Huh. That made sense. Now I felt bad for calling him lazy.
“How does it all work without him at the helm?”
A smile entered his voice. “Ask me again in ten months.”
The ten months of apprenticeship I had left felt like ten years.
“You’ve got a lot more faith in me than I do.” I hadn’t meant to say it, well, blurt it. “Sorry. I’ll put up my fishing pole.”
This was not the time to go fishing for compliments.
“Take a deep breath and focus on your training. I’m only a call away if you need me.”
I hated to point out the obvious, but “I’m calling you now because I need you.”
“This is your first major crisis, a direct attack against our office. You need to handle this on your own to discourage anyone else from trying it once you’re appointed.”
“What about Midas?”
“The pack healers can handle him.”
“Do you know…?” I smacked my forehead with my palm. “It’s not my business. If he wants me to know what happened, he’ll tell me.”
“Midas signed a magically enforced NDA for every job he took prior to…”
“To?”
“There are things he can’t tell you, and there are things he won’t tell you or anyone else.”
“Pot meet kettle, I guess.”
Both he and I stood to gain more by locking our pasts in a box and using them as stepping stools to brighter futures. But Midas had just proven a wrong word could send your foot crashing through the top of the box until the blackness inside swallowed you whole.
“Your duty is to recover Bishop and Ford.” Linus gave that a minute to sink in. “Bishop is our priority.”
A lump formed in my gut. “Yes, sir.”
“Keep me updated.”
Unable to form words, I nodded though he couldn’t see it and ended the call.
Bishop was one of us. Yes, I wanted him back. I would do everything in my power to recover him. But Ford was my friend. Even if his alpha or his beta had ordered him to pump me for information, he had grown on me. The fact he punched his beta for taking me off the market, however temporarily, spoke of genuine feeling.
Already dragging, I texted Bishop’s number and initiated the code sequence to gain access to HQ.
I chose to walk the whole way, tired of being cooped up and unwilling to gamble on another Swyft driver. I reached Base Eleven, positioned between the basement and parking deck of a hospital, and let myself in.
The view was always the same. Bases didn’t change. They were identical down to the wobbly castor on Bishop’s chair.
His empty chair.
The wall in front of me was painted an unrelieved black, and the two rows of monitors anchored there blended in when not in use. The upper row held four monitors, each about thirty-four inches, and they were blank. The lower row mirrored the one above it, but those were always on and flashing surveillance mooched off city cameras as well as our own private mounts. That or cartoons. Depended on if business was slow. But not tonight. Tonight, they were sleeping.
Dropping into his chair, which left me twitchy, like a kid playing dress-up with her mother’s very expensive things, I woke the monitors and sent an all-call to the team. The first I had ever done solo. While I waited to see who was available, I made myself a café mocha in the kitchen.
Milo’s screen flickered to life first, and he leaned forward in his chair, staring down at me.
“Well, hello there.” He chuckled. “Bishop, you sexy thing. You’ve changed your hair? No. Wait. It’s your outfit that’s new. No, no. I got this. It’s boobs. Wherever did you get them? The bottom of a cereal box?”
“Give the others a minute.” I didn’t have the heart to play along. “Then we’ll start the meeting.”
Reece’s and then Anca’s screens lit, but Lisbeth’s remained dark.
Three out of four was better attendance than I could have hoped for on short notice, but it was hard, so hard, facing them.
The bad news was met with grim silence, and it carved me hollow to know I had let them all down.
“I’ve got a present for you, Reece.” I reached in my pocket for the goo baggies and held them up so he could see. “Choose a sample, then pass the other off to your contact in the cleaners. We want to show them full cooperation from the OPA on this matter.”
There was a drop point where team members could exchange physical items, but I had never used one solo. Bishop had always handled the legwork. Yet another of his services I had taken for granted.
“You scratch my back,” Milo murmured, almost a song, “and I’ll scratch yours.”
“Crosscheck your findings against our files on the witchborn fae.” I talked over Milo. “Tell me if they line up.” I rubbed my eyes. “Midas told me the goo was humming. You might want to look into that too.”
“Humming?” Lisbeth’s screen flickered to life, giving us a full house. “Ghostbusters humming or…?”
“You know about haunted slime?” It made me forget, just for a second, how dire things were. “How?”
“Your geek is rubbing off on the rest of us.”
“Bishop rented it a few months back and forced us all to sit here and watch it with him,” Milo explained. “He claimed it was the best of what you liked, which wasn’t saying much, so we did it as a team-building exercise.”
The reminder of Bishop, the evidence he wanted me to belong, hurt. “Without me?”
“He wanted us free to experience the cinematic magic without worrying about hurting your feelings.”
A Mystery Science Theater 3000-style viewing party. Bishop really did know me.
“You might think I didn’t hear the emphasis you placed on cinematic magic, but know that I did.”
The moment of levity evaporated, and reality settled in again.
“We will find him,” Anca promised me. “We have the best resources in the city.”
“He vanished beneath the city,” I said, hating to be the voice of reason, “and we don’t have eyes there.”
“We have bugs.” Reece settled back in his chair. “Not Martian Roaches, but camera-mounted robots.”
“They’re new?” I hadn’t seen or heard of them. “You really call them bugs?”
“They resemble spiders, but I got vetoed when I suggested we name them crawlers.”
“We’ve got enough bugs on our hands.” I overruled the majority. “Creepy crawlers it is.”
“That’s not—” Reece sighed, accepting defeat. “Fine.”
“You can set them loose in the sewers?” I leaned forward. “What’s their range?”
“Range isn’t the problem. It’s coverage.” He tapped a few buttons that broadcast schematics of the bugs to us. “We only have two. I bought them a while ago but haven’t had to use them. There was no reason to purchase more when these were collecting dust in a storage locker, so it will take a while to get them operational.”
“Can they see through glamour?” I turned the idea over in my head. “The witchborn fae coven is our top suspect. They use magic to change their appearance and their scents. Amplification charms to heighten emotion. Persuasion charms to nudge people in the direction they want them to go. Who knows what else?”
The reminder of how and why Midas had marked me the first few times did nothing for my already frazzled nerves. How did he know what he felt was real? And why was I ready to pull the petals off a daisy to discover how genuine his feelings were when there were lives depending on me doing my job?
You want someone to love you. You want to know if magical persuasion is the only way they will.
Muscle ticking in my jaw, I bit down on those old fears. I would chew over that revelation later.
“Cameras see the truth,” Reece admitted. “Unless the person or object has been glamoured against it.”
“We can assume the coven will glamour everything against everything.” So far, they hadn’t missed a trick. “How do we work around
that?”
“We need charms,” Lisbeth said. “A whole buttload of them.”
“I would say we need to patrol in pairs…” But the team never met in person. Thanks to Bishop mapping nightly patrol routes, we never bumped into one another either. “How about we agree to stream patrols to HQ? We might not have anyone behind the desk, but we can record the footage.”
“Works for me.” Milo leaned to the left, toward Lisbeth’s screen. “Unless you want to double up.”
“Uh, that’s okay.” She leaned left too. “I’m the hit-it-and-quit-it type, and you seem clingy.”
“Me too,” he insisted. “See? We’re made for each other.”
“You missed the quit it part, didn’t you?”
“I need a shower and sleep,” I announced, done with this night. “I’m dragging.”
“I’ll check in at dusk,” Anca said. “Rest well.”
The screens flickered and went dark, with the exception of Lisbeth’s.
“Are you holding vigil for Bishop or Ford or both?” Her tone gentled. “I get not wanting to go back to the Faraday if it’s going to make you think about them, but is staying at a base really any better?”
The anonymous nature of our relationship often tempted me to tell her, or the others, things that I wouldn’t say to a person I had to see face-to-face. Writing a note and tossing it into the void, that kind of thing. But I had to work with them, and they weren’t fully my team yet. I wasn’t sure how strong their ties to me were weighed against their bond with Linus, who would expect certain confidences to be shared.
Say, if I entered into courtship with a gwyllgi beta who was the brother of his fiancée’s best friend.
Or if said beta went off the rails after our near-death experience, giving me Snowball flashbacks.
Or if I admitted I couldn’t walk back into the Faraday without knowing he was okay when Abbott made it clear Midas’s health was pack business and none of mine.
“I smell like sewer. I would rather shower that off and sleep here than bring it home with me.”
“Okay.” She lingered a moment longer. “But is Ford, like, available?”
Yeah, and he didn’t want to be. He wanted to be taken…by me.
“You’re tight with Midas now, right?” she wheedled. “So you could, theoretically, put in a good word for me with Ford.”
“Maybe worry about his relationship status after we recover him?”
How did she expect me to facilitate any kind of meeting between them when I had no idea who she really was? Ford probably wouldn’t take it all that well if the girl he wanted to date palmed him off on a friend either. And, if she was serious about the hit-it-and-quit-it thing, she might as well bow out now. Ford wasn’t that guy. He wanted a relationship, not a warm body in his bed.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. “I’m just worried about them, and it makes stupid pop out of my mouth.”
“Do you know Ford?” Talk about stupid popping out of mouths. “You can’t be this invested in a file.”
“You should get some sleep,” she squeaked, her voice octaves higher. “Night.”
Another time, I would find her reaction interesting. Another time, I wouldn’t have stuck my nose in her business. I knew better, and I owed her an apology. She might view the question as me homing in on her identity, and I didn’t want to spook her off the team. Then again, that might explain why I threw it out there. I was tired and worried, and I didn’t want to talk anymore.
After forcing myself to shower, I fell into the nearest bunk and slept, too tired to care where I woke.
Ten
Grass tickled Midas’s stubbled cheek, and sunlight burned his eyes, which told him two things.
He was home, at the den.
And he had no memory past their rogue Swyft driver’s attempt to murder him.
“He lives.”
Grunting, Midas twisted onto his side. “Abbott?”
“How do you feel?” The healer leaned over him. “Your color is better.”
“How did I get here?” Head weighted with rolling marbles, he raised slowly. “Why don’t I remember?”
“Your other half was ascendant.” Abbott checked his pulse. “I’m not surprised you don’t recall.”
A hitch in his breathing was the only sign of panic he allowed to slip past his defenses. “Ford?”
“Still missing.”
“Bishop?”
“Same as far as I know.”
“Hadley?”
“She didn’t return to the Faraday last night.”
“I’ve got to—” He tried to stand, but his gut lurched until he dry-heaved. “Does Bishop—?”
Whatever kept screwing with his head caused him to forget that fast. Bishop was missing. He wasn’t there to answer calls about Hadley, and there was no other number guaranteed to connect him with a live person at the OPA unless he went through Linus.
He might not know her well, but he knew enough that she wouldn’t thank him for involving her boss.
“She’s probably holed up at the OPA.” Abbott threw out a steadying hand. “She’ll come home eventually.”
The beast in him had yet to settle, its fur prickling the underside of his skin. “Where’s my cell?”
“She’ll be asleep,” he warned. “It’s almost noon. Do you really want to wake her?”
“I have to,” he said, and heard the helplessness in it. “I need to know.”
“Here.” Abbott tossed him a phone that must have won a battle with a woodchipper. “Use mine.”
That was when Midas noticed he was buck naked, which sparked more questions, but he could manage.
Leaning against a tree, he dialed Hadley’s number from memory while part of him wondered at what point he had filed those digits away as important enough to occupy space in his head. The line rang and rang, but she didn’t answer, and he didn’t stop calling until she did.
“What?” she growled. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Are you all right?”
“Midas?” Her sleepy voice softened. “I didn’t recognize the number.”
That quick, the roar in his ears dialed down to a bearable level, and his pulse regulated from its gallop.
“It’s Abbott’s.”
“I’m fine, how are you?” She laughed a little. “How polite I am when woken in the middle of the day.”
Before he could rest, he had to know. “Are you coming home tonight?”
“Probably.” She yawned. “I’m at HQ.”
Free hand tight at his side, he forced out the words. “Will you come home tonight?”
“I just said—” A thread of alertness brightened her voice. “I can if you want.”
There was that word again. Want. Still, it wasn’t the right one. Not even close.
“Please,” he said with a rough edge.
“Hold on.” She faked a sneeze. “There. That’s better.”
Brow knitted, he replayed their conversation and admitted defeat. “What am I missing?”
“You blew the dust off your manners.” A smile warmed her voice. “It made me sneeze.”
“You’re not funny.” Damn if he wasn’t smiling. “Your sense of humor is warped.”
“I’m going back to sleep.”
The urgency animating him cut him slack, and he almost hit his knees with relief. “You do that.”
“Are you okay? For real. Tell me the truth.”
The note of concern firmed the wobble in his legs. “I had a rough night, but I’m steady.”
“Abbott’s still with you?”
“Yeah.” The healer was here and leaning in, all ears. “He’s here.”
“Okay.” Her voice went dreamy, husky in the way of mornings after. “See you later.”
“See you later.”
He ended the call before he got hooked into a cycle of repeating everything she said so he didn’t have to let her go then handed the phone back to avoid the temptation of calling her back.
; “Does your mother know?” Abbott pocketed his phone. “How serious is this?”
“Mom knows I’ve marked her a few times, that I’ve given her certain privileges.” Care Bear stare. Ares would never let him forget Hadley’s joke. Grunting, he started toward the den. “The rest? I don’t know.”
From the moment he got promoted to beta, even though he fought for it, lost skin and blood for the honor, he hadn’t been able to settle. The position, the responsibilities, none of it appealed to him. He missed his sister. More than that, he missed leaving these bumps in the road of pack life for her to smooth. She was raised for this, groomed to lead. He was…given space and allowed to chase peace where he could find it.
“What’s the diagnosis?” Midas worked up the courage to ask. “How bad is it?”
“The partition in your brain is under stress,” Abbott admitted slowly. “I’m only three-quarters gwyllgi. As much as I want to tell you I can patch it, I can’t. Your system overloaded last night, and you shut down.”
Meaning there was no way to hide this from his mother. Unless the partition was reinforced, it would continue to erode, and his feral self would keep stepping in to protect his weaker half. Just like it had when…
Blood drips from his fingers, hers and his, and he can’t tell which is which, and it doesn’t matter.
She’s dead.
He’s alive.
He killed her.
“That’ll be making you five and oh,” the goblin crows. “You’re a legend in the making.”
“I’m not…fighting again,” Midas rasps, his vowels mush. “You’ll have to…kill me.”
“Your beast won’t go down.” The goblin wets his lips, thick and green, slimy as if someone glued slugs above and below the gash of his mouth. “It’s the most dominant fighter I’ve ever seen, boyo, and trust me—this arena has seen it all.”
“Never,” Midas breathes, “again.”
“Golly,” the goblin calls. “Lock the prince in his tower.”
A coarse hand closes around Midas, fingers thick as his torso, until only his head from the neck up and feet from the ankle down sticks out of the mighty fist.
“Yer teeth are big,” the goblin cackles, “but they’re no match for Golly.”
Golly.
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