Curran came up behind me and nuzzled my neck.
“Is that your gun or are you just happy to see me?”
“Mhm, a challenge.” He nipped the skin on the back of my neck, sending electric aftershocks down through me. Some men got excited by white lace and a translucent negligee. My love muffin got excited by a woman dressed to murder. There was probably something deeply twisted about that. Lucky for me, negligees were never my thing.
He kissed me again. “You’re finally getting the hang of this whole badass thing.”
“I was always badass.”
“No, you thought you were badass and talked a lot of crap.” He wrapped his arms around me.
Aha. “Let me go.”
“You have time.” He kissed my neck again. Every nerve in my body came to attention.
“No, I don’t. I have people waiting.” I pulled free from him and kissed him back. He pulled me close, locking me within his arms. Mhm, Curran. I really didn’t want to leave.
“Come on.”
“No. Have to go.”
“It won’t take long.”
“Who would that be fun for, exactly? Your seducing techniques need work.” I untangled myself and escaped, before he thought of something else to say to change my mind.
It took me ten minutes to stop by the medical ward.
Roderick’s collar has faded to lemon yellow. The skin around it had turned bright red, inflamed. It hurt just to look at it. I crouched by him. “How are you doing?”
“I’m okay, thank you.”
“Does it hurt to eat?”
“A little,” he said.
“I’m going to see someone today to figure out how to take that thing off.”
He just looked at me with his big eyes. Deep down, he must’ve been scared. His sister had died. His parents were gone. But he held it all inside and he wasn’t about to let me in.
Before I left, Doolittle drew me aside. His face was bleak. “You must hurry.”
“I’ll do my best,” I told him.
When I walked into the morning light, ten Pack vehicles waited for me. The crews of the vehicles stood in front of them wearing identical gray. Jim stood to the side, surveying the troops. I approached him.
“Satisfied, Consort?”
“How long are you going to be pissed off?” I asked him. We both kept our voices low.
He stared straight ahead.
“Jim, we had a verbal disagreement. I was an ass, but you withheld information. The way you’re acting, you’d think I got some guys to jump you and work you over until you woke up with bites on your legs and bruises all over your body.”
“It’s different now, because we’re both Pack. I’ve told you I was sorry about that. Are you going to keep dragging it out every time?”
“It was a shitty thing to do.”
He locked his teeth, making his jaw muscles bulge.
I sighed and started toward the cars. “Suit yourself.”
“I always do,” he called out.
I turned around and flipped him off.
He glared at me.
I kept walking.
“Kate!” he called out.
I turned.
“Eduardo is your second. You need to talk to him. He wants you to practice something.”
I nodded.
“Kate!”
I turned around.
Jim approached me. “Do you need me to watch your back for this Guild thing?”
“I got it. Thanks,” I said.
“Anytime.”
I went in search of Eduardo. Jim was an ornery bastard, but he did have my back. At least he wasn’t mad anymore. I would probably have to make a peace offering all the same. The werejaguars were difficult creatures.
I’d have to get Dali to help me pick a gift. That way there would be no misunderstandings.
The Mercenary Guild made its headquarters in a converted Sheraton Hotel on the edge of Buckhead. In another life the hotel, built as a hollow tower, had a solid glass front, complete with a rotating glass door. Now massive steel gates marked the entrance. As our procession rolled up to the hotel, I could see a few mercs milling about and smoking. Most of the Guild personnel were probably inside already. Perfect.
Next to me, Eduardo leaned forward in the Jeep’s driver seat. A werebuffalo from Clan Heavy, he was over six feet tall and layered with thick muscle. His hair fell down his back in a black mane. His square chin and deep-set eyes said that he would rather die than back down. That impression was one hundred percent correct. I had a problem with a part of his plan and argued with him about it until I turned blue in the face, but he wouldn’t budge, which was probably why Jim had assigned him to be my second for this venture.
“Wait until we line up before you go in, Consort,” he murmured.
“Kate.” We’d been on a first-name basis for a while now.
“Not today, Consort.”
The ten Jeeps turned in unison, parking next to each other in front of the building. The mercs at the entrance forgot to suck at their cigarettes and stared.
The car doors opened. The shapeshifters stepped out, forming two lines with a military precision, their faces solemn. I glanced at Eduardo.
“Not yet,” he said.
The shapeshifters marched into the Sheraton, looking like they would chew through anybody dumb enough to stand in their way.
“I’m going to get out and go ahead. Derek will open your door. When you exit, keep walking, like you own the place,” Eduardo said. “We’ve got your back.”
“Watch it, bison,” Jezebel growled from the backseat. She was one of the two bouda advisors Aunt B, the alpha of the werehyenas, had attached to me. “You talk to her like she’s a child.”
I held up my hand. “It’s okay. I got it.”
“No worries,” Eduardo said. “You’ll do fine.”
There were few things I hated more than being the center of attention. Especially if the crowd was large.
Eduardo stepped outside. The passenger door behind me opened and Jezebel and Derek got out. Jezebel was six feet tall, moved like a predator, and had enough hard muscle on her to make me think twice about trying to take her on. Derek was leaner and younger, but his face and bearing made an instant impression.
Derek opened the door. “My lady.”
The arrogant, self-assured face of my aunt flashed before me. I would be Erra for today.
Eduardo stomped toward the Sheraton like a mountain with a “make my day” face.
I stepped out and marched on the Guild, imagining there was an army at my back.
Eduardo cleared the iron gates, sucked in a lungful of air, and roared. “Make way for the Consort!”
Oh boy.
Eduardo stood to the side. I strode through the gates and the lobby. Eduardo fell in behind me.
Before the Shift, the hotel was a many-star establishment, complete with an on-the-premises restaurant, a coffee shop, and a happy hour area raised on a three-foot platform. Mercs filled the main floor now. The twin lines of shapeshifters had sliced through the crowd, forming an empty corridor leading toward the platform. They stood like statues, hands behind their backs, feet together. A lone table waited for me. Mark sat on the left, his face pale. On the right Bob Carver and Ivera gawked at me with owl eyes.
I walked to the platform with my head held high, my cloak flaring. The entirety of the Guild focused on me. Super.
At the platform Eduardo sped up, drawing even with me. He took a knee, locked his left fist on his right wrist, and offered me the makeshift step.
Do not fall, do not fall, do not fall…
Without breaking my stride, I stepped onto his arms and then onto the platform.
We’d practiced it at least two dozen times before we had left for the Guild.
The three shapeshifters—Derek, Eduardo, and Jezebel—turned, their backs to the platform, and glowered at the crowd. Derek carried a large wooden box. The two lines of shapeshifters stepped to the left as
one, snapping into a wider stance.
Someone gasped.
Showtime.
“I speak for the Pack,” I said, putting all my power into my voice. “We hold twenty percent of the Guild. The admin group holds forty. The veterans hold another forty.”
You could hear a pin drop.
“You’ve had months to choose a leader. You have failed and asked the Pack to break this deadlock. This is my proposal to the Guild. Listen well, because there won’t be another.”
They were listening. Thank you, Universe, for small favors.
“Solomon Red envisioned this Guild as a place for independent men and women to earn their living in the way they see fit. We must continue the course he plotted for us.”
It was bullshit. Solomon Red didn’t have that grand of a vision, but Curran had suggested it, so I plowed on ahead.
“Point One. The Guild will appoint a chief administrative officer to oversee day-to-day operations and the financial security of the Guild. I nominate Mark for this post. Point Two. The Guild will appoint a chief personnel officer to protect the interests of its members, oversee the zoning of scores, and the assignment of gigs. I nominate Bob Carver for this post. Point Three, the Guild will create the post of Pack liaison officer, who will represent the Pack’s interests in the Guild as its third largest shareholder. I will be taking over this post. Together the chief administrative officer, chief personnel officer, and Pack liaison officer will form the Guild Committee, which will meet on the fifteenth of every month. All matters of policy concerning the Guild will be resolved by vote of the committee members.”
I looked down. The shapeshifter at the end of the left line stepped forward and unfolded a small table. The shapeshifter from the end of the right line placed a tall stack of index cards and three pens on the table. Derek stepped forward and put his wooden box in the center of the table.
“The Guild will now vote,” I announced. “Each of you will write your merc ID on the card, add one word: YES or NO, and drop it into this box. I give you this last chance to save the Guild and your jobs. Don’t blow it.”
Two hours later, two hundred and forty-six mercs voted yes, thirty-two voted no, and sixty-one dropped blank cards with their IDs into the box, abstaining. I made a show of congratulating Bob and Mark and got the hell out of there.
CHAPTER 9
I went to see Immokalee, a Cherokee medicine woman, after leaving the Guild. She spent half an hour making supplies for me and another half an hour trying to convince me that going to see the draugr was a Bad Idea. I knew it was a Bad Idea. I just didn’t see any way around it.
I got to the Cutting Edge office just after noon. The Dude and a cart containing one very sedated deer waited for me in the parking lot. A female shapeshifter I didn’t know sat on the cart with a sour expression on her face. It took me only a moment to figure out why. Next to the cart, hiding in the shade, crouched a vampire. It was thin, wiry, and covered in purple sunblock from head to toe, as if some giant bubble of grape bubblegum had exploded over it.
Jim had done it. I felt like jumping up and down. Instead I gave the vamp my flat stare.
“There are more inside,” the female shapeshifter informed me.
I stepped into the office. Curran sat at my desk, drinking a Corona from my fridge. In front of him, four vampires sat in a neat row in the middle of the floor. Two matched the purple delight outside, one was Grinch green, and the last one blazed with orange.
“I get the sunblock,” I said. “But why do you have to paint them like Skittles?”
The orange vamp unhinged its jaws. “The bright color helps to make sure they’re completely covered,” an unfamiliar female voice explained. “It’s easy to miss a spot. When they’re young, they have a lot of wrinkles.”
Ugh. “What is the meaning of this?”
“Kate,” the green vamp spoke with Ghastek’s voice, “it has come to my attention that you are planning to see a creature in the Viking territory with the purpose of finding a means to remove the necklace from the child. An undead creature. That explicitly violates the terms of our agreement to resolve this matter jointly.”
I looked at Curran. He shrugged.
“And how did you know this?” I asked.
“I have my methods.”
How in the world had Jim pulled this off? I’d have to buy him all the clipboards in the world.
“Ghastek, this is not a pleasure trip,” Curran said.
“You can’t go,” I added.
“Why ever not?”
“Because this undead will murder your vampire hit squad and I have no desire to get that bill,” Curran said. “Do yourself a favor. Sit this one out.”
Wow. He went there.
The vamp’s red eyes bulged, struggling to mirror Ghastek’s expression.
“Kate, perhaps you need to explain to your significant other that he is in no position to give me orders. Last time I checked, his title was Beast Lord, which is a gentle euphemism for a man who strips naked at night and runs around through the woods hunting small woodland creatures. I’m a premier Master of the Dead. I will go where I please.”
Once again I rode The Dude. Curran chose to drive the cart. We traveled side by side. Ghastek took point, while three of his journeymen flanked us. The fourth, the orange vampire, trotted next to me. It was piloted by Ghastek’s top journeywoman. Her name was Tracy and as navigators went, she wasn’t too bad.
Ghastek’s vampire reached Gunnar’s fork, marked by an old birch. Predictably, Gunnar lumbered out. “Come to see Ragnvald again?”
“Going to the glade.” I nodded at the cart. The deer’s moist dark eyes stared at the Viking.
Gunnar’s spine went rigid. “To see him?”
I nodded.
“Don’t go,” he said.
“I have to.”
He shook his head and stepped aside. “It’s been nice knowing you.”
I touched the reins and our small procession rolled on.
Ghastek dropped back, drawing even with The Dude. “Why the secrecy?”
“The Vikings don’t like to say Håkon’s name. The glade isn’t that far from here and he might hear.”
“What is he?”
He and Curran had that in common. Wave a secret in front of them and they would foam at the mouth trying to learn it. “He’s a draugr.”
The vamp hopped on the cart and peered at me, its eyes only a couple of inches from my face. “A draugr? A mythical Norse undead that’s supposed to guard the treasure of its grave?”
“Get off my cart,” Curran growled.
The undead hopped down. The vampire’s grotesque face twisted into an odd expression: the corners of its cavernous mouth pinched up, while its lips gaped open, displaying its fangs. It stared at me with blood-red eyes and bopped its head forward and back a few times.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m laughing at you.”
Kicking the vampire in the face with my foot would be counterproductive at this point.
“When I was a journeyman, I spent eighteen months in Norway, looking for draugar. I’ve camped in cemeteries in sub-zero temperatures, I’ve scoured fjords, I’ve dived into sea caves in freezing water. It was the worst year and a half of my life. In those eighteen months I didn’t find any credible evidence of the existence of draugar. Trust me when I say this: they don’t exist. Hence, my use of the word ‘mythical.’ As in, ‘not real.’”
I briefly contemplated punching the vampire in the nose. It wouldn’t hurt Ghastek any, but it would be immensely satisfying. “This draugr exists. Plenty of people have met him.”
“Oh, I have no doubt that they have met something, but it wasn’t a draugr. Don’t you see the signs? The mysterious glade, the path to which is guarded by a giant. The legendary undead with magical powers, who you can only meet once, and those who disobey that rule die a gruesome death.” The vampire waved his front limbs, fingers spread. “Woo-ooo. Frightening.”
“Do
you have a point?”
“Those bearded, horn-helmeted bandits are conning you, Kate.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“There’s no need to feel bad about this. You’re a capable fighter, proficient with a blade, and you have intelligence and tenacity, but you don’t work with the undead. You have very little familiarity with the basic principles of necromancy, beyond its most practical applications. You lack the tools to recognize the hoax.”
The urge to grab the mind of the nearest vampire and use it to beat Ghastek’s vamp to a bloody pulp was overwhelming. Perhaps that was why Voron had insisted on steering me away from necromancy. He’d known there would be times that the temptation to show off would be too much.
“No worries. It’s a forgivable mistake,” Ghastek said. “However, it’ll cost us a day and the use of five vampires.”
“Humor me.”
“Oh, I intend to. I’ve had a stressful day and breaking this farce open will prove a wonderful way to vent the pressure.”
The vampire sauntered off.
“He doesn’t like to be wrong,” Tracy’s vamp said. I caught a hint of humor in her voice.
I couldn’t care less if he liked it. As long as his vampires stood between me and the draugr, it would buy me a couple of extra seconds to get away.
The old road led deeper and deeper into the forest. The trees grew taller and thicker, their long limbs thrusting at each other, as if trying to push their neighbors out of the way. Mist swirled between the trunks, first an ethereal haze shimmering along the ground, then a thicker blue fog that hugged the road, lying in wait. It swallowed the sounds: the hoofbeats of the horses, the creaking of the cart, and the occasional sigh from the deer in the back. All seemed muted.
Ahead a stone arch rose above the path, gray slabs of rocks tinted with moss. I halted The Dude. The cart rocked to a stop.
“There’s a path leading north just past the arch. We go on foot from here.” I hopped off the cart. “I need one of you to carry the deer.”
A purple bloodsucker crawled up on the cart. Sickle claws sliced at the rope securing the animal, and the vampire pulled the deer off and slung it over its shoulder.
Gunmetal Magic (kate daniels) Page 44
