by Mindy Klasky
“The Lake of Tides already knew a way into this cave. I asked it to break through faster.”
David remembered the stench of mildew at the garage’s entrance. During decades of being ignored, the walls had begun to leak. Bourne had accelerated the decay to spectacular effect, urging the Tidal Basin through the weakening concrete.
The sprite shifted, arching through the water like a dolphin. David suddenly found himself face to face with a cluster of tentacles—feet, he realized, and toes. The sprite gripped a dozen spears, one in each winding appendage. “Salamanders, Montroseson? Where are the salamanders?”
David shook his head. “You’re too late. They escaped down the ramp.” He gestured across the parking structure.
Bourne’s face rippled, shading from eggplant to indigo to black. “Water flows downhill,” she said. She shifted half a dozen spears to the tubules that registered as fingers.
Before David could respond, a metallic crash made the floor vibrate. As injured wolves whined, Bourne flowed toward the front of the garage to investigate. Returning, she murmured, “The Bureau.”
“Go,” David said, gesturing toward the breached walls, toward the Tidal Basin and the Potomac and escape. “Before they catch you.”
“Salamanders,” Bourne replied, rippling in a motion that suggested shaking her head before she melted toward the ramp.
David grabbed one of her trailing spears. “No! The salamanders know this place. They must have built escape tunnels long ago.”
“Salamanders…” Bourne repeated, as if she hadn’t heard him.
The sound of boots echoed in the garage. A large company stampeded down the ramp. David nodded once more toward the garage’s outer wall. “Get back to the Lake of Tides before the Bureau locks you up forever.”
Bourne’s face rolled toward human, back to imperial, to human again. Finally, she nodded. One by one, her tentacles retracted, and she dropped her spears into the water that still flowed across the garage floor.
“Go,” David said one last time.
And Bourne was gone.
29
David pulled his attention from Bourne’s escape as an army marched into the chamber. Each imperial’s sleeve was emblazoned with the Eastern Empire flag ringed by a spray of golden stars.
A griffin hulked at the back. The mountain spirit flexed her massive fingers as if she’d just torn a steel door to shreds—which, from the sound of things, she had. A trio of ifrits danced in front, glowing with the fire they breathed like air. A centaur stepped forward, issuing a single sharp command for the majority of his company to pursue the salamanders into the darkness.
The Eastern Bureau of Investigation had arrived.
After that, everything was a blur. Medics circulated among the wolves, triaging the wounded and determining who was stable enough to shift back to human form. Connor had already made the transition, accepting a disposable jumpsuit from the authorities before he started a personal evaluation of each of his wolves. Seriously injured shifters—along with half a dozen slashed and bleeding salamanders—were ushered up the ramp on stretchers and hustled into ambulances marked with the flag-and-star logo.
Scouts returned from the lower level of the garage shaking their heads. David was disheartened but not surprised that the salamanders had conducted a subterranean retreat. They’d excavated through the walls of the garage, probably months or even years before tonight’s Congress. Apolline, Brule, and the rest were gone, along with the Collar.
Soon enough, the centaur in charge ordered David to be patted down. After that, he was handcuffed to two shifters, one on his right hand, and one on his left. Even if he were inclined to fight his way free, he couldn’t draw Rosefire without harming his own allies.
Ignoring the wolves’ complaints, the centaur extended the chain, cuffing two more men on the ends. The EBI wasn’t taking any chances that David might reach out of their custody.
All five men shuffled up the ramp together, along with the other captured combatants. A black bus sat at the exit to the garage. Its windows were reinforced with metal grilles—tarnished silver to deter vampires, shifters, and mere mortals from shattering the glass and escaping.
The prisoners were soon installed on cracked leatherette seats behind a gate of the same metal. David was stuck standing in the aisle between his shifter ballast. He tried to keep his weight on the balls of his feet as the bus lurched into gear, but he banged his hips against the seats more than once as they sped through the city streets.
The rest of the night was lost in a blur of legal procedure. No one read him his rights. Miranda protected mundane defendants, not imperials.
Once David was in the processing room, they caught his wrists in odd-shaped cuffs, designed to keep him from clutching a sword from the ether. They continued to keep him from reaching as well, chaining him to a block of marble that must have weighed ten tons. The shifters who’d secured him on the bus gave him dirty looks as they shuffled off to another desk.
He didn’t have any personal possessions to hand over; he’d purposely fought without his wallet, keys, or any identifying information. The intake clerk, a cat shifter, seemed surprised that he didn’t have a Hecate’s Torch. She actually checked her paperwork, purring, “Hecate’s Warder…” but he didn’t feel obliged to explain.
She recovered enough to record his personal information—name, address, date of birth. Fingerprinting was complicated by his cuffs and chains, but the clerk finally got ten clear prints. Rolling her camera into position, the cat told him to look straight ahead, to turn left, to turn right.
The Empire’s night court was specifically designed to arraign supernatural prisoners before any mundanes wandered through asking uncomfortable questions. Therefore, David wasn’t surprised to find himself in the courtroom a couple of hours before dawn, cuffed to a waist-high iron block, ten feet in front of the Honorable Judge Robert DuBois, a vampire with iron eyes and thin, angry lips.
The judge ordered a nervous dryad to read the charges against him. The young prosecutor licked her lips and ran twig-like fingers through the tangles of her hair. She had to clear her throat twice before she could make herself heard from counsel’s table. Judge DuBois looked distinctly unamused.
Finally, the dryad wheezed through the charges. First degree working of magic in a public place. First degree criminal trespass with disregard for imperial life. Aggravated exposure of imperial life. Felony endangerment of imperial forces during the commission of a crime. Revelation of imperial resources within a specially designated tourist district. Revelation of imperial resources upon United States federal land.
“How do you plead to these charges, Warder David Montrose?”
He was guilty as sin but he looked the vampire directly in the eye and said, “Not guilty, Your Honor.”
He ignored the details after that. The judge set bail. His case was assigned a number. He was advised to hire a lawyer. A huge griffin of a bailiff ushered him down the marble stairs, chaining him to an iron rail at the back of a holding cell. As she leaned close to test the bonds, the griffin’s turquoise eyeshadow flashed against her matching earrings and necklace. “You’ll get your phone call in an hour or two. The desk sergeant is working through the crowd.”
He nodded and waited for her to close the barred door to his cell. Now, in the aftermath of adrenaline, his body was reacting to the battle. His left shoulder ached deep in the joint; he must have jammed it against a concrete column or the floor of the garage. His right knee screamed its own protest. His black shirt was stiff, the fabric singed by flames. An ugly bruise rose on his forearm. He took a deep breath, which triggered a fit of coughing, his lungs protesting the smoke and water and exertion they’d endured in the underground chamber.
He could hear salamanders down the hallway, hissing and thrashing against the bars of their cages. A wolf howled in response, a lonesome keening that emptied the marrow from David’s bones.
One phone call. Someone to come to the cour
thouse with enough cash to get him out of there.
Ordinarily, he’d place that call to Connor, but the wolf alpha was mired in his own legal hell. Any self-respecting warder would call his witch, but David didn’t have one. Haylee would laugh herself hoarse if he begged her for help. Jane wouldn’t have a clue what to do.
He couldn’t call Kyle Hopp or Aidan O’Rourke—he didn’t have a number for either man. Bourne Morrissey couldn’t possibly own a phone, and even if she did, he was pretty sure he’d never see the sprite again.
He’d kill himself before he called Norville Pitt, and there wasn’t a chance in hell that he’d ask his father to bail him out.
He couldn’t ask George. But he could ask Linda. The witch would berate him, he was certain of that. She’d tell him he was a warder, not a wolf, that Hecate would be his sole judge on Samhain.
She’d scold him. But she’d still come to the courthouse and bail him out.
He recited her number from memory when the desk sergeant finally arrived.
30
David was a waste of good air at the office on Monday. After Linda had bailed him out, she’d taken one sniff of his singed clothes and ordered him to reach for home. A quick shower and a gallon of coffee were forced to stand in for a full night’s sleep.
All day long, he kept his cell phone on his desk, waiting for Connor to get in touch. He was certain the alpha had been bailed out; the she-wolves had been mobilizing even before Linda got to the courthouse.
The imperial rumor mill was operating at full tilt. The prosecutor had asked for and received maximum bail on every combatant arraigned. Half a dozen shifters were in Empire Memorial, with injuries ranging from smoke inhalation to third-degree burns. The salamanders had already filed formal charges in the Empire’s civil courts, claiming trespass, invasion of privacy, and a dozen other trumped-up actions.
So David didn’t worry too much when he didn’t hear from Connor during the day. But the instant his shift ended, he reached to the shadowy garage behind the pack’s house. He walked around to the front door of the row house and raised his hand to knock, but the door opened before he could make contact.
Tala stood in the doorway, feet planted firmly in bright white Keds. He ignored the plaid mini skirt she wore over black leggings and the embroidered vest that covered her sleek black T-shirt. More accurately, he noticed them, but he kept his eyes locked firmly on her face.
“You’re not welcome here,” she said.
The words hit like a physical blow. He’d expected Connor to feel defensive about his choice to bring two dozen wolves to the center of the National Mall, but he hadn’t realized Tala would be on edge too. He forced his voice to a soothing register. “I need to talk to Connor.”
“He’s busy.”
He wasn’t looking for a hand-written apology. He just needed to make sure his friend was safe. “This is important, Tala.”
“Not as important as the pack.”
He was strong enough to shove past her, but he wouldn’t do that to a friend. He sighed and asked, “Will you give him a message for me?”
The she-wolf actually snarled. “I can’t be sure he’ll get it.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” David gave into his fatigue and let his temper flare.
“Leave my mate alone.” Connor dropped the words like depth charges as he bulldozed past Tala. He pulled the door closed behind him.
The shifter seemed to have lost ten pounds in the last two days. His face was gaunt. An angry red burn stood out on his cheekbone, sure to leave a scar even after it healed. His right wrist was wrapped in a supportive brace as he barred David from entering the house.
“Say whatever you have to say,” Connor growled. “And get the hell off my porch.”
“Wait a second,” David protested, holding up innocent hands. Whatever he’d expected coming to Seymour House, this wasn’t it—no apology, no regret, not even a hint of concern for David’s own well-being. “You don’t think I’m responsible for what happened down there.”
Connor’s eyes narrowed. “You’re the one who brought a flaming sword to the party.”
“We were attacked by salamanders!” David shouted, only to remember they were arguing on a city street. At least a quick glance confirmed that no mundanes happened to be on the sidewalk. He lowered his voice and repeated, “We were attacked by salamanders, Con. The congress knew we were coming. Brule must have been stringing us along.”
Connor shook his head. “Brule meant to give us the Collar. He was as surprised as the pack.”
“Were we in different garages?” David insisted. “Something was off, Con. The whole garage smelled wrong.”
“You’re saying you smelled something a wolf didn’t?”
“You smelled it too.” Urging his friend’s sanity to return, David explained: “The gasoline. That garage was abandoned too long ago for spilled fuel to remain. The salamanders planted it. They meant to burn us alive. We never had a chance.”
Connor glanced at the door behind him. His voice tightened, and his words came too fast. “My wolves would have had the Collar if they weren’t startled by your ward-fire.”
“You’ve got to be joking.”
The alpha’s voice was desperate now. “I don’t joke about the pack. You cost us the battle.”
As David spluttered for an answer, the door opened behind Connor. Expecting to see Tala, David pasted a smile on his lips. Maybe she could talk sense into her mate.
But Tala wasn’t standing in the doorway.
Instead, David found himself staring at another wolf. In human form, the man was enormous, a full head taller than David, his barrel chest barely encased in a flannel shirt. The tips of his mustache were waxed into miniature spears above his full beard. “It’s time, Connor.”
“Time?” David asked.
“Who’s this?” the giant countered.
“Someone who’s just leaving,” Connor said. He directed the words to the other wolf, but David saw the expression on his face. He was cornered. Desperate. Pleading.
“Con,” David said. “What color is the moon?”
“Let’s go,” the giant said, closing his fingers on the meat of Connor’s arm. “You’ll only make it worse, keeping the Chase waiting.”
Connor raised his eyebrows, a facial shrug that David was bound to accept. But as the shifter closed the door, he mouthed a single word: Blue.
The answer was the most troublesome possibility in their childhood game. The situation was unclear. Everything might be fine. But everything might be on the verge of disaster.
The Chase was the gathering of wolves that witnessed one brute challenging an alpha for supremacy. Connor’s hold over the Washington Pack was in jeopardy.
David had to help him. He had to explain. He had to make the pack understand that the salamanders had caused all this chaos, twisting vengeance for their stolen karstag without regard for any imperials caught in their burning net.
But Connor had closed the door, completely shutting him out. The Chase belonged to the wolves. There was nothing David could do to make things right, not now.
He slunk into the shadows and reached for home.
31
By Tuesday morning, word had spread throughout the Eastern Empire: Connor was ousted as alpha of the Washington Pack.
One report said he’d shifted on the front porch of the townhouse, then loped into Rock Creek Park. Another said he’d abandoned his car at the entrance to the Den, shifting before dawn and taking refuge in the woods. A third said he’d bought a plane ticket for Portland and was abandoning the Eastern Empire altogether.
The reports all agreed on one thing: Tala had caught an overnight flight to Norway. She’d turned her back on Connor and retreated to her parents’ home.
David clenched his fists with frustration. He’d do anything for Connor—that’s what friendship meant. But before he could do anything, he had to know what Connor actually wanted. And for now, his friend wasn’t speaki
ng to him.
The office was curiously quiet all day. Pitt sent a single email in the middle of the morning, asking for an annotated list of all office supplies kept in the third floor closet. David was happy to escape to the quiet room. He used the afternoon to think about his future.
Linda had warned him to prove himself to Hecate by Samhain. Well, he had three and a half weeks left to accomplish that.
He still believed Jane Madison could be his salvation. Standing in the supply closet, thinking about the pull of her powers on his, he recognized a spark of true warder/witch bond. He’d studied it in school, reading dry academic accounts of famous warding pairs through history. Graduating from the Academy, he’d recited a warder’s traits like some sort of twisted Boy Scout oath: he’d vowed to be trustworthy and loyal, honest and brave, reverent to Hecate and her witches in all things true.
He’d started his search for Jane’s lineage, but he’d been sidetracked by Aidan O’Rourke. O’Rourke and Kyle and Connor and a dozen other blind alleys.
The weathered old warder had said he’d never heard of Abigail Somerset. But that didn’t mean Hecate’s Court didn’t have records about the New England witch.
If David had mastered one thing at Pitt’s behest, it was tracking down court records. The instant he clocked out at the end of his work day, he commandeered a computer in a conveniently empty office near the supply closet. He started with the obvious databases. He checked to see if Abigail had ever registered a warder with the court. Of course, few witches bothered with paperwork in the seventeenth century. If Abigail had been partnered with a warder, there wasn’t any official record.
Next, he checked the listings of familiars. She’d come from Salem, a conservative community even before the infamous trials. She’d be inclined to go with a traditional familiar, a black cat if possible. Thinking of Jane’s Neko, David pulled up a database of familiars, using filters to select all cats, then all black cats. No familiar, living or dead, was bonded to an Abigail Somerset, Abigail Windmere, or Abigail Carroll.