What Dawn Demands

by Clara Coulson

  It’ll make him look like a complete moron, I finished, not to mention puerile. And if there’s anything McCullough cares about, it’s the strength of his public image. You think if we win a skirmish against the vampires in a way that clearly serves fae interests, he’ll be forced to suppress his criticisms and pretend he approved of our actions so that the court doesn’t bust his balls for making stupid decisions?

  You don’t? she asked.

  It took me a minute to figure out how to answer in a way that wouldn’t unnerve Saoirse too much. Temporarily, it’ll work. But the sídhe can hold grudges for a long, long time, and McCullough isn’t the type to put out a fuse once it’s been lit. Eventually, he’ll come up with a way to get back at us for so brazenly bucking his authority, and that way will not have a pretty outcome. It’ll be in our best interests, I think, to remove McCullough from the picture in a more permanent fashion.

  Saoirse wrote back hastily, You’re not suggesting we kill McCullough?

  Not with our own hands. I’m suggesting we manipulate events in such a way that he’s likely to end up dying at our enemies’ hands.

  There was a lengthy pause before her next response. I don’t like the idea of “removing” someone who isn’t truly a criminal. Neither incompetence nor pride make someone evil, Vince.

  I know that, I wrote back, the chopstick tapping hard against the screen, scuffing the glass. The wood was beginning to crack under my tightening grip as my anger at the Unseelie colonel spiked once more. But I value the lives of Kinsale’s citizens more than I value the life of a conceited sídhe. And remember, if the Pettigrew coven wins another major victory against the fae inside a protected city, the other vampire covens will be emboldened to move against the other protected cities in an attempt to gain access to the bulk of the human population.

  I took a deep breath, loosening my grasp on the chopstick before I broke it in half. Whether all those covens are successful at breaching the barriers or not, a lot of innocent people will die. We need to stop this growing vampire revolution in its tracks. Or else. And McCullough is standing in our way because he values his own ambitions over the well-being of the population he’s been charged to protect. That might not make him our enemy, but it does disqualify him as our ally.

  Saoirse didn’t respond for so long this time, I thought she was mad at me.

  I added, Look, Saoirse, I respect your morals as an officer of the law. But you know as well as I do that we no longer live in a civilized world that respects the rule of law. Not only is this a post-apocalyptic wasteland whose society is constantly on the verge of collapse, but we’re also sitting precariously on a very high cliff. At the bottom of the ravine is war between the fae and the Tuatha. And if that comes to pass, if the Tuatha battle the sídhe here on Earth…

  I know the stakes, Saoirse cut in. And I know what kind of world we live in. I was just hoping, foolishly, I suspect, that the world would be heading in a better direction by now. Or at least have reached some sort of plateau where we could build something that resembled a functioning society. But it’s starting to feel like we’re sliding backward, toward that state of utter insanity that gripped us during the collapse. It worries me. It worries me every goddamn day. Because I’m not sure humanity can emerge from that fire a second time.

  There was nothing I could say to dispel her fears—they were very real—so I just attempted to lighten the mood. Hey, Captain? You might want to tone down the apocalyptic cynicism, I scribbled, mocking the words she’d said to me the day all of this started the better part of a year ago. It’s my job to be the miserable pessimist, remember?

  Saoirse was quiet for a moment. Then she replied, Fuck you.

  I sent back a smiley emoticon.

  All right, Lieutenant Whelan, she wrote in lieu of a rebuke. I tentatively approve the idea of taking down McCullough. But before we discuss circumventing sídhe authority and conspiring to kill a man who could destroy us with a flick of his magic wrist, we need to rework our raid strategy to account for the loss of a secure dullahan perimeter.

  Ah! About that. I spun the chopstick around in my fingers. I have an idea.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I woke up drenched in sweat.

  Vague flashes of a disordered dream danced behind my eyelids. A sprawling desert of white sand marred with streams of bright red blood. Twisted, bloating corpses half buried in the dunes, dead eyes staring vacantly at a chaotic sky. Remnants of broken worlds ringed around the atmosphere, blocking out the dual suns and casting massive shadows across the scorched earth. And in the distance, a dark tower—no, a black obelisk—standing alone at the base of a barren mountain, a sign of civilization where there should’ve been none.

  Rubbing my eyes, I checked the clock on my nightstand. Half past three. I sighed heavily and sat up. The sheets stuck to my wet chest, so I had to peel them off before I staggered out of bed and found my way down the dark hall to my bathroom.

  There would be no more sleep tonight, not with my brain buzzing as it analyzed again and again its own rendition of Hel’s vision of Ragnarök. Ever since my trip to the Halls of Hel, where the titular goddess relayed the details of her precognitive experience of a great and awful battle in which I would apparently play a key role, I’d had the same disturbing dream about that battle at least three nights a week.

  Even though I knew it was my paranoia yanking the reins of my imagination, it still took me hours to compose myself every time I woke up from the dream. Which probably had a lot to do with the fact that the last scene of the dream involved me getting stabbed in the chest with a sword so wide that it cut every single organ in my ribcage in half. Yeah, it was that kind of dream.

  Admittedly, the crack about insomnia I made to Odette might have been me projecting.

  In the bathroom, I turned on my shower, whose hot water charm I’d finally perfected, stripped off my pajama bottoms, and jumped under the soothing spray. For a while, I just stood there, letting the water drag the half-dried sweat off my skin. But eventually, I kicked my ass into gear and started the proper shower routine.

  Thanks to the impending massive raid operation Saoirse and I had decided to attempt at five o’clock this evening, I had a great deal of work to do today. Raid teams to brief. Drills to practice. The whole nine yards.

  I wished we’d had more time to work out the logistics; there were a lot of moving parts to this plan. But Saoirse had pointed out during our “email” session last night that McCullough’s distrust of me could spur an attempt to seed spies into our ranks, to break through our wards with spying spells, or hell, to threaten a vulnerable Watchdog until they spilled the beans. If he confirmed we were planning to ignore his commands, he’d raise hell before we had a chance to execute the operation. The resulting ruckus could tip off Vianu and ruin everything.

  So we were doing this with less than twenty-four hours’ notice. Not ideal. But I was confident we could make this work.

  We have to make this work, I reminded myself as I scrubbed my hair with a lemon-scented shampoo Christie had gifted me on my birthday. If we screw up, we’re all going to die.

  On that happy note, I finished up with a quick shave and turned off the water. Only for the reduction in noise to reveal that someone was knocking on my front door.

  Swearing, I scrambled out of the tub, nearly falling on my face as the shower curtain got tangled around my legs. I caught myself on the rim of the sink, shook the shower curtain off, and snatched a towel from the rack above the toilet. A hasty pat dry later, I jogged to my bedroom, yanked on the first outfit I could scrounge up from my closet, and hurried downstairs. I finished buttoning my shirt just as I emerged into the former show room.

  Beyond my glass-paneled front door stood two cloaked figures. My heart rate spiked for a brief moment as I was struck by the irrational thought that the vampires had finally come calling…by politely knocking to ask for entry. After I shook that dumb idea out of my head, I took a harder look at the pair.

&n
bsp; One of them, who stood sentry on the sidewalk, clearly on the lookout for danger, was about six-foot-five and as broad as an oak tree. The other, much smaller person, clearly a woman, was the knocking culprit, her slim hand still outstretched toward the door. A familiar braid peeked out from the collar of her cloak.

  Now, what business could she possibly have with me this time of night?

  Wary, I rounded the checkout counter and approached the door. The woman spotted me coming and gave me a friendly wave that immediately made me more suspicious than I’d already been. The Unseelie didn’t favor the “give a nice smile and supply small talk” approach to interpersonal communication nearly as much as they did the “display resting bitch face and speak tersely” version. Unless they wanted something from you they knew you’d be reluctant to give and were trying to butter you up so you’d be more likely to forfeit it.

  I had half a mind to turn around, go back upstairs, and climb into bed. I chose to open the door only because my bed sheets were still soaked in sweat and my spares were already in the clothes hamper.

  “Morning, Major Maguire,” I said as I ushered the two sídhe inside. They stepped cautiously into my former store and waited, half turned toward the entryway, hands on weapons hidden beneath their cloaks, until I reactivated the full ward array and ensured our relative safety from the myriad threats lurking in the neighborhood. Then they relaxed, as much as Unseelie soldiers ever relaxed, and pulled back their hoods in tandem. The woman was, of course, McCullough’s second, Orlagh Maguire, and her companion was the brawny Eamon Boyle.

  Boyle was the man who’d been iron scarred during McCullough’s disastrous attempt to flush out Vianu. Even with the cloak’s hood bunched around his neck, you could still see the top of the scar peeking out from beneath the cloth. The jagged wound ran from the base of his right ear all the way down to the middle of his back, fourteen inches of permanently ruined skin, a stark pale pink against his otherwise dark-brown complexion.

  Iron wounds took so long to heal that Boyle’s scar must’ve ached even now, but he appeared totally composed as he paced around the empty room. His bright blue eyes were inquisitive beneath his heavy brow line, the twinkle of interest in his gaze highlighted all the more by the pale-blue sídhe marks on his cheeks and forehead.

  Orlagh, by comparison, was still as stone. Not out of discomfort but out of practice. The first time we’d met, she struck me as the sort who preferred to watch and wait, to analyze and calculate, to expend no more effort than absolutely necessary to achieve her goals, so that she never ran the risk of burning out at a critical moment.

  It was like she treated conservation of energy as an art form, and combat strategy as a way of life even in the most innocuous of scenarios. She was calm the way that water was calm, gently flowing down a mountain slope—right up until a flash flood swept you away and dashed your brains out against the rocks.

  It didn’t escape me that either of these sídhe could kill me in a heartbeat, and I briefly considered the idea that they’d been sent by their boss to do exactly that. But I dismissed the thought almost as soon as it popped into my head.

  Firstly, sending two sídhe to kill one half-sídhe would be major overkill. And secondly, if McCullough did want to off me, he’d do it with his own two hands. Probably with those hands wrapped around my throat, much tighter than they had been at City Hall last night. McCullough wasn’t the sort to resolve his grudges by proxy. He enjoyed getting his hands dirty.

  No, Orlagh and Boyle were here of their own accord. But what, exactly, did they want from me?

  “Something I can help you two with?” I asked after neither offered me a greeting.

  “Actually,” answered Orlagh, “we’re here to help you. With the raid operation.”

  Being sídhe, she couldn’t lie, but I still didn’t take her statement at face value. The meaning of “help” was determined by personal interpretation. If their goal was to lower my odds of incurring McCullough’s wrath and sowing discord among the local fae leadership in the process, then “helping me” could involve crushing the raid operation before it even got off the ground.

  Rubbing my chin, I replied, “There isn’t going to be a raid operation. Your colonel shut the whole thing down, remember?”

  Orlagh smiled wryly. “Colonel McCullough doesn’t believe you’ll heed his objections to the raid plans. And frankly, neither do I, bréagadóir.”

  “Let me guess.” I mirrored her smile. “McCullough is, at this very moment, putting safeguards in place to ensure that we can’t push forward with our operation unless we first obtain his approval.”

  “A loose cannon he may be,” she said, “and rancorous too, but naïve he is not.”

  “Yet, despite that fact, you and Boyle decided it would be a good idea to throw your lots in with the mortals?” I ran a hand through my damp hair. “You’ll have to forgive me if I question your intentions.”

  Boyle sniffed loudly, as if offended by my accusation they had come here under less than savory pretenses. “We were not sent here by McCullough directly. Nor did we come on his orders indirectly. Nor did we come on orders from any other members of the Unseelie Court. Nor did we come by request of anyone we perceive to be your enemy. Nor did we come on behalf of any interests working against you in any known capacity. Nor—”

  Orlagh raised her hand. “He understands, Boyle.”

  I did indeed understand. “All right. For the sake of expediency in this conversation, let’s say I believe you’re not here to sabotage the Watchdogs. Let’s say I believe you’ve decided to actually assist us in the raid operation.”

  I tapped my bare foot against the dusty floor. “But I’m not so naïve as to believe you’d decide to risk stoking McCullough’s temper out of the goodness of your hearts. The only reason you’d think butting heads with a superior officer would be a good idea is if the possible rewards for doing so were much greater than the potential consequences. So what’s the deal? Be honest with me.”

  Boyle and Orlagh exchanged glances, then nodded at each other.

  “May we go upstairs for greater privacy?” Orlagh asked. She gestured to the door and large display windows, which left us visible to any passersby. And anyone hiding in the shadows of the gutted buildings across the street. “I would prefer not to have my lips read by any of the nine vampires staking out your house.”

  “Nine?” I accidentally sputtered aloud.

  Orlagh stifled a grin. “That is how many I counted when we arrived at your street.”

  Boyle grunted in agreement.

  “Oh.” I faked a cough. “I hadn’t realized it was quite that many.”

  “To be honest, I didn’t anticipate it would be that many.” She sounded impressed. “It’s odd that this elder vampire considers a half-sídhe such a threat to his aspirations. Due to the great strength and speed they possess, and often their added magic prowess, they are usually cowed only by the full-blooded sídhe. What is it about you, Vincent Whelan, that inspires such paranoia in great and terrible creatures?”

  A glint in her eye told me she counted McCullough as one of those creatures, and it took everything I had not to laugh. I waited a second to collect myself before I said, “Think it has to do with my weird combination of good and godawful luck.”

  “What do you mean?” Her eyebrows drew together.

  “Well, for some reason, I always end up in deep shit with beings far more powerful than me. But on the flip side, I always end up surviving that deep shit by the skin of my teeth. And that really ticks the bad guys off. They would much prefer I end up six feet under.”

  “I see,” Orlagh said, clearly amused. “Let us hope that pattern holds when you finally face the elder vampire.”

  “Personally, I was hoping to survive that specific conflict on a bit more than Lady Luck’s whims.”

  “Is that why you’ve poured so much effort into the Watchdog organization? Because—”

  Boyle cleared his throat. “We don’t have a lo
t of time before McCullough notices we’re missing.”

  Orlagh tossed him a mildly irritated look but said, “Right. We shouldn’t go off on tangents.” She returned her attention to me. “Do you mind if we move this discussion to your living area?”

  “Uh, no. That’s fine.” I motioned for them to follow me, and we headed over to the stairs.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Once I had the sídhe situated side by side on my couch, I rummaged through the nineteen boxes of tea I’d accumulated courtesy of Christie until I found my preferred flavors. Then I boiled a teapot full of water with a simple spell, located my seldom-used sugar dish, and grabbed a nice china tea set I’d scavenged from a rich person’s house a few years ago. I set everything on a metal serving tray I had a vague notion I’d stolen from Flannigan’s and carried it all over to the coffee table. Filling three cups with the steaming water, I handed one to each of the soldiers and waited while they picked their tea bags and set them in to steep.

  “So,” I started as I sat down in the chair across from the couch, “let’s hear your justifications for stabbing your own boss in the back.”

  Orlagh watched a curl of steam rise from her cup for a moment before she answered, “We have two primary reasons for making this decision, neither of which will entirely please you.”

  “Because I legitimately care about humanity, while you don’t really give a fuck?” I guessed.

  She pressed her lips into a thin line. “Neither of us hold much personal resentment for humanity, beyond a general degree of discontent over the recent upheaval that greatly harmed the fae scions. We also possess no fervor for the struggle to rebuild human civilization and defend the humans from the fallout of their misguided actions. In the great fae debate over whether or not humanity is worth the effort the courts have expended to restore this realm to its former state, we are somewhat neutral parties.”