Someone from the Pack was interested in Pastor Haywood’s murder and they’d sent Ascanio to figure it out. Why? Had this order come from the top, or was this a Clan Bouda affair? Was someone pulling his strings or was he doing it on his own? All good questions.
Ascanio was never big on following orders. It wouldn’t be out of character for him to do this on his own, but he never acted without aiming for some sort of benefit.
He knocked on my doorframe. I walked out of the kitchen and to the front door.
“The shapeshifter hero. We meet again, and so soon.”
Ascanio froze.
Before I’d been on horseback, in the dark, a dozen yards away with my hood up. Now less than three feet separated us. He could see my face, and it burned a fuse in his brain. For a moment Ascanio forgot to be suave and simply stared with unnerving, focused intensity.
My timer went off.
Ascanio blinked. “Are you baking cookies?”
“Yes, I am. Excuse me.”
I went into the kitchen. Behind me, magic tolled through the house, like a gong. Ascanio had tried to follow and walked right into my second ward.
I pulled the batch of cookies out of the oven, slid the second tray in, reset my mechanical timer, and went back to the door.
Ascanio leaned in the doorway, arms crossed, a slight smile on his lips. It had to be his sexy, nonchalant pose. I wasn’t sure if I was expected to toss my underwear at his feet or just fall back with my legs in the air. He must’ve realized that he’d stared like an idiot and overcorrected, like a driver who drifted onto the shoulder and jerked the wheel trying to get back on the highway.
“Nice ward,” he said.
“Keeps out the riffraff.”
A ruby light rolled over his irises. “Can I have a cookie?”
“No.”
He gave a mock sigh. “I have a feeling this conversation has gotten off to the wrong foot.”
“Not just a hero, but a master detective as well,” I kept my voice quiet and friendly. In my head, I grabbed him and shook him until all the things I wanted to know about Pastor Haywood’s murder fell out of his shockingly handsome head.
He winked. “I’m not just a pretty face.”
“I don’t recall saying you were pretty.”
The smile stayed on his lips, but his posture lost some of its slouching. “Let me tell you what I’ve detected.”
I smiled back at him. “I can’t wait. Dazzle me.”
His gaze snagged on my lips. He blinked again.
Lost your train of thought for a second there, buddy?
“You pretended to be a lightweight on the bridge. You visited the Order and you have an Order ID, which says you are assigned to Atlanta, except you’re not, because the Atlanta chapter never has more than twenty knights and with you, they are up to twenty-one.”
Fair enough.
“You’ve used your brand-new ID to gain access to a crime scene, but you aren’t staying in the Order chapter. Instead you’re living in a hovel on the edge of the most dangerous area of the city, flirting with disaster and baking cookies with expensive chocolate chips.”
Here it comes, the brilliant deduction.
Ascanio hit me with a direct stare. “I have to ask why the Order is so invested in Pastor Haywood’s murder that they would bring a Knight-Crusader in for it?”
It wasn’t a bad assumption. When the Order had a particularly nasty mess on their hands, they threw a Crusader at it, who would either clean it up and disappear or die trying. Crusaders worked undercover, used unorthodox methods, and enjoyed a lot of leeway. If they screwed up, the Order had plausible deniability.
Crusaders were dangerous as hell and often crazy. They didn’t do what they did for accolades. They did it because they believed in their cause. Before Nick Feldman became the Knight-Protector, he was a Crusader, one of the Order’s best.
“No answer?”
I smiled at him again. “Did you expect one?”
Ascanio pushed away from the doorway and looked past me, at my humble abode. “This place is a dump.”
“Thank you.”
“Whoever rented it to you should be barred from owning real estate. Nick should’ve never let you stay here.”
Dropping the Knight-Protector’s name like you are bestest friends. “I like it here. Quiet, picturesque, but now that you’ve visited, I’ll have to put a ‘No solicitors’ sign up front.”
“I’m not here to sell you anything. But I can offer you better accommodations. You’re new to the city, and this really isn’t a good neighborhood.”
“People keep telling me that.”
“Because it’s true.”
My timer went off again. “Hold that thought.”
I went back to the kitchen, rescued my second batch, and turned the oven off. It was good that gas still burned even during the deepest magic waves.
“I can put you in a better house,” Ascanio called from the door. “Free of charge.”
Too crude for him. He was trying to gauge my reaction. I came back to the front and raised my head, inhaling deeply, the way shapeshifters did when they were trying to catch a scent on the breeze. His eyes widened.
“Do you smell that?” I asked him. “What’s that odor, I can’t quite place it…”
He frowned.
I opened my eyes wide. “Bribery. That’s it.”
He recoiled with theatrical shock. “I come here, I offer you a safer place out of the goodness of my heart, and you accuse me of bribery.”
“I have to ask why the Pack is so invested in Pastor Haywood’s murder that they would send the beta of Clan Bouda to investigate it, bribe the Atlanta PD to gain access to the crime scene, and then stalk and attempt to intimidate and coerce a knight of the Order?”
“I don’t recall intimidating you. If I wanted to intimidate you, I would break through this ward.” He smiled, showing me his sharp white teeth. “And take all of your cookies.”
He promised to break the ward with complete confidence. That wasn’t arrogance; that was experience talking.
The runic ward would stop an average shapeshifter, but then Ascanio Ferara had never been average. All shapeshifters had two forms, one animal and the other human. Those with talent had a third, the warrior form, a blend of human and animal devastating in combat. Curran considered Ascanio’s warrior form to be one of the best, a high compliment from a man who was once Beast Lord.
Looked like I wasn’t the only one who’d gotten stronger. I’d have to readjust my expectations.
I went to the kitchen, took a cookie, whispered a bit of magic from a forgotten language into it, walked back to the door, and dropped the ward.
Ascanio blinked.
I held the cookie out to him. “You think it’s the ward that’s keeping me safe. You want this cookie? Take it.”
He studied me for a moment, his face calculating. He was lighting fast, and he was ninety-nine point nine percent sure he was faster than me.
The cookie lay on my palm, waiting. Perfectly harmless.
Ascanio’s nostrils fluttered slightly. He was sampling the air looking for the scent of poison. Not that it would hurt him. Lyc-V, the shapeshifter virus, ate poison for breakfast and asked for seconds.
I sighed. “Do you want the cookie or not?”
He moved so fast, his hand was a blur. His fingers touched the cookie and went right through it, brushing my palm, so light, like the tap of a moth’s wing. When I was a street kid, I thought I had a light touch. I thought I was quick. Compared to Ascanio, I was a rank amateur. If I ever held something in my hand and he wanted it, I wouldn’t even notice him taking it.
Ascanio stared at the perfectly solid cookie in my hand.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Don’t you want it?”
Moth wings on my palm. He’d tried again.
“Nice trick,” Ascanio said.
“You said you could take all of my cookies and you can’t even grab one. I’m disappoin
ted.” I raised the cookie to my mouth and took a bite. “Mmm. Delicious. You really don’t know what you’re missing.”
He swiped at the cookie, trying to take it out of my mouth. His fingers fanned my lips.
“Hey! Personal space.”
Ascanio opened his mouth.
A female shapeshifter dashed across the yard and slid to a stop next to Ascanio. “I saw him!”
Red burst in Ascanio’s eyes. “Are you sure?”
“Yes!” She waved her hand in front of her. “I saw his face.”
“We’ll finish this later.” Ascanio spun to her. “Show me.”
They sprinted off into the darkness.
I stepped out and yelled. “Wait! You forgot your cookie.”
A distant howl from Unicorn Lane was my only answer. That was fine. I knew he’d heard me.
I went inside, sealed the ward, and closed the door behind me. So, the Pack, or some part of it, was definitely interested in this murder. Unfortunately, I still had no idea why.
Let’s see, things I learned from this encounter: Ascanio was amazingly fast and he wasn’t shy about using money to get what he wanted, and what he wanted was Pastor Haywood’s killer. Not a complete waste, but not terribly useful either.
If the Pack required access to a murder, they could request it through proper channels. Most of the time, the city let them in. They were the best trackers, and they made efforts to play nice with law enforcement. They also took care of their own criminals, so if a shapeshifter had committed this murder, the Pack would do an internal investigation, apprehend them, and either punish or, depending on the political situation, turn them over to city authorities. It was a win-win arrangement—the Pack avoided unnecessary suspicion and the cops bled less trying to do their job. Subduing an enraged shapeshifter wasn’t a walk in the park.
But the Pack hadn’t requested access. They’d bribed a cop instead.
So far both Ascanio and Nick were interested in this case and pretending as hard as they could that they weren’t.
Nick’s interest worried me. Years ago, before Nick became Knight-Protector, he was a Crusader and his last assignment before his promotion was to infiltrate Roland’s organization. Grandfather had done something to him, something awful neither of them ever talked about. The assignment had ended in a disaster, and Nick watched the entire chapter, seven knights, be slaughtered by my other uncle who wasn’t in his right mind. He never broke his cover. I couldn’t even imagine how much of his soul that had cost him. He watched as the knights died and would’ve carried on his mission, except the asshole who was the Knight-Protector then exposed him as he lay dying and made sure it was all for nothing.
Nick had been volatile to begin with. That experience crystalized every crazy tendency he’d had. He had dedicated himself to opposing Grandfather and everything he stood for. Nick used to call Kate an abomination to her face. Kate didn’t mind. He was the only son of her former guardian, and she viewed him as a brother and helped him any chance she got. That was the way she moved through the world.
I should’ve resented Nick, but I didn’t. He was a knight of the Order in the truest sense, and he dedicated himself completely to the Order’s mission of protecting humanity against all threats. Kate represented a potential threat of catastrophic proportions. Kate was also Nick’s friend, and if she needed help, he would drop whatever he was doing and ride over with guns blazing and swords bared, as he had more than once. He simply refused to see the conflict between those two things. He worked with Kate, he was genuinely fond of Conlan, and he went over to Kate and Curran’s house for dinner, but he was always alert for any signs of Kate descending into madness. If she chose to become a tyrant, he would be first in line to run her through with his blade.
It was possible that his years as the Knight-Protector had stabilized him, but I highly doubted it. His paranoia was a bottomless, dark lake, and he was excellent at subterfuge.
I went to the hallway, slid the secret door open, entered my real home, and shut the door behind me. It clanged in place with a reassuring thud. The Enki Shield flowed closed, cutting off the outside world.
I whispered a word, and the fey lanterns ignited, bathing the chamber in bright yellow light. Yet another benefit of a classical education. My fey lanterns came with a magic off switch and glowed in a variety of colors, while most people’s fey lanterns were blue and glowed continuously when the magic was up. I wasn’t a fan of blue light, except as a rare accent here and there. Too harsh.
I walked to my desk and sat in my chair.
So far, this murder was all questions and no answers.
I reached for the familiar connection in my mind, looking for Turgan. A light shone in my mind and unfolded into a view of a house with brightly lit windows. Nick Feldman sat at a kitchen table, by the first-floor window, eating a sandwich and reading a thick book. The view tilted slightly as Turgan readjusted his grip on the branch.
“Stay on him,” I whispered.
The raptor clicked his beak in acknowledgement.
I let go, and the image faded.
The eagle would call to me if anything happened. As long as the magic stayed up, I would know every move Nick made. Tomorrow I would dig deeper, but before I could do that, I needed to figure out where to start.
I pulled a big stack of papers toward me. I had picked them up on my way home, three months’ worth of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Let’s see if anyone announced their discovery of new Christian relics.
6
I rode out into the city at eight a.m., unsupervised. Ascanio hadn’t left anyone to babysit me. Maybe he decided I wasn’t worth keeping an eye on. Maybe it slipped his mind. Both possibilities were equally unlikely, which meant whoever followed me was staying way back, tracking my trail. By the time I stopped by the blue house to hide the care package for Marten, I’d sprinkled wolfsbane on my tracks twice. It wouldn’t stop my tail, but why make it easy for them?
Twenty minutes later, I rode up to St. Luke’s Methodist Church on the edge of Tuxedo Park.
In the wake of the destruction brought about by the slow-motion magic apocalypse, the affluent of Atlanta fled north. Neighborhoods like Tuxedo Park had the bonus of being older, with historic mansions that fared much better than modern office towers and high-rises. While the skyscrapers fell and crashed, places like Villa Juanita, the ten-thousand-square-foot signature Tuxedo estate, suffered no damage, still as opulent as they had been a century and a half ago.
St. Luke’s Church straddled the divide between the wealthy of Tuxedo Park and the new business center that had sprung up along Peachtree Road. Calling it a church was a bit of an understatement. The massive cathedral, built with brick and white concrete, occupied five acres with its grounds and auxiliary buildings. A testament to the stoic values of the Gothic Revival, the entire complex was a fortress: a hospital, a school, and an administrative center all arranged into a single neat rectangle with the cathedral front and center, looking like a smaller cousin of Notre Dame.
A stretch of lawn bordered the cathedral, the killing ground, another fun real estate peculiarity of our apocalypse. A long walkway cut through the lawn, leading to a wide terrace before the stairway to the church. The terrace was filled with cut flowers. Roses, lilies, and wildflowers rested on the pavement, with candles burning between the blooms and small wooden crosses. The city had turned this space into a memorial to Pastor Haywood. A few mourners still remained, three days later, sitting on the low stone wall bordering the terrace and praying.
I rode to the side parking lot, dismounted, tethered Tulip, and walked up to the doors on foot.
A middle-aged white man with a receding hairline and wire-rimmed glasses met me at the entrance and gave my tattered cloak a long glance. Under the cloak, I wore a green t-shirt, a pair of comfortable brown pants secured by a belt holding pouches of herbs, silver dust, and other useful things, and a pair of running shoes. Nothing special.
This morning I had opened the s
maller weapons crate and pulled out two knives identical to the one I lost yesterday. I also carried a leaf short sword, with a twenty-two-inch-long blade that was about two point one inches across in the widest part. At a pound and eleven ounces, it ran on the heavy side, and the weight and the leaf profile made it a good slasher. The cloak hid all that, but it couldn’t hide Dakkan, my spear. My grandmother had a huge problem with that name, because the closest translation of it to English would be “Stabby.” She claimed it wasn’t a proper name for a weapon, so after the first Dakkan broke, I offered to name the new one Sharpy McStabbison, the Son of Stabby, after which she groaned and left my quarters, followed by a throng of her advisors all giving me reproachful looks.
Dakkan rested in two parts in the sheath on my back. When screwed together, it reached six feet. The two shafts protruded over my right shoulder, easy to grab, and the sentry at the church door clearly had trouble figuring out why I was carrying two metal sticks on my back.
After a few awkward seconds, he decided to stop pondering my weapon choice. “How may I help you?”
I took out my Order ID. “My name is Aurelia Ryder. I’m investigating Pastor Haywood’s murder.”
The man flinched slightly. “It’s awful. It feels like a nightmare…” He caught himself. “Would you mind waiting? The bishop is in residence and she may want to speak with you.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Please follow me.”
The inside of the church was ten degrees cooler. Soothing light streamed into the reception area through the stained-glass windows tinted in a dozen shades of blue and red. Through the open doors, I could see the inside of the church, rows and rows of wooden pews with cobalt cushions, the raised pulpit, and the simple wooden lectern upon it. There was no opulence in this church; everything was well made but restrained.
I had done some reading on the topic of Methodists while riding the ley line to the city. The Methodists had always viewed healing as an important theological theme, and after magic had wrecked the world, they focused on it with even greater intensity. As a result, the Methodist congregations swelled, and there came a need to have a point person for large geographical areas, usually a bishop, sometimes elected, sometimes appointed. The bishop I was about to meet was responsible for the entirety of North Georgia. She could open many doors. She could also slam them shut.
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