Hunter's Oath

by Glynn Stewart

  “Yeah…but if it’s a syndicate safehouse, we have to go in very differently than if it’s just Chernenkov and her mercs…or if it’s Clan or Court territory.”

  “It isn’t Clan,” Mary said quietly. “I know every Clan secondary property in the city—and even if there’s one they haven’t reported to Enli…”

  “There’s signs and signifiers,” Barry agreed. “But if it’s fae…”

  “There’ll be signs,” I admitted. “Let’s get closer.”

  I knew it didn’t belong to Oberis. I didn’t know every location his Court controlled, but I was pretty sure I knew all of the safehouses of this size. It wasn’t like it was an operating business that was owned by a fae or the Court, either.

  As we got closer, the sinking feeling in my chest got stronger, until I was close enough to get a good look at the guardhouse and could finally read the fae-sign.

  “It’s ours,” I said flatly. “Well, fae.”

  “So, Chernenkov’s fae, isn’t she?” Mary asked.

  “Yeah. But that fae-sign declares this a safehouse of Lord Andrell’s Unseelie Court,” I told them. I studied the sign for several long seconds.

  “But you have the sanction to go in anyway, don’t you?” Mary asked.

  I swallowed.

  “There is my authority and there is my actual power,” I admitted in a small voice. “Technically, yes, I have the authority and the sanction to force them to admit me and show me around and prove Chernenkov isn’t there.… In practice, however, any Unseelie Noble can and will tell me to go take a hike.”

  Barry exhaled, studying the facility.

  “That’s not even politics,” he noted. “That’s just your kin being melodramatic assholes.”

  “Well, they are fae.”

  “On the flip side, though, I may not have sanction,” the werewolf said in a slow, thoughtful tone, “but they also can’t argue that I could read the sign before I wandered in, can they?”

  That was a terrible idea, and I told him so.

  Instead of agreeing with me, however, Barry squared his shoulders and met my gaze.

  “If you charge in there all holier-than-thou-I-serve-our-Queen, what are you going to get?” he asked bluntly.

  I sighed.

  “Kicked out, unless I’m willing to pick a fight that could start a war,” I admitted.

  “They can’t do worse to me,” Barry pointed out. “The last thing Andrell needs is a war with the Clan—and we need to know if she’s in there, yes?”

  “Yes,” I ground out. “I’m not sure how you sneaking in there helps us, Barry.”

  “He can smell her,” Mary reminded me. “You can’t.”

  That…was true enough.

  “And they’ll be looking for you,” she continued. “If she’s in there, she has to be at least half-expecting you to find her. A werewolf stalking the grounds? That’s probably not on their radar yet.”

  “It will be once she processes just what went wrong when she came after you,” I pointed out.

  “All the reason to go in now,” Barry replied. “If she’s there, someone has to go in after her. Would you rather risk that war knowing she at least was there…or potentially for nothing?”

  Given that the currently available forces for a war between Andrell’s Court and the Queen’s Vassals was, well, me…I could see his point.

  “I don’t like it,” I admitted. “This is my fight.”

  “And I owe you about six lives so far, and you are my Clan-sister’s heart,” Barry replied. “Plus, this bitch has killed far too many people and came at Mary. This is the Clan’s fight, whether you like it or not.”

  “You can argue till you’re blue in the face, Jason, but Barry’s right,” Mary told me. “It’s the second-best chance we’ve got.”

  She smiled wickedly.

  “Of course, the truth is that the best chance we have is to send in an actual stealth predator like, say, a cat.”

  Barry and I traded a long look. Yeah. We’d already lost that fight.

  Mary went in as a cat while we provided overwatch. She was definitely stealthier than either of us, and I lost track of her around when she went under the fence.

  “I feel like we should have argued harder,” Barry noted.

  “Do you really think we’d have won?” I replied. “I’m not with her because she’s a pushover. Quite the opposite!”

  “What happens if they do decide to start shooting?” he asked.

  “Then hell follows me in,” I told him. “Because if they shoot at one of Enli’s top people, it becomes my job to stop it turning into a war. That job will neatly dovetail with saving my girlfriend, which is handy.”

  The werewolf chuckled and produced a pair of binoculars.

  “Okay, she’s right up to the building,” he reported. “So far, so good.”

  I hated waiting. I hated watching someone else go into danger for me, and I hated Mary being in danger.

  “She’s in.”

  I exhaled sharply, stretching out with my hearing as we waited and I studied the building. We knew the Unseelie Court had picked up a portfolio of property in the city, and it wasn’t like they had to report all of it to the Keeper.

  It was generally considered polite to report major facilities to the Keepers, though, and Eric had told me about all of the ones they’d told him about. This wasn’t on the list, which raised all kinds of interesting questions.

  It was possible, of course, that this was a rogue group under Chernenkov’s control, outsiders moved into the city entirely separate from Andrell’s Court.

  I wasn’t sure I believed that, but it was possible.

  “No sign of commotion yet,” I murmured. “That’s a good start, I suppose.”

  My companion nodded, his own attention focused on the building through the binoculars.

  “Wait, I see someone,” he said, offering me the binoculars. “Do you know them?”

  Looking through the binoculars, I spotted the person he was pointing out. I’d have seen them without the aid, but I wouldn’t have been able to make out their face.

  “Fuck me,” I hissed.

  Standing outside the main entrance to the warehouse, smoking a cigarette, was Bryan Milligan, the same Unseelie Gentry who’d fought Chernenkov with me and been playing guard at Andrell’s introduction. That scotched this being a rogue site…but begged the question of what Milligan thought was going on if the Pouka was there.

  “You know him?” Barry asked.

  “Yeah. He’s Gentry, used to work with Robert before Andrell showed up,” I replied. “He helped us put Chernenkov down; he can’t be working with her.”

  “So, he may not know,” the werewolf pointed out. He paused. “Um, from what you told me about Chernenkov…I’m guessing that hanging out near her might not be super-healthy for your Gentry friend.”

  “Probably not,” I agreed, considering the situation. “On the other hand, I don’t think we’re supposed to know this place exists, which limits what I can do. He chose his Court and his path; I can only do so much.” I grimaced. I at least had Milligan’s phone number, but warning him would put the whole point of sneaking into this place at risk.

  “This is not going to end well.”

  Milligan had almost finished his cigarette before the commotion I’d expected finally erupted. He dropped the smoke and charged back into the warehouse with his hand inside his jacket. I tensed, considering.

  “Let’s move closer,” I told Barry. If things started going sideways, I wanted to be close enough to hear gunfire and feel Power.

  We crept closer, straining our ears for the sound of trouble. I began to make out shouting, but none of it was coherent through the walls of the building, even to me. There was no gunfire or magic yet, just shouting.

  That was promising, at least.

  Finally, the door to the warehouse swung open and Bryan Milligan appeared again. This time, the Gentry was guiding Mary out with a hand on her shoulder and a storm clou
d on his face.

  “If she’s telling the truth, I want answers,” he shouted back into the building. The response wasn’t coherent from where we stood, but then Gráinne stalked out of the building after him.

  “I don’t give a shit why you think you can violate Court territory, shifter,” she spat at Mary. “Covenant says I have to warn you, so consider yourself warned. If we find you on Court territory without permission again, your Speaker is getting a cat-skin rug. We clear?”

  We were still almost a hundred meters away, but I could hear Milligan’s growl.

  “Control yourself, Gentry,” Gráinne told him. “Escort the shifter off the property, then return to your duties.”

  The Noble returned to the warehouse, letting the door slam behind her, and Milligan continued to walk Mary out toward the gate. He tapped a sequence into a keypad, opening the gate without a word, then paused.

  “Kilkenny’s following her too, isn’t he?” he murmured to Mary.

  She nodded silently.

  “Have him call me,” the Gentry told her. “I don’t like the questions you raised, Miss Tenerim, but this is a fae affair even at the worst. Now, go.” He released her, gesturing for her to head out into the fading evening.

  She obeyed, the gate sliding shut behind her as Milligan watched her leave. Less than twenty feet from the fence, Mary transformed back into a wildcat and took off at full speed.

  “Well, I guess we circle around and meet up with her,” I told Barry. “That went…better than I expected, from the looks of things.”

  We met back at the cars, Mary managing to actually beat us back to the street at the top of the hill. She was waiting for Barry and me when we arrived, a self-satisfied smirk on her face.

  “I take it there was a canary in there for the cat to eat?” I asked her as I gave her a tight hug.

  “Something like that,” she agreed. “Gráinne is one pissed woman.”

  “That…was roughly my impression when I met her, yeah,” I said. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Mary said quickly. A bit too quickly, I thought, but I wasn’t going to push her. “Chernenkov was there. Not entirely sure if she still was, but it’s possible. More…Gráinne had to know. The Pouka’s scent was all over her.”

  That was bad. Gráinne appeared to be Andrell’s right-hand woman. If she knew where the Pouka was and Andrell wasn’t talking…the best-case scenario was that the Unseelie Lord’s house was far from in order.

  The worst-case scenario was that the Unseelie Court was actively hiding someone marked for death by the Fae High Court.

  “What did you find?” I finally asked, realizing I’d gone quiet and both of the shifters were staring at me.

  “It’s, well, a safehouse,” Mary replied. “They’ve got pretty tight security inside—I managed to get into the building, but there’s at least three or four separate areas in there, with sealed doors and security scanners.”

  She shrugged.

  “I set off a thermal scanner I’d missed when I tried to follow Chernenkov’s scent into what looked like a motel moved indoors. That, well, went sideways from there, and I decided that Shifting was a better idea than getting shot by the guards,” she concluded.

  “Started arguing with the guards, Gráinne showed up and so did the Gentry who escorted me out. I’ve met him before, somewhere, and he was local enough to argue Covenant with Gráinne, so I got out unscathed…but I was worried for a minute there that Gráinne was going to take the risk of war,” she admitted, leaning into me.

  “If Milligan was local…the rest weren’t?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “They didn’t talk like locals, but it’s not like Calgary isn’t known for immigrants of all stripes—but they also didn’t know anything about the Covenants or the fact that they do cover a hot-pursuit situation like this.”

  Mary, as a senior—if not overly powerful—member of Clan Tenerim, was authorized under the Covenants to enter the jurisdictions of other supernatural communities if actively in pursuit of a criminal. The Unseelie Court should have helped her search for Chernenkov, not threatened to kill her.

  At the very least, two senior members of the Unseelie Court had been there and the fae-sign declared it property of Andrell’s Court.

  “This is a mess,” I said. “I need to check in. I’m going to have to break in there, I think, but that’s a fight I don’t want to start without warning Eric and the Queen.”

  “I know,” Mary agreed. “But there was more in there than just safehouse rooms. Most of the place is still a warehouse, and I got a good look at what they’re storing: guns. Lots of guns. Ammunition, explosives… I would have thought you’d know where their armory was.”

  “I thought I did,” I agreed. Eric had, in fact, spent some time helping magically secure the armory the Unseelie had buried under the new Court. Why would the Unseelie have an entire second armory we didn’t know about?

  Unless… Inga had said the Masked Lords had been running a private military, a counter-force to the Hunt and the High Court. If they were setting up in Calgary, they could use Andrell’s Court as cover for bringing in new people and gear. While one supernatural group was setting up shop openly, we’d write off any oddities as belonging to them, especially if Gráinne was working with the Masked Lords.

  I sighed.

  “I need to talk to the Queen,” I repeated. “I think we’re in deeper than I was expecting. Thank you, both of you,” I told the Tenerim shifters.

  Somehow, though, I was unsurprised when my phone started ringing before we said anything more.

  “Kilkenny,” I said as I answered it, barely registering who the call was from.

  “Jason, it’s Eric,” the Keeper’s gruff voice said in my ear. “You need to get to the Manor now. Andrell is here…and he is pissed.”

  After the day I’d had…I wasn’t even sure just what the Unseelie Lord was angry about.

  There were so many options.

  “I’m on my way.”

  Shaking my head, I turned to Barry.

  “I need another favor,” I told him. “Can you make sure this place is watched? Without being caught?”

  “Jason…we’re shifters. We don’t get caught unless we actually try and sneak into the building,” he told me. “I’ll talk to the boys and girls, and we can run it up to Grandfather if we need more than just Tenerim on it.

  “If she leaves, we’ll let you know.”

  19

  I left Mary with her cousin to get back home while I drove to the Manor. A big sign outside now declared that the bar was closed for “a private function,” and it looked like Andrell had acquired several large black SUVs of his own.

  Four of them filled one corner of the parking lot. Oberis’s brilliantly white sedan arrived moments before I did, and there were other vehicles I recognized. Talus was already there, and Robert emerged from Oberis’s car behind the Fae Lord.

  “My lord,” I greeted him as he intercepted me short of the bar entrance.

  “What the hell happened?” he demanded.

  “Four redcaps and our Pouka friend tried to kill Mary this afternoon,” I told him flatly. “The Tenerims then traced the Pouka back to what appears to be a secret Unseelie Court safehouse, where they got thrown out by Gráinne. That’s the only things I know about that could be pissing Andrell off today, at least.”

  “‘Today,’” Oberis echoed dryly. “I’d say you’re supposed to be reducing my problems, but, honestly, this doesn’t appear to be your fault. Let’s go see what he wants, but if you can, Jason…do me a favor?”

  “I should probably remind you here that I’m supposed to be neutral,” I told him.

  “Yeah, well, don’t tell him about anything he doesn’t yell at you about, okay?” the Seelie Lord snapped. “He’s looking for a fight and it’s with you, not me. So, don’t give him ammunition, all right?”

  I sighed.

  “If it were up to me, my lord, there wouldn’t be any a
mmunition to give him,” I replied. “I don’t know what he’s angry about, but whatever it is…it ties back to Chernenkov. Which means he’s got a lot less ammo than he may think he has.”

  Oberis sighed.

  “Can we at least avoid a fucking war?”

  “That, my lord Oberis, I think we all agree on being the objective.”

  The private-event sign was an indication that there would be no mortals in the Manor tonight, and a quick glance around the room as I walked in, a safe minute or two after Oberis, confirmed that. There were a good thirty-odd people in the bar, but all of them were fae.

  After six months in Calgary with the joint Court, it was odd to me now to watch fae groups split neatly and instinctively into Seelie and Unseelie camps. That was a normal event in most cities, but Calgary had always managed to avoid that divide before.

  Even now, it wasn’t a clean divide. Gráinne stood against one wall, apparently having beaten me there from the warehouse without even knowing it was a race, and a collection of new and old Unseelie were gathered around her.

  Talus was leaning against the exact opposite wall, managing to look utterly bored by the whole affair. Half a dozen Seelie Gentry and Greater Fae were sitting with him.

  Despite those two groupings, however, easily half of the fae in the room had ignored the split. The main crowd in the middle of the bar definitely tended more Unseelie on one side and Seelie on the other, but it wasn’t split into two camps.

  Yet.

  The split between Talus and Gráinne’s groups was a warning of things to come if we didn’t head off any potential conflict between the Courts quickly. Many of the cities I’d passed through before my wandering had brought me to Calgary had hard-forged divides between Courts, with Seelie and Unseelie as separate from each other as they were from shifters or Kami.

  Keeping that from happening was my job. Well, my job and Eric’s job.

  The gnome saw me coming and was gesturing for people to let me through to where he was standing on the bar. Even with the bar beneath his feet, Andrell almost met his height, the Unseelie Lord towering over even my own lanky height.