Something in my gut told me this was real. I hadn't forgotten the similarities in our rituals or how the Warriors had wanted our groups to merge. Maybe the Alchemists and the Warriors weren't best friends yet, but someone had at least humored Master Jameson with a meeting. The question was, what had happened at that meeting? Had the Alchemist in the footage sent Jameson packing? Were the two of them together right now?
Regardless of the outcome, this was undeniable proof that the Alchemists and Warriors were still in contact. Stanton had told me we merely kept an eye on them and had no interest in hearing them out.
Once again, I had been lied to.
Chapter Twenty-One
SOME PART OF ME BEGGED FOR there to be a mistake. I watched the footage three more times, tossing crazy theories around in my head. Maybe Master Jameson had a twin who wasn't a fanatic who hated vampires. No. The video didn't lie. Only the Alchemists did.
I couldn't ignore this. I couldn't wait. I needed to resolve this immediately. If not sooner.
I sent Marcus a text as soon as my plane was on the ground: We meet tonight. No games. No runaround. TONIGHT.
There was no response from him by the time I got back to my dorm. What was he doing? Reading Catcher in the Rye again? If I'd known what dive he was holed up in, I would've marched over there right then. There was nothing I could do but wait, so I called Ms. Terwilliger both as a distraction and to buy some freedom.
"Nothing to report," she told me when she answered. "We're still just watching and waiting - although, your extra charm is almost complete."
"That's not why I'm calling," I said. "I need you to get me a curfew extension tonight." I felt bad using her for something totally unrelated, but I had to do this.
"Oh? Are you paying me an unexpected visit?"
"Er - no. This is for something else."
She clearly thought that was funny. "Now you use my assistance for personal matters?"
"Don't you think I've earned it?" I countered.
She laughed, something I hadn't heard from her in a while. She agreed to my request and promised to call the dorm's front desk right away. As soon as we hung up, my phone chimed with the expected message from Marcus. All the text contained was an address that was a half hour away. Assuming he was ready for me now, I grabbed my messenger bag and got on the road.
In light of my past meetings with Marcus, I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd led me to a department store or karaoke bar. Instead, I arrived at a vintage music shop, the kind that sold vinyl records. A large CLOSED sign hung on the door, emphasized by dark windows and an empty parking lot. I got out of my car and double-checked the address, wondering if my GPS had led me astray. My earlier zeal gave way to nervousness. How careless was this? One of Wolfe's first lessons was to avoid sketchy situations, yet here I was, exposing myself.
Then, from the shadows, I heard my name whispered. I turned toward the sound and saw Sabrina materialize out of the darkness, carrying a gun as usual. Maybe if I showed her the one in my glove compartment, we could have a bonding moment.
"Go around back," she said. "Knock on the door." Without another word, she returned to the shadows.
The back of the building looked like the kind of place that screamed mugging, and I wondered if Sabrina would come to my aid if needed. I knocked on the door, half expecting some kind of speakeasy situation where I'd be asked for a password like "rusted iguana." Instead, Marcus opened the door, ready with one of those smiles he kept hoping would win me over. Strangely, tonight it put me at ease.
"Hey, gorgeous, come on in."
I stepped past him and found we were in the store's back room, which was filled with tables, shelves, and boxes of records and cassette tapes. Wade and Amelia stood against a wall in mirrored stances, their arms crossed over their chests.
Marcus shut the door behind me and locked it. "Glad to see you back in one piece. Judging from your text - and your face - you found something."
All the rage I'd been holding in since my discovery came bursting out. I retrieved my laptop from my bag and had to resist the urge to slam it against a table. "Yes! I can't believe it. You were right. Your insane, far-fetched theory was right. The Alchemists have been lying! Or, well, some of them. I don't know. Half of them don't know what the other half's doing."
I expected some smug remark from Marcus or at least an "I told you so." But that handsome face was drawn and sad, reminding me of the picture I'd seen of him and Clarence. "Damn," he said softly. "I was kind of hoping you'd come back with a bunch of boring video. Amelia, go swap with Sabrina. I want her to see this."
Amelia looked disappointed to be sent away, but she didn't hesitate to obey his order. By the time Sabrina came back in, I had the video cued up to the correct time. They gathered around me. "Ready?" I asked. They nodded, and I could see a mix of emotions in all of them. Here it was, the conspiracy theory they'd all been waiting to prove. At the same time, the implications were staggering, and the three of them were well aware of how dangerous what they were about to see could be.
I played the video. It was only a few seconds long, but they were powerful ones as that bearded figure appeared on the screen. I heard an intake of breath from Sabrina.
"It's him. Master Jameson." She looked between all our faces. "That's really the Alchemist place? He's really there?"
"Yes," said Wade. "And that's Dale Hawthorne with him, one of the directors."
That triggered a memory. "I know that name. He's one of Stanton's peers, right?"
"Pretty much."
"Is it possible she wouldn't know about a visit like this?" I asked. "Even at her level?"
It was Marcus who answered. "Maybe. Although, walking him right in there - even to the secure level - is pretty ballsy. Even if she doesn't know about the meeting, it's a safe bet others do. If it were completely shady, Hawthorne would've met him off-site. Of course, the secure list means this wasn't out in the open either."
So, it was possible Stanton hadn't lied to me - well, at least not about the Alchemists being in contact with the Warriors. She'd certainly lied about the Alchemists knowing about Marcus since he'd said he was a notorious figure to most higher-ups. Even if she was ignorant about Master Jameson, it didn't change the fact that other Alchemists - important ones - were keeping some dangerous company. Maybe I didn't always like their procedures, but I'd desperately wanted to believe they were doing good in the world. Maybe they were. Maybe they weren't. I just didn't know anymore.
When I dragged my eyes from the frozen frame of Master Jameson, I found Marcus watching me. "Are you ready?" he asked.
"Ready for what?"
He walked over to another table and returned with a small case. When he opened it, I saw a small vial of silver liquid and a syringe.
"What is - oh." Realization hit me. "That's the blood that'll break the tattoo."
He nodded. "Pulling the elements out creates a reaction that turns it silver. It takes a few years, but eventually, the gold in your skin will fade to silver too."
All of them were looking at me expectantly, and I took a step back. "I don't know if I'm ready for this."
"Why wait?" asked Marcus. He pointed at the laptop. "You've seen this. You know what they're capable of. Can you keep lying to yourself? Don't you want to go forward with your eyes open?"
"Well . . . yes, but I don't know if I'm ready to have some strange substance injected into me."
Marcus filled the syringe with the silver liquid. "I can demonstrate on my tattoo if it'll make you feel better. It won't hurt me, and you can see that there aren't any dire side effects."
"We don't know for sure that they've done anything to me," I protested. He had a logical argument, but I was still terrified of taking this step. I could feel my hands shaking. "This could be a waste. There may be no group loyalty compulsion in me."
"But you also don't know for sure," he countered. "And there's always a little loyalty put in the initial tattoo. I mean, not enough to make you some slave robot, but still. Wouldn't you feel better knowing everything's gone?"
I couldn't take my eyes off the needle. "Will I feel any different?"
"No. Although you could walk up to someone on the street and start telling them about vampires." I couldn't tell if he was joking or not. "Then you'd just get thrown into a psych ward."
Was I ready for this? Was I really going to take the next step into becoming part of Marcus's Merry Men? I'd passed his test - which he'd been right about. Clearly, this group wasn't useless. They had eyes on the Alchemists and the Warriors. They also seemingly had the Moroi's best interests at heart.
The Moroi - or, more specifically, Jill. I hadn't forgotten Sabrina's offhand remark about the Warriors being interested in a missing girl. Who else could it be but Jill? And did this Hawthorne guy have access to her location? Had he passed it on to Master Jameson? And would this information put those around her at risk, like Adrian?
They were questions I didn't have the answers to, but I had to uncover them.
"Okay," I said. "Do it."
Marcus didn't waste any time. I think he was afraid I'd change my mind - which, perhaps, was not an unfounded fear. I sat down in one of the chairs and tipped my head to the side so that he'd have access to my cheek. Wade gently held my head with his hands. "Just to make sure you stay still," he told me apologetically
Before Marcus started, I asked, "Where'd you learn to do this?"
His face had been solemn with the task ahead, but my question made him smile again. "I'm not technically tattooing you, if that's what you're worried about," he said. I was actually worried about a lot of things. "These are just some small injections, just like being re-inked."
"What about the process itself? How'd you find out about it?" It was probably a question I should have asked before I sat down in this chair. But I hadn't expected to be doing this so soon - or suddenly.
"A Moroi friend of mine theorized about it. I volunteered to be a guinea pig, and it worked." He switched to business mode again and held up the needle. "Ready?"
I took a deep breath, feeling like I was standing on the edge of a precipice.
Time to jump.
"Go ahead."
It hurt about as much as re-inking did, just a number of small pricks on my skin. Uncomfortable, but not really painful. In truth, it wasn't a long process, but it felt like it took forever. All the while, I kept asking myself, What are you doing? What are you doing? At last, Marcus stepped back and regarded me with shining eyes. Sabrina and Wade smiled too.
"There you go," Marcus said. "Welcome to the ranks, Sydney."
I took my compact out of my purse to check the tattoo. My skin was pink from the needle's piercing, but if this process continued to be like re-inking, that irritation would fade soon. Otherwise, the lily looked unchanged.
I also didn't feel that changed on the inside. I didn't want to storm the Alchemist facility and demand justice or anything like that. Taking him up on his dare to tell an outsider about vampires was probably my best bet to see if my tattoo had been altered, but I didn't really feel like doing that either.
"That's it?" I asked.
"That's it," Marcus said. "Once we get it sealed, you won't have to worry about - "
"I'm not getting it sealed."
All those smiles vanished.
Marcus looked confused, as though he might have misheard. "You have to. We're going to Mexico next weekend. Once that's done, the Alchemists won't ever be able to get to you again."
"I'm not getting it sealed," I repeated. "And I'm not going to Mexico." I gestured toward my laptop. "Look what I was able to pull off! If I stay where I'm at, I can keep finding out more. I can find out what else the Alchemists and Warriors are doing together." I can find out if Jill is in danger. "Getting permanently marked and becoming an outcast kills all those opportunities for me. There's no going back after that."
I think Marcus almost always got his way, and this new development totally threw him off. Wade took up the argument. "There's no going back now. You're leaving a trail of bread crumbs. Look at what you've done. You already made inquiries about Marcus. Even if you haven't gotten super-friendly with the Moroi, the Alchemists still know you spend a lot of time with them. And one day, someone may realize you were there when the data was stolen."
"No one knows it was stolen," I said promptly.
"You hope they don't," corrected Wade. "These little things are enough to raise red flags. Keep doing more, and you'll make it worse. They'll finally notice you, and that's when it'll be over."
Marcus had recovered from his initial shock. "Exactly. Look, if you want to stay where you're at until we go to Mexico, that's fine. Make your peace with it or whatever. After that, you need to escape. We'll keep working from the outside."
"You can do whatever you want." I began packing up my laptop. "I'm going to work from the inside."
Marcus caught hold of my arm. "You're setting yourself up for a fall, Sydney!" he said sternly. "You're going to get caught."
I pulled away from him. "I'll be careful."
"Everyone makes mistakes," said Sabrina, speaking up for the first time in a while.