Gameboard of the Gods (Age of X 1)

“Are you sure?” Mae tried to recall what Justin had said. “I think he checked the number of cases SCI’s got. There’s no significant difference from last year.”

Lucian’s eyes sparkled, probably at one-upping Justin. “He checked the national cases. But not ones in the protectorates and provinces.”

She was startled. “I didn’t think we sent many servitors there. Especially the provinces.” Protectorates weren’t that surprising. They were usually on track to being annexed, so it made sense that the RUNA would start cleaning house in advance.

“We do now,” said Lucian.

“Why?”

“No one gave me an answer on that. But I also found out some of the national cases are getting multiple servitors investigating them.” He tilted his head to study her. “Is that helpful?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Justin will have to make the call on that. I’ll pass it on. Thank you.”

The grin was back. “Happy to help. Especially if I get to talk to you again. Don’t worry—we’ll make something work out one of these days.”

“Thanks,” said Mae, who hadn’t been worried.

There was something appealing about him, but again, it was a mess she didn’t need. After a little more flirtation, Lucian disconnected and Mae stood up, stretching her muscles. The activity in Mazatlán hadn’t wearied her. If anything, it had made her crave more physical action. The odds of finding a canne partner this time of night were pretty low, though.

In a heartbeat, she made her decision—an ironic one, considering she’d just rejected Lucian. But she needed a simpler man now, one who didn’t travel with reporters in tow and could help her with this physical restlessness in as simple a way as possible.

“Call Giles Whitetree,” she told the screen.

He answered quickly, looking pleasantly surprised to see her face. “Koskinen.”

Whitetree had been on her mind since she’d seen him at the senate. He was a Scarlet too, one of the nicest guys in her cohort. Little stressed him out, and he didn’t kiss and tell. His liaisons sometimes did, and what they told was always favorable.

“What are you doing tonight?” she asked.

“About to head over to some Celadon’s place across town. Rumor has it he got some ree.”

“You want to come over here instead?”

Whitetree paused and gave her a considering look, perfectly understanding the subtext. “Have you moved?”

“Nope.”

“I’ll be there in fifteen.”

They disconnected, and Mae wondered if she should make it easy on him by changing into a robe. Her implant would encourage her body to increase the chemicals of lust, just as it did those of battle. That surge in sex hormones sent women to heart-racing levels of arousal—men into blind frenzies. Normal male sex drives had a tendency to be stronger in general. Paired with an implant, those sex drives could grow out of control. However he was traveling here, Whitetree had fifteen minutes to think about sex, which was an eternity for the implant’s effects to keep building and building. Prætorians took nonprætorian lovers often, but it could sometimes be difficult for civilian women who weren’t prepared for that roughness. Although it was rare, prætorian men occasionally found themselves accused of rape.

“Look at you, courted by politicians and warriors alike.”

Mae immediately turned toward the voice that had come from the dark hall leading to her bedroom. Her guns were on the kitchen counter, and she couldn’t risk exposing herself to retrieve them. She picked up the first weapon she could find: a heavy stone bowl she’d brought back from a mission in Asia.

Emil, the man from the Brödern, materialized from the darkness. At least he wasn’t armed again, but that didn’t rule out a threat, especially seeing as he’d broken into her home. “How the hell did you get in here?” she demanded.

“I get where I need to go,” he said mildly. There was such an irritating casualness about him that Mae half expected him to go help himself to something in the refrigerator. “And it’s hard to find you in one place these days.”

She kept her grip on the bowl. “Really? And here I thought your group’s influence reached everywhere.”

“No, though it goes far. Did you get the hair examined?” Now that he was in better lighting, she couldn’t detect a trace of Cain on him.

“Yes,” she said reluctantly.

“And?”

“And it could still be a ploy. You could’ve gotten it from my aunt, and it’d have the same match.”

“That’s a lot of effort for one ploy.”

“Ploys generally work that way, especially if you really do want some enterprising prætorian to join up with you. You want to convince me? Give me an address and location. Or doesn’t your reach go there either?” While she spoke, Mae’s mind was racing, figuring out the best way to subdue this guy. If she’d had her ego within reach, she might have managed a covert call to the authorities. As it was, he couldn’t be that hard for her to take out herself, so long as he didn’t have a gun concealed somewhere. Even organized criminal groups had difficulty obtaining guns in the RUNA, but they were more likely to have them than average civilians.

“It’s hard for anyone to reach into Arcadia,” he said. “We lost track of her shortly after the picture was taken, but we can help you get to her—if you help us and take your rightful place.”

Mae didn’t hear anything past one key word. Arcadia. “You’re lying. They wouldn’t have sent her there.”

“Wouldn’t they?” Emil asked, meeting her eyes levelly.

Yes, she thought bleakly, they might very well have done that. “What do you want from me?”

“What we’ve always wanted: you to take your rightful place in the group you were born into and step up now that we need you.”

“Step up how?” She didn’t want to negotiate with these people, but it had suddenly become impossible to shake the image of that small girl in the desolate reaches of the RUNA’s tyrannical neighbor.

“By doing what you do best. We need you to kill someone.”

“Oh, is that all?”

He frowned, momentarily caught up in his own thoughts. “You kept company with the servant of another goddess this weekend, one our mistress doesn’t like. You need to eliminate her.”

“I don’t ‘need’ to do anything,” snapped Mae, trying to hide her shock at the reference to Callista. How did they even know about her? “And I’m not an assassin for hire.”

He shot her a wry look. “Really? Then why do you collect a government paycheck? Don’t be stupid about this. It’s your last chance to embrace your destiny…otherwise, you’ll face the consequences.”

Her body tensed. “Threats now if I don’t do your killing? Why would you even care about some zealot in the borderlands?”

“Because she and her goddess present a risk.”

“A risk to the Br—” Mae suddenly cut herself off as a terrible, sinking feeling emerged within her. It seemed as though Justin wasn’t going to be her last wacky mistaken-identity mishap. “You aren’t with the Brödern.”

Emil was briefly thrown off. “The Swedish mafia? Those underlings?” Slowly, almost comically, realization dawned on him as well. “You don’t know, do you? You have no idea who I am.”

“I know you’re a guy who broke into my house and dangled promises of my niece in order to get me to commit murder. Seems like that’s plenty.”

His eyes were full of wonder. “Unbelievable. They broke the rules and never taught you her ways. I just figured you were one of the many who stray, but you were never even set on the path. It’s a shame,” he murmured. “You’re too dangerous to change now.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

She threw the bowl, clipping Emil in the head. It made him stagger, and then with astonishing speed, he melted back into the shadows. She sprinted to the hall in a few easy steps and found no sign of him. It was impossible. He couldn’t be faster than her. Without stopping, she headed toward the bedroom and flipped on the light. He wasn’t there either. Swearing, she spun around and headed to the bathroom, wondering if he’d sidestepped into it. It too was empty. Her heart racing, she hurried back to the living room. Emil must have slipped into the bathroom while she was in the bedroom and then doubled back out. It was the only explanation…but it was improbable. This whole chase had only lasted a matter of seconds. She’d heard no door or window, and neither was open. The bolt to the storage area on the second floor was still in place.

She searched the apartment again, looking in every possible place: closets, under the bed, etc. No sign. He was gone, vanished without a trace. How had he done it? She paced around, more out of agitation than anything else. What did she do now? Calling the police over a break-in wasn’t unreasonable, but what was she supposed to say?

“Damn it.” She sat on the couch again, trying to calm down and figure out what to do. Except, there was nothing to do. It’s your last chance to embrace your destiny. Ominous words. She wanted desperately to tell someone about this, but who was there?

And more important, who was Emil? With his blond looks and information about her niece, it’d been easy to assume he was one of the mobsters she’d long beseeched for help. Clearly, that wasn’t the case. Weirder still, he seemed to think she should’ve known who he was, furthering the mix-up. She wished she had Justin’s talent for memorization so that she could analyze all the tiny details of the conversation. Surely there was a clue in Emil’s words. The most she could draw on was his mysterious use of feminine pronouns and his reference to some “mistress.”

The chiming of her doorbell made Mae jump. She’d nearly forgotten about Whitetree. Sex was suddenly the farthest thing from her mind, but he was on her before she could shut the door. There was an animal look in his eyes as he pulled her to him and crushed her mouth with a kiss. The kiss was unexpected and was what convinced her to shove Emil from her mind. The encounter with him had amped her physical responses up, and she suddenly wanted an outlet for them. Usually prætorian men didn’t waste time with kissing. In fact, in a remarkable show of restraint, he actually managed to carry her off to her dark bedroom rather than taking her on the couch, against the wall, on the floor….