Gameboard of the Gods (Age of X, #1)(141)

“Because we’re only looking at these five grants,” he said. “The Morrigan’s people probably worked on other castes. They just haven’t had any deaths to catch our attention. I bet there’s a perfect patrician for every plebeian there. And statistically, you’d expect some plebeian deaths to occur for nonsacrificial reasons.”

Mae suddenly stood up. “There’s a pattern.”

“There’s always a pattern.”

“No, look.” She pointed. “All the plebeian and patrician deaths make a circle around this grant. Is that the Pan-Celts?”

“Yes,” said Justin, excitement racing through him. “One of the metas. Light haired, just like our guy.”

“A lot of area for a group to hide out,” said Callista with obvious dismay.

Justin shook his head in bitter amusement. “It’d be nice if your interest in stopping them was out of altruism for those poor victims, but something tells me you’re more concerned with getting rid of a threat to your group.”

“She should be,” said Mae unexpectedly. “Because they want to kill her.”

Both Justin and Callista stared. “How do you know that?” he asked.

“Because he asked me to. The, uh, guy who visited the others. He’s come to me a couple of times.”

Justin couldn’t formulate any words right away. “What? And you only just now thought to mention it?”

“Don’t take that tone,” she snapped. “I didn’t make the connection, any more than you did with a goddess who apparently fits all the criteria we’ve got! I thought he was trying to extort me for the Swedish mafia.”

“What’s going on?” asked Callista, angry at being left out.

“Oh, I must have forgotten to mention that the uncontrollable force that follows Mae is the Morrigan.” Seeing Callista’s mouth drop in shock, Justin quickly preempted any protests. “Don’t question or make accusations. We’re dealing with it.” He turned to Mae. “He seriously asked you to kill her?”

Mae nodded. “Wasn’t specific on the means. No mention of a silver dagger.”

A troubling thought occurred to Justin. “Did he threaten you?” Even when he’d first suspected Mae might have a connection, he’d never considered she might be in real danger. After all, she wasn’t like the others. She was unstoppable…right?

“What he said isn’t important,” Mae said.

“It is if your life’s on the line!”

“It’s not. No shadow creature’s coming after me. Worry about these other patricians.”

“And worry about the fact that they’re eliminating their rivals too.” Callista’s face darkened with outrage. “Now do you see that they need to be stopped? For me, for her, for the others! They need to be disbanded and destroyed!”

Justin was growing frustrated, still shaken by the idea of something happening to Mae. “Yes, yes, I know! But we can’t do anything until we find them.”

She fixed him with a cold look. “Then I suggest you start looking. And you…” She turned to Mae. “You start taking this seriously if you don’t want to be next. I told you before. If you want to be free, you need to break them. You could save yourself and the others. I…might be able to help you.”

“I don’t need your help,” said Mae.

“Yeah, you’re doing great on your own,” said Callista dryly. “Fix this. Immediately.” She disconnected.

Mae glared at the screen. “I really don’t like her.”

“Yeah, well, she helped us out with the name. We know a lot about the group now. We know a lot about you, whether you like it or not.” He raked a hand through his hair with a sigh. The Exerzol was crashing down on him. “Everything except where they are. I wish you’d told me about that guy.”

“So you could nobly throw yourself in front of me?” A glint in those eyes told him the ramifications of his earlier refusal weren’t going away any time soon. “It was my business, not yours. And I certainly never could’ve guessed the bigger picture. I thought he was blackmailing me about my niece.” She gave him a brief rundown of her encounters with Emil. It left Justin reeling.

“Well, at least it’s still—” His ego rang again. “Fuck, doesn’t anyone sleep?” It was still synched to the screen, which identified the caller as Leo. At least he had the excuse of an earlier time zone.

Leo appeared when Justin answered, not looking tired in the least. In fact, there was a light in his face that Justin knew well: the light of a breakthrough.

“I’ve got it,” he said. “I know how your video could’ve been faked.”

It was a blow to Justin’s finely tuned theories. He’d grown comfortable with the idea of the shadowy assassin being some supernatural manifestation. If the video was proven to be a fake, then that meant the murderers had resorted to practical means, which still didn’t rule out the Morrigan’s involvement. It just meant they were using smoke and mirrors to scare others.

Still, Justin was anxious enough to find out the results that he changed their travel plans to go straight to Portland from the Nordic grant. He considered bringing Tessa but ended up sending her home on the original flight. She’d already been involved in too much.