Pack of Lies

by Edwards, Hailey

  “She was arrested for streaking a few months back.” Midas trawled his memory for the particulars. “Public intoxication?”

  “Her boyfriend of two years broke up with her through text message.” Hank gave a crack in the sidewalk his full attention. “She went out with her friends, got drunk, ended up naked in a fountain, and I don’t know. I got called to pick her up before the cops did, but I didn’t make it in time.” He shook his head. “She peed on the arresting officer’s foot then ran away howling. She had to be maced, tasered, and hogtied with zip ties. They carried her to the car like a pig on a spit.” He glanced up then. “Be glad you found Hadley when you did. I love my sister, but she is one egg short of an omelet.”

  Armed with that vivid mental picture, Midas tried and failed to formulate an appropriate response.

  Lizzy Frommel must have handled the situation. She was the pack’s liaison with the Atlanta Police Department, yet another way the pack was tied to the Society in the city. Arguing their case to humans was out of the question. Lizzy represented gwyllgi in custody and made arrangements with the sentinels, Low Society necromancers who worked alongside the human police, to ensure justice was served.

  “All I’m saying is I’ve had my teeth punched in by that girl when she was on a tear. A concussion is a love tap in my family.”

  Taking the out he was given, Midas let it go and ducked down the alley Hadley used to frequent before their lives got so tangled. After trading shapes, he began his pursuit. On four feet, he shook out his fur and breathed in the night. The smell of her lingered, but it was growing fainter, the layers tingling in his nose with her unique magic. It made padding to the mouth of the alley and picking up her scent easier.

  The fae side of the pack’s heritage made it simple to glamour himself so that humans wouldn’t notice him trotting down the sidewalk among them. The ability was shared among the pack, but an individual’s strength dictated their coverage. Midas was the next best thing to invisible when he chose, though the illusion worked best on duller human senses. Most in the pack could manage to blur themselves, a handy trick that fooled the eye, while others were forced to do their running on all fours at the safety of the den.

  On the whole, it would be much handier if it were true invisibility, but that was the realm of spellcasters and pureblood fae. He was neither and glad of it.

  A mixture of gardenias, chocolate, and the subtle copper tang he had come to associate with all necromancers, whether they were practitioners or not, filled his lungs.

  Once on her trail, he tracked her to an alley that carried fragile traceries established by visiting a site more than once. The dumpster and the area outside it, in particular, carried remnants of her scent.

  “Nosy Parker.” Hadley crawled out from behind the dumpster. “I knew you couldn’t resist.”

  Midas padded over and nudged her with his head, taking a moment to breathe in where her neck met her shoulder.

  “I pegged you to arrive five minutes ago.” She scratched him behind the ear, setting his back leg tapping. “You must have bumped into Hank. I stopped to pester him too.”

  Ears swiveling, he marveled that she read him so well, even in this form.

  “I’m sure you’re wondering what I’m doing crawling around in an alley.”

  Snorting loudly in her face, he confirmed her assumption.

  “I woke here twice.” She stood and dusted off her palms. “Once outside the dumpster, the time I came home wearing your shirt, and then in the dumpster, right before I bumped into your mom.” With more strength than he credited her for, she shoved the ancient receptacle aside. “I don’t get it. There’s got to be something here. Otherwise, why would…?” She bit off the rest. “There has to be a reason why I’m drawn here over and over.”

  He grumbled, letting her know he wasn’t falling for the misdirection, but she ignored him.

  “Do you remember a club being here?” She ran her fingers down the brick wall. “A fae club?”

  Apprehension lifted the coarse hairs down his spine, and he embraced the change. “Why are you asking?”

  Hadley frowned at a row of bricks identical to the others around them. “Just a hunch.”

  “Yeah,” he admitted, and lightheadedness swept through him. “I had forgotten about it.”

  “You’re not the only one.” She flashed a wobbly sigil on her palm, but he didn’t know what it meant. “All traces of it have been erased. There are no records whatsoever of its purchase, operation, brushes with the law. There’s nothing. Even the exit, which I’m told faced onto this alley, is gone. The only reason I know it used to be here is because a member of the team recalls the case that got it shut down by the POA.”

  “Faete,” he murmured. “The name confused me, aside from the obvious wink and nod to it being owned by fae. Other than that? A play on fae/fate? Or fae/fete?”

  “My money is on fete.” She brushed her fingers across a particular brick, tracing its outline. “A feast for the eyes.”

  “What do you see?” He crossed to her, but he didn’t sense anything amiss. “Do you think the doorway was bricked over?”

  “The front was, but I understand that happened while it was still in operation for whatever reason.” She cocked her head. “The back? I think it’s right where it’s always been.”

  A trick barring the uninitiated, to make it seem the club had shut down, or more likely a trap to keep the entertainment from running away once fear set in. His gut bet on the latter.

  “Glamour,” he realized. “The coven?”

  “They must have ties to the area. Why else target Atlanta?” She cut her eyes to him. “Who’s to say those ties aren’t fae?”

  “Why not target Linus or you?” He hated asking, feared voicing it might will it into being. “Iliana went after the pack.”

  “She targeted shifters of all types.” Hadley grew pensive. “She might have meant what she said about turning the packs against one another, and against the gwyllgi, or it might have been a load of crap.”

  “She couldn’t have known you would get involved.”

  “Maybe.” Hadley made a quick gesture down at her side, a flick of her hand she made so often that it must be a nervous habit. “She might have expected Linus.”

  “The coven murdered a lot of shifters to get Linus’s attention.”

  “Yeah,” she said absently. “We’re missing connections, but I can’t see any others.”

  Midas blinked then stepped closer. “The wall just flickered.”

  A predatory sharpness honed her smile. “Saw that, did you?”

  “You were right.” Impressed with her skills, he touched the same brick. “The opening is still here.”

  “About that.” She drew in a sharp breath. “I have what might prove to be a terrible idea.”

  “You want to go in.”

  “Bishop is missing.” Her stare bored into the mortar as if she might see to the inside between the cracks. “He might be in there.”

  “You were drawn to this place before he disappeared,” he reminded her. “It might have nothing to do with him.”

  “Either way, it’s my job to find out.” She squared her shoulders. “Besides, he wouldn’t be missing if I had gone into the sewers alone. He never should have left HQ. He wouldn’t have if not for me.”

  “This is not your fault.”

  “That’s not how it feels,” she said softly, then faced him. “You’re free to leave.”

  “We’ve been standing out here a good five minutes. They’ve seen us. They might be listening right now.”

  “Did you miss the speak freely signal?” She lifted her palm again, sigil out. “I’m friendly and all, but I didn’t wave at you for nothing.”

  “This glamour has concealed an entire building from an entire city, fuzzed the collective minds of anyone who knew it was here, and the coven has destroyed any and all physical or digital records of its existence.”

  “That’s why I have to do this. I was
drawn here before I knew what it was, and that tells me it’s something bad. Really bad. Off-the-charts bad. I might have stumbled across it on a fluke, but I can’t turn my back on it.”

  The wild heart of him pounded with fear for this impulsive and brave woman. “Hadley…”

  “Can I try something?” She removed a fountain-style pen from her pocket. “I promise it won’t hurt.”

  “I trust you.”

  “You shouldn’t,” she said with a wink. “Hold still.”

  Cupping his jaw, she angled his face while she drew a sigil on his cheek. Her teeth sawed over her bottom lip, and her eyes kept skittering to the left and then back as if checking her work against something he couldn’t see.

  “Done.” Sweat beaded her forehead, and she wiped it off on the back of her hand. “Here we go.”

  A cool tendril of magic whispered over his skin, the undercurrent familiar and yet…

  The punch of energies jolting his brain cost him the thought before it fully formed, and he bent over, gasping as the world shimmied and stuttered around him.

  “Whoa, Goldie.” She gripped his shoulders. “Breathe through it.”

  As if her touch held the power to center him, his doubled vision cleared, and he lifted his head.

  The alley had changed. No. His perception of it had been altered.

  To the left of the dumpster was a wide set of double doors. Iron. A metal as good for keeping fae out as locking them in. The fae aversion to iron and the warg allergy to silver had resulted in his pack having their own peculiar allergy—to bronze.

  “There are no locks or wards as far as I can tell.” Hadley did that nervous twitch of her fingers but otherwise appeared more eager than worried about what came next. “Last chance to turn back.” A frown knitted her brow. “I would really like to not feel responsible if something happens to you.”

  “You found Ford.” Strange and homicidal her allies might be, but they were effective. “I’m going to help you find Bishop.”

  “Anyone in there will feel it when the glamour collapses. There’s no way in except through the wards.” She looked it up and down. “We’ll lose our shielding once we cross the threshold. They’ll know we’re here, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  Midas nodded that he understood and moved into position behind her, giving her the lead. Hadley whispered a quick prayer under her breath then tugged one of the heavy doors open. A gust of fetid air rushed out, and he fought not to gag, thankful he wasn’t on all fours.

  Hadley paled, but she set her jaw and entered the gloom. He followed, her heartbeat in his ears.

  Seventeen

  Sick. I was going to be sick. So sick. Epic levels of sick.

  The mélange of death, rot, and blood magic clogged my nose, and I wanted to hurl.

  Midas and I stood on the rear edge of a polished dance floor. The abandoned pit with ornate chairs and elegant music stands indicated an orchestra had played here rather than a DJ. Metallic clinking drew my gaze up to where golden cages hung suspended from the ceiling, solving the mystery of where the smell originated.

  Bodies stuffed the cages. Arms, feet, hands, legs stuck out from between the bars. Whatever mess they had made on the floor below had been cleaned. That, or they had been killed elsewhere and displayed here. Each body appeared to have a gaping hole in the center of its chest, but it was hard to tell based on their advanced level of decomposition.

  Ambrose whirled through the open space, spinning and laughing, a kid in a candy shop, the heaviness in the air perfume to him. He leapt, a twisted ballerina, brushing the rotting appendages with his fingertips like he might choose a partner for his dance.

  High on the magic he had consumed to break the glamour, he was tugging on his leash harder than usual, leading me deeper into the shadows without me making a conscious decision to follow. I shuffled on until the sting in my ankle, where my latest tattoo resided, grew to an all-consuming agony.

  Midas touched my shoulder, a question in his eyes.

  I gave him two thumbs-up, pretending we both didn’t smell my skin burning where the twerp was attempting even now, in front of an audience, to rip himself apart from me. He didn’t care if it killed me. He didn’t care if he outed me. Ambrose was too intoxicated for common sense to register.

  I had to burn the magic out of him and fast before he got us both killed.

  Low voices carried from the rear of the building, and I signaled Midas I was heading that direction.

  “Join us,” a man coaxed. “You are more than this city deserves.”

  “Bite…” a wet rattle worked free, “…me.”

  Bishop.

  Goddess, it really was him.

  Plastering myself against the wall, I settled in to dispatch Ambrose to scout the room.

  I don’t know why the alarm hasn’t gone up yet, I thought at him, but that could change in a heartbeat.

  All I could figure was he had gotten carried away to the point of consuming all of it, every drop, even the magic tethering the illusions to the coven member who cast them. A useful, if dangerous, trick.

  Get in, get out. We need intel before they realize we’re here.

  “Your master would pay handsomely for your return. How he must miss you.”

  The new voice was feminine. Her plus the guy made two obstacles in our path to Bishop. Not bad odds.

  “I have…no…master.”

  “All fae answer to someone.” Pity dripped from her words. “Even you bend the knee to him.”

  “Join us,” the man enticed, “and we will allow you your freedom.”

  All fae?

  Bishop was fae?

  Frak. Frak. Frak.

  Linus would— Scratch that. Linus must already know. And he couldn’t tell a soul.

  This was a wall I was doomed to slam up against for as long as I held office, one with Faerie on the other side, and I hadn’t volunteered for this. I was in so far over my head, I couldn’t tell up from down, and I was drowning, the water closing in fast.

  Leave it to my brain to choose now, the worst possible moment, to wonder if Linus hadn’t paired Bishop in the field with me for that very reason. Snowball had injured Ambrose, and she was fae. A powerful one. Did Bishop have the power to hurt me? To kill me? Had Linus known that going in too?

  All at once, I felt better and worse. Better to learn another fail-safe, a highly effective one, stood between me and harming another innocent. Worse for it being Bishop, for Linus tricking me when Bishop had no choice.

  When had life gotten so complicated? Scratch that. When had life ever been easy?

  Never.

  “Suck…it.”

  “We waited too long to offer him in trade,” the woman sighed. “His mind is fracturing under the stress. He won’t survive transport unless he feeds, and he’s resisted the donors we’ve presented so far. Soon we will have no choice but to kill him and cut our losses.”

  “Gabh…transna,” Bishop snarled, “ort fhéin.”

  The man chuckled, and the woman joined in, but I had no clue what Bishop had spat at them. I didn’t care, either. I had bigger concerns.

  Remy’s spate of what I was calling Faelic until someone told me otherwise had caused Midas to short-circuit. If he broke down here and now, he might get us all killed.

  Sweat pooled at the small of my back when I checked on him, but he held himself together, his rough breathing the only sign he was struggling.

  After this, I had to ask. I had to know. It might cost me a secret or two in trade but…

  No.

  I couldn’t spare even one. I couldn’t afford to arm him with information he could weaponize if our courtship sank. Either he came clean, or he didn’t. It was his choice, not mine. As usual, I had no options. All my prior decisions, every fumbling step that led me here, had robbed me of those.

  Ambrose, always ready for another snack, scouted the room then zinged me in a skull-rattling jolt with intel.

  Through the agony zigz
agging across my brain, I sorted out what he was showing me.

  One man, one woman. He was slight and trim. She was tall and curvy. Their complexions matched. From this angle, the pair could have been siblings. That was a witch thing, right? Family as coven? That could mean these two were related to Snowball, and they wouldn’t be thrilled to see me.

  They stood under a cage made of iron, not gold, and Bishop sat cross-legged in its center. Burns covered his hands and arms from reaching through the bars, probably taking potshots when they passed too close or attempting to pick the lock since they claimed he had refused any donors.

  Bishop is fae.

  Maybe I’d hoped or prayed it was a mistake, but the burns proved it.

  I had been committing one of the Society’s cardinal sins since my first day on the job. Did that make me innocent through ignorance or guilty by association? Did it matter?

  No, I decided, it did not.

  This city, this job, these people—for better or worse—they were my life now.

  Midas stood at my shoulder, and I held up two fingers. He breathed in deeply then nodded agreement, his nose feeding him the same information Ambrose gave me.

  My shadow twitched across the floor, stalking the witchborn fae, eager to gobble down more magic.

  A fierce tug on our mental bond stopped him in his tracks, and I reeled him back. Dipping my hands into his frigid core, I withdrew my blades. I couldn’t risk Ambrose sipping even one drop more. I would have to take out my target the old-fashioned way.

  Red magic bloomed where Midas stood, the shift washing over him to reveal his inner beast.

  The lightshow snagged the duo’s attention, and the man came to investigate.

  “Bria?” He spat the name like a curse. “I told you not to—”

  “Hi.” I stepped out and pressed the tip of my sword into the hollow of his throat. “Nice place you got here.”

  Shock widened his eyes. “Who are you?”

  “Not important.” I jerked my chin toward the room. “I’m here for him.”

  Laughter pressed his throat against the blade. “You can’t have him.”