But there were enough worried comments, enough possible sightings combined with my own encounter to be very sure that the Queen was entirely correct. A cabal had moved into Calgary. Seeing as how the Wizard had known I was there, and I was a nobody, that must have taken a lot of skill.
There was a threat. I could already see that MacDonald was the key to the stability of this city and his death would cause chaos in the inhuman world. By the time the dust settled, a cabal could be fully settled in, entrenched enough to force its inclusion in the local Covenants. It had happened before.
Feeling a little guilty for planning on using her as an information source as much as anything, I pulled up Mary Tenerim’s phone number in my phone and told the phone to call her. It rang three times, and then her voice came on the line.
“Mary speaking,” she answered briskly.
“Hi, Mary, it’s Jason Kilkenny calling,” I said. “You told me to call you.”
“So I did,” she replied, her voice brightening. “Thank you again for the rescue.”
“It was nothing,” I told her uncomfortably. “I was there; I couldn’t walk by.”
“I don’t know if it was nothing,” she said with a laugh. “You probably saved my life. I’d like to make it up to you if I can.”
“What did you have in mind?” I asked carefully.
“How about I buy you a drink and we talk about that?” she offered. “I know an adorable Irish pub downtown that has nothing to do with anybody.”
She didn’t leave much doubt as to what she meant by anybody. A pub with no connection to any inhuman sounded like a perfectly safe place to meet a pretty girl for a drink.
“That sounds great; when?”
“I can be there in about half an hour,” she said eagerly.
I looked at my computer. I might find more online, but I could find that as easily tomorrow. Besides, well, it had been a long time since my last date of any kind.
“Works for me,” I agreed. “So, how do I get to this place?”
I told her roughly where I was and she gave me quick transit directions.
“I’ll see you in half an hour,” I promised. Hanging up, I then promptly started panicking over what to wear. I still didn’t have a lot of clothes, but with a bit of effort I found a sweater that I’d actually cleaned and a clean-looking pair of jeans.
Throwing my heavy winter coat over that, I ventured out into the bitterly frigid night to catch a bus.
7
The pub turned out to be completely subterranean, in the basement under a photo shop with only a doorway and a sign on the main street level. With no windows, it was lit only by a series of hanging globe lights that cast a stark pattern of light and shadow over wood paneling and furniture that was probably older than I was.
Some of the tables had been cleared away to make a stage, and a very Irish-looking lass was crooning into a microphone in Gaelic while playing a guitar softly. It was softer background music than I was expecting of a pub on a Thursday night, and most of the bar patrons had clustered around her stage, enjoying the music.
Mary had grabbed a table in a back corner. She was sitting on the edge of it, watching for me, as the back end of the table was almost invisible in shadow from the stairs. She saw me and waved me over.
“Hi, Jason,” she said cheerily. “Grab a seat, take a look at the menu and let me know what you want to grab to drink. I already ordered us some nachos.”
Her cheerfulness was infectious, and I found myself returning her brilliant smile as I slid in across from her. I glanced at the beer menu for, oh, five seconds, and then ordered the same locally brewed traditional ale I’d ordered at every bar in Calgary since Tarva had served it to me my first night.
“Sorry for needing directions,” I said, flailing about for something to say. “I’m pretty new to the city.”
“Calgary can be confusing if you don’t know the setup,” she nodded. “When did you get here?”
I actually had to think about it for a moment. “Three weeks, give or take a few days,” I told her. “Came in on the Greyhound.”
“That’s awesome,” she said, and I returned her smile. “Where did you come from?”
“A lot of places, really,” I said slowly, glancing around to make sure none of the other patrons were close enough to overhear. “Georgia, originally, but I wasn’t raised as fae. It was a shock to discover I was a changeling, and I did a lot of bouncing around before deciding to come up here.”
“Damn.” She was quiet for a moment, sipping her beer. “I always knew that I was a shifter—I was raised in Clan Tenerim.”
I found myself somewhat envious of Mary in that moment—being raised not merely knowing you were supernatural but among others who knew and understood just what that meant sounded like a dream to me.
“Clementine’s and my mother married into the clan, though,” Mary continued. “We’re Métis and Tenerim on Dad’s side, but an Irish shifter clan on Mom’s. No one was quite sure what kind of shifter Clementine and I would turn into.” She sighed. “Dad was a lynx shifter, which Clementine and I got. Sadly, I think a lot of people were hoping we’d inherit Mom’s shift—she was an Irish dire wolf, and nobody got on her bad side!”
I had seen pictures once of the old, semi-magical dire wolves. They only lived on in the shifters who could take their form these days—but only bear shapeshifters could challenge them for size or sheer physical strength.
“I can see why she’d be...well respected,” I agreed. “Is she still with you?”
“No.” Mary was back to being quiet, and I mentally kicked myself. “She died in the fight with the last cabal that came to Calgary. We bore the brunt of that fight until MacDonald intervened—it’s why no one likes to think of a new feeder invasion.”
Another couple was shown to the table next to us, and we swiftly moved on to other topics. “So, you’re Calgary-born, then?” I asked.
“Yeah, that side of the family was here long before there was a city. I was raised and went to school here.”
“University?” I asked.
“I have a two-year accounting diploma,” she answered with a laugh, cheering up slightly from my ham-handed reminder of her mother. “I keep the books for Tarvers. My brother, of course, is a doctor, which gets him a lot of respect from the...family. What about you?”
By family, of course, she meant the Clan. It made sense. Someone with the physical prowess and dexterity of an inhuman and full medical training would be an amazing doctor and highly valued, even by a group whose members regenerated almost any wound.
“I got about three quarters of a mechanical engineering degree, back before things changed.” I couldn’t say more than that with the couple sitting next to us. I didn’t need to, either; she nodded understanding.
We kept the conversation to small things like that as we finished our beers and nachos. Eventually, convinced that the continually drunker and louder couple next to us weren’t planning on leaving, Mary paid the bill and we wandered out into the night.
It had got colder. I kept thinking the city couldn’t get any colder, and then it would prove me wrong.
“We’re on the same bus,” Mary told me as we left the pub. “We can grab it just over here.”
I followed my redheaded native guide through the frozen downtown, watching for patches of ice.
“Did Tarvers learn any more about the cabal?” I asked her, finally getting to my second, not nearly as fun, reason for meeting up with her.
“Nothing I’m aware of,” she admitted, shivering a bit as she checked the time for the next bus on her phone. “Damn, the next bus isn’t for twenty minutes.”
“I’ve heard some hints they may be in something...bigger,” I explained as I moved closer to her, trying to share some body heat. She unhesitatingly leaned against me. There were enough layers involved to make it horrendously unintimate, but the gesture still set my heart racing.
“Why so curious?” she asked.
“My Court asked me to investigate, since I’m so junior no one will notice me asking questions,” I answered semi-honestly, sliding an arm around her. She snuggled in as we leaned against the bus shelter and each other.
“I’m in much the same place,” Mary told me. “I’ll keep my ears open if it means I get a second date,” she added with a wink.
Even through the utterly frigid night air, I felt my cheeks flush. “I think that’s a deal,” I told her. “Though you would probably have gotten the date without it,” I admitted, with what I suspected was an even deeper blush.
“I’m feeling around as best as I can, and I’m new enough people will write awkward questions off to that,” I explained quietly. “That wasn’t why I called you, but it is high in my mind—I’m way too junior to want to fail the Court.”
“I’ll ask some folks quietly,” she said. “But I can’t be sure of much.”
“That’s more than I hoped for; thank you.”
She snuggled in against me and turned her face up toward mine. I started to involuntarily lean towards her...
And then the bus screeched to a halt next to us, plowing slushy wet snow all over our feet.
8
I had barely made it into the dispatch office the next morning when Trysta waved me over to her desk.
“Jake’s wife just called in,” she told me quickly, her voice strained. “He slipped on some ice and fell leaving the house this morning—the paramedics have rushed him to hospital. He’s definitely broken a leg and they think he may have smashed a hip.”
“Shit.” Jake was the oldest of the drivers, and he’d done his best to help mentor me even after he’d finished training me.
“Yeah, Bill is on his way to the hospital right now, and that takes our two bonded drivers off the roster for today,” she told me. “Bluntly, you’re the only driver I’ve got left without a possession charge on their record. That, of course, doesn’t matter for much of anything—except the airport delivery. Fill out this form,” Trysta ordered, passing me a sheet of paper.
“What’s this for?” I asked cautiously.
“Bonding, basically insurance that covers us if you break airport security or something dumb,” she explained. “They won’t let courier drivers in who aren’t bonded. I’m getting it rushed through.”
Nodding in acceptance, I quickly finished the form and handed it back to her.
“What do I do?”
“For now, I’ve got a light load for you to run out, and by the time you’re back, everything should be good to go for you to head up to the airport,” she said, handing me the standard signing form for a load of packages. I signed for it and went out back to grab a pallet jack.
The GPS led me efficiently around my route, and I had just delivered my last package when my smartphone went off, advising me I had a text.
It ordered me to meet the sender—an “Enforcer Michael”—at a given Starbucks location, and was closed with his name and a symbol I didn’t think most cellphones could produce—the stylized K of the Magus Kenneth MacDonald.
I checked in the GPS. The Starbucks was right on the way back to the office. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised. They’d made it very clear on my first night that anyone using that sigil was to be obeyed and had access to at least some of the abilities of the Wizard himself.
I sighed and went to the Starbucks. A fair-haired and tanned man in a black business suit, looking like he’d been cast in the same molding machine as every other Enforcer of MacDonald’s I’d met, stood by the front door. He spotted me and offered his hand.
“What’s going on, Michael?” I asked the man, taking his hand. It was better to be polite with these guys. While what I’d been told led me to expect that I could probably take the tattooed human apart with ease, he was backed by a Wizard.
“Let me buy you a coffee,” he said instead of answering the question. “I know you can’t spare much time, but it’s the least I can do.”
“Fine,” I responded. “Venti white chocolate mocha, whipped cream.” That monstrosity of sugar and caffeine wasn’t even something I drank, but I’d heard Trysta order it for herself, and it sounded like she was going to need it today.
While we were waiting for our coffees, the Enforcer turned to look at me and carefully flashed a ring he wore on his left index finger—the same stylized K as in the text message.
“The Wizard has need of your services,” he told me.
“I presumed as much,” I said dryly. “What do you want?”
“Your employer has rushed a bonding for you and advised airport security you will be making a courier delivery to the airport today.” Michael picked up his plain black coffee and sipped carefully.
“I have two packages that will go in with your shipment,” he continued. “One you will deliver to a man in the loading dock; the other you will place with the rest of your packages for shipment out.” He raised a hand to block me arguing. “There will be no cost or risk to your employer; we just want to avoid this package showing up on any official manifests.”
“Why all the secrecy?” I asked, exaggerating my slow drawl to buy myself time to think.
“That’s not really your business, Mr. Kilkenny,” the Enforcer replied. “The Magus MacDonald requires this of you. Consider it partial payment for your identity papers and other assistance you have been provided.”
I picked up my mocha to cover my concern, and Michael quietly rapped that ring on the counter. I didn’t really have a lot of choice. The Wizard could end me with a thought, and refusing his people’s requests was likely a quick way to get him angry at me.
“All right, where are the packages?” I asked in agreement.
Michael gestured for me to follow him and led me to a silver sedan. He pulled two packages, looking identical to Direct Courier’s standard boxes, from the backseat and handed them to me.
“This box,” he said, hefting the larger of the two—the size offices bought printer paper in, “you will keep with your shipment and send out—it is already labeled for shipment. This one,”—he showed me the smaller box, about the size of a shoebox—“you will leave with the head loader, Bryan Filks.”
“Your service is appreciated,” he told me, and I answered with a grunt before taking the boxes and leaving him standing there in the freezing winter air. Served him right.
I tucked the boxes under my seat and headed back to the office, where I promptly handed the Starbucks confection to Trysta.
“I figured you could use the extra time to sort out the bonding or whatever it was,” I told her with a wink as she gratefully accepted the gift. “How’s Jake?”
“Bad,” she admitted. “From what Bill said, he’s fractured his shin and his thigh bones, and has broken his hip in at least four places. His kneecap is intact, thank Goddess, but he’s going into surgery for them to try and fix his hip in about two hours.”
“Have Bill pass on my best wishes,” I asked her, and she nodded agreement.
“The bonding is done,” she said, trying to be all business, though the fact that her eyes were trying to match her red hair caused her to fail at least a little. “You’re cleared for the airport shipment. The GPS has the security gate you’ll need to go through loaded into it and the offloading dock you’ll head to from there.”
“Thanks, Trysta,” I said. I reached over to squeeze her hand. “I’m sure Jake will be okay, so let’s get this handled so he doesn’t yell at us all when he gets back.”
That got a weak smile from her. I don’t think anyone in the company had ever heard Jake so much as raise his voice.
I left the shoebox under my seat and loaded the bigger one into the truck before pulling up the two pallets of boxes and loading them in on top of it. I carefully shifted the box so it was about a third of the way back in the truck, and then filled everything else in over it.
The entire drive up to the airport, I worried that something about the two boxes would attract some sort of additional attention, or get me arreste
d, or something similarly horrific. By the time I pulled up to the security checkpoint, I had mostly managed to put my fears aside—it wasn’t like the Wizard’s people had any reason to try and screw me over.
I was still aware that being a changeling and sharing much of the fae’s lack of ability to sweat was the only thing keeping me from nervously sweaty palms, and I couldn’t help glancing at the guards’ holstered weapons as two of them walked out to check out the van.
“You’re the temp driver for Direct?” the first guard greeted me.
“Yeah,” I told me. “Not sure how temp, either—Jake managed to bust himself up pretty good.” I gave the guard the quick summary of Jake’s injury.
“Poor guy, always seemed nice enough,” the guard said with a groan of sympathetic pain. “Can you open up the back of the truck and step out, please?”
“Is this normal?” I asked carefully as I stepped down to the ground.
“Yup,” the guard said cheerfully. “We run you and the packages through chem sniffers, looking for bombs. Always got to worry someone will blow up a cargo plane, after all,” he added with a wink as he ran a metal detector over me, picking out the metal buttons on my jacket, which he quickly checked, and my belt buckle.
The two guards checked me and the van out quickly and efficiently, probably motivated by the freezing cold outside.
“All right,” the guard doing all the talking told me as his companion retreated to the warmth of their security booth. “You know which dock?”
“The GPS does,” I said, pointing at the gadget on the dashboard.
“Cool.” He waved me forward as the other guard hit a button to open the gate. The GPS promptly resumed spitting out directions, and I followed them into the commercial zone of the airport.
A few minutes later, I pulled up to an offloading dock. A smoking man in coveralls guided me, and when I stepped out, his nametag revealed him to be Bryan Filks.
Changeling's Fealty (Changeling Blood Book 1) Page 5