The Veil by Chloe Neill

Author:Chloe Neill
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Book 1, Devil's Isle Novel
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-08-04T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“I’m twenty-seven,” Liam said. “I was twenty when the war started. A junior at Xavier. I’d planned to go to law school, mostly because that’s what Eleanor expected.

“When the house was destroyed, we lost everything that mattered to us. We still had money, but what good would that have done in the Zone? There was nowhere to spend it, and we’d missed the exodus by two weeks, and they’d started closing borders to keep the war contained. So we weren’t leaving, and I had to keep my family safe. I walked into the Cabildo—that was when the army was still set up there—and they hired me as a contractor.”

“What did you do?”

“We had land, and I liked camping, hunting, was a pretty good shot, good tracker—not as good as Gavin, but pretty good—and knew my way around southern Louisiana. So I did pretty much whatever they wanted that would pay the bills. I escorted convoys, worked as a scout, hunted when a convoy couldn’t make it in. This is when I met the gardener—that Sensitive I told you about.”

I nodded.

“About six months into the war—this would have been April—Containment got worried. We’d lost battles at Shreveport and Vicksburg.”

I nodded, remembering. We’d had a shortwave radio in the store—that was when stations were still broadcasting in the Zone—and we’d listened to the reports. The reporter had cried when giving the casualty numbers. There were apocalyptic cults carrying signs through the Quarter, promising the end of the world had been coming. I’d been terrified, and barely more than a kid. But eventually the tide had turned, and we’d closed the Veil.

“Containment was aware that I was pretty well-known in New Orleans. Connected, I guess.”

“Because of your family? Because you’re an Arsenault?”

He nodded, linked his hands together, stared down at the floor. “New Orleans had always loved magic—hell, half the tourism in the Quarter was built on it—ghosts, vampires, voodoo—and Containment wanted to know if any residents were sympathetic to the Paras. If they might do anything that would subvert our defenses, or help the Paras.”

He wet his lips, looked up at me. “Do you remember the Hanlon family?”

I frowned. “The ones involved in the cult?” They’d decided the end of the world was coming, and they wanted to be at the front of the line. They killed two human soldiers as a “sacrifice,” began funneling food and supplies to the Paras.

“Yeah. I investigated them . . . and then I turned them in.” He shifted in his seat. And when he couldn’t get comfortable, he rose, walked to the windows in the front of the store, looked out at the city.

“I investigated them because they were on a list Containment gave me.” He turned, looked back at me. “Your father was on the list, too.”

My heart seemed to stop beating. “So you spied on my father? On me?”

“I kept watch on him,” he said carefully. “Containment wasn’t interested in you.”

That didn’t make it any better. “You were watching him because he might have been a traitor.

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