by Kelly Meding
Gideon arrived with a black SUV similar to the first one about an hour after Tennyson hit the road with our Jeep. We filled him in on the plan—he was highly impressed by my mom’s powers—then checked out of the motel. The tree branch barely fit inside my carry-on, but it was better than trying to check it as luggage. Hopefully, there weren’t any other magic users on the plane with us who’d be tempted by its power. The wood diminished it, but didn’t completely mask it.
Last-minute tickets from Podunk, California, to Wichita, Kansas, weren’t terribly cheap—or easy to come by—but we put them on the company card, so to speak. Then I called ahead for two hotel rooms near the airport. Mom was joining us first thing in the morning.
Did I mention I hate flying? Hate it. And not because of heights, or because we were in a giant, four-hundred-ton canister carrying two thousand pounds of jet fuel, speeding along at Mach 0.85. It was the complete loss of control over my environment. Once I was on it, I was stuck on it until we landed. I also hate being crammed into a small space with a lot of people, which is why I also avoid rock concerts and Black Friday shopping. I was terrified of losing control of the Quarrel again.
Doing it on an airplane? Disaster.
So I bought a vodka on ice as soon as the refreshment cart came around, closed my eyes, and tried to catch up on some of the sleep I’d missed last night. Even with only one layover, we didn’t land until ten hours later, and in another time zone. I was starving, exhausted, and completely wired after spending so much time cooped up and in my seat.
Exhausted won out. As soon as I got into one of the hotel rooms, I unzipped my boots, crawled under the covers, and fell asleep.
I woke sometime later to sunlight streaming in from the room’s wide window. I was in the bed closest to it, and I rolled over, expecting to see Chandra in the other double. Instead, I saw Jaxon’s sleeping face and another lump beside him.
“What the . . . ?” I sat up, and both noise and action startled the other men awake. Yeah, that was definitely Jaxon and Gideon, but why— Oh no. Really? “Novak and Chandra slept together?”
Jaxon shrugged while rubbing sleep out of his eyes.
“I apologize if you’re offended, Marshal,” Gideon said. “You were asleep when rooming negotiations began in the hall.”
“I’m a big girl, and please, call me Shiloh.”
“Thank you. And if you don’t mind my asking, I’m curious. What does an incubus add to a US Marshals team like yours?”
“Sarcasm?”
Jaxon snorted. “I think we all bring that.”
“Well, besides the teleportation, he’s strong and a fierce fighter,” I added. The day we stopped the necromancer on that cow farm, Novak had fought like the demon he was, and for one horrifying moment, he’d genuinely scared me. I’d expected an attack. But he’d recognized me as his ally and backed down. “Plus, he knows things. We all have knowledge of different Paras relevant to our own backgrounds.”
“That makes sense,” Gideon said. “I’ve had little experience with other Paras in the past, as I’ve spent most of my life on Pack lands. This is my first trip away from home.” For an instant, that brave werewolf facade cracked, and I saw a fearful young man far from his family and life. Then he blinked and the bravado returned.
“Well, something tells me your first trip will be a memorable one.” I stumbled into the bathroom to pee and brush my teeth.
The room was typical of newer chain hotels, with the bathroom situated near the door, so I was closest to it when someone knocked. I yanked the chain back and opened the door, toothbrush in my mouth, fully expecting Chandra or Novak.
Instead, Kathleen Allard stood in the hallway with a calm smile on her face—a smile I hauled off and punched without a second blessed thought.
The traitorous dhampir went flying onto her skinny ass and I lunged.
Chapter 9
Strong arms looped around my waist and held me back. The toothbrush flew out of my mouth and hit the carpet with a splat. Gideon put himself between me and Kathleen.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I asked, spitting out the toothpaste.
“Hello to you, too,” Kathleen drawled.
“Answer me.”
“May I stand?” She sat up. Gideon growled and she froze. “I’d rather talk in private, Shiloh.”
“So you can stab us in the back again?” I said. “Fat fucking chance.”
The door across from ours opened and Novak stepped out, dressed in only a pair of boxers. His broad chest and bare arms glistened with perspiration, and he was breathing heavily. “What is— Kathleen?”
She was pinned between us, but she also wasn’t making any move to attack.
“Novak?” Chandra appeared behind him with the bedspread wrapped around her torso. “What’s she doing here?”
“She would be pleased to explain,” Kathleen said, “if my former teammates will allow me to stand.”
“Why are you two hugging like that?” Novak asked.
Jaxon released his hold on me, and I stepped to the side, startled to realize I hadn’t noticed his arms around me. It had felt good. Too good. He stepped back into our room, and when he returned, had his service weapon trained on Kathleen. Silver nitrate bullets to the heart killed dhampirs, too.
“Come on in,” Jaxon said.
Kathleen stood with familiar grace and strode into our room. Novak, Gideon, and I followed him and left the door propped open so Chandra could join us when she was decent. Kathleen wrinkled her nose in Novak’s general direction, and Gideon gave him a wide berth too. The guy reeked of sex. Kathleen stood near the room’s desk, hands clasped in front of her like we’d invited her in for tea.
“First off, how did you find us?” Jaxon asked.
“You used your real name at registration,” she replied to me. “It was not all that difficult.”
“Okay, next question. Why shouldn’t I put a bullet in you for betraying us for so long?”
“Because I did not betray you. Never once did I pass along your sensitive information to our joint enemy. I worked alongside you as an equal and never shirked my duties as a Para-Marshal.”
“You sure as shit shirked the whole ‘my teammates can trust me’ thing,” I said. “You were working with the necromancer.”
“Yes, on behalf of my actual employer, who planted me in the Para-Marshals first, in order to entice Marshal Weller to bring me into his inner circle. My goal was always the same as yours: stop the necromancer’s plan to control a vampire Line.”
I kind of wanted to believe her, but I no longer trusted her. Period. “Why are you here?”
“The same reason as you. To find the missing werewolves and the people responsible for their disappearances.”
“Because your mystery employer wants them found?”
“Precisely.”
“So you just happened to show up on our doorstep after we did all the legwork to even get this far?” I grunted. “Convenient.”
“Hardly. With all of you officially on leave, and no plane tickets departing from BWI or Philadelphia in your names, it took me this long to track you down. None of your old phone numbers are working, and even if they were, I suspected you wouldn’t speak to me. So I arrived in person to offer my assistance.”
“No.”
Kathleen’s lips twitched. “So hasty to deny me?”
“I don’t fucking trust you, lady.”
“I don’t trust her, either,” Novak said. “But I think I believe her. Kathleen’s a lot of things, but she’s never been a bald-faced liar.”
“How is being a fucking double agent not bald-faced lying?”
“Because no one asked if I was a double agent?”
“I swear to—”
Kathleen’s lips twitched. “Sorry—I couldn’t resist. But you’re not wrong. I do seem to have a talent for secrecy. I am also old enough to eat crow when necessary. It was never my intention to deceive or hurt any of you.” She looked from Novak to J
axon to me. “I was doing my job, and for whatever distress I caused, I offer my apologies.”
I scowled, but Novak simply nodded. He had been closer than anyone else had been with the secretive dhampir, and I trusted Novak’s instincts. I didn’t trust Kathleen, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t work with her. “I believe you,” I said.
She nodded. Her green eyes fixed on mine while her nostrils twitched. “I admit, the human witch’s scent on Novak does not surprise me, but why does the scent of Master Tennyson still linger on you?”
“Because he’s working with us again.”
“Oh?”
“The vampire found us in California and he wants to help,” Jaxon said. “He’s driving our Jeep and equipment cross-country for us.”
“Oh? How generous.” She flashed me knowing smirk, as if I’d somehow earned the favor of Tennyson driving our stuff in a salacious way. Ugh.
I flipped her off. “What sort of help could you even offer us?” I asked. “We have a plan, we are executing it, we do not need you.”
“My employer has narrowed down our search field to within one hundred square miles. The magic protecting it prevents him from focusing any closer.”
I looked first at Jaxon, then Novak. Even Gideon had the same wary surprise on his face. Chandra chose that pause to join us, and we brought her up to speed, including Kathleen’s final bombshell.
“We have someone sensitive to magic who’s on their way to locate the missing wolves,” I said, hedging a bit. She didn’t seem to know about the magically infused tree branch in my luggage, and I wasn’t about to offer that up freely to her lying ass.
“There are few more powerful than my employer,” Kathleen said, a bit of suspicion leaking into her voice. “And they could only get as close as one hundred miles. How will your magic user do better?”
“Kathleen’s information would give our person a more focused area to search,” Chandra said.
I glared, but Chandra only met me with a hard stare of her own. She understood betrayal, and she knew how hard this was on us. But we all understood the stakes. Twenty-eight innocent lives and who knows what they were going through.
Gideon looked like he wanted to knock all our heads together, but he was deferring to those of us with more experience at this.
Someone knocked on the door for the second time that morning, and it could only be one person. Chandra was closest, so she answered. Spoke quiet words at the door, and then shut it again. “Our person is here,” she said.
Kathleen laughed. “Don’t bother, I can scent her. You might as well allow Elspeth inside. We’ve met.”
Chandra cut her eyes at me; I nodded. No sense in keeping up the charade. Mom entered the room with her spine straight, and a disdainful look she threw right at Kathleen. I walked over to hug her hello. She barely glanced at Novak’s nearly naked state and hugged Jaxon, too. Huh. Jaxon introduced her to Gideon.
“So that happened,” I said, jacking my thumb at Kathleen.
“I see.” Mom kept a reasonable distance from the dhampir. “Shiloh, your clothes look slept in.”
“Because they are. Someone’s unexpected arrival interrupted my morning routine.”
“I saw no reason to delay my request,” Kathleen said.
“What request?” Mom asked.
I huffed. “Kathleen claims her employer has located the missing wolves to within a hundred square miles. She wants to work with us in exchange for the information.”
“And you believe her?”
“I don’t know.”
“I have no reason to lie,” Kathleen said. “By coming here, I risked being shot as a traitor. I promise you, my information is accurate.”
Haughty as ever, but I also believed her. She had nothing to gain by lying to or tricking us. But . . . “Who’s your employer?” I asked.
She slowly blinked, then yawned.
M’kay. “As soon as Tennyson gets here with the Jeep, tie her up with silver chains.”
“Wait,” Kathleen said. “I know you feel slighted by me—”
“Slighted doesn’t begin to cover it, lady.”
“But did we not work together in the end to stop the necromancer from taking control of Master Tennyson? I proved we are on the same side.”
“You hit me in the back!”
“After you elbowed me in the stomach. I was playing a part, Shiloh, and I continued to play it until myself and Lars could make our moves.”
“Where is Lars anyway? And how exactly did you get out of holding?”
“Lars is still in holding, while I am not. My employer believed you more likely to accept my help than his, since you know me.”
“I don’t know you,” Chandra said. “And I don’t trust you or Lars.”
“I don’t know who any of you are,” Gideon snapped. “I just want to find my people. What if the woman’s telling the truth?”
“She’s a dhampir,” I replied.
“And I’m a werewolf. And you’re half djinn—I don’t care. What if she can get us closer? It’ll be that much easier for your mother to trace the cubes back to their creator, right?”
Kathleen tilted her head. “Cubes?”
“What?” I said. “Your employer doesn’t know about those?”
“If she does, she did not inform me.”
So the employer was definitely a she. Interesting, but also not useful at the moment. I crossed my arms and angled back toward Kathleen. “How do we know you aren’t actually working for the people who stole the missing wolves?”
“Because we believe the same person who bankrolled Weller and the necromancer is bankrolling this operation, as well. We are committed to bringing this individual down.”
“Why? Who are they?”
She squinted at me.
“Tit for tat, Kathleen. You want me to believe your information is real? Give me something more than mysterious she’s and they’s.”
“The man my employer and I seek to bring down is referred to only as Damian. He has great wealth, great resources, and much reach within the US government. He is a very real threat to the continued existence of Paras on this plane. As you know, vampires and werewolves have always been tangled up in this mortal world of ours, but those who chose to come here? They can leave. If a cleansing happens, all manner of vampire, dhampir, suphir, and werewolf may be eradicated.”
A chill raced down my spine. “This Damian person wants to cleanse the world of Paras?”
She nodded once.
That was pretty heavy shit, because it meant my extinction, too. Like vampires, djinn were bound to the earth, because we were created here. We didn’t cross another plane to visit this planet, like the fey or pixies, or even creations from Hell, like demons and hobgoblins. If Kathleen was right, Damian wanted to bring down a fucking apocalypse against Paras.
Not. Gonna. Happen.
“Okay, we work together,” I said. “But you are not to be out of our sight at any time.”
“We may not have a choice down the road,” Kathleen replied.
“That’s down the road. Agreed?”
She arched a slim eyebrow. “Agreed. The sector we should search is to the west of Highway 283 and south of I-70.”
Jaxon brought that up on his phone. Southwest corner of the state, and less than two hours’ drive to get to the outer edges. But I could not blindly trust her, so I fetched the tree branch from my carry-on. Mom put both hands on it and closed her eyes. Magic pulsed around her, and the power in those eleven cubes buzzed, making my skin crawl with unease.
She shook her head and opened her eyes. “This is different than the revenant magic, and we were much closer to the source. I can’t say for sure if she’s correct in our destination, but it has better odds of bearing fruit than us blindly wandering the state.”
“Listen to your mother, Shiloh,” Kathleen said. “We have work to do.”
I glared at her. “Yeah, well, work can wait until after I’ve changed my clothes. Novak, go take a s
hower. We bug out in ten minutes.”
It ended up being closer to fifteen, because Chandra ended up in the shower, too, and I couldn’t really begrudge them some good sex. I loved seeing Novak back at full power, and his hands had completely healed now. And it wasn’t as if anyone else was getting any. My last attempt at blowing off some sexual steam had been interrupted by the phone call about Tennyson and the trailer park.
I was also a little jealous, because the pair seemed to have hit it off personally, too.
A moon witch and an incubus. Who’d have thought?
While we probably could have squished the seven of us into one vehicle, it made more sense to take Mom’s rental as well as our own. Jaxon and I rode with her, while the others got the pleasure of riding with Kathleen in our rented SUV to keep an eye on her. Jaxon drove our car, with Mom shotgun, the tree branch on her lap. We swung by fast food for breakfast before hitting the open road.
There wasn’t much to see in southern Kansas, mostly open plains, wheat fields, and farmland, so we mostly listened to music while Mom concentrated on the branch. After about half an hour, I remembered Tennyson was on his way to Wichita, but we wouldn’t be there when he arrived. And the man annoyingly did not use cell phones.
The telepathy had only been used while in proximity to each other, but if he was close enough to Kansas, maybe I could reach him. Worth a try.
Tennyson? Can you hear me?
Silence.
I drew on not only the rush of power I remembered from drinking his blood, but also the magical tether that had previously bound us when Tennyson spoke the binding words for the Rules of Wishing. We’d connected through each of our personal strengths and powers, and we had to still be connected somehow.
Tennyson? Hello?
Shiloh? This is unusual. Are you no longer in Kansas?
Still in Kansas but moving west, toward you. I explained Kathleen and our morning so far. Once I know more, I’ll tell you.
All right. I am still about an hour from the Kansas border and the sun is quite bright. I am eager for respite from the glare.
I bet. Uh, signing off.