I winced as the little half-vampire girl snapped her dislocated kneecap back into place with a noisy crack.

"Sorry," I muttered, clutching my own kneecap in sympathetic pain.

Lasciel was still taking the brunt of other people's emotions for me, but even without the extrasensory perception, I could tell I'd hurt her pretty badly. I'd been doing a lot of violence lately, but it felt different this time. Huber, Torelli's goons, the wardens, and La Llorona had been aiming to kill me and I'd acted in self-defense. Granted, it's what I'd been aiming for when I'd injured this girl as well, but it might have been an overreaction. I could have just run. It probably would have been wiser to run, in fact.

The girl shrugged her delicate shoulders and bent her knee with a grimace. "It's fine. It's not the worst I've ever been hurt. It'll heal up by the end of the day. I'd have done worse to you if our situations had been reversed."

I suppressed a delicate shudder at the thought. Attacking a group of half-vampires and their wizard-level leader just seemed like a suicidally stupid thing to do.

We'd moved away from the cabana and to a small home several miles from the mountain. Apparently this section of Oaxaca was full of Fellowship sympathizers who'd open their homes during times of need. The couple who owned this one were gone for the day, which meant we had the run of the place. All six of us were huddled around the kitchen table, eating the sweet rolls and drinking the coffee offered by the couple before their departure.

I felt bad about taking without giving much back, but I was too spent from the fight to argue. Using that much magic at once was sure to wipe me out, but summoning even the small amount of hellfire I had to boost the spells made it infinitely worse. I'd need a night's rest before I was at my peak again. Surely I could have that much, right? The universe could only throw so much at me in one sitting.

Hannah and the others looked a little out of place in their dramatic black uniforms. It seemed too overdone in the interior of this modest little home. Hannah propped her elbows on the table and leaned in to get a good look at me, scrutinizing every inch of me as though I were an interesting specimen at the zoo.

"So, what's your story?" she asked finally.

"What makes you think I have one?" I countered. "Maybe I just want to help."

"Doubt it. Most everyone who joins the Fellowship has a sob story. Regular old wizards will support us, yes, but most won't join up. The sainted White Council doesn't like to dirty their hands with things like terrorism. I want to know your damage before you join us. Out with it. What's brought you to us, Catherine?"

Hannah Ascher was straightforward, as bold as her wardrobe and lipstick. I liked her for that. She deserved to know that I had enemies.

"I'm running," I said slowly, feigning reluctance. "From the White Council, specifically. I mind-fucked a man in Chicago, and now they want my head for it. Never mind the fact that he was trying to kill Anna and me."

I was expecting that to give them pause. Hannah didn't even bat an eyelash.

"Warlock then? Me too."

I actually did blink and then considered her more critically. Anna had told me that black magic warped the mind and could drive the user crazy. Hannah Ascher didn't look crazy. She didn't even look slightly deranged. Compared to me, she was downright composed.

"What'd you do?"

Hannah's lips pursed. "Three men cornered me in an alleyway and tried to rape me. And well...you can probably guess what I did to them for it. Does the White Council care? No. I stop a vicious gang rape and somehow I'm still the bad guy."

I couldn't help thinking back to the day I escaped Chicago with Anna. I'd tried to do pretty much the same thing with hellfire. If I hadn't been injured, concussed, and exhausted, they'd have been charcoal by the time I'd been through with them. Anyone willing to do that deserved to die. The White Council were a bunch of twisted old shits if they didn't believe the same.

"Something similar happened...but they were trying to hurt Anna, not me. I stopped them."

Hannah's lips twitched up into a smile. I found myself curiously focused on her full mouth. There was something compelling about Hannah. I'd never thought of myself as bisexual. My focus had been only for Harry, who was very, very masculine. But Hannah was making me question that. She was just...perfect, really. Strong and powerful and at least a decade older than me. Maybe I just had a kink for authority figures.

Lasciel's laugh rolled through my mind like a shiver of pure pleasure. "There are many things you don't know about yourself, Molly. Would you like me to share a few insights?"

No. This definitely not the time for self-exploration.

"What about the rest of you?" I asked, scanning the three half-vampires on the opposite me. "Who are you and what's your story?"

The black man spoke first, and I was a little surprised to hear the familiar cadences of home. He had a pleasant Midwestern voice that barely held a hint of an accent. Probably not from Chicago, but definitely within a few states of my home.

"My name's Nixon. I'm originally from Saint Louis."

I grinned. "Just Nixon? Like Madonna or Cher? Or is that your last name?"

A hint of amusement flitted through his eyes. "Neither. Just a code name. You're not going to earn my real name for a while, rookie."

Fair. None of them were learning my real name ever if I could help it.

"What happened to you?"

He shrugged. "It's risky business listening at the doors of your local vampire hideouts. It only takes one slip up to get infected. I'm just lucky they didn't rip my throat out. I had to do somethin', though. People were dying. My cousin got bit too. Only he wasn't half as lucky as I was."

I shuddered again and pressed my mouth into a line to keep from muttering an apology. I'd mean it. I felt bad for his pain. But something told me the big man didn't want my sympathy. So I shifted my attention to the next unnamed vampire in the group, sizing him up instead.

The Korean-American boy only looked a few years older than me. Twenty tops but I was guessing closer to eighteen. He returns my stare with a sullen one of his own. I raise an eyebrow.

"Do you have a name?"

"Thorn."

I snorted. "Hannah's the only one with a normal name. Don't you guys have something better to call yourselves? You're going to draw attention with names like that."

"It's my last name. Hyon Thorn."

"Oh. Well, now I just feel like a dick," I muttered.

Thorn's grin was a surprisingly bright splash of humor in his otherwise solemn face.

"If you think my name is bad, you should hear hers." He jerked a thumb at the pale half-vampire girl, who scowled back. The expression was reminiscent of something Alicia might have once leveled at me. I expected a pink tongue to dart out at Thorn at any second. "This is Salem. Just Salem. No last name. Like Madonna or Cher. It's the first thing she can remember being called. Got shipped to the vampire royal operating out of Salem when she was a little thing. Not that she's not still a little thing."

He grinned unrepentantly at his companion and her scowl deepened. She leaned half her weight on the table and then reached across the table to sock Thorn on the arm. A brief scuffle broke out, the harmless, good-natured fight reminding me so much of the Jawas that my chest actually ached. When I'd thought of joining the Fellowship, I'd been expecting to be surrounded by stolid military types. These people, Salem and Thorn at least, weren't so different from me. They're just kids who had horrible things happen to them and had decided to make the best of things.

Hannah watched the exchange with a warm, almost maternal air. I got the impression she and Nixon were in charge of this little operation. She let them squabble for a few seconds longer before she cleared her throat. The argument died at once, though Thorn and Salem were still glaring at each other. She turned another curious look toward me.

"We're not exactly putting our best foot forward here, I suppose. But if you still want to join us, there are some things you'll need to know."

"Like?"

"You're going to face danger. A lot of it. You may be asked to do things that will challenge your morals. You will almost certainly will be breaking mortal law. And with our cell, in particular, you'll probably be breaking the Laws of Magic as well."

I felt my brows draw tight. "Why your cell in particular?"

Hannah sighed and twirled a knife between her fingers like a tiny baton. "In order for the Fellowship to run smoothly, there has to be money exchanging hands. Sure there are a few crusaders who do it simply for vengeance or glory. Most of us though, we do it because it pays in safety and cash. You still need clothes on your back and a roof over your head, even if you are fighting the good fight. The Fellowship does this through shady business dealings. Corporate theft, some really illegal black market trading, and then, of course, there's us."

"Us?" I echoed. "That sounds ominous."

Her painted mouth quirked into another suggestive smile and my stomach did a flip. I chalked it up hastily to nerves and Lasciel's quiet laugh rolled through my head again.

"We're called the Reverists. Every single one of us has some degree of magical talent, in addition to military training provided by the Fellowship. You clearly don't need much tutelage, magically speaking, but we'll probably want to put you through weapons proficiency before we turn you loose to make your debut. We're brought in for specialized cases. Surgical strikes, breaking into magically enforced areas, extracting information from captured Reds, and so on. Occasionally we offer services to outside groups if they pay well enough."

"You're mercenaries," I said slowly. "Selling magical might to the highest bidder?"

Hannah inclined her head to me. "Precisely."

That seemed...wrong, somehow. Magic wasn't meant to be used to hurt people, or so the ladies at the Ordo had taught me. Even when Harry wielded magic in a destructive way, it was usually in defense of someone else. This was very deliberate, very dark stuff that Hannah was proposing. Did I really want to get on board with that?

Did I have a choice?

I slid my eyes to where Anna sat. Her shoulders were hunched and she had her fingers interlaced in her lap, keeping her lips pursed so tightly together they'd turned white. She hated every word out of Hannah's mouth, but she wasn't saying anything, trying to stay in my good graces.

"What about my friend?" I asked, nodding to Anna. "Will there be a safe place she and I can stay?"

Hannah nodded. "You can stay at my house until arrangements can be made. I've got a nice beachfront property in Belize. The view is to die for. So, what do you say? Can you be persuaded to help us, Catherine?"

I thought about it for another long minute. My last interaction with the Wardens made it very clear that going to the White Council for mercy was out. So the way I saw it, there were only two options left for me if I wanted to survive. Serve the Fellowship or serve the Denarians.

It was an easy choice when I looked at it that way.

"I think I can."

Hannah smiled. "Good. Then there's only one thing left to do before we begin."

"And what's that?"

"The Wardens want you dead. So we're going to let them think they've pulled it off. By the end of the week, Catherine Lenhardt will be gone. Consider it test number one. You're going to fake your death."