Silver Bound (Sammy Davis Book 1)

by Holly Rutan

  "Queen Gamble," Charles said with a salute, fist over heart.

  "Werehunter," Gamble answered. "And this is your mate? You weren't mated when you passed by here last. My congratulations."

  I let my shift recede. "Agent Samantha Davis," I said. "Pleased to make your acquaintance."

  The queen grunted. "A pity the triplets chose to renege on their challenge. A good beating might knock some sense into their stupid, hard heads. Instead, I may have to send them Upside on the next rotation. Well, not your problem. I take it you came with news?"

  "Probably nothing you don't already know," Charles admitted. "But it has to be said, and we've brought some gifts to soften the blow."

  I took the backpack from him and slung it over my shoulders.

  "Very well," Gamble answered. "Come to my office and we'll get it over with. I have a city of unhappy rats to manage and very little time to spare."

  "Thank you, Majesty," I answered. "We'll be as quick as we can."

  The queen of wererats led us through the underground city, her steps unhurried despite her words. She made a grand gesture out at the scenery, gazing at her domain with hard, black eyes.

  "What do you think, wolf?" she asked, indicating me with a motion of her head.

  "There are so many of you," I answered, letting my admiration show in my voice.

  "Nearly a thousand at this location," the queen said. "Our isolationist policy has given us an increased birthrate over Upside weres. We don't need to shape-shift frequently; my people generally pick one form and stick with it. We don't lose nearly as many pregnancies that way. You'll note that, unlike Upside, we have no honorific for being a mother."

  "Are those girls, the triplets, really...?" I began.

  The queen grimaced. "Yes, they really are triplets, and spoiled rotten because of it. We have a high rate of multiple births, but triplets are unusual even for us."

  I nodded thoughtfully. Charles was silent at my side, absorbed in his own contemplations. As we approached the Home Pillar, the types of dwellings changed from old cardboard and patched canvas to well-kept and orderly tents. Some even had welcome mats at the front flap, and were children in a variety of shapes ran through the "streets" with gleeful impunity. Some of them remembered to bow to their queen as we passed. Most didn't.

  "I'm working on getting better nests for my people, but let's face it, supplies are expensive. There are benefits to living in isolation from humankind—no species discrimination, for instance. Along with the better birthrate, we also have a considerably reduced expectation of early death compared to the Upside weres. On the other hand, there are drawbacks. Many of us have no papers, because we have no desire for the interference the human government brings. I've pulled strings to send our best and brightest through the Upside school system; enough of us pay property tax that it doesn't feel like cheating. That's starting to pay off, but these things take time," Gamble said. "But enough of that. We're here."

  Queen Gamble's office was only distinguishable from the surrounding buildings by its size; instead of a one-room hovel, she sported a network of several different chambers, all of which had wererats working busily at a variety of tasks. Through one doorway, I spotted a pair of brown-furred weres in battle form poring over what looked like blueprints. In another, I saw a single human-formed female typing busily at an old-style typewriter. Each paused to nod or bow to their queen in respect before returning their attention to their tasks. A pair of large, black wererats in battle form started to follow us, but their queen waved them off.

  The queen led us into a single, tightly sealed chamber and shut the door. Then she turned, regarding us with narrow black eyes, and sat in the single swivel chair, leaving us to stand.

  "You might have wondered why I bothered to tell you so much. You black-coats dislike snaps gathering in such large groups. It is dangerous to humans, or so the political pundits claim. Well, sooner or later you're going to run into bureaucratic bullshit you can't handle. You're both weres, and powerful ones to boot. We'll be here. Waiting."

  Charles and I were silent. I could feel the uneasiness that my mate felt at her words, but I was thoughtful, and grateful to pursue that line of thought rather than focus on the close, windowless walls that surrounded me.

  I picked and chose my words, giving careful thought to my reply. "Your offer is good. But what do you get in return for your risk? The humans take a very, very dim view to paperless snaps. They're treated worse than illegal immigrants; at least those people have somewhere to be deported to."

  Queen Gamble sighed, a high-pitched wheeze escaping through her nose.

  "My hope is you will decide you have no reason to report our numbers. We'll be dispersed again soon enough, once the tumult Upside settles and we know what happened to our kin. I have shown you that it doesn't have to be how it is Upside. We can live together, work together, without harming anyone. There's no need to police our movements and force us to have special papers to work in high-security fields. There's no need to kill our future—our pinkies, your pups—by shifting when we don't need to just to please their fearful sensibilities.

  "My people are poor. No one listens to the homeless, the vermin. No one wants to hear a word of advice from a rat. Why do you think we left? Humans were mistaking us for pests and killing us! But you...the current shivers when you go by. You have a name an Elder would be proud to have earned. Songs that haven't even been written yet whisper behind your eyes, and you don't even know it. You'll do great things, you wolves, and I don't want my people to be left out when it happens."

  All I could do was stand and stare. The queen rat's black eyes were depthless and knowing, and she regarded me with a sense of profound gravity.

  Charles, beside me, laughed quietly. His tone wasn't mocking, though, and all I could feel from him was an odd sort of glee. I gave him a quizzical glance, and he waved my question away before pulling the stupidly hefty backpack off my shoulders, brushing my ear with his lips and whispering to me as he did.

  "My mate, mine," he said, and kissed me on the cheek before hefting the bag onto Queen Gamble's desk.

  Gamble smiled, a bare lifting at the corners of her mouth. "New couples are always so cute. Back to business, then?"

  Charles sobered and nodded. "We'll keep your words in mind, Your Majesty, and we weren't sent to keep an eye on your doings, so there is no reason to report them. As a matter of fact, we came with a very specific set of orders."

  "First," I said, picking up where he'd left off, "we regret to inform you that one of your people was murdered last night, and we do not have a suspect in custody. Tim, a middle-aged were who frequented the alleys near the Van Nuys courthouse, was found dead sometime after midnight. Charles and I have brought you what little of his effects were salvageable. There is no body to bury."

  "I had heard of his death, of course. So tell me, wolf, what happened?" Queen Gamble asked, resting her chin on folded hands.

  I swallowed hard, feeling the weight of responsibility. "I'd hired Tim to have a snoop. We've been on a bad hunt; some wild mages have been causing a considerable amount of trouble Upside. They've been linked to a number of deaths, and what little information we've been able to gather indicated that some of them are local. Tim has always been a reliable and careful agent, but this time his quarry caught up to him."

  Queen Gamble said nothing, just nodding. Charles cleared his throat and continued for me, letting me take a minute to swallow the lump in my throat.

  "Tim was checking out the same terrorists that are responsible for the attacks Upside this morning. We came not only to inform you of his death, but inquire about whether he might have left some kind of clue or word behind about what he'd found."

  "I see," Gamble said. "I can allow you to have a look at his nest, if you like. According to his family, he was home for a brief period of time in the afternoon yesterday and departed a little after moonrise. He may have left something behind, but probably not. Tim wasn't big on talking about
anything useful unless money was involved to loosen his lips."

  "That was what made him such a fine spy," I said, still filled with guilt.

  Queen Gamble exhaled in a humorless laugh. "Indeed. Now, the second order of business?"

  "Gifts," Charles said. "We've brought you a few items that you might find useful, in the hopes that you will remember our visit favorably and allow us to stop by again."

  "Ah," said Queen Gamble, leaning back in her chair. "Excellent. Show me what you've brought me, wolves."

  Charles opened the backpack and pulled out a quart-sized plastic baggie. Inside was a classic white queen from a chess set and a few coins, most of them foreign. All of the coins had holes through their centers, some clearly added after the item's manufacture, and the queen had a metal ring through her head. The baggie also included several folded hundred-dollar bills. "What remains of Tim's effects. The trinkets all housed enchantments, but when we found them, they were drained dry. One item, a 1917 copper penny, remains at the lab for further analysis."

  Gamble took the bag, putting it away gently in her desk, and then nodded. "Thank you. Your effort is noted."

  Charles pulled out several large bricks of batteries. "Some power for you. I tried to get a selection, but most of these are double and triple A, which leads me to the next gift."

  He pulled out a canvas bag filled with finger-sized flashlights. "These all run on a single AAA. They're small, but they were the most efficient ones I could find."

  "Very thoughtful of you," Gamble said.

  "Next I brought emergency blankets," Charles said, placing a bulky package on the crowded desk. "There's twenty of them in there. A drop in the bucket, I know. And last, because it would be wrong to visit without food, some energy bars. Plus the backpack itself, of course."

  A smile stretched its way across Queen Gamble's narrow face. "Clever werekin. How much did your superior squeal over the dent in his budget?"

  "Our boss is pretty understanding," Charles said. "He just wanted to know the reasoning behind my choices, and let it go at that."

  "Hm," Gamble said. "Very well. I am pleased to accept your gifts on behalf of the warren. Now, if you please, I have plenty of other tasks ahead of me this evening."

  The queen tugged on a cord dangling behind her desk. Somewhere, a bell chimed, and within moments, the office door opened and a young male rat in battle form stuck his whiskered nose inside, looking at his queen and tilting his head.

  "Jaime, take these two black-coats to Tim's nest. Let them poke around as much as they like. They may interview his family, but no others. When they have completed their investigation, escort them out of the warren. Treat them with courtesy; they are my honored guests."

  Jaime nodded his black head in acknowledgment and beckoned to us, tilting his chin as though to ask if we were ready.

  Queen Gamble cleared her throat. "Before you leave. We have thirty-two missing rats. Only twenty of them had papers, so that is the number your office will be informed of. Even with earthquakes, buildings collapsing, and magic portals stealing people away, the fucking Missing Persons office won't accept our report until a full twenty-four hours have passed. I've called all my people home. Any rat found Upside is one of mine."

  I bowed my head. Judging by her tone of voice, she knew as well as I did that we weren't likely to find many survivors, not with what my compatriots had been saying about the size of the pieces pulled out of the rubble, but we would do our best.

  The queen turned her attention toward her paperwork, and we took that as a dismissal. Jaime beckoned again, and we followed him out of the office.

  Tim's nest was a stinking, refuse-filled hovel built far to the fringes of the wererats' settlement. It absolutely reeked of pot, rendering my nose useless, so we had to go through his trash by hand. He was one of those fellows who kept every scrap of paper that came his way, coffee-stained and filthy or not. Charles went through Tim's notes and scraps while I sifted through the rest of his belongings, hoping something notable in the morass would catch my attention.

  While we looked, his family watched. He hadn't told his elderly mother or his sister where he'd gone, although they knew he haunted the sewers. The two stank of sorrow, and the older rat's mouth kept working, as though she were chewing on something. Her daughter would hug her close, and the motion would stop, but the sound of her teeth grinding together would start up again the moment her daughter let go. The grating noise made my skin itch.

  Charles emerged from his analysis with three pieces of paper.

  "These look like they might have been written in the last couple of days, but Tim wrote in code. Let's see what Investigations' cryptographers make of them," Charles said, leafing through the sheets.

  I nodded, scratching my ribs absently. "Sounds good. I haven't sniffed out much of anything else, and it's heading toward midnight, anyway. The raids should be well underway by now. Maybe they'll have turned up some useful information."

  "So are you done now?" Tim's sister asked.

  "Yes," I answered. "Thanks for your time. I promise you, we're doing the best we can to catch the bastards that did this."

  "Your best is all you can do," she replied. "Try not to get strung up with my brother, black-coat. When you find the monster that did it, you tear his throat out for me, you hear?"

  "Will do," I answered, and Jaime led us out and up to the entrance to the warren. Outside was moonlight and fresh air, and my mate and I made no excuse to linger.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Charles flipped open his phone to report in the moment we made it out of the sewers. I waited, letting my pulse slow and glorying in the feel of the cool night breeze on my skin, while he spoke intently with the night dispatcher. Finally he hung up and tucked his phone back in his pocket.

  "They're wrapping up the raid in Eagle Rock. Joe says they found some really weird shit at the one location that turned out to be a positive hit. It'll all get distilled into pictures and descriptions soon enough, but we've been given clearance to head over so you can have a sniff before the bodies are taken away," he reported.

  I perked up. "They have bodies? Real, genuine, honest to God bodies? Fresh bodies that haven't been burned up?"

  Charles grinned. "Thought you'd be interested in that."

  "I have this totally cool melody I want to try out. Think there's somewhere open where we can get some cheap towels?"

  "I'm sure we can come up with something," Charles said, his eyes sparkling with amusement at my open delight. "I'll call in a request for someone on the scene to pick some up for you. C'mon, love, we don't have any time to waste."

  It was strange to drive through the empty, dark city streets. Los Angeles was under a hard curfew, and only emergency vehicles, rescue crews, and news agencies traveled along the highways. All the tall office buildings Downtown had gone dark, bereft of any of the usual janitorial staff or particularly dedicated workers who might have stayed for a late night on any other day. Charles lit up the roof lights and hit the gas, and we made it from Downtown to Eagle Rock in less than ten minutes, unimpeded by any traffic.

  Even if we hadn't been given the address of the targeted warehouse, we'd have been able to find it easily. The entire area was lit up like a beacon, the imported floodlights clearly visible from the freeway. We had to slow down to a crawl as we got closer; the area was swarming with both the norm police and tactical agents, the two forces working together to make sure no one came or went without us knowing.

  Charles parked us as close as he could manage, and the two of us walked the remaining block and a half to the scene.

  "Hey, guys, glad you could make it so quickly," Max called, detaching himself from a crowd of agents and hurrying in our direction.

  "Max," Charles said, shaking his hand. "Did you get the towels?"

  "Not yet. Sparky should be getting back any minute with them, though. Lucky enough, she was doing laundry today and said she has a whole load of clean rags coming out of the dry
er. I know that's not quite what you were asking for, but nothing's open," Max answered, running a hand through his curly red hair.

  I smiled. "That should be fine, as long as they're clean. The little tune I'm working on should work well on any small scrap of cloth, at least in theory."

  "What are you going to do, anyway?" Max asked.

  "If I've composed the song right, bag and tag scents," I answered. An immediate surge of interest from Charles spurred me to explain further. "If it works the way I think it should, I'll disseminate the melody to the Department mages and LAPD, and it'll be as good as dirty clothes to the tracking dogs and weres that use that sort of evidence. It shouldn't get old or go bad, and the scents can be duplicated."

  "Clever," Charles said, a smile lighting his face and making his green eyes sparkle. He reached over and ruffled my hair, and I leaned against the caress, eyes half-closed.

  Max cleared his throat. The corners of his mouth turned down, and I straightened my hair, the warmth of a blush coloring my cheeks. Charles shoved his hands in his pockets.. Romances between agents weren't uncommon by any means; take two people with reasonably compatible sexualities and throw them into high-pressure situations, and things happen. Public displays of affection, however, were frowned upon. Max always had been a stickler for protocol.

  "So," Max said after an awkward pause, "let me take you over to the site. We found some really weird shit; there's already some folks from Investigations on the scene, but an extra pair of eyes couldn't hurt."

  "Weird shit?" I asked, padding at his heels as the other agent walked toward the brightly lit warehouse.

  Max was silent for several long moments. I caught the faintest tang of fear-scent in his sweat when he finally answered, his words slow and disturbed.

  "I don't want to prejudice you ahead of time," Max said. "Maybe you'll see something Paul or Vanessa missed, if you don't know what they've observed yet."

  "Vanessa's here?" I said, surprised. Vanessa was the head of our medical facilities and in charge of the Department's few, precious medical mages, as well as the human physicians and nurses. "I didn't think she even left the lab anymore."