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only what the I.S. had wanted everyone to think. By Nina’s pissed attitude, I had the ugly feeling that the I.S. not only knew HAPA was alive and well but had been covering up its activity so they could take care of them the old-fashioned way.
    Sickened, I wrapped my arms around my middle. I didn’t know which was uglier: the body hanging behind me, or the I.S. hiding the crime so they could quietly murder those responsible for it. “It’s coincidence,” Nina said, but though the knot had been around for centuries, the knowledge that HAPA exclusively used it was not. After that little display of temper, I doubted very much that it was a coincidence here.
    Beside me, Wayde was clearly not buying it, either. “Before I got my security license, I worked large crowds. That’s a HAPA knot. We kick two or three haters out of every show. Why are you hiding this?”
    Ivy looked up from her crouch where she had been examining the knot. “Maybe it’s a copycat organization trying to blame HAPA.”
    “HAPA would never use magic,” I said, agreeing with her. “Not in a million years.” Witches had suffered the most from HAPA. Weres were naturally reticent, and vampires were better at hiding. Witches, though, were easy to spot if you knew what to look for.
    Jenks hovered between Ivy and me as if torn. “What better way to get rid of a group of people than to use their individual magic to sow distrust among them?”
    I stood up, frustrated. “HAPA doesn’t use magic!”
    Ivy’s brow furrowed. “They used to, until they decided that even magic-using humans were tainted. What has me scared is why now? Why start using magic again?”
    Something evil was crawling over my shoulder, and I looked up to see that Nina’s entire posture had shifted. Anger had made her eyes hard. She wasn’t talking, but clearly Ivy was right. “HAPA has been using magic for the last two years,” Nina said, looking as if she had eaten something sour. “We think it’s because they have something they think can wipe us out once and for all. Now you know, and you have a choice,” she said as she gestured roughly and a nervous agent edged his way up the stairs and handed her an evidence bag. Smiling without mirth, she held it up so I’d be sure to see the curly red hair in it before she tucked it in an inner pocket. “You can either quietly help us find and ‘reeducate’ the people responsible for this, or you, Rachel Morgan, will take the blame for it, because as everyone knows HAPA does not use magic.”
    “What the hell?” Jenks exclaimed, spilling red dust as he got between me and Nina, his sword out and pointed. Ivy was aghast, and Wayde’s hand clenched on my shoulder until I shrugged it off. Reeducate? They meant catching and killing them without a trial in a back basement somewhere. If I didn’t help the I.S., that curl of red hair was going to make me responsible for it. All they’d have to do was drop it at one of the sites, and standard magic detection would lead them right back to me.
    Son of a bitch.
    “I am not taking the blame for this,” I said hotly.
    Nina tucked the bag in an inner coat pocket. “Good. I’m looking forward to seeing how you work,” she said calmly. “I want a list of the curses you can do on my desk by tomorrow night. Early.”
    They thought I was going to work for them? Fuming, I stood on the sidewalk. Ivy’s eyes were black, and Jenks almost dripped sparks. I was not going to do this. I was not going to become one of the I.S.’s elite hit squad—as flattering as that was. “There’s always option three,” I said tightly, and Jenks hesitated. Ivy, too. They’d been sending hand signals to each other, planning something that would probably end with me in the hospital or in jail.
    Nina’s benevolent smile pissed me off. “Option three?”
    I sent Jenks the signal to stand down and fumbled in my bag, not taking my eyes off the woman. Behind her, I.S. agents were slowly dropping back.