by M. J. Scott
Iron to keep out the Fae. Whatever was down here was definitely a human secret. Simon’s secret? Who else might be hiding something under St. Giles? Simon was, as Lily had mentioned, one of the strongest sunmages in the City. Surely it had to be him?
I could feel the geas straining within me, urging me on like a hunter who has finally tracked his prey to its lair. It made my stomach churn with a mix of the magic’s anticipation and my own revulsion.
The problem was that I couldn’t get any farther. Not without knowing more about the wards. I stared at the flickering shimmers, jaw clenching. I’d been hoping this would be easy. I should have known better. If the secret was easy to discover, then Cormen wouldn’t have sent me. He would’ve used one of his own spies.
At least I knew there was definitely something to discover. Now I merely had to determine how to find out just what the bloody hell it was.
Chapter Seven
GUY
You never get used to the dead.
I’d been in many battles, killed many men. Had many fall beside me but still, it never rests easy. Alone with the dead, with the smell of drying blood and cooling sweat and the stink of death, everything always felt too loud, too jerky, too . . . wrong. Even my own thoughts.
I knew I should be happy that they’d gone to God, gone to eternal grace and light. But yet every time, the stillness, the lack of life, is almost unbearable.
Tonight was no different. Tonight my hands were clenched as I stared down at the sheet-draped bodies in front of me. Two of my men. Rohan, only recently sworn to full knighthood, and Lenny, who was one of the knights who’d taught me to fight. Good soldiers. Good men. Lost. Cut down in a few minutes of out-of-nowhere Beast Kind attack.
Their deaths were the highest of the costs but not the only. Our sunmage, Liam, had been taken straight to St. Giles with a vicious wound to his arm I feared might cost him its use. And what the fuck my squad was going to do with our sunmage out of commission was something else I had to figure out.
“Are you still determined not to ask Lily for help?” Father Cho’s voice came from behind me, ringing loud in the too-quiet room.
He didn’t need to say more. Didn’t need to speak of ambushes, of misdirection, of culpability. I knew who to blame.
I was the one who hadn’t yet found a way to gather the information we needed. I was the one who’d led my men into another ambush, leaving these two dead amongst the bodies of more brown-haired or brown-furred Beast Kind.
Why the fuck were the Favreaus attacking us?
How the fuck had I managed to let things get so bad?
My fault, yes. But I wouldn’t add to my guilt by letting my brother and his lover join the tally of the dead. But neither would I let that tally continue to grow.
“Lily isn’t who we need,” I said, not moving.
“She’s a bloody better option than anyone else we have,” a second voice chimed in.
I turned. Patrick. Another of our squad leaders. His brown hair stuck up in dried sweat spikes, and blood smeared his face. Had he lost people tonight as well?
His face bore the same rage consuming me.
“Lily is not an option,” I said flatly. Patrick and I were friends. We’d entered the order together, fought together, drunk together, but friendship has its limits.
“You’d let our men die to protect a wraith? A half-breed God knows what?” he snarled.
My hand closed over my sword hilt. “Hold your tongue.”
“Stand down,” Father Cho ordered.
I eased back, just enough to appear to be obeying the order. “He doesn’t get to talk that way about Lily, sir.”
Father Cho nodded. “You’re right. But he’s also right. Unless you have a viable alternative, then this matter will be taken out of your hands. I’ll ask her directly.”
I didn’t like the way “ask” sounded in his too-calm tone. Much too much like “order.” Father Cho was another one of the few who knew Lily and Simon had killed Lucius. He had a blade to hold to her throat if he wanted. I didn’t doubt he would use it to protect the City.
Beside him, Patrick looked triumphant. My hand curled again, the hilt hard against my hand. I wanted to hit something, and right now Patrick was a tempting target. But hitting a brother knight was likely to get me confined to the Brother House.
“There’s another option, sir,” I said. “Give me a few hours to get it set up.” I saluted him, fist to heart, then headed for the door. This time I wasn’t taking Holly’s no for an answer.
HOLLY
The next morning I’d barely gotten dressed before Guy appeared in my doorway. He looked tired. Unshaven and his face streaked with grime. He smelled, quite frankly, of sweat and horse and the streets. Still, there was a part of me that pricked up its ears at the sight of him. Truly, I had no sense of self-preservation.
Be polite. Be calm. “Sir Guy. What brings you here?”
“I came to see if you’d changed your mind.” He came farther into the room, shutting the door with a little too much force. He loomed there, in his stained tunic and trousers. Wrath incarnate. Suddenly it felt as if the air had been sucked out of the room.
“You mean have I decided to commit suicide?” I asked.
Anger rose from Guy like wings, stretching across the room to launch him at his prey. Which seemed to be me, if the intentness of his gaze was anything to go by.
But I’d learned a thing or two about dealing with predators in the Night World. With most—with the Blood and humans at least, as Beast Kind protocol is a very different animal—it’s best not to give in to their threats. That only makes you seem weak. I straightened my spine. “No. I haven’t.”
“That’s too bad,” he said in a flat tone, gaze not moving.
I fought the urge to step back. “Oh? Are you here to cart me off to one of your cells, after all?” I felt sweat break out in the small of my back, fear tightening my throat.
If I called out now, would anyone hear me? Would they interfere if Guy did drag me out of the room? “What do you think Simon will think of that?”
“This isn’t Simon’s business,” he said, but his voice sounded less cold. His hand strayed down from his sword to his right thigh, rubbing it as though it pained him.
“Are you hurt?” I asked despite myself.
His hand stilled as he shook his head. “No. But two of my men were killed last night.” The rubbing started again and I wondered if he was even aware he was doing it. I should call for Simon, but something in the bleak tone of his voice caught at me.
Do not be foolish, Holly girl. He had problems, yes. The whole city had problems. But I couldn’t help him. I had to help myself.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly. I could offer him that much at least.
“Sorry doesn’t help me,” he said, anger thrumming beneath his words.
“I’m sorry anyway.”
“They were good men,” he said. If ice could burn, I’d imagine it would look like his eyes. “Good men who were trying to protect others. They died because we walked into an ambush.”
“That’s not your fault.” My throat was even drier. I swallowed, trying to ease it and the churning wave of nausea that rose at the images his words conjured.
“It’s my duty to protect. To keep the peace. I swore an oath.”
“You can’t promise to succeed all the time,” I protested.
The heat in his rage turned chill. Veil’s eyes. Did he really think he had to do exactly that? Not many shades of gray in Guy’s world. What I knew of the human faith seemed very black-and-white. How high did he set his standards?
Far above anything you’ll ever measure up to, Holly girl.
I gritted my teeth at the sardonic voice in my head. I didn’t want to measure up to his standards. This man wasn’t for me. Particularly if he only saw me as a means to an end. I’d had enough of that from my father. Anyone who wanted to use me paid. And did so on my terms. “No one succeeds all the time,” I repeated. “N
ot even the famous Guy DuCaine.”
“If the Templars don’t succeed in this, then we all lose,” he snapped. “This isn’t just the Blood jostling for power. If it were just that, everything would be settled by now. This close to the treaty negotiations, everyone should be focused on that. But instead, we have murder and riots and trouble as far as the eye can see. The Night World may as well be on fire. Someone is stirring things up.”
My spine crawled. “What do you mean?”
“This isn’t just the Blood playing politics. Someone has a larger game in mind.”
I sat down on the bed abruptly, as I tasted bile. “Such as?”
“I don’t know,” he said. Then his mouth tightened. “But if I had to guess, I’d say that someone was trying to gain control of the City. Break the treaty.”
“Oh.” My mind filled with unpleasant possibilities. Everyone in the City was brought up on the tales of the Old Days and why we shouldn’t return to them. But apparently someone didn’t agree. At least if Guy was correct.
And Cormen has you spying on a human, the voice whispered. Why would he want to do that? Gods, was Cormen really that stupid? To stand against the Veiled Queen?
Maybe not, but he might just be that arrogant.
“Exactly. Which is why I need your help.”
“I can’t help you, Guy,” I said, then regretted the slip of the tongue that set his name free on my lips. “You’d just wind up with my death on your conscience too. Neither of us would be happy about that.”
“You can help. You’re a spy. Presumably a good one if you’ve survived this long. You know the Night World. You could find out who’s doing this.”
“What if it’s not any one person? What if it’s just a combination of things going wrong? The Blood being in turmoil. The Beasts taking advantage. And the Fae—” I paused for a moment, feeling the geas tighten my throat again. “Well, who knows what the Fae might be up to? But they seem the least likely to try and abandon the treaties. The iron rations make it easier for them to be in the world, not harder.”
Guy’s mouth set in deep carved lines as if he’d been up for days rather than just a night. As if what he’d seen had turned him to stone. “Even if it’s more than one, we’d still know more than we know now. I need to know who’s behind the attacks on the Templars.”
“Attacks?”
“I told you. Ambushes. Beast Kind ambushes. At least one attack a night for nearly a week. Since the night I caught you, in fact.”
Beasts attacking Templars? That meant either an alpha making some sort of power play, proving his loyalty to one of the Blood, or else someone had deep enough pockets to buy Beast muscle.
My mind flashed back to Henri and Ignatius. An unlikely pairing. Up to something. The conversation I’d recorded between them had been unhelpful. Caged in the broadest of terms. Nothing definitely incriminating or specific. Damn. My client had wanted confirmation they were meeting mostly. Now I wished she’d paid me to find out more.
What—I pulled myself out of my reverie. There was no point speculating. I was not going to throw myself into the middle of this and get myself killed.
“Do you know which pack?” I heard myself ask despite my good intentions.
“A mix. But the majority are wolves with light brown fur. Men with brown hair. Gray eyes.”
Favreaus. Most likely. True, there were several packs that ran to light brown coloring, but the gray eyes . . . that was a Favreau trait. I looked down at my hands, mind still whirling.
The Favreaus . . . or Henri and a subfaction of the pack? Christophe had no love for Ignatius. Henri had ambition. Gods. There was no way of knowing. Not while I was here.
And here is where you’re staying. You have a job to do.
I knew it was the truth. But I wanted to know more. If my father was involved in this mess . . . and the tingle in my gut—a well-honed instinct I’d learned to trust over the years—told me that he might just be . . . then knowing more might just be the opportunity to bring him down I’d always wanted.
But there was the little matter of the geas to consider. Not to mention the general insanity of wading into Night World politics right now.
I looked up at Guy. “Even if you knew which pack was behind this, what good would it do you? Are you going to wage war on the Beasts? Isn’t that against the treaty?”
Guy’s jaw clenched. “What we do with the information is not your business right now. Getting it is the first step. It’s our duty to protect the City. We can’t let it fall. I won’t let it happen.”
I noticed the change of pronoun at the end. Lady’s eyes. Did he really think it was up to him to save the whole damned city? What sort of man thought that?
A good one. A very, very good one.
A crazy one, I retorted to the annoying whisper in my head. “You and your brother seem to have a thing about saving people,” I said, trying for lightness in the face of his pain and frustration. I couldn’t afford sympathy. Couldn’t afford to want to soothe him. It would come at far too high a cost. “Perhaps you should’ve been a healer too.”
“No.” He shook his head, then stood. “No. This is my calling. I’m a warrior. And I’m sorry, Holly, but I have to do what I think is right to fulfill my oaths.”
The crawling sensation in my spine redoubled. This wasn’t good. But before I could protest or form any sort of plan to escape, the door flew open again. I jumped. Guy merely spun around.
Fen’s tall form filled the doorway.
“What are you doing here?”
Guy and I spoke at the same time.
Fen scowled as he stepped into the room. One hand drifted to his hip where I knew he would have a pistol. “I could ask you the same question, tin man. I told you to stay away from her.”
Guy folded his arms. “Sorry, I don’t take orders from civilians. Particularly not crackpot drunks.”
Buggering lords of hell. I stretched my hand toward the knife on my breakfast table as masculine aggression smoked the air. I would stab someone to stop a fight if I had to. I’d done it before.
Say something before this gets ugly.
“Fen, what are you doing here?”
He looked to me and his frown eased. But the expression that replaced it was one of worry.
My stomach dropped a little. “Fen?”
“I have some news,” he said. He looked at Guy, and then jerked his head toward the door.
“I’m staying right here,” Guy said, steel edged. “Holly and I were having a conversation.”
“Holly?” Fen said.
I hugged my arms around myself, not liking the chilled queasiness that filled my stomach. “He can stay.” I looked at Guy. “For now. What is it?”
“It’s Reggie,” he said quietly.
My mouth went dry. “What about her?” I asked.
“I can’t find her.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I went round to the—” He broke off, looking at Guy, obviously unsure how much he knew. “To see her. She wasn’t there. And she wasn’t in her rooms last night.”
I looked at him, knew he was thinking the same things as me. Reggie didn’t do one-night stands. She didn’t go off without letting anyone know where she was.
“Maybe she worked through the night. Did you—”
“Yes, I checked again this morning. There was no one there.”
Not good, Holly girl.
I wanted very badly to pretend that I couldn’t put the pieces together, that I didn’t know what this meant. But I did. I bent my head to my knees for a moment, breathing deep. Reggie was missing.
“Holly.” Fen spoke softly, but something in his tone chilled me further.
I dragged my head upward, though it felt heavy on my neck, dread weighing it down. Fen’s eyes were a dark sorrowing green instead of their usual merry gleam. Beside him, Guy’s face was still grimly icy, but he stayed mercifully silent. “There’s more, isn’t there?”
Fen nodded. “Ye
s. When I couldn’t find Reggie, I went to the sanatorium. Your mother isn’t there.”
Sweet lords of hell. Mama. My hands started to shake.
“What do you mean, she’s not there?”
“Dr. Salinger said somebody came to collect her two days ago. Reggie was apparently visiting her and she went with them. Whoever it was didn’t leave a forwarding address. He seemed quite confused about it all. I think somebody glamoured him.”
I dropped my head down, beating my head against my knees. Stupid. So, so stupid. Why hadn’t I seen this coming? I should’ve known Cormen would have a backup plan, another way to tighten the leash around my neck. Damn him to the depths of hell. Fen came over to me, crouched by the bed, and laid a hand on my arm. “Do you know who it was?”
I looked at him, tried not to sound as terrified as I felt. “Who do you think?”
Fen’s mouth went flat. “Since when has he been poking around you again?”
“Who?” Guy demanded. “What’s going on?”
How to explain Cormen to Guy? I wasn’t sure I would even be able to speak his name with the geas controlling me. I wasn’t sure I wanted to. “It’s complicated.”
“Someone has taken your mother away from a sanatorium along with your friend. Is your mother sick?”
I didn’t particularly want to explain my mother either. “As I said, it’s complicated.” My tongue felt clumsy in my mouth and I didn’t know whether it was the fear or the geas. Cormen had my mother, that much I was sure of. I had to assume he’d taken Reggie as well. That was how he’d found my mother, no doubt—set someone to follow Reggie and swooped them both up in one go. Surety for my good behavior.
Which meant he would be willing to do more than just take them to ensure my complicity with his little scheme.
My mother was old now, worn out beyond her years by the grief my father had caused her and the gin she’d drunk to forget. Cormen wouldn’t think twice about hurting her. To him, she was no longer the beautiful human who’d caught his attention for a few years. Now she was just a tool.