by Eileen Wilks
Diego stared at him. “It won’t. They—they didn’t kill us, so they want us for something. Ransom, I guess.”
Or death magic. Toby wasn’t going to explain about that, though. “Probably, but we can’t count on it. We both have to be able to take care of the babies, Diego. They need us. Sandy needs us, too. Now, stop acting like a silly human, getting mad because the one in charge tells you what to do. How does that make sense?”
Diego flushed heavily enough for it to show beneath his dark skin. He looked down.
Oh. He’d been doing that all along. Looking down, looking away. Giving a subordinate message and then arguing—and that’s why he made Toby so mad. Diego’s body language said one thing, but his actions said another. But at eight, Diego was a lot like a human boy, with just hints of a lupus. He gave confused signals because he was confused, not because he was trying to lie. His wolf must be sound asleep.
And Toby’s wasn’t. He hadn’t known the wolf felt like this, all hot and angry. He wanted—needed—to ask his dad about that, if this was how he was supposed to feel . . .
“What is it?” Diego asked. “What’s wrong?”
“My wolf,” Toby said gruffly. “He’s . . . been stirring, sort of.”
Now Diego’s eyes were wide, too. “You’re only ten.”
“I know,” Toby snapped. Ten was too young for First Change. “I didn’t say I was about to Change, just that my wolf is . . . It makes me edgy.” He meant that as an apology, but it didn’t come out that way, so he made himself smile. “C’mon, Diego. Sit down, and I’ll show you how to take care of Noah.”
“Me, too,” Sandy said. “I can help, too.”
“Sure you can.”
Toby told the two boys about supporting Noah’s head and how to burp him. Diego had never held a baby. He wasn’t around little kids much because his mom didn’t let him go to his clanhome very often and his cousins on his mom’s side were all older than him.
Just as Toby shifted Noah to Diego’s lap, Ryder stirred. Inspiration struck. “Diego,” Toby said very seriously, “I’m putting you in charge of Noah.”
Diego’s eyes were big. “You mean really in charge? The lupi kind, where you’re responsible for them?”
“That’s right. I’m still in charge of all of us, but Noah is yours to take care of.”
Diego nodded, looking very serious. Toby handed him the bottle. “I’m going to check on Ryder now. Remember that being in charge doesn’t mean you know everything. Ask questions if you need to.”
As Toby moved away, Sandy piped up, “Can I hold his bottle?”
“Maybe in a minute,” Diego said. “I need to learn how first.”
Ryder was up and moving—crawling off in the wrong direction, lickety-split. As Toby trotted quickly after her, he heard Diego add softly, “I’m sorry I said that about punching you. I wouldn’t really do that.”
Toby smiled and scooped Ryder up, swinging her in a big circle to make her laugh. He’d gotten it right this time. Diego was a dominant. He hadn’t realized that at first because of those mixed signals the boy kept sending. A dominant should’ve automatically tried to help Sandy when the little boy woke up crying, but Diego wasn’t used to being around little kids or babies. He hadn’t known what to do. That made him feel bad, which made him mad, which made him resent Toby for knowing what to do. But that was also the answer for how to handle him: give him someone to take care of. Because that’s what dominants do. They take care of others.
Ryder felt big and solid after holding Noah. She patted his cheeks with both hands and babbled away at him, her expression intent. She couldn’t talk yet, but she didn’t know that, so he listened and nodded and told her he didn’t know what she was saying, but it sounded important. That made her chortle and grab his hair.
Which then tried to stand straight up, especially on the nape of his neck.
He knew that feeling. So did the other kids—at least he thought Ryder did from the way she acted, and Diego and Sandy had said they felt it, too. He turned slowly.
One moment the demons were playing their rough game. The next, two humans stood in the middle of them. Arguing.
“. . . how you think it’s my fault, I do not know.”
“Don’t be so sensitive, darling. Just because I called you a lazy bitch—”
The woman froze. When she spoke again, it wasn’t her voice that came out. This voice was big, as if a mountain had decided to talk. A female mountain. “Tom.”
The demons had all stopped moving the instant the two humans appeared. At the sound of that voice, they all flattened themselves on the ground.
The man didn’t drop to the ground. When he replied, his own voice was polite. “Yes, Great One?”
“That word is not allowed.”
He inclined his head. “My apologies. I misunderstood the nature of the prohibition.”
“You understand now?”
“I believe so.”
“Excellent.” The woman patted his cheek as if he’d been a child and she his doting aunt. “She dislikes you very much already, you know. You needn’t try so hard. Now, everyone needs to eat, then get ready to move out. No more little excursions. Clearly my enemies are on the alert. You won’t be able to take any more children.”
“We agreed on seven.”
“If possible, Tom. It is not going to be possible . . . yet.”
The way she stood, Toby couldn’t see her face. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. Had it changed the way her voice had? His insides felt funny, like they’d turned to water.
After a pause the man—Tom—nodded. “You are correct.”
“How good of you to notice.” The girlish giggle sounded obscene in that mountain voice.
Ryder must have thought so, too. She whimpered and turned her face into Toby’s chest. Automatically he patted her back.
The woman turned toward them. She looked just like she had every other time he’d seen her. Ordinary. Pretty enough, he supposed, and maybe a little older than Lily, but he wasn’t good at guessing grown-ups’ ages. Her hair was red and short, and her face was pointed, like a Siamese cat. She wore ordinary clothes, too— jeans and a girly T-shirt, bright pink with lacy stuff.
She’d worn a thin blue sweater and a flowered skirt the last time he saw her, when she and the man brought Noah back with them. The time before that, when the two of them showed up with Diego, she’d been wearing a dress that didn’t look like anything he’d ever seen before—long and wispy and green, kind of see-through. When they delivered Sandy, she’d been in jeans and a yellow shirt. But she had worn the same thing twice in a row—when she and the man kidnapped Toby and again when they brought Ryder back, she’d been wearing black slacks and a tight, lacy black shirt.
The woman clapped her hands once. “You heard the boss,” she called. “Get busy now, everyone. Get everything packed up.” Her voice was hers again, not the mountain’s. Then she looked right at Toby and started for him.
He glanced quickly at the others. Diego cuddled Noah in one arm with his other arm around Sandy, who stood as frozen and terrified as a baby rabbit under the gaze of a predator. Toby swallowed and patted Ryder and watched the woman walk right up to him. The man, as usual, acted like Toby and the other kids didn’t exist. He was pointing at the ground, his lips moving. Some kind of spell?
The woman smiled at him. It wasn’t a nice smile, though it pretended to be. “Have you guessed my name yet, little boy?”
That was her game. When they first brought him here, he’d asked who they were. The man had ignored him, but the woman had told him to guess. Every time she and the man showed up with another stolen child, she asked for his guesses. “Mary Ann,” he said. “Like on that old show. Gilligan’s Island.”
When she laughed, it sounded nothing like the mountain’s horrible giggle. “It’s been a long time since anyone’s m
istaken me for the girl next door. She was sexy, though, wasn’t she? I always figured she was screwing the professor. The millionaire, too. A girl can’t afford to be too picky, and when they finally got off the island, he’d be the one she wanted to—shall we say—keep in touch with. But I never was sure if she and Ginger had a thing going on as well. What do you think?”
“I think you weren’t able to steal any lupi kids this time.”
“No, they’d moved the son of the Kyffin heir. On the bright side, it did piss Tom off, but it also meant I’d wasted my time.” She pursed her lips. “I think your father has been tattling. Oh, it’s possible one of the others spread the warning, but I prefer to blame your father.” She smiled again, a happy smile this time, and bent down and purred, “What do you think, little boy? Is it your father’s fault we can’t get any more children yet?”
Toby wanted to look away—or run away—or maybe pee his pants. He didn’t know why this woman scared him so bad, but she did. Even before he heard her talk in that mountain voice, she’d scared him. “What do you mean by yet?”
“We will get them. Some of them anyway. Those who survive the coming difficulties.” Her smile widened. “Don’t worry. You and your fellow prisoners should survive your parts in our little war. Your father, now . . . do you think he’ll come after you, Toby?”
Startled into honesty by the question and the use of his name, he blurted out, “Yes.”
“I do hope you’re right,” she said. And giggled. And even though it wasn’t the mountain’s voice this time, it was her giggle—sweet and high and quite mad.
SIXTEEN
“ALL right, but get back to me about it stat,” Special Agent Derwin Ackleford told the man who might have thought orders ought to move in the other direction, given that he was Derwin’s boss.
Crowley wasn’t a bad sort, though, Derwin thought as he reached across the car seat to grab the pack of cigarettes he’d tossed next to a bunch of carnations dyed an improbably bright pink. Mostly he was a pretty good boss. Mostly he left Derwin the fuck alone. So he let Crowley tell him again why he couldn’t have what he needed right away, then ended the conversation on a friendly note. “Yeah, yeah. In the meantime, try not to get yourself shot.”
He disconnected, pulled out a cigarette, and remembered he was trying to cut back. He scowled and slid it back in the pack. Dammit, he needed the deep background on Colonel Marcus Abrams. There was something off about the sonofabitch. He couldn’t put his finger on what, but his instincts had been screaming ever since he talked to the guy. And yes, dammit, he knew nothing was getting done like usual. Not with Headquarters blown up. Not with every-fucking-thing-else that was going on. Two hours ago, an agent at the Boston office had gone goddamn nuts and opened fire on everyone in the place. Killed seven, injured six more. One of the dead was the shooter, killed by return fire, so they wouldn’t be asking him what the fuck he’d thought he was doing.
And now another shooting, this one in Georgetown. Crowley had just told him about that one, which hadn’t even hit the national news yet. That was probably because the newshounds were so busy with all the other fucking disasters. Aside from Ackleford’s own case, the Headquarters bombing, and the Boston shooting, North Korea was having itself a meltdown, China was a fucking mess after that nuclear bomb, and for no fucking reason anyone could figure out, Paris had decided to hold a riot. A really big one.
On a slower news day, the shooting in Georgetown would have drawn a mention by now. Three FBI agents involved in the investigation of the bombing of Headquarters had grabbed a late lunch at a Georgetown restaurant. As they were leaving, a man on the sidewalk called out one of their names, got a response, and opened fire with a handgun.
Crowley hadn’t known what the weapon was—he was passing on shit he’d heard unofficially—but it must have been a semi-automatic of some kind, judging by the results: five injured, one dead. Three of the injured had been nearby civilians. Of the FBI agents, one was dead, the other two injured, including the man who’d stopped the shooter. Ruben Brooks had jumped the motherfucker after the man put a couple slugs in him.
Ruben Brooks was lupi. Lupi were hard to discourage. Brooks had kept the perp alive, too, proving he wasn’t an idiot. Maybe they’d learn something.
They sure as hell needed to. The world had been going to hell for as long as Derwin could remember, but all of a sudden it was like someone had stamped on the accelerator.
He stopped at the light, drummed his fingers on the wheel, and thought about the cigarette he wasn’t smoking. Then he thought about calling Karin. Why the hell hadn’t she answered the text he’d sent her three fucking hours ago? It would piss her off if she realized he was worried about her, but he didn’t mind pissing her off. And dammit, this was about work, not their personal lives—at least the text had been about work, even if the personal shit was creeping in. He hesitated to interrupt her, though. She was an agent, too—Unit 12, not regular like him—and part of the team working on the bombing.
But someone was going after FBI agents, dammit, and maybe with an emphasis on those connected to the bombing investigation. Someone was going after the whole damn Bureau. Someone with major mojo. He was fucking damn sure of that. Whoever had bombed Headquarters had used magic, and he sure as hell did not believe random people were randomly going crazy and shooting random fucking FBI personnel without some kind of fucking magical brain-scrambling.
Which was how he’d ended up talking to Isen Turner, damn the man.
Derwin didn’t know enough about magic. He needed help and had damn few options. He couldn’t reach Karin. Yu wasn’t available. Seabourne wouldn’t be, either, it being his daughter who’d been snatched along with Yu’s stepson. Derwin had some tact. He hadn’t even asked the man. But he’d thought Arjenie Fox might be able to spare him a little time. She was FBI, wasn’t she? Not an agent, but she worked for the damn Bureau.
Instead she’d told him apologetically that she really couldn’t leave Clanhome right now, but she was glad he called, and could he hold on a moment? Then she’d passed the phone to Isen Turner, the lupi boss. Who wanted to send fucking bodyguards to watch out over Derwin.
Derwin brooded over the insult as he checked the rearview mirror again. A while back he’d thought there was a Toyota trailing him, but he hadn’t seen a sign of it for the last twelve blocks. Pity. Someone trailing him would mean he was on the right trail himself, or close enough to get their attention. Whoever they might be.
He pulled into the parking lot of a small strip mall. Maybe this meet—if the guy showed up—would hand him a clue. He could sure as hell use one.
He’d gotten a tip. The Bureau got tips all the fucking time, of course, and most of them were useless. But this one had been worth following up. The text had come to Derwin’s cell phone, for one thing, and that number wasn’t widely known. Someone wanted to meet in person to tell Derwin about “funny stuff” happening at the Air Force base, but refused to say who he was. Refused to meet with anyone else, either. It had to be Ackleford. The clincher was that the texts had come from the phone of an airman at the base: Airman First Class Rodney Klepper.
At least, Derwin thought as he grabbed his cigarettes and the damn bouquet, some things still worked. They could still track a fucking phone number. He got out of the car and immediately lit the cigarette. Klepper might not have anything more substantial than a grudge—he clearly wasn’t the brightest bulb, or he’d realize Derwin could ID him from his phone number. But someone from that base had used an Air Force jet to fire goddamn missiles at California’s goddamn dragon. That might not rate as high as blowing up Headquarters, but on a less calamitous day, it would look pretty damn major. This Klepper just might know something worth listening to.
Or he might have something else entirely in mind for their meeting. Someone was killing FBI agents, after all. Derwin couldn’t see any reason this mysterious “they” would spend r
esources on him, but he had no fucking idea what their goal was, so who knew? If so . . . well, depending on how it went down, that might turn out to be even more informative.
The strip mall was typical for this neighborhood—neither upscale nor down. A taqueria held down one end, a convenience store the other. The middle was filled by a dry cleaner, a tax place, a donut shop, some store called Fantastic Worlds—comic books maybe?—and a liquor store, with the liquor store the largest. Everything except the tax shop was still open and it was getting on toward supper, so there were a fair number of cars in the lot and people coming and going.
The taco joint smelled good, Derwin thought, drawing smoke deep into his lungs. Maybe he’d have tacos afterward. He checked his watch. Nearly time. Better get in place. Klepper wanted him to stand in front of the convenience store holding a bunch of stupid flowers so the idiot would know who to approach.
Civilians. Ackleford snorted and took a last drag from his cigarette, seeing no irony in thinking of the airman that way. Civilians all watched too much TV and thought they knew all kinds of stupid shit. This particular idiot could have found out what Ackleford looked like by visiting the office’s website. Policy was for the Special Agent in Charge to have his damn photo on the damn home page. Not that the pic looked much like Ackleford—they’d insisted he smile, for one thing. But it would have given the idiot some idea who he was meeting.
Ackleford hadn’t pointed that out. Better if Klepper felt clever and in control. For now.
He stuck the flowers under his arm and walked over to the convenience store and went inside. Several people were in the store: a youngish woman, pretty and obviously pregnant, probably Mexican-American; a scruffy guy in his early twenties, also Mexican-American, with a thin little mustache; a business type in a wrinkled white shirt, bald, black, wearing sunglasses; another woman with a little kid, a girl about four. The clerk was in his twenties, pale, with a wild fluff of ginger-colored hair and rimless glasses. Ackleford bought a pack of cigarettes from him and went back outside.