Celia described Sigourney as a “pro.” She also implied Sigourney had a secret account, and acted like getting killed was a known occupational hazard for pros.

Benedict De Lacy, who is a screwed-up mental Prime, didn’t ask any of the usual questions most people ask when learning about the death of an acquaintance or a client. He didn’t show surprise or express condolences.

Diatheke routinely employs a trained strike team of killers.

Celia was a metamorphosis mage, probably at least a Significant, and she tried to murder me. I was her primary target.

There was only one reasonable conclusion to all of this. Sigourney Etterson worked for Diatheke as an assassin. They either knew she was about to die, or they killed her. Other convoluted ways to interpret that list existed, but this was the simplest and most straightforward.

Did Benedict have her murdered over the two million dollars? I had no doubt that Diatheke gave Sigourney her money. If they hadn’t, Celia would have told me. By the time Sigourney cashed out the account, she had already moved her will to her desktop, which meant the threat existed before she went to Diatheke. If they intended to kill her, why cash her out?

I still had no idea what Diatheke actually did. Private security teams, like the one that almost killed me today, usually served prominent, wealthy Houses. On paper, Diatheke wasn’t associated with any House, but it sure was run like one, with a Prime at the top.

A metamorphosis mage of Celia’s caliber required careful management. Arabella was a metamorphosis mage. There was no comparison between the two, because my sister was one of a kind, but similarities existed. For one, deploying Celia would’ve been a gamble every time. Very few metamorphosis mages retained the ability to reason while transformed. They were the magic equivalent of a directional antipersonnel mine. Point the right side toward the enemy and hope for the best. Diatheke would have to maintain a suppression team to neutralize her if she went off the rails.

What kind of nasty shit was Diatheke involved in that they needed Celia on their team? There was a simple answer to that, and I didn’t like it.

Bern had already done a search on Diatheke and came up with nothing out of the ordinary. That left Benedict De Lacy. Mental Primes with that sort of power didn’t just pop out of nowhere.

Most of his furniture and artifacts dated between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, during the rise and peak of the Ottoman Empire, and came from that specific region, with the exception of some medieval European swords and French furniture. To acquire that collection took not only ridiculous wealth, but education. He had to have gone to college, probably an Ivy League university somewhere. I pictured his office in my mind. No, he didn’t have any diplomas framed on his wall.

I logged into Herald and searched for Benedict De Lacy. Nothing.

House De Lacy?

Herald spat out two search results, one for some aquakinetics in Canada and the other for some harmonizers in New York. The aquakinetics imported bottled spring water, and the harmonizers, whose specialty was creating living spaces that evoked a particular feeling, owned an interior design firm. I checked both out of due diligence. Neither listed any Benedicts and none of the family members looked anything like Benedict.

He was something though. I had spent enough time with Arrosa to recognize old wealth and breeding. Perhaps he was using an assumed name. If he was a bastard child of some high-ranking Prime, he would be nearly impossible to identify. Family resemblance would be my best bet.

I accessed the Herald’s Prime visual database and went to advanced search. I typed in male, white, fifty to eighty, Prime, mental branch of magic. It resulted in two thousand hits.

Great. Here’s hoping Benedict had a living father who looked like him.

I was on page seven when I smelled blood. The salty metallic stench cut across my senses like a razor. It came from my sword.

It made no sense. I’d wiped the gladius with an oiled rag before putting it back in its bracket on the wall. It hung there, five feet away from me, the blade shining slightly, reflecting the light of my lamp. I knew it was clean.

I had killed three people with it. I’d cut their throats. They’d died while my hands were on them. I could still feel the warmth of the second man’s face as I clamped my fingers over his mouth. I remembered the heat of his breath when he exhaled as I drove my sword into his flesh.

My hands shook. The scent of blood was everywhere now, saturating the air and settling on my skin in a sticky patina. I inhaled it with every breath.

I gagged and tasted acid in my mouth. Tears wet my eyes, blurring my vision. I wished I could open a window, but the office had none.

I swiped at my eyes and heard myself sob. The office blurred. I got up, locked the door, and lowered the shades on the glass wall facing the hallway. Then I collapsed in the chair, put my hands over my face, and cried.

I wished I could take it back. I wished I could rewind today or wake up and realize I’d had a nightmare. It felt like a sharp shard was inside me trying to cut its way out. It hurt so much.

The little black dog stood on her hind legs, put her front paws on my knee, and wagged her tail. I petted her shaggy head. The tears kept coming. I just couldn’t stop.

My phone rang. Bug. I answered and hit the speaker icon.

“Hey,” he said. “Your grandma and your sister made it to Keystone okay, got the Guardians, and are heading back. Arabella made a slight detour, so I thought I’d tell you so you don’t freak out.”

“That’s great,” I choked out. My voice sounded strained and sharp.

“I detect some hostility,” Bug said. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s great.”

“Catalina, where are you? What’s wrong?”

“I killed three people.” I was trying to keep it together, but saying it out loud proved too much. The sobs broke through.

“What people? Where?”

“At Keystone Mall. Actually, I killed ten people, three myself and seven through people I beguiled. Ten people, Bug. They can never go home. They had families . . .”

“It’s okay.” Bug’s voice turned soothing. “It’s okay. Why were you at the mall?”

“Things didn’t go well after Diatheke. I picked up a tail, took them to the mall, and killed them.”

“The crew from the Guardians?” Bug guessed.

“Yes.”

“Catalina, they followed you to the mall. You didn’t chase them down. They could’ve walked away at any point. Those fuckers made a deliberate choice to hunt you down instead. It was you or them. Listen to me. You didn’t do anything wrong. You killed ten bad people.”

The rational part of me knew he was right, but it didn’t make me feel any better. I took ten lives.

“If you hadn’t killed them, they would have killed you and then tomorrow or next week, they would have killed someone else. Talk to me. Are you there?”

“Yes. I just can’t stop crying.”

“It’s adrenaline overload. Listen to me, listen to my voice: they were wrong, you were right. People who ride around in Guardians so they can hunt down a lone woman in an abandoned mall don’t deserve mercy. They’re the worst kind of assholes. The world can use less assholes.”

I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself. “I’m better,” I told him. “I’ve got it.”

“Good, because your sister just passed the security checkpoint.”

I grabbed a handful of tissues and wiped my face.

“Bug?”

“Yes?”

“Please don’t tell anybody.”

“I won’t,” he promised. “She’s at the front door.”

I jumped up, opened the shades, unlocked the door, and sat back at my desk. The front door swung open. There was a grunt. The door swung shut. Arabella staggered down the hallway and into my office carrying an armload of stuff and dumped it on the floor.

“What’s this?” I asked. My face was red, my eyes bloodshot, and we both pretended they weren’t.

She sat on the floor and dug through the bags, raising each item like she was auctioning it off. “Dog food bowl, water bowl, collar, leash, dog food; goes in the bowl, puppy pads; go on the floor, special cleaner with enzymes to clean up messes, chewy toys, an almost life-like squirrel, a rubber hamburger, little tennis balls, a blankie, a dog pillow, special dog shampoo, and a grooming brush.”

Wow.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“How did you know what to get?”

“I asked Matilda.”

The little dog trotted over to the pile of loot and bit the rubber hamburger. It squeaked. The dog dropped the hamburger and dashed under my desk.

“A paragon of bravery,” Arabella observed.

“She’s been through a lot. Why the sudden attack of kindness?” I asked.

She got up off the floor and hugged me. We almost never hugged anymore.

Arabella headed to the door.

“Hey,” I called.

She turned back to me.

I lowered my voice. “Sergeant Heart has a thing for Mom.”

She blinked, then her eyes went wide. “How do you know?”