” he asked.

“No. I’ll just be going then.”

Nero’s phone rang, and he picked it up. As he listened, I turned and walked away.

“I’ll be right there,” he said into the phone. I heard it clink against the receiver, then the sound of him pushing back his chair. “Wait.”

I glanced over my shoulder to watch him strap on an extra belt of knives. “There’s just been a break-in at the New York University of Witchcraft. And an explosion that destroyed part of one building.”

I whipped all the way around to face him. “Gods,” I gasped. “Is everyone all right?”

“No one was killed. Your sister Bella is one of the witches caring for the wounded.”

“That’s so like her,” I said, sighing in relief.

“The thief broke into the second floor of Building 2.”

That’s the same corridor Bella and I had snuck into. “What did the thief take?”

“Poisons, venoms, and explosives.” He pulled on another belt of knives. “And this wasn’t the university’s first break-in. Apparently, their supplies have been going missing for weeks. They didn’t want to admit to it because they were already under our scrutiny. They feared what would happen if we learned they’d lost so many deadly magics. This time, the thief triggered an alarm. The witches have upgraded their security since last night. The thief was trapped and had to blast his way out.”

“Who is the thief?”

“They don’t know. They suspect it is one of their own. They don’t believe anyone but a powerful witch could have broken through the barrier protecting the second floor corridor.”

“Which witch called to report this?” I asked.

“Morgana.”

“She could be playing us.”

“Yes, she could be,” he agreed. “Which is why I’m not going to the university to talk to her and the other coven leaders. I’m sending Basanti instead.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to hunt down the thief. And you’re coming with me,” he told me.

“Me? Why me?”

“Because no one has been able to track the thief, and finding people is your specialty.”

* * *

The thief wasn’t stupid. The fact that we couldn’t find him on any of the video feeds told me he knew where all the street cameras were. And he must have used a potion to cover his retreat because Nero couldn’t find a trail—magical or physical—to follow. But that was ok. Back when I’d been a bounty hunter on the Frontier of civilization, I’d had neither video feeds nor the Legion’s extensive arsenal of magic to help me. It was time to go back to basics.

Avarice was one of humanity’s greatest failings, but I chose to see it as one of my most useful tools. A bundle of hundred-dollar bills went a long way in tracking a criminal, even on the relatively prosperous streets of New York. Within fifteen minutes, we’d followed the thief’s trail from one helpful bystander to another. The money I offered them kept them talking, and the sight of the angel beside me kept them from lying to my face. That was efficiency at its peak, so Nero should have been happy. Instead, he looked like he’d soiled his shiny angel halo just by watching me bribe the local population.

“Stop it,” I said as we hurried toward the Sunken Ship. The last guy we’d spoken to had told us we’d find the ‘flying ninja’ in an old warehouse by that name.

“Stop what?” Nero asked.

“Stop giving off that disgusted expression like something stinky died inside of your nose.”

“I am giving off no such expression.”

“You don’t approve of my methods.”

“You are stuffing hundred-dollar bills into the hands of strangers. It is…”

“Unseemly?” I suggested, arching my brows.

“Yes. A soldier of the Legion does not stoop to bribery.”

“You asked for my help, and this is what it is. Your one thousand dignified soldiers of the Legion were unable to find the thief. Sometimes, the dignified way doesn’t work. Sometimes, you just have to get your hands dirty.”

“It remains to be seen whether anything at all will come of us getting our hands dirty.”

“Oh, something always comes of it,” I said, grinning. “It’s just not always what you expected. Embrace the unexpected, Colonel. It’s what makes life worth living.”

“You are a very unusual woman.”

“Thank you.”

I stopped in front of a faded wooden sign with the words ‘The Sunken Ship’ painted across its uneven surface. The warehouse past the sign was in even worse shape. The roof was gone, and only three of the four walls were still standing. I could see into the hollow building, and it was empty.

“Not what you expected?” Nero asked me.

“No.” My eyes traced the broken edges of the rotting building, up an elevator shaft to a raised platform. About the size of my living room, the platform was completely enclosed in glass. “I don’t think the Sunken Ship is a warehouse.” I tilted my head back further to gaze up into the sky. A crimson and bronze silhouette floated in front of the bright, full moon. “I think it’s an airship.”