Twenty-Sided Sorceress 3 - Pack of Lies

by Annie Bellett

  “I fucked up,” I said softly. “I almost got everyone killed again.”

  “Don’t blame the victim,” he said. “That assassin doesn’t care about collateral damage. He was here, in this place, for a reason. Perhaps Samir wishes for your friends to be killed, to be hurt, as well. This is very like him, yes?”

  “Are you trying to be comforting?” I muttered. I shook my head, rubbing it against his chin, and took a deep breath, inhaling Alek’s vanilla and musk scent.

  “I meant it in a more general way,” I added, trying to order my thoughts. “I have been so defensive. Yesterday, when he shot at me, I ducked. Then I threw up a shield. I didn’t blast his car off the road. I didn’t try to go after him. I just went for cover, went for minimizing damage. And last night, I did the same. I hesitated when I should have just struck for a kill. And then I used so much power shielding and none attacking.”

  Somehow I knew that Alek might understand what I was thinking, what I was trying to say, that he, more than anyone in my life, would get my desire to stop reacting. To start acting.

  “You think if you had acted more quickly, gone on the offensive, Harper would not be hurt?” he said softly.

  “Yes.”

  “You might be right.”

  Okay, that stung a little. I mean, it was what I was thinking, but hearing someone else say it hurt.

  “Ouch,” I said, pulling away and sitting up.

  He tucked his arms behind his head and looked up at me.

  “You are afraid of your power,” he said. It wasn’t phrased as a question.

  “A little, yes,” I admitted. “There is so much of it, and it’s growing all the time. When I was younger I just stuck to little stuff until Samir came along, trying out spells I found in the DnD manual, but I didn’t do too much. I was afraid even then, afraid I would hurt people. I don’t feel like I have control, I don’t know what my limits are until I hit them, I don’t even know if those are real limits or if my brain is just imposing them to save some shred of my psyche. I’m terrified of hurting people around me.” The words flowed out of me in a rush, leaving behind a strange relief that I had finally said them aloud.

  “With great power comes great responsibility,” he said, nodding sagely.

  “Did you just quote Spider-Man at me?” I raised an eyebrow, impressed.

  “Spider-Man? No. Voltaire. Or, technically, Jesus, if you believe the gospel of Luke. I believe he said, ‘To whom much is given, much is expected.’”

  Oh. Right. That made more sense. Alek was still cute when he was smug and all full of the brains.

  “Well, Uncle Ben said it, too,” I said, making a face at him.

  He smiled but it didn’t last, his serious expression returning.

  “You did what you felt was right, for you, for that moment,” he said. “There is no shame in that. Learn from it, from these doubts and feelings and fears. Next time, make a different decision. Just remember to always decide. Inaction is death.”

  “I don’t know if I can be a killer,” I blurted, saying the words that had hovered in my mind since I watched, helpless, as my father died in front of me, torn apart because of my decisions. If I had killed Not Afraid. If I had killed Sky Heart. If I had never gone back. If if if. I was terrified that all the solutions I saw looked like death for someone.

  I was terrified that part of me wanted that death. Killing Bernie hadn’t sucked. I didn’t like his slimy, psychotic memories living in my head, but I didn’t regret eating his heart and ending him for even a second.

  And that scared me, too.

  “Liar,” Alek murmured, his voice incredibly soft, almost a purr. Looking into his eyes felt like falling into the sky.

  I sank back down, laying my head on his chest. His arms came back around me.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m tired of death, but I’m tired of worrying so much about it, about causing it when it seems like my enemies stack up and don’t give a shit. I’m tired of every problem looking like a nail. Does it get easier?”

  “Does what get easier?” he asked.

  “Killing,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said, his voice deep and sad. “It does.”

  After a while, we both slept.

  “Lean on Me” by Bill Withers was playing as I sleepily lifted my head.

  “Fuck is that?” I mumbled, lost for a moment as to where I was. I knew the warm body trying to move out from under me was Alek. Then the rest of it flowed into my half-conscious brain.

  “My phone,” Alek said. He lifted me off him and grabbed his pants from the floor, fishing his phone out of them. “Yes?”

  I smiled at his choice of ringtone. I’d missed his sense of humor. The room was dim, and I looked out the window toward the barn. Long shadows from the trees clung like tentacles along its red roof. The sun was setting.

  “We’re coming now,” Alek said, all sleepiness gone from his voice and his posture.

  “What is it?” I asked as he shoved his phone into his pants pocket and started dressing with preternatural speed. He didn’t bother with his sweater, pulling on his undershirt as he checked for his car keys.

  “Liam has been murdered,” he said.

  We raced down the stairs, pausing to throw on our shoes in the entry. I glanced toward the room where Harper was, realizing I was leaving her without my protection. I hesitated and Alek looked back at me, the front door already open.

  Rosie appeared in the door to Harper’s room. “Trouble?” she said.

  “Yeah,” I said, glancing at Alek. “But I can stay.”

  “Harper ate three sandwiches and went back to sleep an hour ago,” Rosie said, making a shooing motion. “She’ll be fine. We’ll all be fine. Go watch the Justice’s back.”

  “Jade?” Alek said.

  “All right,” I said. I turned and followed him out.

  In the shadows of the porch, I spied Levi and Junebug sitting in Adirondack chairs. Junebug had a carving knife and a length of rosewood in her hands, whittling away. Levi had a hunting rifle across his knees. They both nodded to us as we went by, heading for Alek’s truck.

  I expected Alek to drive us back to town and through to the other side, to head toward the Den where the Wylde pack lived. Instead he headed out farther along the road after leaving the offshoot that led to the Henhouse, taking us right along the edge of the wilderness. We pulled into the large turnaround and day-use lot at the Three Firs trailhead. Sheriff Lee’s official SUV was pulled up there, along with at least four other vehicles.

  There was enough daylight left to see the crowd gathered in the grassy area beyond the lot. I recognized a few of them, faces I knew from around town, but there were at least half a dozen men and women who I couldn’t place as belonging in Wylde. Alek and I climbed out of the truck and I felt the suspicious looks and tension like a physical weight pressing on me.

  I walked toward the crowd beside Alek, refusing to look down or away from any of the eyes that met mine. I was not prey. I was here because a Justice wanted me here. I was here because I wanted, no, needed to help. Someone had to remember the human side of things, to remember the Lansings in their unmarked graves. To use Alek’s metaphor, I was here to help balance the scales.

  Eva, the other Justice, stood near a tarp on the ground spread over I didn’t want to know what, talking to Sheriff Lee. The sheriff was an American-born Chinese, her family was original to the non-Native settlement of the area. They had come to work the gold mines in the Dakotas and kept moving westward as time wore on. I didn’t know how old she was, but I’d chatted with her a time or two in Brie’s bakery and got the impression that she hadn’t been one of the original family members to come to Idaho, but was born here, sometime inside this century.

  Of course, with shifters, you never know.

  I liked her. She was solid, steady, and good at making drunk tourists and college students back down from a fight. She kept a town full of supernaturals and shifters nearly crime-free. Well, wit
h a few exceptions in the last year. Mainly my exceptions. I felt a pang of guilt and shoved it away.

  Eva I did not like. I’d formed a snap impression of her, true, but her expression as Alek and I walked through the crowd of wolves toward her was sour and mean. Her dark blue eyes were hard and judgy. Yeah, I didn’t think she’d become my favorite person anytime soon.

  “What is she doing here?” she said, ignoring me and looking at Alek.

  “She’s with me,” he said. “What happened?” He motioned at the tarp.

  I breathed through my mouth, ignoring the buzz of flies and reek of death. More death. I was pretty sure I didn’t want to see what was under that tarp.

  “Someone murdered my brother,” a woman said, stepping forward. “Someone is trying to kill their competition.” She was tall and lean, with freckles and wheat-colored hair. Her face seemed familiar, but I was pretty sure we’d never officially met.

  “Freyda,” Alek said, and I got the feeling he was using her name both to calm her and for my benefit. “Perhaps this is less related to becoming the new alpha of alphas and more about the Peace,” he suggested softly.

  Murmurs went through the small crowd. I assumed some of them were visiting alphas. They looked diverse enough. Two tanned brothers with green eyes and thick beards, wearing jeans. A white man with silver in his light brown hair, dressed incongruously with the forest setting in business casual attire. A woman in a blue sundress with skin so dark it made mine look pale in comparison. All of them radiated power and control, their bearing reminding me a little of Alek. Definitely alphas.

  Only one stood out, and he lurked a handful of paces back from the others, a dark-haired man who looked as though he hadn’t slept in days and spent much of those eyes crying. His hair was crinkled and stuck in places, as though sweaty hands had run through it over and over. I guessed that this was Henry, Dorrie’s mate. It must have been he who called Alek.

  Freyda stared him in the eye, then slowly let her gaze drop. “There is no trail. We found sign of a pack, of at least three or four wolves, but they must have left in a vehicle. The trail ends.” She pointed at the parking area.

  “Sheriff.” Alek turned to Lee. “May I see the body?”

  She nodded even as Eva shook her head. “This is pointless. We should be questioning the sorceress.” She glared at me.

  Every set of eyes turned to me and the tension ramped up to epic levels. I was desperately thinking don’t be prey, but at that moment I felt a lot like the rabbit in the shadow of an eagle. A pack of eagles. Hungry, angry eagles.

  Yeah. Uh. Shit. So, that was out a cat out of the bag that wasn’t ever going back in. I wanted to take the proverbial bag and smother that righteous bitch with it.

  Alek stepped in front of me, all six and a half feet of him towering over everyone else, tension radiating from him, careful, controlled, but no less dangerous. Maybe more dangerous. Even Eva seemed to deflate a little under his sweeping icy gaze.

  “Jade is here to help,” he said, his words a growl.

  I didn’t need him fighting my battles for me, but on the other hand, this was his realm. I was no shifter; I had no idea about pack politics. Hell, apparently some of what Harper had been telling me about shifters wasn’t even the full truth. I’d make her fix that, later. If we weren’t all dead.

  “Her number is the last one dialed in his phone,” Lee said, bravely cutting in. “It is a valid question why he called her, what he said.”

  “I didn’t talk to him,” I said, moving back beside Alek so I could actually see the people I was talking to. “When did he call me?”

  More importantly, why did he call me? I didn’t say that aloud though. I remembered Alek saying something about giving Liam my number, telling him to call me if anything came up or he found the Lansings’ car.

  “Early this morning,” Lee said.

  “My phone kind of fell in a fire last night—it’s been dead since nine pm or so.”

  “His heart is missing,” Eva cut in. “I hear sorcerers like hearts.”

  “His heart is missing?” Alek asked, looking at Lee, not Eva.

  I cast a glance around, wondering if others noticed the snub. From the speculative look the black woman and Freyda were giving Justice Eva, I thought at least some had.

  “Yes. And his intestines. And a large chunk of his throat.” Lee glanced at Freyda as she spoke, her light brown eyes soft and sad.

  “Would you like to see?” Eva offered, her smile all teeth.

  I swallowed bile and shook my head. I’d had way enough of death and dismemberment this week. Instead I took another step forward, meeting her eyes.

  “I can prove I had nothing to do with this,” I said. “You are a Justice, so you can tell when someone lies, right?”

  The smile slid off her face as she nodded, her eyes narrowing with displeasure. She saw where I was going with this.

  I looked around at the gathered wolves, making sure everyone was paying attention. Then I looked back at Eva and said, “I did not kill Liam son of Wulf. I did not talk to Liam at any time in the week before he died. I had no prior knowledge of his death, nor anything to do with it. Satisfied?”

  She looked like she wanted to choke me, but she took a deep breath and glanced at Alek.

  “Yes,” she said grudgingly. “The sorceress is telling the truth.”

  “We should not be looking at outsiders,” the man in the suit said. “This is clearly pack trouble.”

  “We will question the pack,” Alek said. “We will question every alpha. If this is wolf-caused, those responsible will be brought to justice. It is what we do.”

  “And if the alpha responsible is not here?” asked one of the green-eyed brothers.

  “Softpaw,” Freyda said, eyes widening. “He has not come yet.”

  “Softpaw?” I asked Alek quietly.

  “The Bitterroot pack alpha.” It was Henry who answered me.

  “The wild wolves live apart, and Softpaw was the only wolf to deny the Peace, to never acknowledge Wulf as the alpha of alphas,” Freyda added.

  “What is the point of reaffirming the Peace if not all sign? If all won’t keep the Peace, why should any of us? The Council will not be happy,” business-suit guy said.

  “Do you know the will of the Council?” Alek said, moving toward the man, seeming to grow taller and wider with each step. “The Peace was good enough to last well over a century, even without the Bitteroot alpha. Do you think this Peace so weak, this situation so unimportant, that the Council would not care? If they did not care, would there be not one, but two Justices here?”

  He paused and looked around, again meeting the eyes of everyone present. Except for Eva’s.

  “Whoever has done this, whether their goal is to disrupt the Peace or sabotage the true and fair competition for Alpha, he or she or they will be found. They will face the Council of Nine’s Justice. Do you trust the Council’s will?”

  His words were clearly a trap, and everyone there flinched as he finished, his question hanging in the twilight. Everyone was looking at Alek except Eva, I noticed. She stared straight at me, her face twisted with a hatred I didn’t understand. Then she met my eyes and a mask fell into place, her features smoothing out, her expression stern but bland.

  “I trust the will of the Council,” Freyda said. The others slowly followed with their own murmurs of agreement.

  “Go,” Alek said. “Calm your seconds. Talk to the other alphas. The wake will happen tomorrow as planned. We will not let a killer ruin Wulf’s legacy.”

  They dispersed, except for Lee, Henry, and Eva.

  “The body?” Alek said to Lee as the cars drove away. “Before we lose all the light?”

  I sighed and steeled my nerves. Apparently I wasn’t done seeing mutilated corpses this week. Awesomesauce.

  Eva hovered but didn’t interfere as Lee donned gloves and pulled back the tarp.

  Liam had looked like his sister in life, but with more pronounced cheekbone
s and something familiar about the shape of his eyes that made me think he had Native American blood in him. His eyes were closed, his face spattered with blood but otherwise untouched.

  His throat was missing, only a mess of torn flesh left holding his head on. I saw vertebrae in it and had to look away for a moment. It was a good thing I rarely dreamed. I could add this body to the list of horrible things I could never un-see.

  His heart and a lot of his internal organs had been ripped out through a huge hole in his stomach. I was grateful for the dying sunlight, which softened the colors, painting everything in a muted palette and making it look waxy, a touch unreal.

  “Tooth marks,” Alek said. “Did he get a piece of his killer?”

  “We think so,” Lee said. She pulled an evidence bag out of her coat pocket. Inside was a tuft of black fur. “It is wolf, but not a scent any here recognized.”

  “Can you use this to track?” Alek said, taking it from her and turning to me.

  “You would use her tainted magic?” Eva said.

  “What is your problem with me?” I asked. “I don’t even know you, and you really don’t know me. I don’t even know how you knew what I am.”

  “I met a sorceress once,” Eva said. “I have never forgotten the way she smelled.”

  Sorceress. Female. So not Samir. I wondered who it was, if there was a chance the woman was still alive. I wished I could ask and expect a real answer.

  “Well, she wasn’t me. So get the fuck over yourself and let me help,” I said.

  Sheriff Lee and Henry both took a couple of steps back, their shock radiating like heat off their tense bodies.

  “Eva,” Alek said softly. “We must find the killer. Let her work.”

  Her eyes literally flashed, sheening with golden-brown light for a moment. I had the impression she wanted to shift, to let her wolf take me down. Or take Alek down. I pulled on my magic, letting it fill my veins, sing in my blood, and pool in my hands. Let the bitch come at me, I thought. I was ready to lay down a beating on the next person or thing to piss me off. I was too fucking tired of death and posturing and people trying to hurt me and the people I loved.