Pack of Lies

by Edwards, Hailey

  She used enough force.

  “Yes,” I cut him off. “They are.”

  Understanding registered in the tensing of his fingers, and I prayed he let the matter drop.

  “I don’t sense any sickness in you.” He withdrew. “You can put your shirt back on.”

  “Thanks.” I shrugged back into it and cast Midas a glance over my shoulder. “Your turn.”

  As much as I wanted to enjoy the show—what a handy distraction from missing Bishop that would be—I figured I owed him the same degree of politeness he had shown me and kept my back to him.

  Awaiting the verdict on Midas, I followed up on the flood of texts I had sent.

  Reece, who was holding down the fort, albeit remotely, had news for us.

  “The cleaners have uploaded their report on the Martian Roach.” I flipped from his text to email and skimmed his summary. “That…I did not expect.” I composed myself and shared the troubling revelation. “The Martian Roaches are magically engineered. They’re descended from the common roach, Periplaneta americana, but their DNA has been magically spliced with the parasitic emerald wasp, Ampulex compressa.”

  “Those are the wasps who create zombies, right?” Abbott raised his head. “What?”

  “You’re a healer, so I’m going to let it go as medical curiosity that you would know that.”

  “You knew how long roaches live without their heads,” Midas reminded me. “In great detail.”

  Busted.

  “We’re not talking about me, and I bet tons of people know that.” I twirled a wrist, busy Googling. “It’s trivia.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Ten points to Abbott. It’s the zombie wasp, all right.” A shudder twitched through me. “The wasp stings the roach, lays an egg on its abdomen, and the larvae feeds on the roach.” I skimmed the article, waiting for the zombie tie-in. “Hmm.” I didn’t have to go far. “This says the first sting is aimed at the roach’s thorax and contains stupid amounts of gamma-aminobutyric acid plus its closest friends, taurine and beta-alanine. Not that I know what any of those are. The cocktail temporarily paralyzes the roach’s front legs to prevent it from escaping before the wasp stings it again, right in the brain, with a neurotoxic cocktail that blocks key receptors responsible for complex movements such as walking.”

  That Ford had survived was a miracle.

  “That combo,” I kept reading, “gives Martian Roaches the hardiness and adaptability of a common roach with the parasitic and toxic properties of the wasp. Plus a magical boost that does goddess knows what. Amplifies those traits? Mutates them?”

  “The gwyllgi who herded you,” Midas began. “It was under the control of the Martian Roach.”

  “We had the bad luck to be there when the fully matured adult decided to break free and start its own cycle.” I placed a hand over my unruly stomach. “It lured me away to infect me.”

  Picking up the narrative, Abbott read over my shoulder. “The host shows no signs of pain or discomfort as it’s eaten alive from the inside out, and it makes no attempt to flee its captor.”

  “Its captor?” I reread the passage. “The momma Martian Roach secures the host for her baby then keeps it around until the larvae is mature.” I blanked the screen, done with this horror show. “The mom was in the alley, watching her kid hunt.”

  Whose skin had she worn? Who had died so that she could infiltrate the city without raising eyebrows? Atlanta teemed with predators, but there were rules. Right out of the gate, the Martian Roaches had broken them.

  “That doesn’t explain the egg sacs Ford found in the sewer.” Fabric rustled as Midas pulled on his shirt. “This sounds like they require live hosts to reproduce, so what did he see? An incubation chamber?”

  “We have no proof Ford went where he says he went after we parted ways.” I hated to be the one who put thought to words. “All we have is his word he found what he claimed, and he was likely compromised at the time.”

  “No.” Midas didn’t turn. “You’re wrong.”

  “There was nothing down there when we checked.”

  Just blobs of goo Reece had no results on yet and bupkis from the creepy crawlers.

  Midas ground his teeth until I worried his other half might need to invest in pointy dentures.

  “He must have been captured that night.” It was the only thing that made sense. “He came back, covered in goo with a story designed to lure us into the sewers.”

  “Why not take us all?” He turned, and I wished I could have kept staring at the back of his head. “Four hosts are better than two.”

  “I don’t know.” I had Ambrose, which might have turned them off, but I couldn’t admit that. “They might have been leery of taking you since you’re the beta, and it would bring even more heat.”

  Midas flinched, but I hadn’t meant to imply any of this was his fault. I was only thinking out loud.

  “Do you think they’re capable of higher thought?” Abbott wondered. “Given their insectoid ancestors’ practices, it seems to me someone else would be pulling the strings.”

  “I have to agree.” I scuffed the line and dropped the circle. “Right now, my money is on the coven.”

  Even though the witchborn fae coven was maintaining a low profile, I couldn’t shake the certainty in my gut this was somehow their doing.

  “They can already shapeshift.” Midas couldn’t get away fast enough. “Why Frankenstein their own creatures?”

  “To distract us?” I hung back when he made it clear he wanted to be alone. “To divide us?”

  There must be a reason, but I was drawing a blank. Given the coven’s powers, the Martian Roaches seemed superfluous.

  “I need to get home.” He pulled out his keys. “I have to update the alpha.”

  Not that he waited for me, but I gave him permission. “I’ll call for a ride.”

  Midas didn’t look back. He got in his truck and left me standing there with Abbott.

  “I can drop you off,” he offered. “Well, not me, but Bing or Frank.”

  “Bing and Frank,” I repeated. “That’s their names?”

  “Afraid so.” A faint smile creased his cheeks. “You see why they prefer remaining aloof and mysterious.”

  Jerking my chin in the direction of the fading taillights, I watched until they vanished. “Will he be okay?”

  “Don’t take it personally,” he said gently. “Midas prefers to shoulder his own burdens, not share them.”

  “I’ve noticed that about him.” I kept it formal, emotions locked down, and started toward the road. I could fall apart later, after Ford was okay. “Call if you need anything our office can provide.” I ordered a ride, the better to put this behind me, and waved. “I’ll leave you to your work.”

  “I’ll do that.” He jogged after me. “There is one thing…”

  “Name it.”

  “It’s not a favor, but a warning.”

  “Oh?” I pulled up short. “In regard to?”

  “Midas is going home.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where his mother, the alpha, lives.”

  “I got that part.”

  “The first thing she’s going to notice is the change in his scent, and she’s going to ask him why he smells faintly of necromancer.”

  “Oh crap.”

  “You have an hour, maybe two, before she realizes he’s instigated a courtship with you. Thanks to his previous markings, you’re already part of his scent. She’s going to notice the wrongness of that immediately.” He mashed his lips together. “Wrongness was not the right word. It sounds disapproving.” He puzzled it over a minute. “Differentness? He won’t smell like her son. He’ll smell like he’s yours too.”

  Already part of his scent? I thought the mark faded weeks ago. Why hadn’t anyone told me otherwise?

  “You’re telling me I have an hour,” I joked, “two tops, to decide whether I want to change my name and move to a new city?”

  “Well.” He scratched
his chin. “Yes.”

  I had traded one life for another, one home for another, to be here.

  Tisdale Kinase could pry Atlanta from my cold, dead fingers.

  This city was mine, and I wasn’t going anywhere.

  Fourteen

  The best place for me to get my head on straight was HQ, so I initiated a fresh sequence to locate its position for the night. I was an eight-minute walk away from Base Five when I realized I hadn’t eaten and figured I ought to fix that before I holed up to watch surveillance in the hopes I might spot a clue the team had overlooked during their marathon.

  With that in mind, I had the Swyft driver drop me where the food trucks who catered to the nocturnal crowd gathered at dusk. Humans blamed a cash grab on their parts to bring in those dinner dollars, but it was prime time for us night dwellers, and lines were long.

  “Three-for-one tacos,” Sal called to me from across the street. “I’ll throw in a free drink.”

  “Bite me, Sal.” The pixie girl—Remy—swaggered into view carrying a sample tray. “This one’s mine.”

  “You got a new job.”

  “Yes, Captain Obvious, I did.” She handed me a tiny cup filled with chorizo. “Try it and then buy it.”

  “Your salesmanship skills astound.” I tossed back the cup’s contents. “Not bad.”

  “At least it’s real pork,” she yelled loud enough for Sal to hear. “What’ll I put you down for?”

  “Answers.” I hurled the cup in a nearby trash can. “Where did you get the address?”

  “A guy owed me a favor.” She rearranged the cups on her tray. “I spent it on you.”

  “Who is this guy?” I hardened my heart against her lost-girl act. “Can I talk to him?”

  “He’s just a guy. Sheesh.” She turned on a dime and started walking away. “Try to do a good deed.”

  “Ford is sick.” As hard as she stalked Midas, she had to know who I meant. “He might not recover.”

  “Sorry to hear that.” She slowed. “He seemed nice enough.” She cut me with a scowl. “Poor taste in women, though.”

  “Yeah.” He liked me after all. “I can’t argue with you there.”

  “Look, I want to help you, I do, but I can’t.” She waved to her boss when he gestured at her to make a sale or move on. “Those kinds of favors are expensive, and I’m not exactly rolling in it these days.”

  Ambrose perked as a mirror image of Remy, down to the ratty boots and loud hair, rounded the corner.

  “You’ve got a sister?” Aside from the one she couldn’t prove Midas had killed. “You’re…twins?”

  Or had they been triplets? I could see a broken bond that deep resulting in her vendetta against Midas.

  “You can see her?” Remy checked me up and down. “You legit see her?”

  “She’s right there.” I pointed her out, and Remy gawped at me. “What’s the big deal?”

  Ambrose sniffed around the girl’s ankles, and she slanted him an ugly look that sent him skittering.

  Had she seen him? Had Remy? Or was it a fluke? A disturbance in the force, if you will.

  She kept walking straight for us, but instead of stopping to chat or veering around, she passed right through Remy.

  Passed through her. In one side and out the other. Wait. No. She hadn’t reappeared. She had vanished.

  “Um.” I leaned around her narrow shoulders to be certain. “Where did she go?”

  “Are you ordering or what?” Her attitude took a nosedive. “I’m not paid to stand here and talk.”

  “Normally, I wouldn’t ask this, but I figure you owe me after my near-death experience. What are you?”

  Eyes narrowed, she bared her teeth. “I gave you intel to pay off that debt.”

  “Intel that resulted in the recovery of an abducted pack member, intel you owed Midas for nearly killing him.”

  Tossing the tray to clatter on the ground, she cut her eyes toward her boss and yelled, “I quit.”

  For the sake of public relations, and so he wouldn’t food poison me if I had the bad luck to eat there again, I ran over and flung a handful of bills on his counter. “Sorry.”

  The stream of obscenities from her boss didn’t stop, even while he counted his money. His multitasking skills truly impressed me.

  “Let’s go back to my place,” she grumbled. “Then we’ll talk.”

  The comment left me wondering if she had moved on, but no. She beat a familiar path to one of the OPA’s safe houses.

  The truly odd thing was we had twelve shelters total, all adjacent to the various OPA headquarters. Half of those were full at any given time, and around holidays or freezing weather, we packed them in like sardines in a can. You could enter the shelters and spot the differences. You could enter the shelters and interact with different guests. You could enter the shelters and be certain each one corresponded with a spot on the mental map I had memorized of all HQ locations. None of that was strange. The peculiar part was my certainty HQ’s destination wasn’t a light switch Bishop flipped on at random each night in a varying pattern. I was starting to be convinced it had a singular location…that moved.

  How was that possible? Was it possible? No clue. Transportation magic existed, but it wasn’t a form of necromantic magic, so I was totally ignorant of its mechanics. Truthfully, I didn’t fully grasp the nuts and bolts of necromantic magic either. I depended on Linus’s assigned reading and—goddess be merciful—Ambrose to guide me.

  Yet another reason why Bishop better get his butt back here. A man with that many mysteries was begging for a few to be unraveled.

  Pandora, meet Box.

  “Can you come in without your own card?”

  Remy’s voice forced me to stop woolgathering and pay attention.

  “I can get in.” I pulled out a business card similar to hers. “You go first.”

  The apprentice POA had full access to all locations and all information available to the POA with the exception of restricted data on the team and their locations and identities. Access wasn’t granted by card, though. That was a feint. I had a tattoo, another of Linus’s designs, that worked as an all-key. Pretty cool, really. It didn’t spare me from memorizing passwords, but it did free me up from carrying a pocketful of charms linked to each HQ and shelter.

  The lived-in clutter assaulted me when I crossed the threshold, and I rocked back on my heels. She had definitely made this place her own. I might have to pay the cleaning crew extra to put all the furniture back where it went and—was that a lime-green stripe painted down the far wall?

  “Here’s the deal.” She flopped onto a deconstructed bunkbed she had shoved together to give herself a full-size mattress. “I’m an echo.”

  All the pixie jokes I had cracked in the safety of my head were coming home to roost. “You’re fae.”

  Of course she was fae. She couldn’t be something normal—like a vampire.

  “Point to you, most folks have never heard of the macalla.”

  Neither had I, but it fit. It explained away that sense of other about her.

  Note to self: Research the macalla and any ties they might have to gwyllgi.

  Nudging aside a mountain of clothes that defied logic considering the size of her backpack, I sat on the bed nearest me. “How does your magic work?”

  “I can tear myself in two or four or six. Once upon a time, I could even do eight,” she said, sinking into a thick accent that reminded me of Midas’s earlier slip. “I am always me, and they are always me, but we are not always each other. The girl you saw on the street? She’s one of mine. One of me. Whatever.”

  “I see.” I had no idea what she was talking about. “How sentient are your halves?”

  “Depends on how many times I’ve been torn. I get split down the middle each time, and so does my magic. I can recall things I did or heard or saw as my other selves, but I don’t always remember them right.” She linked her fingers at her navel and stared at the ceiling. “It’s like that game where you
whisper into someone’s ear, and they tell what they think they heard to the next person, and so on and so on until it circles back to you and makes no sense.”

  More of her peculiar quirks began to gel for me, along with one very important fact. “One of your other halves told you Midas killed your sister.”

  “Aye.” Her forehead creased in deep lines. “I was split into eight when it happened, standing on the far edge of my power. Mamaí warned me never to go that far, told me it was hard bringing back pieces once they wandered out into the world. She claimed some gained their own awareness and fought like the dickens against being reabsorbed. I didn’t listen. I was a child of Faerie, golden and immortal, and knew better than her.”

  You don’t look that old wanted to pop out of my mouth, but I knew better. I had already trespassed by asking her species, and she was telling me this to erase the debt between us. “What happened?”

  “Mortals do love their fairy stories.” She laughed at me. “Of course you do, we tell them so well.”

  Most of what we “knew” about fae was told to us by fae, and just because they couldn’t lie didn’t mean they always told the truth.

  “Eight was different, strange.” A long sigh whistled through her sharp teeth. “That sliver of myself never wanted to come back. She wanted to go and go and go, and she dragged me with her. Children are rare for fae, and most die before adulthood. Fair is fair, I suppose, since we exist until we tire of living and would overtake Faerie and every other world otherwise.”

  Necromancers lived for five hundred years on average, which was nothing to sneeze at, but she was talking about forever. Eternity. The end of time. The realm of Last Seed vampires and the nearly fabled Deathless vampires.

  No one knew how long dybbuks lived. They were put down as soon as they were discovered. Usually, there was no other choice seeing as how they tended to get discovered while going on vampire killing sprees.

  “Eight and I...” She closed her eyes. “We became best friends.”