“I have a clear shot, Sergeant,” said Bridgette over the call. “If she tries anything-”

“Stand down, said Brett. “Seth, don’t fuck this up.”

“What do you mean?” Said Jessica, raising a single eyebrow. “What do you mean you know who I am?”

Seth chose his next words carefully. “I saw your… your aura.”

The eyebrow shot down with the other, and now Jessica looked around the clothing store. “Yeah, and I know Hunter-33 is with you.” She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. After a long moment, she took a sip from her frappe and then spoke. “Fine. Tell them I’ll talk.”

“Tell her we’ll meet in front,” said Brett.

“They said they’ll meet in front.”

“Right, of course.” She looked up as Seth with an annoyed look on her face. “Look, I don’t blame you,” she said as they walked towards the exit. “I know Hunter’s had their hooks in you ever since you got back. It’s been painful to watch, really.”

There was nothing but confusion inside Seth. He had a hundred questions, but they would have to wait. Brett already stood on the sidewalk as they exited Ralph Lauren. He inclined his head towards Jessica. “Mage.”

“Hunter.”

There was a frosty tension between them for a moment, before Brett broke it with a smile. “Let’s walk.”

The three of them moved down the sidewalk, deeper into the plaza. It was beginning to get a bit more crowded as more time passed since school released. “What are you doing in America?” Asked Brett.

“…I’m an American,” said Jessica, her tone both confused and condescending.

“Then why are you wearing St. Grigori’s cross, and why did you use an Order ward?”

“I-”

They fell silent as they passed a group of preteens laughing over some shared joke.

“I’m an American citizen,” said Jessica, “so I’m pretty certain you don’t get to question me like this.”

“I can take the shot and have her knocked out cold,” came Bridgette’s voice.

“No,” said Brett. He looked to Jessica. “We just want to know why you’ve been watching Seth.”

“Because I’m his friend?”

“Don’t buy it.”

Jessica rolled her eyes. “Seth, tell him how long you’ve known me.”

“Since before junior high,” he said.

“Your Order has implanted younger,” snapped Brett. They fell silent as they passed another group.

“You’re leaving line of sight,” said Bridgette. “Drone still has eyes, though.”

“You got me,” said Jessica. “Yes, I’m a magic-user, but that doesn’t make me… Whatever you’re saying I am.”

Brett sighed. “You used an Order-specific spell.”

“The only spells I’ve cast in the past month are homemade scrying spells to keep an eye on Seth. Well, and one evocation spell at homecoming.” She offered an apologetic look to Seth. “The ice wall?”

Seth’s eyes widened as he remembered the massive sheet of ice that had protected him from the bears and crushed multiple cars in the process. “That was you?”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“Why’d you keep it a secret?”

She hesitated. “Because of people like him. Do you know Hunter tried to make a magic-user registry back in 2012? They wanted to implant every magic-user with a tracking chip.”

“We’ve had some bad ideas, dude.” Said Brett, looking over to the road as a green Subaru Forester rolled past. “Doesn’t mean we’re not doing the right thing.”

“I’ll keep my freedom, thank you,” said Jessica.

“Well,” said Brett. “I’ll admit you’re good. If you’re class five and we’ve only picked you up just now, that’s serious talent. You bloodline?”

“You know I’m not going to answer that.”

Seth felt lost, yet again, as his friend—who he apparently knew nowhere near as well as he had thought—and Brett talked about a world they were both familiar with and Seth was only a baby in.

“We don’t do tracking chips anymore.”

“Yeah, but you did. Hunter doesn’t get the trust of mages. Not smart ones, anyway,” she spat out, an amount of venom in her voice Seth had never heard before. This was not the Jessica he knew. “Also, call your fucking sniper off,” she growled. “I don’t like having a scope on my chest, and your countermage did a shit job of hiding your auras.”

“Stand down, Meadowcroft,” said Brett.

“I can drop her right now, she’s making threats.”

“I said stand down,” he barked, his voice straddling the threshold between conversation and yell.

“Yes, Sergeant.”

Brett looked to Jessica. “We good?”

“Unless your team makes a move.”

“I’m set to snuff if we have authorization,” said Vic.

“Both of you, stand down or it’s your rank,” said Brett.

Jessica raised an eyebrow. “Countermage get pissy?”

“Fine,” said Vic, her voice curt.

Brett stuck his hands in his pockets. “My team’s stood down. Why don’t we go somewhere private and actually discuss what’s going on.” He sighed. “We could use someone with no operating restrictions.”

“Couple of rules,” said Jessica. “One, we use my car. Two, only you and Seth come, none of your team. Three, if I so much get as get a whiff of a countermage, I’m putting your whole team down. Clear?”

Brett nodded. “Just want to talk, dude.”

“My car’s this way. Let’s go.” She turned and walked off. Seth stared after her for a second. She still moved like Jessica, with complete confidence and poise, but he’d seen underneath everything. There was something different about her. She was tough, a lot tougher than he’d ever thought. On top of that, she had a whole second life she’d kept a secret from one of her closest friends for years. Who was she, really? Seth and Brett followed after her.

***

The drive to Jessica’s from Village Pointe was a short one, fifteen minutes at the most. The first five minutes were filled with Brett telling Bridgette and Vic to stand down and not follow them, the last ten were filled with silence. Jessica occasionally looked over to Seth in the shotgun seat with a questioning glance, but otherwise kept her focus on the suburban roads. Clouds were gathering overhead, winds whipping along underneath with the cold front, stripping remaining leaves off the trees like an unsupervised toddler who’d found an unattended cake and was snatching it by the fistful.

Jessica touched her cross pendant as they pulled into the Shadow Ridge gated community. “Oh, good,” she said, an edge of sarcasm slicing through her words. “Your team didn’t follow us.”

“I keep my word,” said Brett.

They wound through a few turns in the neighborhood before parking in the three-car-wide roundabout driveway of a tan brick Tudor-style estate, with no less than three levels. Low hedges surrounded a wrap-around porch with ornate stone railings, giving the impression of a greenery-filled moat. She looked back at Brett and raised an eyebrow. “Pick your jaw off the floor.”

Brett smirked. “I’ve partied in better, dude.” They all exited the car, and Jessica led them to the front door, enshrouded by an archway protruding from the house like a medieval gatehouse. The doorway swung open without so much as a word of command, or someone on the other side, and Jessica motioned for them to walk through ahead of her into the mudroom.

“Shoes off, please,” she said, slipping off her red flats and setting them on an ornate wooden shoe rack. She padded barefoot out of the mudroom into the foyer, disappearing to the left. Brett kicked off his boots, and Seth did likewise with his sneakers.

“The Orders really give a good stipend to their agents,” muttered Brett.

“This is her parents’ house,” said Seth. “I’ve been here before.”

“Right, dude.” Brett chuckled as he walked out of the mudroom. “Parents. Hey!” He called after her as they followed her down a hallway. “Where are your parents?”

Jessica looked over her shoulder at him. “Not here.”

“Uh-huh,” said Brett.

They exited the hallway into a spacious study, the center dominated by an oaken desk, the walls all lined with bookshelves stuffed to the brim with tomes. She turned and sat on the front edge of the desk, motioning to comfortable-looking leather chairs along the perimeter of the room. “Please, sit. You’re guests in my house. Well, Seth is always welcome, but I am officially extending my hospitality to you, Hunter, as long as that gun stays inside that jacket.”

“I told you I keep my word,” said Brett, patting the weapon through his coat. “Besides, I don’t have many illusions as to how one v. one would go. In your domain, no less.”

“Domain is such an archaic word. This is just my home. Seth knows.”

Seth plopped himself down in the one of the leather chairs. He’d sat in her father’s study several times before, he had made it clear all the books were for reading as long as he wasn’t occupied in there. Brett sat down in a chair on the opposite wall from Seth.

“Okay, I’m gonna cut to the chase,” said Brett. “There’s no way in hell you’re not a member of the Order of the Maligned Faith. You used one of their grimoire spells, and you have their amulet.”

“I told you, I’m American. I know who they are, but that doesn’t make me one of them.”

“Cut the bullshit,” said Brett. “I know the Orders have wild-ass political games, and I couldn’t care less. OMF is on the list of ‘good’ Orders, so I’m just trying to figure out why your nose is colon-deep up the asshole of my mission.”

“Maybe I just like eating ass,” she said with an arch look.

“Don’t we all,” said Brett, “but I need answers. One, I want them. Two, I don’t want to upset something that one of the Orders we have decent terms with has going. So, spill. What’s your involvement in this whole thing?”

“My involvement is simply keeping and eye on Seth. I’ve known he was different—not completely human—from a young age.” She paused and looked to Seth. “I’m sorry.”

Seth felt the faintest pinprick of anger. He shrugged and leaned his head into his hand, elbow on the armrest. “It’s fine. I’m getting used to secrets about myself being kept from me.”

Her face became extremely apologetic for a moment, but then she turned back to Brett. “That’s it. I know about the shamans, and the coven, but only by merit of trying to keep Seth safe.”

“So was that you in the warehouse?” Asked Seth.

The apology returned to her face. “Yes. And I’m sorry about the evocation that missed you… There were other people there you didn’t see, people I believe were shamans. I thought one of them was in pursuit, which is why the second time—after I’d seen your face, I only stunned you.”

Seth gave a frustrated shrug. “Water under the bridge, I guess. But all those times I felt someone watching me, that was you? How the hell were you so many different places so easily?”

She looked skyward, sighed, and then winked out of existence. Seth started. She winked back into existence leaning in the doorway of the study. “Class five transmutation by the classic system.”

Brett raised an eyebrow. “What class are you? I’ve never seen someone cast full without any sort of prep.”

Jessica walked back to the desk and resumed her seat. “High enough that you really shouldn’t piss me off, low enough there’s a lot of bigger fish out there.”

“Are you on the Archmage scale?”

She laughed. “Hell no.”

Brett leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Look, getting answers from you is really going nowhere. I firmly believe you’re OMF, you’re just under orders not to say. Whatever, dude. You do you. My main question is this. Care to help wipe out a coven and a tribe?”

Jessica held one hand up, looking at her well-manicured nails. “I haven’t had a good fight in quite a few years. Of course I’d like to.” She set her hand down. “But, I want you under no illusions. I’m not a trump card. I may be powerful, but two dozen witches fully sourced-up can output easily five times the magic that I can, and god knows how many more times the magic your countermage can.”

“Wasn’t planning on going in guns blazing,” said Brett. “You seem to know Hunter, you should have some idea of how we work.”

“Enough of an idea to stay off your radar.”

“You gonna answer how you know OMF grimoire spells, though?”

She flashed a mocking smile. “No.”

Brett shrugged. Seth could tell he knew it was pointless. “The rest of my team gets here tonight. We’re going to raid the shamans and attempt to rescue Andrew on Thursday night. The new moon.”

“Oh, that would have been messy.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded. “I was planning on getting Andrew out myself that night. I’m more confident in my ability to take on a tribe of shamans than a coven of witches, especially the one that we have here.”

“You know something about them?”

She raised one corner of her mouth, not quite a smirk, but a flicker of some other emotion. “They’re the Coven of Set’s Left Hand. They’re the oldest still-standing coven on the West Coast. The Matron Seth took out was well over a hundred years old—she was one of the founding members back in the thirties. The only reason they aren’t a serious problem for you Hunters is that they haven’t claimed a ley line. The shaman tribe has forced them to share with them for the past… eighty years. If one side or the other successfully hedges the line, they would be able to take the other out. But instead it’s been skirmishes here and there, with no side really willing to make a move.” She dismounted the desk and walked around to the chair on the other side, where she sat down and opened a black Moleskine notebook on the desk.

“A couple months ago, about the time that those hunters with a lowercase ‘h’ crashed that party, there were some serious ripples in the divination field. The witches saw it, and I’ve gathered the leader of the Shamans, a man named Arcticreras, was visited by his spirit guide. Both sides received visions of a warrior who was ‘birthed by the spirits’ choosing one of their sides and wiping out the other side for them. I don’t know how much high-level knowledge Hunter has, but basically all you need to know is that class one through five of divination works really, really well. Most stuff beyond class five is wildly off-base except in the hands of exceptionally talented practitioners. Mass visions are about a class seven and they usually wind up in the hands of people barely capable of class four.”

She read from her notebook for a minute, then snapped it back shut. “That’s what I know. I’ve been sitting on this for a while, and I was concerned I was going to have to take both sides out myself, honestly. So as much as I’m not a fan of Hunter-33… It’s nice to have a little backup.”

“That’s a lot of exposition, dude,” said Brett. “Got any more?”

“Not really. Arcane notes that wouldn’t be of use to anyone except possibly your countermage if she’s class four capable.”

“Capable yes, authorized, no.”

“Shame. She should join an Order.”

“Jess,” said Seth. “Why didn’t you just tell me all of this?”

She hesitated.

“Because she’s under OMF orders,” said Brett, sitting back in the leather chair and folding his hands behind his head.

She glared at him. “Can you give me a moment with my friend?”

Brett held up his hands and stood. “Of course. There somewhere I can get a glass of water?”

“Follow the house perimeter hallway. It’s in the back.”

“Thanks.” Brett left the study and his footsteps receded.

Jessica moved over and closed the door to the study, then blew on two of her fingers and traced them in a circle over the center of the door before turning to face Seth. “I… am sorry you had find out like this.”

“You’ve been lying to me this whole time,” said Seth.

“No.” Said Jessica. “No. I’ve only omitted things. I’ve never lied to you.”

“So when did you start being… Like this? When did you become a witch?”

She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I’m no witch. That’s a specific term. I’m a wizard. Witches typically acquire their powers through an eldritch sugar daddy, or just by learning a siphoning spell and going from there. Wizards usually acquire magic through study, though there has to be a level of innate talent there, too.”

“I don’t care about any of that,” said Seth. Confusion and anger swirled within him like two snakes biting at each other’s tails. “I care that you kept secrets about me from me.”

“What was I supposed to tell you, Seth? I literally knew you weren’t human from the day we met.”

“So is that why you were willing to be my friend despite how much everyone disliked me back then?”

“Seth, no. You’re my friend because I like you and who you are.” She let out a very deliberate sigh, and Seth saw for a moment a flicker of fear in her eyes. “The fact that you were my assignment had nothing to do with your friendship.”

The anger chomped clean through the tail of the confusion. “Assignment?”

She met his gaze. He saw the eyes of a friend, but he didn’t want to. She was just another person lying to him about his truth. “Yes.” She paused. “I honestly don’t know how to go about this. You’re the only person I’m authorized to ever tell. But I need to know I can trust you to keep a secret, and especially not tell Hunter-33.”

“We’re still friends,” said Seth, anger still soaking through his voice despite his attempt to restrain it. “You’ve saved my life. I might be angry, that doesn’t mean I don’t trust you or you can’t trust me.”

“Right.” She looked to the floor. “What Brett said is true. I’m a member of the Order of the Maligned Faith. We’re a Russian order of magicians. V matushke Rossii volshebstvo delayet tebya.”

“That was Russian?”

“Yeah.”

“So you’re not American?”

She blew air out her nose. “No. Documentation says I am, but I came here when I was ten. I assimilated for a year before I took over from the previous watcher, commenced my assignment and we met.”

“Previous watcher? You mean the person my dad told me has been watching my family?”

“Yes. The Blackwell lineage is under observation by my Order. Has been since the eighteen-hundreds.”

Seth crossed his arms. “So why does this OMF want you to watch me, anyway?”

Jessica gave a terse smile. “Don’t hate me, Seth, but I don’t know.”

Seth opened his mouth to speak, but she continued before he could.

“The Order is very, very compartmentalized when it comes to assignments. I know a few things. One, you have a magical heritage. Two, you’re a part of a set. You have three ‘brothers’, though not by birth. One was in Missouri, and Nicole killed him and took his essence. The location of the other two has been kept from me, because of the Order’s pretty sound reasoning that if I’m captured I can’t give up the location of the other three agents.”

“So Nicole was going around killing people like me?”

“Yes, and I’m sure the Order has theories as to why—hell, I do. But the theories in the hands of those way bigger fish I mentioned? They won’t be passed to me. If I’m on the hunt team when Nicole resurrects, then maybe. Absolutely not right now.”

Seth felt his frustration somewhat abating as she was open with him. She was still his friend. Even if their meeting had been manufactured. He could still count on her—more than he had thought, apparently. “I have so many questions,” he said, running his hands through his hair.

“I’m going to be your friend for a long time, Seth,” she said. “You don’t have to ask them all right now. Let’s just focus on making sure Andrew gets rescued, okay?”

Seth nodded. “Yeah.”

“Now come on,” she said, opening the door to the study. “Let’s get a drink. We’ve got two days to prepare. There’s no reason for us to stress now.”