“Stratego, Stone, Sling, Swordmaster, Shield, Shiv, and Spell. They must all be at the Games by tonight at nine p.m. We’ll be sequestered for the duration of the Games. Once you enter, there is no going back, Kate. You don’t get to change your mind and go home. You fight until you can’t continue.”
“Understood.”
“You need a name.”
I covered the receiver for a moment. “We need a team name.”
“Hunters,” Raphael said.
“Valiant Knights of the Fur,” Dali said.
“Justice Group,” Jim said. “Since Justice League is taken.”
“Fools.” Doolittle shook his head.
“Fools,” I said into the receiver.
“Fools?” Saiman asked.
“Yes.”
“It will be arranged, then. The crew?”
“We’ll have a doctor,” I said.
“No, you won’t!” Doolittle declared.
“Very good,” Saiman’s tone was brisk. “Remember, every member of the team must be there by nine. Don’t be late.”
I hung up.
Jim looked at the list. “The freak is Stone. Kate, you’ll take Swordmaster. Derek?”
“Shield,” Derek said. “Defensive fighter.”
“Will you be able to fight in two days’ time?”
He smiled. Dali winced again and said, “You have to stop doing that.”
“You should take Stratego,” I told Jim. “You have the most experience.”
That left us with three.
Raphael’s knife touched the list. “Shiv,” he said. “Fast fighter.”
“Are you sure?” I glanced at Raphael.
“If the lot of you survives, Curran will flay the skin off your backs,” Doolittle said.
“That’s what I always love about you, Doctor.” Raphael grinned. “You’re a cup-halfway-full kind of guy. All flowers and sunshine.”
“He isn’t joking, Raphael. You don’t have to do this.” I looked at him.
Raphael’s smile got wider. “I’m a bouda, Kate. I’ve got no principles and no honor, but you scratch one of our own, and I’ll kill you.”
“I’m touched,” Derek quipped. “I didn’t know you cared.”
“About you? I don’t give a fuck.” Raphael looked slightly deranged. “No, I care about her. They tried to kill her in a parking lot.”
“Since when am I beloved by boudas?”
“Since you drove one of us through the flare so she wouldn’t die,” Raphael said. “Nobody would do that for us. Not even the other clans. Ask the cat.”
Jim didn’t say anything.
“I’ll take Shiv.” Raphael tapped the list again. “Andrea will take Sling. Don’t argue, Kate. She’ll shoot us both if we keep her out.”
“Andrea is a knight of the Order,” I said. “I don’t think she can compete.”
“Neither can any of us,” Raphael countered and reached for the phone.
“That leaves Spell,” Jim said.
We stared at it. Spell. Obviously a magic user. “Any of your crew?”
Jim shook his head.
“You should ask him where his crew is.” Doolittle’s face wrinkled in disgust. “Go on. Tell her.”
Jim didn’t look like he wanted to tell me anything.
“Where is Brenna?”
“On the roof, keeping a lookout,” Jim said,
“And the rest?” Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen any of them since we came out of Unicorn.
“Apparently there is a band of loups near Augusta.” Doolittle leveled an outraged glare at Jim. “I’ve been listening to it on the radio. The city’s on the verge of panic. Odd loups these. Mellow. Although they apparently performed shocking acts of animal mutilation within plain view of the farmhouse, the farmer’s family slept through the whole thing. Curiously, no humans were harmed.”
I almost laughed. No loup would attack livestock if human prey was available. They craved human flesh.
“They’re creating a diversion,” Jim said.
Raphael halted his conversation with Andrea to emit a short, distinctly hyena guff. “That’s the best plan you could come up with?”
“Apparently he thinks that Curran’s a moron.” Doolittle shook his head.
“I’ll take Spell,” Dali said.
The kitchen was suddenly silent.
“I can do it. I was taught.”
“No,” Jim said.
“You have nobody else.” Dali’s jaw took on a stubborn tilt. “I’m not a fragile flower. I can do this.”
“What do you do?” I asked.
She drew herself to her full height. “I curse.”
“This isn’t a game. You can die in that Arena,” Jim snarled.
“I’m not playing,” Dali snarled back.
Brenna burst through the door. “Curran!”
Oh shit.
Everybody jumped to their feet. “How close?” Jim growled.
“Two blocks, coming fast. He’s heading straight for us.”
“Back door! Now!” Jim ordered. “Kate—”
I shook my head. “Take Derek and go. He can’t get you out of the Arena. I’ll delay him. Go!”
Jim swiped Derek into his arms like a child and took off. The rest followed, including Doolittle. They galloped down the stairs, right past Julie, who stumbled to the hallway, her face looking like she had slept on it. I grabbed her by the shoulder. “Get out the back door and hide someplace close until you see me come out.”
She took off without a word. That was my kid.
I FINISHED ARRANGING THE BLANKET AND A PILLOW on the floor to make it look like someone had slept there. I stepped away to admire my handiwork. Good enough. I took out Slayer and backed away. About a foot from the blanket should do it . . .
The door burst off its hinges and flew into the room, revealing Curran. His teeth were bared in a snarl and his eyes were feral. He was wearing the Pack’s trademark sweatpants and a T-shirt. Bad. Very bad. Sweatpants meant he expected to change shape. Curran in a warrior form was my ultimate nightmare.
Curran bared his fangs. “Kate.”
“Took you long enough.”
“Where are they?”
I arched my eyebrow. “Why would I tell you?”
“Kate, don’t make me force you to answer.” The muscles in his thigh tensed, straining the fabric of his sweatpants.
“What happened to your seduction plan? Or are you man enough to come close only when you’ve kicked my sword under my bed, where I can’t reach it?”
He cleared the room in a single leap. I jumped up and kicked him in midair as hard as I could. My foot collided with his chest. Like kicking a brick wall. He dropped on the makeshift bed. The blanket gave and he crashed down into the loup cage sunken deep into the floor.
I slammed the top frame shut. The complex lock clicked closed and I slid the thick bars in place, locking it down.
Curran ripped apart the blanket. His face was pure rage. He grasped the bars and recoiled.
I sat on the edge of the floor and rubbed my leg. It had gone numb from kicking him. I’d have to thank Julie for this idea. She’d almost fallen into the cage twice.
He snarled and clasped the bars. I had to give it to Curran—he lasted a full five seconds. The bars bent under the pressure but held. Made to withstand the fury of an insane shapeshifter, the cage had enough silver to burn the skin off a shapeshifter’s hands. When Curran let go, gray stripes of flesh marked his palms.
Curran cursed. “It won’t hold me.”
No doubt. Good that it wasn’t meant to hold him, only to delay him. The feeling still hadn’t returned into my leg.
Gold flared in Curran’s eyes. His voice became a bestial growl. “Unlock it.”
The force in his eyes was so intense, I thought my heart would stop. “No.”
“Kate! Release me.”
“Not a chance.”
“When I get out, I’ll make you regret this.”
I
frowned. “When you get out, I’ll be in the Arena of the Midnight Games, probably on my way to becoming a fresh corpse. I’ll be regretting a whole lot of things, but you in this cage won’t be one of them.”
Curran stepped back. The rage vanished from his face. He simply quashed it, pulling calm composure on like a helmet. It had never failed to terrify me before, and it did so now.
“Very well.” He sat cross-legged on the floor of the cage. “You haven’t run off so you want to talk. I will hear your explanation now.”
“Really, Your Majesty? So good of you to condescend. I’ll try to use small words and go slow.”
“You’re wasting my time. I know Jim betrayed me and you’re covering for him. This is your chance to dazzle me with your brilliance or baffle me with your bullshit. You won’t get another. When I get out, I won’t be in the mood to listen.”
“Jim didn’t betray you. He worships the ground you walk on. They all do and I don’t understand why. It’s the great mystery of the universe. But nobody betrayed you. They did it to spare you.”
I unloaded. I told him the whole story. He said nothing. He just sat and listened to me, emotionless and arctic.
“Are you finished?” he asked at the end.
“Yes.”
“So let me make sure I understood you. My chief of security deliberately and knowingly disobeyed my first law, because he thought he knew better than me, dragged one of my best people into it, and got him permanently disfigured, beaten, and nearly killed. And he didn’t tell me?”
The lion roar vibrated in his voice.
“Then he convinced you to cover up for his insubordination, and together you attacked a group of mythological killers, aggravating the conflict between them and my Pack instead of repairing the damage. And now he and three others are going to willfully and knowingly break my law again, flaunting it before thousands of people, so there is absolutely no possible way I can sweep it under the rug, even if I had the slightest inclination to do so, which I don’t. Have I gotten it right?”
“Well, yes, it sounds bad when you say it like that.”
He leaned back and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. If the cage fell apart at this point, overwhelmed by his fury, I wouldn’t be surprised.
“Curran, the gem is dangerous. I think that Roland is the Sultan of Death, and if I’m right, that means you’ve grown too powerful to be ignored. He will keep trying to eliminate you. The Wolf Diamond is trouble in the hands of the rakshasas, but it would be even more trouble in the hands of the People or the Order. Rakshasas aren’t too bright. Roland is a genius. And it’s not just him. If the Order got their hands on it, they would try to duplicate its magic and then inoculate your people with it. It’s a key to genocide against your kind.”
“And you care why?”
“Because I don’t want to see you hurt. Any of you. My best friend is beastkin. They will plug a shard into her in a minute. Andrea might not like her animal side, she might reject it, but the choice to do so should be hers.”
Pushing the words out was like trying to carry a rock the size of a house up a mountain. “I should’ve come to you. I would have if we hadn’t found a cure. Anyway, I’m sorry. I tried to help my friends. I don’t have many and . . . you should’ve seen Derek. I thought he was dying. I could actually picture myself burying his corpse. You’d have to kill him if he’d turned loup and . . . I didn’t want to see you hurt.” I turned away. “Julie will let you out of the cage in one hour.”
He didn’t say anything as I left the room. He just sat in the cage, his eyes blazing with towering wrath.
Outside Julie emerged from her hiding spot between the buildings and ran up to me.
“The Beast Lord is locked in a loup cage upstairs. Here is the key.” I handed her the big steel key. “Put it into the keyhole, do a quarter turn, then release the top bar, so you can swing the top open. Curran knows how to open one; he’ll guide you through it. Wait one hour before you let him out. This is very important, Julie. Don’t go near him before then, because he’ll talk you into opening the cage. Okay?”
She nodded.
“Once you’re done, if he lets you get away, call this number.” I handed her a piece of paper. “That’s Aunt B’s phone. Explain that you are alone. Someone will come and pick you up.”
“I want to come with you.”
“I know. I’m sorry, but you can’t. It’s not a good place and I might not get out of there in one piece.” I hugged her. “One hour.”
“One hour,” she agreed.
I went to get a horse stabled in the lot. Too late I realized that Curran had found us before the three days were up. Oh well. I seriously doubted he would call in the bet. Not after our last encounter. And if he did and I somehow managed to survive this mess, serving a dinner to him naked would be the least of my problems.
CHAPTER 25
I HAD TO WAIT IN THE LOBBY WHILE RENE PRETENDED to find my name on the roster of fighters. “Fools,” she said, flipping through the pages. “Is that a description of your team’s intelligence or your need to amuse?”
“It’s our motto.”
“Hmmm. . . .” She pretended to leaf through paperwork.
“You like screwing with me, don’t you?”
She offered me a mordant smile. “Just doing my job properly. Like you told me.”
She’d keep me waiting for a while.
I should’ve kissed Curran before I left. What did I have to lose anyway?
It wasn’t even real. The thing between me and Curran. It wasn’t real. I deluded myself. I had this aching need to be loved and it was screwing with my head. Sometimes, when you crave certain feelings, you’ll trick yourself into thinking the other person is something other than what he appears. I’d played that game with Crest and gotten burned for my trouble. No, thank you. To Curran, I offered nothing more than a willing body and a sense of satisfaction in having won. That was reality, cold and ugly and inescapable.
Rene’s hand went to her sword. I turned.
The dark-haired swordsman I had met on the observation deck during my first visit to the Games with Saiman strode through the door. Same gray leather. Same dark cloak that put me in mind of a warrior-monk. Same supple grace. Two men accompanied him, wearing identical cloaks. The first was young and blond. A long scar sliced his neck. His dark eyes had the alertness of a trained killer. The second man was older and harder. I looked into his eyes. His stare made me want to take a step back.
Nick.
The knight-crusader. The Order prized accountability and public exposure, but some things were too ugly, too dark, even for the knights. When one of those shadowy problems reared its head, the Order threw a crusader at it. The crusader did the job and left town.
The Red Stalker who killed my guardian had been such a problem. It had required Nick’s involvement. Now he looked at me like he’d never seen me before. I did my best to do the same.
Whatever Nick was up to, he was obviously undercover.
The swordsman saw me. “Have we met before, my lady?”
His voice was low and gentle. He talked like a well-fed wolf in a good mood. I smiled at him. “If we’d met, you’d know I’m not a lady.”
His eyes narrowed. “And yet you seem familiar somehow. I can’t shed the feeling I have seen you before. Perhaps we could speak someplace privately—”
“You don’t have to speak to him,” Rene cut in. Her color had gone pale. She swallowed. Scared, I realized. She was scared and she wasn’t used to dealing with it.
“Remember our arrangement. You’re welcome to observe and that’s it. We aren’t a training ground for you. If you want to contact fighters outside the Arena, it’s your business. Don’t recruit them here. Especially in front of me.”
“Are you a fighter, my lady?”
And we’re back to the “lady” again. “Occasionally.”
“She’s on a team and you’re holding up her processing.” Rene stared at him.
Th
e man glanced at her. The command in his glare was unmistakable. Rene went white as a sheet but stood her ground. He smiled amicably, bowed to us, and went on, the blond and Nick behind him.
Rene stared after him with undisguised hatred.
“What’s his name?” I asked Rene.
“Bastard,” Rene murmured, scanning the papers. “He also goes by Hugh d’Ambray.”
The world fell apart.
Hugh d’Ambray. Preceptor of the Order of Iron Dogs. My adoptive father, Voron’s, best pupil and successor. Hugh d’Ambray, Roland’s Warlord.
It couldn’t be a coincidence. Everyone knew Roland would eventually seek to expand his territory. Right now he held an area that cut diagonally through Iowa to North Dakota . Voron had explained it to me: it was land that nobody wanted, where Roland could sit and build up his forces without presenting enough of a threat to warrant an invasion. Eventually, when his forces grew numerous, he would spread east or west.
I tried to think like Roland. I was raised by Voron, damn it. I should be able to slide into Roland’s head. What did he want in Atlanta?
The Pack. Of course. Over the past year, the Pack had grown in size. It was now the second largest in North America. If I were Roland, I would seek to eliminate it now, before it grew any stronger. He didn’t wish to involve the People, his cohorts, because their actions would be tracked back to him. No, he hired rakshasas instead. Rakshasas were dumb and vicious. He could use them like a club to clobber the Pack. They wouldn’t win, but the Pack would be weakened. And his Warlord was here to make sure things went smoothly.
Hugh d’Ambray would watch me in the Pit. He might recognize my technique. He would report to Roland, who would put two and two together and come looking for me.
The doors were right behind me. Fifteen steps and I would be out of the building. A minute and I would be on my horse, riding into the night. I could vanish and they would never find me.
And abandon the six people who counted on me to watch their back.
Walking away was so easy. I looked up.
“You look like your house burned down,” Rene observed.
“Just reflecting on the fact that when the Universe punches you in the teeth, it never just lets you fall down. It kicks you in the ribs a couple of times and dumps mud on your head.”
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