Pack of Lies

by Edwards, Hailey

  Magic peppered the air, and the slight man exploded into the hulking mass of what I felt certain was a troll.

  Bone-white skin. Scalding red hair. Blue eyes, hateful little marbles that gleamed. Freckles crawled like ants over his bulbous nose, and that was reason enough for me to want to punch him. His teeth, when he smiled, were square pegs thicker than my thumb and made for grinding, the edges too dull to slice through flesh.

  From inside the room, a bone-chilling screech sounded, high and reedy and promising death.

  And Midas…hesitated.

  “Take the troll.” I dodged a meaty fist swinging for my head. “I’ll take my chances in there.”

  Midas had issues, but he hadn’t let them stand in the way of performing his duties. Until now. He was holding on, but the thread was thin, and I wasn’t sure what would happen to him when it finally snapped.

  “Time to earn your keep,” I warned the shadow, pulling on his power to borrow strength and speed.

  The woman had transformed into a meld of how I imagined a djinn and a zombie might look, with an emaciated upper body and wispy swirl of fog that replaced her legs. Her hands ended in talons, and her eyes were vacant pits of malevolence. So…that last part hadn’t changed.

  “Hadley?” Bishop rasped. “How did you…?” He gave a tired laugh. “Peter Pan.”

  “Peter Pan,” I agreed, tuning him out to focus on the dombie—the zjinn? This would be so much easier if these guys wore name tags. “I’m going to need my friend back, lady.”

  “He is ours,” she hissed through blackened teeth. “We need him.”

  “I need him more.” I jabbed her hip, testing a theory. “Hey, that’s a neat trick.”

  The misty trail from her waist down couldn’t be cut. The blade passed right through.

  Battle rang out behind me, Midas and the troll destroying everything in their path. If we stood here twiddling our thumbs for much longer, I might not have to do anything. They might steamroll this zjinn for me.

  Coiling tight as a serpent, she launched at me from her spot near the cage, claws gleaming. I let her come, slashed one of her arms open, and ichor dripped from the wound. I got a solid strike on her chest, which skittered the cutting edge down her exposed ribs, before she peeled off to regroup.

  Debris hit me in the back, distracting me, and she slashed her claws beneath my jaw. They glanced off the energy I was sucking out of Ambrose, which kept my jugular intact, but moisture trickled down my collarbones. Her furious cry at having been thwarted rattled my eardrums.

  The crashing from behind me grew closer, louder, but I had to trust Midas to have my back. And, fine, to a lesser extent, Ambrose too.

  Screeching, the zjinn dove at me again, and this time I stepped aside, running my blade across her throat. The creature dropped from the air, thudding onto the waxed floor, her blood spilling like tar across the planks.

  Reality flickered, and the zjinn transformed into the woman from Ambrose’s recon. Clutching a fatal wound, she gurgled hatred at me. Pretty sure there were threats, promises, and other typical bad-guy stuff brewing in her head, but she couldn’t form the words.

  “Cooperate, and I’ll spare you.” I stood over her. “It’s not too late.”

  Her furious gaze locked with mine until her eyes hazed over and death claimed her.

  “You…offered.” Bishop coughed into his fist. “That counts.”

  “How do I get you out?” I trained my eyes on her to make sure she didn’t rise. “Key?”

  The heavy cage was identical to the others hanging above the dance floor in design. The iron must have been meant as a deterrent to keep patrons from feeding on the live human entertainment.

  When the coven moved in, they simply added a gleaming padlock on the exterior that pulsed with sickly green light.

  “She’s got…it.” He grunted. “Magic.”

  “The key or the lock is magic?” I tested Ambrose, checking his power level after slaying the zjinn, debating if I dared feeding him again so soon. “Neither? Both?”

  Bishop was shaking his head, but the words wouldn’t come. He was fading, and now that I was here, he was letting the exhaustion show.

  “Check it out.” I sent Ambrose. “What’s the score?”

  The shadowy figure swirled once around the bottom of the cage then drummed his fingers on the lock. Honed to an arrow, he shot himself through me.

  “Goddess,” I rasped. “There’s got to be an easier way.”

  Coarse fur damp with blood brushed past me as Midas darted in to check on me.

  “I’m good,” I called to his retreating back. “Just need a minute.”

  The troll lumbered toward me, hatred glazing his eyes, but Midas intercepted him before he could scope out the scene. Darting back into the main room, Midas ran interference, giving me time to free Bishop before our redheaded friend fully comprehended the status quo.

  As my brain thawed, I processed the report from Ambrose and shuddered over his thoughts on Bishop.

  “You’re infected with a Martian Roach?”

  The confusion hazing his eyes cleared when he shook his head. “Geek.”

  “The coven infected you.”

  “I need…blood.” He wet his lips. “Blood will…cure me.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then we’ll get you some.” I patted down the corpse at my feet, located the key, and unlocked the cage. I swung open the door, stepping back to give him room to jump down. “Let’s get—”

  Bishop was on me in a heartbeat, his hands clamping down on my upper arms, his head bending toward me, mouth open, fangs on display.

  Ambrose shuddered within me, clawing at our binding, scrabbling to get away.

  A tiny part of me wished he could suck Ambrose right out of me. How awesome would that be? How simple? But nothing in my life was easy, and I had seen Bishop’s platinum hair turned brown too often to trust his control.

  “Sorry about this.” As soon as he got in range, I headbutted him with every ounce of strength Ambrose could funnel into me, and for once the miser didn’t hold back. He was genuinely afraid of me getting bitten, which was all kinds of interesting, but I couldn’t stop to ponder the implications as Bishop’s nose made a satisfying crunch beneath the heel of my palm. “Really, really sorry.”

  His eyes crossed, his fingers loosened, and he dropped like a felled tree.

  One of the few sigils I could draw from memory was meant to restrain violent or agitated perps. I rarely used it, since it meant leaning on Ambrose, but he was still buzzing from taking down the glamour over this place, and I didn’t feel bad borrowing more strength to roll Bishop onto his back, where I secured his hands at his spine and his legs at the ankles.

  “Be right back,” I promised then rushed into the main building to check on Midas. “Oh.”

  Fur slicked with blood, and with a lame back leg, Midas stood on the dead troll’s chest, ripping out what remained of its throat. It was dead, but he didn’t seem to notice or care. Foam boiled at the edges of his mouth, and his hackles rose when I got too close.

  “Hey, Goldie.” I held my ground. “You killed him. He’s dead. Stone-cold. A total goner. You can stop now.”

  His upper lip quivered, blood and flesh stuck in his teeth, but I got the feeling he wasn’t growling at me.

  “I’m coming over, okay?” I picked my way to him and sank my fingers into his long fur. “Hi there.”

  The gwyllgi glanced from the troll to me and back, still snarling.

  “You’ve got fae issues.” I rubbed a hand down his spine, smoothing the fur. “That’s weird for a guy who’s descended from them.” I flicked a piece of ear off his hip. “Guess we’ve all got our baggage.”

  The rumble in his throat sputtered and died, and he looked between the troll and me again.

  “You can’t scare me off.” I patted his head. “I’ve seen worse.”

  I had done worse too.

  Huffing out
a ripe metallic breath, he leapt onto the floor beside me and gave himself over to the change. The man was in worse shape than the beast, but he was steady on his feet.

  “Do I need to pack a to-go box,” I asked, “or can we get out of here?”

  “How are you so calm?” He wiped a hand across his mouth, and it came away smeared with blood.

  “Midas.” I took his hand, the filthy one, and tried to get through to him. “You’re not the worst monster I’ve ever met.” I let him go just as fast. “I see that every day in the mirror.”

  The confusion wreathing his face was adorable, his struggle to picture me as a monster precious.

  “I need to get Bishop home.” I left Midas with his kill. “He’s starving, and he’s got information for me.”

  As much as I hated to press him after all he had endured, I needed whatever intel he could give me on the coven and how they tied into the Martian Roach infestation.

  “Let me help.” Midas started after me. “He’s too heavy for you to carry alone.”

  “I’ll manage.”

  Ambrose jerked at that, the promise I planned to use him down to the very last drop.

  Halfway back to Bishop, I jumped when Midas pitched his cell into the nearest wall with shattering force that made me glad he used a military-grade case to protect it. Pivoting toward him, I waited for him to enlighten me, which he didn’t do. “What’s wrong?”

  “I have a choice to make.” He collected his battered but functional phone. “First I have to get back to the den.”

  Heart kicking up a notch, I had to know. “Ford?”

  “Yes.” He scratched at a hairline crack across the screen. “Hadley…”

  I drifted toward him, called by the deep curve of his shoulders that begged an arm to sling around them, to hold on to him until he stopped hurting. “What is it?”

  “Do you think your feelings for Ford might change?”

  “Not in the way you mean.” I inched closer. “Why do you ask?”

  “If you had never met me, do you think it would have made a difference?”

  Years ago, I stole a glimpse of Midas through a curtained window in another life, and I never forgot him. I developed a habit of watching for him through the glass, searching for the glint of gilded fur, but I couldn’t very well tell him that.

  I had been drawn to him from the start—Ford never had a chance—but I couldn’t very well tell him that either.

  “I don’t need or particularly want a man in my life.” I clarified, “Romantically.”

  Midas opened his mouth, shut it, then he angled his head toward the troll like it might sit up and tell him what to do.

  “You marked me, you asked to court me, so I’m your problem. Stop being wishy-washy. You either want me, or you don’t. I’m not a toy. You can’t pass me around or share me with your bestie, and you don’t get to decide who I want or who is best for me then force that to happen, either.” Every word out of my mouth rang with an ultimatum I couldn’t silence but had no right to make, especially not when I was riding the same seesaw of emotion as him. “Let me know what you decide.”

  I had bigger fae to fry.

  First order of business, I dialed the cleaners and told them about the victims rotting in their cages. I also warned them about the troll corpse. The coven straddled the same line as the gwyllgi, so odds were good they were our problem and not Faerie’s. But the shifter aspect meant we had a frakking troll on our hands.

  A troll.

  Ambrose gave me the oomph to lift Bishop into a fireman’s carry, but I struggled to keep my knees from buckling. Juggling him was tough, and it made initiating the sequence to locate HQ more of a pain than ever. With that ball rolling, I let the team know to expect us then braced myself to get stopped by the humans bound to gawk at me for lugging a bound man over my shoulder like a kidnap victim.

  The risk of exposure was too high to book a Swyft so close to the club. I would have to walk down a block or two and try my luck then.

  Dialing Linus, I rested the phone against my shoulder to free up my hands. “I’ve got Bishop.”

  Linus slid into clinical mode, stripped of the emotion I knew he must feel. “What state is he in?”

  “I knocked him out, tied him up, and now I’m walking down an alley with him over my shoulder.”

  Silence greeted me on the other end of the line.

  “He attacked me when I let him free. He’s starving, and he’s been infected. He told me blood would heal him, but that might have been the hunger talking.”

  “He would know.” Linus exhaled. “Don’t take him back to HQ. I’ll text you an address. Bring him there.”

  The coolness of his tone sparked a temper in me. “You didn’t tell me Atlanta had gone to the fae.”

  “There are many things I can’t tell you.” He didn’t sound apologetic, just tired. “You wanted the job, and now you’re doing the job. No one ever claimed it would be easy.”

  “Bishop is fae,” I whisper-screamed into the phone. “When were you going to tell me?”

  “Share your newfound wisdom with the next person you see.”

  “What?” I scoffed. “That’s insane. They could be human for all we know.”

  “Have you ever known me to endanger humans?”

  Endanger me, yes. Endanger innocent bystanders… “No?”

  “The next person,” he repeated then waited for me to do as I was told.

  A kid on the street, young enough I could buy her silence with the chocolate in my pocket, was my chosen target.

  “Hey, kid.” That didn’t sound predatory at all. “Come here.”

  Give me a van with blacked-out windows and a pocketful of candy, and I was set.

  “Daddy says don’t talk to strangers.” She raked her gaze over me. “My daddy is a cop.”

  Curse words unfit for little ears stuffed my mouth at my luck. “I just want to tell you something.”

  “Say it from where you are,” she said haughtily, “or I’m going to scream.”

  Smart kid. Fine. I would do it her way and get this over with so I could put this behind me.

  “Thank you for humoring me,” I said, the words not at all what I meant. “Have a nice day.”

  “You’re weird.” The kid scrunched up her nose. “Why is that man on your back?”

  Sucking in a breath, I tried again to explain he was a fae. “I am weird. Thank you for noticing.”

  The girl made fists at her side, mistaking the programmed niceness of the geas for a mocking tone. The red in her face ratcheted up higher, and she tipped back her head before screaming, “Stranger danger.”

  The man who bolted from the house behind her was tall, muscular, and armed with a bottle of olive oil and a loaf of garlic bread. “Who are you?”

  Might as well try it out on him since he was here and all. “Have a nice day.”

  “I asked you a question.” He aimed his side dish at me. “Why were you bothering my little girl?”

  “I would run if I were you,” Linus murmured in my ear, amused. “Quickly.”

  Except I had Bishop on my shoulder, and Ambrose’s tank was almost on the E. I wouldn’t get far.

  Tires squealing against the curb muted whatever inane answer I was about to offer him, and we both pivoted toward the fruitcake running their wheels up on the sidewalk.

  “Get in,” Remy yelled, popping the trunk. “Get in, get in, get in.”

  “This isn’t what it looks like,” I assured the officer, glad to have control of my mouth again. “I promise.”

  With Bishop blood crazed and bound to wake at any moment, I didn’t think twice about dumping his butt in the trunk. Right in front of the gawking police officer.

  “Hurry.” Remy threw the passenger-side door open. “Move it.”

  “Really sorry about this,” I told him as I dove in the car and slammed the door. His fist landed on the glass once before she shot us out of range. Heart racing, I glanced over at her. “Are you still stalki
ng me?”

  “How about a thank you?” She stomped on the accelerator. “I just saved you from getting arrested.”

  “Thank you.” I gave credit where it was due. “Now, are you still stalking me?”

  “Maybe a little,” she grumbled. “I saw Midas leave the alley in a rush, but you didn’t come out and…”

  A kernel of warmth flared in my chest. “You worried about me.”

  Needle teeth bared at the road, she hissed, “Shut up, corpse-raiser.”

  “But seriously. The stalking.” I straightened and put on my seat belt. “It’s got to stop.”

  “Why did you toss your friend in the trunk?”

  “You popped it? I assumed that was your intention.”

  “I borrowed this ride from a friend. I pushed the wrong button.”

  Oh. Well. Hmm.

  “He’s blood-starved. Unless you want to volunteer as a donor, we’re both safer with him back there.”

  “Where are we headed?” She tapped an app on her phone that started tracking mileage. “Your place?”

  “You’re charging by the mile for rescuing me?”

  “I’m living in a shelter. Does it seem like I can afford to do favors for free?”

  “Favors are, by definition, free. Otherwise, it’s commerce and you’re paying for goods or services.”

  “Whatever.” She smiled. “It’s your dime. Are you giving me an address or what?”

  “Hang on.” I read it off to her, and she hooted with laughter. “What’s so funny?”

  “That’s a brothel.” She cut her eyes toward me. “A blood brothel. Sex and blood on tap.”

  “That sounds about right.” I wondered if this was the kind of thing I could write off. The mileage, I mean. Not the, um, services. “He’s blood-starved, remember?”

  “You’re the POA’s apprentice, and you’re going to walk right into a brothel and demand service?”

  “Unless they’re breaking the law, they have nothing to fear from me.”

  Prostitution laws for paras were not what they were for humans. Too many paras depended on blood or sex for survival. It would be tantamount to outlawing grocery stores or butcher shops. That said, double-dipping often got the shadier operations in trouble. Those establishments were meant to have a strict no-humans-allowed policy. The struggling ones bent the rules or outright broke them in order to make ends meet or for the simple reason humans were a popular menu item as well.