In a breath he halted by my side. “I lied. I need your help.”
“Who are we killing?”
“Do you have a pen?”
I got a notepad and a pencil out of my car. He scribbled something on a piece of paper, tore it out, and folded the paper in half. “Promise me you won’t read this. This is important. This is the most important thing I’ve ever done. At the Games there will be a girl. Her name is Livie. She’s on the Reaper team. There are only two women on the team and she has long dark hair. Give this to her. Please.”
A girl. He risked Curran’s rage for a girl.
On the surface, it made sense. He was nineteen and wading through the sea of hormones. But I had never perceived Derek as the type to become blindly infatuated. He took stoic to a new level. More, he worshipped the ground Curran walked on. There had to be more to this. Unfortunately, Derek’s face was doing a wonderful impression of a granite wall.
“You tried to steal the tickets to give a note to a girl?”
“Yes.”
I scratched my head. “I know you’re in trouble. I can feel it. Usually this is the part where I threaten you with terrible bodily harm and promise to dance on your grave unless you tell me everything you know. There’s just one slight problem.”
Derek grinned and for a moment boy wonder was back in all his glory. “I won’t believe your promises of breaking every bone in my body?”
“Precisely.”
He barked a short laugh.
“Tell me what this is about. Whatever it is, I will help you.”
“I can’t, Kate. It’s something I have to do on my own. Just please give her the note, okay? Promise me.”
I wanted to grab him and shake him until the story fell out. But the only way to stay in this game meant taking the note. “I promise.”
“And swear you won’t read it?”
Oh, for the love of God. “Give me the damn note. I said I won’t read it.”
He offered me the paper and I snatched it from his fingers.
“Thank you.” A happy little smile curled his lips. He backed away two steps and broke into a run. Before I knew it, he was gone, melting into the darkness of the alley between the decrepit buildings.
I stood in the parking lot holding his note. A nasty chill crawled down my spine. Derek was in trouble. I didn’t know how or why, but I had a strong gut feeling that it was bad and it would end even worse. If I’d had a drop of sense, I’d have opened the note and read it.
I sighed, got into the car, and stuck the paper into my glove compartment. Common sense was not among my virtues. I’d promised and I had to stick to it.
My back ached. Even my bones felt tired. I just wanted to lie down somewhere, close my eyes, and forget the world existed. I buckled my seat belt. I needed to know more about the Games and I needed the information before tonight. In the morning I would go to the Order and check their files. And check on that report from PAD. Nothing said the shapeshifter murder and Derek’s mess were connected, but I’d feel better if I ruled that possibility out. Even though the Pack was handling the murder. Even if it wasn’t my case. And that didn’t bother me one bit. Nope, not at all.
I sat in my car, feeling the fatigue wash over me, and thought of Curran. Two months ago I’d found the Beast Lord in my house reading a book. We made some small talk, I threatened him with bodily harm if he didn’t leave, and then he moved like he would kiss me. But instead he winked, whispered, “Psych,” and took off into the night.
He had made me coffee. I drank every last bit of it that night.
I wasn’t sure if he would come back, but if he did, I wanted to be prepared. I had imagined our encounter a dozen times. I had constructed long conversations in my head, full of barbs and witty comebacks.
The bastard didn’t show.
The longer his MIA lasted, the surer I became that he would never show up. It was blatantly obvious—he enjoyed screwing with me, and having done so, he got all funned out and moved on. Perfectly fine with me. Best solution possible. I had dreamt of him once or twice, but other than that, everything was peachy.
Wherever this thread of Derek’s troubles led, I really didn’t cherish the idea of finding Curran on the other end.
It was always good to have a Plan of Action. I started the engine. Item one of the POA: avoid the Beast Lord. Item two: do not fall asleep.
CHAPTER 3
“KATE? ”
I have a superior reaction time. That was why although I shot out of my chair, jumped onto my desk, and attempted to stab the intruder into my office in the throat, I stopped the blade two inches before it touched Andrea’s neck. Because she was my best friend, and sticking knives into your best friend’s windpipe was generally considered to be a social faux pas.
Andrea stared at the black blade of the throwing dagger. “That was great,” she said. “What will you do for a dollar?”
I scowled.
“Scary but not worth a buck.” Andrea perched on the corner of my desk. Short, blond, and deadly. A full knight of the Order, Andrea had one of those nice-girl faces that instantly put people at ease and made them fall over themselves in a rush to disclose their problems. I once went shopping with her, and we heard no fewer than three life stories from total strangers. People never wanted to tell me their life stories. They usually scooted out of my way and said things like, “Take whatever you want; just go.”
Of course, if the total strangers had known Andrea could shoot dots off dominoes at twenty yards, they might have decided to keep their issues to themselves.
Andrea eyed the file on my desk. “I thought you were off today.”
“I am.” I jumped down. I had caught three hours of sleep, dragged myself to the office in search of background information on the Midnight Games, and promptly passed out at my desk facedown on the open file despite the near-critical amount of coffee in my system. Which explained why I had failed to hear Andrea enter the office. Typically I didn’t go zero to sixty out of dead sleep unless I was startled.
I rubbed my face, trying to wipe away the layer of fatigue. Somebody had poured lead into my head while I was sleeping, and now it rolled around in my skull, creating a racket. “I’m looking for some info on the Midnight Games.”
Unfortunately, the file on the Games proved to be anorexic. Three pages of shallow overview on structure, no specifics. This meant there was another file, a big fat one, with a nice CLASSIFIED stamp on the cover, which put it squarely out of my reach. As security clearances went, mine was bare minimum. This was one of the rare moments when I regretted not being a full-fledged knight. As it was, getting my hands on the secret file would prove slightly harder than getting an ice cream cone in Christian hell.
“I don’t know much about it,” Andrea said. “But one of my instructors was in it, before the tournament was outlawed. I can tell you a little bit about how it worked back then. Over lunch.”
“Lunch?”
“It’s Friday.”
That’s right. Andrea and I always had lunch on Fridays. Typically she just waylaid me in the office and didn’t give me any choice about it. In Andrea’s book, lunch was something friends did. I was still getting used to the idea of friends. Steady relationships were a luxury I wasn’t allowed to have for most of my life. Friends shielded and protected you, but they also made you vulnerable, because you sought to return the favor.
Andrea and I had worked closely during the flare. I had saved her life; she had saved my kid, Julie, who had started the flare as a street rat with a missing mom and ended it a killer of demons, who lost her mother permanently but gained crazy Aunt Kate. After the flare, I had expected Andrea and me to quietly drift apart, but Andrea had other plans. She became my best friend.
My stomach growled, informing me that I was ravenous. Food and sleep—you could do without one, but not without both. I put Slayer into the back sheath where it belonged, returned the throwing knife to its sheath on my belt, and grabbed my bag. Andrea checked the tw
o SIG-Sauer P226s she carried in hip holsters, patted down her hunting knife and a smaller backup firearm on her ankle, and we were ready to go.
I STARED AT THE HUGE PLATE OF GYROS. “I’VE died and gone to Heaven.”
“You have gone to Parthenon.” Andrea took a seat opposite me.
“True.” The only way I could get into Heaven would be by blowing up the pearly gates.
We sat on the second floor, in the garden section of a small Greek joint called Parthenon. The garden consisted of an open-air patio, and from our table I could see the busy street beyond an iron rail. The only drawback to this place was the furniture. The tables were wooden and decent enough, but they were flanked by uncomfortable metal chairs bolted to the floor, which meant I couldn’t really watch the door.
I scooped the meat with my pita. My brain kept returning to Derek with a small smile in the night-soaked parking lot. A big, heavy ball of worry had accreted in my stomach over the past few hours.
I was stuck. Aside from Derek, who wasn’t talking, the only people who could shed light onto this situation were Pack members. There might have been a way to broach the subject with them without giving away the facts of Derek’s spectacular escapade, but I was too stupid to think of any. And considering the recent death, they would want full disclosure. If I said anything about Saiman or the Games, Derek would be punished. If I said nothing, he might risk his hide doing something idiotic.
Combined with my headache, all this rumination put me into a foul mood. For all I knew, Derek’s little note said, “Meet me at the Knights Inn. I bought the rainbow-colored condoms.” Of course, it could also say, “Tonight I kill your brother. Get the stew pot ready.”
I should have just read the damn note. Except I’d given my word I wouldn’t. In the world of magic, your word had weight. When I gave mine, I kept it.
Besides, going back on my word would betray Derek’s trust. Actually, any action on my part would betray Derek’s trust: I couldn’t read the note, I couldn’t ask anybody about the note, and I couldn’t refuse to deliver the damn note. I would’ve really liked to kick him in the head right about now.
To top it off, my calls to PAD cops produced no useful information whatsoever. A dismembered body of a woman was found on the corner of Dead Cat and Ponce de Leon. She was identified as a member of the Pack and the matter was turned over to the shapeshifters. End of story.
I looked at Andrea. “The Midnight Games.”
Andrea nodded. “One of my mentors was in it. The Games are held in the Arena, a bunker of some kind. It’s run by the House, which always consists of seven members. They make most of their money off betting on fighters. There are individual bouts, but the big banana is their team tournament. It’s held once a year. Fourteen teams participate. Each team consists of seven fighters, all with specific roles.”
“They enjoy the number seven, don’t they?” I chewed my food. Seven had some mystic significance. Not quite as much as the number three, but plenty: seven wise men of Greece, seven wonders of the world, seven days of the week, seven-league boots, seven poets of Moallakat . . . No clue as to what it meant, if anything. Perhaps the creators of the tournament simply wanted to ground it in numerology.
“My mentor fought as a shoote . . .” Andrea glanced at the street and fell silent. Her eyes narrowed. She looked completely focused, like a hawk sighting a plump pigeon. If she’d had a rifle in her hands, I’d have been worried she was about to snipe somebody.
“Can you believe it?”
I looked in the direction of her stare and saw Raphael. The werehyena loitered across the street, a tall man with coal-black hair, dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt. His hands were thrust in his pockets and he shouldered a backpack. He saw us looking at him and froze. That’s right—you’re so busted.
“I think he’s stalking me.” Andrea glared.
I waved at Raphael and motioned him over.
“What are you doing?” Andrea ground out through clenched teeth. Her face went pale, and I could almost see the faint outlines of spots on her arms.
Raphael attempted a weak smile and headed toward us, zeroing in on Parthenon’s doors.
“I want to find out if he knows anything about the Midnight Games. He’ll tell me anything if you let him sit with us. I think he really likes you.”
An understatement of the year. Raphael carried a huge torch for Andrea. During the flare, when she nearly died, he had bent over backward to take care of her.
“Yeah.” Andrea loaded so much scorn into one word, I actually paused.
This was one of those thin-ice areas of friendship, which had a great potential for dumping me into freezing water. “You really don’t like him?”
A shadow crossed Andrea’s face. “I don’t want to be his TWT-IHFB.”
“What does that mean?”
“That Weird Thing I Haven’t Fucked Before.”
I choked on a bite of gyro.
Raphael chose that moment to emerge from the door. Pissed or not pissed, Andrea watched him as he walked toward us and so did I. I practically dislocated my shoulder twisting in my seat so I could catch a glimpse. He moved with an easy shapeshifter grace, a kind of inborn elegance usually reserved for highly trained dancers and martial artists. His black hair, worn down to his shoulders, moved as he walked, absorbing the sunlight. His skin was tan, and his face . . . There was something so interesting about him. Taken by themselves, his features were unremarkable, but put together they somehow combined into an intensely attractive face. He wasn’t handsome, but he drew your gaze like a magnet, and his eyes, deep, piercing blue, were positively smoldering.
You looked at Raphael and thought sex. He wasn’t even my type and I couldn’t help it.
Raphael stopped a few feet from our table, not sure what to do next. “Hello. Andrea. Kate. Didn’t expect to see you here.”
I turned back to the table and heard my back pop. That would teach me.
“Sit down,” Andrea hissed.
Raphael gently lowered his backpack with one hand, took the only remaining free chair, and sat, looking a bit on edge. Andrea stared at the street. Together they looked like complete opposites: Andrea was five-two tops, with short blond hair and lightly tanned skin, while Raphael was about six feet tall, with skin the color of coffee with lots of cream, black hair, and intense eyes.
“So what’s in the backpack?” I asked. Small talker. That’s me.
“Portable m-scanner,” Raphael said. “Picked it up from the shop. Been in there ever since the flare—they couldn’t test to see if it worked until a magic wave hit.”
When it came to m-scanners, “portable” was a relative word. The smallest weighed about eighty pounds. It was good to be a werehyena.
Andrea got up. “I’m going to get some dessert. Kate, you want anything?”
“No,” I said.
“You?”
“No, thank you,” Raphael said.
She marched away.
Raphael looked at me. “What am I doing wrong?”
I paused with a piece of pita bread in my hand. “You’re asking me?”
“I don’t have anybody else to ask. You know her. You’re friends.”
“Raphael, I’ve never had a steady boyfriend in my entire life. It’s been over a year since I’ve had sex. And you know how well my last attempt at a love life turned out. I think you were there, weren’t you?”
“Yeah. I was the one with the shotgun.”
I nodded. “I think we can agree that I’m the worst person you could ask about how to fix a romantic relationship. I don’t know what to tell you.”
“You know Andrea.”
“Not that well.”
Raphael looked crestfallen. “It’s never taken me this long,” he said quietly.
I sympathized. He had pined after Andrea for two months now. For a werehyena, or bouda as they were called, a courtship that long was unheard of. Boudas were adventurous. They enjoyed sex, a lot of it and with a variety of partne
rs. Women dominated the bouda pack, and from what I understood, Raphael was rather popular, both because of his patience and his status as the son of Aunt B, the boudas’ alpha. And his looks guaranteed that he wouldn’t have to chase nonshapeshifter women for too long before they took him for a test-drive.
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