by RJ Blain
“Isn’t that what I should be telling the attackers?”
Randal smirked. “We sometimes get carried away during the exercises. It’s hard not to when so many skilled people begin challenging each other, many of them shifters.”
“How long do the exercises take?”
“We usually limit them to three hour sessions. This lets us run through a variety of scenarios without too much disruption to our principal’s work. Tomorrow, it’ll be a rotating schedule. The First Gentleman will have a three hour session, the President will have a three hour session, and there will be a general session in the evening.”
When opportunity knocked, wise assassins answered. “How do these sessions work? Are they at the mayoral palace?”
“Tomorrow’s sessions will be. We do sessions all across the city to practice movement and emergency situations, although those are not announced and are generally reserved for the President, First Gentleman, and members of their council.”
“What about the Clan Council?”
“They’re not typically covered by the Secret Service.”
“Why not?”
“The Clan Council functions outside the scope of the general government. The death of a Clan Council member wouldn’t impair the government’s ability to function. A replacement would be chosen by the species clans or nominated into the role by the leader of the Clan Council.”
“The First Gentleman.”
“Exactly. Mr. Silverston was nominated into the role following the displacement of the previous feline leader. While young, he was found to be a quick study, very intelligent, and rather vicious. He doesn’t require a protective detail, although it wouldn’t surprise me if the government were to expand the Secret Service to cover more of the Clan Council since its importance has grown over the years. Mr. Silverston’s mystic is quite capable. They make an excellent team. The President only worries a little when he’s working. Officially, his home is in West Virginia, but he’s been plaguing Charlotte for the past few years.”
“Plaguing?”
“Unmated Siberian tigers tend to be difficult. Due to their low numbers, they have few clan siblings of their species, which often makes them surly. As Anatoly is in charge of the wellbeing of all feline species, he’s… rather in demand. The clan who acquires him through mating will gain a lot of influence and prestige. In short, women hunt him—in packs.”
My eyes widened. “They do? I’ve never seen any women with him.”
“His general response to women trying to get near his throat is to unsheathe his claws and maul them. As he’s a mate-for-life species, it’s viewed as self-defense. He has a reputation for being an old, irritable shifter.”
I’d already learned Anatoly wasn’t actually old; he was around my age. “Will men do the same with me?”
“Inevitably. That was part of why you were assigned a detail. You’re a rare species, you’ve been attacked before, and you’re a person of interest to the government due to the Starfall burst. Under normal circumstances, the government would have hired a mercenary company to provide a detail for you. However, due to Mr. Silverston’s involvement with you, Mr. Adams’s interest in you, and being a courier, which is a service managed by the government, Madam President felt it prudent to use the Secret Service, which is her prerogative.”
I needed to get somewhere quiet and alone to really think everything through. Every new piece of information had many ramifications, and unless I took the time to consider every facet of the situation, my personal hesitations would impair my ability to do my job.
When I had planned my prior assassinations, I had had no doubts of my victim’s guilt. I would be just as thorough investigating my current mark, blood relative or not. If the crime warranted his assassination, if I could prove his guilt without a shadow of a doubt, I would do my job, no matter the consequences. If I could prove his guilt, the possibility of being forgiven might be found with time.
Proving his innocence without a shadow of a doubt would be my goal, but the truth would prevail, even if I didn’t like it. I couldn’t change the truth, but I could preserve my integrity.
That counted for something.
When we arrived at Dawnfire, Anatoly was waiting in the lobby, so grumpy I had to clap my hands over my mouth so I wouldn’t laugh at him. Randal cleared his throat in rebuke, but something about his posture and his eyes gave me the impression he found me amusing.
“You’ve been gone for hours,” the tiger growled.
“I was hungry, and Randal knew a place we could put the meal on Dawnfire’s tab.”
Anatoly leaned towards me and inhaled. Frowning, I stepped back. “What are you doing?”
“Smelling you.”
“What?” I gripped the hilt of my katana, tensing as he pursued me.
Instead of replying, he kept growling while taking short, shallow breaths through his clenched teeth. I managed four more steps backwards before I bumped into the wall. He closed the distance between us, ducking his head so his breath warmed my throat.
Part of me really wanted to bite him, and I didn’t care where I bit as long as I clamped down hard enough to make him bleed. Heat washed through me, splashing over my cheeks and down my neck. I drew an inch of steel, ready to ram the pommel into Anatoly’s stomach.
His hand covered mine, shoving my blade back into its hilt. “You smell like coffee.”
Maybe I wasn’t adept at unarmed combat, maybe I was punching with my off hand, but I put every bit of strength into ramming my fist into his gut. His breath left him in a gasp, and he fell against me, his chin cracking into my shoulder. “I’m not a bottle of perfume, so put your nose somewhere else!”
“You hit hard.” Placing his hand on the wall behind me, he lurched upright. “That wasn’t nice. I had to make certain no one got too close to you.”
I punched him again. Instead of bending over or dropping, he straightened and drew in a long, deep breath. When he didn’t say anything, I put my hands on his chest and shoved.
With a smug smile, Anatoly watched me without giving an inch, his breathing slowing to a steady, deep rhythm. Since he wasn’t budging, I sidestepped to escape him. Anatoly’s smile broke into a grin, and he followed me, his hand holding mine to keep me from drawing my blade and slicing him with it.
“What are you doing?” I hissed.
“Defending my life and limbs from you and your sword. You’ll cut me to pieces if I let you.”
“You’d live.”
“That’s promising.”
“You might be crippled for the rest of your life with so many scars you’ll break mirrors walking by them, but you’d live.” Baring my teeth at him, I hissed again, taking another step to the side.
“But you ran away.”
“No, I went to have lunch. You ran away. Did they catch you?”
Anatoly smirked. “No. They’re still—”
I sidestepped, hopped back, and drew my sword, driving the hilt into his gut. The moment he doubled over in a pained wheeze, I clubbed him over the head with the pommel. He staggered and dropped to his knees, though he didn’t lose consciousness. “Let’s hold him for ransom, Randal.”
“Handcuffs?” the Secret Service agent asked, reaching into his suit jacket to pull out a pair.
Snatching them out of his hands, I secured the tiger’s arms behind his back, snapping the metal rings into place around his wrists.
Anatoly shook his head, swaying enough I gripped his shoulder so he wouldn’t fall. Once I was certain he wouldn’t hit the floor, I shifted my hand to the back of his neck and gripped him hard enough his breath hissed through his teeth.
“What do you think they’ll give me for him?”
“A hard time. Is there any reason you assaulted a Clan Council member in Dawnfire’s lobby?”
I glared at Randal, grabbed Anatoly by his arm, and hauled him to his feet. “You handed me the handcuffs and now you’re asking me that?”
“I merely wanted to find out
if you thought your actions through.”
“He ran away from the President, her husband, Dawnfire’s guild leader, and his wife. I like to think of it as doing them a favor.”
“You really do hit hard.” Anatoly straightened with a grimace. “Next time, I’ll remember not to expect mercy from a tigress. I should’ve known better.”
I almost felt bad for hitting him so many times. “I thought tigers enjoyed being beaten.”
“Only when I have hope the tigress who’s beating me will also bite me. Biting leads to very nice things. But, you have to beat up a weapons clan before you can bite me. Non-negotiable.”
Instead of hitting him, I firmed my grip on his neck, poked him with my sword, and turned him around. “March, tiger. Hostages don’t get a say in anything. I see no reason to beat up a bunch of people when you’re this easy to capture.”
“I think I need to rethink my strategy,” my victim confessed.
Randal laughed, lifted his hand to his ear, and said, “Head Tiger is in custody. Stiletto at destination.”
A few curious Dawnfire mercenaries watched us, but when I glared at them, they found something else to do, most of them heading for the guild’s job board while the rest decided to leave the premises. I thought them wise; where Anatoly went, trouble seemed to follow.
Then again, where I went, trouble followed, too. Us together in the same room likely spelled some sort of disaster for somebody. Maybe instead of a monetary ransom, I’d ask for an exorcist or a luck giver. I could use the help, especially in the days to come.
Chapter Forty-Seven
The President and First Gentleman were in Gentry’s office, and the conference table resembled a war zone of paper and clutter. I couldn’t tell if the shifters or the documents were winning. Anatoly growled, and I poked him with the tip of my katana.
“Madam President,” Randal announced, joining the pair of Secret Service agents posted near the door. Another pair lurked in the hallway. I recognized the men from the disastrous dinner in the mayoral palace, although I couldn’t remember if anyone had introduced them to me.
“Thank you, Agent Randal. Good work.”
“Miss Runs Against Wind caught him, Madam President.”
“Even better.”
“She has ransom conditions.”
The President paused mid-sorting of papers, lifting her head to regard me with an arched brow. “I’d pay you to keep him.”
Anatoly snorted and grinned before resuming a neutral position better suiting a captive.
“What would I do with a tiger? From my understanding of the situation, he runs away, gets into trouble often, and I’m not sure he actually has a job.”
The First Gentleman burst into laughter. “Despite appearances, he’s quite useful to the Clan Council. Part of his job is to travel extensively, as he’s responsible for negotiating issues for the feline clans. You’d make an excellent pair, since you’d be able to work as a courier alongside his duties in the Clan Council. His job is to wander, although he has been doing quite a lot of inappropriate wandering as of late.”
I shrugged, glancing around the room in search of Anatoly’s mystic. “Where’s Henry? I may have smacked his tiger around a little.”
“He’s somewhere, probably looking for the runaway. He’s a tough tiger. I’m sure he can handle whatever you throw at him.” The First Gentleman gathered a stack of papers and set it in front of one of the chairs. “Since you’re here, make yourself useful. We’re looking for a needle in a haystack.”
Hundreds upon hundreds of pieces of paper littered the table, and I dragged my hostage over to have a look. Accounting sheets greeted me; I grimaced at the annotated items. “What sort of needle is so important the President and First Gentleman are looking for it, but not so important a courier is invited to help?”
The pair glared at me, and the First Gentleman’s annoyance grew so intense I recoiled and crossed my index fingers in a gesture of warding. “No lightning! Please, no more lightning.”
Gentry laughed. “Only takes once, right?”
“I thought it was a reasonable question…”
“That’s why they’re pissy. Those are accounting reports from couriers on medical expenses and lost horses, and while they’re intelligent people, they have no idea what they’re looking for. You do. So, you’re currently more useful than both of them combined, which annoys the—”
A flash of light, the crack of thunder, and a yelp ended the discussion. Trails of smoke rose from the top of Gentry’s head.
I turned to Randal and held out my hand. “Keys, please? I may need the obnoxious tiger for this.”
The Secret Service agents glanced at each other, and Randal reached into his pocket, closed the distance between us, and removed Anatoly’s handcuffs, returning them to his inner jacket pocket. “Try not to lose him this time. He’s usually harder to catch.”
The President laughed. “It’s all about having the right bait. I called you back here and look who showed up.” My aunt turned to the agents guarding the door. “If he tries to leave, stop him.”
The standoff lasted a few breaths and ended when Anatoly sighed his surrender. “This is your fault, Runs Against Wind.”
I wondered if Anatoly could best five Secret Service agents. Sliding into the seat in front of the stacked pages, I grabbed a few and began sifting through them. “If you had kept your nose out of my personal space, I wouldn’t have felt the need to remove you from my personal space. If I hadn’t felt the need to remove you from my personal space, I wouldn’t have clubbed you with my sword.”
“Good luck, Anatoly. You’re going to need it,” my aunt muttered before sliding into her seat, grabbing a handful of papers, and slapping them down in front of her. “Our cabinet is busy pursuing other leads. Congress isn’t in session, as the Senate is still arguing over where they want to base their operations, and the House is trying to convince me they deserve a wing of the Charlotte’s palace all to themselves. There isn’t room for both of them and their aides there—there isn’t even enough room for the entirety of Congress to comfortably gather yet. So, while they’re playing with themselves like the politicians they are, I’m refreshing my secretarial skills.”
I had a very difficult time imagining my aunt working as a secretary for anyone. Who could manage a grizzly like her and survive the experience? While I wanted to know, I kept my mouth shut and focused my attention on the mess of papers scattered across the table. “I suppose there’s a reason the papers are in such a creatively organized state.”
No one said a word. I spotted a wrinkled sheet and smoothed it out on top of my stack. I read it over, wrinkling my nose at the barely legible cursive. Much of my job involved deciphering mysterious script, so I automatically hunted for legible words to piece together the author’s intent.
I spotted the reference likely responsible for the page’s abuse; according to the accounting sheet, the mystic’s services to heal my leg cost the government almost three thousand dollars. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell which leg I’d injured or which fight I’d been in to cause the injury. I set the paper aside, hunted down the next wrinkled page, and discovered the trend.
Once again, I cost the government a substantial amount of money in mystic healing fees. I frowned and started leafing through the sheets in front of me. In one way or another, my name showed up on every page, be it for registering a package, an injury, or death of an attacker.
“Let’s try this again. Why did you have my records pulled?”
“We wanted to verify the locations of the attempted thefts and injuries. So, we thought it would be easiest if we had your entire file pulled from east of the Mississippi,” the First Gentleman confessed. “We weren’t expecting this amount of paperwork.”
“So instead of asking headquarters to print you out the reference statements, you ordered the originals.”
“People make mistakes entering the data. We wanted full accuracy.” The President scowled at me.
“We have, so far, counted over a hundred injuries requiring mystic attention, and if we’re reading this correctly, at least twice as many injuries you refused mystic aid for. This is in a three month period of time. Care to explain?”
“Multiple injuries from a single fight. They record them by injury and treatment required, not by individual visit,” I supplied.
“A hundred thousand dollars of mystic care.”
I held my hands up in surrender. “It’s not my fault mystics are expensive. I’m sure a large chunk of that came from one particular fight.”
With a shock, I recognized the moment the President shifted gears from leader to infuriated relative. Her entire posture stiffened, and her eyes flared a brilliant green. “You neglected to inform us the injury to your leg also included poisoning, extensive internal injuries, and enough bruising to require a significant transfusion.”
Taken aback by her tone, I widened my eyes and considered my chances of mimicking Anatoly’s stunt and making a break for it. “I didn’t think it was relevant.”
“Someone wanted to make sure you were dead. That’s relevant. Someone wanted to ensure you didn’t live to talk. Why?”
“I had three good horses? I don’t know why beyond that. I wasn’t carrying any sensitive packages I was aware of. I got all my jobs through town headquarters while passing through.”
“Most of them issued by the government, thus the rather obscene amount of money we’ve spent to keep you breathing.” My aunt growled, a low, rumbling sound deep in her chest. “I think you need to start from the beginning, and using these accounting records, give us a full and comprehensive report on everything that happened to you after crossing the Mississippi to your arrival here.”
My mouth dropped open, and the blood drained out of my face as I stared at the massive pile of papers I would need to sort to fulfill her request. “You’re not serious, are you?”