Exiting on the top floor, I was unsurprised to see that the top floor of MacDonald’s tower had been completely renovated since my last visit. At a minimum, much of the three floors of the office building that made up the Wizard’s home had been shot to pieces during his Enforcers’ revolt.
The reception area still recognizably had the same bones as when I first arrived in Calgary but the walls, floors and furniture had all been replaced with new marble and steel pieces.
Instead of the semi-open plan of the old layout, security doors with concealed armor blocked access from the lobby, and I noted the slot in the ceiling that likely contained a bulletproof shield to protect whoever was holding down the reception desk.
The “woman” sitting behind the desk right now, however, was a construct. Few mortals would have been able to tell, but I’d had extensive encounters with the Wizard’s magical simulacrums by now. I could feel the presence of others, as well. Invisible or otherwise concealed, those constructs would appear only in response to an active threat.
A single veiled goblin in a business suit stood in a back corner, watching us enter with level eyes. From the way he leaned against a decorative cabinet, I suspected the cabinet probably contained at least one variety of heavy weapon—and I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn it included guns and magical blades carefully designed to counter each of the supernatural races.
“Mr. MacDonald is waiting for Mr. Kilkenny in his office,” the construct told us cheerfully as we approached. “You can take him right in, Ms. Lan Tu.”
Lan Tu gestured for me to keep following her, and the second goblin stepped over to press a key card against the reader on one of the doors. The heavy security door clicked open and Lan Tu opened it for me.
I could guess, roughly, what the armored panel pretending to be a door weighed. If I hadn’t already known just how strong the goblins were, the ease with which the tiny woman leading the way swung the door open would have warned me.
MacDonald’s office was just down the hall, in the exact same place as it had been before. The hallway back there had been refloored and the walls repainted but was otherwise unchanged—until we reached the Wizard’s office itself.
The walls around the door had been completely replaced, likely due to the previous walls no longer existing, and the plain door that had opened into the office had been replaced by a double door planed in what appeared to be one-way mirrors backed in bulletproof glass.
The doors were almost certainly magically reinforced as well, but the one-way mirror provided a surprisingly mundane way for MacDonald to see who was coming while remaining unseen himself.
As we approached, the doors swung open of their own accord. I heard the whir of small motors as they moved, showing again that MacDonald saw no reason to use magic when technology could serve.
“Come in, Mr. Kilkenny,” he ordered calmly. “Thank you for bringing him up, Lan Tu. Tell Skavrosh that you two have the rest of the night off. We have no more visitors scheduled, and the constructs can handle security.”
“Yes, milord. Thank you, milord.”
Lan Tu bowed and retreated as I stepped into the office. Kenneth MacDonald stood next to a floor-to-ceiling window, looking out over the city from his plain-seeming office. It hadn’t changed much, and I suspected that the furnishings of MacDonald’s office probably hadn’t changed in a century or two. The computer equipment was new, but the desk could well pre-date the arrival of Europeans in North America.
The looming hunk of black oak certainly looked the part, anyway.
“Join me, Kilkenny,” MacDonald ordered. He hadn’t looked at me yet, but I knew how this game worked. I crossed over to join him in looking out over the city.
“You summoned me, Lord Magus?” I asked carefully.
“I did,” he allowed. “It seems that you have once again found yourself at the center of quite the storm. Tell me, Mr. Kilkenny, when did you plan on telling me about the chlorine bomb at the Stampede?”
I swallowed. Briefing the Wizard honestly hadn’t crossed my mind. He might not be omniscient, but he still had the Sight—and the people we’d used to clean it up reported to him.
“We presumed you knew already,” I finally admitted. “There was no intention of hiding it from anyone in the supernatural community.”
“Indeed.” He continued to study the city. “We all learned last winter that my Sight is not as pervasive as I and my brethren would perhaps wish. Your kin have always had ways to block our Sight, but thanks to the betrayal of my Enforcers, the knowledge of several other methods has spread far more widely than we would prefer.”
I hadn’t known that. I didn’t want to know that.
Or, perhaps more accurately, I wished that wasn’t the case. MacDonald, at least, was an ally. The better he could see, the safer my city was.
“So, you didn’t know about the bomb,” I said levelly.
“Mr. Kilkenny, do you really think so poorly of me that you think I would have let an attempt to poison hundreds of innocents pass without intervening?” he snapped. “An individual Pouka who may or may not have killed? That is a problem for the fae to deal with.
“A planned mass murder carried out by a supernatural? That I could not have let pass. Except I did not know.”
The very average-looking man next to me had the Sight to understand and comprehend almost everything happening in the entire city. It was in his power, so far as I could tell, to obliterate the entire city with a word and a thought.
That my enemies could frustrate that being’s Sight and hide from his power was terrifying.
“I hadn’t thought that through,” I admitted. “We assumed you’d left it to us as our problem.”
“I probably would have,” he agreed. “But I would have at least told Oberis about the bomb.”
I nodded. That made sense. That kind of warning would have been enough for us to go in with a far larger force and better safety measures. If we’d known the bomb had existed, we could have reduced the actual threat to near-zero.
“I can brief you if you need it,” I said quietly. “I’m about as well informed as anyone on this file.”
“Your file,” he agreed. “Your headache, per the High Court. So, what are you going to do about it?”
“We found where she was staying and are trying to track the ownership back,” I explained. “If we can find her, we’ll move against her. Otherwise…” I sighed. “Otherwise, I currently don’t have any better option than to hang myself out as bait and hope she comes for me.”
“Is that a fight you can win yet, young Kilkenny?”
I blinked. That question was…not the one I’d expected.
“I don’t know if it’s one I’ll ever be able to win, not in a fair duel, anyway,” I admitted. “We have some irons in the fire to even the odds, but I’ll need those.”
He chuckled, and I wondered what I was missing.
“I owe you a boon, Kilkenny,” he said quietly. “To forge you arms and armor of orichalcum or, indeed, to carve the same runes I gave my Enforcers upon you, would meet that boon. If you desired.”
I shivered. Few among the fae could claim anything forged by a wizard. Most of our orichalcum—an alloy of gold and the heartstone extracted from the oil sands—artifacts were forged by gnomes like Eric. MacDonald’s Enforcers had been marked with tattoos in the same metal, augmenting their physical capabilities and giving them mystical gifts many supernaturals couldn’t match.
Of course, I wasn’t quite sure just how much power MacDonald would wield over those arms or those runes, so I slowly shook my head. My Queen would not approve, tempting as the thought was.
“I would…prefer to reserve that boon for a greater cause,” I told him. “I will call upon it in time, Lord Magus, but I think we have the means to handle this creature ourselves.”
“You are probably correct,” he confirmed softly. “I do not think this Chernenkov knows what battle she has picked.”
“I don’t th
ink she picked it. She’s mostly just angry at me for killing her.”
The Wizard chuckled again.
“That is…generally an upsetting action. But if she was wise, she would not choose this war.”
I snorted.
“I am very young, as you say, Lord Magus,” I pointed out. “And a quarter-human. If she was picking her enemies, I think I’d be too weak for her radar.”
The Wizard seemed amused.
“This is true, perhaps,” he allowed. “You will be fine, I think. But do not forget that boon is owed, young Kilkenny. Your past and bloodline guarantee you battles to come beyond this one.”
“It seems everyone knows more about both of those than I do,” I said dryly. “Is there any help you can give me short of the boon? This Pouka is dangerous, my lord.”
“She is,” he agreed. “Not least because she is concealing herself entirely from my Sight. I believe she remains in the city, but I cannot find her. I have tried.”
I looked out over the twilit city beyond the window.
“I’d guessed,” I admitted. “But it would have been damned helpful.”
“What I can tell you, Jason, is that there are more games afoot than you can see,” MacDonald warned me. “I cannot say much more; there are things I am bound by oaths not to speak of. But…”
He paused, clearly considering what he could say.
“Others are less bound,” he finally concluded. “Ask the Valkyrie about the Masked Lords, Jason Kilkenny. She can give you some answers I cannot.”
Of course the Wizard knew about Inga.
“I will listen to your advice,” I told him. “Thank you.”
He waved dismissively.
“If you learn of more bombs in my city, please do me the courtesy of letting me know as soon as you can,” MacDonald told me. “Otherwise, well…know that I am watching.”
I wasn’t sure if he was even trying to be reassuring.
15
There are stranger ways to wake up in this world than by being nuzzled by a purring lynx that is also your girlfriend. From the smell of freshly brewed coffee wafting through the apartment, Mary had already been up and about and had decided to come back to bed to cuddle.
As a cat.
I laughed and scratched behind her ears, earning me an even louder purr and a headbutt before the dark gray cat with the red markings shimmered and transformed into my redheaded girlfriend. She was barely half-dressed, and for a moment, the coffee was the second most tempting thing in the apartment.
“I’ve got to get going pretty quickly here,” she said regretfully after we kissed. “The heartstone shipment is coming in today, and I’m playing clerk for our portion of it.”
The Covenants that ruled Calgary—and Edmonton and Fort McMurray, for that matter—declared that each signatory received a portion of the heartstone extracted from the oil sands. Since one of the uses of the material was to infuse it into silver to create Shifter’s Bane, the Clans destroyed most of their portion.
Though that thought brought a new problem to mind, one that was almost certainly going to involve me by the end of the day. The Covenant didn’t mention Andrell’s new Court. Right now, all of the Fae’s portion of the heartstone went to Oberis’s Court, providing much of the wealth and influence that allowed Calgary to wield an outsized influence in the supernatural world.
“Andrell is going to try and claim part of our portion,” I said aloud with a sigh. “That is going to be a headache.”
Mary winced.
“That’s going to be an entertaining shit show if it happens while everyone else is around,” she noted. “I’ll text you and Eric if he shows up. Some warning can’t hurt.”
“Appreciate it, love,” I told her, stretching as I got out of bed. “The coffee smells fantastic.”
She grinned at me and pointed to our dresser, where two steaming cups were waiting on a plastic tray.
“I’ve got enough time to sit and drink a cup with you,” she told me. “What’s your day looking like?”
“So far, a slice of paradise,” I replied as I grabbed the coffee and kissed her on the way. “I need to meet with Inga and continue training this morning, then this afternoon I get to go back to being conflict arbitrator.”
The truth was that I kind of liked that part of my job. Much more than the parts that involved killing people, anyway. Most of the problems I had to resolve were relatively low-key; they just crossed the lines of supernatural communities.
I honestly felt like I was making a difference every day and I didn’t have to kill people. I couldn’t complain.
Getting to drink coffee in the morning with my half-dressed girlfriend was a nice bonus, too.
“Intra-fae this time, I’m guessing?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I confirmed. She knew not to ask more. If it involved the shifters, I could tell her some things. But fae affairs stayed fae affairs. That was part of how our world stayed secret.
Mary sipped her own coffee and sat next to me on the bed, pressing her leg against mine.
“Learning a lot from Inga?”
“Yeah.” I shook my head and gestured, floating the coffee tray onto the bed next to us. “It’s weird to be able to do that,” I admitted. “I always envied the fae Nobles that gift.”
“I envy you it now,” she pointed out, though she kissed me to soften the point. “You seem more nervous than usual about the training.”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “I spoke with the Wizard last night. He was…enigmatic, as always, but he told me to ask Inga about something.”
Somehow, I guessed that these “Masked Lords” were exactly the kind of fae business I shouldn’t discuss with my shifter lover.
“The Wizard told you to ask someone else a question?” Mary asked.
“Yeah. I think he felt he didn’t have the right to share the information…but that I needed to know.”
She wrapped her arm around my waist and leaned her head into my shoulder.
“If the Wizard thinks you need to know, you need to know,” she told me. “Wizards play games, but…MacDonald is generally a good guy.”
“Agreed.” I leaned my head against hers. “Which means I should probably get going myself. And you may be late if you don’t start getting dressed…and not because getting dressed will take you too long,” I concluded with a wicked smile.
Work crews had been visiting Inga’s dojo intermittently over the last week and it was starting to look less like a business that had died and more like a business that was about to be reborn. A new sign, Valkyrie Martial Arts, had been added above the door, and new glazed windows had replaced the boarded-up wreckage.
A neatly printed sign announced that the studio would be opening at the beginning of August and gave an email address for expressing interest in classes. Inga Strand, it seemed, was planning on staying for a while.
Today, however, the locked door gave way to the key she’d given me, and I entered the room quietly.
My stocky blonde teacher stood alone in the middle of the hardwood floor, wearing a short-skirted tunic and a Kevlar-and-chain-mail battle vest. Her silver sword floated to her right, and a pair of ugly-looking modern combat knives floated to her left.
All three blades were moving in the air, a flickering pattern I could barely keep track of. The knives were mainly moving defensively, flashing through a kata of floating parries, at the same time as the silver longsword flickered around in a series of mixed offensive and defensive movements.
After a few moments, darts of silvery-blue fire added themselves to the chaos. The gaps between the blades were filled with flashes of light as Inga’s kata expanded into a defensive sphere that I knew I couldn’t get through, even with her training.
That was the difference between someone with a few months at best of using their gifts and someone with centuries of experience. At this point, I probably qualified as Greater Fae and could, at least, fight most Greater Fae on an even playing field.
But
Inga Strand also qualified as Greater Fae and, from what I could see, could probably fight many Lords on an even playing field.
I waited for her to finish the kata, taking a seat at the side of the dojo as she worked through the motions and spells, then gave her a small wave as she turned to face me.
“Ah, Kilkenny,” she said briskly. “You’re early.”
“One tries to be punctual,” I replied. “And sometimes it helps in reminding me just how much I have to learn.”
Inga chuckled.
“I was taught by two separate Lords of the Wild Hunt,” she reminded me. “And I have trained the Wild Hunt for centuries. There is much you have to learn, child, but you have time.”
She wasn’t wrong. Even as a true changeling, a half-blood, I could have expected about a century and a half of healthy life. As a three-quarters-blood, I had a reasonable shot at over two centuries. Possibly longer, depending on just what my father had actually been.
“Are you ready to begin?” she asked me.
“I am, but I have a question for you first,” I told her. “A…wise friend, let’s say, told me that there were more games afoot in Calgary than we’d yet seen. He told me to ask you about the Masked Lords.”
The blades had still been in the air, gently floating toward the bench where Inga was probably intending to leave them. At my question, the spell snapped, the knives and sword plummeting into the hardwood floor as Inga half-instinctually summoned a defensive shield around herself and cursed.
“That…that is not a name one who is not Hunt or the High Court should know,” she told me, her voice very, very cold. “It is not a name we speak lightly.”
“MacDonald told me to ask you,” I admitted.
“The Wizard,” she hissed. “Of course. They know many secrets. It is rare, though, for them to betray the secrets of others even this much.” She shook her head. “I’m surprised, though. Did Mabona not tell you about them?”
“She did not,” I admitted. “All I know is the name.”
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