The Glass Alibi: Vows of the Vulture

Chapter 8: The Mirror’s Scar

It was now a torrential downpour, the whole world a blurred slate gray and black. My knees were ground raw, but I barely felt it. I felt only the uncanny stillness of the woman twenty feet away.

The tactical vehicles were boxing us in, their high beams slithering through the fog like white knives, but the woman… she was the blade.

She wore a sleek, black, tactical bodysuit, her dark hair scraped back into an extreme ponytail. But it was her face… it took the air from my lungs. It was my face. High cheekbones, wide set eyes, my eyebrows. With one exception – the jagged, silver line of a scar ran from the angle of her jaw down to the hollow in her neck.

"I warned you to be careful, Silas." Her voice was a dead match for my own, the same pitch, the same rhythm, with a brittle, Russian accent that made my own hair stand on end. "You found a stray and you thought you'd hit the jackpot with a queen. But the 'Glass Alibi' belongs to me."

Silas didn't lower his weapon. His eyes darted between the woman and me, his jaw clenched tight enough to crack. "Elara?" he whispered, but his eyes weren't on me. They were on her.

"Don't listen to her, Silas!" I yelled, my voice swallowed by the wind. "I was at the gala! I took the pictures! I saw Sterling die!"

The woman with the scar threw her head back and laughed, a dry, rattling sound. "She's learned her lines well, hasn't she? But she doesn't have the bloodline." Her gaze shifted to the armored vehicles. "Commander, take care of the imposters. We have the ledger to secure."

The mercenaries aimed their rifles. The tiny red dots of their laser sights danced across Silas's chest.

"Wait!" Silas roared, his voice cutting through the din. He thrust himself in front of me, his body a shield. He looked at the woman with the scar. "If you're the real Elara, tell me what Sterling said before he died. What did he hide?"

The woman hesitated for a second, a flicker of uncertainty crossing her face. "He... He reached for the safe behind the painting. He was poisoned. Disoriented."

Silas smirked, a predator's grin. "Wrong." He didn't wait for an argument. He grabbed my hand and bolted toward the edge of the drainage ditch. "Hold your breath!"

He didn't give me a choice, and we plunged into the icy, dark water of the overflow pipe just as suppressed gunfire cracked above us, ripping through the air. The current was fierce, dragging me deep into the underbelly of the highway.

I tumbled through the darkness, gasping for air in small pockets between the concrete ceiling and the surging water. Eventually the pipe spat us out into a shallow, muddy creek almost a mile down the road.

I dragged myself onto the bank, coughing up silt and shaking uncontrollably. Silas surfaced a moment later, looking like a drowned specter. He didn't offer me a hand this time, his eyes scanning the perimeter frantically.

"The Petrovs have a mimic," he hissed, checking his weapon for water damage. "That woman... She's a 'Siren.' A deep-cover operative, trained to replace targets. Your father didn't just sell you out, Elara. He sold your identity."

"She looked like me, Silas," I sobbed, the dam breaking at last. "How am I supposed to prove my alibi when someone else is parading as me, a murderer?"

Silas knelt in the mud, his hands on my shoulders. "Because she didn't know about the cufflink. She wasn't there. Which means the real ledger is still in that vent and the only person who can prove it is you."

He pulled a small, waterproof burner phone from a hidden pocket in his belt. He dialed a number I didn't recognize.

"Mikhail," Silas said into the phone, his voice a low, deadly purr. "The Vulture is grounded. I need the Moscow connection. And I need it now. I have a girl who knows where the Sterling ledger is... But she's currently wearing a face being hunted by your sirens."

There was a pause. Then, a voice crackled over the line – young, deep, and radiating a dangerous weariness.

"Silas," the voice responded. "You know my terms for aiding a Vane. I want the girl. Not as a witness, but as a permanent guest."

Silas looked at me. I saw a flicker of something – hesitation, maybe regret – in his eyes. Then he closed them.

"Deal."