Inside Straight

by Mark Henwick

I really didn’t want to see him tonight, but we had a time limit to get Tullah back and besides, every day she was out there, I got the sense it was getting more dangerous.

  Kane was waiting for us, not looking happy, but not saying anything either.

  I retrieved Scott from the Belles, which involved a lot of hugs and kisses and congratulations on my fight. They’d been behind me all the way, which helped me feel better about it.

  Scott got hugs and kisses, too. Seems they enjoyed having him in hand, as Rita had put it.

  As we climbed into Rita’s midnight-blue Dodge, I asked Scott how he was.

  “Okay.” He frowned, his face a picture of seriousness. “Apart from a sudden, intense desire to visit LA for some reason.”

  I laughed. I needed that kind of humor on this dark night.

  “Yeah, I bet.”

  Chapter 27

  Weaver lived in the small town of Erie, halfway to Longmont, and it was the middle of the night. Whatever he’d said about doesn’t matter what time, I didn’t want us to drive so far out of our way to find him asleep, so I called ahead.

  “Hello?” a man’s voice said. Not Weaver—an older man and a cautious opening.

  I went for polite. “Sorry to call so late. It’s Amber Farrell. I was told to visit as soon as I was ready. Can I talk to Weaver, please?”

  “Of course, Ms. Farrell. One moment please.”

  Polite seemed to be the mode of the evening now.

  “Thank you for calling,” Weaver’s rumbling voice said almost immediately. “Are you on your way?”

  “We are,” I replied, stressing the we. “Just so there’s no misunderstanding, the werewolf business I was called away for was a challenge. I’ve just finished killing the challenger and I’m in no mood for bullshit tonight. Tullah and her family need to be back in Denver, safely. We take it from there.”

  “Understood. I apologize again for earlier tonight. And again, I’d like to reiterate it’s because I’m very worried for Tullah. I agree the most important thing is to get her here safely. As you say, let’s take it from there.”

  He couldn’t have been more reasonable if he’d tried.

  I told him I’d see him in half an hour, and Rita headed north on I25.

  I was shotgun and Kane was in the back, squeezed in with David, Lynch and Scott.

  They’d picked up he had a problem with me, and their instinctive reaction was to give that attitude right back to him. That’s what a pack or a House was all about. It wasn’t comfortable for Kane in the back.

  And, as much as I appreciated the support, it wasn’t right.

  In a crazy way, this was the same sort of problem I was in with Kath. With the backing of my House, I could get into Kath’s head and fix her regardless of what she thought about it. For all the good intentions, that would be like violating her all over again. I needed her to want help, to ask for help.

  I could fix Kane too. Whether he wanted it or not, I was House Farrell and he was part of my House by Amanda’s oath to me. But there was no point in asking Pia to draw up a House constitution that limited what could be done to members of my House if I was going to be the one to disregard it. I wanted Amanda and her kin in my House. I wanted them to be in the position that their first, instinctive reaction would be to support me whatever and whenever. But the tricky part was I wanted them to want that without any force on my part.

  “Ease off, guys,” I said for the second time that night. “Kane has a legitimate reason for being angry with me.” I took a calming breath. “I’m going to explain, but this is a House secret. Understood?”

  Cautious nods.

  “I was only able to defeat Victoria by pulling magic through Kane to increase the power of my bite.”

  I was looking into the back, but I could feel Rita’s close attention and understanding. She’d known something was wrong.

  “Wasn’t just magic,” Kane said.

  “No. Absolutely right. Just as background for the rest of you, Flint and Kane have been concerned about the magic I use for the halfy rituals, for example. Concerned that it sounds like dark magic to them. And although I had no real idea what I was reaching for tonight, what arrived seems to fit the description of blood magic or dark magic.”

  It was quiet for several moments in the car until Scott spoke: “What are the implications of it being dark magic?”

  “Powerful,” I said. “Maybe easier to use. But also addictive.”

  “It turns the purpose it’s used for,” Kane said. “Might start out with the best intentions, but that much power, of that type... it ends in evil.”

  “Nick doesn’t agree,” I pointed out.

  “But now, thanks to Were political problems, we aren’t going to have Nick with us,” David said, looking for the right way out. “But we do have two Adepts who could help ensure that it doesn’t turn to evil. Which is important because those halfies depend on that ritual.”

  “A ritual that makes more monsters like tonight?”

  Kane was angry enough he wasn’t thinking through what he said.

  Scott’s lip twisted into a silent snarl.

  “Sorry,” Kane muttered.

  “I can understand you don’t have a very good impression of the Were community from that meeting,” I said. “Just the same way anyone might get a bad impression from the wrong meeting of Adepts.”

  Half of me wanted to leave it there and let him mull it over. I had a feeling he’d be okay once he’d had time to think it through, but I needed to be sure about him now. I needed him to watch my back while I met with Weaver.

  “I shouldn’t have done that,” I said. “If there was any other way, I wouldn’t have. But, under certain circumstances, I’d do it again.”

  “What circumstances?”

  I shifted in my seat and frowned. “I can’t give you a list, but lethal threat to any member of my House, including you and me. Same with people associated with me. Threat to Emergence. Danger to a large number of people. That sort of thing. It would be a long list, but all of it on the basis there would be no other way.”

  “This Emergence thing is just politics.”

  “It’s not, Kane. It really isn’t. It’s part of why we’re in this situation now, where you can’t be part of House Lloyd without also being part of the whole Athanate community in the US.” I took a breath. “I know you and Flint think you’re good enough that you can take Amanda and go undercover. You can’t. It just isn’t an option.”

  I saw the defiance in his eyes.

  “Really,” I said. “But I promise you this: if we can’t work out a way for you to be part of my House, I’ll release Amanda from her oath and put you on a flight to Ireland myself.”

  Defiance changed to surprise. Scott growled.

  “I don’t want to do that,” I said. And I didn’t. Just saying it had felt like cutting my own flesh. “I want you in my House. I want you to help me with magic. I want you to help me be a liaision between Were and Athanate, and maybe Adepts too. I will let you go if you can’t. But tonight, I need you to have my back when we visit Weaver. To keep a lookout for any magical tricks. You good for that?”

  “Yes,” he said quietly.

  “Talk to each other,” I said to them all. “Explain about Emergence. Explain about dark magic. Let’s be all in the same House, at least for tonight.”

  I hoped I’d done enough for Kane, without upsetting Scott, who would be in a terrible position if House Lloyd left. He was Amanda’s kin, but he was my cub.

  He’d calmed down since the club. He still looked wild, but under the circumstances, I thought he’d done very well. However, I doubted that we were out of the danger zone with him. Providing I got the chance, I was going to have to keep him by my side for a while, however inconvenient that was.

  Julie called David back on his cell, and confirmed she and Keith were ahead of us. Twenty-five minutes later, we saw them standing next to the Hill Bitch, parked near Weaver’s house, waiting for us.

 
; They grabbed me in a three-way hug before I could speak. My team could sense something of the night’s events even without being told.

  “What the hell happened?” Keith growled.

  “Werewolf challenge,” I said leaning into the warmth of their embrace, inhaling their Yelena/House Farrell scents and feeling better.

  “Shit,” muttered Julie.

  I didn’t want to talk about it. “They came in second.”

  “Bian’s been calling,” Keith said, touching the comms device in his left ear. “They have some emergency going. Confederation werewolves spotted in Denver.”

  “She’s spoken to Felix?”

  Keith nodded.

  I started to ask what Bian was doing tracking werewolves, but it wasn’t important right now.

  “You have some weapons in the Bitch?”

  “Yup.”

  Julie handed me my HK Mk 23 in a clip holster, which I checked and then hung from my belt.

  “Weaver’s given his word, but I want us to be carrying and I want it to be obvious.”

  They nodded and Julie slung an MP5 across her chest. Keith shrugged on a bandolier with assorted flash bombs and grenades.

  David looked in the back of the Hill Bitch and came away with a Sig that he’d trained on.

  Scott raised his eyebrows. I shook my head. Until he and Lynch were checked out with weapons, I didn’t want them shooting near me.

  Kane folded his arms. He wasn’t interested in that kind of weapon. Fine by me as long as I got warning if Weaver pulled some magical trick like trying to move us to the spirit world.

  Given just a second, I would ensure it would be the last trick he pulled.

  But how would I get that warning?

  I couldn’t watch Kane and ignore signs that Weaver might be giving.

  My eukori would give me a clue, but did I want to use it? How would Kane react if I had to connect to him through eukori again?

  With my attention turned to it, I could feel that dark power I used to kill Victoria, right now; I could sense it seething in the cold night.

  Blood magic.

  What the hell? Why had I been able to access it? Could I ever use my eukori again without pulling some of it in?

  The memory of that power burn made me go weak. I didn’t understand anything about it. How I’d called it. How I controlled it.

  Were Flint and Kane right? That it would turn to evil and I couldn’t trust it.

  Maybe.

  And yet, to have it on tap? To use it for things that needed to be done?

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and it wasn’t because there was any spell forming near me. I was hearing the sweet siren call of power deep inside me.

  I could have used it to defeat Felix and Cameron.

  Crazy. Not what I wanted. I shivered and tried to put it out of my mind.

  So... no eukori at this meeting. For warnings, I was going to have to rely on reading Weaver’s expression and body language.

  Just like all those poker games, back in Ops 4-10.

  Concentrate, I said to myself as we walked up to Weaver’s house.

  I didn’t know what to expect. It was at the end of a road and surrounded by trees and fences. On the outside, it was a sober, two-story brick mansion. Upper floor rooms had half-moon balconies outside, protected by old-fashioned white balustrades. I guessed the place must have seven or eight bedrooms, at least. There were probably great views of the Front Range during the day.

  The lights were on downstairs, and an elderly Adept was waiting to let us in.

  He blanched at the sight of all of us standing on the doorstep, half of us armed, but made no comment, instead waving us to come inside.

  We followed him across a hallway, into a living room.

  The house was a strange mixture of neo-classical and Americana. The ceilings were vaulted. Rooms were lit by chandeliers. Doorways to passages were arched between slender Greek-style columns, painted bronze. In contrast the living room had a monstrous ranch-house fireplace with a railroad tie set into stonework, serving as a wooden mantel. A scatter of old Western furniture seemed out of place standing on domino-tiled floors. The walls were covered in panoramic artwork depicting gold-rush mining scenes.

  It smelled strongly of spicy cooking, barbequed meat, beer and wine, but apart from the Adept guiding us, the house might as well have been empty.

  Through an archway, I glimpsed a kitchen built around a glossy, granite-topped central work area that looked like it had been ripped out of a spaceship. Presumably the source of the cooking smells.

  It was silent now, as if everyone had cleaned up and stepped outside a few moments before.

  Spooky.

  But I got none of the skin sensations that indicated anyone was using magic. A quick glance at Kane and he shook his head. Nothing he could sense either.

  We might be walking straight into a magical ambush, but I was still too unsure to reach out with eukori.

  A few steps ahead of us, down a hallway, the Adept knocked quietly on a wide door and then opened it.

  Weaver waited inside.

  Chapter 28

  Julie, Scott, Kane and Rita followed me in. Lynch, Keith and David stood outside the door.

  The room appeared to be Weaver’s study, and it was dominated by an old oak desk in the middle. Where the walls weren’t lined with books, there were more works of art, this time bronze relief panoramas—again depicting old mining scenes.

  Weaver rose to his feet, ignored the display of our weapons and called for more chairs. He was acting like a completely different person from the man at the club.

  “Bourbon?” he offered, holding up a bottle of Woodford Reserve from a table beside the desk.

  I took a glass. The others shook their heads.

  The elderly Adept delivered some stacked chairs and slipped out again.

  Everyone except Rita sat down. The were-cougar leaned against the wall and became eerily still, green eyes fastened on Weaver as he sat back behind his desk and sipped his bourbon.

  “Can we start again?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  I didn’t trust Weaver, but I’d let him make his case. Maybe he could help to find Tullah. Then it was a matter of getting Kaothos back with Tullah and letting them sort out the local Adept community.

  I hadn’t thought he was dangerous the first time we met, back in the fall, before I’d really gotten a grip on the paranormal world. It was past time to re-assess. This man ran the Denver Adept community. That alone meant I needed to be careful.

  He was a big man, six-six or thereabouts, with dark brown eyes, heavy shoulders and curly hair the color of old copper coins. He wore jeans, a black shirt and glossy Chelsea boots. A formal leather jacket was draped over the back of his chair.

  I went straight to the point. “So, how do we find Tullah?” I said.

  He looked down at his drink and scratched his chin before replying.

  “First, who is we?”

  “My House and House Trang.”

  “Not the Hecate?”

  From his tone now, and the earlier meeting at the club, it was obvious they weren’t working together. And I was betting he wasn’t as well informed as Gwen—he didn’t know that Tullah and Kaothos were temporarily separated.

  Something to keep quiet about.

  “No,” I replied to his question. “I hardly know the Hecate, and since she was previously out to kill people who are now members of my House, I’m wary of working with her. On the other hand, if she can help, why not use her?”

  He grunted and leaned back in his chair. “She’s not to be trusted.”

  “Hey, all of you want Tullah for your own purposes,” I said. “What I want at the moment is to see her back safely. Someone or something is obviously preventing that. Help me find her and then we talk to her about who she wants to work with.”

  He ran a hand through his hair.

  “I am willing to work with you on that basis. You won’t find the
Hecate so accommodating. Whatever she says, she wants the dragon above all else. You and everyone else, including Tullah, are secondary to securing that.”

  He was really worried about me working with Gwendolyn. Why? What did he think I had that would make a difference to her?

  Puzzling.

  I had believed the Hecate thought I was important only because I could get her access to talk to Kaothos and Diana. But Weaver didn’t even seem to know Kaothos was at Haven. He thought Kaothos was hiding with Tullah. So why would he think the Hecate wanted to work with me?

  I put that aside. I didn’t trust him enough to ask.

  “You claim Tullah’s wellbeing is important to you, but it was you who put a lock on her to stop her using her magic.”

  He nodded. “I did. It was for her own safety. Did you think she was really in control down in Carson Park, when the dragon got loose? It turned out well enough, but that was dumb luck.”

  Did he have a point? I sipped my bourbon and thought about it. If she’d been in control, maybe Kaothos wouldn’t have ended up in Diana.

  “There’s an undercurrent to your comment. The Athanate are always quick to condemn the Adepts for tough choices we have to make,” he went on. “You don’t like the way we protect the paranormal community by removing those that cannot or will not abide by rules, despite your own methods.”

  His gaze turned to Kane and I was reminded that Gwendolyn had said something similar about ‘rogue’ Adepts.

  “Tullah never broke any rules, as far as I’m aware,” I said. “Right up to the point where you put the lock on her.”

  He stroked his chin. “Actually she broke several, not least of which was not informing us about the nature of her spirit guide.” He raised his hands. “That’s in the past, and not important any more. My point is, the rest of the paranormal community make their own difficult decisions without appreciating ours.”

  He waved a finger at Scott.

  “For instance, your new werewolf is calmer now, but he was on the point of berserker rage in the club earlier tonight. If you had the ability to put a temporary lock on him, one that would have prevented the wolf emerging, or the anger exploding, no doubt you would have used it. Instead you had to make him accompany you, despite the danger and inconvenience, so that you could take action if he slipped any closer towards going rogue.”