City of Dragons: Blood Bonds

by Adrienne Wilder

  “Yeah, and why not?” Anger licked her tone.

  You are not ready.

  Haley glared at him. She wanted to be angry. She wanted to yell. But his voice snuffed it out. She caught herself reaching to touch him and froze. He stared down at her, and all she could think was how nice it would be to drown in his eyes.

  You must trust me, Haley Night. I do not wish you harm.

  She did trust him. Damn it. And all she wanted to do was be suspicious.

  “Justice, are you Niles’ Brother?”

  A deep, dark calm filled her head. It was more real than anything her ears could hear. When he spoke, the presence of his voice was a physical relief.

  There was only one egg in his clutch.

  She frowned. That wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear. For a moment she wondered if she could make him tell her.

  He tilted his head, and even though nothing about his expression changed, Haley had the distinct feeling he was amused.

  “Please, if you know anything, tell me.”

  When I was young, the Humans I lived among thought knowing was the answer. So they brought me gifts, and I would answer their questions. In their greed for knowledge they sacrificed their food and land. When there was nothing left for me to eat, they presented their sons and daughters.

  In the end, they destroyed everything they were for what they thought they had to have. And even with all the answers to their questions, they were left barren.

  “So you think knowledge is bad or evil?”

  Of course not. However, knowing what you are not ready to understand can be a destructive force.

  “Can you at least tell me who Niles was protecting me from?”

  All the Queens fear what you represent. But it is Nidia who wishes to have your head.

  Nidia? The Queen of North Carolina? Unlike most states, North Carolina only had one Queen because she had eaten the others.

  Justice rumbled deep in his chest. She has allies among your Bureau. Men who want absolute power. She manipulates them.

  “Them?”

  He didn’t reply.

  Haley blew out her breath. This was almost as frustrating as trying to get an answer out of a Queen. At least Justice didn’t take pleasure in stirring fear. Could he do such a thing as a Male? He was Ancient, that much she knew, and it seemed like the Ancient Ones didn’t follow the rules.

  “Okay.” She flopped her arms in a sloppy shrug. “I guess that’s all the questions I have.” She waited for him to say something. He didn’t. “I’ll see myself out then.” Haley turned and headed back toward the elevator, her high heels cracking the silence. Just as she got to the edge she felt The Great White’s thoughts roll into her head.

  When you need me, I will help you.

  So far he’d been about as helpful as a paper cut. Haley stepped into the elevator and the doors slid shut.

  Chapter 27

  Farley glanced over his shoulder at the Suit One and Suit Two, feeling like a third wheel. But then this is the way it always was. Haley was Human enough for the world, he wasn’t.

  A growl ticked in his throat and he found himself wondering what Suit One and Suit Two would taste like.

  Let’s not go there, buddy. Okay?

  A buzz lit up in his pocket and he retrieved his cell phone. The number was from the Center.

  He put it to his ear. “Hello?”

  Ken sputtered in his ear. “Sorry about that, I’m having to eat and tech.” There was a slurping sound, then he said, “Don’t mean to eat in your ear, but upstairs is on my ass about a hack attempt on one of the outside systems.”

  “You get my hard drive worked out?”

  “Oh, better!” A crunch, then a muffled reply.

  “Ken, I can’t understand you when you’re talking around a mouth full of whatever.” Not to mention it made it hard to concentrate on the conversation. Farley shifted in his skaters.

  “Sorry ... I not only got the hard drive cracked, I found out something interesting about that email Haley received.” Movement rustled over the phone. “The hard drive first. There was information on it. Lots of stuff. Mostly JPEGs ... scanned articles out of newspapers and magazines. It looks to me like Haley has a stalker.”

  “Yeah, that much I already figured out. Niles’ apartment walls were pretty detailed.”

  Ken whistled.

  “Anything else?”

  “Yeah, well, see if you can top this. There’s a text file on here that reads like the Book of Revelation.”

  “Which means?”

  “Doomsday, my man, doomsday. It’s some scary stuff. Very Biblical sounding. Well, the part of it I can read anyways. Most of it’s in your language. I’ve tried to run it through a translator, but it didn’t work too well. I think I understood it better in Olde Tongue.” He laughed and chewed in Farley’s ear again. The sound made his hunger kick.

  “Does it actually say anything useful?” Farley wished for anything that would actually amount to something.

  “No, man. That’s about it. Oh, there’s a word that I did get a hit on from the translator. Augury. I had to look it up. Means Omen. Does that help any?”

  Farley’s insides went cold.

  Augury.

  God of Man, is that what the Queens thought Haley was?

  He glanced over his shoulder and up at the glass wall several stories up. Someone was watching. He could feel it like a hand on his back.

  “You there, man?” Ken’s voice was tinny and distant.

  Farley peeled his tongue off the roof of his mouth and swallowed. “I’m here.”

  “Do you want to hear about the email or no?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “That IP did come from the D.A.’s office, as you already know. But I decided to do a little more poking around with the headers and then with the email. See, I’ve been on the D.A.’s staff for a while now, about their really poor lack of upkeep on their servers. At least once a week I get embedded code on emails sent from them.”

  “You mean like a virus?”

  “No, not quite that malicious. More along the lines of malware or something stupid like that. Harmless really. Mostly just irritating. I run a tight server; I don’t appreciate picking up bed bugs.”

  “So is that good or bad?” Farley’s computer skills were barely above average. He didn’t even have an email account.

  “Both. You see, a lot of the office help over there thinks it’s cute to use stationary, those little HTML tidbits that turn the background of an email pink or some stupid shit. I’ve got our system set up to shred that kind of crap before it gets sent out to anyone in our office. When I went digging around on that resource code again, I was able to back-track the thing and restore it to what it originally looked like.”

  “It didn’t happen to have a name, address, and letter of confession, did it?”

  Ken gave a snort. “Not quite, but almost.”

  “You know who sent it.”

  “Yup. See, this is why I don’t want this crap on my machines. It’s harmless except for the little bits of data it copies and sends back out. Well, when I looked at the info it gleaned, I could see that the email was sent from the office of the D.A., but it was done remotely from inside the office. His secretary, June Dowery. She’s the one who sent it.”

  “But why?”

  There was a rustle, like Ken shrugged. “You got me.”

  “Can you do something for me?” Ken gave a muffled affirmative. “Would it be possible to hack into their phone system? Check any outgoing calls? I’ve got one specific number for you.”

  “Hold on, let me get a pen.” Farley gave him the number. “You think she may have called this person?”

  “Don’t know.” But I sure don’t trust the S.O.B. “Check it for me, please.”

  “Give me a few hours. I’ll see what I can find.”

  “Oh, and Ken?”

  “Yeah?” His drink rattled again.

  “Just so you know, eating in my e
ar is a real turn on.”

  “Maybe I’ll start charging you for our phone time then. Later, man.”

  Farley narrowed his eyes on the windows of the building, but could see nothing but the bright blue sky reflected back. Yeah, Justice was watching all right. There was a reason why that secretary sent the email. Maybe she didn’t even know she had. If Justice could read the darkest secrets of Human criminals for the courts, Farley couldn’t help wondering what else he could do.

  Chapter 28

  Haley came out of the building hearts racing. The panicked feeling wasn’t there until she hit the bottom floor, but now it consumed her.

  She came down the walkway and towards the gate with a wave of anxiety nipping at her heels. Farley stood and Haley threw her arms around him.

  “What’s wrong? What happened? Did Justice do something to you? What did he do? Haley?”

  She couldn’t speak. And even if her voice hadn’t gone on a sudden hiatus, she still didn’t know what to say.

  Farley growled. “Please talk to me.” He stroked her head, nuzzled her cheek, licked at the corners of her eyes. “Tell me what happened. You’re shaking.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Something happened! What did he say?”

  She made a sound, something crossed between a sob and a laugh. The wave of anxiety receded. “Nothing. He said a whole lot of nothing.” Her grip loosened.

  “Then why are you upset?”

  Haley shook her head. “I just...” Now she felt silly.

  “You’re not being silly. Something upset you.”

  “I’m just hungry. All the stress is getting to me.” She shook her head. “Niles spent years protecting me and Justice won’t tell me why.”

  Farley tugged her hand. “C’mon. I know a place about a block from here. We’ll eat and then worry about the whys.”

  Haley let him lead her down the sidewalk.

  Under a ruby red umbrella, Haley dove into her second hamburger while Farley finished his third. It was warm, so they decided to sit outside on the patio of the Street Corner Café.

  Not that they had a choice. The sign on the door said “No Kin inside.” But at least they didn’t have a problem serving them out of the small sliding window.

  With food in her stomach, Haley felt better and even more ridiculous about her panic attack. A lot had happened this week. She chalked it up to stress. Did other Females get like this? Probably just another annoying Human frailty to add to the list.

  Farley crammed his face into the edge of a hamburger the size of a small dinner platter. The menu had three sizes: small, large, and OMG That’s Huge. It was called the Hugo, for short.

  “I love these things. I can eat six on a good day.” Farley threw his head back and crammed in a handful of French fries. They poked out of his lips as chewed. Haley sighed. He really needed to work on his manners.

  As they ate, a few more people wandered up and took up at surrounding tables to enjoy the mild weather of a late Georgia September. Haley glanced over at some women watching them from the window. They had their heads together and were laughing. The expression on their faces said they found Farley and her extremely amusing.

  Haley looked away and pushed the rest of her hamburger back.

  “You full?” It came out more like “mu muul.” Farley finished off his second root beer and belched. One of the construction workers sitting nearby yelled out a congratulations.

  The little red basket with half Haley’s hamburger slid back into her line of sight.

  “Finish it,” Farley said.

  “I’m full.” Well, she was, sort of.

  Farley eyed her. “No, you’re not.”

  Haley pushed it back towards him. “Yes, I am.”

  “Eat.” Farley flicked a finger at her food. “I like watching you eat. No one’s going to deprive me of that. Sure as hell not them.” He threw a thumb over his shoulder at the girls in the window, then stuffed the last of the Hugo into his mouth.

  Haley glanced back through the glass and regretted it instantly. The young women had teamed up with a few boys wearing lettered jackets. There was a whole group to point and laugh now.

  Farley kept staring so she picked up a French fry and bit the end off.

  “So, Justice didn’t say anything about why Niles was calling him?”

  “Huh?” Haley peeled her eyes from the window. Oh yeah, that’s why they were here. To eat ... and ... talk. She ate another fry. “Um, no. He just said that he owed Niles a debt.”

  Farley arched an eyebrow and picked up his fourth burger.

  Haley picked up two French fries, then a third.

  “Did he say what kind of debt he owed?” Farley emptied half the ketchup bottle onto the wax paper in the bottom of his basket, stirred in his fries, then picked up the bottle of hot peppers and dumped it all on top. Haley watched and so did everyone else on the veranda. Farley used the mustard to make a series of tic-tac-toe lines, then poured in the A-1. He pointed to the tomato and lettuce Haley had removed from her burger. When she shook her head, he added that, too. At the top of his food pile, he poured salt until a snow cap formed.

  Even the woman at the service window brought her friend over to stare.

  “You are not going to eat that.” Haley flicked him a look.

  “Sure I am.” Farley jabbed his fingers in, spooned up a heap, and shoveled it into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed. “God of Man, if I only had some Twinkies. It would be perfect.” Farley took another bite.

  “Can you at least use a fork?” Haley grimaced.

  He shook his head and showed her his fingers. “Tastes better au’ du natural.”

  For whatever reason, a thought struck her. “Did Ken ever call you about that hard drive?”

  Farley nodded and some of the enthusiasm seemed to leak out of his appetite.

  “What did he say?”

  He shrugged. “Not much. Hey, you want ice cream? They have great sundaes with all the trimmings.”

  “Farley ... what did Ken say?”

  “He said he found out who sent the email. Yeah, there is this...” He flipped his hand like he was erasing a chalkboard. “Never mind. All you need to know is that he did his tech-geek stuff and figured out who sent it.”

  “Who?”

  “Some lady name June; she’s the D.A.’s secretary.”

  Haley’s mouth dropped. “What? Why? Why would she do that? She would know they canceled any further interviews with Niles.”

  Farley made an indecisive sound around a cheek-bursting wad of French fries and hot peppers. He chased it down with some root beer. “I don’t know, but I asked Ken to hack into their phone lines and see if Justice’s number came up there, too.” He went back to chewing and swallowing.

  “Why would you think Justice would call her?”

  He took a sip of root beer. “Um, ‘cause he called Niles ... and...” He looked back at his plate. It was just about empty. “I don’t like him.”

  “Justice?”

  “Yeah, I don’t like him. I don’t trust him.”

  “You’ve never met him.”

  He looked at her and shook his head. “No, but I didn’t have to. He wouldn’t let me go in with you, and you came out of there practically terrified ... for Christ’s sake, he dicks around with Human minds and sends them home with Swiss cheese for brains.”

  Haley cocked a smile at Farley and pointed a French fry at him. “Farley, I do believe you’re jealous.”

  Chapter 29

  “Am not,” Farley said for about the hundredth time. Haley was still ignoring him. The cabbie let them out in front of the Center, and thanked them for their business.

  Haley headed up the sidewalk and Farley walked backwards, trying to get her attention.

  “I’m not jealous.”

  She threw him a glare, yanked open the door and went inside.

  Farley bounced on his toes. “Am not!”

  Garrett’s voice cut across the room like a knife. �
��I need both of you downstairs!” Haley glanced at Farley, then her boss. When Garrett turned they followed.

  After Garrett shut the door to the conference room, his hard gray eyes gave them both the once over. “Did something happen that night with Medan?”

  Haley pressed her lips together, trying to think. A lot of things happened. “Like what, sir?”

  “As in, something. Anything. If so, I need to know now. Right now.” He stabbed a finger at the floor. “Because when we walk through that door, I cannot help you any longer.”

  Haley shuffled her feet, dropped her head. A real Female would never be so submissive.

  “Sometime today.”

  “I marked Farley.”

  Garrett’s eyes flinched then slid to Farley. “Marked. As in, what, exactly?”

  “As in marked. I made him Mine. Farley Belongs to me now.”

  “What else?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Nothing else happened.” She met his steely gaze.

  “You didn’t make any contracts with Medan?” He said “contracts” like it was a dirty word.

  “Contracts?” She tried to think. “She wanted me to become her Enforcer.” Maybe that was it.

  “And?”

  “I told her I needed a few days, but I have no intentions of doing it.”

  He glared. “Anything else? And I mean anything.”

  Haley swallowed. “Garrett? Who’s in that conference room?”

  “Eight board members, five Alchemists, and Colonel Dobson.”

  A growl leaked out of Farley’s throat.

  Garrett shot him a look. “If you don’t can that shit, I will personally see your ass hauled into the Tank until you cool off. I’ve sent for a Center Rep. Until she gets here, you will say nothing. Nothing. Am I clear?” His jaw twitched and the gray mustache trembled.

  Haley nodded. Garrett looked at Farley, who dropped his eyes.

  “There’s one more thing.” By the tone of Farley’s voice she knew exactly what he was going to say. Haley tried desperately to tell him no with her eyes, but he wouldn’t look at her. “I ate a MKFK member.”