“Tell me something I don’t know,” Dagfinn growled. “Anyway, can I see this collar?”
We took him in to see the boy. Roderick shrank a little. “Don’t be scared,” Dagfinn said. He examined the collar for a little while and we returned to the other room. Dagfinn sat down in his chair, while Curran leaned against the wall, watching him and emanating menace.
“Could be Ivar’s work,” Dagfinn said. “I just don’t understand why. The dwarf I knew wouldn’t hurt a child.”
“What about his apprentice,” I asked. “What do you know about him?”
“Never met him, but it looks like this collar must have belonged to him or at least his apprentice. Maybe Ivar will know more, if we can locate him.”
“Can you find the valley again?” I asked.
He shook his head. “There is a trick to it somehow. I’d meant to ask Didrik about it, but he died. I’ve tried to find him on my own. I’ve been all over the Smoky Mountains and nothing.”
He was holding something back, I could feel it. “What are you not telling me, Dagfinn?”
He hesitated.
“It’s going to kill the kid,” Curran said.
“He might know,” Dagfinn said.
“He who?”
“You know. He.”
My heart took a dive. This was getting better and better.
“He who?” Curran demanded.
I stepped closer to him and lowered my voice. “The Vikings know of a creature. He’s been trapped on their land for a very long time. They don’t like to say his name, because he might hear and kill them at night.”
“Don’t tell me you’re thinking about it,” Dagfinn said.
I spread my arms. “I’m out of ideas.”
“Kate, please tell me you haven’t been to see him before, right? Right?” Dagfinn asked.
“No. This will be my first time.”
“Why?” Curran asked.
“He catches your scent when you go to see him,” Dagfinn said. “It takes him a while, but once he learns the scent, he never forgets it. People who go to see him twice don’t come back. Their bones stay on that hill.”
“We’re going to need backup,” I said, thinking aloud.
“Don’t look at me,” Dagfinn said. “I like you and all, but I’ve been once. I ran like a little girl and barely got out. I can’t go again.”
“Backup won’t be an issue,” Curran said.
I shook my head. “We can’t bring anyone we can’t afford to lose.”
“She’s right,” Dagfinn said. “I hired a crew. Six people. I was the only one who got out and only because he ate them first. My advice, hire someone you don’t know and tell them up front it’s a fight to the death. They’re just flesh speed bumps for him.” He looked at me. “You need to talk to the Cherokees.”
“Yes, I know.” Thinking of going to see Håkon sent ice down my spine.
“Well, I’m out.” Dagfinn rose. “Thank you for the fight, I had fun, we should do it again sometime. It was nice knowing you.”
Curran pushed from the wall. “I’ll walk you out.”
“I can find my way,” Dagfinn said.
“I’m sure you can. I’ll save you the trouble.” Gold rolled over Curran’s eyes.
Dagfinn sighed and they left.
I went up onto the roof. We had set up a small dining area there, two chairs and a table. Lately, every time we sat down to eat in our kitchen, someone would knock on the door with some bullshit emergency, so when we didn’t feel like being interrupted, Curran and I would go up to the roof and eat in peace. His Furry Majesty was threatening to drag a grill up there and “cook meat” for me. Knowing him, “grill” meant a giant pit and “meat” stood for half a deer.
I sat on the low stone wall bordering the top of the roof. It was late afternoon, and the sun was slowly rolling to the west. The stone wall was nice and hot under my butt. Summer was coming.
I sat, enveloped in warm air. It felt nice, but not hot enough to chase away the ice built up on my spine. I didn’t want to visit Håkon. Several people I knew had gone to see him. Only two had come back, and Dagfinn was one of them.
The world blinked. The magic vanished, snuffed out like a candle by a draft. A mixed blessing: as long as the magic was down, the necklace wouldn’t constrict Roderick’s neck any further, but we couldn’t see Håkon without it.
Voron, my adoptive father, had always warned me that friends would make me soft. When you cared about people, you forged a bond, and that bond made you predictable. Friends weren’t for me. Greg, my now-dead guardian, took that a step further and added lovers to that ban. When you loved someone, your enemies would use it against you.
Neither of them had predicted that being in love and being loved in return made you value your life much higher. I liked my life. I had a lot to lose now.
Curran emerged from the door, pulled the bag off his hand, and tossed it into the garbage can we kept up here for the times we ate outside. He walked in complete silence, like a tiger stalking through the forest, quiet and confident. I liked to watch him, provided he didn’t know about it. His ego was threatening the ozone layer as it was.
Curran sat next to me and put his left arm around my shoulders and kissed me. There was a slightly possessive edge to the kiss.
“Through the Guild and no.”
“Hmm?” he asked.
“You were about to ask how I know Dagfinn and if we were ever more than friends. We never were friends, actually. I got suckered by the Guild into bringing him in twice. He was wanted for unpaid fines and destruction of property.”
Curran grimaced. “No, it never crossed my mind that you’d be with Dagfinn. He’s an undisciplined idiot. Give me some credit. I know you better than that.”
I shrugged and leaned closer against him. “This is fucked up.”
“Yes, it is. Can you think of any other way to find Ivar?”
“No. Maybe Doolittle can try removing the collar during tech?”
Curran shook his head. “I asked. He says it will kill the boy. He says we have thirty-six to forty-eight hours, depending on how long the magic lasts. There is a good chance the next magic wave will be the boy’s last.”
Two days before Roderick with his owlish eyes died, choked to death.
“Do you remember a few years ago a detachment of PAD disappeared? Eleven cops, armed to the teeth? It was in the papers?”
“Yes.”
“That was Håkon.”
“Is that his name?”
I nodded. “I didn’t say it in front of Dagfinn so he wouldn’t freak out. Whoever we take will die. If we don’t take anybody, the boy will die.”
“We explain it and ask for volunteers.” Curran drew me closer. “Those are the choices we make.”
“I’m tired of those lousy choices.” If you put all the people I’d killed together, their blood would make a lake. I was wading through it and I had no desire to make it any deeper.
We sat next to each other, touching.
If Curran asked for volunteers, the Pack would cough some up. I would have to look at their faces, I would witness their deaths, and then I would have to tell their families about it, assuming I survived. Assuming Curran survived.
The thought pissed me off. We’d do it. There was a child on the other end of that equation, so yes, we would grit our teeth and do it. But it made me so mad. I could’ve strangled Aurellia if I got my hands on her. She knew what the collar did, and she had deliberately chosen between her husband and her son.
“Can Håkon be killed?” Curran asked.
“No. The Cherokees have tried for years. All they can do is contain him on that hill. If he’s destroyed, he just reassembles himself.” I growled. “I don’t want to do this.”
“I know,” he said.
“Do you think less of me?”
“No.” Curran stroked my back. “Like I said, these are the choices we make, and sometimes every choice is bad, and then you sit by yourself and
remember all the horrible shit you had to do and have done, and you deal with it. It will eat you alive if you let it.”
I straightened and touched his cheek. “Well, you don’t have to sit by yourself anymore. We’ll sit together.”
He caught my hand and kissed it. His eyes turned dark. His fingers curved into a fist. He looked predatory. “I wish I could rewind back to that second and crush her skull before she put the necklace on the kid.”
“I know. I wish there was a way to get to her.”
He looked at me. “I thought about it. If we approached Forney’s house at night…”
“Curran, we can’t break into the house of the DA. The fallout for the Pack would be enormous.”
“I know, I know.” Muscles played along his jaw. He hated to have his hands tied and so did I. “But if we use someone outside of Atlanta for the DA job…”
“It’s a bad idea. Even I know it’s a bad idea.”
He looked at me. He was still thinking about it.
“No,” I told him.
Curran swore.
Screwing with the DA would get us a witch hunt in a hurry. He knew it and I knew it. No, there had to be another way. Some way where the boy survived and our people didn’t die.
I sighed. “I envy navigators sometimes. All they do is sit in the Casino and drink coffee, while the bloodsuckers run into dang—”
I stopped in midword.
Curran’s eyes lit up.
“You think he’ll go for it?”
“Oh yes. Yes, he will go for it.” He jumped off the wall. “Come with me.”
“Shouldn’t we have some sort of a plan? Ghastek isn’t an idiot. We can’t just call down to the Casino and tell him, ‘Hi, we’re going on a suicide mission, wanna bring some vampires to be our bullet meat?’” Bloodsuckers were expensive. The very idea of taking four or five of them into danger with minuscule chances of survival would give Ghastek an aneurysm.
“I have a plan.” Curran grinned at me.
“Please enlighten me, Your Majesty.”
“I’m going to make Jim figure it out,” Curran said.
“That’s it? That’s your plan?”
“Yes. I’m brilliant. Come on.”
I hopped off the wall and we went down the stairs.
If anybody could figure out how to rope Ghastek into this scheme, Jim would be the man. Served him right for all those times he’d pushed me into the line of fire.
Payback is a bitch.
We trapped Jim in one of the conference rooms and explained our brilliant plan.
“This is payback, isn’t it?” Jim glared at me.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I told him. “As the Consort of the Pack, I’m far above petty revenge.”
Jim tapped the clipboard with several pieces of paper on it against his forearm. “I’ll do it if you go to the Guild tomorrow.”
“You’ll do it, because I asked you to,” Curran said.
Jim turned to me. “Will you do the Guild thing?”
I had a dying kid on my hands and all he cared about was Guild idiocy. “Maybe. I don’t know yet. I’m kind of busy at the moment.”
Green flashed in Jim’s eyes. He yanked a piece of paper from the clipboard and thrust it at me. It looked like a long list.
“What is this?”
“This is the list of all the phone calls I’ve gotten about this shit in the last week and a half. The mercs have gotten every damn member to call me here.” He shook the list in Curran’s direction. “You want to know why your background checks aren’t done? This is why! I could get it done if your mate would stop dicking around and just deal with it.”
Oh, it’s like this, then. “Then I have a great idea. Since they’re all calling you, why don’t you stop dicking around and deal with the Guild. You have the same time in as I do.”
“I have a job!”
“So do I! Why is your time more important than mine?”
The clipboard snapped in Jim’s fingers. He dropped it on the ground and raised his hands. “You know what, I’m done. I quit.”
“Oh my God, seriously?”
Jim wiped his hands against each other and showed them to me.
“Is that you washing your hands off?”
“Yes.”
“Really? So what, you’re going to retire and open that flower shop you always wanted?”
Jim’s eyes went completely green.
“Enough,” Curran said. An unmistakable command saturated his voice. Jim clicked his mouth shut.
I crossed my arms. “I’m sorry, is this the part where I fall to my knees and shiver in fear, Your Furriness? Silly me, I didn’t get the memo.”
Curran ignored the barb. “What’s your problem with the Guild?”
“The only way to resolve it involves me being entangled in running it and I don’t want to do it.” I waved my arms. “I have the Consort crap and I have the Cutting Edge crap and whatever other bullshit the two of you throw my way. I don’t want to go to the Guild every month and deal with their crap on top of everything else.”
Curran leaned toward me. “I have to dress up and meet with those corpse fuckers once every three months and be civil while we’re eating at the same table. You can deal with the Guild.”
“You, dress up? Wow, I had no idea that putting on your formal sweatpants was such a huge burden.”
“Kate,” Curran snarled. “They’re not sweatpants, they are slacks and they have a belt. I have to wear shoes with fucking laces in them.”
“I don’t want to do it! I hate the ceremony crap.” I so didn’t need the Guild politics in my life. It was complicated enough, damn it. “I don’t have time for it.”
“Everybody hates the political stuff,” Curran growled. “You’ll do it.”
“Give me one reason why.”
“Because you know those people and some of them are your friends. The Guild is sinking and they’re losing their jobs.”
I opened my mouth and clamped it shut.
“Also, because I’m asking you to do it,” Curran said. “Will you please resolve this, baby?”
I would punch him. I would punch him straight in the face, hard. “Fine. I’ll need a lot of backup for the Guild.”
Curran looked at Jim. “Make sure she has everything she needs.”
“Okay,” Jim said. He picked up the pieces of his clipboard, pulled a piece of paper out, and handed it to me with the pen. “Write it down.”
I did and gave it back to him.
Jim read it. “I’ll take care of it, Consort.”
“Thank you, Alpha.”
If it had been raining, our voices would’ve frozen it into hail.
“Is there anything else?” Jim asked Curran.
“No.”
Jim nodded and left.
“I hate you,” I told Curran.
He chuckled. “You’d hate me more if Jim quit. We’d have to find a replacement. I don’t trust that many people. Just think how much more shit you’d have to put up with.”
“Don’t,” I warned him.
“Mhm, Kate, the chief of security. Sexy. Who better to guard my body than the woman who owns it?”
“Curran, I will punch you.”
“Rough play.” Curran pretended to shiver in excitement.
I raised my fist and tapped his biceps lightly.
“You knew it was inevitable,” he said.
I knew. The moment Jim sent me the file I had known exactly how it would end. But I’d put up a valiant fight. “Yes, but I don’t have to like it. Can we eat now? I’m starving.”
“Oh so am I forgiven?” he asked.
“Sure. The next time you decide to flex your claws and come up with a plan to invade the home of a high-ranking civil servant, I’ll bark, ‘Enough!’ and expect to be obeyed, how about that?”
“You told me no,” he said.
“And?”
“And I didn’t like it.”
“You can’t assault the DA’s house, you
crazy bastard!”
“And you can’t check out of the Guild’s mess. We both have to do things we don’t want to do. I consider us even.”
I rolled my eyes and we went upstairs to our cold food.
“I know what that ass is getting from me next Christmas,” I said.
“What?”
“Clipboards. Lots and lots of clipboards.”
CHAPTER 8
Before the Shift and the return of magic, a person’s power could be readily judged by the kind of car they drove, by the clothes they wore, and the company they kept. In post-Shift Atlanta, visual clues still proved true in some cases, but not nearly often enough. A bum in tattered jeans and ragged cloak could walk out into a crowded street, raise his arms, and the sky would tear open and weep a rain of lightning and hail the size of coconuts, leveling everything in a three-mile radius.
That’s why post-Shift Atlanta’s movers and shakers preferred both a show of power and dressing to impress. Still, if you did dress like a badass, you had better be able to back it up.
When I woke up in the morning, a pair of gray jeans, a gray T-shirt, and a gray leather jacket waited for me, folded on top of a gray cloak edged with fur. Just as I requested. Gray was the Pack color. I was going to put on a show for the Guild and this was my costume for it. I put the clothes on, added my boots, my saber in the back leather sheath, my throwing knives, and my wrist guards filled with silver needles. I braided my hair away from my face and examined myself in the mirror. I was broadcasting dangerous loud and clear.
Normally I stayed away from clothes like that. The less attention I drew when I worked, the better. Most mercs knew I was good at my job, but I wasn’t very impressive. I didn’t put on a show. Some of them had problems with me, most didn’t. Today was different. Today I needed to be less Kate Daniels and more Pack Consort. I needed to knock them off balance, so they wouldn’t question why I showed up there and told them what to do.
I marched into the bathroom, where Curran was brushing his teeth. His blond eyebrows crept up. “That’s your Council meeting outfit from now on.”
I laughed. “Cloak or no cloak?”
“Definitely cloak,” he said.
I tried the cloak on in front of the mirror.
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