by Mindy Klasky
She smiled wanly before walking to her front door. He waited until she was inside, and he heard the deadbolt shoot home. Then he stepped into a shadow and reached toward his own house, before he could change his mind and do something irrevocably stupid.
15
David’s phone rang, interrupting his sorting forty years of receipts from a long-defunct emporium of magical herbs. Edging his index finger between the stacks for oregano and orris root, David reached for the telephone handset. “Montrose,” he barked, just as the slippery receipts broke free and cascaded to the floor. He barely smothered a curse.
“The pack is out of control.” Connor’s voice crackled with tension, drowning out the nightingale that whispered at the back of David’s mind.
“I can’t talk now,” David said, mindful of Pitt’s ever-present spies.
“They aren’t listening to me,” Connor said, as if David hadn’t responded at all.
“You aren’t listening to me.”
“It’s like they’re pups, all over again. I can’t keep them in line until—”
“Penn Quarter,” David snapped. “Farmers Market.” He slammed down the phone.
The Farmers Market was the first place he could think of where there’d be a crowd. People would be moving in and out of the booths. No one would linger to remark on an odd overheard conversation.
He was halfway to the stairs when Pitt stepped out of an office. “Going somewhere, Montrose?”
“Taking a lunch break.” David never took a lunch break. Except for the day before, when he’d spent the time being roasted in the salamanders’ lair.
Pitt’s bulging eyes indicated he recognized a lie when he heard one. “At three in the afternoon?”
David barely resisted the urge to barge past the troglodyte. He couldn’t linger to debate his imaginary lunch plans. Connor had sounded like he might snap—quite literally—if any mundane crossed his path.
“Fine,” David said, sighing as he crafted another lie. “I’m working on the accounts from Green Life. They sold an unusual amount of dill and fennel. I want to bring in some fresh samples. Maybe one of our people can use the herbs to trigger some connection I’m missing.”
It was a desperate gamble. Dill and fennel were both used as defenses against witches. If Green Life actually had sold a surfeit of the plants, then they might have been double-dealing, working agains the interests of the women who’d kept them in business for three generations.
The story was sheer fabrication, of course. Once he procured his fresh herbs, he’d get Linda to do the reading, one that would show absolutely no connection to malice. Then, he could admit he’d misread the sales numbers, that Green Life had never engaged in any suspicious behavior at all.
For now, he was dangling an impossibly attractive temptation in front of Pitt. David had admitted missing a link. He’d confessed to failure, no matter how minor, hoping his boss would pounce like a tabby on catnip.
“Well, don’t waste your time standing around here,” Pitt said irritably. “Pick up whatever you need and get back to your desk.”
David headed for the stairs at double-time. He didn’t want to give Pitt a chance to change his mind.
It was faster to walk to the market than to call an Uber. As David filled his lungs with brisk September air, he tried to tamp down his worry. Connor wasn’t a newborn pup. He’d fought hard to gain his alpha position last February. If he lost it now, because he couldn’t regain the Collar promptly enough to satisfy the pack…
That type of instability was bad for every imperial in DC. The old saying that nature abhors a vacuum was doubly true when the nature in question was a pack of hormone-addled wolves, rebelling against their leader and fighting for territory in the city streets.
The Farmers Market was in full swing when David arrived. Half the booths sold fruits and vegetables. The other vendors covered a broad range of artisanal products—fresh-baked bread and handmade empanadas, hypoallergenic soap and cold-pack pickles.
David started to seek out the largest purveyor of organic fruits and vegetables, figuring that was where he could get his herbs. Along the way, he found a small stand selling kombucha, the fermented drink glistening like amber in sealed mason jars. David stepped to the side and waited.
In just a few minutes, Connor made his way through the crowd. It was a sign of his distraction that he didn’t purchase any tea for himself. He didn’t even pause to join in the discussion about the best way to obtain a SCOBY to start a home-brew operation—despite one particularly naive customer proposing to order one from Amazon.
Instead, the shifter sniffed the air sharply and turned toward David with unnerving accuracy. His eyes were hard as both men drifted over to a booth selling mushrooms.
“We can’t wait for the new moon,” he said, without preamble.
David pretended to be interested in a clutch of thread-like enokis. “You can,” he said. “And you will.”
“We have to raid the lair tonight.”
The aproned woman behind the counter turned from loading a huge chicken-of-the-woods fungus into a customer’s bag. From the alert look in her eyes, she’d caught Connor’s tone, if not his precise words. It was time to move on.
David led them in the opposite direction from the Mennonite farmers selling organic beef, pork, and chicken, figuring the scent of meat might be enough to push Connor over the edge. Instead, they took refuge in front of bushels of apples and pears. David started searching for the perfect honeycrisp.
“If you do it tonight,” he said, purposely keeping his tone conversational, “you’ll be branded by dawn. You saw Apolline’s guards yesterday. They’re on high alert.”
“I lost a pup last night!”
A woman with a nose ring and a hummingbird tattoo on her forearm looked up from the Jonagolds. “Did you call the Animal Rescue League?”
Connor started to snarl a reply, but David cut him off, saying, “Great idea.”
The woman started to elaborate on shelters or puppies or the glorious autumn weather. Desperate to avoid small talk, David hauled Connor down to the end of the long counter where four baskets of late peaches baked in the strong sunshine.
“You’ve got to get a grip,” he said. “Empire rules.”
They’d grown up with the Eastern Empire held over their heads, the ultimate sign of power and influence in the supernatural world. David’s life might be controlled by Hecate’s Court, and Connor was beholden to the shifters’ Council. But as children, they’d been routinely threatened with the Empire Bureau of Investigation, the most powerful police force east of the Mississippi, charged with keeping the existence of supernatural imperials secret from all humans.
Old habits died hard. The reminder about the EBI made Connor glare, but he kept his voice low as he repeated, “I lost a pup.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Liam came in with a rack of spare ribs. He sat down at the dining room table like he owned the place. When I told him to take them out back, he refused to move.”
David could see that merely retelling the story cost the wolf alpha. He expected absolute obedience from his pack. The thought that a pup—a shifter too young to have sworn allegiance to the pack—would challenge his authority was virtually unthinkable. “What did you do?”
Connor glanced around, confirming no one was paying attention. “I shifted. A nip or two on a flank is better than throwing punches.”
David wasn’t certain of that. But before he could protest, he discovered that the peaches had attracted the attention of a mother with an infant strapped across her chest. With a pointed look at Connor, David stepped over to the next stand, which boasted an extensive display of baked goods.
Feigning interest in piles of sweet-glazed croissants, scones loaded with currants, and glistening rounds of coffee cake, David asked, “Then what happened?”
“He left.” At David’s sharp glance, Connor clarified, “He got up on his own two legs and walked out of t
he house. He left the ribs behind for me to dispose of, and he made it perfectly clear he’s not coming back. Not to Seymour House. And not to the Washington Pack. He’d rather be a lone brute than serve under me.”
Well, at least the shifter hadn’t exposed the pack by roaming DC in his animal form. David edged away from the sweets, taking refuge between loaves of spelt bread and amaranth sourdough. “So you’ve lost one,” he said, trying to sound reasonable. “And you might lose one or two more before the next full moon. But once we get the…heirloom back, they’ll all come home.”
Connor stared at him. “You don’t know.”
“Know what?”
“I just assumed, with your Tor—, with your own contribution yesterday, you would have sensed…”
“Sensed what, Con?” David barely remembered to keep his own voice low.
“They broke it last night.” Connor’s hands clutched the edge of the table, threatening to topple the neat stacks of bread. Even without shifter blood, David could sense the effort it took for the alpha to refrain from rippling into his wolf shape.
“The Collar?” he asked, because even here, even in public, it was absolutely vital that he understand what Connor was telling him.
The wolf spared him one tight nod. “One of the links, the one from the Vermont Stake. It’s been melted through.” David pictured the heavy iron links and imagined how much heat it would take to separate the iron. The salamanders were capable of that. Of more. Much more.
He’d thought offering his Torch would secure the Collar’s safety until the next full moon.
He’d been wrong.
“Did they melt it down?”
Connor shook his head tightly. “Not yet. Just cut it loose.”
“Then you can fix it next month.”
“I’m not waiting a month!” That was loud enough to gain the attention of half a dozen people. Scowling, Connor stomped off, barreling through the line of people waiting to buy bread and cookies. Exasperated, David followed him to the edge of the market.
“I’m not waiting a month,” Connor repeated defensively. “I’m taking it to the Eastern Empire court. Tonight.”
“You can’t. Not unless you can give them back their—” He was playing a dangerous game conducting this conversation in public. He couldn’t say the word karstag aloud. He settled for the far less descriptive: “Knife.”
Connor’s jaw was set beneath his beard. “I’ll be fighting every member of my pack before the month is up.”
Damn shifters, with their alphas and hierarchies. Connor held his position by the mutual assent of the wolves he led. Any one of them could challenge him to a duel at any time.
“Let them call you out,” David said. “You won’t have to fight until the next full moon. Three and a half weeks. And you’ll have the…knife…by then.”
Connor whined, deep in his throat. “I should have gone after her Sunday night.”
“You couldn’t—”
“As a wolf,” Connor interrupted.
David glared. So much for keeping their conversation bland enough for mundane ears. “That’s what she wanted. That’s why she acted when she did.”
“Strike fast. Strike hard. If I’d done it then—”
“You’d be in a holding pen in the Empire courthouse.”
“It’s not murder, if an imperial acts to save a relic. The Collar counts.”
“Not murder, no. They wouldn’t get you for harming Apolline. They’d get you for disclosing the Empire to mundane eyes.”
Connor’s own eyes glowed with rage.
“Go home,” David said. “Eat something. Talk to Tala. I promise this will all work out.”
“You can’t promise that.”
Connor was right of course. But David merely firmed his voice. “Go home.”
Connor glared. For just a moment, David thought he might actually lose his battle for control. He might let his fingers transform into claws here, in broad daylight.
But the shifter hadn’t become alpha of the Washington Pack by being weak. He jammed his hands into the pockets of his skinny jeans. He hunched his shoulders beneath his blue plaid shirt. He raised his chin in frank defiance and said, “They won’t stop with one link, you know. They’re declaring war. And there’s nothing you or I can do to stop it.”
He turned on his heel and stalked into the crowd. David didn’t make any attempt to follow him. Instead, he waited until the shifter had disappeared before he turned back toward his office.
That’s when he saw the salamander.
The leather jacket was unmistakeable. The close-cropped hair. The dead onyx eyes, staring at David without blinking.
Apolline was having him followed.
He resisted the urge to clutch the tangled keys in his pocket. Once again, he was adrift without his Torch, without its sense of steadiness, its voice of calm.
Lacking his familiar solace, he forced himself to walk toward his office at an even pace. He was halfway there before he remembered he needed to buy dill and fennel.
Doubling back, he found no salamanders in sight, but he was certain they were still there, watching from the shadows. He couldn’t find organic herbs either, but by then he didn’t really care. The inevitable challenge from Pitt seemed preferable to staying exposed in the marketplace. He’d face down a self-important martinet any day, rather than confront the fire-lizards.
At least he had the choice.
For now.
16
The headache started as David reached for home at the end of his Friday workday.
He’d been using his powers to move from place to place since he was five years old, when his father first showed him how to move from the kitchen to his own bedroom. In those early days, he had to concentrate to anchor his steel guide-wire to his destination, picturing the sight and sound and scent of his goal. He had to weave his awareness through the wire and fight his way across the astral plane.
During every single transfer, there was one delicate moment when he was neither here nor there, when his physical form had completely transferred to the ether. He was vulnerable then, open to both astral and mundane attacks. His training had taught him to minimize that time, reducing it to a matter of heartbeats.
But that Friday night, after a week filled with Jane Madison and Connor Hold and Apolline Fournier and more imperial crises than he’d grappled with in years, he had trouble making the simple connection home. He became too aware of his own heartbeat. He heard his breath inside his lungs. He felt every ridge on his fingertips, each whorl and arch imprinting on the steel-grey cable of magic.
He dragged himself home by sheer force of will
The transport cost him. A vise closed around his temples, and his heart pounded into triple time. He had to blink hard several times to clear the jewel-toned lights that danced before his eyes.
And the worst part was, he couldn’t close his Torch inside his fist. He couldn’t use the familiar silver lines to relax, to slow down, to return his body and his mind to stasis.
Three fingers of the Macallan didn’t begin to take the edge off.
He forced himself to eat—scrambled eggs and toast, the type of food his mother had fed him when he was sick as a child. The meal was one hell of a letdown, especially after French onion soup and pork with tagliatelle the night before.
At least he wasn’t in danger of humiliating himself, here in the safety of his own kitchen. He couldn’t kiss a witch, letting himself get carried away by her heady cocktail of raw power and touching naiveté. He wouldn’t have to pull back like some over-eager high school kid, schooling his thoughts to cold showers and arctic ice floes and sparkling banks of virgin snow.
What in the name of Hecate’s sweet breath was he doing with Jane Madison?
Linda had told him to offer himself to the goddess by Samhain, and part of him had scoffed at the deadline. He had a better chance of becoming Norville Pitt’s blood brother than of proving himself to Hecate in less than six weeks.
>
But another part of him had risen to the challenge. He could teach Jane—about crystals and herb craft and runes. He’d learned enough watching Haylee fling her powers around. He understood how a witch grounded her powers in the natural world, in Air and Fire, Water and Earth. He could teach that, at least enough to get Jane started on her magical path. To make any bond between them valid in Hecate’s eyes.
But did he truly dare?
Something about the woman called to him, something beyond his warder bond to her Compendium. Sure, she was fresh and strong, untainted by the endless political currents of the Washington Coven, but that wasn’t all.
No. The thing that drew him, the reason he’d kissed her, had nothing to do with witchcraft. It was an older bond, the even more ancient attraction between man and woman. She’d made him laugh. She’d let him relax. He’d had fun.
He’d told her the truth as he backed away. He shouldn’t have blurred the boundaries. But damn, he wanted to. Right now, sitting alone at the end of the day, when his best friend mourned the possible end of the Washington Pack and his boss plotted yet another way to fire him…
He wanted Jane.
But he couldn’t have her. Not that way. So he started to pour another whisky.
He barely stopped himself, knowing alcohol was only a stop-gap. Instead, he whistled to Spot, and headed out for an evening walk.
The black lab wagged his tail, clearly unable to believe his good fortune. The moon—five days past full—was bright enough for David to easily see the path to the woods on the far side of the garage. He’d walked the trail thousands of times. His feet knew every dip along the way. His legs automatically braced against the slope to the lake.
Spot took thunderous side trips into the trees, scaring up half a dozen squirrels. He snuffled at one large trunk, digging hard at the roots until David called him to heel, sparing some woodland creature’s home. The dog loped down the path, clearly eager to reach the boat shed and its cache of gnawed-bare tennis balls. It was still warm enough for David to toss a ball far out into the lake, letting Spot retrieve it with single-minded joy.
