by Joe Jackson
“They can turn fully into wolves, too,” Kari said.
Gil nodded her great, lupine head, but uttered, “Cannot talk in wolf form.”
“How many of you are there?” Mater Perez asked, and in his tone, Kari could tell he was already considering their uses. Being the Councilor in charge of military integrations, he would naturally have the most interest in using them to bolster armies and even small-scale units of demonhunters.
“Only eight left in our pack,” Gil growled. Thinking better of her guttural snarls, she shifted back into her human form and got dressed as quickly as she could. She stood brushing her hair back into place and rubbing her hand across her face. Kari got the impression she was making sure she didn’t still have a beard or whiskers after the transformation. “It’s usually only by blind luck that we even find each other before someone else does, and kills us. If it wasn’t for Jared, I wouldn’t have even known where to go to hide when I discovered what I was.”
“Do you consider all of your pack-mates to be trustworthy?” Master Arinotte asked.
“No more or less than any of you, or your hunters,” Gil said with a shrug. “Yes, we’re werewolves, but we’re still people. You can’t label us any more easily than each other, or the serilian demons, or anyone or anything else.”
“One of them – the same one that actually killed Turillia – is down south, helping the Silver Blades,” Kari added. “She’s not only earned my trust to an extent, but that of the Earl of Lajere and the Moreville twins as well. So, I know there are other werewolves out there of a nastier sort, and probably some of Gil’s kind that just aren’t very friendly, so I’m not saying we should just blindly let them into the cities and welcome them with open arms. But when some of them, like Gil, come along and are willing to help, I think we should consider them.”
“What do you have to say for yourself, though, young lady?” Master Bennet challenged. “You did cause quite a stir and some trouble when you first came to our city.”
“As I explained to Kari, I was trying to show what I’m capable of, but I was also doing something that I can’t really get into right now,” Gil answered. “When you see the results of what I was doing, you’ll understand. But I wanted to show you that even as a werewolf, I’ve got skills your Order could use, and remember – I’ve only even known I’m a werewolf for a few years. There are others in my pack, like Darren, who’ve been living amongst you for longer. A couple of them even fought in the Apocalypse, and no one was ever aware of what they were.”
“Be that as it may, we cannot have your companions coming to the city to see Kari and putting the people into a state of panic every time they arrive,” Master Bennet said. “No matter what this Council decides, the Duke and the people as a whole are not going to accept your kind living amongst them openly. You have doubtless seen just how few serilis-rir live in this city; I would not expect you will receive the same or better treatment.”
“I understand, and like I said, I did what I did to prove a point. The others are not going to come here and try what I did, I can guarantee you that. Most of them are smarter about letting anyone know what they are.”
“And no one is expecting a quick decision,” Kari said. “I just wanted to let you know the Order has allies in unlikely places. Lord Shamus came and visited me here in my office, so we now have the brys working with us when I request it. We have these werewolves willing to help us when the opportunities present themselves. We need to take advantage of every ally we can if we’re to have any hope of fighting the coming darkness.”
“Indeed, Lady Vanador, well said,” Master Bennet replied. “We will certainly take all of this into consideration, and confer with the Unyielding for his thoughts on the matter.”
Kari saluted the priests. “Thank you, Masters. With that taken care of, I was going to ask Gil to try intimidating my prisoner into giving us a list of names of spies.”
“You’re not going to eat him, are you?” Master Arinotte asked with a trace of a smile.
“Ugh, no, humans taste awful,” Gil answered. “Rir aren’t so bad, if you can deal with the taste of that silver blood.”
Kari scrunched up her brow. “Hey now,” she protested, and the girl laughed.
“Just kidding,” Gil said.
“Yes, that is acceptable, assuming you do not actually harm the prisoner,” Master Bennet said, trying to keep the mirth from his voice.
“Just threats, Master, no harm intended,” Kari said. “After that, there is the matter of confronting Amastri with the information in the journal we found.”
“And your intention is to take her into custody?”
Kari nodded. “As soon as I have word that our friends are safe, yes.”
“Do as you will,” Master Bennet said by way of dismissal.
Kari saluted her superiors once more, and gestured for Lord Allerius to come with her and Gil. They went to the prison, and led Gil to the cell holding Joaquim. The young man stared at the new face quizzically, but when Gil started taking off her clothes, his eyes went wide. “Oh gods, you’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”
Kari wondered at his reaction. “Nope, but you may wish we would,” she said evenly. Gil began her transformation. Only then did Kari realize the young man had expected a different reason for Gil being there. He started screaming when she assumed her hybrid battle form, and Kari opened the door and let the werewolf in. Within moments, Gil cornered Joaquim, and the young man soaked through his pants onto the floor, screaming almost unintelligibly for mercy.
“I want a list of names,” Kari spat. “I want the name of everyone you have ever sold, given, or been forced to give information to since you started betraying the Order. I want their names, their descriptions, where to find them, and how you organized meetings with them. And, most of all, I want to know who they work for.”
“Anything, anything! Just get it away from me! Get it away!” he pleaded, blubbering through a veil of tears and snot.
“Not until we have our list,” Kari said.
Lord Allerius stepped forward with parchment and a quill. Gil crouched only a few paces away, a snarling, toothy grin on her face that even Kari found unnerving. The young man began recounting all the names. None of them meant anything to Kari; these were apparently good spies, their names and occupations kept quiet and out of the public eye. All until the last one on the list, which made Kari and Lord Allerius exchange an incredulous glance when they heard it.
Duke Christopher Bosimar.
Chapter XVIII – Where the Heart Is
Kari found it peculiar that no one was particularly concerned by the Duke effectively spying on the Order. Kari wasn’t happy about it. She knew there were leaks in the Duke’s court – leaks that fed information to groups like the Blood Order – and if he had moles among his people, there was no telling how far stolen information might go. It took long enough to root out the moles in the Order – twelve syrinthians and Kari’s assistant – and she couldn’t imagine how long and how extensive a search it might require to clear the Duke’s court of them.
Politics, Kari thought, wanting to spit.
The Duke was nigh untouchable, certainly to someone of Kari’s stature. Though she was head of the Demonhunter Order, she couldn’t demand or enact his arrest without a damning reason, the permission of the royalty, or a warrant from the priests of Zalkar. The first, she didn’t yet have: simply having someone keep tabs on the Order may have been in poor taste and demonstrated a lack of trust between them, but it wasn’t exactly a capital offense. It left Kari to wonder just how many other organizations had moles – no matter how innocuous – amongst her coworkers and employees.
The second possibility, of course, was an impossibility. The monarchy made their abode in the northwest, in the Strekan Province, into which Kari had no means of entering. That was to say nothing of the common knowledge that the king was virtually powerless these days, his authority usurped by a parliament of some kind. Kari knew little abou
t it, but she understood that she would receive no help from the crown, even if she could get to him and gain his ear. If there was another level of authority – an archduke, for example – it would give Kari another possible avenue of inquiry, but the Dukes were the highest authority below the king.
The third and last, naturally, was also out of the question for the time being. Kari wasn’t sure if it was purely politics that kept the priests of Zalkar and the god of justice himself from giving her a warrant, but that was her current status. She was powerless to touch the Duke from her official position as head of the Order. She could arrest or at least question him, but it would no doubt cost her the headship of the Order, and possibly lead to a severe court martial.
Her draconic lips twisted to the side in a half-smile, though, as she considered a fourth and final option: questioning him as one of his baronesses. She could only imagine how much of an embarrassment it would be for the Duke if Kari, as a baroness, started becoming “privy” to things she already knew as head of the Order. She realized she would have to start making some regular appearances in his court, all the better to shut up the loose lips of her fellow barons and baronesses. In the process, she might also find out who the actual leaks were, and if presented with a list of them, for all Kari knew, the Duke might do something about it personally.
That calmed her blood a little bit. It was possible the Duke simply didn’t like being out of the loop, as it were. The Order wasn’t answerable to him, not even in his duchy or his home city, for that matter. They told him what he needed to know, but Kari had little doubt that what they considered “need to know” and what the Duke wanted to know were two very different things. She couldn’t fault him for taking an interest in the affairs of the Order, and as far as Kari knew, it was possible the Duke was simply having the same issues with moles and leaks as the Order.
Kari brushed the thoughts aside and tried to concentrate on the joy around the dinner table. Word had just come in hours before that her in-laws and their companions were victorious in their mission, and things were coming back under control in the county of Marsdale. Though there was still much work to be done choosing a temporary successor for the Earl until his son was old enough to take the reins, the danger had, for the time being, passed. Erik had sent along word that there were a number of contingent issues that they needed to look into, but that other than some minor surgery – which alarmed Kari when she heard the word – the group had all survived with little harm.
They were on their way home now, but it would be a few weeks before they reached DarkWind. Erik had little to say through the priestly channels about the presence of his father, or how Corbanis had impacted the hunt. Kari had to wonder if that was among the “contingent issues” he wanted to go over with her. She was pretty sure Erik was too much of a disciplinarian to question Kari with regard to how she ran the Order, but the same might not hold true for the others. Certainly Jol, Sonja, and Aeligos had no true loyalty to Kari as the Grand Commander of the Order; if they found the situation upsetting, they had every right to say so.
Kari looked across at Kyrie, who was obviously quite relieved with the news. There was no way to tell how much of the woman’s joy was on account of Corbanis’ pending safe return, and Kari had to remind herself not to get too involved in what wasn’t really her business. She was pleased that the veteran hunter had proven an asset in such an important mission, though, and she wanted to keep him close for future crises. While that didn’t require the goodwill of Kyrie or the rest of the family, having it would certainly make things easier for Kari.
Eli and Danilynn sat side by side, leaning into each other with small touches now and then. They were trying not to be too overt with their displays of affection at the dinner table, but they had announced their relationship as official to Kyrie. Kari’s mother-in-law didn’t seem to mind whether they were officially mated or not; she left them to their own devices while guests in her home, with little judgment. But now, with them on the second floor – they had swapped rooms with Ty to facilitate him getting around in his wheelchair – Danilynn felt it was only appropriate to not bring any kind of shame into Kyrie’s household.
Kari wondered where the two would move to once the majority of Kari’s family moved into her house. While Kari didn’t mind if Danilynn and Eli lived with her for a while, the fures-rir priestess didn’t share her sentiments. The two were discussing where they wanted to live, and how involved they wanted to get in the Order’s affairs. Eli hadn’t asked to join the Order yet, but Kari got the impression that it would happen soon. If he and Danilynn decided to have one or more children, then Eli staying close by on the campus while he trained would seem to be the best arrangement for them.
Se’sasha and Liria were present as well, chatting lightly back and forth in the syrinthian language. Looking at them, Kari wondered if it would be more appropriate for her to refer to Liria as Se’lucia, just as she called the priestess Se’sasha instead of her given name, Aesiasi. Liria seemed to have no end of stories to tell her High Priestess, though what exactly those stories entailed was a mystery to Kari. She realized she was going to have to learn syrinthian someday, to go along with her other non-native languages of elvish and czarikk. And that was to say nothing of needing to learn the infernal and beshathan languages.
Kari sighed, but tried to keep up her smile. Languages were something she would have plenty of time to learn once she gave birth. And, bringing her thoughts all the way to their conclusion, she turned and looked at Damansha. The half-elite captain of the guard had come to Kyrie’s home for virtually every dinner when she wasn’t busy working, and was fast becoming like part of the family. She was shy about herself, and Kari still didn’t know too much about her family life and history, but Damansha was an upstanding and honest woman, and Kari already appreciated her like another sister-in-law. The one nagging feeling Kari had about Damansha was that if she and Jol stopped seeing each other, Kari was going to miss her company.
Ty wasn’t there; he was still busily managing Kari’s estate, and tended to have meals with the workers there as often as not. He had gone through bouts of depression and rebounded to exuberance over managing Kari’s affairs. The house was just about complete, as were the flats for the workers, and thus far, the weather had been favorable for the crops. Kari still didn’t exactly feel like the owner, since she didn’t live on the land and had little to do with how things were run, but she was glad it was bringing Ty some fulfillment. She imagined he was going to dip into depression again when his siblings and father returned with stories of their victory. At the very least, the work and the prospects of the coming harvests and profits would help him recover…she hoped.
“Once everyone has returned, we can finally set a date for the wedding,” Grakin said, shaking Kari from her contemplations.
“Oh? Did you have a particular date in mind?” Kyrie asked.
Kari shook her head. “No. We were going to wait until after the baby is born, but I think we’re just going to make sure everyone is home and settled, and then we’ll give some notice and go ahead with it. We want to have the ceremony on the steps of Zalkar’s temple, so almost anyone can come watch if they like. As far as the reception after, I think we can do that at our new home, though we’ll need to keep it somewhat small – mostly just family and friends.” Kari glanced at Damansha, Liria, Se’sasha, Eli, and Danilynn after she’d finished, and they all smiled at her implication, especially Liria.
“Which of us will be performing the ceremony?” Se’sasha asked. “You do realize you have three priestesses sitting just at this table, yes?”
Kari chuckled. “Mom will be handling the ceremony,” she answered, and being called Mom made Kyrie smile instinctually.
“Do you need a dress made?” Liria asked. “If it’s going to take your companions a few weeks to return home, I’m sure I could put together something suitable.”
Kari glanced at Grakin, and his eyebrows went up; he apparently didn’t kn
ow what she was thinking. “It’s a tradition among many hunters and members of the military to get married armed and armored,” she said, and he nodded his understanding. “But you know what? I spend enough time in my armor. Maybe it’s time I looked like a baroness, albeit a pregnant one.”
Grakin smiled and took her hand. “Armored or in formalwear, you are always a beauty to me,” he said. “I will opt for the robes of my priesthood, if it is all the same to you.”
“Of course,” Kari agreed. She felt much the same way as Grakin: the ceremony was the important thing. She wasn’t all that concerned about what he wore. But she wanted to look her prettiest – her pregnancy notwithstanding – for him on their wedding day, and she rarely had the opportunity to wear something pretty.
“I’ll have to make certain to leave a little extra room for you to grow into,” Liria said, already thinking ahead. “Would you like me to embroider it at all, perhaps with some of the markings of Ashakku – or Sakkrass, if you prefer – or your own deity?”
“You’ll have to draw up some designs for me so I can make a decision,” Kari answered.
There was a knock at the door, and Kyrie rose to go answer it. She returned a minute later with Gil, and the werewolf took a seat beside Damansha at the table. Kari had to bite her lower lip to keep from bursting out laughing when the captain of the guard took a good, long look at the very woman she’d chased for weeks. Kari wasn’t sure Gil recognized Damansha, but after a moment, a mischievous grin split the werewolf’s face, and Kari wondered if the burly serilian-rir woman was going to cuff her.
There was an awkward silence, but then Damansha let a gruff, hearty chuckle. “I meet the strangest people at this table,” she commented, but then an embarrassed look crossed her face. Her worry was for naught, though: everyone else started laughing, too, even the two syrinthian women.
Kyrie half-smiled. “I certainly do see some oddities arrive in my home,” she said. “I think it speaks to the character of the woman sitting across from me, that she draws so many people from such different races, backgrounds, and walks of life to her side.”
