Dead Man's Deal The Asylum Tales - By Jocelynn Drake Page 0,55

back against the wall and I closed my eyes. Fear coiled in my stomach and that drink was starting to sound better by the second.

“Things have been bad in the Towers for a couple of years now. Between Peter’s death, Simon’s death, and the runaways, everyone has been on edge. It all exploded this afternoon when rumors hit New York that someone managed to get exact Tower locations.”

My heart stopped and my breath froze in my chest. I could even feel Sofie stiffen in my lap at this news. Apparently she hadn’t heard this bit yet despite her quick trip to Germany. The world was teetering on the brink of destruction and I now had a hand in it. To make matters worse, a key figure in this growing debacle was sitting in the next room eating pizza and drinking beer. May whatever forces there were in the cosmos please take pity on me and let my brother stay in my bedroom with his mouth shut.

“All locations?” I asked, struggling to keep my tone steady.

“We don’t know. I’m not even sure how true the rumor is, but it doesn’t seem like most are concerned about the truth of it any longer. What I’ve heard is that two to three locations have been discovered. The ones that keep coming up are New York, Dresden, and Canberra.”

“Where’d the information come from?”

“We are aware of several small resistance groups that have been working on trying to find the locations for the past few decades. It’s been largely humans with a few ogres, trolls, and others thrown into the mix. No one strong in magic, particularly glamour, so we’ve left them alone. The guardians gleaned word a few months ago that they made a new contact and were excited. We watched but this person was very smooth. We never saw him or her, but when a couple representatives struck the enclave they were watching, nearly all were found dead.”

“Their contact killed them?”

Gideon nodded. “One person was found clinging to life. He was squeezed, but we got only one last fleeting thought. Elf.”

“Fuck,” I whispered. This was a disaster.

“Yes, the one race that we’ve feared from the beginning. Those bastards know more about glamour than anyone else. We always worried they would crack the protective spells. The Towers hoped that the elves had been broken, that they wouldn’t try to fight back, but apparently not.”

“Stop. You don’t know this is the elves. It could be one rogue elf acting alone. You also don’t know if this is the elves or the Svartálfar. There is a difference.”

Gideon arched one eyebrow at me. “Afraid for your girlfriend?”

“Don’t push me, warlock,” I said in a low growl.

Gideon’s expression hardened, but he let the comment pass. Picking a fight now wasn’t going to help anyone. “The guardians searched their headquarters and found stacks of maps. Only the ones for upstate New York and Germany held markings, but another for Australia had been pulled aside.”

“I’m guessing their headquarters was in Indianapolis,” I said mostly to myself.

“No, that was in Oklahoma City. Their contact had nearly cleaned them out, so the Towers didn’t feel the need to raze the city. Unfortunately, the witch and the warlocks caught the scent of one other person who had escaped. He slipped into Indianapolis. They were afraid he would have a chance to talk to someone if they waited to ferret him out, so they leveled the city.”

“They killed thousands to silence one person?”

“They were protecting our secret,” Gideon said evenly.

“No!” I roughly lifted Sofie off my lap and placed her on the floor so I could push to my feet. I couldn’t sit still any longer. The worst of the pains in my body had subsided, but there was a growing pain in my head as if it was going to split in two in anger and frustration. “Don’t tell me you side with them. That you agree with what they did.”

“Of course not! And neither does the council.” Gideon sat up, sliding to the edge of the sofa cushion.

His comment stopped me short, snapping my gaze back to his haggard face. “They were executed?”

He snorted. “Barely even a slap on the wrist. The council members, for the most part, cursed and shouted, but in the end, the attackers walked out of the hall with a pat on the back for doing what they had to in order to protect the Towers.”

I shoved my hands through my hair, clenching my fingers around the short