Pearce followed us. As we passed the sentries, they followed us, too. Shapeshifters had enhanced hearing. Everyone on the floor had heard the Beast Lord snarl.
It had been the real Jezebel. Had to be. The shapeshifters would’ve smelled a polymorph. When did my father get to Jezebel? Was it after he got to Julie? Was it before I took the city? We would never know. All I had was a fistful of questions, a dead woman I thought was a friend, and another friend dying from silver poisoning.
Why the hell did Dali jump in front of that knife? Scratch that, I knew why. Andrea would’ve never allowed her baby to be harmed. I knew that, Jim knew that, but Dali, kind, smart Dali who rarely fought, didn’t. She saw the knife and the baby and reacted. And now she was struggling for her life.
My father was ripping my life apart friend by friend. The temptation to march down to his half-finished castle and attack was overwhelming. And that was what he expected me to do. I had to use whatever will I had left to not do it, not until I knew for sure that I had a way to neutralize him.
The anger buoyed me. I could barely contain it and if I thought too much about my father, I’d see red and go blind. I had to think of something else. Anything else.
The stairs ended. We walked into the courtyard. The morning sunshine seemed too bright. It hurt my eyes.
“Out of my way,” a deep voice ordered. I glanced over my shoulder. Mahon headed straight for us.
Curran handed the keys over to Derek. “Take her to the car.”
“We’ll kill him,” Mahon said.
“We will,” Curran said.
“You’re vulnerable and exposed out there in the city. You’re welcome to move your people, all your people, shapeshifter and not, into the Clan Heavy house. If not, let me send people down there to reinforce you. I’m not talking guards on every corner, but some muscle. In case.”
Curran considered it. “Thank you. We could use the help.”
“Take care of the little one,” Mahon told me. “Jim will come around.”
The Bear clamped his hand on Curran’s shoulder, squeezed, turned, and went back inside.
We reached the car. I went to the driver’s side—in warrior form, Curran was too big to fit behind the wheel.
“All this is because of me.”
“No, all of this is because of Roland,” Curran said. “You didn’t kidnap Saiman. You didn’t attack a baby. All you did and all any of us wanted to do is live our fucking lives in peace.”
I loved him so much. “Thank you, but that’s not what I meant. I meant that every anchor so far was connected to me. If I hadn’t known about the prophecy, I wouldn’t have come to the Keep.”
“Yes. That’s why you and I are joined at the hip from now on.”
I arched an eyebrow at him.
“I mean it.” He flashed his teeth at me. “I did what you asked. I got Saiman out for you. You did . . . what you had to do. From now on we go together.”
“Okay.”
I got into the car and drove down the road. The moment we rolled out of the Pack courtyard, Julie broke. Derek wrapped his arm around her. She cried and cried, heartbroken. Julie almost never cried anymore.
If Dali died . . . I didn’t even want to think about it. If I had a choice, I would hit my father now, hard and fast, with all of our strength. Instead I had to sit on my hands, because right now we couldn’t win. Not until my aunt helped me figure out how to defeat him.
“I didn’t know,” Julie sobbed. “She took care of me for two years and I didn’t know.”
“Nobody knew,” Curran told her.
“He threw her away. Just like that. For nothing.”
I almost said I tried to tell you before and bit it back before it came out. Not the right time.
“Why her? Why? She was so nice.”
“Because she was close to you,” Derek said.
Julie buried her face in her hands and cried.
“I’m so sorry,” I told her. “I’m so sorry, sweetie. I’ll make him pay. I promise you.”
“It won’t bring her back,” she whimpered.
My heart was cracking and it hurt. You bastard. You fucking bastard. “I know. I’m so sorry.”
Trees rolled by. For several minutes we didn’t talk. I drove and looked straight ahead.
“Where are we going?” Derek asked.
“We’re going to the Guild,” I said. We were going to work.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I need Saiman to read what my father wrote on my skin while I was in the womb. The sooner Erra can tell me what it is, the sooner we can kill him.”
The car fell silent.
“Well,” Curran said. “At least the pervert has a purpose.”
CHAPTER
12
THE GUILD OCCUPIED the remains of an old hotel on the edge of Buckhead. When Curran, Barabas, and I took it over, the tower was in ruins, partially because a rogue giant had ripped off its roof trying to eat the delicious people hiding inside. The Guild had a new roof now. A new front parking lot and a new back lot too, the latter fenced in by a solid wall and converted into a training yard. Barabas was trying to push through a permit with the city that would allow us to put an even bigger wall around the building. Any time Curran got a base, he wanted to wall it in. For defensive purposes. He’d tried to wall in our street too, and it took all of us together to talk him out of it.
The Guild was looking good. We were still two hundred thousand in the hole, but we were slowly beginning to recoup that investment.
I parked in the lot. We got out and headed for the building. The inside of the Guild had gotten a face-lift as well. The mess hall was back and the food was actually good this time, which made sense because nothing offended shapeshifters more than subpar dining options. Barabas had insisted on bringing back the koi. Originally a stream had run through the hotel floor culminating in a large pond. Barabas didn’t want the stream, but he did somehow find the money for the pond. He said it was therapeutic and got two of the Pack’s counselors to back him up. Now a large pond sat next to the dining area, complete with a bridge across it. Five big koi, three gold and two white, slowly glided in the shallow water. The mercenaries kept feeding the fish and I had a feeling the koi would get morbidly obese before too long.
About twenty mercs ate, swapped war stories, and checked their gear on the main floor, waiting for a job or relaxing after one before going home. A dozen voices said hello as we walked in. A second after we stepped through the door, I realized Curran was still in all of his warrior form splendor.
“Woo!”
“Cover up!”
“Rough morning, Curran?”
Curran grinned, showing his big teeth.
“Hey, Daniels, you better put him in check. There are children present,” Juke called.
“Where?” Collins asked.
“She means you, dickhead,” Santiago said.
“Come over here and say that to my face.”
“I would, but you too ugly.”
Tension seeped out of me with every step. This I knew. This was familiar. This was my world.
Barabas waved at us from behind the glass. The previous administrator of the Guild considered himself to be white-collar and fully embraced a personal office, expensive suits, and secretaries. The first thing Barabas did was gut his fourth-floor office and sell off the pricey furniture. Then he took over the smallest conference room downstairs, separated from the main floor by glass. He sat there now, wearing jeans and a long-sleeve T-shirt, his desk filled with papers. His door was usually open. Mercs wandered in and out with questions. Usually Christopher hung out in the office as well, or somewhere on the Guild floor, reading a book at the table by the koi, or talking to the Clerk, depending on how he was feeling. Maggie was curled up in her little plush bed in Barabas’s office, but I saw
no signs of Christopher.
If I were a winged god of terror, where would I be?
I glanced up. High above, on the massive support beams right under the newly installed skylight, a man sat, his right leg bent, his left dangling down, a book in his hand. He had no wings, but his hair was a familiar white. For months Barabas took care of Christopher. Now Christopher guarded Barabas.
“How’s our honored guest doing?” Curran called, loud enough for everyone to hear.
“Doing great,” Keana, a thin, dark-skinned merc in her thirties, called out. “We got his money in an hour ago.”
“How much did we net?” Curran asked.
“The Guild took in two million, nine hundred fifty-eight thousand, six hundred thirty-three dollars and sixty cents,” Barabas called from his office.
“Yeah!” Curran pumped his fist.
The Guild erupted in cheers. I cheered, too. He was making them feel like all of them had won, forging them into a unified force, and they had no idea he was doing it.
“Why is the number so weird?” I murmured.
“We charged him his weight in gold,” Curran said. “Would’ve gotten more, but Roland bled him out and starved him, and he needs a lot of food or his body starts to cannibalize itself.”
“Where do you have him stashed?” I asked.
“Third floor, the old archive room,” Curran said. “I talked to Barabas this morning. Saiman isn’t eating or drinking. They had to put him on an IV.”
Saiman burned through nutrients the way fire burned through dry hay.
I nodded at Julie. “Come with me.”
As we climbed the staircase, I asked quietly, “Feel up to it?”
She looked at me. If she’d given me that look and I didn’t know her, I’d consider backing off.
“If it helps kill Roland, yes.”
“Good. When I talk to him, remind me to ask him for his help, but don’t tell him what I want exactly.”
• • •
PRE-GIANT, THE OLD archive room had no windows. Post-giant, it had acquired a large window shielded by thick bars in case another monster came rampaging. Saiman lay next to that window, on a bed, bathed in the sunshine streaming through the clear glass. He was pale and bone-thin, a skeleton wrapped in loose skin and hooked up to an IV bag. Normally he maintained a neutral shape, that of a man of undeterminable age, bald, with unremarkable features, neither handsome nor ugly. The creature that lay on the bed now was a foot and a half taller than any human had a right to be. Light blue-green hair framed his face. His eyes were the pale blue of thick ice dusted with new snow. Whatever my father had done to him was so traumatic that Saiman had collapsed into his natural shape.
He was gazing out the window, an odd expression on his face. Looking at him made me want to bring him food and spoon it into him until the normal, caustic Saiman resurfaced. Someone had done exactly that. Chicken soup and freshly baked bread waited on a tray by the bed. Both were untouched.
Calhoun, a short merc with a shock of wild blond hair, got up from his perch by the door. “Tell me you came to relieve me. I’m starving.”
“Knock yourself out,” I told him. “I’ll sit with him.”
Calhoun took off down the stairs. I pulled up a chair and sat by Saiman’s bed. He ignored me. Julie took the other chair in the corner.
The sun shone on us, warming up the white sheets. Small specks of dust floated in the light.
“There was a window,” Saiman said. “The cell was dark, but there was a window. Too narrow for me to crawl out of and barred, but I could see a small piece of the sky.”
“Hope is a bitch,” I told him. “It keeps you alive when all you want is to die.”
Saiman turned his head and looked at me, his eyes full of winter. “He was draining my blood. As fast as I could make it. When he took it, my body reacted and cannibalized reserves to make up for the shortage.”
“What did he do with it?”
“I don’t know.”
“There was another creature in the castle with divine blood,” I said. “An animal. A saber-toothed tiger.”
“I heard it roar once,” Saiman said.
“Why would he need divine blood?”
“I don’t know.” He sighed. It rolled through his entire body. “They broke my legs. Every day before the sun would rise, they came in and shattered my bones with a hammer.”
Saiman had always been terrified of death and physical pain.
“Why?”
“With that much pain, I couldn’t slow down my regeneration. My body healed itself and there was nothing I could do about it.” He shuddered.
“It’s over,” I told him. “You’re safe.”
“Do you know why I accumulated wealth?”
“Because you thought it would shield you. But there are things in this world that are immune to money.”
He looked away from me. “I knew nobody was coming.”
His voice told me everything. He sat in that cell with his broken legs, looked at the sky, and wanted desperately to be rescued, but he knew nobody would care enough to rescue him.
“We were coming.”
“Why did you save me?” he asked.
“I didn’t.”
A trace of the old Saiman’s impatience touched his face. “Curran did it, but only because you asked him to. The money I paid the Guild is a formality. A pittance. I would’ve given Curran everything I have, but I know him. I remember our history. All the gold in the world wouldn’t convince him to lift a finger for my sake. He did it for you. Why did you ask him?”
“Do you want the real answer or the one you’re comfortable with?”
“I’ll take the truth.”
“Because you are someone I know, Saiman. You’re someone who helped me. Always for a price, but still you helped. You’re a selfish prick, narcissistic, egocentric, obsessed with your own importance, but you’re still someone I know. I couldn’t leave you with my father.”
He looked away from me again.
“If it helps, I can tell you that if I left you there, it would give my father the license to kidnap my citizens at will, and whatever he was doing with you likely made him stronger, which is bad for us, since the Oracle is predicting he will burn the city in a few weeks. Would that be easier?”
He didn’t answer.
“Rest,” I told him. “Eat and rest. You need to heal. And one more thing.”
I got up, slid the window up, and pulled the thick metal rods securing the grate up, releasing it. I strained, lifted the grate, and slid it aside. Wind blew into the room, stirring the sheets and papers on the desk.
“You’re not a prisoner. You can leave when you’re ready.” I nodded at Julie. “Come on.”
“But you didn’t ask him,” she said.
Thank you, Julie.
“I know. He’s in no shape to do it. Come.”
“In no shape to do what?” Saiman called.
“Rest,” I told him, and left the room.
Julie hurried after me. We walked down the staircase together.
“Why didn’t you ask him?” she asked.
“Because he’s sitting in that bed, drowning in his trauma and refusing to eat. Now he knows I want something and it will drive him crazy, until he finally eats, gets dressed, and comes to find me to see what was so important.”
Right now I would trade places with Saiman in a heartbeat. He could run around and do all of this bullshit, while I lay in a nice soft bed.
The magic hit, rolling over us. The electric lights in the lobby died and the blue feylanterns slowly ignited, growing brighter.
“Kate!” The Clerk called from his counter. “A call for you.”
Maybe it was the Keep to tell us if Dali was alive.
I ran down the last few steps and picked up the ph
one.
“Hello, Sharrim,” a female voice said. “Please hold for your father.”
“Tell him to go fuck himself.”
I hung up and turned away.
Behind me magic splashed.
“HELLO, DAUGHTER.”
• • •
HE DIDN’T.
I turned around. A wall of light bisected the Guild, showing my father, his hands behind his back. Yes, he did. Oh he did. Now was really the wrong time to screw with me.
My magic shot out of me. All of the anger I’d been trying to keep under the lid boiled out.
“Which part of ‘go fuck yourself’ did you not understand?”
His power was an inferno. “I AM YOUR FATHER. I AM SHARRUM. YOU WILL SHOW ME RESPECT!”
“Respect? You sent an assassin into my land to murder a baby! What respect? You’re a child killer.”
“IT WAS YOUR FAULT. YOU PRECIPITATED THIS THROUGH YOUR STUBBORNNESS.”
God, I wanted to punch him in the face. “You are despicable. I’m ashamed to be your daughter. I should walk the street apologizing to everyone I meet for the fact that you still exist.”
“I MADE YOU. WITHOUT ME YOU WOULDN’T EXIST. I CAN SNUFF OUT YOUR LIFE WITH A FLICK OF MY FINGERS AND MAKE A DOZEN JUST LIKE YOU.”
“Do it.” I spread my arms. “Come on. I’m waiting.”
Rage shivered in the corners of his mouth. I’d really pissed him off this time. Good. Have a taste of your own medicine.
“DO NOT TEMPT ME.”
“Why is it you haven’t killed me, Father? You murdered all of the others. My brothers and sisters. What’s the holdup?”
“I TOLERATE YOU FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR MOTHER’S MEMORY, BUT MY PATIENCE IS AT ITS END.”
Aha. “So is mine. You took my child’s caretaker and you forced her to betray everything she stood for. Julie watched her die. I hate you.”
“YOU BROKE INTO MY HOUSE. YOU UPSET YOUR GRANDMOTHER. YOU DAMAGED MY PRISON, AND YOU STOLE MY CAPTIVES. RETURN WHAT IS MINE.”
Captives. He didn’t know Curran had consumed the saber-tooth.