Mercenary

by Jennifer Blackstream

  “And you can’t get the contract.” My voice was hoarse, and stars glittered at the edges of my foggy vision, but I smiled anyway. “You could dig forever in that pouch and never find it. And all that with a warrior waiting to melt your flesh off your bones.”

  Stavros smiled, and there was nothing pleasant in the expression. “You aren’t paying attention, my dear.” He gestured around him. “Look around you. You’ve lost. And even as we speak, Ian is gathering his army, surrounding the ifrits. Soon they’ll be dead, and the investigation will perish with them.”

  He strode up to me, leaning in until his face was only an inch from mine. “Give me the contract. Or watch all of your friends die.”

  Chapter 25

  I stared at the battlefield. Peasblossom was still being crushed in the shapeshifter’s tight fist. Liam lay on the ground, gurgling and fighting to breathe. His skin rippled, darkening with fur as he tried to shift before he choked on his own blood, tried to heal the damage before he went too long without breath. The change wasn’t coming as smoothly as it should have.

  Jeff knelt by the wall, scanning the scene around him. He turned his head to the side, and I caught a glimpse of the patch of blood matting his hair where he’d struck the brick wall. His arm moved, and I realized he was searching the debris for his lost weapon.

  Something spiraled through the air above. I looked up in time to see the eagle dive for Blackjack. A shot rang out. The eagle jerked, then fell, landing on the roof with a muffled thud. Jeff had found his gun.

  Edwin was in half-man half-beast form, and he and Scath were still wrestling, still trading swipes with their claws. The werewolf was slowing down now though. At least Scath would live to see the end of the fight. She’d probably take a few more down with her. But even she couldn’t fight them all. Not with the wizard still fresh as a daisy, holding back to buff his team.

  I held onto the magic I’d gathered, hesitating. The contract wasn’t worth the lives of my friends. But I wasn’t so foolish as to believe that Stavros would let us live.

  Go down fighting it is. I gathered my magic for one final attack. If I could take out the wizard, even just for a minute, they might have a chance. If the giant didn’t crush me first.

  “Am I too late to join the party?”

  Asher’s raspy voice snapped my head up. I stared wide-eyed at the goblin standing on top of Stavros’ van. He still wore shredded grey sweatpants and a black tank top that showed more flesh than it covered. Patches of dried blood dotted his face, arms, and stomach but I didn’t know if that was from a recent fight, or if he simply hadn’t bothered to bathe since his tangle with the fire elemental.

  Stavros narrowed his eyes. “Who are you?”

  Asher’s attention was all for me, and he ignored the wizard completely as he leapt down and sauntered closer to where the giant still held me pinned to his chest. He’d eased up enough to let me breathe, but Asher’s approach made him tighten his grip again.

  If Asher noticed my distress, he didn’t comment. “A wizard, a giant, a catfolk, a dragonkin, a telekinetic, a werewolf, and two shapeshifters.” He let out a slow breath, and there was a hitch of excitement in the sound. “I knew you would be fun, Shade.”

  If he knew the players, that meant he’d been watching. Watching and waiting. I fought the urge to look around for what I knew was coming, keeping all thoughts from my face.

  Let the wizard be surprised.

  “You’re a goblin.” Stavros snorted. “Go away. I’ll be bringing all of them back to the racino, you can fight them when it’s your turn.”

  Asher held my gaze, as if we were the only two people in the world. “It’s my turn now.”

  “Trent, gut him,” Stavros snapped. “And throw his body to the tsuchinokos.”

  The catfolk bared his teeth in a grin and drew his swords.

  Asher’s smile widened to reveal his canines protruding from his lower jaw, and just the first hint of his forked tongue. “You know the thing about goblins?”

  Stavros rubbed his temples. “Yes, I know. You like pain. Happy to be of service.”

  “Oh, yes, there is that. But more than that, we’ve been compared to cockroaches on many, many occasions. Do you know why?”

  “Because you’re hard to kill,” Stavros said, his tone bored. “But not impossible, so if you don’t mind, Trent?”

  “Hard to kill, yes. And also because for every one you see…there’s ten you don’t.”

  “Look out!” the telekinetic screamed.

  It was too late. Goblins flowed out from behind the van, and from behind the half-eaten wall that had marked off a shipping dock. One of them dove for the telekinetic, but she swung her arm out, batting him away with a wall of telekinetic force. She spun to do the same to the next one, but a shot rang out. Her shoulder jerked, and blood trickled down her arm onto her teal dress as she fell to one knee on the ground. I stared as Jeff shoved himself to his feet, gun raised, ready to find another target.

  Two demons flanked the injured shapeshifter who’d tried to become a lioness, and she swiveled her head from side to side, her eyes bulging. She dropped Peasblossom to cover her injured shoulder as she ran away from the goblins—

  Straight for the shipping entrance to the Acme building and the waiting tsuchinokos.

  The goblins gave chase, and all three disappeared inside.

  “Peasblossom,” I choked.

  Fire roared, and a goblin screamed. The smell of more burning flesh singed my nostrils, but I didn’t look away from where Peasblossom had fallen. A second later the flame stopped, and the fire breather screamed under a mass of goblins.

  The strongman closed his arms tighter and curled his body over mine, protecting himself as he fought to send me into unconsciousness quickly. Grey fog ate my vision, and I sagged toward the ground. A black shape bolted past my line of vision, heading for Peasblossom. Scath.

  Scath will save her, I thought.

  Everything happened at once. I was vaguely aware of the catfolk slashing at an oncoming goblin, driving one of his blades into his stomach and out the other side. He withdrew the blade as the goblin’s mouth opened and closed, pivoting to stab another as he tried to close in. The goblin he’d stabbed first grinned as blood leaked out the corner of his mouth. He winked at me, and I realized it was Kendrick. When he raised his arm, I saw he held a thick two-by-four. He swung it at the catfolk before the sword swallower could spin around again, and the crack of wood against bone made my stomach roll.

  I teetered on the edge of unconsciousness, the whole world reduced to some bad dream. Asher’s tongue stirred my hair as it wrapped around the giant’s neck, constricting. The big man had to decide whether to keep holding me or release me and keep himself from being strangled. He didn’t make his choice in time.

  I hit the ground like a bag of laundry, lying there as my lungs fought for breath, my brain resisting the pull of blessed unconsciousness.

  The next thing I knew, I was being cradled in someone’s lap, overwhelmed with the most horrible feeling of deja vu. Asher’s raspy voice whispered something in my ear, and he nuzzled my neck. The first hint of a forked tongue against my skin made me jerk away, and I rolled off his lap onto the ground.

  The deep chuckle that rumbled from the goblin was less comforting than the whisper. I blinked, trying to clear the fog from my vision. Only the fog wasn’t just in my vision.

  “The wizard ran like a coward,” Asher said, a hint of annoyance in his voice. “The big talkers always do.”

  “Did I pass out?”

  “Yes. I’m afraid the fun is over. Mostly. Maybe.”

  I didn’t like the disappointment in his voice, or the deliberation. He sounded like someone who was upset the party was over, but was thinking about starting another one right away. I must have been unconscious for longer than it had felt like, because the wizard’s fog was already fading, revealing the results of the battle.

  Peasblossom was my first concern. I scanned my surroundi
ngs, looking for Scath. I found the great beast padding toward me, something tiny and pink cradled gently in her mouth. She looked into my eyes as she approached, carefully laying the pixie in my open palm.

  Tears burned my eyes. “Peasblossom?”

  The little pink body stirred. My stomach bottomed out as I noticed her wings. They’d been crushed, torn like tissue paper. “Oh, Peasblossom. Your wings.”

  The pixie whimpered. “Spell,” she whispered. A tear slid down her cheek. “Used up.”

  “Of course you used that spell for you, look at your…” I swallowed hard. The thought that the little pixie could feel bad about using a healing spell on herself after this broke my heart. It would take more than that to heal her wings, though. I cradled her against my chest. “Sana.”

  Blue energy pooled in my palm, washing against the pixie as she huddled in a little ball of pain. Tears blurred my vision. A second spell would help with her pain, heal internal injuries, but it would take something much stronger than I was capable of to fix her wings. Something stronger, and time. “Bizbee?” I called, pulling open the pouch.

  The grig’s face poked out of the shadows, and his gaze immediately locked on Peasblossom. He held out his arms, a stern look overcoming his fuzzy features. “Give her to me, lass. I’ll take good care of her.”

  My throat tightened as I handed Peasblossom to the serious grig, then I took in the damage.

  The telekinetic lay on the ground with her wrists and ankles bound by the shapeshifter’s whip. Jeff stood over her, his gun raised in warning at two goblins kneeling on the ground. They were eyeing the telekinetic as if they’d had their entertainment and were ready for dinner.

  The fire breather lay on the ground, unmoving. It looked like most of his internal organs had been ripped out, but I couldn’t see enough of them on the ground. Eaten, probably.

  Bile splashed the back of my throat and I shook my head. A few yards away, a large silver wolf stood over a tawny brown wolf. The brown wolf wasn’t moving, but the rapid rise and fall of his sides told me he was alive, just hurt. Something glinted around his eye. Silver shrapnel. The fur on Liam’s back was standing straight up, and he bared his teeth at the goblins. Relief washed over me. Liam was okay. And, apparently, angry.

  The catfolk, Trent, lay on the ground. The two goblins who had attacked him knelt by his body, each one holding a sword. I looked away before I could see more.

  I moved away from the unconscious body of the giant that had held me. Asher watched me move, his body still vibrating with barely restrained energy. He wasn’t done.

  “It’s hard to keep a fight like this a secret,” he said softly. “I found you, but too many followed me. That’s the danger of a lot of brothers, you see. I’m the one that found the fight. But now it’s over and all I had for myself was the giant. And he was holding you, so I couldn’t truly lose myself in the battle.”

  There was something in his voice. A yearning. His blood was up, he’d been ready for a fight, ready for pain. And he hadn’t gotten it.

  Yet.

  “I’m not done,” he whispered.

  “It seems to me,” I said, my voice a rasp, “that you have an army. So what you need to fight, to really fight so everyone is satisfied…is an army.”

  Asher’s eyes lit up and he grabbed my biceps, dragging me closer to him. “Don’t tease me, Shade. What army?”

  I swallowed, trying not to throw up as my brain registered the wet, sucking sounds coming from beside me, where the sword-bearing goblins still toyed with their spoils of war.

  “As we speak, there is a sidhe army closing in on two ifrits. If you hurry you can even the odds.” I was bluffing, sort of. Arianne had said Underhill was surrounding the ifrits at their home, but they wouldn’t attack until they had “proof” the ifrits were guilty. Or until the proof that Underhill was guilty was destroyed. I had to imagine Ian knew about the missing contract by now, so I had no idea if his men would be attacking now or not.

  Asher frowned. “Why is there a sidhe army moving in the city?”

  “You’ve heard of Underhill?”

  The two goblins beside me stopped what they were doing and rose to stand in my peripheral vision. “Underhill is attacking Scoria Security? Did their forces go to Suite Dreams, or the ifrits’ home?”

  It shouldn’t have surprised me that the goblins knew both companies, or that they knew where to find the ifrits. They probably kept an eager eye on both of them on the off chance they could partake in the fallout.

  “Yes. The ifrits are probably at home, outnumbered, while Underhill has had time to prepare and plan this attack to the last detail. You better hurry.”

  The goblins were already running. Only Asher lingered, holding my arms as if not quite prepared to let me go yet.

  A familiar aura burned against my spine, and Liam’s voice spoke from less than a foot behind me. “Problem?”

  I didn’t look away from Asher. “No. No problem. I was just telling Asher that I’m sure I’ll see him later. And I look forward to seeing him in action again.”

  Asher’s eyes dilated and he grinned, baring too-sharp teeth and more of his tongue than I’d have liked to see. “Oh, I will see you again, Shade Renard. I look forward to it.” Finally he let go of me.

  Asher left more slowly than his brethren, giving the battlefield one last, longing glance. I waited until I couldn’t see him anymore, then let my shoulders sag. When I thought I could speak without my voice breaking, I turned. The telekinetic was still alive, as was the werewolf and the giant. The fire breather and catfolk weren’t so lucky. I looked at the Acme building. Somehow I doubted the shapeshifter had survived. If her goblin pursuers hadn’t caught her, the tsuchinokos would have finished her off. I made a mental note to come back later and give her bones a proper burial.

  I turned to face Liam. “I—”

  My mouth snapped shut, my lips fused together by the sudden rush of heat to my face. Liam was naked. Something I should have expected since the last time I’d seen him, he’d been a wolf. I tried to look him in the eye, failed, then tried again. “We should call 4944. Can we turn off the jammer?”

  Liam graciously didn’t acknowledge my embarrassment. “Already did. EMS should be here soon.” He nodded toward the wolf. “I’m taking him back with me. He’s strong, strong enough to be an alpha if he wanted to. I don’t know what the circumstances were of his employment with Stavros, but I need to know if rehabilitation is an option.”

  “I didn’t know your pack specialized in silver injuries,” I said, remembering his earlier offer to the werewolf.

  For a moment I thought he wouldn’t answer, just change the subject or possibly tell me it wasn’t any of my business. But after a pause he nodded. “My pack runs a rehab center. We take in wolves from other packs, wolves without a pack. We help the recently turned, the injured, and those with other…problems.”

  It was a significant revelation that made me all too aware that I was still holding back. Now would be the perfect time to tell him about Flint, about our contract. Tell him now.

  I opened my mouth.

  “I’m going to get out of here,” Jeff said, coming up behind me.

  Frustration tightened my jaw as my mouth snapped shut and I turned. The ranger scanned the horizon, eyes darting around, planning an escape. “I need to lay low for a while.”

  “Winters will stop looking for you once he finds out his pet soldier is the one who compromised his precious asset,” Liam said.

  “If you give me a way to contact you, I’ll let you know after I’ve spoken to him,” I offered.

  Jeff shook his head. “I’ll know.” He nodded at each of us in turn and strode off.

  “I’m going to see to Edwin. Do you still want me to come with you to the vampire’s office?”

  I shook my head. “No. I’m going to let the EMS see to Peasblossom first. Mr. Winters won’t wake until after sunset anyway.” I gestured at Scath. “Besides, I have her.”

  “I�
��ll call you,” Liam said.

  I watched him walk away, promising myself I’d find a time to tell him about my contracts with Anton Winters and Flint.

  True to form, the ambulance didn’t take long. The woman who climbed out of the back had sloping, pointed ears, and a delicate face. Her skin was a deep brown that made her eyes stand out in the growing shadows. I lifted the flap of my pouch and gestured for Bizbee to lay Peasblossom in my hand, my heart clenching when she whimpered in pain. The EMT’s gaze fell on Peasblossom curled up in my palm, and her spine straightened, a look of professionalism schooling her features.

  “I will take her,” she said gently.

  Her voice had a melodic tone that soothed the sudden spike of panic I felt at the thought of handing over my familiar. The EMT held out her hands, waiting for me to let her take the pixie.

  I swiped angrily at my tears as she carried her to the ambulance to begin checking the damage to Peasblossom’s wings. Now was not the time for a breakdown. Peasblossom was fine. I could have a breakdown later.

  I checked my phone while I waited for the ambulance, hoping for a distraction. I needed to call Anton anyway. Sure enough, I had a signal again.

  And nine missed calls from Flint.

  “Ugh,” I muttered.

  Flint had been very clear that ignoring his calls was forbidden, and returning said calls was my highest priority. No doubt he’d managed to work himself into a fury now that I’d missed nine in a row. I braced myself for a temper tantrum as I dialed his number.

  “Do you have the contract?”

  I blinked. That was not the greeting I’d expected.

  Peasblossom whimpered, and my heart leapt into my throat. I was halfway to the ambulance when I realized Flint was talking.

  “Shade? Shade!”

  “What?” I snapped.

  “I said do you have the contract?”

  “Yes. I have it. I’m about to take it to—”

  “Bring it to me. Now. At the apartment.”

  The EMT sang softly under her breath. Peasblossom lay on a blanket the size of a napkin, curled into a fetal position as the EMT stroked her fingers through the air just over her broken wings. She looked so tiny. Like a pink speck. Had she gotten smaller?