“It was her choice. If she wanted to stay safe, she could’ve joined the Girl Scouts. She isn’t out selling cookies, she’s piloting diseased corpses for a living.”
I took my beer out of his hand and drank. “So you would’ve stood by and let the PAD kill four people?”
Curran leaned back, sprawling against the tub wall. “Four of the People. Not only that, but I can take a shot from an M24. You can’t.”
“When you offered me this business, did you think I would stay in the office all day baking cookies?”
“Nobody ever died of being shot by a cookie.”
He had me there. I groped about my brain for a snappy comeback. “There is always a first time.”
Oh, now that was a brilliant response. No doubt he’d collapse at my feet in awe at my intellectual magnificence.
“If anybody could manage being shot by a cookie, it would be you.” Curran shrugged. “We agreed you wouldn’t take chances.”
“We agreed you would let me do my job as I see fit.”
He drank his beer. “And I’m holding up my end of that agreement. I didn’t drop everything and charge over there to shield you from bullets, shove guns up the PAD’s asses, and slap the People around until they could come up with a good reason for this clusterfuck. I knew you could handle it.”
“Then why are you chewing me out?”
Little wicked lights sparked in his eyes. “Despite showing superhuman restraint, I was still worried about you. I was emotionally compromised.”
“Really? You don’t say. Emotionally compromised?”
“Aunt B used that phrase today to explain to me why I shouldn’t punish a fifteen-year-old idiot for having a threesome in front of the morgue.”
Aunt B had jumped the gun. Should’ve let me handle it first.
Curran pondered his beer. “Never would’ve thought to use that to describe the kid’s problem.”
“Well, how would you describe it?”
“Young, dumb, and full of cum.”
That pretty much summed it up. “You missed your calling. You should’ve been a poet.”
Curran drained half of his beer and moved over to sit by me. “Don’t take stupid risks. That’s all I ask. You’re important to me. I wish you were that important to you.”
Trying to distract Curran was like trying to turn a train: difficult and ultimately futile. “If I kiss you, will you let it go?”
“Depends.”
“Never mind. The offer is withdrawn.” I leaned my head on his biceps. It was warm in the lion’s embrace, as long as you didn’t mind the huge claws. “I’ve got a client.”
“Congratulations.” Curran raised his beer. We clinked our bottles and drank.
“Who is it?”
“Remember the chick in charge of security at the Midnight Games?”
He nodded. “Tall, reddish hair, green rapier.”
“She works for the Red Guard.”
I brought him up to speed on everything, including Teddy Jo’s freezer.
“Sounds like the Red Guard wants you to save their ass, and if it blows up in their faces, they’ll blame you for it.”
I leaned back. “I have to start rebuilding my reputation at some point. This would go a long way toward fixing it.”
A fierce gold light backlit Curran’s eyes. Suddenly he looked predatory. If I weren’t one hundred percent sure he loved me, I would’ve gotten the hell out of that tub. Instead I leaned over and stroked the light stubble on his jaw.
“Picturing killing Ted Moynohan in your head again?”
“Mrm.”
“Not worth it.”
He slid his hand along my arm and I almost shivered. His voice was like velvet, hiding a hoarse growl just beneath the surface. “You thought about it.”
I drank my beer. “I did.” Actually right now I would’ve liked to punch Shane even more. It would be good for me. Therapeutic even. “Still not worth it.”
“If you need more money, all you have to do is dial accounting,” Curran said.
“The budget we set up is fair. I’d like to stick to it. Anyway, I told you mine, will you tell me yours? What’s bugging you?”
Curran’s fingers trailed along my arm, up to my shoulder, and over to my side. Mmm.
“A render went off the reservation,” he said.
Renders were specialized warriors. All Pack members were trained to fight as soon as they could walk, but rank-and-file shapeshifters had other jobs: they were bakers, tailors, teachers. Warriors had no other job. In battle, they specialized according to their beast. Bears functioned as tanks—they took a lot of damage before they went down and cleared paths when they charged. Wolves and jackals were jacks of all trades, while cats and boudas were renders. Drop a render in the middle of a fight and thirty seconds later they would be panting in a ring of corpses.
“What sort of render?”
“A female lynx. Name’s Leslie Wren.”
My memory served up a fit woman with honey-brown hair and a sprinkling of freckles on her nose, followed by a six-foot-tall, muscled shapeshifter in a warrior form. I knew Leslie Wren. A few months ago, when we battled a demonic horde during the flare, she fought beside me. She had killed dozens and enjoyed the hell out of it. But I had seen her again, and recently, too . . . “What happened?”
Curran grimaced. “She failed to report in. We cleared her house—all her weapons are gone. Boyfriend is shocked; he thinks she must be in trouble.”
“What do you think?”
Curran’s frown deepened. “Jim’s people tracked her scent down to the Honeycomb. They got a hundred feet in and hit wolfsbane.”
The Honeycomb was a screwed-up place, full of wild magic and riddled with paths that went nowhere. It changed all the time, like some mutated cancerous growth, and it stank to high heaven. Add wolfsbane to it, which guaranteed an instant severe allergy attack for the weretrackers, and you had a clean getaway.
“No other scent trails with her?”
Curran shook his head. So nobody had held a gun to her head. She went into the Honeycomb on her own and used wolfsbane, because she didn’t want to be found. Leslie Wren had gone rogue. Shapeshifters went rogue for any number of reasons. Best-case scenario, she had a problem with someone in the Pack, couldn’t resolve it, and decided to cut and run. Worst-case scenario, she went loup. A regular shapeshifter going loup meant a killing spree. A render going loup meant a massacre.
“I have to go hunting tomorrow,” Curran said.
Hunting Leslie Wren before anyone got hurt. I finally remembered where I’d seen her last—she let Julie and Maddie come with her to hunt a deer in the woods near the Keep. It made perfect sense for Curran to go. A render would wipe the floor with an average shapeshifter. Curran would be able to take her down with minimal damage. I understood it, but I didn’t like it.
“Need help?” I asked.
“No. Is your knee still hurting?”
“No, why?”
“Just wondering if you need any distraction from the pain.”
Mmm. “What sort of distraction did you have in mind?”
Curran leaned down, his eyes dark and full of golden sparks. His lips closed on mine. The shock of his tongue against mine was electrifying. I slid my arms around his neck, molding myself against him. My nipples pressed against his chest. The hard muscle of his back bunched under my fingers, and I kissed him, his lips, the corner of his mouth, the sensitive point under his jaw, tasting his sweat and the sharp touch of stubble on my lips. He made a quiet masculine noise, halfway between a deep growling rumble and a purr.
Oh my God.
His hands slid over my back and down, caressing, shifting me closer, until I felt the hard length of his erection press against me. Oh yes.
“We should move out of the tub.” I nipped his lower lip.
He kissed my neck. “Why?”
“Because I want you to be on top and I don’t have gills.”
Curran rose, lifting me out of
the water, and carried me to the living room.
WE LAY ON THE COUCH, TANGLED IN A BLANKET. “SO what are you going to do about Ascanio?” I asked him.
Curran sighed. “Most young guys have somebody to imitate: their father, their alpha, me. When I was younger, I had my father and then Mahon. Ascanio has nobody. His father is dead, his alpha is female, and he can’t relate to me. He obeys me and he acknowledges that I have the right to punish him, but he doesn’t feel the need to be like me.”
“You mean he doesn’t instantly hero-worship you? Perish the thought.”
He scowled at me. “I think I’ll make mouthing off to the Beast Lord a punishable offense.”
“Punishable by what?
“Oh, I’ll think of something. Anyway, I decided to give him to Raphael.”
Raphael was handsome, he earned a good living, women fell over themselves to line his path, and he was vicious in a fight. I could see how a young male bouda might think that nobody on Earth was cooler.
“I’ll ask Raphael to mentor him,” Curran said. “As a personal favor. Before he steps in, I’ll make that spoiled brat’s life pure hell, so when Raphael takes him off our hands, Ascanio will think he walks on water.”
That made total sense, except Curran and Raphael weren’t on good terms. In fact, Curran had once referred to Raphael as B’s precious peacock. “You’re going to ask Raphael for a favor?” I stopped and made a big show of staring into Curran’s eyes. “Pupils aren’t dilated. You aren’t high or drunk . . .”
“He helped set up your business,” Curran said. “And we have some things in common.”
“Like what?”
“I know what he’s going through. I’ve been there. Raphael is too much in his own head right now. The boy would be good for him. It will force him to think of something else.”
I was pretty sure that nothing short of Andrea would get Raphael out of his head. “That would be great, except he is neck deep in his funk. Aunt B probably asked him already and he must’ve said no.”
“I’m not Aunt B,” Curran said.
“I noticed.”
He stroked my shoulder. “Your tattoo faded. I can barely see it.”
I turned my head, trying to get a look at the raven. The black lines of the design had faded to pale gray; the sword, and the words Дар Ворона, Raven’s Gift, were almost gone.
“Doolittle says it’s because of all the medmagic he’s been subjecting me to over the last weeks. A lot of my scars faded, too. It’s probably for the best. It was a cheesy tattoo anyway. Every time someone saw it, they’d ask what it said and why did I have Cyrillic letters on my shoulder . . .” I clamped my mouth shut.
“What?”
The Cyrillic alphabet was created by two Greek monks around AD 900. Before the Cyrillic alphabet, the Slavs used Glagolitic script, which took root in strokes-and-incisions writing—Slavic runes.
The inventor’s last name was Kamen. Kamen meant “stone” in Russian. Usually Russian names ended on “-ov” or “-ev,” but it was possible his family had changed their last name to make it easier for an English speaker.
I dialed the guardroom. Barabas picked up the phone, his slightly ironic tenor amused before I even had a chance to say anything. “Yes, Consort?”
“Why is everyone calling me Consort?”
“Jim designated you as Consort in official papers. You don’t want to be called Mate, calling you Alpha is confusing, and ‘Beast Lady’ makes people laugh.”
“Why is it necessary to attach a title to me at all?”
“Because you are attached to the Beast Lord.”
Behind me Curran chuckled to himself. Apparently I amused everyone this evening. “I know it’s late, but could you find a book for me? It’s called The Slavs: Study of Pagan Tradition by Osvintsev.”
Barabas sighed dramatically. “Kate, you make me despair. Let’s try that again from the top, except this time pretend you are an alpha.”
“I don’t need a lecture. I just need the book.”
“Much better. Little more growl in the voice?”
“Barabas!”
“And we’re there. Congratulations! There is hope for you yet. I will look into the book.”
I hung up the phone and glared at Curran. “What’s so funny?”
“You.”
“Laugh while you can. You have to sleep eventually, and then I’ll take my revenge.”
“You’re such a violent woman. Always with the threats. You should look into some meditation techniques . . .”
I jumped on the couch and put the Beast Lord into an armlock.
CHAPTER 8
THE TWO TRACKERS REPORTED IN EARLY THE NEXT morning. They had picked up Julie’s scent, hit wolfsbane, lost her, and found her trail again at the crumbling Highway 23, except it was two hours old and mixed with horse scents. She was hitchhiking. Great. Awesome. At least she always carried a knife with her.
When I relayed this to Curran, he shrugged and said, “If she kills anybody, we’ll make it go away.”
Shapeshifter parenting motto—if your kid slits somebody’s throat, always have a backup plan to make the body disappear.
I put on my clothes, grabbed my sword, kissed Curran good-bye, and headed to the lower floor. Barabas waited for me by the desk, slim, dapper, and wearing an ironic smile. The first thing you noticed about Barabas was his hair. Cut short on the sides and the back, it was about an inch and a half long on top of his head, and he brushed it and rubbed gel in it until the entire inch and a half stood on end, like hackles on a pissed-off dog. It was also bright, fiery red. He looked like his head was on fire.
Technically, Barabas wasn’t a bouda. His mother shifted into a hyena, but his father was a weremongoose from Clan Nimble. As was customary in the interclan unions with the Pack, his parents had an option of belonging to either clan, and they chose the loving embrace of Aunt B and the protection of her razor-sharp claws. Faced with the same choice on his eighteenth birthday, Barabas chose to remain with Clan Bouda and pretty soon ran into some personal problems. When Aunt B gave him to me, it was for his benefit as much as mine.
“Good morning, Consort.” Barabas handed me a package wrapped in shimmering red foil. A big red bow was set on top of the foil.
“Why the wrapping?”
“It’s a gift. Why not make it special?”
“Thank you.” I untied the bow. “This render Curran is supposed to hunt today. Leslie Wren. How good is she?”
“Pack’s top twenty. I wouldn’t fight her,” Barabas said. “I know some alphas who wouldn’t either.”
Great. I unwrapped the paper, revealing an old edition of Osvintsev. “Where did you find it?”
“In the Keep library.”
“The Keep has a library?”
“Both paper and digital.”
I flipped through the pages. Runes, runes, runes . . . Runes. An inverted Algiz rune. The caption next to it said “Chernobog.” The Black God.
Right. Of course, it wouldn’t be Chernobog, God of Morning Dew on the Rose Petals, but a woman could always hope.
I riffed through the pages looking for the gods and goddesses. The Slavic pantheon broke into two opposing factions, benevolent and malevolent. I skipped the “good” faction.
The moment I turned the pages to the dark faction, an inverted Algiz rune stared at me. Next to it was a sketch of a man with a black mustache frosted with silver. His black armor bristled with spikes. His hand clenched a bloody spear. He stood on a heap of dismembered corpses covered in black ants while black crows circled over his head. Fury warped his face into an ugly grimace. The caption read:
Chernobog. The Black Serpent. Koshei. Lord of Darkness and Death. Ruler of Freezing Cold. Master of Destruction. God of Insanity. Embodiment of everything bad. Evil.
Barabas glanced over my shoulder. “This doesn’t look good.”
Understatement of the year. De Harven was sacrificed to Chernobog, probably by a volhv, a Slavic pagan priest
. Volhvs had broad powers, like druids, but unlike the druids, who were very self-conscious about their human-sacrificing past, the volhvs had no aversion to violence. And Atlanta volhvs really didn’t like me.
I tapped the book, thinking. The Slavic pagan community was self-regulating: light gods were counterbalanced by dark, and volhvs of both factions were equally respected. Sacrificing de Harven took a huge load of magic. A volhv packing that much magic would be well known and rooted in the community. I wouldn’t get anywhere by talking with them. I had to find a Plan B.
The volhvs were all male. If you were female and practicing Slavic pagan magic, you were likely a witch, and the most powerful Slavic witch in the city was Evdokia. She was a part of the Witch Oracle and the last time we’d met, Evdokia told me she knew my stepfather. I had no idea if she would even talk to me, but it was worth a try.
The magic was still up, but I tried the phone anyway. Dial tone. I punched in Ksenia’s number. Ksenia owned a small herbal shop on the north side. I’d stopped there a few times when my supplies had run low, and the last time I was there Ksenia boasted that Evdokia had bought some herbs from her. Maybe she could arrange for an audience.
OUTSIDE, THE MARCH WIND BIT AT ME WITH ICY fangs. Two people stood by my vehicle. The first was taller, his dark hair cropped short. He wore a dark gray hoodie and faded jeans. His posture was deceptively relaxed, but he watched me as I walked. Derek.
The second person was shorter, dressed in an inconspicuous ensemble of black jeans, black turtleneck, and a leather jacket, of all things. Black hair, angelic face, and devil eyes. Ascanio Ferara. The kid was so handsome, he almost looked unreal. Combine that with an agile face that went from innocence to remorse to admiration in a blink, and you had a pure chick magnet. Ascanio knew the effect he had, and he used every drop of it to his advantage.
“What are you doing here?”
Ascanio offered me a dazzling smile, broadcasting “I could never do anything wrong” with all his might. “Obeying the Beast Lord, Consort.”
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