I rolled my eyes.
“Should we follow you or hitch a ride?” I asked.
“Hitch a ride,” he told me. “There’s going to be enough vehicles running around the house over the next few days. Every car less we can swing around will draw that much less attention.”
“All right.” I held the back door of Eric’s Rover open for Mary, who hopped in ahead of me. My usual trailing shadows slid in the other side. “How ridiculously over the top is this place, Eric?”
“To be fair, I was more concerned about security and privacy than I was about making sure it was fully worthy of your rank and authority,” he told me. “It’ll keep you safe. Everything else was secondary.”
Secondary. Right. That wasn’t a good sign.
“It’s your show, Mr. von Radach,” I sighed.
I had a few minutes of hope that Eric had found something reasonable as we drove north into a relatively normal-looking suburb.
Then, however, we turned down a street and the suburb rapidly gave way to a surprisingly dense forest of evergreens. My phone happily told me there was more city in every direction, but we were now in an area of roughly two or three square kilometers of forest.
Calgary has plenty of greenspaces, so this wasn’t entirely unusual. Given our current mission, it sent a shiver of suspicion down my neck.
A shiver proven entirely correct as we pulled off the road into a gravel driveway leading up to a closed gate. There was nothing fancy or particularly ostentatious here, but there were very few gates inside the city.
“Hold on a second.”
Eric got out and plugged a code into what looked like a garage-door-opener keypad on one of the gate’s stone posts. It was a very solid-looking gate, with a two-meter fence stretching into the forest in either direction.
The code worked and the gate swung open. Eric hopped back in and drove us through, waiting a few seconds to make sure the gate closed behind us.
“We’ve got a few prefab structures in our warehouses,” he told me. “We’ll set up a guard post by the gate with a remote. Everyone who comes in will be checked.”
“Fenced perimeter?” I asked carefully as we drove up the gravel driveway.
“Partially. We’ll lay motion sensors initially, complete the fence when we have time,” Eric explained. “It’s about a three-acre lot, so secluded, private and securable—while still inside the city and about ten minutes from Signal Hill.”
I could see the value of that. The security point of view I agreed with, at least. We could even do it subtly—the fae courts had a lot of experience doing subtle security. Once we got our hands on a property, it rarely passed out of fae hands.
We had a habit of ending up with buildings that were much bigger on the inside, after all, and that was hard to explain in the real estate listing.
Halfway down the driveway, there was a bump and I looked out the window again to realize the road had changed. What was visible from the road remained gravel, but we were now on a neatly paved driveway leading the rest of the way to the house.
A carefully stacked array of paving stones showed that the driveway was a work in progress, presumably a refit from the original driveway. That was all the warning I really got about the house itself, too.
From the outside, it looked large but not spectacular. An older—by Calgary standards, anyway—two-story estate home occupied the heart of the wooded lot. It was bigger than most of the suburban homes we’d passed, but still quite compact.
The roof and siding were new. I could even see the spot in the snow where the dumpster had been sitting until a few days before.
Eric stopped the Land Rover in front of the house and gestured for us to get out.
“Owner is a house-flipper,” he told us. “The house and grounds were pretty run-down after the previous owner died. They bought it, installed a better gate, renovated the house and were starting to shop for a buyer as they finished the landscaping.”
“You said we could close it tonight?” I asked as I glanced over the building.
“No one is living here. I mean, technically, we’ll be renting it for the first twenty days or so while the papers go through, but we are paying cash for a multimillion-dollar property.” The gnome grinned. “That opens a lot of goodwill, in my experience.”
“Multimillion,” I echoed, feeling a bit faint.
“Why don’t we go inside?” Eric told me.
It rapidly became clear that the flipper had completely gutted the interior of the house. I don’t think many fifties-era farmhouses were entirely open-plan, after all.
Part of the upper and main floors had been cut away to create a three-story open living space that dropped into what had once been the basement, with a grand staircase leading down from the front entrance. The kitchen was tucked away in one corner but still open to the main living area, and two galleries allowed access to what I assumed to be bedrooms on the higher floors.
You could go directly from the main entrance onto the ground-floor gallery, but the stairs to the second floor were on the opposite site of the house.
“Master bedroom is at the back on the second floor,” Eric told me cheerfully. “There are four smaller bedrooms on the main floor and three more upstairs. Probably intended for kids, but we’ll set them up with a couple of beds apiece and use them for your guards.
“The master suite has its own sitting area, but the main area is designed as a ‘great hall’–style space. If we get the right kind of furniture—and we will—you can move tables and couches around and either have a big dining area or a comfortable living space.”
The design of the house was super-modern but the esthetics were the same kind of rustic country estate the outside evoked. A stone fireplace and chimney climbed one side of the wall, and it seemed like everything was done in gorgeously matched hardwoods.
“Multimillion,” I repeated. “Eric…this is too much.”
“It’s not just for you,” he pointed out. “We’re housing a troop of the Wild Hunt and a half-dozen other Vassals, plus Grandfather informs me that Mary is getting her own team of bodyguards going forward.”
I looked over at my girlfriend.
“He told me,” she admitted. “I’m trying to argue him out of it.”
“I’m not going to say you can’t veto it,” Eric admitted. “But it checks all of our boxes. It’s in the city, it’s convenient to everything, but it’s isolated and securable. It’s private, it’s quiet and no one is going to be poking around, asking questions.” He snorted. “You probably won’t even get trick-or-treaters.”
“What we are we going to use this space for?” I waved around.
“There are a couple of spaces in the basement that can be set up as either media or meeting rooms,” the Keeper replied. “You can do your arbitration work from here, and you’ll have an appropriate setting to meet petitioners.”
He sighed.
“Remember, Jason, you are now a Noble of the Wild Hunt as well as a Vassal of the Queen. People will look to you for decisions, for guidance, for authority. You must project that when you meet them. Having a space you can bring people to that is entirely secured, entirely under the control of your people…”
“Talus doesn’t live like this,” I pointed out.
Eric shook his head at my intentional unworldliness.
“Jason, Talus lives in the full-floor penthouse apartment of a mixed residential and commercial building downtown that he owns outright. He lives like this, yes.”
“Can I even afford this?”
“Nope,” he told me brightly. “You could afford the mortgage, truthfully, but for now, the Queen is buying it and lending it to you. It’s not a gift and we’ll sort out the paperwork for some kind of rent-to-own agreement and taxable benefits and such later.”
“And if I veto it?” I asked.
“We probably end up shifting outside of the city to find something equally securable,” Eric replied. “This one’s available right now, ch
ecks off all of the security items and is worthy of your rank and authority.”
I sighed and met Mary’s gaze again.
“Am I going to win this argument, love?” I asked.
“Let’s go look at the master suite,” she suggested. “If it has the kind of bathtub setup I think it does…no, you’re not winning this argument.”
The bathroom managed to be, at once, both utterly over the top and surprisingly unostentatious. There was a massive bathtub, clearly designed for two people and also possessing that rarest of features: sufficient length for my nearly six feet in height to lie down in.
There was a massive shower, with two separate showerheads. There were dual sinks. All of this was done in glass and a muted white ceramic. Or possibly granite. I wasn’t sure and I didn’t want to be sure.
I sighed as I surveyed the suite. That was definitely the right word. A surprisingly normal-sized bedroom centered it, but that bedroom was accessed via a good-sized living room area and had two walk-in closets.
Plus the bathroom.
“Eight bedrooms,” I noted aloud. “Meeting rooms. Multiple acres.” I glared at Eric. “Why?”
“You’ve had the lecture,” he replied. “All of the reasons you need it. I’ve already set up the deal, but Mabona insists you sign off.”
I looked at Mary, who was inspecting what looked like it might be some kind of hydrotherapy setup in the bathroom.
“All right. What about furniture?”
“I’ll take care of it,” Eric promised. “I have an interior designer friend; I’ll unleash her on the space tomorrow. Give me two days, and you’ll be able to move in.”
“Give the asura two days and they might burn my damn warehouse down around my eyes,” I replied.
“It’s possible,” he agreed. “But that’s why you have guards and the Wild Hunt. We’ll all keep our eyes open, Jason, but we need some time to get this set up.”
He smirked.
“Even I don’t have prefabricated security setups and luxury furniture hidden in my little interdimensional storage space.”
“Let me know what you need from me,” I told him. “Otherwise, I think Mary and I need to go clothes shopping.” I shook my head. “The Asi Warriors owe me. A lot.”
“The Masked Lords hired them,” Eric said. “Never forget that, either.”
“I won’t,” I said, stepping out on the second-floor gallery and looking out over the main living area. “I’m only going to wait so long for them to come for me, Eric,” I admitted. “Once these asura are dealt with, it might be time to saddle up.”
“You’re a Noble of the Wild Hunt,” the gnome reminded me. “You were born for the hunt, for the chase. I don’t think anyone expected you to be bait forever.”
12
To my shock, our shopping trip passed without any interruptions. Mary and I picked up a small wardrobe of new clothes each before returning to the warehouse to check in.
Coleman had an array of screens set up in his command center, news on about three screens and security feeds from across the city on others. The rest of the troop was scattered around, sleeping or checking in on their gear.
“Eric says you saw the house,” he greeted us. “Serves our needs nicely, doesn’t it?”
“And then some more,” I replied. “You encouraged him, didn’t you?”
Coleman chuckled.
“A private lot we can secure and fence off, with trees all around so no one is going to wander in by accident? Hell, yes. This way, the next time someone comes at you, there’ll be no collateral damage.”
“Next time, huh?” I sighed.
“You’re a Noble of the Hunt,” the officer replied. “Someone will come for you, even if we deal with these asura. That’s the nature of what you are, what you do. We make enemies, Jason.”
I looked around the room and came to a quick decision.
“Let us drop off the shopping, but then are you free for dinner?” I asked. “We need to sit down and go over some of our plans, just the three of us.” I gestured to Mary as well.
“I can manage that,” he agreed. “I’ll be bringing some extras, though. I’m not an escort all on my own.”
I snorted. Damh Coleman wasn’t a Noble, but he was a full Hunter, a Greater Fae with the Gifts of Between and Force, as well as well-beyond-human natural abilities. I’d back him against most people coming after me—and I’d back him and me together against just about anything.
“If you insist,” I allowed. “This will be quiet.”
“Fair enough.” He shrugged. “Speaking of escorts, Ms. Tenerim?”
“If you call me miz again, Damh, I will leave claw marks all over your face,” Mary said sweetly. “You know my name.”
He laughed.
“Fair enough, Mary. Do you know who’s going to be heading up your detail? If you’re going to be under guard, we’re going to need to coordinate. We may as well put together a combined command that answers to you two.”
What Coleman was suggesting was basically a multispecies Court. That was going to be…interesting. But he was also right.
“I believe Barry volunteered for the job,” Mary told him. “I think he figured I’d put up with one of my adoptive big brothers doing it better than I would anyone else.”
Coleman laughed again.
“Probably. I’ll get in touch with him later. We’ll combine resources, make sure that you and your house are secure.”
I met his gaze and shook my head.
“These asura aren’t to be underestimated,” I warned him. “The Masked Lords even less so.”
“I know,” he confirmed. “And it’s my job to make sure they don’t get to you. Any of them.”
One of the things I’d learned while living in Calgary was that most neighborhoods had at least two pubs, usually more. Only one of them would actually be good, but that one would be pretty good.
Coleman and his team had been operating out of the warehouse for just over four months now. They’d identified the good pub and we descended on it for a working supper.
The back corner table we grabbed was directly under the speakers, an annoyance but a necessity to keep our conversation secret. We ordered food and beer and I leaned back in the seat, holding Mary’s hand under the table while the news continued to prattle on about a terrorist attack in Pakistan.
“Any more sign of the asura?” I asked.
“Nothing. We’ve been looking and reaching out to everyone,” Coleman replied. “They’re here—we can confirm that Raja Venkat Asi hasn’t left Calgary—but they’re a lot better at keeping their head down than we’d prefer.”
“I’d rather they happily wandered out into free-fire killing zones,” I admitted quietly. “They’re not my favorite people right now.”
“I’m hesitant to lay the blame for mercenaries on the mercs themselves,” my subordinate said. “I mean, they’re far from innocent, but if the Masks hadn’t hired them…”
“I think we’re reaching the end of this plan being viable,” I said as the food arrived. The waitress disappeared back into the kitchen and I shook my head. “Trapping the Masked Lords required them taking the bait, and apparently I’m not tempting enough.”
“I think they figured out we were waiting for them,” Coleman noted. “Hence the asura. They’d love to have you delivered to them, but they’re not going to challenge the High Court on ground of our choosing.”
“Any idea where we’d find them if we went looking?” Mary asked. “What, do we wander around various Fae Courts and poke through closets for iron masks?”
I chuckled at the mental image but shook my head.
“The masks themselves have some kind of spell allowing them to hide Between,” I admitted. “Searching closets wouldn’t help us, but I swear that’s the best idea I’ve heard lately.”
“The Wild Hunt has been keeping an eye out for these bastards for, well, as long as you’ve been alive,” Coleman told us. “If they weren’t good at hiding
, we’d have taken them down years ago.”
“I know.” I sighed and stared into my macaroni and cheese. “We have to be able to do something, though, Damh. If they don’t come after me…”
“You’re the only weakness they’ve had in a quarter-century,” he pointed out. “Your bloodline is the key to their weapon. They have to come to you, sooner or later.”
“Then why aren’t they?” I asked. “These Asi Warriors are here to kill me, not take me captive. What exactly are they going to do then?”
“Collect your body and use your blood to unlock the weapon. Somewhat more literally than normal,” Coleman said with a sigh. “Look, my lord, I don’t know what the answer is. I’d rather be on the road, taking the offensive against these bastards. But we don’t know where they are, so all we can do is wait.”
“And at least knowing they need me gives us something to work with,” I agreed, sighing myself. “We’ll see what trouble pops up as we get the house ready, I guess.”
“I’ll admit I’m hoping they think we’re vulnerable while we’re setting up the new place,” Coleman said with a wicked grin. “Because if they do, I have some lovely surprises waiting for them.”
All three of us chuckled. If the Masked Lords came for us, we’d be ready. My biggest problem was that my enemy didn’t seem to want to play.
13
The biggest surprise, however, was that we heard nothing for three days. The move into the house went without incident and Eric’s interior-designer friend utterly outdid herself.
I didn’t ask what the budget had been and I didn’t want to know. She’d acquired us everything from couches to art to kitchenware. Well, the kitchenware was probably Eric. Probably.
A prefabricated guard post went up at the gate, just out of sight of the road. Several others were scattered through the woods, and I’d spotted several of Talus’s goblins working with my people to lay out motion sensors and traps amidst the trees. We were going to need regular briefings on the defenses to keep everyone from blowing themselves up!
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