“Fourteen?” Those dark eyes mock-widened, even as he accepted my slap-down.
“Don’t start on me, I was a smart girl, I knew my sex ed, and I have a pretty good radar for partners. There’s only one I’m embarrassed about, and that’s…not a story I really want to tell you.”
Two people walked into the diner behind me, and Venec stopped laughing. I craned my neck as discreetly as I could in order to see what had changed his mood.
“Oh. Wow.”
The guy on the left looked totally normal. Human, or close to it. His companion… Not so much. I’d never even seen a picture of anything like that. About half my height, wearing a leather trench coat and slouch hat that didn’t do a thing to hide the fact that its body was covered with thick, coarse white fur. It was gesturing with one arm, showing a padded paw with thick black claws that looked deadly.
“Don’t stare,” Venec murmured. “It’s bad manners, and you don’t want to piss him off.”
I dropped my gaze down into the dregs of my coffee, and picked up the spoon to stir it, to give myself something to do. I was pretty sure I was blushing, which I never did. “What is it?”
“Demon.”
I swear I strained something, resisting the urge to swivel in my seat and gawk openly. Demon were rare. Not ki-rin rare, but unusual enough to merit gawking. “Do they all look like that?”
“No. Each one looks different.”
“Then how do you know…?”
“Red eyes. Dark red eyes, the only fatae who have ’em. Also, bad-tempered. Although not as nasty as the angeli. You can talk to a demon, even work with one. Angeli? Not so much.”
That I knew—the fatae breed known as angels took their name way too seriously, looking down at any species that wasn’t them, especially humans.
“How’d you know it was a demon, then?”
“You live in New York long enough, you know P.B. He’s a courier, carries messages that are too important to be trusted to the post office or a standard messenger. Rumor has it the last person who tried to steal something he was carrying ended up looking like dog food.”
“I’m telling you, Jock, it’s bad news. The entire city’s twitching over it.” The demon’s—P.B.’s—voice carried in the sudden stillness. “And the last thing we need right now, people wondering if any of us can be trusted, after all, feeding into those damned…” He suddenly seemed to realize his voice was too loud for secrecy, and dropped to a lower murmur as they took a table as far away from us as they could get.
“The gossip’s spreading,” I said. “You think this is going to work?”
“It has to. I can’t think of any other way to get the ki-rin to talk to us, and if it doesn’t… Right now the scales are balanced—the fatae don’t trust humans and humans aren’t trusting the fatae. The assault pushed everything to breaking point. We have to be able to take the tension back down again. Everyone has to have equal liability in the events for there to be equal trust.”
“And if we can’t bring it back down? If we can’t prove the ki-rin and Talent were equally involved?” I knew the answer, but I was hoping he’d be able to tell me something different.
“You said it already. Then we could have a very nasty intra-Cosa showdown. And nobody will win.”
Yeah. But there was more in his words, or the tone, or something, that caught my attention. “There’s something you aren’t telling me.”
He was surprised, then tried to pull but…but I was already on the scent. “It’s Aden, isn’t it? She was…doing something. Feeding someone information? Causing trouble?”
“What do you…” His expression changed, his jaw hardening and then relaxing as he realized I hadn’t intentionally gone digging, and he gave up trying to hide anything. “It’s taken care of.”
“You tie her up and toss her overboard?”
That got a quick rueful smile that made my toes curl a little inside my shoes. “I wish. No. But it’s dealt with.”
“That was where Ian was, the oil he had to pour. To calm the trouble she was stirring up, as usual.”
I wanted to be angry, but what good would it do? Ben knew Aden was trouble. Hell, Ian knew Aden was trouble. But we’d figured out already that he would never act against little sister, so we just had to deal with it. And it sounded like they had, at least for now.
“Is it going to come back and bite us on the ass?”
“Probably. Aden… She’s doing what she believes is right. She just…lacks the ability to get perspective.”
I had no idea what he meant by that, but it didn’t feel like the right time or place to dig. So we sat there drinking our coffee and talking about nothing—first pets and school memories—until the old-fashioned white-faced clock on the wall informed us that it was 3:00 a.m., and the waitress came around to close out our tab, since she was going off-shift.
“We’re going to feel like hell in the morning,” Venec observed.
“So why are we still sitting here?” Not that I minded, exactly, but he was the one who’d told me, months ago, that he expected us all to get a full night’s sleep.
He shrugged. On him it didn’t look quite so annoying, more like a complete sentence than an incoherent exasperation. “I haven’t been sleeping much, lately.”
My hand found his across the table, and I curled my fingers around his palm. His skin was weirdly chilled, despite the coffee. “Ben… We didn’t start this, the violence or the prejudice. It’s always been there, in one form or another. We didn’t cause it, and we can’t solve it, not all of it.” I was beginning to see why Stosser was so exasperated with his partner, sometimes.
“We’re just people, boss. We can only do a little bit, here and there. Even all of us together can only do a little bit.”
“I want everything,” he admitted, ruefully, like he was admitting something shameful.
“Yeah, I’m getting that.” Who knew the Big Dog had the heart of a Knight Errant? “But sometimes, all you get is some of it.”
We weren’t talking about the case, not entirely. Not anymore. But I’d already given him my speech on that; it was up to him to decide if he could handle it. Better to keep us focused right now.
“You were the one who told me…what did you tell me, Venec?”
He knew what I was talking about. “Carry it on the skin, not the spine.”
“Right. So now I’m going back home to get a few hours of sleep, and I suggest that you do the same. Normal people need sleep before they try to save the world…or even one big-ass city.”
I left him sitting there with the check—he was the boss, he could damn well afford to pick up the cost of two cups of coffee—and went home. Pietr was passed out on the sofa, facedown and snoring. I threw a blanket over him, shucked out of my gear, and crawled up into my loft bed, pretty sure I was going to be asleep before I hit the pillow.
I woke up groggy and my head filled with dreams of other people’s voices. Venec hadn’t gone to bed, after all; he’d been arguing with Stosser—and been annoyed enough that he hadn’t kept his walls up. Gah. Thankfully, it was just voices, and not words. As much as having an inside track might be useful, it would probably get me into more trouble than it was worth.
“Hey.”
Unlike me, Pietr stuck around in the morning. I glared at him, well-aware that I’d forgotten to take my eye makeup off last night, and my eyes were a gummy mess.
He didn’t flinch, but just waved in the direction of my kitchenette. “I got some coffee.”
That was the smell that had woken me up. “Thanks.”
Pietr had also gotten the newspaper from my front door—I was probably the only person in the entire building who still took an actual newspaper, but the delivery guy still placed it, folded neatly, against my door every morning, Monday through Saturday.
“What time is it?”
“A little after seven. We still have time.”
He’d managed to take a shower, too, I noticed; his hair was still wet, and h
is face had a scrubbed look, clean and fresh-shaved.
“You didn’t use my razor, did you?” Because, friend or no, if he had…
“Hell no. And I didn’t touch your shampoo, either. I didn’t want to go in smelling like…what the hell do you use, anyway?”
“Tea tree. My scalp’s sensitive.”
“Yeah, well, you dye your hair that many times, it’s a wonder it hasn’t gotten pissed and left.”
“That line works better coming from Nick,” I said, recognizing the pattern of comebacks. “You can do nastier.”
He grinned, and snapped the paper back into its proper folds. “So. Have good hunting last night?”
I had to think about it for a minute. “Yeah. I think so.”
“Good. Go wash your face. You look like a raccoon after a week-long bender.”
After that crack, I didn’t talk to him the entire way into the office. Venec was already there, wearing the same shirt he’d had on that night—and I was right, it was hand-tailored; under the office lights I could tell—but he’d changed into a pair of black jeans, and taken a shower somewhere along the line. The waterfall noise came forward out of the background, and I realized it had never left, just faded to not-noticeable status. I gave it a mental shove back, and my awareness of him faded. Good. Maybe familiarity—and knowing what it was—would be enough to keep it contained.
Then he looked at me, and every hope of that went out the window. My breath caught somewhere between my chest and my throat, and there was an ache in my thighs that the tumble with Pietr should have put down for a few more days at least, damn it. I’d thought knowing what was going on would make it easier, not harder, but based on the oomph we just gave each other with a single look, keeping sex out of this thing was going to be trickier than we’d hoped.
Fortunately, we were both stubborn as sin.
Nick tossed me a glazed donut, and I caught it with one hand, even distracted. Nifty held up six fingers, rating my catch. I gave him one in return.
We had apparently walked into an ongoing discussion of the way the rumor-net was spreading. Nifty was the only pup who didn’t seem worried.
“Relax, people,” he was saying. “We primped the pump, but good. It will come forward—or someone will make it come forward. Like Venec said, the word on the street is that they’re afraid this will make them look even worse, feed the antifatae feelings. It’s a shonda for the goyim.”
I couldn’t help it, I laughed. Nifty had a way of coming up with Yiddishism that a good ol’ black kid from Philly really shouldn’t be using. “Let me guess. Your coach again?”
“Ex-girlfriend, actually.”
Venec held his hand up, and I could feel the tension in him, a different sort from last night’s, like a crack of thunder through the waterfall. “Hush,” he said, listening intently. The current strands around him were almost visible, and I got a sense of our rumor-net vibrating like a spider’s web with a juicy fly caught somewhere in the sticky mess.
*stosser* a whisper of thought told me, identifying the ping Ben was listening to. I couldn’t hear it myself, but I knew.
Somewhere out there, our lures had gotten a bite. But was it enough?
We waited, polishing off what was left of the box of donuts on the table, while Venec held a silent debate with Stosser, wherever he was.
“Heads up, puppies,” he said suddenly. “Ian wants to bring you in on this.”
“Bring us in?” Sharon asked, and I could see the others bracing themselves for a Translocation.
“Like a conference call,” Venec said. “The way you share mage-sight, only in a group. Ian will be lead, I’m the conduit.”
“Have you guys ever done a group like this before?” Nifty asked, which was the exact same thing I’d been wondering. Sharing the bubble with Pietr had been stressful enough. Holding seven of us? Over a distance? Stosser was damn good, but…
“No time like right now to learn something new,” Venec said. “Get ready. In ten.”
I started counting back, sliding into fugue-state, but somebody was off a beat because I was still at three when I felt a tug somewhere around my midsection and midbrain, and fell into a group-fugue.
Wow. This was weird. I was pretty sure that thought was mine, but I couldn’t swear to it. A bunch of different flavors melting into each other, like too many scoops in a sundae. Then a coating of something heavy on top…Venec as hot fudge? Yeah, that was about right. Bittersweet fudge. Yum.
I managed not to share that thought with the group, and then we were all in the same pipeline, looking through Stosser’s eyes. I knew that immediately, because the point of view was too damn high, and there was the shadow of a long narrow nose just at the edge of my awareness.
*focus* a cranky reminder came.
Heh. I wasn’t the only one noticing the nose.
We were in a large room…no, a warehouse of some sort, or a repair bay. Concrete floors, metal walls, lighting far overhead, glaringly white. And, in front of us, the ki-rin.
The first and last time I’d seen a ki-rin, other than through my projected gleanings, was at the scene of the crime, when it was at a distance and covered in someone else’s blood. I hadn’t looked too closely then. Now, I—through Stosser’s awareness—stared.
The fatae was about the size of a large pony, like I’d already noted, but its body was more like an elk’s than a horse’s. Dun scales sparkled at throat and belly, but a plush golden coat covered its legs and torso, leading to the long neck with the white-gold lion’s mane, and scaled dragon’s head. It was looking directly at us, and I noticed with a sense of shock that it had whiskers similar to Madame’s. Well, I suppose that made sense. Ironically, the horn in the middle of its forehead—the murder weapon—was the last thing you noticed. It was smaller than I’d thought it would be, barely a foot long, and not ivory the way a unicorn’s was, but dun brown and slightly curved, more like an antler than a horn. Under the horn, looking directly at us, two large, deep-set eyes the color of coal and filled with an impossible sadness.
He killed a man, I reminded myself. He let his companion sell herself, and conspired to cover up murder.
I did only what was within my right to do.
I flinched, thinking that it was responding to me. But no, that musical voice was echoing in the warehouse; we were hearing it through Stosser’s ears, via the current-link.
“We know, Si-Ja. We know.” Ian’s voice, as filled with sadness and regret as I had ever heard. How could you not feel regret, confronting such a magnificent being? And how could there not be sadness, seeing the sadness in the ki-rin’s gaze?
Sadness would not bring back the dead. Regret would not undo the harm.
You spread lies. It attacked my companion.
“Yes, he did,” Stosser agreed. “But did we lie? Or merely misrepresent the truth? Nobody is denying that the guy was scum. You were within your rights, by the standards of the fatae, to claim retribution, and defend her honor. But the truth is not truth when only part of the story is told, noble one.”
The ki-rin snorted, and I swear flames came from its black-rimmed nostrils. Stosser stood his ground, despite the angry response.
You accuse me of lying?
“Ki-rin do not lie. And yet, I know that you do not tell all that you know.”
The ki-rin raised its head and stared directly at him/us. It attacked my companion. She was in dishonor.
“You took money to be in that place at that time. She took money to approach those men, and to accept the consequences of what happened. I do not condone nor do I dismiss that man’s actions—they were of his own volition and deserved punishment. But you knew what would happen. You were complicit in the attack, and premeditated the murder.”
Her honor…
“Her honor was sold. As was yours.” The sadness was still there, but it was delivered on a cold steel blade. Ian Stosser did not like being used, played, or made a fool.
There was a long pause, and those gre
at coal-black eyes shone with tears.
The action was his. He could have walked away. He could have listened to her saying no.
“It’s called entrapment. There is no honor in it.”
The ki-rin’s head dropped, and something inside me crumbled. No Ancient should ever be cast down so, not even by its own actions. It was…it was painful to watch. Like Mercy’s agony, this was private. We should not be here, we should avert our eyes….
Our job was to see what others would not, could not. We were there to make sure all the pieces fit together, that the entire story was told, not just one side of it. Stosser did not turn away, and so neither did we.
“Why, Si-Ja? What reason…?”
I could refuse her nothing, my beloved child, my companion. She had such talent…and dreams, dreams I had fed, to grow and to see, but such things took money. I am old, human. Old even for my kind, and when I die she will be alone…and my wealth, what little remains, will not pass on to her.
The missing artwork on the wall. Not knickknacks—her own work. Destroyed, in a fit of rage, of shame, of despair. I knew it, kenned it, the way I knew Mercy’s own signature. The information flowed from me into the rest of the pack…and Stosser, our point man.
“You wanted to send her overseas to study?”
There were people I knew, connections I had made over time—she would have had the best of teachers…but she would not be able to find work there to support herself, and such a life is not inexpensive. I had miscalculated the market, lost too much to recover in time. A man knew a man who knew my broker: we were approached, an offer was made. Mercy was not to be damaged—her virtue maintained. The price…
It sighed, and the tears fell. We did not understand. The price was too great.
She was not to have been raped…but the price was paid nonetheless. Traditions were a bitch like that. Sometimes the magic cared about the literal interpretation, and sometimes it went for the heart, the soul of the agreement.
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