Blood Heir

by Ilona Andrews

  “I don’t want to go. I want to stay in your secret garden house.”

  “It’s not safe for you here.”

  Marten flopped on her back and put the book on her face.

  “I still see you,” I told her.

  “I like you better,” she said.

  “I like you, too. When things calm down, you can come and stay with me.”

  She lifted the book and gave me a squinty stare. “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  The doorbell rang again.

  “Come on,” I told her.

  She sighed and crawled off the couch, slow enough to make a sloth look like a sprinter. I followed. With great hesitation, Marten meandered down the path heading to the door. One of my ornate metal spheres waited on a narrow pedestal to the right of the path. She reached for it in passing.

  “Don’t,” I warned her.

  “Why?”

  “It’s dangerous.”

  She sighed.

  “You know this is a secret place,” I told her on the way to the front door. “Don’t tell anyone about it.”

  She gave me the side-eye. “I’m not a dummy.”

  I opened the door to Sophia dressed in pink bike shorts and a matching pink tank top. Her pale hair was damp, her glasses foggy. I didn’t see a vehicle, so she probably ran here on foot. There were times when being a shapeshifter came in handy.

  “Once again, I’m dreadfully sorry.”

  “Once again, don’t worry about it. How are the two of you going to get back?”

  “My other father is coming to pick us up. Can we wait here? He shouldn’t be long.”

  “Of course.”

  Sophia came in, demurely sat down in a kitchen chair, and took in my kitchen. Clearly, certain calculations were taking place in her head. I had paid with gold, which didn’t line up with my shabby house.

  I waited. She just sat there with a small smile on her face, offering no information and waiting for me to say something. Pure Barabas.

  I set the tea to boil and set out three teacups. “I’m curious about something. What do you have against Ascanio Ferara? You had a strong reaction when I said his name.”

  Sophia flushed. Embarrassment or crush?

  “I didn’t realize. Thank you for making me aware of it. I’ll make a better effort to hide my disgust in the future.”

  She was the most serious kid I’d ever met. “But why the disgust?”

  “Ascanio Ferara is the devil,” Sophia announced. “One day he’ll get what’s coming to him, and I hope to be there.”

  A shadow swooped down on my lawn. I caught a glimpse of crazily large red wings, just before they vanished, and a tall man strode to my front door. Marten sat up and smiled.

  A careful knock sounded. I opened the door. Christopher Steed stood outside. He wore a light grey suit that fit him like a glove. Tall, pale, with platinum blond hair, he had one of those refined faces that looked elegant no matter his expression. His sharp eyes locked on me.

  You don’t know me. We’ve never met.

  He stared at me for five long seconds. “We lost your child. My apologies.”

  “Marten is resourceful.”

  “I suspect she’s much more than that.”

  That made two of us. “Please come in.”

  I added another cup to the table. Christopher took the chair next to Marten. She gave him an angelic smile.

  “We were talking about Sophia’s disdain for Mr. Ferara.”

  “Ah.” Christopher allowed himself a small smile. “By all means, continue.”

  “It’s like this,” Sophia said, as I poured tea into the cups. “I have a group of friends.”

  I put a jar of honey in front of Christopher and set a small bottle of cream next to it.

  “We are a very capable group.”

  Christopher hid a smile and added honey to Marten’s tea. She gazed at him like he was the most wonderful person in the world.

  “Most of my friends live in the same neighborhood, but one of them, Bea, lives with the Pack, in a Clan House.”

  Baby B, Raphael and Andrea’s daughter.

  “Her parents are what you might call overprotective.”

  Andrea and Raphael? Overprotective? Raphael gave Baby B a dagger for her second birthday and then laughed when she tried to stab him with it.

  “When Bea doesn’t return to her Clan House on time or when she forgets to tell them where she’s going, they send Ascanio to fetch her. And since we’re usually together, he takes it upon himself to fetch us as well.”

  “For which your parents are deeply grateful,” Christopher said.

  “That’s beside the point, Father. The point is, he isn’t my babysitter, or Conlan’s, or Mahon’s and Ricardo’s. He isn’t in a position of authority over me. He simply decided to be insufferable.”

  “The tea is exquisite,” Christopher said.

  “I’m glad you like it,” I told him.

  Sophia took a sip. Marten got a hold of the honey jar and was busily spooning honey into her cup. At this rate, she’d end up with honey tea syrup.

  “You’ll have to drink some of the tea to make space,” I told her.

  “For example,” Sophia said. “One time we went to play in the sewers.”

  Marten stopped with her spoon in midair. “The Impala Worm is in the sewer.”

  “We were being very quiet. It was perfectly safe until Ascanio found us and yelled at us, and of course, the Impala Worm showed up. He didn’t have to fight it for half an hour, and he didn’t have to almost drown. He created this situation and then chose to be dramatic about it.”

  I stared at her. “How old were you?”

  “Nine.”

  Conlan would have been six. Mahon and Ricardo would have been five. Oh my gods.

  “Then there was another time we wanted to go to Savannah for the pirate festival. We would have been back by morning. And all of us could swim. The boat was sinking very slowly, so there was no reason to panic.”

  “I feel like you skipped a part. How did you get on a boat?” I asked.

  “We took a ley line to Savannah, but it doesn’t go straight to the city.”

  Ley lines were persistent magic currents. They lasted even during tech, although they lost a lot of their speed. The ley line was like a train track with a continuous train running at high speed.

  To travel on a ley line you had to have some kind of platform, a raft of metal, plastic, or wood. I’d ridden ley lines on old doors and one time in a very large Styrofoam cooler. Anything worked as long as it separated you from the current. The magic of ley lines sheared anything living, and walking into one would leave you without your legs. That’s why the government put up billboards with graphic pictures of bodies cut into pieces by ley points.

  The points were another fun ley line feature. The current wasn’t continuous. It had breaks called ley points, and when you reached one, the current ended abruptly and jettisoned you out. You had no choice about it.

  “I know that ley point,” I said. “It dumps you in a salt marsh.”

  Which was why most people shipped goods from Atlanta to Savannah by cart or car. The ley line that led from Savannah to Atlanta was just fine, but that was the post-Shift world for you.

  “We didn’t know that bit,” Sophia said.

  “So, it dumped you in the middle of the marsh. Was it dark?”

  “There was some light.”

  “Was it moonlight?”

  “Possibly.”

  Christopher smiled into his tea.

  “We were fine until the tide started coming in.”

  I stared at her.

  She shrugged. “There were no signs telling us where to go and the scent trails were confusing. We found a boat. It was leaking only a little bit, so we were completely fine. It was fun. We were going to paddle to the coast. Except Ascanio showed up and made us go back.”

  “Then there was the minotaur,” Christopher said quietly.

&n
bsp; Sophia sighed.

  “I don’t understand how the kids keep escaping,” I said. “Was nobody watching them?”

  “Shapeshifter children come with unique challenges,” Christopher said. “A certain degree of independence is highly encouraged.”

  It made sense to some degree. An average shapeshifter toddler was stronger and faster than most human adults, and their regeneration kept them relatively intact. But they were still kids.

  “Unfortunately,” Christopher continued, “when these six get together, they seem to develop an unshakeable confidence in their own abilities to handle things regardless of the reality of the situation.”

  Sophia glanced at him. “Five, Father. JJ is too young. We don’t always invite him.”

  JJ? “Tell me about the minotaur.”

  “It wasn’t an actual minotaur, which was a huge letdown,” Sophia volunteered.

  “No, it was worse,” her father said. “Most minotaurs are calm until they’re provoked. This was a buffalo shapeshifter gone loup. He’d taken off into the North Forest after massacring his entire family. The Pack’s herd leader was away at the time, and the decision was made to wait until Eduardo returned to avoid unnecessary loss of life.”

  Dad would have gone in there by himself and killed it. I opened my mouth to ask why he didn’t and caught myself. Oops. Eh… “Why didn’t the Beast Lord take care of it?”

  “His predecessor would have. However, Shrapshire is not that hands-on. The Pack has developed procedures and protocols to handle a variety of situations, like this one, and he doesn’t get involved until all other avenues have been exhausted.”

  Interesting. That was always the problem with the Pack and Dad. He’d made the Pack, or rather it accreted around him, and he was the answer to all their problems. It wore him down. There were days when all he did was run around putting out Pack fires. It looked like Jim had installed a structure that had been missing. And this type of incident could get ugly fast. If the wolves or the cats killed a bovine shapeshifter, even one gone loup, it could open a big can of worms.

  “One of my friends wanted to hunt the minotaur,” Sophia said.

  I choked on my tea. I knew exactly which friend that was.

  “When was this?”

  “A year ago.”

  Damn it, Conlan. “Sophia, how old were you? You should have known better.”

  “It was perfectly safe.”

  Clearly, that was her battle cry. Everything was on fire, and sharks and dragons were circling us, but it was perfectly safe. “How?”

  “We hid in the brambles, the black kind with red thorns. He was circling around the bramble bushes, but he couldn’t get to us, because he was too big. He would have gotten bored and gone away, but Ascanio showed up. Again.”

  I put my hands over my face.

  “As I have pointed out before,” Christopher said, “this was less about hunting a minotaur and more about hiding from a minotaur, trapped, with no escape route, while your parents frantically searched the entire city for you since the lot of you left a note that said, ‘Gone on a monster hunt.’”

  “Did he kill the loup?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Christopher said. “Eventually. Ascanio suffered a broken femur in his left leg, two broken ribs, and a collapsed lung, but he did kill the loup. My guess is, he thought the children would die if he failed.”

  “We helped! Towards the end. Well, Conlan helped the most.” Sophia grit her teeth. “Do you know what he did after? He cursed at us. An adult man. And then, when I told him that we could run away from him because of his broken leg and he should be nicer, he put us in loup manacles.”

  “He what?”

  “He’s part of the Pack’s loup rapid response unit. He always has loup manacles in his SUV,” Christopher said. “He manacled the children to one another and led them out of the woods like that.”

  Sophia flushed. “Everybody saw. Everybody. I’ll never forgive him. He’ll get what’s coming to him.”

  Oh my gods. He had to walk them out on a broken leg. And the ribs. Every breath would be fire.

  “And now you know why my daughter isn’t a fan of the man who constantly saves her and her friends from themselves.”

  Sophia opened her mouth.

  Christopher looked at her. “It’s time for you to return home. Be careful, the roads are muddy.”

  “Yes, Father.” Sophia rose. “Thank you for the tea. And for giving me another chance with Marten. I promise there won’t be any more escapes.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  She left.

  “Ms. Ryder, if I could offer a word of advice?”

  “Of course.”

  “The situation in the Pack is delicate. Jim Shrapshire, the current Beast Lord, wants to retire. Leading the Pack is an exhausting, high-pressure position, and he gets little thanks but shoulders all the blame. He’s missing the childhood of his children and it’s wearing on him. He will, however, continue until a worthy successor presents themselves. Such a successor must have support from the majority of the clans. Ascanio Ferara is sizing up the Beast Lord’s throne, and he thinks it will fit him. He may be right, but he has a long way to go. He has the brains, money, and the drive, but he lacks experience and the sheer physicality required for the role.”

  “He took on a loup buffalo.”

  “He’s a superb fighter. The question is, can he inspire people to follow him? Can he walk onto a battlefield and lead the charge? That remains to be seen. Whatever you and he are involved in, and I’m not insinuating anything by that remark, keep in mind that if you put yourself in the path of his ambition, he will bulldoze over you.”

  “Thank you.”

  He turned to Marten. “Ready?”

  She gazed at him, her face serene. “Are we going to fly?”

  “We are. The only question is, how high would you like to go?”

  “Wait.” I ran to the back of the house and came back with a thick sweatshirt and pulled it over Marten. It swallowed her. “It will be cold up there.”

  Marten hugged me and held out her arms to Christopher. He picked her up and carried her out the front door. For a moment they stood poised in the moonlight. Then two enormous blood-red wings burst from Christopher’s back, beat once, and he streaked into the sky, taking Marten with him. The theophage who had devoured Deimos, the Greek god of terror, was flying away with the little girl I cared about, and I was totally okay with that.

  A pair of ruby eyes caught the light in the shadows across the street. A bouda. Ascanio must have left someone to watch my house, and they had just given themselves away. Sloppy. Or they wanted me to know I was being watched.

  My phone rang. Looked like my night wasn’t over yet.

  I went inside and picked it up.

  “I found Darren Argent.” All humor was gone from Stella’s voice.

  “I have a feeling I’m not going to like this.”

  “Do you know what Ice Fury is?”

  “The largest shapeshifter pack in the United States. They’re based in Alaska, half of them have gone wild, and they don’t like outsiders.”

  “Darren Argent is the beta of Ice Fury.”

  Cold washed over me. I remembered where I had heard the name.

  There was no way. It couldn’t be Derek.

  “There are more warnings on his file than I have ever seen. This guy is death on legs.”

  “Is there a description?” Maybe he just used the name.

  “Male, white, early thirties, dark hair. He’s kind of hard to misidentify. He’s got scars all over his face.”

  The world stood on its hands and kicked me in the face.

  “You said you ran into him.” Urgency vibrated in Stella’s voice. “Tell me he isn’t in Atlanta right now. Because if he is, the Knight-Protector has to know. I can’t know this and not tell him.”

  Of course. A prominent member of the largest shapeshifter pack entered Atlanta’s Pack territory and didn’t announce himself. Nick wou
ld expect a shapeshifter war.

  “Go ahead and tell him.”

  “I already did.”

  “Then why the hell did you ask me?”

  “I wanted to know what you would say.”

  “Stella!”

  “Feldman wasn’t happy. He wants you to come in.”

  “Let him know I’ll be there first thing in the morning.”

  “No, he wants you to come in right now.”

  Right now wouldn’t be happening. I had to figure out how to handle this situation, and I was so exhausted, I could barely stand. “I’ll be there in the morning. Tell him that it’s not a shapeshifter war.”

  Stella exhaled into the phone. “Aurelia…”

  “In the morning. I have to go.”

  I hung up.

  A few years ago, a family of wererats joined the New Shinar, husband, wife, and their two children. They were originally from California but had had a falling out with the rest of their extended family and had gone up to Alaska to join Ice Fury. Things didn’t work out, and once the husband’s father died, they packed up and moved back south to take care of the husband’s mother.

  At the time, Erra had wanted as much information about Ice Fury as she could get, and the family spent several days telling us about their former pack. Some of it we already knew, a lot of it we didn’t.

  Ice Fury consisted mostly of wolves and bears. At least one-third of the pack had gone wild, meaning they spent more time in fur than in human skin. Atlanta’s Pack was forced to interact with human society. Ice Fury made sure they didn’t have to.

  About ten years ago, Mihail Kamenov, an enormous Kodiak from Siberia, took over as Ice Fury Alpha. He favored a hands-off style of leadership. From what the rats had said, he spent most of his time in the woods, coming out only when there was a problem that needed to be crushed with his giant paw. Ice Fury was run by a series of betas. The latest beta and the one who’d lasted the longest was Darren Argent.

  The wererats couldn’t really tell us what was so special about Darren, but when they described him, their eyes glazed over. He had some sort of pull, some kind of magnetic thing about him that other shapeshifters, wolves especially, instantly recognized. Shapeshifters flocked to him. According to the father of the family, Darren could have taken the pack away from Mihail whenever he felt like it, and Ice Fury would back him up.