Twilit Mage

Chapter 40: The Girls and the Hound

"Nero," Mercury gasped. "You're Nero...Mr. Blake's familiar!"

The fake Turner sighed. Then he took a pair of contact lenses out of his eyes, revealing his true monstrous, smoldering gaze.

"So you recognized me," he said. "After all my precautions, too. I admire your wit, Miss Day."

Mercury shuddered. That voice wasn't Turner's anymore. It was calm and stoic, speaking in the same tone as the three-headed hellhound always did.

Truth be told, she didn't know how she had realized it either. All she had known was that something felt off. The part of her that was still afraid of Turner had made her hyper-observant, paying attention to the closest details for fear of any hints of danger, any hints that she might be setting him off somehow. She had thought it was just her anxiety. She had told herself she was imagining things. But when even Georgiana had stopped in her tracks, she had known something was truly wrong.

And yet...she hadn't expected Nero of all people. Anyone but him.

"Mr. Blake's familiar, you say?" Georgiana's entire body was tight, radiating the same kind of energy as a panther before it pounced. "Why are you here? What do you want from us?"

He meant well, Mercury told herself. He was Mr. Blake's familiar. Mr. Blake meant well. He was on her side. He had to be.

Nero didn't answer at once. He simply lingered at the door, his expression unreadable in the dim light of Mercury's lone phone screen. "As for that–"

"Answer me!" Georgiana's body was wound tighter than a wire, her shoulders beginning to tremble, her eyes wide and frantic, almost manic. "Why are you here? Why did you pretend to be Mr. Turner? What did you do to the real one?" She took a hissing breath. "Who sent you?"

Nero closed his eyes. "A familiar can only be given a task by its bonded human. You know that, Miss DeVille."

"Stop talking around the point!" Georgiana shouted, shrill and shaking. "Why are you impersonating Mr. Turner? Why did you follow us in the first place? Answer me, damn it!"

Mercury flinched. Georgiana had never cursed before. If she did now...

"Georgiana," she whispered, shrinking away from her and Nero both. "Please calm down, um...w-what's wrong?"

Georgiana didn't answer. She didn't seem to have heard her at all.

"What was your purpose in deceiving us?" she yelled. "Did you want to trick us? Did you try to stop us from finding what we needed?"

"My apologies."

Nero took one step towards them, lowering his head like a humble servant. "The information you are trying to access is not meant for your eyes," he said. "So, I'm sorry. I was sent here to subtly stop you from finding out what could kill you."

Mercury stared up at him in silence. Her mind was frozen in place and yet moving faster than lightning. Sullivan Blake had sent his familiar. He had disguised him as Turner with an illusion to trick them and stop them from accessing the archives. He had somehow found out they had gone here and sent his familiar after them...he must have been monitoring them before, only waiting for them to leave in search of an explanation.

Sullivan Blake...was hiding things from them.

Next to her Georgiana had gone white as a sheet. Frozen into a motionless pillar, she stared up at the figure on the stairs, her eyes wide with utter horror and livid with realization. "Hold on," she whispered. "Weren't you at the scene of the laboratory attack too?"