by Inked (lit)
Or the one that leaves you a magical cripple.
“Watch it,” Caleb murmured as the boss turned toward us, his shield riddled with glass and metal, like a porcupine with fully extended quills.
“Are you under some semblance of control?” Hargrove demanded icily.
I nodded and his shields fell, causing the trapped pieces to drop to the floor with a clatter. Jamie ran to gather up the remains of the staff, while Caleb helped the boss back to his feet. I didn’t budge. Hargrove had caught me on his glare like a bug on a pin, his expression somewhere between murderous and mortified. I didn’t understand that last part, until I belatedly noticed the man standing off to one side, out of the line of fire. No, not a man, I realized, as the spicy, musky scent of Clan hit me.
“It’s good to see you again, Lia.”
“Mr. Arnou,” I said awkwardly.
“Sebastian, please.” He paused, glancing at Hargrove’s furious expression. “We are family, after all.”
Well, crap.
2
“YOU might have mentioned that you were related to the werewolf king!” Hargrove whispered viciously, as we trudged up eight flights.
I glanced up the stairs, to where the individual in question was being regaled with some story by Jamie. Despite his recent brush with disaster, Sebastian Arnou appeared unruffled. He reminded me of my mother, who had been so comfortable in human form that it had been almost impossible to believe that she was anything else. Only the occasional scent of something rare and wild gave it away, or a too fluid movement when surprised.
Or watching her morph into a 150-pound wolf, of course.
Not that I’d ever seen Arnou’s leader in wolf form, or caught off guard, either. And today was no exception. He was wearing a crisp tan suit that set off his short dark hair and vivid blue eyes. His shoes were Prada, his watch was Piaget and his demeanor was set on pleasant. It was difficult to imagine anyone who looked less like the slavering beast of legend.
“His title is bardric,” I explained. “The Weres don’t actually have a—” I stopped at the blistering look Hargrove sent me. “And he’s more of an acquaintance, really.”
Hargrove threw a sound shield around us with an impatient gesture; I guess he knew about Were hearing. “He said you were family!”
“It wasn’t meant literally. I recently did a favor for his clan and they, um, sort of adopted me. It’s an honorary thing.”
Hargrove didn’t look satisfied. “Then perhaps you can explain why he insisted on seeing you after the incident this morning?”
“What incident?”
“A Were, or what was left of one, was fished out of a ditch along Highway 91 by one of our patrols. They saw several men dragging it out of a drainage tunnel, and when they went to investigate, the men ran off, leaving the corpse behind. Of course we informed the Clan Council. I assumed they would send someone for the body, but imagine my surprise when the Arnou himself showed up to take possession! And demanded to see you and Kempster.”
“Jamie?” I’d assumed I was in for it, but I’d wondered why Hargrove had ordered him upstairs, too.
“And he wants the most current map we have of Tartarus. But he won’t say why.”
I assumed that Sebastian wasn’t asking for a map of the Greek underworld, but of its Vegas equivalent. Back in the eighties, an extensive network of drainage tunnels had been put in place beneath the city to help control the runoff from the brief rainy season. Since they were dry much of the year, they’d quickly been settled by bums, druggies and the portion of the supernatural population who couldn’t pass for human even with a glamourie.
Over time, bars, brothels, markets and casinos had opened up, forming a mirror image of the world above, only more desperate and a lot more dangerous. Someone in the Corps had named the place after the deep, dark pit reserved for evildoers in Greek mythology and it had stuck, maybe because it was so apt. I couldn’t imagine what interest Vegas’s shadow city could hold for someone like Sebastian Arnou.
“Jamie used to be a tunnel rat,” I said slowly. “If anyone is interested in Tartarus, he’d be the one to ask.” The Rats were a group of war mages who once patrolled the tunnels, before the current war in the supernatural community pulled them to other duties.
“But why you?”
“I’m dating his brother,” I admitted, because it wasn’t exactly a secret. Cyrus had haunted the infirmary while I recovered from my recent brush with the hereafter. And ever since, he’d been showing up for lunch in the cafeteria, despite what it considered food. He’d become so much of a staple that people had almost stopped staring at him as if he planned to eat them instead of the rubbery quiche.
“And is that all?”
I shrugged. “Technically, I am part of his clan. Sebastian trusts me. Well, as much as any Were ever trusts a mage…”
Hargrove threw an arm across the staircase, halting me in my tracks. “Let us have one thing perfectly clear,” he told me, gray eyes flashing. “Were or not, you are Corps. Therefore you answer to me, not to some bardric or whatever he is.”
“I’m not a Were,” I said flatly. “My mother was a member of Clan Lobizon, but my father was human.”
“Be that as it may, I won’t have someone on my team hiding things from me. The Weres have the right to deal with their own kind as they see fit, but if anything about this bears on our activities, I expect to be informed. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
Hargrove shot me a look that said it had damn well better be, but fortunately there wasn’t time for more. One didn’t keep a king—or the equivalent—waiting. A moment later, we caught up with the others at the top of the stairs and pushed through into the busy main corridor.
The Central Division of the War Mage Corps is part of the North American branch of the Silver Circle—the most powerful magical association on earth. Only it wasn’t looking much like it at the moment. The war had trashed our previous digs, causing a precipitate and only half-completed move to new quarters beneath a large warehouse. It was crowded, the air-conditioning didn’t work half the time and the place tended to smell of dust, body odor and the ozone tang of magic.
Today, it smelled like dung.
I glanced around, wondering what new problem had cropped up since I’d passed through this morning. Unlike the lower levels, this one was open to the public. As usual, it was crowded with a microcosm of the current war. Mages, apprentices and lab techs hurried along, skirting the long line of arms dealers waiting for permits. Informants slunk past with furtive expressions, hoping their tidbits were worth a payout. Mercenaries loitered against the walls, awaiting interviews for the kind of service the Corps preferred to pay others to do. And someone was selling chickens.
Okay, that was new.
A squat-necked, big-bosomed woman with nut brown skin and a graying braid squatted near the stairwell, surrounded by wicker cages of live chickens. They stared at us accusingly out of bright black eyes, their beaks protruding through slits in the weaving. A glance down the corridor showed a variety of other small food animals, bleating and squealing from cages dotted here and there among duffle bags, backpacks and fifty or so scruffy-looking people.
Hargrove grabbed a passing mage who couldn’t get away fast enough. “Lieutenant!”
The lieutenant stopped, looking resigned. His arms were full of baby goat, which was nibbling on his lapel. Like all war mage attire, his coat was spelled to resist damage, although that wasn’t working so well in this case. The goat took a nibble, the lapel grew back, further intriguing the goat. Repeat.
“Yes, sir.”
“What are all these people doing here?”
“I’m sorry, sir. We had to bring them down. They were picketing out front and drew the attention of the human police—”
“I told Aaronson to get rid of them an hour ago!”
“Yes, sir. But they refused to leave without seeing you,” the lieutenant said, before getting jostled aside by a man
with black eyes, a weather-beaten face and a hank of greasy hair.
“It’s the gangs!” The man held up his arm, displaying a nasty burn. “They burnt us out this morning and we want to know what you’re going to do about it!”
“Where did this attack happen?” Hargrove demanded.
“In an encampment over on Decatur.”
“I know of no approved housing in that area.”
“It’s a flophouse, sir. In the drain,” Jamie explained.
Hargrove scowled at the injured man. “You were warned months ago that continuing to remain in an unsecured location puts you at risk. The Black Circle—”
“Do we look like we have anything those bastards would want?” the man demanded.
Personally, I thought he had a point. The powerful dark mages who composed our main enemy in the war tended to aim a little higher. But Hargrove wasn’t impressed. “They are known to hit civilian targets for the terror value.”
“All your secure locations cost too much!”
“We have arranged free safe houses for indigents—”
“Yeah, in the desert! Our homes are here!”
I couldn’t imagine anyone considering a murky, dangerous drain to be “home” and apparently, neither could Hargrove. “Be that as it may, you have the option. Should you choose to ignore it, there is little I can do. Other than offer you medical assistance for the wounded—”
“We don’t need charity! We need protection!”
“What you need is to moderate your tone!” Hargrove snapped. “And to face realities! I do not have the personnel to protect you if you choose to remain underground. That is why you were specifically instructed to evacuate—”
I stopped listening because a young man was tugging on my sleeve. He had gray eyes, dark hair and coltish limbs poking out of clothes that were at least two sizes too big. He looked like me ten years ago, before I grew into my height. He also looked lost, like maybe he’d misplaced his family in the crush.
“Do you know where I can find…” he glanced down at what I belatedly realized was an orientation packet. “Uh, Mage Beckett?”
Christ; the kid was a recruit. I opened my mouth to tell him to go home, to finish growing into his clothes, to finish growing up, but Hargrove beat me to it. “How old are you?” he snapped.
The boy’s eyes widened in dismay as he belatedly recognized Central’s resident terror. “Ei-eighteen, sir.”
“You don’t look it!” The kid appeared vaguely insulted, but he had the sense not to talk back. “Make sure you have proof of age. You will be asked for it,” Hargrove told him, before informing him where to find his drill instructor.
The young man nodded and backed off fast, only to trip over someone’s battered suitcase and lurch into a cage holding a piglet. The animal bit his shirtsleeve and held on. The boy panicked with his soon-to-be-boss’s eyes on him and slung a spell—which was just one syllable off. It should have given the pig a small electric shock; instead…
“Oh, dear,” Jamie said, as the pig swelled like a ripe melon, bursting through its woven home with a startled squeal.
I started to mutter the counterspell to shrink it back to size, when Jamie stepped on my toe. Oh, yeah. I fell silent and let him take care of it, then watched the red-faced teenager scurry down the hall toward the gym. It should have been funny—the kind of story you laughed at with your buddies years later. Only I wasn’t sure that kid would have a later.
“He doesn’a look eighteen,” Jamie murmured.
“He doesn’t look sixteen,” I said, my magic surging. I managed to tamp it down before we had another incident, but the effort made my headache worse. I had to get over this; I had to get well. We needed people in the fight who would do more than serve as target practice for the dark.
The lieutenant was left to deal with the angry man and we pressed on, but we’d only gone a few yards when Sebastian stopped by the doors to the medical facility. “Dr. Sedgewick will bring us the results as soon as he’s finished, Mr. Arnou,” Hargrove informed him, attempting to mask his impatience with a tight smile.
“I would prefer to see the body for myself.”
The smile vanished. “From what I understand, it was in…less than pristine condition when brought in.”
“Nonetheless.”
Hargrove waited, I guess expecting more of an explanation. He didn’t get one. “Very well. But I warn you—it isn’t pretty.”
“Bit of an understatement,” Jamie muttered a minute later, which was how long it took us to pass through the crowded waiting area, walk down a hall and enter a small room near the end.
I didn’t reply, because I was busy swallowing my breakfast back down where it belonged. Cafeteria food tasted the same coming up as it did going down, I decided, feeling pretty pathetic. But Jamie was also visibly green and even Hargrove had two spots of color high on his cheeks. It looked a little like rouge, next to his pallor. Only Sebastian appeared unruffled.
That surprised me since the body lying on the autopsy table was Were. At least, that’s what Sedgewick, the Center’s chief medical officer, alleged. I had my doubts. At first glance, it just looked like a heap of raw, red flesh, bled out like butcher’s meat ready for carving. But on closer examination it resolved into a tangled mass of limbs, some recognizably human, others not. But it was virtually impossible to tell what it might once have been.
Because every inch of skin had been carefully removed.
“Oh, it’s Were all right,” Sedgewick said when Hargrove voiced my doubts. The rotund little doctor was more animated than I’d ever seen him, his blue eyes sparking over his dull green scrubs. “And one born to it at that.”
“How can you tell?” Hargrove demanded, his lip curling in disgust.
“They have fundamentally different anatomies from humans, even those later infected with the Were strain,” Sedgewick said happily. “For example, the subclavius muscle stretching from the first rib to the collarbone.” The scalpel he was using as a pointer flashed under the lights as he traced it. “Most of us no longer have one as we don’t need it to walk on two legs instead of four. But all born Weres have at least one.”
“As do some humans, as you just inti—”
“But that’s only one indicator,” Sedgewick broke in. He looked hopefully at Sebastian. “I’ve only done an external exam so far, as I know your people have some sort of problem with autopsies. But if I could remove the brain, you’d have a much clearer view through the cranial—”
“It is our custom that the body be left as untouched as possible after death,” Sebastian said evenly.
“Yes. Yes, well, of course,” Sedgewick said, his expression making clear that he didn’t think much more damage could be done to this body if he tried. “Well, if you could see inside the nasal cavity, you’d notice a series of indentations lining the septum. They’re powerful chemoreceptors for detecting pheromones. They connect directly to the hypothalamus, the brain’s control center for basic drives and emotions—sex, hunger, fear, anger. They allow a Were to track a mate, hunt for food and detect potential dangers—as they once did for our ancestors before we evolved beyond that sort of thing.” He rocked back on his heels, looking pleased with himself.
“But why does it—he—look like that?” Hargrove demanded.
Sedgewick frowned. His masterful display of medical knowledge had obviously not elicited the admiration he’d expected. “He looks like that because someone skinned him alive partway through the change,” he said impatiently. “That’s what killed him. Well, that and the massive blood loss, of course.”
I vaguely heard Jamie make a choked noise and run out of the room. I would have gladly joined him, except I couldn’t seem to move. If I hadn’t been staring at the evidence, I’d have said that what Sedgewick claimed was impossible. Weres changed in the blink of an eye—even faster, for the old ones. How could anyone—
A cell phone interrupted my thoughts, its jangling tune more than a little embarrassing
under the circumstances. “Sorry,” I muttered, reaching for my back pocket. Cyrus had changed my ringtone a few days ago, and his sense of humor was rivaled only by Jamie’s. I didn’t get calls working so far underground and had forgotten to change it back.
Only it wasn’t my phone that was ringing.
“We may never get another body like this,” Sedgewick was saying mournfully.
Sebastian looked at the doctor like he thought he might be a little mad. “I sincerely hope not!”
“But I’ve already learned so much, merely from a topical exam,” Sedgewick wheedled, attempting to summon up some rusty charm. “For example, I never knew that the change begins with the extremities. For some reason, I always assumed it started with the trunk of the body and radiated outward. With a chance to do a proper autopsy, I could learn so much—”
“The body will be returned to the family intact,” Sebastian told him flatly.
“But Mr. Arnou—”
“Colin, leave it!” Hargrove snapped. “You’re supposed to be looking for clues to the man’s identity, not satisfying morbid curiosity.” He glanced at me. “And answer that thing or shut it off!”
“It’s not mine,” I said, wondering who else around here had “Werewolves of London” for a ringtone.
“It was found under the body,” Sedgewick said grumpily, waving at another phone that lay on a specimen tray. I hadn’t noticed it before because it was chrome-bright, like the tray itself.
Like the phone Cyrus had given me on my birthday.
Like the one he always carried.
An electric charge ran up my spine and down into my hands, making them shake. I clutched my phone tightly to keep from dropping it. It was 11:30, I reminded myself sharply. Cyrus was probably on his way here for lunch, ready to bitch about the cafeteria’s idea of chicken salad…