So just the part about Cole may have been a lie.
Except then there was also the part about her plan to burn the house down, which didn’t fit with what Cole said he saw at all.
Harris dragged a hand over his hair as his brain tried to pull itself apart to make the pieces he’d thought he had in place suddenly fit again. Jamison’s men needed to protect their people if they were going to accomplish anything. He knew that. So for them, burning down the house could have been a self-protective measure. They’d found the bodies. They’d found everything Ashley had done. And… what? They covered it up for her? They didn’t even have a reason for being there in the first place. Why would they…
He paused. Tanya. Or, more specifically, her late husband. Though most of the time, Harris avoided the widow on account of her being the angriest and possibly the most deranged woman he’d ever seen, he’d still overheard her stories of why Howard Bartlow died.
Howard had worked with the Blood. He’d hated the war and he’d tried to bring it to an end. But he was still from Ashley’s side, originally one of the ‘Merlin’ group who seemed to be responsible for all this, and he’d been a doctor of some kind for the little girl. Tanya even said he’d been killed by Merlin the same night Ashley’s family died.
So perhaps Howard had learned how brutal Ashley could be. Perhaps he’d gone to the Blood for help. Brogan had said they were trying to protect the little girl, that night in the police station six months ago. Howard could have learned of Ashley’s plan to wipe her family from the face of the earth, and perhaps that was why the Blood had been there that night.
But Jamison’s men would have needed to cover up their presence. Chances were, there would’ve been enough forensic evidence from their attempt to stop what Ashley did that if anyone found it, the Blood might have been exposed.
He exhaled as the elevator slowed. Fine. Dandy, even. Cole may well have misunderstood most of it, given that he didn’t see anything but the end, but that still left one problem. Brogan and Jamison had lied. And they’d kept lying, even after it was clear he was helping them.
Harris grimaced. He’d known they weren’t necessarily telling him everything, and to be honest, he hadn’t really cared. They wanted to stop Ashley and the creatures like her from killing innocent people, and they’d financed his efforts to do the same. That’d been enough.
But this was different.
The elevator slowed. Dropping his hand from his hair, he forced the scowl from his face, though when the doors opened, the expression nearly slipped back again.
“Hey, buddy,” Mud said, tromping into the elevator with a sub sandwich in each hand.
Harris didn’t respond.
“Off again, eh? I gotta say, it’s a pleasure watching you work. That last place ya’ll hit…” He grinned, his teeth full of lettuce and tomato. Harris winced, looking away. “Beauty of a thing.”
“Three of Jamison’s people died.”
“Eh, well,” Mud allowed. “True.”
“What do you want?” Harris asked tiredly, praying the elevator reached the parking garage soon.
“Who says I want anyth–”
He glanced to the little man.
“Okay, okay,” Mud surrendered. “Look, I just thought, seeing as how you’re so… useful, with your being human and all… maybe you could tell them they don’t need me to go out there anymore? I could stay here; coordinate prisoners or something. I mean, you’ve got the whole stealth reconnaissance thing covered. Wizards never even know you’re watching them. What do you need me for?”
It took everything Harris had not to comment on the last.
“So what do you say?” Mud pushed.
“It’s not my call.”
“Well, yeah, but I just thought that if you–”
“Ask Brogan yourself, Mud.”
The little man paused. “Yeah, well…”
With a quiet ding, the elevator door opened. Harris struggled not to bolt through the gap. The little man reeked of month-old produce. And that was the best of his qualities.
The smell of metal and engine oil surrounded him as he headed into the parking garage, and the sound of traffic filtered down the exit ramp. A few wizards glanced back as he came around the corner, but their attention returned swiftly to Brogan upon realizing it was just him.
“…apartment building on the southern outskirts of Atlanta,” Brogan said. “Tanya says there are at least three hideouts inside, though the Merlin may have added more since she was last there, so don’t assume anything. This building doesn’t connect to its neighbors, so we’ll use a standard approach, but be ready in case they try to use portals inside. Questions?”
Harris looked away. It’d only taken a couple days of helping the Blood hunt down Ashley’s hideouts to learn to hate apartment buildings, since they basically amounted to kids and families trapped in a box with wizards inside. The Blood had been lucky thus far, managing to take out the Merlin and keep them from harming their human shields.
But the chance that this would be the time an innocent got hurt always made his skin crawl.
“Good,” Brogan finished. “Move out.”
Grimacing, Harris headed for the car with Mud tottering behind in a cloud of stench and grumbling. The wizards ignored him as he swung into the back seat, though the disgust on their faces was damn near blatant as the little man followed.
His gaze returned to Brogan as the car started to pull away. Deep in conversation with another man, the giant paid the departing vehicle no attention.
Jamison and Brogan wanted to stop killers like Ashley, and that was good. With Cole back, their focus was now solely on ending the violence while protecting those caught in it, and that was good as well.
But they’d also lied to him. They’d misled him about their involvement the night Ashley murdered her family, and they’d kept him in the dark long after it became abundantly clear he was trying to stop her just as much as they were.
There had to be a reason. And when any sane person could see the Blood were the ones on the right end of this, he couldn’t imagine what might have been so damaging about that night that it was something they needed to hide.
Chapter Seven
Cole sighed as the sun climbed over the horizon to shine through his bedroom windows. Rubbing a hand over his eyes, he blinked tiredly and then snagged the remote from the nightstand and turned off the early morning program he couldn’t remember a moment of anyway.
He’d managed five hours of sleep last night. At this point, it was practically a record.
Shoving the blankets aside, he climbed out of bed and then scavenged together the clothes he’d tossed aside the previous night, before making his way into the living room. The sun was even more obnoxious in there. Groaning, he held up a hand to block the glare. He had to remember to close the curtains at night. Blinding himself every morning was starting to get old.
He glanced over as the latch on the apartment door turned and the door swung open.
“Would you like some coffee, sire?”
“Phillip, don’t call me that.”
He followed the man as Phillip crossed the room with a tray of breakfast food on his arm and his gaze locked firmly on the floor.
“How’d you know I was up, anyway? You have motion sensors in here or something?”
A hint of a smile pulled at the man’s face as he set the tray on the table in the kitchenette. “No, sire.”
He gave the man a dry look.
“Cole.”
“Thank you.”
He looked to the tray as the smell of coffee hit him. “And thank you,” he added more emphatically.
Phillip’s smile widened.
“So seriously,” Cole persisted, taking the carafe before the man could reach for it.
“You have gone to the cafeteria looking for coffee at this hour three times this week,” Phillip replied. “We work to learn your schedule to better serve you.”
Cole paused, glancing u
p with a coffee mug in one hand and the carafe suspended in the other. No expression touched the wizard’s face.
“You really don’t have to.”
Phillip said nothing.
Uncomfortably, Cole finished pouring the coffee. They had the strange non-argument almost once a day. By now, he was starting to suspect that, even with little things like his own name, he wasn’t ever going to win.
“If there will be nothing else, sire?”
Cole suppressed a grimace. And that was proof.
“No.”
Phillip bowed and then left the room, shutting the door silently behind him. Shaking his head, Cole carried the mug back to the bedroom.
It was vital people saw him as next in line to the throne. That was what his father said. At least, whenever Cole saw him, anyway. For days, he’d been locked in his office, taken up with everything from skirmishes on the outskirts of town to full-scale battles in other parts of the country. And as a result, they hadn’t had much chance to talk about how ridiculous being viewed as royalty made Cole feel.
Though, if he had seen the man, that probably would’ve been the last thing he’d have brought up anyway.
He took a sip of the coffee, feeling it spread through him with the wonderful promise of relative consciousness on its way.
In the two weeks since he’d arrived at Chaunessy, he’d heard nothing of Lily. For all intents and purposes, the girl – and her bloodthirsty sister – had vanished off the face of the earth. But other news had poured in, brought by everyone from the Blood to Harris to the creepy little man who insisted on being called Mud. Ashe’s people were killing the Blood and Taliesin alike, though their capabilities were limited by their numbers, given that many of them had run for the hills when their council fell. But rebel Taliesin had taken up the slack, and nearly every day another group of holdouts tried to wreak havoc on those who’d sided with his father when their own council died.
Simeon had been seriously injured the week before. Isabella’s skills had saved his life, though he still favored his right leg heavily. Meanwhile the death toll among the Blood’s allies kept rising, to the point where Harris refused to tell him any details beyond an acknowledgement that people had died anymore.
Though, to be honest, the man had rarely said much of anything since they’d spoken that first day. True to his profession, the detective just seemed to be taking everything in, as if collecting data on a case he couldn’t seem to solve, and that no one else could see.
It was annoying.
Mud made up the difference, though, with such relish that Cole had started avoiding him whenever he saw the man coming down the hall. From everyone else, he received silence, barring requests of what they could do to serve him.
But of Lily, there was nothing.
It hadn’t taken long for the insomnia to start. With so many dying every day, it really wasn’t surprising he couldn’t sleep. Each new attack left him worried the wizards would return with news that they couldn’t reach Lily before the Merlin got away, or that her sister had killed her rather than be captured, or simply that in the crossfire, the little girl had died. The waiting was making him crazy, especially since he’d started to feel like, for the past few months, his whole life had essentially been spent doing just that one thing.
He blinked and then lowered the mug, discovering it empty. A humorless chuckle escaped him. Crazy he might be, but right now, distracted was probably the more accurate term. Time seemed to creep every day, yet when night finally came, he couldn’t remember a moment that’d gone by. Books held no interest and neither did the television, and plunking keys on the piano felt about as appealing as scraping his fingernails on chalkboard.
Something needed to change or he really would go insane.
Setting the cup on the nightstand, he glanced to the apartment, but the only solution was the same one he came to every day. The cafeteria on the plaza level wasn’t much, but it was open early and provided the chance to overhear information, even if being there did mean the wizards would be watching his every move to learn how to serve their supposed future king.
But that was still better than sitting here all day.
He headed out of the room. Rupert and Jerome straightened swiftly as he opened the apartment door, their eyes locking on the end of the hall as though their attention had been there the entire time.
“It’s alright, guys,” he said as he strode by. “Next shift coming soon?”
“In one hour, sire,” Rupert replied precisely.
“See you tomorrow then.”
He turned the corner, hurriedly outdistancing the additional formality that was sure to follow his words. As two of the half dozen honor guards his father had placed on his room, the men were nothing if not proper, and typically made him feel awkward as hell.
The elevator was predictably empty, though sadly, the cafeteria nearly was too. Each small round table was unoccupied, save for one beside the kitchen where a woman was refilling a miniature army of salt and pepper shakers with their respective contents.
Her eyes went wide as he walked in. Giving her a tight smile, he made a beeline for the large coffee machine, praying she didn’t follow. Filling a mug as full as it would go, he paused only long enough to add a splash of something purporting to be cream and then wove quickly through the seating area to a table in the farthest corner of the room.
Sinking onto the rickety metal chair, he turned his gaze to the window. The cafeteria overlooked the ostensible park that bordered one side of Chaunessy. Roughly the size of a basketball court, the expanse of gray concrete was dotted with cement benches and tables, though none of the early morning passersby seemed to notice the seats enough to consider stopping. Decorative trees fringed the space, each branch utterly devoid of birds or squirrels.
The Blood had to find Lily soon.
He grimaced, returning his attention to the dining room.
Motion caught his eye. He glanced back outside to see Simeon stride around the corner of the building, three wizards hurrying after him. Gesturing angrily, Simeon snapped orders without turning around.
Cole leaned closer to the window, watching the Blood march up to the exit directly below. Yanking open the door, Simeon spun, snarling something at the man behind him, and then disappeared inside.
The wizards raced back around the corner and out of sight.
Brow furrowing, Cole pulled away from the window and carefully set the coffee mug down. The Blood could have just been upset by another Taliesin attack. Or maybe by some warmongers who’d gotten away.
There was no guarantee this had anything to do with Lily.
His gaze slid to the cafeteria door.
He was so damn tired of waiting.
Rising swiftly, he winced as the chair legs scraped loudly across the tiles, but he kept moving. Ignoring the stare of the woman by the kitchen, he wove between the tables and then strode from the cafeteria.
The elevator took forever to answer his call, for all that no one else was probably using it, and when it finally arrived, he slipped quickly past the opening door. Scanning the buttons, he jabbed the one for the topmost floor and then scowled, waiting for the elevator to catch up with his commands.
There was absolutely no evidence that Simeon’s hurry had anything to do with Lily, he reminded himself as he watched the numbers climb. Given the man’s expression, he almost hoped it didn’t.
With only a hint of motion, the elevator eased to a halt and, moving slower than seemed possible, the door drifted open. Skirting through the gap, he hurried toward the door halfway down the black marble hall. Thick white carpet grabbed at his feet as he crossed the lobby, and the glass chimes overhead spun gently when he passed. Sunlight streamed through the windows that circled the upper reaches of the space and cast splintered light across the stairway as he jogged up the steps to the dark double doors on the far side of the room.
His knuckles paused an inch from the wood. Muffled voices came from within the office
, snapping back and forth as though in an argument, and then suddenly fell silent.
The door opened sharply. Brogan stared down at him, mismatched eyes narrowing.
“Let him through, Mason,” Victor said calmly.
The giant stepped back, and warily, Cole moved around him. On the opposite side of the office, his father stood behind an ornately carved desk, his form silhouetted by the sunlight pouring through the bank of windows at his back. Bookcases lined the rightmost wall, interrupted only by a door to a conference room, while a sofa of hard, utilitarian design sat in the adjoining corner. A few feet from the couch, Simeon stood, something almost like impatient fury in his eyes.
“Everything alright?” Cole asked carefully, watching the gray-haired wizard.
“Of course,” his father replied.
Simeon turned away, resting a hand on a bookcase nearby.
Victor’s mouth tightened at the motion. “You have your orders,” he said, his voice cold.
Simeon’s gaze snapped from Victor to Cole. His face darkened and then, without a word, he strode from the office. Cole stepped quickly out of the way as he swept past, and neither wizard spoke as Brogan closed the door. The giant’s gaze returned to Victor for only a moment, and then the Blood headed for the conference room.
Victor sighed, regarding his desk. “My apologies,” he said to Cole, fingering a fountain pen on the desktop.
Still eyeing Brogan askance, Cole approached the desk. The large man was perusing the papers scattered across the oak conference table as though they were completely engrossing.
Cole wasn’t fooled for a second.
“I didn’t mean to–”
“You didn’t,” Victor said, holding up a hand to stave off anything further. He gave Cole a brief smile, gesturing to the chair in front of the desk. “Simeon needed to leave anyway.”
Cole sat down, uncertain what to say, and he could see his father read the expression.
“We lost some supporters last night,” Victor explained, sinking into the wingback chair behind the desk. “A pair of Taliesin who’d sided with us since the early days of the war. The council loyalists are not going quietly and, even though we’re making progress… it’s costly. Add to that the fact Ashley has the same powers I do, as well as advantages I do not, and that we lack knowledge regarding the full extent of the resources at her disposal, or how close she is to potentially binding us all…” He smiled tiredly at the litany. “You can see how this takes a toll on people’s morale.”
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