Vespertine

Quinn was in the new training room when Marissa knocked on the door. The bag before her came to a halt as it swung back towards her and her fist met it with controlled equal force, effectively bringing the bag to a standstill. She glanced at Marissa, who had already entered and was leaning against the wall.

“Did you need something?” Quinn asked, slightly out of breath.

“It can wait a couple minutes,” Marissa said, indicating the punching bag. “You can cool down if you need.”

Quinn shook her head and began unwinding her wraps, tossing them aside and picking up a bottle of water, draining it in a couple of gulps. She wiped her forehead with the towel that was on a chair beside her. “It’s fine, that was pretty much the end of it. What’s up?”

“Want to go on a mission?” She asked, smiling slyly. Quinn’s eyes widened.

“Seriously? Salvatore said I could?”

Marissa shrugged. “Not exactly. But I say you can, and I need a partner since Riana is out with Sal on a mission right now.”

“Let me get ready,” Quinn said eagerly. “Fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll come pick you up,” Marissa joked, already turning and striding out of the room.

Quinn rushed to the showers, quickly gathering leggings and a tee before she got in. She rinsed off and got dressed, then ran back to her makeshift room to get her knife and staff. She debated whether or not to take her jacket, and then decided that if they were going to be moving anyways, it was better not to have extra weight. She took one last gulp of water before walking quickly towards the entrance.

Marissa was already there, checking her phone as she waited in the driver’s seat of her pretty black car. She barely looked up as Quinn opened the side door and got in, collapsing her new staff so that it would fit.

“So what are we doing?” Typically, Salvatore held briefs for any mission. In general, teams either came up with missions they wanted to take, and Salvatore either approved or rejected the mission, or they would take one of the missions Salvatore had issued and pre-approved. Everything went through her brother, so she assumed this was one of the listings he had come up with himself.

“Well,” she said, stashing her phone in a compartment and starting the car, “this mission wasn’t really supposed to happen until next month, but there have been a couple of developments. You’re aware that the Directorate meeting got moved up?”

“Yeah,” Quinn said, remembering something she had heard on the news. “Budget cuts or something.”

“Yes. Anyways, the meeting was moved up two weeks, and they’re voting on a variety of issues tonight. One of which is a new bill, proposed by the lovely Dr. Weiss.”

“Weiss is a dick,” Quinn said, and then leaned back in her seat.

“His bill will unofficially restrict some specific rights of mortals.” Marissa made a sharp right without flinching, voice perfectly even. “For example, a proficiency test will be added to the voting process.”

Quinn frowned. “That’s no fair. They have way better schools.”

“Exactly,” Marissa said. “Not to mention the inner city schools that the rich ones can pay for. Weiss’ reasoning is that only the educated should be able to vote, lest stupid senators be elected. Ironic, isn’t it?”

“Very,” Quinn murmured. She felt oddly scared, realizing how little power mortals really had. The proficiency test was only one part of the bill— how much worse was the rest of it? And how easy would it be to turn into reality? Very.

“So what are we going to do?”

Marissa sped up as she pulled onto the highway, and Quinn realized they were heading towards an inner city. “Well, we have two options. Proposed bills can’t pass unless there’s a 75% vote, which there almost certainly will be. They also can’t pass if they’re not proposed. So we can either try to change a whole lot of minds, or kill Weiss.”

Quinn’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? Tonight? Won’t he be protected?”

“Yeah,” she responded cheerfully. “But he won’t be expecting us to know exactly where he is.”

“And how do we know?”

She wagged her finger, causing Quinn slight anxiety as she drove one-handed, eyes barely on the road. “I’ve got a man on the inside. One of his bodyguards, actually. Kind of sad that you can’t trust anyone these days.”

“Good for us, though.”

“Good for us indeed.”

She decelerated as they smoothly exited the highway, and it wasn’t long before they were in the fifth city, Columba. The Directorate meetings switched districts every meeting— last time it had been held in Incantare. “Weiss’ apartment is near the center of the city, but we’re going to intercept him. He’s no Director, so at most he’ll have a bodyguard in the car and a bodyguard tailing him. The one tailing him will probably be my informant. Do you get the picture?”

Quinn nodded. “And I’m assuming we’re to intercept him as he’s passing through a darker part of town. You got a building set up?”

Marissa jerked her chin towards a nondescript building that was nearby, with all the lights off. “Basement’s always empty, and office hours ended a while ago.” As she spoke, she pulled into the parking lot and checked her phone. “Be ready. We’ve got about fifteen minutes. Here.” She handed Quinn the classic, white, V-shaped mask, pulling her own on with her other hand.

Another car pulled up next to them, and Quinn tensed, half-curious and half-wary. Was that Marissa’s informant?

It took her a half second to recognize the truck, however, and then she sunk down in her seat as Salvatore got out of the car and slammed the door angrily. He knocked on the window.

“Don’t open it,” Quinn said, from her slouched position.

Marissa opened the window and waved at Salvatore.

“Are you insane? I didn’t approve Quinn for this mission!” He yelled. “And Quinn, I can’t believe you’d be so reckless! Was there even a briefing?”

Before Quinn could say anything to defend herself, Marissa laughed. “Oh, come on. You just wanted this one for yourself, didn’t you?”

He glared. “That is entirely irrelevant. This is about you putting my little sister in danger-”

“I’m sure it is,” Marissa shot back. “But the fact is we have ten minutes before Weiss is in position for us to strike. And Quinn isn’t a child. So are you going to let us complete our mission or not?”

He opened his mouth to respond, but could not find the words and closed his mouth, fuming. “I’ll stay nearby,” he said angrily. “And if anything bad happens, I’m forbidding you from missions for a month.”

Marissa grinned. “Whatever you say, boss.”

Quinn smiled meekly at Salvatore. “Thanks.”

He pinched her ear, but softened as he sighed. “Stay safe, you hear me?”

“Always do,” Quinn replied cheerfully. Marissa was checking her phone again. When Quinn peered over at her screen, she realized that Marissa was viewing a map of the city, with two markers on it. The stationary one was blue, marking their location. The other one was red, moving along a road perpendicular to the one they were parked next to. Weiss.

Marissa unbuckled and got out of the car as the red marker turned onto their street. Quinn quickly followed suit, sheathing her knife and holstering her staff and following Marissa to the side of the street.

Quinn frowned. “I have a question.”

“Yes?” Marissa responded, never taking her eyes off the road. Cars were streaking by.

“How exactly do we stop a moving car?”

“Oh, that,” Marissa said absentmindedly. “I hadn’t actually thought about that part.”

Quinn nearly choked on her own air. “They’re almost here and you don’t even know how to stop the car?”

She waved her off dismissively. “No time for regrets. Just think of something.”

“How much time do we have?”

She looked down. “About ten seconds.”

Quinn glared at her and Marissa pretended not to notice. Eight seconds went by and both of them were silent.

“What—“ Quinn started, but Marissa suddenly strode forward and fired two shots in rapid succession. Quinn gaped as a black van veered off the street, wheels punctured, spinning into the side of the road. Marissa was already running towards the now toppled vehicle, and Quinn had to make an effort to close her mouth and run after Marissa.

The driver was getting out of the car, climbing out from the passenger side. He supported himself with his elbows, coughing and wheezing. Marissa ignored him and threw open the backseat door, and leaped back as a sorcerer came slashing at her. Her eyes flashed as she immediately retaliated, twirling behind him and smacking him in the head with her gun. He stumbled forward, already disoriented by the crash. A second blow knocked him out. The whole move was astonishingly graceful.

She whirled around as Quinn reached the car. “He’s not here,” she growled. “My informant gave me false information.”

“So now what?” Quinn asked. “We can’t just let him go to the meeting.”

“He won’t be,” Marissa said, scanning the surrounding buildings. “The meeting doesn’t start for another two hours. And there’s no reason to trick us unless he wanted our plan to backfire. Which means he’s somewhere around here, and he thinks he’s going to catch us.”

Quinn tried to focus on the lessons Salvatore had given her throughout the last few years. “He’d have to be able to see us. So a tall building would be best.”

Marissa nodded. “Agreed. And it’d have to be fairly close.”

Quinn pointed at a building across the street. It was a tall office building, and only the lights on the top two floors were on. “There.”

“It’s going to be an ambush in there,” she warned. “As soon as we step in the lobby his bodyguards are going to swarm us.”

“Do we even have a chance?” Quinn questioned. “I mean, if he knew about our plan, he probably brought enough sorcerers to easily take us down.”

Marissa shook her head. “I lied to my informant, too. I said we were sending two relatively inexperienced operatives, and if there’s anything we know about Weiss, it’s that he’s cocky. We’ll be outnumbered, yes, but not necessarily outmatched. Besides, if anything goes wrong, we’ve got Salvatore.”

Quinn did feel a little more reassured glancing back at the truck. Salvatore was nowhere to be seen, but she knew he wasn’t far away.

“Lead the way,” she said, and Marissa smiled.

They swiftly crossed the street and darted towards the building, edging along the shadowed walls. There seemed to be no movement inside. They waited a few moments in the dark to let their eyes adjust, and then Marissa gently pushed open the glass door. It swung open, silent as a ghost. The two of them cautiously entered, Quinn with her staff extended in her right hand, and Marissa armed with two pistols.

“Find the light switch,” Marissa whispered, and Quinn felt along the edges of the wall, making her way to the back of the room. And then something slammed into her side and she shrieked, instinctively bringing her staff down on whoever was attacking her.

The sorcerer yelped and Quinn could now see his outline. She grasped the sorcerer’s shoulder and brought her knee up hard, and the sorcerer jerked away, but Quinn’s grip was firm. She missed her opponent’s face, but her knee jammed into the other’s neck, which Quinn considered just as good. A second blow to the head with her staff knocked him out cold. He obviously had not expected such ferocity.

Just as she laid him down, another sorcerer kicked her in the back. Quinn fell forwards, pain shooting through her spine, but she turned around quickly and lunged forward, managing to close her hands around the second sorcerer’s neck by sheer luck. It was a woman this time, much shorter than Quinn, which meant that she would be used to fighting bigger opponents. She kneed Quinn in the stomach and Quinn released her grip on the woman’s throat, gasping in pain.

She stumbled backwards, choking, and Quinn gritted her teeth and charged her, but skidded to an abrupt halt as she realized the sorcerer was bracing for it, her shadow unmoving in the dark. Quinn could tell that she could not have been more than 5’ 2” based on the position they had been in a second ago. There was no way she would dare meet a body slam unless she had some way of protecting herself.

Wasn’t body armor. When she hit me the second time, I didn’t feel anything other than fabric, Quinn thought, putting up her hands in a defensive stance; staff poised, and warily watched the sorcerer’s outline in the dark. She could hear sounds of Marissa fighting, but had no idea where she was. It didn’t matter, anyways. What mattered was the girl in front of her and what she could do.

Invulnerability? No, she was in pain when I choked her. But that was because she wasn’t ready for it. And now that she is…

“A point fighter,” Quinn realized, out loud. The sorcerer facing her snorted condescendingly, and stood upright.

“Didn’t take you very long, huh? I guess you’re smarter than they say mortals are.”

“I’m going to punch you anyways,” Quinn said, irritated.

She laughed. “Go ahead. You’ll break your hand. And then I’ll break every other bone in your body for you.”

“Gross,” Quinn muttered, lowering her arms. Point fighters were usually overconfident, Salvatore had once told her. The ability to reinforce any part their body lent them protection against most physical attacks. But they could only reinforce a certain area, of a certain size, at one time. The more experienced and powerful the fighter, the larger the area. Based on the girl’s size and fighting style, Quinn guessed that that area couldn’t have been huge.

The logical way to defeat her, then, was just to simply hit her in a place she wasn’t defending. The problem was Quinn had no idea where that was. And it was a problem only exacerbated by the fact that they were still in the dark.

So get the light switch, Quinn thought, and hurry.

She feigned charging and the sorcerer braced herself again, but Quinn dropped, crawled past her on her elbows and then hauled herself off the floor and ran as fast as she could along the wall.

She heard footsteps that were getting closer as the sorcerer cursed and pursued Quinn. The building had seemed to be a regular office building, which meant the electricity control panel would be somewhere near the front desk.

The sorcerer lunged for Quinn but she dodged wildly, blindly heading in the general direction of the reception desk. She ran into the edge and scowled, but quickly recovered and felt her way around the desk, reaching the wall behind it.

She flipped the panel open, and all of the buttons were aglow. She managed to hit the one for the lobby just before the sorcerer tackled her.

She dived, narrowly avoiding the full impact of the sorcerer’s shoulder. That probably would have killed her, but the arms tightening rapidly around her waist were now her primary concern. If she’s focusing power in her arms, her head is unprotected, Quinn thought hazily, feeling like her ribs were about to snap. She drove her staff down onto the sorcerer’s head with as much force as she could muster. Her opponent cursed and let go immediately, rolling on the floor and clutching her head in pain.

Quinn wheezed, gasping for breath. Her torso was going to be unimaginably bruised tomorrow, but at least she was alive. It took her a second to realize the lights were on. She stalked over and kicked the sorcerer, who yelped before trying to scramble up, a hand still on her head. Quinn pushed her boot square into the sorcerer’s chest, roughly forcing her to stay on the ground, kneeling so that her knee was keeping the sorcerer down. Then she punched her in the face.

She groaned, and Quinn coughed, smiling bitterly. She swiftly pulled her knife out and placed the blade against the sorcerer’s throat. She could reinforce her neck, but even then a knife would cut through if Quinn pushed hard enough.

Urged on by the adrenaline rushing through her system, Quinn brought the blade across the sorcerer’s throat, but it barely broke skin. Quinn narrowed her eyes and prepared to try again, but the point fighter’s grin stopped her.

“What’s so funny?” She snapped.

The sorcerer had a hard time choking out her words from under Quinn’s knee, but there was an air of superiority to them, even as she lay helpless in pain. “Why are you doing this?”

“Are you trying to get me to monologue so I don’t kill you? You know only the bad guys are stupid enough to monologue, right?”

The sorcerers rolled her eyes. “Yeah, and you’re the bad guy.”

Quinn narrowed her eyes. “Excuse me?”

She managed a shrug as best she could, pinned to the floor. “I mean, why do you even bother fighting? What have I ever done to you? I’m just a bodyguard. You’re the one attacking me. You’re the one killing innocent people and wreaking havoc upon society. What right do you have?”

Quinn frowned. “I…I have a right.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Right, I forgot that they give you your license to kill when you turn sixteen,” she said mockingly.

Quinn pushed down harder. “Not to kill. That’s not what it’s about.”

“Then what?”

“It’s about equality,” Quinn said, struggling to find the right words. “I fight for what’s right. I fight to represent my people…we…”

“And this is what your people do? Kill? Maim? Hide behind your little masks? How is that right?”

Quinn was stunned into silence, and the sorcerer took the chance to push her off. Before Quinn could react, she had already fled, past Marissa, who was leaning against the wall, and out the glass doors.

“Dammit,” Quinn muttered. She didn’t give chase.

Salvatore walked over. She hadn’t noticed him, standing nearby. He put his hand on her shoulder, but she turned towards him and brushed his hand off.

“Why didn’t you help me?” She demanded. “The two of us could’ve easily taken her down.”

He smiled. “You didn’t need help.”

Quinn shook her head. “I don’t…I don’t know. It seemed right. It still seems right, but I don’t know how to explain it.”

Salvatore crossed his arms. “You don’t have to explain it.”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t have to justify yourself to someone who isn’t you. She’s a sorcerer; she’s never been in your situation, and she never will be. We do gruesome things, but we do it for the right reasons. If they want us to be the villains, then fine. Let them vilify us. But if we can forgive ourselves at the end of it, when we finally get the rights we deserve, then none of it matters. If our children and our children’s children get to live happily, then it’s worth it.”

He jerked a chin towards the elevator. “Now you have a mission to complete.”

Quinn hesitantly turned her feet towards the elevator. “Have you forgiven yourself?”

He smiled, but it was tight and there was sadness evident in his eyes. He looked pained. “Not for everything.”

She swallowed and headed towards the top of the building, Marissa next to her in the elevator. When the doors opened silently on the top floor, revealing two more bodyguards and Weiss, smugly behind them, Marissa held her back.

“I’ll take care of it,” Marissa said quietly. Quinn shook her head, but Marissa held her gaze steadily until Quinn relinquished her grip on her weapons, collapsing her staff and sheathing her knife.

Before the elevator doors closed again, she saw Marissa strike. It was elegant and graceful, with none of the clumsy aggression Quinn had exhibited. She sighed.

Barely ten minutes later, the elevator doors reopened. Three bodies were sprawled on the floor, and Marissa was holding Weiss’ Directorate council pin, the one that marked him as a senator. The badges were gold and delicate, and on his there was a little red dot next to his name, indicating his status as a sorcerer. Most badges had red dots.

“Let’s go,” she said, and Quinn silently punched the ground level button. She stole a glance at Marissa, who seemed unnaturally still and calm, absently toying with the badge in her hand. It was hard to read her expression behind the white mask. Quinn wondered what it must be like, to take down three sorcerers with no other help. Marissa was some kind of genius.

It made her feel inadequate, and she silently resolved to go back to the training room as soon as they arrived back at base. Sleep was for the weak, anyways.

The elevator doors opened and Salvatore looked up. He had been leaning against the wall, looking through his phone, but turned to them as they got off the elevator.

“Mission accomplished,” Marissa announced, tossing him Weiss’ pin. He examined it briefly before tucking it into his pocket.

“I’m assuming you don’t feel like covering this up,” he said as the three of them headed out the doors.

She shook her head. “I mean, for most sorcerers, a disappearance might make the news, but the investigation would turn up nothing and everyone would go back to not caring. But Weiss is prominent. If he goes missing, there’ll be uproar. And it’s not like the government doesn’t know we exist. Besides, there are witnesses this time.”

Salvatore nodded curtly. “Let’s get out of here, then.”

The three of them swiftly crossed the street, masks tucked inside their jackets. Quinn stole a glance at the car wreck on the side of the parking lot as they headed to their cars. A police car was approaching, but it was still a little ways off. They would make it.

Quinn frowned as she hurriedly got into the passenger side of Salvatore’s truck. “Wait, Marissa said you and Riana were on a mission. That’s why she had to do this one by herself, and so that’s why she asked me. How’d your mission end so quickly?”

“Well,” he snorted. “Dinner doesn’t typically take too long.”

She squinted at him in the dark. “You were on a date?”

“Don’t believe everything Marissa tells you,” he replied. “She probably just wanted to size you up.”

Quinn grinned at that. Marissa had wanted to spend time with her. And now that she thought about it, Marissa hadn’t made a single deprecating remark in weeks.

She leaned back in her seat, secretly satisfied. The city lights faded behind them as they left Columba behind.

It was just after nine when they got back to the base. To Quinn’s surprise, the halls were mostly empty, until Salvatore led her to the largest room in the basement. It was crowded with everyone up against the walls, a big map spread across the floor, but nobody complained or even spoke as Salvatore stepped inside.

“Thanks for joining us, guys,” Salvatore said, confidently. “I know it’s short notice, but as I explained earlier today, we’ll be launching a wide-scale attack on the government tomorrow.”

Quinn caught Tanner’s eyes and frowned. Nobody had mentioned anything to her. But then again, she had been in the training room all day, and Salvatore probably thought it better to explain to her personally.

“As you may all know, the government has been after us for a long time— probably since most of you were members. But in recent years they’ve set up a specific ‘task force’ in Aski for the sole purpose of intercepting our missions. So far, the only time they’ve ever uncovered our base was the recent attack.” His voice was somber, but hard. “And we all saw how much damage they can do.”

“In attacking us, however, they left some crucial information that informed us about their base. And so we must utilize this information as soon as possible in order to take them by surprise. If we can send the government, and by extension the people, a clear message that we will not be silenced, we will have won ourselves a victory.” Murmurs of agreement sounded throughout the room. “You’ve all had a few days to recover. I’m confident that we can execute this mission successfully as long as everybody sticks to their assignments and tries their best.”

The room cheered, but Quinn couldn’t bring herself to join in. She was still thinking about what Salvatore said, how he hadn’t forgiven himself for everything. Looking at him, all tall and proud, she never would’ve guessed. He was reading off teams now, distributing mission files to each group he assembled.

He looked to her as everyone else streamed out of the room to prepare for their missions, a single file left in his hand. Marissa, who had been leaning on the far wall, came to stand next to him. Quinn raised her eyebrows. “So we’re a team?”

He nodded. “And we’re going after the big prize.”

“Astor,” Marissa said softly. “Senior officer assigned to supervise the force three years ago.”

“He’s smart,” Salvatore said shortly, his hand tightening involuntarily around the file. “We have to be careful.” He handed her the file, but didn’t relinquish his hold on it as she tried to tug it from his hand. He looked her square in the eye, his warm brown eyes suddenly menacing. “Read the file.”

“I know who Astor is,” Quinn replied, trying to keep her tone light. “I know he’s dangerous. I’m pretty sure we’ve all read his file before. There isn’t much on it, right?”

“Read the file,” he repeated. “Be prepared. Please.”

“Why me?” She blurted out. “You could have asked Riana to be the third member. You know I’m not as experienced. Why am I going after Astor?”

“You’re a Vespertine,” was all he said.