by Alicia Wolfe
Mistress Angela had already led one attack on the Palace and nearly killed Queen Calista. We’d stopped her, barely, but Angela had managed to kidnap the imp Federico, who managed the Fae’s Compendium of Magical Artifacts. God only knew what secrets Angela could get out of him. My heart twisted, thinking about the little guy in pain. And Davril seriously thought I would just let that happen?
“Davril,” I said, “you know I’ll do everything I can to save Federico and stop that bitch, right? I may not be training in swordplay like you want, but I am upholding my vows and trying to do what’s right. You get that, don’t you?”
He nodded, just fractionally, and I wasn’t sure whether to be encouraged that he’d nodded or concerned that it was only fractional.
“I appreciate that you’re sorting through your criminal contacts, Jade, searching for someone that might have heard what Angela’s up to. I also appreciate that you’re helping me interview them, or letting me go along while you speak with them. And I know you can take care of yourself in a fight…”
I could hear the unspoken but. “But…?”
His mouth turned down at the corners. “However, again, you’re not in this alone. We’re partners now. It’s not enough to know that you can hold your own. I need to know, in your parlance, that you have my back.”
I blinked, stunned. I opened my mouth to respond, then closed it. Shit, I thought. He’s right. We were a team now, a duo, and I hadn’t even been pretending to hold up my half of the deal. Fighting alone was probably different than fighting as a unit. And I hadn’t even bothered showing up for practice, let alone putting my heart into it. How could Davril trust me when I spent all my time consumed by thoughts of finding Walsh, and none of it proving to Davril that I cared about making our partnership work? That I had his back like he did mine?
Another moment of silence passed. Around us the buildings were growing shorter and grimmer. We were leaving the prime Manhattan real estate for something a little shadier. My kind of place.
I forced myself to say, “You’re right.”
Now he did turn to me. Our eyes met, and I could feel the weight of his gaze pinning me to my seat. “What does that mean?”
“It means…” I groaned. I really hated to admit when I was wrong. Which basically never happened. This was probably the first time ever. “Fuck, it means I guess I better start showing up for practice.”
He held my gaze for another moment, making my promise official, then nodded again, a deeper one this time, and turned back to the front. My stomach churned. I felt shamed and uplifted at the same time. I couldn’t figure out why at first.
Then I realized that until now the only other person whose opinion I’d ever cared about was Ruby. And I could usually ignore her at will, since I was the older sister. Not a great way of thinking about it, I know, and I did usually try to accommodate her, at least sometimes, but with Davril … well, it was different.
Lord Davril Stormguard, immortal and powerful and wise, regarded me, I knew, as little more than an ant. I’d been scrambling to win his trust and approval, but evidently I hadn’t been scrambling enough. He’d put a lot of faith in me, even stuck up for me in front of his queen, and I’d just used him for my own ends. At the same time, I hadn’t even learned to fight in a coordinated way with him—basically risking his life, not to mention my own. Bad Jade.
“I’ll do better,” I promised.
“Good.”
Mom always said not to give things away for free, though. Give a little, get a little, she liked to say. It wasn’t a very nice expression, really, but this time I saw a window for opportunity in it.
“You know,” I said with what I hoped sounded like casualness, “if you want me to practice more, there is something you could do to sweeten the pot.”
“I didn’t think doing your duty needed any sweetening, Jade.”
“Says the man who lives in a castle and drives a flying car. Come on,” I added, flashing him my best puppy-dog look.
He let out a breath. “What is it?”
“Well … I could start cat-burglaring again.”
His voice was like stone. “No.”
“But—”
Even stonier. “No.”
Taken aback, I studied him. His face gave nothing away. I tried to suppress the sweat that wanted to pop out on my skin. Davril could be a real hardass when he wanted to be.
Gathering my nerve, I tried again. “I was helping people by—”
Davril turned his head to me, and his eyes glimmered dangerously. “Jade, we’re knights. We will conduct ourselves like knights, not criminals. Is that understood?”
I matched his glare with one of my own. “Not a bit.”
Growling under his breath, he returned his attention to the front. “I knew us teaming up together was a bad idea. You have no respect for authority, Jade.”
“Never have, never will.”
“Then why are we working together?”
“To save your people. And maybe mine.” I cleared my throat. “We’re almost there.” I gave him directions, and he brought the car down toward the street. I braced myself. Game face on.
It was weird returning to the criminal underworld after so much time in the Palace. A couple of months ago, it was my natural element. Now it almost felt like I had to pretend in order to fit back in. As Davril parallel parked along the street, I observed the rough-looking types walking by, thinking, These are my people. But it didn’t feel that way anymore. I was an outsider in two worlds now.
Davril had cloaked the car with an invisibility spell, so no one even glanced our way as he parked, including the toughs.
“How will you make sure no one tries to park here?” I said. “I mean, if no one can see Lady Kay?”
“Perception filter,” he said. “Same way no one will notice when we exit the car. To them we’ll just suddenly be there on the sidewalk. They’ll have thought we were there all along.”
“But we’ll still be able to see Lady Kay, right?”
He smiled, and thank goodness. His earlier frostiness visibly melted away, dissolved by the love he felt for his ride. “Of course,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to not see her, would you?”
I returned the smile, feeling something warm stir inside me. At least we could share this, I thought.
“She is beautiful,” I agreed, and ran my hand lovingly along her dashboard. Forgive me for putting my feet on you, girl. I shouldn’t use you to try and make points against your master.
We climbed out. A cool breeze blew down the street, carrying with it dust and discarded papers, and I shivered in the wind. New York was still trying to claw its way out of winter, and it couldn’t do it fast enough to suit me. Melting snow still piled along the curbs.
“Wish I’d worn a thicker jacket,” I said, wrapping my black leather jacket tighter around me.
“Want mine?” Davril said.
Reflexively, I looked him over. Fae Knights were basically the cops of the Fae, and usually when he went out among humans undercover, he would dress in jeans and a brown leather jacket. In deference to my wishes, tonight he’d donned a black leather jacket like the kind a biker would wear. Beneath it, a tight black T-shirt stretched across his chest and abs. His jeans were a bit rougher than he normally would have worn, and there were even some decorative rips and holes in them despite the chill.
“How do I look?” he asked, noticing my scrutiny.
Delicious. “Badass.”
And that was the thing. He did. Most cute blond guys couldn’t have pulled off badass in that outfit, but with his commanding gaze and the way he carried himself, as if about to spring into action at a moment’s notice, he did. He really did.
I shook myself. “Right this way, sir.”
I showed him up the sidewalk, made a turn, then another. Hard-looking people passed us, some giving us curious glances, but most just going on their way. Good. That meant we didn’t stand out too much. I wanted us to blend in like eggs into cookie
batter. But, er, more sinister.
I cut down an alley. Dark walls reared to either side of us, pressing in, and sudden claustrophobia gripped me tightly.
“You sure this is the right place?” Davril said.
“I’m sure.” I’m just not sure we should be going to it.
There! Along one building a set of stairs led down to the sunken basement level. Two brutal-looking guards waited at the bottom, and they watched Davril and me approach behind opaque sunglasses. For a moment, I wondered if they were vampires, but then I smelled it—the reek of lion. These two bruisers were lion shifters. No surprise, really. Last time, it had been jaguar shifters. Gavin liked his big cats.
“Jade McClaren,” I told the bigger bouncer. “I should be on the ‘Friends of Gavin’ list.”
He scrolled through his iPad. “Yep, there you are. Says you owe a cover.”
“Shit.”
He named a figure, and I reluctantly handed it over. The Fae didn’t pay me much, and I had no other source of income since Davril had curtailed my lucrative midnight activities. I missed my cat burglar outfit. Even more, I missed working with Ruby.
Davril and I passed through the doors, and instantly warmth and the smell of fried foods surrounded us. People packed the establishment, which was simply called Gavin’s Entertainments, and they were a nefarious lot, all bikers and gang members, criminals and crime tourists.
“You’ll never see a more wretched hive of scum and villainy,” I joked to Davril, but he just looked blank. “Guess you’ve never seen Star Wars.”
“Is that on—what is it called?—Broadway?”
“Never mind.” We would have to work up to Star Wars.
“Why were you surprised to pay a cover?” Davril asked as we pushed deeper into the establishment. The smell of fried foods grew thicker, as did the stench of smoke, some of it from cigarettes, some from other, less legal things. Davril had to pitch his voice a little higher than normal to be heard over the din of the expansive chamber. People shouted and cursed, and behind the human noises were more animalistic sounds—grunts and snarls, growls and yowls.
“Because ‘Friends of Gavin’ don’t usually pay the cover. I earned that moniker by stealing something for him, something someone was using against him. He told me I could have free lifetime access. Something must have happened.”
“What could that be?”
“I…” I shook my head in an I don’t know gesture.
The animal noises grew louder. We moved forward, and I whispered for Davril to watch his wallet. He only looked amused, and I wondered if that was because he didn’t have one or if he just thought it would be funny for someone to dare to lift it. In a place crammed full of thieves, thugs, and killers, he didn’t look intimidated at all. I’d expected him to look more out of his element than he did, maybe wearing a look of superiority and judgment, but he was remarkably chill.
Will I ever understand you, Davril Stormguard?
We reached the pit.
Below us, carved into the floor of the subbasement, was a fifteen-foot-deep gladiator arena, just hewn right out of the concrete foundation and filled in with sand and wood sides. Presumably magic balanced out the missing part of the foundation. Circling each other in the pit was a boar shifter in beast form, bleeding from his shoulder, and a hyena shifter, also in animal form. Blood dripped from its canines, mixing with drool.
Ringing the pit, patrons of the establishment shouted encouragement or curses at the fighters while others placed bets or bought drinks and snacks off a passing vendor. I flagged down a salesperson and purchased a beer, but Davril made me give it back.
“No drinking on the job,” he said archly, and now he did wear a look of judgment. But directed at me, not the ne’er-do-wells in every direction.
“Not even to maintain cover?” I said.
“Not even.”
I pouted, then gasped as the boar shifter rushed the hyena, tusks lowered to gore its opponent. The hyena just barely slipped out of the way. The boar crashed into the wall with a terrific thud, then rebounded.
Davril scowled. “Do they fight to the death?”
“Not usually. Sometimes there’s a mistake, but no, usually they fight until one side yields.”
“How do they signal that they yield? Is there a psychic who can read their minds here? Obviously they can’t speak in animal form.”
“No, they just flop belly up. Showing your belly, that’s the signal that you yield.”
He nodded. “Just the same, we should be shutting this place down. I’ve shut down similar dives.”
It was my turn to make my voice firm. “No.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“We are not using my connections to shut them down.” I said this in a there-can-be-no-discussion tone of voice. He seemed to get it, and he tilted his head, not quite in a nod, but almost.
“It can stay open,” he allowed. “For now.” His eyes scanned the crowd, sizing up one threat and then another. “Do you see your contact?”
I nodded to the stands built along one side of the arena, where a tight-knit group gathered around a seated individual. Most of them carried guns or knives. Those who didn’t were their own weapons—shifters.
“That’s Gavin,” I said. “He’s expecting me. Let’s go say hi.”
“We’d better get more than hi out of this. Federico may be undergoing torture right now, Jade, and I don’t know how long he can hold out against Angela. I’m losing patience with your plan of using the underworld for intelligence-gathering.”
“It’ll work,” I promised, but I was beginning to doubt the plan, too. The problem was I didn’t have anything better, and I knew he didn’t, either. At least not that he’d shared with me. Could he be holding something back?
The group around Gavin stirred as we approached.
One of Gavin’s goons intercepted us. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m Jade,” I said. “I’ve got an appointment.”
His gaze flicked to Davril. “Who’s this?”
“He’s my plus one.”
“He’s not on the list.”
“Then rewrite the damned list. Now don’t make us wait all day. Time is money, honey.”
“Fine,” the thug said, and showed us over to the stands. The group around Gavin folded around us, screening us from the rest of the mob … but also closing us in. I was all too aware of their guns, knives, and other, more magical weapons and defenses.
Gavin hunkered on the third row of the stands, his weird eyes entranced by the fighting in the pit. Although undeniably attractive in a bad boy kind of way—the kind I liked—he was even more punked up than the last time I’d seen him. Dyed red hair spiked up from his head, and dark eyeliner ringed his eyes. He wore black leather with spiky silver sticking out all over, complete with black cowboy boots, and he smoked a hand-rolled cigarette with a tattooed hand.
He only casually glanced at us as we climbed the stands toward him. He was a lion shifter, and he liked to keep his eyes shifted even when in human form. His golden cat eyes appraised us over the flames of his cigarette, and I shivered. Those eyes always surprised me, and they always took me a few minutes to get used to.
“What’s shakin’, J-Mic?” he asked me.
“Everything. Gavin, meet my friend Jake.” Davril sounded way too Fae to use, and we were trying to keep his Fae-ness under wraps. Davril had even dimmed his own inner light temporarily to mask his true nature. Some shifters would have been able to sense it if he hadn’t. “Jake, meet Gavin, the owner of this establishment.”
Gavin didn’t offer to shake hands. His eyes glanced to the fight again, then reluctantly back to us. Behind me, I could hear cheers and growls. I wondered how much money Gavin had on the match. He was a total gambling addict, I knew. A lucky one, though.
“Got any prime loot for me?” Gavin asked, a certain deceptive mildness in his tone.
What does he know? “Not today,” I said. “Actually—”
His eyes speared me suddenly, really looking at me hard, and I had to stop myself from sucking in a deep, shocked breath. In a low, dangerous voice, he said, “Word is, Jade, you haven’t stolen anything in a while.”
I cleared my throat. “Yeah, well, the word on the street isn’t always right, is it? I’m still in the game, if that’s what you mean. Anyway, I’m looking—”
“Then what have you stolen lately?”
“We can talk about that later.”
Loud cheers broke out, and I jumped. Turning, I saw that the boar shifter was pacing back and forth before the body of the hyena, which was bleeding into the sands. Shit, I realized. The hyena was dead.
Davril’s face tightened. “This is how you run your business?”
Gavin smiled, but it was a hard smile. “I run my business any way I damn well want, Jake. What’s it to you?”
Davril’s jaw bulged. I knew he itched to reach for his invisible sword, and it was probably on the tip of his tongue to say something like, Actually, that’s EXACTLY my business. Keeping order in the supernatural world is what I do.
Hastily, I said, “Gavin, listen. I don’t know why I’m not on the friends’ list anymore or what your beef is, but I don’t care. I’m looking for this witch, she calls herself Mistress Angela. She’s captured a demon, an imp, and I mean to see that she doesn’t get what she needs out of him.”
“Which is?” Gavin said.
“I … don’t know.”
“Then why do you care?”
“Because I do. That’s my own business. Anyway, you’re plugged into the scene in a big way, and I was wondering if you’d heard anything. I can make it worth your while.”
Gavin yawned, cat-like, exposing long canines. “I don’t know, J-Mic.”
The thugs who surrounded us turned from the pit to their boss, starting to brace themselves. Was this the beginning of some trigger? Was some pre-arranged hostile action about to happen? I widened my stance, and, as subtly as I could, coiled for battle.