Magic Breaks

  I looked at him. “What wolf do you think Christopher was talking about?”

  “Beats me.”

  There were more than six hundred of them and I didn’t have many fans among them.

  “And you say I’m paranoid.” Jim pointed in the direction of Christopher’s escape. “What about him?”

  “He’s shattered. What’s your excuse?”

  “I have to work with your ass. You’ve driven me crazy.”

  I sighed. I could overrule Jim and go to the Conclave on my terms. But Jim and I had to work together. I could tell by the line of his jaw that he would die on this bridge if he had to. Going along with him cost me nothing, except a small chunk of pride, and pride was one of the things I didn’t mind sacrificing.

  “What if we compromise?” I asked.

  Jim looked at me for a long second. “They’re going to need sweaters in hell.”

  Because me trying to be the voice of reason froze hell over. “Har har. You said they had vampires for backup. Let’s split our people in two. One group comes with us, the other waits as a backup. Put someone solid in charge of it, whoever you want, and have them wait nearby. Within running distance.”

  Jim pondered that. “I pick both crews.”

  I spread my arms. “Fine.”

  “I can live with that. I’ll prepare a couple of exit strategies for you in case shit hits the fan. If I’m wrong, we lose nothing. If I’m right . . .”

  “I hope you’re wrong.”

  “I hope I’m wrong, too,” he said.

  “Good. Then we’re done here.” I walked away from him, conquered the hallway, and started up the stairs. That was enough excitement for the day. If nobody did anything crazy, I could hide in our rooms and read . . .

  Hannah, one of my and Curran’s guards, ran down the stairs.

  Please don’t be for me, please don’t be for me . . .

  “Consort!”

  Damn it. “Yes.”

  “There is a knight of the Order here to see you.”

  What now? The Order of Merciful Aid served as a semiofficial law enforcement agency. Competent and efficient, but rigid in their thinking, they helped private citizens deal with their magic hazmat problems. Unfortunately, once you asked them for help they did it their way and not everyone liked it. I used to work for the Order. They decided shapeshifters weren’t people, I decided they were, and we went our separate ways. Ted Moynohan, the knight in charge, was still pissy about it.

  “He has Ascanio and Julie with him. He says no charges will be filed.”

  Why me?

  • • •

  I WALKED INTO the conference room ready to do battle. Ascanio sat in one chair, looking suitably guilty and regretful, and if I hadn’t worked with him for the last few months, I would even believe it. Julie sat across from him, slender, blond, and defiant. She had mostly passed through her Goth phase, but black was still her favorite color and I was treated to a lovely ensemble of black jeans, charcoal turtleneck, and piercing stare.

  A huge man took up the only other occupied chair. Massive, slabbed with muscle and covered in elaborate tattoos, he had the bold handsome features, dark skin, and dark eyes of a Pacific Islander.

  “Mauro!” Of all the knights of the Order I liked him the most.

  “Hello, Consort,” Mauro boomed. He got to his feet, spread his arms, and curtsied.

  Ascanio clamped his hand over his mouth.

  “I see you still think you’re funny.”

  “Damn right.” His face split in a happy grin.

  I turned to Hannah. “Could you bring us some hot tea?”

  “Sure.”

  Mauro nodded at my ward and Ascanio. “I brought these two miscreants to you.”

  “What happened?”

  “I was on an unrelated call in the Shiver Oaks, when a woman ran out from the house across the street and asked me if I could help her with some burglars her dog cornered.”

  I turned to Ascanio and Julie. The look on my face must’ve been scary, because they flinched in unison. Ha! Still got it.

  “Burglary?” I asked quietly. The Pack took a dim view of any criminal activity. We had enough trouble as it was.

  Ascanio sighed, clearly resigned to his fate. “She wanted to see the bunnycat kittens. It was the breeder’s house. We found the ad in the newspaper. The woman wouldn’t let us in unless we showed her money, so we scaled the fence when she went out. I could’ve dealt with the Rottweiler. I just didn’t want to hurt him.”

  Of course, Julie would want to see bunnycat kittens. Hell, I wanted to see the bunnycat kittens. And of course, he took her. The problem was, they got caught.

  “We weren’t going to steal them,” Julie said. “We just petted them.”

  “Is she pressing charges?” I asked Mauro.

  “I convinced her it wouldn’t be a good idea.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Any time,” he said.

  I looked at the kids. “Scram! I’ll talk to you later.”

  They scurried out, nearly knocking Hannah and her platter of tea off her feet. She bared her teeth at them.

  “Thank you.” I took the platter. Hannah stepped out and closed the door. I served tea to Mauro. “How’s it going?”

  Mauro took his cup and blew on it. “Thank you.” He swallowed a little. “God, that’s good. I was about frozen solid. Damn weather. Things are . . . going. Selena still thinks I work too much.”

  “How is your wife?”

  “She’s good, thank you.” He hesitated. “I’m thinking of transferring.”

  That was news. Atlanta was considered one of the more important Order chapters in the South. Not only that, but knights didn’t like changing duty stations. Once they were assigned to a chapter, they developed street contacts and professional relationships. Most of them would do just about anything to avoid starting over. “Transferring where?”

  “Somewhere. Charleston. Orlando.”

  Odd. I added more tea to his cup. I’ve learned that if you just stay quiet, people will say more to fill the silence.

  “Thank you.” Mauro sighed. “This post used to be the place you went because it would be good for your career. You know, high-speed post. Where things were happening.”

  “Things are still happening.”

  “Not the right kind of things.” Mauro set the cup down. “Did you know Ted Moynohan was one of the original Ninety-Eight?”

  Twenty-three years ago the original Ninety-Eight, drawn from different law enforcement agencies, formed the core of the Order of Merciful Aid. They were dramatically knighted in a single ceremony in front of the Washington Monument. The Order had wanted to make a statement.

  “That makes Ted a knight-founder,” I said.

  Mauro nodded. “We’ve had three hundred fifty percent turnover in personnel in the past three years. Typical for a chapter is about twenty percent.”

  That made sense. Knights died, but they died occasionally. They were really well trained and difficult to kill. “Atlanta also had a hard three years.”

  “People up the chain of command noticed. A three-knight investigative team came down from Wolf Trap. There was a hearing. A question was raised about some of the turnover. You came up.”

  “Me?” I was never a knight, more like an off-the-books employee.

  “You were seen as an asset, and then you became a Consort, and the question was asked why that bridge wasn’t mended. Andrea came up. They spent a long time on that one.”

  Damn right they did. I was never a knight, but Andrea was a decorated veteran and a master-at-arms, which was nothing to sneeze at, and they tossed her out like garbage when they found out she was a shapeshifter.

  “The Order can’t afford to bleed masters-at-arms,” Mauro said. “It never sat right with me the way that was handled. It shouldn’t have ever come to that. There was no need to put her back against the wall the way Ted did. I respect her and her skills.”

  Hard not to respect someone wh
o can shoot you in the eye from a mile away. “She knows you had her back.”

  “How is she doing?”

  “She’s running Clan Bouda with Raphael. She has her hands full.” And Aunt B’s big shoes to fill, which wasn’t a job I’d wish on anybody.

  “Good to know.” The big knight shifted in his chair. “After they got through with Andrea, they went straight to Shane Andersen and the Lighthouse Keepers.”

  There was no way for Ted to come out smelling like roses on that one. One of his knights had proven to be a terrorist. If Ted knew, he was as guilty as Shane. If he didn’t, he was incompetent. “So what happened?”

  “That’s the bad part. Nothing. They conducted their hearings and went back to HQ. Then came the time to rebuild the chapter with new personnel. We got completely new people in. The only ones left of the old crew, besides Ted, are me, Richter, and Maxine.”

  Mauro was a good knight and Maxine, the Order’s telepathic secretary, was the backbone of the Atlanta chapter, but Richter was psychotic and a liability.

  “That’s it?” I asked.

  “Mm-hm. The rest are . . . new.”

  “Don’t like the new people?”

  Mauro grimaced. “We are being staffed with people who are on their second or third chapter. Their command made no effort to keep them, because they didn’t distinguish themselves. Most of them made some mistakes. Some made a lot of mistakes.”

  The light dawned. Since Ted was a knight-founder, well connected and probably vigorously defended, the Order’s High Command couldn’t force him out without some glaring evidence of his incompetence, so they staffed him with rejects. Either he would see the writing on the wall and retire or his new people would screw up so badly, it would give them grounds to remove him. Mauro didn’t want to be part of the screwup squad.

  “Mauro, you’re a good knight. Any chapter would fight to get you.”

  “Yeah. I like the city. It’s home. But yeah. Time to go.” He rose. “Thank you for the tea.”

  “Thank you for saving the kids from trouble.”

  “Any time.” He grinned. “Any time.”

  I walked him out. It was almost five. I would lay into Julie and Ascanio after the Conclave. For now I had to get dressed, get my sword, and go make polite noises at the Masters of the Dead.

  3

  THE PACK JEEP rolled through the dusk-soaked streets. The other car, carrying my murder-prone honor guard, followed us. Jim drove. Barabas sat in the backseat.

  Post-Shift Atlanta had many neighborhoods, some old, some new, born from the magic age. There was Honeycomb to the southwest, a place where “solid wall” was a relative term. In the southeast was the Warren, a rough dirt-poor neighborhood, policed by roving gangs preying on each other. And then there was Northside, where Atlanta’s wealthy used their money to hold the chaos of the ravaged city at bay.

  Magic liked to nibble on the asphalt, but here the pavement felt smooth, the clean streets a far cry from the refuse and garbage-choked pathways of the Warren. Large houses, each sitting on its own acre-sized plot, stared at us with barred windows from behind iron fences topped with coils of barbed wire. Most houses were built post-Shift, no more than three stories tall, with thick walls, reinforced doors, and barred windows. Money bought security, land, and good masons.

  The sun had set, and the moon claimed the sky, a huge, deep orange as if dipped in blood. The magic was down, but the city still held its breath, apprehensive and watchful. It was the kind of night when monsters came out to play.

  Slayer, my saber, lay on my lap. I stroked the sheath. The saber went where I went, but tonight I would have to leave it behind. Bernard’s had a strict no-weapons policy. Without it, I felt naked.

  “Who else is coming?” I asked. The Pack’s protocol called for the representatives of at least three clans to be present at each Conclave meeting. In the beginning, every alpha wanted to be included, but now we had trouble getting three to come. Jim served as the alpha of Clan Cat, so he counted as one. That left two more.

  “Robert Lonesco and Jennifer,” Barabas said.

  Robert Lonesco was married to Thomas, and together they ran Clan Rat. Jennifer headed Clan Wolf. She and I didn’t see eye to eye. First, I had to kill her sister after she had been driven loup by my aunt’s magic. Then her husband sacrificed himself to prevent a magic catastrophe, about which we had learned through my office. Jennifer blamed me for both. We had struck an uneasy truce, because we had to work together, but not killing each other was as pleasant as it got. Christopher’s warning popped up from my memory. When it came to the wolves I shouldn’t be trusting, she was definitely at the top of the list.

  “Any challenges?” I asked. Jennifer had given birth over a month ago and her thirty-day reprieve from being challenged had run out last Wednesday.

  “No,” Jim said.

  Odd. “I thought Desandra would’ve gone after her by now.”

  “So did I,” Jim said.

  Like Christopher, Desandra was a rescue from our trip overseas. She was the daughter of the most powerful alpha in the Carpathian Mountains. He was a psychotic, cruel egomaniac, who built his pack out of nothing and ruled the entire region with steel claws, terrorizing his enemies, foreign and domestic. He had eleven children. Desandra was the only one who lived to adulthood and she did this by pretending to be a spoiled, petulant idiot. Her father was obsessed with finding an heir who’d measure up to his standards. He had no idea she was right under his nose, and when she broke through his rib cage and ripped out his heart moments before giving birth to twins, he was terribly surprised.

  Desandra ended up coming with us to Atlanta. She was smart, cunning, and ruthless. When we returned, Jennifer was still pregnant and couldn’t be challenged. Desandra also had two weeks of maternity leave left, but she didn’t use it. She made her first kill within forty-eight hours of swearing loyalty to the Pack and began climbing up the food chain. Now she held the beta spot in Clan Wolf and Jennifer was sleeping with her eyes open.

  “Did Jennifer and Desandra strike a deal or something?” I asked.

  “Not that I know of,” Jim said. “Jennifer hates her even more than she hates you. If Desandra were on fire, Jennifer wouldn’t piss on her to put her out.”

  “Then what’s the holdup?”

  Jim shrugged. I glanced at Barabas. Barabas shrugged, too. Neither of them had heard anything. That was rare.

  “She would make a better alpha,” Jim said. “She’s stronger.”

  Despite Jennifer’s impression, I never had a problem with her. She’d start a fight and I’d hit back hard, but I never went after her. Still, I had to admit Desandra would be a hell of an alpha. That didn’t mean I was eager to deal with her.

  “Looking forward to sitting next to Desandra at the Pack Council?” I asked.

  Jim gave me a look of pure hate.

  Barabas laughed.

  Jim permitted himself a small half-smile without showing his teeth. He very rarely smiled—it conflicted with his badass image. In all the years I’d known him, I only saw him bare his teeth to three people, and two of them were dead. The third would be dead, except for the technicality of him being a Friend of the Pack.

  “They need to sort this mess out and soon,” Jim said. “There are six hundred wolves and they’re all holding their breath. Rumor says Desandra went to Orhan and Fatima to ask for their blessing.”

  Orhan and Fatima had run Clan Wolf before Daniel had taken over. They had trained him as their successor, stepped down, and retired from Pack politics. They lived on an orchard not far from the Keep and stayed strictly neutral. So far, I had seen them exactly twice, at a Thanksgiving dinner and at a wedding, and they both struck me as the kind of people I didn’t want to screw with.

  “What do you mean, she went to ask their blessing?” I asked.

  “It’s a Pack term,” Barabas said. “An alpha can either be killed in a challenge or choose to step down. When an alpha steps down, he gives his successor his
blessing to take up where he left off. This pretty much guarantees that the old alpha’s supporters will support the new alpha out of respect, at least for a time. It’s the passing of the keys to the kingdom, which is why Daniel wasn’t challenged until almost six months into being an alpha. If Desandra had gone to Orhan and Fatima, it was in poor taste. They made it clear they don’t want to be bothered.”

  The road turned. I remembered taking this turn about a year ago going really fast in the opposite direction. It’s amazing how precisely you can steer when a pissed-off Beast Lord is chasing you.

  Bernard’s swung into view. In a city proud of its Southern heritage, the restaurant stood out like an English lord among the cowboys. Broad, two stories tall, and built with red brick, it resembled the Georgian-style British mansions sometimes featured in the old movies, except that Bernard’s owners gave up on the whole symmetrical thing in favor of ornate balconies. Long dense strands of kudzu climbed up its walls, their edges frosted by the encroaching cold. Warm yellow light filtered through the barred windows.

  We parked in the reserved spot in the first row. Four people stood by the door. The lights of the car caught them and their eyes flashed with the familiar shapeshifter glow. Three men and a tall woman. The woman watched us, distaste obvious on her face. Jennifer. Always tall and spare, with the physique of a long-distance runner, she looked even thinner now. Most women put on weight during pregnancy, but if Jennifer had picked up some extra pounds, they were gone now. She wore a jacket edged with rabbit fur and skintight black pants. The long, lean muscles of her legs and her knobby knees stood out through the fabric. I worked out every day, because I had a dangerous job and when the time came, I’d have to fight to stay alive, but my legs were thicker than that. It was like she had purged every hint of softness from her frame. This wasn’t simply dedication. This was panic.

  Jim shut off the engine. He and Barabas got out and stood for a second, their faces raised, sampling the scents in the air. And sitting in the car while they did this didn’t make me feel like an idiot. Not at all. I sighed and slid Slayer off my lap. I had agreed not to be the difficult client. Now I had to live with it.