Tithes (Ava Delaney

by Claire Farrell

  “Why do you ask about it? Is it valuable to you?”

  “Because I keep hearing it being mentioned. How should I know if it’s of value until I know more?”

  “That’s your downfall—you who pays tithes of your own.” He glanced around the room, his eyes gleaming pinkish-red. “We were once caught up in a tug-of-war. Our young were taken, our history broken. They died, those young, until somebody realised they needed all of us or none of us.”

  “By whom? Why did you have to pay a tithe?” And was my tithe my service to the Matriarch, or was he being only semi-literal? I wasn’t sure I was smart enough to endure a conversation with the brethni leader.

  “We owed because our ancestors owed. We were owned because their ancestors owned. And our debt was bought, one we hadn’t earned and couldn’t clear, and for a favour, we paid in blood and secrecy. We hear whispers, but it is not our place to interfere.” He gave me a knowing look. “You should know that better than anyone.”

  But I didn’t. I never knew enough. “I don’t think I know anything I need to know.”

  “And I don’t know who is responsible for the child you seek,” he said more kindly. “I only know that we are left alone. And tithes have long been used as a way to control the weak and grow in power. You cut some threads—that is true—but there are still gaps in the tapestries, and gaps are always meant to be filled. You will never clear away the dark patches, no matter how hard you try. That is not your purpose.”

  “Then what’s my purpose?” I asked.

  He paused for a beat. “To clean up the mess that is left behind.”

  I took a step back. “Where do you even get this stuff from?”

  “That’s our business,” they all said as one, scaring the ever-living crap out of me.

  Moses’s phone rang, and by his concerned responses, I could tell something was up. All of the brethni had gone on high alert.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked the leader, who had begun swaying.

  “Trouble,” he said, his voice morphing until it was hard to make out the word.

  Moses hung up. “Loan sharks are back.”

  “Now?” I said.

  He nodded. “I have to get back to the flats.”

  I was more than happy to end the unsettling conversation in the midst of the brethni’s eye-wateringly smelly lair. “I’ll come with you.”

  “As will we,” the brethni leader said.

  I didn’t have time to process the conversation. We raced back to the flats, where trouble was certainly brewing. I sent Shay a quick text to let him know he might want to make an appearance.

  “Ah, shit,” Moses said when we got close enough to see the trouble.

  Spread along the road and the concrete between a two blocks of flats, two groups of a dozen people were facing off, at least one heavily armed.

  Moses pointed at the latter group. “They belong to the bellend I told you about. He must have been watching out for the loan sharks. Or some idiot let him know.”

  “This can’t be good,” I said as a couple of men from each group squared up to one another.

  Children hung from monkey bars in the playground, staring at the gangs in fascination. I couldn’t make out if the loan sharks were armed, but some of them looked too confident to be unprepared.

  “They stink of magic,” one of the brethni said. “It clouds minds.”

  “Doesn’t cloud yours,” I said.

  “It’s not so powerful. But it is strangely obvious. Wanting to be seen. Perhaps to intimidate.”

  “That explains some of your questions,” I told Moses. “Why people are so fooled. But it doesn’t explain why so many of them need the money.”

  “The factory,” he said. “Sacked anyone from around here. Said they didn’t have the hours. But I’ve heard they have new people in.”

  “Maybe we should talk to the owner.”

  “I’ve tried. He’s out of the country—indefinitely—and the manager is scared shitless. Something’s up.”

  We drew close enough to the arseholes to hear the exact nature of insults being thrown from one side to the other. Both sides seemed hesitant to get drawn into actual violence, so that was a plus. People had congregated in the stairwells to watch, gesturing at the children in the playground to run. The kids paid no heed, and I wondered if that magic the brethni mentioned was at play.

  “Get this shit out of here,” Moses demanded in his best scary voice.

  “Mind your business,” a short stout man said, coming to the fore of the criminal gang. “This has nothing to do with you.”

  “You’re in my fucking flats, Jay,” Moses spat. “It’s my business.”

  Jay looked at him with flat eyes. “Think you’re in charge here, Benny?”

  “That much hasn’t changed.” Moses shifted his stance, using his weight to his full advantage. “And I’m telling the lot of ye to fuck right off.”

  “Magic, but not a witch,” the brethni leader murmured.

  I followed his gaze. One of the loan sharks was muttering under her breath, holding something out in her hands.

  “Hey,” I said. “Cut that shit out!”

  She disappeared into the back of her crowd.

  “Who do you work for?” I asked the loan sharks.

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Jay said with a sharp laugh. “They’re not talking.” He lifted his arm and aimed a handgun at the loan sharks. “I’ll just have to make them.”

  “Where the hell are all of the guns coming from?” I said tensely.

  Moses didn’t look worried. “Can’t you see how old that thing is? He’s just showing off the size of his dick. Fucker best be jogging on before I haul him out of here myself.”

  The loan sharks looked even less worried. One unrecognisable word was shouted, and the gun flew out of Jay’s hand in a spark of light and heat. He fell back and wrung his hand, swearing loudly.

  “Where’d the gun go?” I whispered.

  Moses pointed at the loan sharks. “Take your magic and get the fuck out!”

  The criminals took a step back. Apparently, they hadn’t realised that magic had disarmed Jay.

  A young man with red hair nudged Jay. “See, I told you he’s in bed with all of the weirdos. Them lads aren’t human. I’m telling you.”

  “And what?” I began.

  Jay held up his hand, still panting. “We’re not here about that. This is about money. If anyone’s going to be offering loans—”

  “It won’t be you,” Moses said coolly. “Now get this straight with your boss. I don’t give two fucks who he is or what he is, but he doesn’t bring his crap to my door. These cretins are nothing to do with me, and neither are you.”

  “You’ve changed your story,” Jay said with a laugh, recovering from the magical attack. “When you’re looking for favours, you’re a lot nicer, Benny.”

  “They call me Moses, you fuckwit,” Moses said. “Now fuck off.”

  The loan sharks had been slowly backing up, but the brethni moved behind them to stop them. Unfortunately, the criminal gang took that as a sign of help and advanced on the loan sharks.

  The woman who had been whispering words of magic apparently ran out of spells and came out of the crowd, pointing Jay’s gun at him. She fired, missed completely, and hit a painted sign in the playground. In her panic, she dropped the gun. One of the brethni swooped in and kicked it away as Jay dove for it. Both sides took that as a signal to attack.

  That was about when Moses lost his mind. “Ye little…” With flaming red cheeks, he threw himself into the scuffle. I heard a siren in the distance and decided it was better to keep Moses out of trouble. I followed and found him pounding Jay in the face with his fists.

  I hauled him off with great difficulty. “What!” he roared before realising it was me.

  “The police are here,” I said calmly. “Let them deal with this.”

  “They could have shot a kid!”

  “The brethni
have the gun. Now let’s help the IAs.”

  Tyres squealed, and a large group of Integration Agents swarmed the scene. The brethni had been slyly disarming criminals while keeping out of the scuffle. As men and women fled the scene, they followed, leaving the IAs to deal with the injured or those too stupid and slow to run.

  Shay directed the arrests, but by the sullen looks in the loan sharks’ gazes, they weren’t going to be talking. An ambulance arrived for Jay, and the children finally fled the playground as though they’d been freed from a spell. People from the flats descended from the stairs and threw things at those who had been arrested, which caused more drama that had to be calmed.

  “I have a bad feeling this isn’t going to go anywhere,” Shay said when he finally reached us.

  “I have a bad feeling it’s going to go too many places,” Moses said. “I’m tired of this crap. Back in the day, that little upstart couldn’t even look me in the eye.”

  “What?” Shay said.

  “He’s mad because an underling back-chatted him,” I teased.

  “Leave it out,” Moses said. “If they weren’t shitting themselves over what the brethni might be, that would have been a lot worse.”

  “Look on the bright side,” I said. “If your pal Jay hadn’t turned up, the loan sharks would have been able to vanish before Shay got here.”

  “We’ll try to get something out of the sharks,” Shay said. “But the way things have been going lately…”

  “This is going to get messy,” Moses said. “If they meet elsewhere, you’ll have more than a few dodgy arrests on your hands.”

  “My arrests aren’t dodgy. They were breaking the law.”

  “So were the others who ran,” Moses said, lighting up a cigarette. “Didn’t see any of your pigs chasing them.”

  Shay yanked the cigarette out of Moses’s mouth and flung it away. “Watch your mouth.”

  Moses picked it up and popped it back in his mouth. “Jesus,” he said around the cigarette. “There was no need for that. Everyone’s so touchy lately.”

  “Any news?” I asked Shay to interrupt whatever the hell was going on between them.

  “A few things,” he said, shooting Moses a wary look. “I’ll give you a lift, and we can talk.”

  “Ah, yeah,” Moses said. “Don’t let me stop you. I have my own problems to sort out. Jay’s going to cause me some grief if I don’t nip this in the bud. See you in the ring this week.” He lifted his shoulder into an exaggerated shrug. “If you don’t bitch out first.”

  “What’s that about?” I asked as Moses walked away.

  Shay grinned. “He’s mad because he thought he was going to teach the kids a few things about sparring and got knocked out. He’s been touchy ever since. I’m going to have to let him knock me out just to make him feel better about himself.”

  “Boys,” I muttered under my breath.

  15

  “I’m taking you back to the office,” Shay said when we got into his car. “I want to show you a few pictures.”

  “I have time,” I said. “I take it Phoenix has been keeping you updated.”

  “Yeah, I heard about the baby. We have people looking into this. There’s been no evidence of anyone selling slaves in Dublin right now.” He caught sight of my pained expression and cleared his throat. “But she’s safe, I’m sure. She’s valuable, right? Otherwise, they would have just left her. And if she’s valuable, she’ll be treated well.”

  “And her mother?” I shrugged. “She was probably punished for losing the baby in the first place.”

  “Phoenix has been telling me about tithes and indentured servitude,” Shay said. “What if the mother is free already?”

  That thought made me shiver. The idea that she was free while her child was being held captive was unsettling. Did she even know where her child was? Did she care?

  “Life is so much more complicated than anyone warns you about,” I said. “Have you seen Phoenix?”

  “No,” he said. “I spoke to him on the phone.” He glanced at me. “He sounds… stressed.”

  “That’s one word for it. We found ledgers with Lorcan and Lucia’s names on it. Photos of everyone. Details. I’m pretty sure the twins are related to the baby, which is beyond weird. Everything is connected to something else. I think Phoenix is afraid for the twins.”

  “He was searching with one of the werewolves,” Shay said slowly. “But he picked up nothing. A suspicious lack of something. He’s still looking, as far as I know.”

  “Has he even slept?”

  “I doubt it. When he sets his mind to something… just be careful with him, Ava. He gives off a certain appearance, but behind it all, he’s not in a good headspace.”

  “I know he’s struggling. All of this has really brought it out of him. You need to find a way to get him to sleep before he loses his mind.”

  “Do you think the twins are in danger?”

  “They’re not here.” I paused. “Maybe that was on purpose. I mean, Lucia seemed like she was settling back in, and then she left so abruptly again. I wonder if she saw something that made her leave. She doesn’t always let people in on what’s going on in her head. I wish Lorcan would call me. He never does.”

  “Do you think he’s a bit miffed about, you know, you and Phoenix?”

  I gave him a sharp look. “Excuse me, Shay?”

  He smiled. “Oh, come on. You were his date the other night.”

  “No, I was a last-minute replacement.” I looked out the window to hide my burning cheeks. “And I’m sure Lorcan doesn’t believe otherwise.”

  “You were Lorcan’s friend first. He might be a bit… creeped out by it all. I know I would be if you started going out with my dad.”

  I turned on him, only to find him grinning. “Shut up,” I said, tempted to lamp him instead. “It’s not fair to torment me this week.”

  “I’d rather you were angry than upset,” he said softly. “I know you’re feeling this more than most would.”

  “I don’t know what to feel anymore,” I said. “It’s like everything I’ve ever accomplished is being undone. The amount of information in that building the other night. Me, my friends, even our businesses. It’s like finding out you have a stalker.”

  “We’ll catch up to them,” Shay said. “It’s just a matter of time.”

  We arrived at the Integration Offices, and in Shay’s room, I looked through photos of strangers.

  “I don’t recognise anyone here,” I said. “Was it important?”

  “Depends.” He sat in a chair and steepled his fingers together. “I’ve found somebody who works in emergency services who I believe is betraying the system for their own gains. There are a couple of others who are still suspected, but this woman”—he held up a photo of a young brunette—“is being paid an exorbitant amount of money to ignore emergency calls from a blacklist.”

  “A blacklist? There’s an actual list?”

  “Yep.” He sighed. “When I confronted her, she was extremely forthcoming. She has no idea who has been paying her. She had a lot of debt from living beyond her means, and she was contacted months ago. She refused at first, but the money was too tempting. She handed over a list of names and addresses she was supposed to ignore. The calls would come in, she would be expected to pass them along the chain, but instead, she made them disappear, even going as far as to delete the recordings.”

  “What a little bitch,” I muttered. “Who’s on the list?”

  “A lot of people and places,” he said. “I don’t think it’s all about you, Ava. Of course, your home and associated business are all there. There are a lot of connections to you, like Wes, but there are others, too. Connections to other supernaturals who are seen as important.”

  “So what’s the link? Why are we all on that list?”

  “Influence? The potential for power, maybe. Possible opponents when it comes to re-establishing old laws, even,” he said. “Some are names who were considered for the
Senate; others were involved in taking down the Council and reestablishing a new order. More are simply relatively powerful or rich people. Some are the heads of families; others have recently come into money. It’s an odd mix. If we look at the list as possible enemies of this person, we might find a connection to all of them. That’s what we’re working on.”

  “Most of my enemies are dead,” I said smartly.

  He held out his palms. “Exactly! Which is why this person needs to keep an eye on you.”

  That made sense. “Is there anything any of us can do?”

  “Just keep doing what you’re doing and updating me as you go. I’m more worried about the atmosphere. Even in this building, people are nervous. There’s no trust right now. And this woman isn’t the only who got paid lately. The woman who was supposed to be released instead of Jennifer Boyle had a pretty big payday.”

  “And let me guess. She’s not talking.”

  “Nobody’s talking.” He grimaced. “I’m losing my touch.”

  Something occurred to me. “Emmett can’t talk about things that have happened to him. Do you reckon it’s possible that something like that is happening here? That people literally can’t talk?”

  He rubbed his chin. “It’s a possibility. I’ll look into it.” He gestured toward his desk, covered in paperwork. “Eventually.”

  “Does the Senate know anything about what’s going on?”

  “Not yet,” Shay said. “Or as little as possible. You should try to get some rest. Things could go bad quick. We all need to be ready.”

  “I hate this waiting game,” I said. “It’s beyond frustrating to not even know where to look for a clue. There’s no real trail to follow.”

  “Sometimes, it’s all on paper,” he said. “Which will work for us if we want to make an arrest.”

  “What if it doesn’t get that far?” I asked.

  “It has to,” he said sternly. “If we really want to change things, the deaths have to end. We need to be civilised.”

  I didn’t disagree. I left him with promises to keep in touch, and he assured me he would stay connected with Breslin on the paperwork front.