Firebug

by Lish McBride

  Lock brought everyone up to speed as I collapsed into a chair, moodily staring at the flames. Every once in a while, I’d glance at Duncan, who was still staring at that damn piece of wood, his occasional nod the only sign that he was listening. For some reason his inattention made me furious. There I was, miserable, tired, and in deep shit, and he was fucking whittling. Like the situation had nothing to do with him, like it wasn’t at least partially his fault that I was in this mess. If I had just taken the damn contract on him and burned this stupid cabin to the ground, then I’d have been home in front of my fire probably eating a damn steak while Cade talked about … well, anything at all, really.

  “You look about ready to pop,” Duncan drawled, keeping his gaze on his project. At least he’d finally started carving it again.

  I glared at him.

  Sid bristled, but Duncan just laughed. “I bet you’re thinking how nice and simple things would have been if you’d just taken the contract on me, hmm?”

  I nodded glumly, and before my chin even finished bobbing, the mood in the room took another one of those mercurial shifts. All eyes were on me, hostile and wary, and the little kid by the fire had rolled to his feet and pulled a blade on me before I could blink. It was a decent-size hunting knife too, and placed rather skillfully at my throat. This seemed to be a favorite move amongst the were-hares. I wondered where the kid had been hiding the knife.

  Now that I looked, I realized that I’d made an error—the knife wielder was a girl of about eleven, maybe twelve at most. Her brown hair was shaved short in the back, the top and the front kept longer and brushed forward so that it swept down to her nose. Despite the smudges on her face and the punk-rock hair, there was an almost angelic quality to her, probably something to do with the big brown eyes and ghostly skin. She was one tubercular cough away from being a perfect Dickensian orphan.

  Of course, she’d have looked a lot more angelic without the knife. But then again, what did I know about angels?

  “Olive,” Duncan said drily, “while I commend your speed and dedication, that is hardly necessary.”

  I eyed the young girl. “You know I could barbecue you, right?”

  She stared right back at me. “But could you do it before I finished the job?” With a flick the knife was gone, back to her mystery hiding spot. “And are you really willing to find out?”

  “No,” I said. “But if I’d really wanted to kill Duncan, why wait this long? Why come to the house and get mixed up with you guys?”

  Olive continued to stare at me, calm and barely blinking. “Maybe you knew you couldn’t get close enough if you didn’t. Maybe you’re just careless or stupid. How should I know?”

  Lock leaned in, all charm and smiles. “We made it this far because Duncan is Ava’s friend. He let us get close. We’d be idiots to think otherwise. Just like we both know that we’ll be guarded tonight, friends or not friends, because Duncan isn’t stupid, either.”

  The little girl seemed impervious to Lock’s charm but assented to his logic soon enough. “Fine. Whatever.” She turned to Les. “Can I have a cookie?” Les gave an almost imperceptible nod, and the girl was off like a shot.

  “Only one!” Sid shouted after her. I’d only known Olive for about a minute, but even I knew she was going to take as many cookies as she thought she should have, and it was going to be more than one.

  I turned to Duncan. “May I ask you a question? And please don’t do that smart-ass thing where you tell me I’ve already asked one. I hate that.”

  “You may ask,” Duncan said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to answer it.”

  “Why does Venus want you so bad?” Venus liked to show that she was in charge, but she didn’t usually force a confrontation unless she could guarantee she was going to like the outcome. She had to have known that I was going to say no to Duncan’s contract. She couldn’t offer it to Owen, since he couldn’t get close enough, but she must have wanted it pretty bad if she forced the issue with me. Twice. In public. She was hungry for Duncan’s death in a way I’d never seen before.

  Duncan contemplated the fire as Ikka put another log on, stoking the flames with an old iron poker as she did so. “What do you know about the Coterie?” he asked, finally.

  “That it sucks,” I said promptly.

  He laughed. “Anything else?”

  “That it sucks a lot.”

  Les gave me a small smile. “I see you don’t put much store by the adage ‘Know thy enemy,’” He helped Olive up onto his knee as he spoke. She was holding only one cookie, but the crumbs on her face told me she’d had several before she came back into the living room. I noticed that her pants were cargo style, with lots of pockets, and I bet there were some cookies stashed in at least one of them, too.

  “Knowing more about it isn’t going to change anything. Snow is cold, water is wet, the Coterie sucks. Some truths are immutable.” They were responsible for my mom’s death and my current misery, and they probably stole candy from babies. What else did I need to know?

  Duncan leaned back in his chair, his whittling forgotten for the moment. “Okay, let me ask you another question. Do you know who was in charge before Venus?”

  I didn’t. To me, Venus was the Coterie; it started and ended with her. Venus was old—really old. I knew that, in theory, there had been someone before her, I just didn’t care. What came before wasn’t my problem. Venus was. I said as much.

  “That’s exactly what Venus wants you to believe,” Duncan answered, “that there is no Coterie without her. But organizations like the Coterie are nothing new. That doesn’t mean they’re everywhere, though. In most areas, the councils look out for the weaker ones.”

  “In my experience they’re not much better than the Coterie.”

  “They aren’t all like that,” Lock said. “What about the one in Portsmouth? Are the rumors true?”

  Although we’d heard they were on the Coterie payroll, that morsel of information had come from people associated with the Coterie. I leaned closer, excited. An official team of toughs at my back would be nice. The idea of a quick trip to Portsmouth solving my problems appealed to me, I’m not gonna lie.

  Duncan shook his head. “Oh, you can go there, ask for their help, but it won’t do you any good. The Portsmouth Council is weak—too much infighting and petty squabbles to be of any real use. Venus has at least half of them in her pocket. And we don’t know which half. The other half is probably in someone else’s pocket. You can only trust them as far as their own personal agendas go. Hopelessly corrupt.”

  “I guess if the Council was functioning properly, there’d be no Coterie, huh?” I tapped Lock’s knee with mine, trying to soften the blow.

  “If we were actually in Portsmouth, on their turf, then that’d be a different story,” Les said, the firelight casting ruddy shadows on his face.

  Well, so much for that. “Okay,” I said. “I’m on my own—got it. Now can we get back to the history lesson?” Olive glared at me until I added a “please.”

  “Venus’s predecessor died rather suddenly, as people in their position tend to do. Usually there’s a lieutenant ready to step up and take over. That time, the situation aligned itself so that there was no clear successor. Venus was pushing for the position, but she was unpopular with a few of the other higher-ups, and she was new—she’d only been with the Coterie for a year or two. A couple of those higher-ups sought me out and asked me to step in.”

  “No offense, but you don’t really seem to be a likely candidate,” Lock said, leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees.

  “It was different then. I’m not saying it was a benevolent organization, but it wasn’t as … lethal. With the right leadership, it could have become something close to a new Council. Venus took it in the other direction, I’m afraid.”

  He paused there, letting it sink in. The information still didn’t make any sense. “They asked you to take over the Coterie? Why you? And, more important, why didn’t you do i
t? You’d have been a damn sight less psychotic than Venus. You would have steered it right, I know you would’ve.” Duncan as the head of the Coterie would have been a dream. If Duncan had taken over the Coterie, I probably would have had a lot less work. In fact, I might not have any work. If he’d stepped in, we wouldn’t even be here. No one would have kidnapped Cade, no burnt store … and then I took it even farther back. “When was this?” I asked.

  Duncan shrugged. “Twenty years ago? Twenty-five? Not sure, but about then, I guess. Time is a funny thing.”

  “Yes, funny,” I said hollowly. Before my mom … My heart twisted and my stomach roiled. “Why didn’t you accept?”

  “Didn’t want it, I guess. I’m old, Ava. I was old then. Tired. I want to live in my cabin, fish when I feel like it, and enjoy the simple things. Coterie isn’t simple.”

  Fishing. My mom was dead because he wanted to go fishing. Yes, the voice of cold logic was telling me that there was no way he could have known. He didn’t send the goon squad after us. It was listing all kinds of reasons why it wasn’t Duncan’s fault, but that cold voice was being overpowered by another, stronger voice—one hell-bent on hurt and destruction. And that voice was whispering that Duncan wouldn’t have ordered my mother captured … even if he had, Duncan wouldn’t have sent such a piss-poor recovery team. He would have sent professionals who wouldn’t have botched the damn job. She wouldn’t be dead, that voice jeered, and you know it.

  I felt sick, raw, and I was trying to control it. Hissy fits, when thrown by a firebug, can be incredibly nasty. I gripped the armrests and tried not to scream. “Why you, Duncan? Why offer the job to you?”

  “Because,” Duncan said, his eyes back on the fire, “I was Coterie before I retired.”

  Stars and sparks—the only surprising thing was that Venus had waited this long to make a move on Duncan. They’d offered the job to him. Which meant that, until he was eliminated, she’d continue to see him as competition. As a threat.

  “What if they offered you the job now?” I asked.

  “I’m still tired, Ava. Still old.” He examined the half-finished carving in his lap. “I have no desire to rule.” With one thumb he brushed away a tiny curl of wood from his project. “Go to bed. There’s nothing more you can do tonight. The drove will keep an eye on your cabin and what’s left of Broken Spines. They’ll do what they can to run down some information. They’re good like that.”

  Though he didn’t so much as glance at us, I knew we’d been dismissed.

  We were ushered into a guest room—and, yes, guards were put on the doors. I would be bunking with the boys again. The room held a queen bed and a fold-out cot. The boys settled in, Ezra flopping onto the cot and stretching out, but I was too busy sitting on the bed and being entirely incoherent to really pay attention. Duncan had been Coterie. I just couldn’t believe it. He looked like Santa; he fished and whittled. People like that don’t work for crime families. They sit around and drink beer and talk about their arthritic knees and the weather.

  Lock didn’t respond right away when I presented this argument. I glared at him. “Why do I think I’m not going to like what’s about to come out of your mouth?”

  He pulled some of Cade’s pajama pants out of the bag I’d packed for him, along with a toothbrush. “Look, Ava, I know how you think. Coterie is evil. Evil should be punished. Hulk smash, remember?” I narrowed my eyes at him, which was usually enough to make Lock hold up his hands in surrender. This time, all I saw was his jaw tighten as he stuffed the rest of his gear back in his bag.

  “And you think what, they’re all rainbows and glitter? If you thought that, why did you help me?”

  “I helped you because I agree that Venus is one homemade shiv and a tinfoil hat away from being absolutely and psychotically bonkers.” He finally met my eyes, crossing his arms and trying to look defiant, which was kind of hard to do when holding pajamas and a toothbrush. “But I hesitate on absolutes, cupcake. The Coterie can be good for some, especially when there’s no Council to rely on.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Fine,” he said. “Don’t listen. Be a fucking child. But the way you think sometimes, Aves? It’s dangerous. Black and white. There’s a whole lot of gray in this world. You need to be open to it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You wouldn’t,” he said hotly. “We’re not all firebugs. Not every creature in the Coterie is rare or powerful. Some are weak. They need the protection. They need certain resources to survive that they couldn’t afford or wouldn’t have access to without the Coterie.”

  I opened my mouth to argue with him, but he waved at me to wait. “I’m not saying you’ve had it easy, but you at least have some leverage. You’re not disposable like some of the other supernaturals I know. Why am I here, Ava? Why am I Coterie?”

  I looked down at my socks. “You’re a tithe.”

  “Right, a tithe. And what is Ezra?”

  I couldn’t remember the last time Lock had yelled at me. “He’s a tithe too.”

  Lock splayed his hand on his chest. “I put in my time, an entire forest of dryads gets left alone. Ezra’s here so his little sisters can go to school. Be normal. Be protected. Without the Coterie, who’s going to protect us? The training we have, the skills we have now—that’s all Coterie.”

  “Except my lock picking and general sneaking skills,” Ezra said. “Those are all fox.”

  “I would protect you guys,” I said, softly, my arms crossed over my stomach.

  Lock rested his hands on my shoulders. “Would you? Or would you be too busy fighting off all the poachers and ne’er-do-wells who wanted you for their own? You’d want to protect us. We’d want to protect you, but it’s just not enough.”

  He hadn’t moved his hands. “I get it.”

  “I don’t think you do. I mean, you look normal, to boot. You can pass as human. Do you know how great that is?”

  I didn’t answer, but he wasn’t waiting for me to. “We have a troll at the Inferno who manages the dish-pit staff. He has to have all kinds of wards to pass as human, just so he can do things like own a home and go to the store, things you and I take for granted. He has three kids. Three kids delivered by Coterie doctors. You think he could have taken his wife to a human hospital? What if her wards fell off? What if something went wrong and they had to do some tests? You think anything in his life would be possible without the Coterie? It’s easy for you to pass judgment because you’re in a position that makes it possible.”

  “Couldn’t a Council do that? They might even do it without blackmail and treachery.”

  “You want to tell Luther to wait it out until that magical day happens? I’m not saying the Coterie is a pile of awesome, I’m just saying that they aren’t all evil.”

  Lock’s words hit me like a slap. I knew Luther. We chatted sometimes. I’d seen pictures of his kids. I hadn’t known he was a troll and warded to the hilt just so he could work. But I didn’t know how to process what Lock was saying with my vision of the Coterie. It was easier to just get angry and yell at him while I figured it out, so that’s what I did. “Are you saying I should go back to Purgatory and throw myself at Venus’s feet and beg forgiveness? Is that what you want? And really, is this the best time? They have Cade! Doesn’t that bother you at all?”

  “Of course it bothers me!” He ran a hand through his hair. “You think we’re not both worried? That he isn’t family to us, too? It’s just, there’s no good time to talk about this stuff, Aves.”

  “I don’t like it when Mom and Dad fight,” Ezra said watching us from the cot. “Never mind about the two Christmases.”

  “Ezra, be quiet. Lock, I feel bad for all these people, but I’m not the villain. It’s not my fault that I am what I am. It’s not like it didn’t land me in the same place as you, strength of powers or not.”

  Lock threw his arms up in the air in frustration, the legs from his pajama pants whirling about him. “Forget it—you’re impossible to ta
lk to when you’re like this.” Then he stomped out of the room. I grabbed the only thing handy—my pillow—and chucked it at the door. It was entirely unsatisfying.

  I whirled on Ezra, but he merely held up his toothbrush. “I was just going to brush my teeth. Hygiene is important.” He edged around me but stopped before he got to the door. “We’re as freaked out as you, you know?” He rested one hand on the doorknob. “I called home. With all this … I wanted to check on them. Did you know my mom is making Cade a sweater?”

  I frowned. “Your mom makes things?”

  “Making, stealing, whatever. The thing is, she’s getting him a sweater. She thought about someone she isn’t related to by blood. That’s huge.”

  “She’s met him only, what, three times?”

  “I talk about him. And you. And Lock. What I’m trying to say is, you’re not alone. He’s family to us, too.” He slipped out the door before I could respond.

  While they were out, I changed angrily into my pajamas. Which is totally possible—it involves a lot of air punching and feet stomping and, on occasion, fury-filled buttoning. The whole time, my brain was flitting from thought to emotion, which was hard because it was such a tangled mess. What the hell was I going to do? Laying siege to the Coterie walls would be next to useless. We were completely outnumbered. Plus, now I was imagining Luther’s body in the wreckage, and his wife and children sobbing over him while accusing me of murder. Not good.

  According to just about everyone, seeking out the Council in Portsmouth was equally useless. My angry buttoning slowed. Or was it? What if I could present the Council with something—in exchange for some backup, I’d wipe out the Coterie. Hand them this area on a silver platter, so to speak. If they were weak, this would only strengthen their position. Then again, if they were weak, how much would their backup be worth?

  I dug my own toothbrush out of my bag and sat on the bed, thinking. Normally I’d run something like this by Cade. Only, Cade wasn’t here. Going to Portsmouth to talk to the Council would eat up half a day. More if they made me wait around for a few days to talk to them. And all the waiting would mean extra time for the Coterie to do terrible things to Cade. I tried really hard to not imagine what those terrible things might be.