His gaze swung my way…and kept going. I exhaled a long, shuddering breath. If he was giving off any chaos vibes, I couldn’t detect them-they were too low to penetrate my own anxiety.
The gunman kept moving away, heading toward the back hall.
The back hall…where Karl was…
I fumbled for my phone. How could I open it without turning on the backlight? Damn it, I should know this!
The gunman walked along the wall. Ten feet above his head was the second tier, a wide ledge lined with the dark shapes of tables. I decided he was far enough that I’d risk the phone’s backlight, and was opening it when one dark shape on that second tier moved. A man’s figure swung over the low railing.
Karl landed square on the gunman’s back, his drop so soundless the man let out a startled yelp. The two men went down. I ran to cover Karl. As I passed the bar, I caught another motion, out of the corner of my eye. A figure on the top tier across the room, dressed in black, with something on his shoulder, long and-
“Karl! Partner!”
As the words left my mouth, I wished I could suck them back, say something clearer and I was about to yell “gun” when that gun swung my way. I dove, and Karl did the same, flinging the man off him and going for cover.
I scrambled under the nearest pool table, then scampered around the centerpiece, putting it between myself and the second gunman. I flattened out on my stomach, gun raised.
Something thumped against the table beside me. A soft sound, barely enough to carry. I swung my gun toward it.
“Stay,” Karl hissed.
While I could have slugged him for not “staying” himself, for taking the risk getting to me, I couldn’t deny a dart of relief when his dark figure dropped beside me.
“Shhh,” he said.
Again, I wasn’t the one who needed the warning, but I turned my attention to the path I’d been watching.
Karl slid closer, lips moving to my ear.
“They’re retreating. Heading for the side door. Two sets of footsteps.” He hung there, breath warm against my ear. “Still going. Still…The door. Open. Closed. Silence. Footsteps down the back hall. Receding. We’ll wait. Be sure.”
He stayed where he was, pressed up against me. After a minute, he rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.
“You okay?” I whispered. “That drop-”
“-was nothing. But I think I wrenched my neck when you yelled.”
“Better than catching a bullet.”
“True. And you? I don’t smell blood, so I presume you’re okay?”
“He killed Bianca. The guy you jumped. I…saw it.”
His gaze swung to mine. He didn’t ask “are you okay?” because he knew I wouldn’t be, and it had nothing to do with the horror of watching someone die. His arm went around my back as he leaned toward my ear and whispered, “We’ll talk.”
“After we get the hell out of here, right? Before someone discovers the body and finds us hiding under the pool table.”
A small smile. “Preferably.”
I pushed up as he backed out from under the table. I was getting to my feet when he pushed me back under and dropped beside me.
“Footsteps.”
A door slapped open, and Tony’s voice wafted in. “-goddamn cleaners. Just like the last time. Guy freaks out, certain the Cortezes broke in. I say, ‘Hey man, couldn’t the cleaners have forgotten to reset the alarm,’ but no…Gotta be a conspiracy.”
“Bianca’s supposed to be here for deliveries,” Max said. “Could have been her.”
“Bee’s going to forget to rearm the system? As if.”
“Looks like she’s still doing inventory. The hall light’s on. We should tell her about the alarm.”
“And get shanghaied into helping count boxes? Enjoy. I’m heading around back, see whether Guy’s here, if he has any news about Jaz and Sonny.”
We waited until Max and Tony stepped through their respective exits, then hightailed it out.
LUCAS: 5
PORTLAND IS A CITY of many charms. Primary among them is the geography-almost as far as I can get from my father and his Cabal without leaving the continental U.S. As the saying goes, though: act in haste, repent at leisure. I suggested that Paige and I settle in Portland during a particularly dark period between my father and myself, and I have, in some ways, come to regret it. The distance may be comforting, but if trouble arises in Miami, it takes me a while to get there.
While Paige had the insight to pack overnight bags and print out the flight schedule after Karl’s call, it was still late in the day by the time our plane crossed the Florida border.
A trip to Miami is never something I undertake lightly. It is the seat of the Cortez Cabal, and when I am there, I cannot forget who I am.
It’s not that I consider Cabals evil entities. I wish I could. Early life conditions us for a fairy-tale world of good and evil, of wicked witches and beautiful princesses, hideous trolls and stalwart knights. You are good or you are evil and there’s no in-between, no “extenuating circumstances.”
We don’t like extenuating circumstances. They make things messy. We want evil to hide behind a dark mask-cold and faceless. If the villain is not evil, how do you hate him?
If your father is not evil, how do you hate him?
I grew up in a world where the Cabals were clearly on the side of virtue. My family founded the first Cabal in Spain, after the Inquisition. We saw our people-supernaturals-persecuted by a society that didn’t understand that we were not evil, and we gave them a place where they could be safe, and raise their children in safety, and freely use their powers and prosper from them. We didn’t just give them jobs; we gave them a way of life.
I grew up believing in that family mythos. When my father led me through his offices, I saw happy people who smiled and bowed to him as if he was a beneficent king. I was a prince-petted and pampered. Outside those walls, though, I was the son of an unwed schoolteacher, living in a modest home up the Florida coast, where the name Cortez only meant I was “another damn Mexican.” Is it any wonder I clung to the fantasy as long as I did? Right into high school, to the summer I went to work for my father and walked in on him dictating execution writs as casually as if he were ordering more toner for the copy machines.
I could have plugged my ears and told myself I’d misheard. But my father raised me to never turn my back on a question until it was answered. So I did my due diligence, and found that my palace was built on the bones of the dead. And those happy, smiling faces I’d seen since childhood? I’d play the smiling, happy employee for my boss too, if crossing him meant he’d send fire demons to burn my family alive.
The truth had seemed clear. Cabals were evil. Cabals must be destroyed.
I made a vow, that I’d do whatever it took to bring the Cabals down. A foolish, arrogant vow that only a sixteen-year-old could make, based on a clear division of good and evil that only a sixteen-year-old can see. I delved ever deeper into Cabal culture and counterculture, no longer a prince but an outsider. Instead of galvanizing me to action, the distance only brought the picture into sharper focus. And with sharper focus, I began to see the gradients of black and white.