“Back up to the part where you tell us that were-things are real and they live in Charleston,” I said, taking down the bottle of bourbon I keep for emergencies and pouring some for Teag and me as we settled into chairs.
“The packs in Charleston are shifters, not were-creatures,” Sorren replied, leaning on the door and crossing his arms over his chest. “It’s an important difference. Shifters can change shape at will. Were-creatures’ change is driven by the lunar cycle.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “So he can just change himself into a big black dog whenever he wants to?”
Sorren shrugged. “It’s a little more complicated than that, but basically—yes. Shifting takes energy, so he can’t do it a lot, and he’ll need rest and food to recover. I figure that’s why he tried to break in as a human, instead of tracking you to your car again as a dog. Shifters can’t stay in their animal form for too long without... unpleasant side effects.”
“Are there a lot of shifters in Charleston?” Teag asked. I knew he’d be doing research on the Darke Web, the ensorcelled encrypted part of the internet frequented by those familiar with the supernatural.
“A few dozen,” Sorren replied. “Enough for several packs—none of which like or trust each other.”
“Lovely.” I’d learned the hard way that supernatural creatures were masters of holding grudges.
“And I’m guessing they don’t care for vampires,” Teag added.
Sorren grimaced. “Those of us who began as humans remain more human than not, despite the other significant changes. Even immortality doesn’t temper love, hate, jealousy, anger—or prejudice.” If he had needed to breathe, he might have let out a sigh. “You’ve glimpsed it a bit among the different types of magic-practitioners you’ve met. Everyone’s convinced his or her power is the most desirable.”
“Are there other vampires in Charleston?” I asked, and realized it was something I’d never questioned.
Sorren’s eyes narrowed. “Not without my permission. I claimed this city as mine to protect three hundred and fifty years ago when I worked with your ancestor to found Trifles and Folly. The signs are unmistakable for those who need to know. Coming here uninvited would be rightly considered a challenge—and a threat.”
“But the packs co-exist,” Teag put in, steering us back to less dangerous topics.
Sorren nodded. “Shifters aren’t usually solo predators. They form small groups that function like a family of choice for self-protection. It helps them stay hidden because they cover for each other. And for more than a century, the Accords have held. Mortals have forgotten most of the tales about local people turning into animals because the packs have been careful to hide themselves and police their own members.” He paused. “Clearly, something has changed.”
“He couldn’t get through Lucinda’s wards,” I said. “They knocked him out.”
“Lucinda’s protections against hostile magic are nothing to be taken lightly,” Sorren replied. “There’s even more animosity between the Voudon community and shifters than there is between shifters and my kind.”
I wasn’t a big fan of political maneuvering, and the idea that the hidden world of supernatural creatures had its own internal drama left me vaguely disappointed, even as I had to confess that it made sense. “You said you wanted to trade Derek to his pack for information. Do you know what group he belongs to?”
“I can smell the mark of his pack on him,” Sorren replied. “And it’s a bit of luck in our favor. His pack leader, a man named Marshall, is a reasonable man—less blinded by bias than most.”
“You think there’s a common thread to the disappearances?” Teag asked. “If so, then whoever killed Malcolm is likely to come after Derek—and us.”
Sorren nodded. “That’s why we need to talk with Marshall before this whole situation gets completely out of hand.”
Teag and I followed Sorren out of the office and back to the break room. He spoke quietly to Derek, who woke up looking pissed. He raised his head to glare at us. “You gonna kill me now or what?” The split lip slurred his words, but the intent was clear.
“We’re not going to kill you,” Sorren replied, standing in front of Derek. “I’ll dial your phone for you, and you’re going to call Marshall and arrange a trade. You for some information.”
Derek snorted. “I screwed up. What makes you think Marshall wants me back?”
Sorren shrugged. “You’re pack. I suspect he’d want to deal with what happened himself, rather than letting outsiders handle it.” Derek winced, validating Sorren’s guess.
“The pack isn’t going to be keen on having a biter around,” Derek warned, glancing from Teag to me as if he was still trying to figure out what we were and how he ended up knocked for a loop.
“Leave the details to me,” Sorren replied. He reached down and dug Derek’s phone out of the man’s pocket. “Give me Marshall’s number.” Derek’s expression wavered between baleful and uncertain, trying to hide his fear of the pack leader behind bluster. Finally, he swore and rattled off the number.
Sorren dialed, and a moment later, a man’s voice answered. “Hello.”
“Marshall,” Sorren said.
“Who is this? Where’s Derek?”
“This is Sorren. We’ve met.”
Silence, and then: “The biter?”
“I have someone who belongs to you—and you have information I want. Let’s trade.”
From the string of curses that followed, I gathered Marshall was less than pleased with the suggestion. “I’d be within my rights to kill him,” Sorren continued after a moment, managing to sound completely unruffled. “He attacked two of my people and tried to break into my shop. You’ve been in Charleston long enough to know I protect what’s mine. Giving him back to you is a gesture of goodwill. All I want in return is some information—and for you to let your people know that my people and places are off limits.”
Marshall launched into another stream of profanity, but even at a distance, I could hear the frustration in his voice. Sorren held the cards, and it was clear from the angry words spewing from the phone that Marshall knew it. “When and where?”
Sorren gave Marshall a time to meet and directions to a cabin on St. John Island. I knew the place. Lucinda and Rowan, our favorite Voudon mambo and local witch, had warded the cabin against everything they had a protection spell for. Sorren, Teag, and I carved the walls and doors full of sigils and runes, to go with the amulets and talismans that hung from the rafters. We’d used the place as a neutral zone to meet with other players in the supernatural community when no one dared to take “good intentions” at face value. And more than once, we’d stashed a prisoner in the cabin when the risk of using any other location outweighed the inconvenience. Now, the plan called for a little of both.
“I’m invoking the Accords,” Sorren told Marshall. I couldn’t hear Marshall’s reply. “Safe passage in and out for both sides. I’ll have two people with me; you can bring two of your own. No more.”
This time, Marshall’s terse agreement carried across the distance. “Derek’s alive?”
“A little worse for the wear,” Sorren replied. “Within my rights to do worse, for what he did.”
“Agreed.” I shot a glance at Derek, and he dropped his head at Marshall’s words, knowing trouble was headed his way.
“No reason we can’t all come away from this with what we want, if everyone keeps a cool head,” Sorren continued.
“Suits me.” Marshall was obviously a man of few words.
Sorren ended the call and turned back toward Teag and me. “He’ll be there in an hour. Let’s go—I want to make sure we get to the cabin first.”
I drove, glad that I recently traded my blue Mini Cooper for a more practical RAV4. Not as sexy, but much more useful for hauling around boxes and bodies. And when did my world go sideways enough that evaluating trunk space meant figuring out how large a person would fit inside?
Teag rode shotgun. Sorren sat in t
he back with Derek, who was handcuffed and partly wrapped in the silver-infused net. The net wasn’t pure silver, but the residue was enough to raise welts and make Derek fidget. I almost felt bad for him, until I remembered fighting his dog alter-ego off in the parking lot last night.
The meeting with Marshall was supposed to be peaceful, but the three of us had enough weapons to protect ourselves if something went wrong. I’d only just found out that shifters were real, but if they were half as dangerous as TV shows and movies made them out to be, we were well-served going in prepared.
The cabin sat in the center of a large clearing, just as I remembered. Sandy soil kept the grass sparse and short. Nothing nearby gave cover for an ambush. Sorren had been playing this game for nearly five hundred years. Being good at it kept him—and us—alive.
“Let’s get inside.” Sorren manhandled Derek while Teag and I grabbed our weapons. We escorted them into the cabin. Sorren paused for a moment, scanning the clearing, and sniffed the air. “No one’s here yet. Good.”
Sorren paused in the doorway before flipping on the lights, just to assure that no surprises waited in the dark. By design, the cabin left no hiding places. Just a large main room and a small bathroom with its door wide open, exposing a shower and commode. The main room held a couch, a table, a few chairs, and along one side, a galley kitchen. Emergency supplies filled the shelves, along with basic canned goods. We used the cabin for awkward meetings, but in a pinch, it could serve as a well-provisioned safe house. I knew for a fact that Sorren had a day crypt beneath the floor, and that another secret compartment held sufficient weapons—supernatural and conventional—for a lengthy stand-off. The cabin itself could withstand even hurricane-force winds, with metal storm shutters covering the windows and fireproof walls and roof. We were as safe as possible—which somehow, didn’t seem like much of a guarantee.
Sorren sat Derek down in a chair in the middle of the room, and Teag looped rope around his arms to keep him seated. I went to the window and looked out through the shutters, scanning the darkness for movement. I gripped my athame in my right hand and brushed the fingers of my left hand against an agate spindle whorl—the gift of a Norse seiõr—to rein in my nerves. The collar on my left wrist jangled, and Bo’s ghost appeared next to me, silently vigilant. Teag had his martial arts staff in one hand, his spelled dagger in a scabbard on his belt.
We were here for a meeting, not a showdown, but we all sensed just how quickly one could become the other.
“He’s here.” I nodded toward the approach to the cabin. Sorren moved to glance out between the slats of the shutters. A tall, muscular man stalked across the open field with two lean, athletic shapes walking in sync on either side. They moved with the grace of dancers and the ferocity of wolves. Even with them at a distance, a warning prickled in the back of my mind.
“Let him in,” Sorren said.
I opened the door, and Marshall strode inside. Clean-shaven, with dark hair that held just a hint of gray at the temples, Marshall looked like he belonged in a business suit, though tonight he wore a plaid shirt over jeans and boots. He looked to be in his early forties, and I wondered if shifters aged differently the regular humans. How many of them I had passed on the street never realizing?
Marshall’s backups, a man and a woman, carried themselves like ex-military. I wondered if shifters gravitated toward jobs like that, where aggression fit the requirements. The woman’s dark hair fell in a braid to her shoulders, her face defiantly free of make-up. Tension radiated from her body, but she defaulted to a parade rest stance. I glanced at the knife on her belt and wondered if she needed a weapon to kill. The man appeared equally lethal, with short dirty-blond hair and features that managed to be attractive in a rough way despite a nose that had been reset a few times.
“Derek.” Marshall’s gaze took in Sorren, Teag, and me, evaluated our potential danger, and then fixed on the object of the trade. “We need to talk.”
Derek did not raise his head, and his mumbled apologies sounded garbled as he spoke them into his chest.
“He’s here and alive—a little worse for the wear but quite good, all things considered,” Sorren opened the negotiations.
“I’m here.” Marshall replied. “Tell me why we couldn’t have just done a drop-off out on the edge of town?”
“Because we agreed to a trade—your man for information. I want to know how many of your kind have gone missing—and how long it’s been going on.”
Whatever Marshall expected, Sorren’s question sucked the wind out of him. For an instant, his eyes were unguarded, and I saw a glint of fear, something I didn’t think Marshall revealed often. His expression slipped from surprise to anger. “Biters keeping an eye on us now?”
“Keeping an eye on Charleston is my job,” Sorren replied, refusing to rise to the bait. “Has been for a long time. And in all those years, I’ve left your kind mostly alone, unless they gave me reason to do otherwise. If you don’t believe me, ask your elders.”
“I know it’s true. I just don’t like outsiders nosing around our business.” Marshall’s defiant voice held an edge of something else, and I wondered if he felt he needed to put up a good front for his backup.
“How many?”
Marshall looked away and let out a long breath. “In our pack? Three this year. Three I’m sure didn’t just leave on their own.”
“And in the other packs?”
Marshall hesitated. “You know we don’t talk much. But word gets around. Maybe eight, nine total—just since January.”
“Any theories on who’s behind it or what’s going on?”
Marshall shook his head. “No. And it’s got people scared. Malcolm’s was the exception. He’s the first killed outright, the others are just missing. There’s no connection among the victims that anyone’s heard about, no common enemies, no old grudges. Just—gone.”
Marshall looked like the kind of guy who solved his own problems, and I could see that it killed him to admit weakness. On the other hand, much as he scorned “biters,” I was pretty sure anyone who had been in Charleston’s supernatural underground as long as Marshall would have heard about Sorren and the Alliance—and us. We’d saved the city—and the world—from some pretty bad nasties, and Sorren’s longer track record couldn’t have gone unnoticed. Maybe Derek’s attack had been a skewed kind of gift. Marshall never would have offered up what he knew on his own.
“So the disappearances started in January?” Sorren and Marshall stood facing each other, just farther than arm’s length apart, as if neither were certain whether to talk or throw a punch.
“It’s pack business. We’ll handle it.”
“You’ve had eight months to ‘handle’ it,” Sorren snapped. “People keep dying. And I’m guessing that even so, the packs aren’t working together.”
Marshall shrugged, uncomfortable. “We don’t have much to say to each other. Better if we keep our distance.”
“Bet the killer knows that,” Sorren goaded. “Bet he’s counting on it. The longer the packs avoid working together on this, the more of your people are going to die.”
“We don’t know they’re dead!” Marshall’s head swung back to fix Sorren with a glare. His set jaw and the glint in his eyes sent a clear warning.
“Nobody’s come back, have they?”
Marshall’s right hand closed in a fist. Behind him, his bodyguards tensed, ready to move. Derek kept his eyes averted, but I could see the way his jaw clenched, and knew he was thinking about his brother among the missing. Sorren stood motionless, though Teag and I waited on high alert. Physically, we were no match for two shifters, but our magic gave us a more than human edge, maybe enough to even the odds.
After a moment, Marshall swallowed hard and let his fist loosen. “What can you do? You’re not one of us.”
“You know this will spill over eventually, outside of the packs.” Sorren’s voice, low and cold, carried the weight of centuries of authority. “Bystanders will get hurt.
When—not if, but when—that happens, not only will outsiders pay far more attention to ‘pack business’ than you’d like, but I won’t have any choice except to finish it. With or without the help of the packs.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“You know better.”
Sorren and Marshall eyed each other again, a momentary stand-off. “All right,” Marshall said, and ran a hand up through his hair, shaking his head as if fighting a silent battle with himself. “This isn’t going to be pretty. The other packs will be harder to convince than I was. And they like biters even less.”
“Someone is picking off shifters. Since none of the packs are sharing information, the attacks look random. I suspect they’re anything but,” Sorren said. “Separately, none of you can put the pieces together. The killer’s counting on that.”
“We don’t know they’re dead,” Marshall repeated.
Pity tempered Sorren’s stern expression. “You know that’s likely.”
Marshall blinked slowly, composing himself.
I wonder if he lost someone who was more than just a pack mate. I thought.
“So you get us to come to the table, share information. Then what? The packs take care of their own.”
“Then you let the professionals deal with it.” Sorren’s tone, razor-sharp, cut through Marshall’s denial. “Because there will be blood, and this way, the pack stays clean. We will deal with it,” he added, emphasizing each of the last five words, driving his point home.
Marshall nodded quickly, and I wondered whether he was trying to convince himself, or get Sorren to shut up. “Okay. All right. I get it. Yes. At least, for my pack. That’s all I can promise, but I’ll do everything I can to bring the others to the table.”
Sorren watched him closely, looking for a sign that Marshall might be lying, and seemed satisfied with what he saw. “How long will it take?”
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