“Yeah.” Andrea’s voice dripped with sarcasm.
Raphael gave her a hurt look. “I am what I am.”
“You’re a man first. You sit here in a human shape, wearing human clothes, making human noises. Pretty obvious which part of you is in control. But when someone points out your excesses, you wave your hands around and start crying, ‘Oh no, it’s the beast! I can’t help it!’ ” Andrea caught herself and clamped her mouth shut.
I did my best to change the subject. “I think you give our relationship too much credit. I irritate the hell out of Curran and he found a way to pester me. It’s nothing.”
“You may be right,” Raphael said.
“His Majesty needs a can-I girl anyway. And I’m not it.”
“A can-I girl?” Andrea frowned.
I leaned back. “ ‘ Can I fetch you your food, Your Majesty? Can I tell you how strong and mighty you are, Your Majesty? Can I pick out your fleas, Your Majesty? Can I kiss your ass, Your Majesty? Can I . . .”
It dawned on me that Raphael was sitting very still. Frozen, like a statue, his gaze fixed on the point above my head.
“He’s standing behind me, isn’t he?”
Andrea nodded slowly.
“Technically it should be ‘may I,’” Curran said, his voice deeper than I remembered. “Since you’re asking permission.”
He stepped into my view, reached for a chair at a table next to us, and found it bolted to the floor. He gripped the chair and plucked it from the concrete with one hand, leaving four screws sticking out of the floor. He put the chair next to me, back first, and saddled it like a horse, crossing his arms on the top of the back to show off carved biceps.
Why me?
“To answer your question, yes, you may kiss my ass. Normally I prefer to maintain my personal space, but you’re a Friend of the Pack and your services have proven useful once or twice. I strive to accommodate the wishes of persons friendly to my people. My only question is, would your kissing my ass be obeisance, grooming, or foreplay?”
Raphael went a shade paler and bowed his head. “By your leave, m’lord.”
Curran nodded.
Raphael grabbed Andrea by the hand.
Andrea blinked. “But . . .”
“We have to go now.” Raphael’s smile had a bit of an edge to it. He fled and dragged Andrea with him, leaving me and Curran alone. Traitors.
CHAPTER 5
“YOU DIDN’ T ANSWER MY QUESTION,” CURRAN said. “What will it be?”
“No,” I said.
Curran grinned and my heart made a little jump. I didn’t expect that.
“That’s it? That’s your witty comeback?”
“Yep.” Eloquence ’R’ Us. When in trouble, keep it monosyllabic—safer that way.
Curran rested his chin on his crossed arms. Really, he wasn’t anything special. Today he wore faded jeans and a grayish-blue polo shirt of all things. It’s hard to look lethal in a polo shirt, but he managed. Perhaps because it did nothing to hide the definition on his chest or the hard lines of his shoulders. In fact, if he flexed, he’d probably rip it. I knew that under that shirt his body was hard like a suit of armor.
Perhaps it wasn’t his body, but the air about him. When he wanted to, Curran literally emanated menace. I had seen him roar in fury and display an icy, determined anger, sharp like a dagger, and I wasn’t sure which was more terrifying. The gold fire in his eyes triggered some sort of primordial fear in me, a feeling born ages ago by the light of the young fire, before reason, before logic, when human existence was ruled by the fear of things with claws and teeth and of being eaten. That fear shackled me. I couldn’t rationalize it away. I had to fight it with pure will and so far I had held my own, but I had no guarantee I would resist it the next time he decided to treat me to his alpha stare.
Curran looked me over slowly. I did the same, matching him smirk for smirk. Blond hair cut too short to grab. Nose that looked like it had been broken and never healed right, an odd thing for any shapeshifter, and especially for one of Curran’s caliber. Gray eyes . . . I looked into those eyes and saw tiny gold sparks dancing in their depths. And my heart made another little jump.
I’m in so much trouble.
“I like the hair,” he said.
In the spirit of an off-duty Friday, I wore my hair down. I mostly braided it or curled it into a bun to keep it out of the way, but today it just sort of hung there, a long dark brown wall shifting in the breeze on both sides of my face.
I flexed my wrist, popping a long silver needle into my palm from the leather wrist guard, grabbed my hair, twisted it into a bun, stuck the needle into it to hold it in place, and showed him my teeth in a little smile. There.
He laughed. “Cute. You ever get tired of pretending to be a hard-ass?”
Cute. I think I would prefer to be stabbed in the eye rather than be called cute. “To what do I owe the pleasure of Your Majesty’s company?” And the ruination of my lunch.
“I just wanted some peaches.” He smiled.
Since when did a death in the Pack result in such good cheer?
“Is there any particular reason you were asking about the Midnight Games?” he asked.
“I have a passing interest in history.” I was on shaky ground. I had no clue if he knew about Derek or not. I needed to cut this conversation short. “Does the Pack require my services as an employee of the Order?”
“Not at the moment.” He leaned back, picked up the plate with Andrea’s peaches, and offered it to me. “Peach?”
My smile got sharper. During the flare, Curran offered me some soup and I ate it. Later the boudas’ alpha, Aunt B, explained the facts of life to me: shapeshifters offered food to their prospective mates. He was at once declaring himself my protector, implying that I was weaker than him, and propositioning me. And I took it. It had amused him to no end. Had I known what the soup meant, I would’ve eaten it anyway—I was half-dead at the time.
I crossed my arms on my chest. “No, thanks. I’m not accepting any more food from you.”
“Ah.” He took a slice, broke the fruit in half, and tossed it into his mouth. “Who clued you in? Raphael?”
“Does it matter?”
His eyes flashed with gold sparks. “No.”
Liar. The last thing I wanted was to cause Raphael difficulties because he’d ruined Curran’s private joke. “I read it in Greg’s notes.” I took a couple of bucks out of my pocket, folded them, and stuck the bills between the salt and pepper shakers.
“Leaving?” he asked.
Your powers of deduction are truly marvelous, Mr. Holmes. “Since you have no need of my professional persona, I’m going to return to my duties.”
“You’re off today.”
And how did he know that?
He ate another peach. “The Order has a sixteen-hour shift limit when the magic is down. One of our rats saw you late last night getting an old lady off of a telephone pole. Apparently it was a hilarious affair all around.”
“I live to amuse.” I rose.
Curran struck at my wrist. His fingers were cat-quick, but I had spent my life honing my reflexes, and he missed.
“Well, look at that.” I studied my free wrist. “Denied. Good-bye, Your Majesty. Please pass my condolences to the family.”
I headed to the door.
“Kate?” His sudden change of tone made me turn. All humor had drained from Curran’s face. “Whose family?”
CHAPTER 6
BEFORE THE SHIFT, THE STREET OF PONCE DE LEON had channeled the massive flow of traffic from Stone Mountain through Decatur and Druid Hills past City Hall East all the way to the skyscrapers of Midtown. The Bell-South Tower, Bank of America, and the Renaissance Hotel were little more than heaps of rubble now, but City Hall East still stood. It might have held on because it wasn’t all that tall—only nine stories high. Its age probably played a part. Steeped in history, the building had evolved through the years, from the 1926 Sears depot to a government hub t
o a community of condos, shops, and restaurants sheltering a couple of acres of green. But there was a third, much more compelling reason for its continued existence. About twenty years ago Atlanta’s University of Arcane Arts had purchased the massive two-million-square-foot monster. It now housed faculty, students, libraries, laboratories, research facilities . . . If anybody could keep a building standing, four hundred mages ought to be it.
The presence of mages—and mage students who, like all college students, were rather impulsive in their purchases— had revived Ponce de Leon. It was a bustling street now, full of shops, stalls, and eateries.
Dead Cat Street was a sorry narrow affair by comparison. It wound its way between the newly rebuilt two- and three-story apartment buildings to a small plaza containing a convenience store and a grocery. Curran and I stood on the edge of the narrow sidewalk, looking at Dead Cat Street, as the horse carts and passersby traversed Ponce de Leon to our right. The body had been found a couple dozen yards from the corner. The scene was clean. No smudges of blood on the pavement. No signs of struggle. No nothing. If I hadn’t come through here last night, I wouldn’t have known anything untoward had taken place.
Curran stood very still, breathing deeply. Minutes stretched into the past. Suddenly his upper lip rose, baring his teeth. A precursor of a growl shivered just beneath his teeth. His eyes flashed with gold.
“Curran?”
A lion glared at me though gray human eyes and vanished, replaced by Curran’s neutral face. “Nice, thorough job.”
I arched my eyebrows at him.
“They salted the scene with wolfsbane. The stems are dried out, ground into powder, and mixed with some base. Dry detergent works well. Borax. Baking soda. Not as effective as a wolfsbane paste, but enough of it will overwhelm the scent trail. Jim’s crew dumped about a gallon of it here.”
I filed that tidbit away for future reference. “So the sniff test is a bust?”
Curran smiled. “You can’t salt the air. Even here, with all the traffic and draft, the scents linger above the ground. Tell me what you saw and we’ll compare notes.”
I hesitated. Talking to Curran was like walking through a minefield. You never knew when something would set him off, and Jim, screwed-up asshole though he might be, was my former partner. “Why don’t you ask Jim instead? He would probably want a chance to tell you himself.”
Curran shook his head. His face was grim. “When one of ours dies, I get a call. No matter the hour. I was in the Keep last night and didn’t get one. I saw Jim this morning and he said nothing to me about this.”
“He must have a compelling reason for withholding the information.”
“Kate, did you extend an offer of cooperation to the Pack on behalf of the Order?”
Oh, bite me. “Yes, I did. It was declined.”
“As Beast Lord, I now accept your offer.”
Damn it. The Mutual Aid Agreement bound me to disclose all knowledge of the incident.
I stared at him helplessly. “How do you always do that? How do you always maneuver me into doing something I don’t want to do?”
Curran’s face lightened a little. “I’ve had a lot of practice. The Pack contains thirty-two species in seven tribes, each with their own hang-up. Jackals and coyotes pick fights with wolves, because they have an inferiority complex and think they’ve got something to prove. Wolves believe themselves to be superior, marry the wrong people, and then refuse to divorce them because they cling to their ‘mating for life’ idiocy. Hyenas listen to nobody, screw everything, and break out in berserk rages at some perceived slight against one of their own. Cats randomly refuse to follow orders to prove they can. That’s my life. I’ve been at this for fifteen years now. You’re easy by comparison.”
And here I thought I was a challenge. “Pardon me while my ego recovers.”
He grinned. “It’s a benefit of having principles. Boxed into a corner, you will always strive to do what you think is right, especially when you don’t like it. Like right now.”
“I suppose you have me all figured out.”
“I understand why you do things, Kate. It’s how you do them that occasionally pisses me off.”
Occasionally? “I want to assure you, Your Majesty, that I spend long nights lying awake in my bed worrying about your feelings.”
“As well you should.” A half-laugh, half-growl reverberated in his throat. “Provoking me won’t work. Tell me what you saw. Or should I make a formal request in writing?”
This was apparently a “let’s teach Kate humility” day. He had me by the throat.
I thought back to the scene, reconstructing it in my head. “I came in by mule from Ponce de Leon. There were seven shapeshifters. Two in wolf form, scanning the scene for scents. One was here.” I walked over to indicate the right spot. “Male. Looked like a typical European wolf, Canis lupus lupus, coarse dark gray fur streaked with sandy brown, especially on the nose. The second one was here.” I crossed the street to approximate location. “Might have been a female, but I’m not sure. Brown, almost cinnamon fur, black or very dark chocolate muzzle and dark ears. Light yellow eyes. Looked like Cascade Mountain wolf to me.”
“George and Brenna,” Curran supplied. He was watching me with intense interest. “Jim’s best trackers. Go on.”
I crossed the street to the other side of Dead Cat. “Two shapeshifters here, sliding a corpse into a bag. Both female. The one on the right was average size, lightly built, ash-blond hair cut in a bob. Never saw her face.” I took a wide step to my left. “Native American, slightly plump, dark skin, early forties, long hair in a braid. Pretty.”
Curran said nothing.
“Perimeter guard here.” I pointed to my left. “And here.” I turned to indicate the second spot. “And one right there.” I stabbed my finger where the guard had stopped me. “The two in the back looked similar, dark-haired, Latino with a touch of Indian, possibly Mexican, young, male, short, compact, very quick, trouble in a fight. The guy who stopped me was in his midthirties, maybe early forties. Military haircut, light brown hair, hazel eyes, muscle heavy, a dedicated bodybuilder. Not as quick as the other two but I got the impression he could carry me and my mule both. Spoke with a touch of an accent, Aussie or New Zealand. Favored his left arm a bit. Might have been hurt recently. You want me to describe the clothes?”
Curran shook his head. “How long were you here?”
“About a minute and a half, maybe two.” I crossed the street over to where I saw Brenna yelp. “Brenna found an arm right here. I think perhaps a female arm, because the sleeve was pale and shimmered a bit. Some kind of metallic fabric, an evening gown or blouse, not the type a man would typically wear unless he was very flamboyant.”
“Tell me about Jim.”
“He materialized out of thin air right here. Very dramatic.” I raised my head. “Ah. Probably jumped off this balcony.” I recounted the conversation. “That’s all I got. Didn’t see the body. Didn’t get any details.”
Curran’s face took on this odd look. It looked almost like admiration. “Not bad. Natural recall or something the Order taught you?”
I shrugged. “Not the Order. My father. And it’s not perfect. I typically forget the most important item on my shopping list. But I’m trained to evaluate the situation for possible dangers, and seven shapeshifters packing away a dead body in the middle of the night on a deserted road is a lot of danger. Your turn to share.”
“A deal is a deal.” Curran stepped into the road with me. “She wasn’t killed here. The scent of blood is faint and the ground isn’t stained, but still dirty so nobody rinsed the pavement off. The body had been cut into at least six pieces. This is a dump site, chosen because one of our offices is only eight blocks away. That’s the closest they could get to our territory without being stopped by a patrol. There were at least three of them, and they don’t smell human. I don’t know what they are, but I don’t like their scent.”
Better and better.
&nb
sp; “Can’t tell you much more than that, except that Jim had his best cleanup crew with him. I know every person you described. They’re very good at what they do.”
And none of them had said anything to him about it. The million-dollar question was why?
“Once accepted, the assistance of the Order can’t be declined,” I told him. “I’m now part of this investigation. That means I’ll have to come into your territory and ask uncomfortable questions.”
“I have some questions to ask as well.” Liquid gold drowned Curran’s eyes. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood on their ends. I really didn’t want to be Jim right now.
“I’ll contact you to schedule time for the interviews.” He turned and walked away, leaving me in the middle of the street. Beast Lord, a man beyond mundane niceties like good-bye and thank you.
As I walked back to civilization, I realized that for the first time in the six months I had known Curran, we had managed to have a conversation and part ways without wanting to kill each other. I found that fact deeply troubling.
CHAPTER 7
A SMALL BROWN-PAPER PARCEL WAITED FOR ME by the door of my apartment. I stopped and pondered why in the world it hadn’t been stolen. The apartment, which I had inherited from Greg, wasn’t in the worst part of town but not in the best one either. My guardian hadn’t been concerned with security; he’d bought the apartment because it was close to the Order.
I frowned at the parcel. It lay on the grimy landing before my new door—the old one had to be replaced when a demon burst through it. I’d built a bit of a reputation in the neighborhood as that crazy bitch with a sword who lives in 32B, an image I carefully cultivated, but even so, an unattended parcel should have been pilfered within seconds of hitting the ground.
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