River of No Return

by Annie Bellet

  Nearly two years since I stabbed him with the Alpha and Omega, effectively ending his life, though until another sorcerer swallowed his heart, Samir would be only mostly dead. I hadn’t told my friends yet. I meant to, but there was never a good moment to do so, never the right time. I feared what they would say, Harper most of all. She had lost so much because of Samir. I felt it was kinder to let him be dead enough. I wasn’t sure they would understand that I couldn’t eat his heart for so many reasons.

  I didn’t want his power. I didn’t want his ghost living in my mind. I didn’t want to know his history, to feel the lives of all the sorcerers and magic users and who knew who else he’d murdered over the years.

  Oh, and that little detail about killing him would apparently break some ancient seal and allow a lot of magic and powerful not-so-nice critters back into the world. I had no desire to cause an apocalypse, even a slow magical one.

  So Samir would stay a ruby gem in my talisman and I would hope that what I hadn’t told my friends wouldn’t hurt me. Or them.

  We pulled into the back parking lot behind my building. It was late, Brie and Ciaran and my shop had been closed for the wedding, so I didn’t expect any vehicles besides the Brie’s Bakery delivery truck.

  The lot wasn’t empty. A black Mercedes was parked in one of the spaces directly behind my apartment. A white man wearing a suit stood leaning against the driver’s side door. He was in his forties with short dark hair and gave a little wave as we drove into the lot, making no mistake possible that he wasn’t waiting for me. He looked unarmed and I could see both his hands, but still. Men in suits with nice cars never came bearing large checks or chocolate in my experience.

  Alek pulled the truck in and then reached across me to open the glove box. He got his gun out as I let magic fill my blood once more.

  “You all right?” Alek murmured.

  “Let’s do this,” I said. I had to admit, as I got out of the truck with magic humming in my veins, I kind of hoped the guy was trouble. Just a little. Easy trouble. A small shoe.

  Turned out, he was a lawyer and the shoe dropping fit in an envelope.

  The lawyer, who introduced himself as Mr. Allen, insisted that we go inside. Alek made no pretense of hiding his gun as we walked up the stairs to the apartment. The man seemed human enough and wasn’t carrying any obvious weapons, nor did he set off my wards, so we ended up sitting on opposite sides of my kitchen table. Alek loomed over me like a celebrity’s bodyguard. Or maybe like a supervillain’s henchman. I imagined Mr. Allen was thinking more along the latter lines from the sweat that beaded on his forehead as he drew a small blue envelope and a folder from his briefcase.

  “I was hired by Samir Sampson,” he said. I carefully kept my face neutral and my hands on the table. “There were instructions left with my firm that if we did not hear from Mr. Sampson within a certain time period that we were to find you, Ms. Crow, and deliver this.” He tapped the blue envelope.

  “I don’t want it,” I said. “Whatever that is, I don’t care. Samir and I are old business. You can find him and tell him you tried and I said no. I’m good.” I reminded myself to refer to Samir in present tense like he was out there somewhere, living his life, rather than a ruby droplet hung around my neck.

  Because wearing the magically shrunken hearts of my enemies wasn’t a supervillain thing to do at all. Hmm. I pushed that thought away. After all, Samir had used the alias Samson so who exactly was the histrionic bro there, right?

  “Please,” Mr. Allen said. He glanced up at Alek and a muscle in his jaw twitched. “This is our duty. I don’t care if you throw this into the trash after I leave, but please sign here and initial here, and then I will leave.”

  He pushed papers he had taken from the folder toward me. His dark eyes were earnest. Just a man doing his job.

  “What exactly were your instructions?” I asked.

  “If we had not heard from our client after a certain period of time, we were to find you, Jade Crow, and deliver this envelope. In person. He was very specific about that. He also said that if delivery was triggered by circumstances, you would know what this was.”

  Mr. Allen gave me a nervous smile that I imagined had more to do with Alek standing like a six-foot-six murder machine over my shoulder than with me. I was still wearing a freaking sundress and silver strappy sandals, for frak’s sake. I’d even put on lipstick for the wedding. I was the least intimidating I ever looked, except maybe after a forty-eight hour new expansion World of Warcraft binge with my friends.

  I took a deep breath. Let it out. Then I picked up the heavy and probably expensive pen Mr. Allen had laid out and scanned the documents. It was a bunch of legalese releasing the law firm from its duty, saying I acknowledged receipt, and all that stuff that if a normal person wrote it would take half a paragraph but lawyers bill by the hour so I guess they needed extra words. I signed.

  “Great,” I said. “Done. Have a good night, Mr. Allen.”

  I kept the pen and he didn’t say a word about it as he packed up his things and scurried out the door and down the steps. I stood on the landing and watched him drive away.

  “You going to open it?” Alek asked me.

  “I’m going to bring it down into the parking lot and incinerate it with mage fire until I create a new pothole.” I leaned back into his warm bulk with a sigh.

  “Before opening it?” he said. His voice was a low rumble against my back and his warm breath tickled my ear as he nuzzled my hair, messing up the intricate braids that had taken hours to do.

  “Curiosity killed the cat,” I muttered, pulling away from him.

  “Satisfaction brought it back,” he said.

  “That’s usually my line.” I mock-glared up at him.

  He stepped aside and gestured at the small blue envelope.

  It hadn’t set off my wards, but that didn’t make whatever was in there not a trap. Samir had specialized in magical items, especially ones that hurt people or exploded or controlled those around him. I summoned my magic again, using my home brewed version of Mage Hand to lift the envelope. I backed down the stairs and out into the now empty lot, the envelope floating with me.

  Holding my hands as though I were gripping it, I ripped the envelope in half with my mind. A small metal object fell out and was caught by my magic, hanging suspended in the air. A key. I pulled it toward me for a better look.

  The key was about the length of my thumb and old fashioned in a skeleton key style. The handle part ended in a stylized heart with scroll bits on it. The key part was a rectangle shape with an S carved out of the middle of it. I had no idea what this key went to and had never seen a key quite like it, nor a door or other object I could imagine using it on. There was no magic on or in the key that I could determine. It lacked any of the sweet scent of Samir’s magic.

  “A key,” Alek said helpfully as he walked up to me.

  “Yeah. Just a normal-ass normal ancient looking key from a dude who spent my life trying to kill me or become a god. No magic I can feel,” I added.

  “Never seen it before?” Alek said. His tone put his question as more of a statement. He could read me like his favorite book.

  I shrugged. “Nope. I think Samir thought I’d know what this was because I think he assumed if he disappeared it was on the tiny chance I kicked his ass and ate him. But without his memories, no way to know.”

  “He assumed you would do what he would do.” Alek chuckled.

  “He was an ass,” I said. I wasn’t sure why he found this situation funny.

  “You going to destroy it?”

  I looked at the key still floating in front of us and I couldn’t stop my own giggles from rising. Okay, it was a little funny. There we were, treating this non-magical key like it was plutonium. Samir had probably just sent it to fuck with me because he couldn’t resist that shit.

  But… there was the little voice in my head that sounded a lot like Ghost-Tess, warning me that Samir always played the long gam
e and he always played to win.

  “No,” I said. “There’s always a chance it’s a warning of something worse to come and then I’ll be like ‘shit, guys, I destroyed the MacGuffin that can save the world’ and everyone will be like you are the worst hero ever.”

  “What is this MacGuffin?” Alek said, an adorably confused look on his face.

  I snatched the key out of the air, went to put it in my pocket, realized I was still wearing a damn dress with no pockets, and instead held it awkwardly.

  “I’ll tell you inside. I want to put this in my warded box, then I can explain movie tropes.” I started walking back to the apartment. I hoped this would be the end of it, but I had a feeling this was just the beginning.

  Alek knew something was wrong before the sheriff, Rachel Lee, had to say a word. The wolf-shifter’s stocky body radiated tension as Alek walked up to where she was waiting by her official vehicle. He had picked up two coffees on his way. Rachel took one with a nod.

  “Trouble?” Alek said. It was only half a question.

  “Freyda called on one of their burner lines,” Rachel said. She started walking around to the driver’s side. “Get in.”

  Coffee cups safely stowed in their holders, Rachel peeled out of the lot and turned the wrong way if they were headed to the Den. Alek waited patiently for her to tell him the rest. She liked to think things through and often got lost in her thoughts as she puzzled over details.

  “She wouldn’t say much on the phone, but it sounds like she’s been threatened,” Rachel said after a minute. “We’re meeting her at the old Hilltop diner off the highway.”

  “Trap?” Alek asked, wondering what could have spooked the Alpha of Alphas, the strongest wolf-shifter around. Freyda was not one to scare easily. If someone had threatened her and she was calling in their help, it was likely very serious.

  “No, don’t think so,” Rachel said. She gripped the steering wheel as though it were the neck of someone she was thinking about killing.

  Her scent said fear, her tension said anger. It was not a mix that Alek liked, and the circumstances did not seem to warrant it. There was something she was not telling him yet. Alek did not realize he was growling until Rachel glanced at him and made a face.

  “She said it was related to the Council of Nine,” she said with a small huff of breath.

  A chill crawled down Alek’s spine. He sat up straighter and took a deep breath, staring out at the road ahead. He had told Rachel the gist of what had happened with the Council, what little he knew. The Council was broken, at least one of its members succumbing to madness and instigating the murder of one other of the Nine. It had been nearly two years since he had last dealt with the Council.

  Almost as long since he had last heard from any of his former Justice friends, either.

  They made the rest of the drive in silence. The diner looked deserted as they pulled into the empty gravel parking lot. The Hilltop had been vacant at least as long as Alek had been in Wylde. A new on and off ramp had been built about two miles farther up the highway, more convenient for hitting the main road into town, and for Juniper College which provided much of the town business and funding. The diner location was no longer prime for weary travelers making their way along the edge of the Frank wilderness. Nobody wanted it, so it stood boarded up and empty, a paint-chipped relic of a different time.

  Alek got out cautiously, one hand resting on his hip near his gun. The air smelled of car exhaust and the dust Rachel’s SUV had kicked up on turning into the parking lot. There had been no rain for five days as summer had decided to get a head start. He picked up only Rachel’s scent, no other wolves.

  “Maybe we beat her here?” Rachel said. She had her gun out but her finger was off the trigger and the weapon pointed at the ground. Still, she was ready for trouble.

  Alek took his cue from her and pulled his own gun. He raised an eyebrow at Rachel’s unspoken question. They both knew that Freyda was not the type to be late to a meeting.

  “I’ll go left, you go right,” Rachel said. She did not wait for his answer but moved off around the side of the square, green building.

  Alek went right. Grass and weeds were reclaiming the parking lot and making forays through cracks in the cement slab around the diner. The gutters sagged with old needles from the scraggly pines shading the back side of the building. The boards were unmolested, the chain on the side door he passed looked intact. His skin still crawled with the feeling of being watched and he could not let go of the tension that told him something was off.

  Behind the diner was a half-toppled wire fence. The pine trees and the scrub brush beneath them had taken over this area. The ground here had never been paved, just gravel, and nature had reclaimed it with a vengeance.

  The breeze changed direction, rustling through the trees and bringing the scent of another wolf-shifter to Alek’s nose. The scent was mingled with the smell of ashes, as though from a campfire and he could not pick out if it were a wolf he knew or had scented before. He raised his gun and pointed it at the brush in front of him even though his keen vision still saw nothing in the shifting shadows of the branches. He heard more than saw Rachel moving up on his side.

  “Come out,” Alek said.

  Now the brush rustled in a way that was distinct from the breeze. A large, lanky grey wolf with streaks of brown in her fur emerged, grey eyes focused on him. Then she looked to Rachel.

  Alek lowered his gun, some of the tension draining out. Freyda.

  “You okay?” Rachel said as Freyda shifted.

  Freyda shook her head. Her breathing was labored as though she had sprinted and sweat streaked her clothing.

  “You came on foot?” Alek asked. From her human body’s appearance, she had come at least some of the way on two legs. Which made sense, given how exposed the roads were on this side of town.

  “I ran here from the Den. It wasn’t safe to take a vehicle,” Freyda said. She lifted her head and flared her nostrils, her mouth slightly open as she smelled the air.

  “We’re alone here,” Rachel said.

  “And too exposed,” Alek said, looking around. The trees and the elevation of the highway kept them out of view of the cars and trucks he could hear occasionally passing, but the diner was exposed to the road that ran parallel to the highway all the way down to the other on-ramp about three miles away. There would be some traffic on this road from the people who lived out that way though only a few homes dotted the landscape here.

  “I’ll pull the truck around, you two get that back door open. Nobody will see my vehicle from the road and we can talk inside,” Rachel said after a moment as Freyda kept looking around and did not seem about to start explaining herself.

  “Breaking and entering?” Alek said, putting his gun away.

  “It’ll give me an excuse to have been out here,” Rachel said, flashing him a grin. “We can write up a report afterward.”

  Alek easily broke the lock on the back door. He moved into the dim interior, his nose telling him no one had been in here for a long time. The place had been cleaned but there was still a hint of grease and humanity clinging stubbornly to the surfaces of the kitchen. He doubted there was power but tried a switch anyway. Nothing.

  Rachel brought a Coleman lantern in with her and pulled the door shut. The lamp was plenty of light for the three shifters to see by. They made their way into the diner proper. The booths had all been sold off or stolen except for one that stood lonely in a corner, half-pulled out of its place.

  Freyda brushed at the dust, gave up on it, and sat. Alek remained standing, but Rachel took up a place across from the Alpha.

  “I’m sorry,” Freyda said. “I had to be sure I was not seen and that you were not followed.” Her eyes flicked to Alek and her mouth pressed into a tight line.

  “We weren’t followed,” Rachel said. No cars had been behind them once they had left town and they had only seen two vehicles coming the other way.

  “I’m being watched,�
�� Freyda said. “We drove them off but I can feel that they are out there.”

  “Freyda,” Alek said, trying to keep the growl out of his voice. “Who?”

  “The Council,” she said, her spooked eyes settling on him finally.

  Alek snarled before he controlled himself as both wolves leaned away from him.

  “The Council is broken,” he said.

  “I should start at the beginning,” Freyda said. “Alek, sit, please. I can’t take you looming right now.”

  Alek suppressed the smile that twitched his lips. Jade hated him looming over her most of the time, too. He wished his mate were here, although her usual way of solving everything with fire would perhaps not work so well in this instance. Yet.

  If the remnants of the Council were here, Alek had a feeling it would eventually come to a fight. It had in New Orleans and he doubted the situation had improved during the years after.

  Once he had settled himself on the edge of the bench next to Rachel, his long legs stretched out to the side, Freyda began her story.

  “Late last night four wolves showed up at the Den. They asked to speak to the Alpha of Alphas and said it was urgent. They told me they were from someone they called The First,” she said.

  Alek felt another growl in his chest. The First was the first shifter granted powers by the Fates. He had never met the Council, but he knew that the First controlled the Emissary, a powerful spirit bound to the Council to guide their visions and speak to Justices through dreams.

  “Go on,” he said, as Freyda paused and drew a small swirl in the dust on the table with nervous fingers.

  “I did not believe them. I knew the Council was broken. Then they howled and forced us all to shift, just as you did. But they were in still in their human forms.” Freyda’s gaze was locked on Alek’s own. “Worse than that, their howls turned us submissive, every last damn one of us. It was like a crushing wave of fear, Alek. I’ve never felt the like. All I wanted to do was roll on my belly and beg for mercy. I barely fought it off and managed to bite the leg of the wolf who walked too close. That seemed to break their concentration and I was able to control my pack again, but they had made their point and backed off.”