Page 21 of Tested
Headquarters is on the ninth floor of a shiny silver office building near the Staples Center. I park in the lot underneath the building. There’s a security guard in the lobby but Poole must have cleared me with him because the guard just waves me on. The elevator holds the aural shimmer left by all the beings who’ve used it, and I get off to face a bank of windows, just as the sun drops below the horizon.
Darkness reminds me of Trajan, and I get a bad feeling. A really bad feeling.
The door to headquarters is unlocked, the lobby empty. The lights are dim, although down the hallway to the right, there’s an open door with light spilling through. I head in that direction, following the sound of voices.
I find Poole sitting at one end of a long table in a room that could have been the setting for a mid-century war movie. The furnishings are utilitarian at best and the walls covered with maps and black-and-white photographs. Poole’s wearing an uncharacteristically formal black suit and tie, and the reason for his formality is seated at his right hand.
Ananda Pendragon, the Morrigan.
Shocked beyond thought, I can only bend a knee, sinking to the floor, my left hand raised to my forehead in respect.
“Get up,meascach.” Her voice echoes as if three women spoke at once.
Halfbreed. I stand slowly, regretfully, not at all ready to face a living god, even if she is my many-times-great-grandmother. As a direct descendent of the Morrigan, my mother had a rebellious phase and briefly broke free of her family’s control.
I’m a souvenir from those days.
“This one is your best?” Ananda Pendragon directs her question at Poole.
“Of course.” He looks surprised. “I wouldn’t waste your time with less.”
“I see.” She nods and turns her attention to me. Her eyes are as dark as her midnight hair and her fingernails are scarlet. When I was a child, I’d had little contact with the old ones, the living gods. My mother and her parents had kept me separate, a blemish on the beauty of the Tuatha Dé Danann. My interest in joining the Elites had come as almost a relief, as if my family hoped a glorious death in battle would redeem the half of my soul that didn’t belong to them.
Not that I have a clue who the other half belongs to.
Ananda Pendragon’s dagger-like finger points at me. “Listen,meascach.There isn’t much time. There’s a clan of vampires in this city who are determined to upset the balance between the races. They have kidnapped an elven princess, and if she is not returned safely, there will be war.”
“Yes,cathaoirleach.I was assigned the princess’s case before—”
Poole interrupts me. “We will make finding the princess our top priority.”
“It’s not already?”
“Of course, ma’am, but we also have—”
“You have nothing else.Nothing. If the elves declare war on the vampires, the whole world will suffer. I’ll come myself and destroy every vampire in this city before I let that happen.”
Facing down a god is intimidating, but still I have to ask, “How do you know it’s the vampires who have the princess?”
She gives me the kind of look someone would give a dog who decided to sit up and speak. “Because it’s written in the wind.”
The wind?“You’re going to destroy all the vampires in LA because you dreamt one of them was involved?”
Poole eases back in his chair. He might be holding his breath, too, because only an idiot questions a god.
Ananda Pendragon straightens. Her hair begins to float, like she’s caught in a breeze no one else can feel. “You will die too,meascach.”Instead of the echoes of three women, this time her voice holds a chorus.
“Iwilldie, at some point. We all will, except you,cathaoirleach,but threatening to destroy people when we have no actual proof they’re involved is a problem.”
“Mack.” Poole whispers my nickname.
“I’m sorry, Colonel, but if I’m going to be of use to you, we need to be working from the same playbook.”
“You will do as you’re told.” Power fills Ananda Pendragon’s voice.
I stand. Maybe growing up hidden away from the family gods had been a good thing after all. While the Morrigan frankly terrifies me, getting pushed around just pisses me off. “And why do you care, Ananda Pendragon, if the elves and the vampires start a fight? There are only a few Tuatha in the city of Los Angeles.” Not remote enough. I’d always figured they didn’t like the competition from so many other supes. “And as far as I know, you don’t like either the elves or the vampires. What’s your stake here?”
She stands, too, her hair going wild and her eyes glowing red. “My reason doesn’t matter to such as you. Find the princess or I’ll start killing vampires, and…”—she draws a sigil in the air—“one called Trajan Gall will be the first to die.”
