“It will be arranged,” I told him. “I’ll see you at the Guild in three hours.”
“I’m changing my face as we speak. Good-bye.” He managed to infuse the word with so much innuendo, I needed a rag to wipe it off my phone.
I hung up and turned to Ted. “You went through my evidence behind my back.”
He treated me to his best impersonation of a statue from Easter Island.
“You don’t trust me.”
The attack poodle snarled, punctuating my words. I glared at him and he lay down.
Ted leaned back. “I don’t trust you not to fuck up. You aren’t a fast learner and I don’t have time to teach you, so I put you on a short leash.”
The steady anger inside me flared into a full-blown rage. I worked hard. I pulled my own weight. I’d earned some fucking trust. “I can’t work if you stand over my shoulder.”
“And that’s your problem, Daniels. You have an ego. Every day you walk into this office as if you own it. As if you’ve earned it. The truth is, you couldn’t go the distance in the Academy. You don’t have the education and discipline necessary for the job. You aren’t a knight and you never will be. You have yet to prove to me that you’re worth something.”
“I’ve proved it.”
“You fought in the Midnight Games and you led Nash into it.”
I stared at him.
“Did the two of you really think that you could fight in front of hundreds of witnesses and it wouldn’t get back to me?”
“It was necessary.”
Ted rose. His voice dropped low. “The world is full of monsters. They’re stronger than us. They have better magic. The only reason why we, humans, remain on top is because of our numbers and because the monsters fear us. That’s the order of things. That’s the way it has always been and that’s the way it must remain. Do you know what the Midnight Games really are? They’re a way for the monsters to make humans into prey. They keep seeing us die on that sand, and pretty soon they’ll get an idea that we’re food and we’re easy to take down. They’ll stop fearing us and throw this world into chaos. And you went into that ring and fought on the side of monsters. You’ve betrayed everything the Order stands for. You fucked up.”
“I fought on the side of shapeshifters.”
“The shapeshifters are cans of dynamite, ready to go loup any moment. They aren’t human. It’s convenient for us to let them think they’re human for the time being, but in the end, there is no place for them in our society. They must be kept apart.”
The world slid into crystal clarity. I was a hair away from sliding my sword out and carving a new mouth across Ted’s throat. “So you would exile them. Shall it be reservations or labor camps?”
“I would remove them from the picture entirely. They are a threat to us. They can kill us and infect us. To survive, we must retain our dominance.”
He would exterminate the shapeshifters. He would kill the lot of them. I could see it in his eyes.
Ted straightened. “I gave you an opportunity to add meaning to your life. You think you got in because you’re good. No. I gave it to you, because I respected Greg Feldman. He was one of my best, and to honor his memory, I made sure that you wouldn’t embarrass his name. And anytime you forget yourself, or forget our mission, and start thinking that you’re hot shit and you know better, come see me and I’ll set you straight.”
He turned.
I exhaled rage slowly. “Ted?”
He stopped, presenting me with his wide back.
“When you walk a dog on a short leash, she’s close enough to bite you. Keep it in mind.”
He stepped out. I spun to the window, trying to contain the urge to break something. At the Midnight Games, when I circled the sand with Hugh, he’d asked me why I took orders from people weaker than me. Back then I had an answer. It escaped me now and I grappled with my memory trying to wrench it free, because I needed it badly.
I had to kill the Steel Mary. It was personal now, and I would finish it. But I could track Mary on my own, without the Order’s help. I had to get Saiman to analyze my parchment and then I could leave the Order. It would feel good.
If I left, the case would go to Andrea. Ted didn’t have anybody else. If the Steel Mary released his magic, Andrea’s secret half could panic and run. Best-case scenario, the city would burn up in an epidemic, and she would be exposed and booted from the Order. Worst case, she would be mistaken for a loup shapeshifter, hunted, and killed.
My mind painted a gory picture of Andrea’s beastkin body riddled with bullets, with PAD standing over her. “She’d gone loup. Never seen anything like it. Had to put her down.”
No.
My mess. I’d handle my own shit.
The phone rang. It was probably Christy. I picked it up. “Kate Daniels.”
“I’m in lockup in Milton County Jail,” Andrea said. “Come get me.”
CHAPTER 11
A COUPLE OF HOURS LATER I WALKED INTO BEAU Clayton’s office, carrying a long parcel wrapped in rags.
Beau grinned at me from behind his desk. In 1066, ancient Saxons met ancient Norwegians in a bloody battle over Stamford Bridge. The legend said that the Saxons surprised their enemy, and as the Norwegians tried to rally, one of their warriors, a giant of a man, stepped onto the bridge and held it by himself, killing more than forty Saxons, until someone got smart and stabbed him with a long spear from below, through the planks of the bridge. Looking at Beau, I could totally picture him on that bridge swinging a giant axe around. Hulking, six feet six, with shoulders that had trouble fitting through the door, the Milton sheriff had the face of a bone breaker. He sat behind a scarred desk that was organized to within an inch of its life. The only item out of place was a large can. The label on the can said, CANNED BOILED GREEN PEANUTS.
I sat in a chair before his desk and put the parcel on my lap. “Canned boiled peanuts. That’s pushing it.”
“With a name like Beau, a man has to be careful,” he said. “Someone might mistake me for one of them Northern boys. The peanuts help to avoid misunderstandings.”
He passed me the can. I glanced into it. Spent shell casings.
“Every time I get shot at, I drop the shells in the can,” Beau said.
The can was about halfway full. I handed it back to him.
“The last time we met, I did say you would one day need a favor from me.” He spread his huge arms. “And here we are.”
We’d worked the same case before, I from the Order’s side and he from the sheriff’s side. He’d asked me to do him a favor, arguing that one day I would need one from him, and I had agreed. You never know on whose door you might have to knock next.
“What did Andrea do?”
He opened a manila folder and glanced at it. “Ever heard of Paradise Mission?”
“No.”
“It’s a high-class hotel. Built like a Spanish mission, with the courtyard screened in. The roof is glass and they keep the temperature nice and steady.”
“Like a hothouse.”
“Basically. The courtyard is a beautiful place. Flowers everywhere, a pool, hot tubs. Favorite getaway for rich couples from the city. I took Erica there once. Costs an arm and a leg, but it’s worth it. Had to be on the waiting list for four months before we got in.”
Beau wasn’t in a hurry. Screaming at him would just make him slow down more, so I nodded.
“From what I understand, your girl was staying at the place with her significant other. I’ve got him in the cell next to hers. Now, I’m completely straight, mind you, but he was likely the prettiest man I ever seen.”
Raphael. It must’ve been their big romantic night. He had probably reserved the hotel room weeks in advance.
“Apparently, they were both in the hot tub.”
“Hot tubs are nothing but trouble,” I told him.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Beau shrugged. “With a beer and good company, they aren’t bad. Relaxing. Soothing, even. In this case, however, they
failed to bring about the desired relaxation. Miss Nash got up to go to the bathroom and get some drinks. When Miss Nash came back, she found a young female talking to her significant other.” His eyes sparkled a little. He pretended to check his report. “Apparently, the inter-loping female was scantily clad.”
He must’ve waited years to use that in a report. “Go on.”
“According to the hotel staff, the poor man did try to discourage the femme fatale the best he could, but she was either dense or really hoped to take him for a ride. Having met her, I’d say both.”
I sighed. I knew where this was going.
“When Miss Nash approached, her fella informed the scantily clad female that Miss Nash and he were together. He says the female appraised Miss Nash as ‘cute.’ ”
I put my head down and bumped it on the table a couple of times.
The two furry caterpillars Beau used as his eyebrows crept up. “Do you need a minute?”
“No, I’ll be alright. Sorry.”
“It seems that the young woman made some indelicate suggestion of a threesome. Nobody is quite sure what happened next, but everybody agrees it was damn fast. When I got there, Miss Nash was standing by the hot tub in a small bikini, pointing the business end of a SIG-Sauer P-226 at her fella and concerned members of the hotel staff, while dunking the scantily clad female’s head under the water and asking, ‘Who’s diving for clams now, bitch?’ ”
My pain must’ve reflected on my face, because Beau reached into his desk drawer and handed me a small bottle of aspirin. I popped two tablets into my mouth and swallowed, grimacing against the bitterness. “Then what?”
“Well, Miss Nash and I had a conversation. I bet that she wouldn’t shoot a badge and I won that bet. She had no ID on her—it was a very small bikini—so we invited her, her fella, and the aggrieved party to be our guests here in this lovely jailhouse. Spending the night with us calmed her down.”
Oh, boy. “She had no ID, but she had a gun?”
“Brought it in a towel, from what I understand.”
Why wasn’t I surprised? “She’s a knight.”
“I figured that when she called the Order.”
I took the parcel off my lap, placed it on his desk, and carefully unwrapped the rags. Beau sucked in a lungful of air in a sharp breath.
A beautiful rapier lay in the rags.
“The schiavona,” I said. “The preferred weapon of Dalmatian Slavs, who served in the Venetian Doge Guard in the sixteenth century. Deep basket hilt.” I traced the gleaming spider web of deceptively narrow metal strips forming the sword’s guard. “Thirty-six-point-seven-inch blade, efficient for both cut and thrust. A genuine Ragnas Dream sword.”
I turned the schiavona to the side, letting the light of the feylantern catch the stylized RD on the ornate pommel. Ragnas Dream didn’t make swords, he created masterpieces. The schiavona alone would pay the mortgages on both my apartment and my father’s house in Savannah for a year. Greg, my deceased guardian, had purchased it years ago and hung it on a wall in his library, the way one would display a treasured work of art. It was the kind of sword that would make a life-long pacifist look for tall boots and a hat with feathers.
Beau’s face acquired a greenish tint.
“Breathe, Beau.”
He exhaled in a rush. “May I?”
Every person had a weakness. Beau loved rapiers. I smiled. Once he touched it, I had him. “Feel free.”
He got up, took the rapier gently, as if it were made of glass, and slid his big hand around the leather hilt. He raised the sword point up, admiring the elegant steel blade. A deep serenity claimed his face. Beau thrust, a textbook perfect, liquid movement, elegant and precise and so completely at odds with his huge body. “Christ,” he murmured. “It’s perfect.”
“She was never here,” I told him. “Her ‘fella’ was never here. You don’t know their names and you’ve never seen them before.”
Beau was a very good cop, because he made himself put the rapier down. “Are you trying to bribe a law enforcement official, Kate?”
“I’m trying to present a law enforcement official with a token of appreciation for his delicate handling of the Order’s personnel issues. Knights of the Order are under a lot of pressure. Andrea Nash is one of the best knights I’ve ever met.”
Beau looked at the schiavona. A minute stretched into eternity.
I gave him a wide smile. “Oh, and one more thing.” I reached over and touched the pale opal in the base of the hilt.
Three. Two.
One.
The sword hummed a single perfect chime, like a silver bell. A thin line of red grew from the hilt down the blade, branching in curling shoots like an ornate vine until it finally reached the point. Beau turned pale.
“Enchanted blade. Never needs sharpening or oiling. I forgot to mention that part,” I said.
Beau tore his gaze from the schiavona. “Take them and make sure they don’t come back.”
TEN MINUTES LATER ANDREA, RAPHAEL, AND I stepped out of the jailhouse into a frigid overcast day. Both Raphael and Andrea wore the orange potato sacks that passed for Milton Jail uniforms.
“Assault.” I counted off on my fingers. “Assault with a deadly weapon. Conduct unbecoming a knight. Endangerment of civilians. Reckless use of a firearm in a public place. Resisting arrest. Drunk and disorderly.”
“I was neither drunk nor disorderly.” Andrea clenched her teeth.
“No, I’m sure you were drowning her in a completely calm and professional manner. Beau Clayton is a crack shot. You’re lucky he didn’t empty his clip into your head. You brought a gun to the hot tub. Who does that?”
Andrea folded her hands on her chest. “Don’t hassle me about my guns. You drag that sword everywhere. The whole thing was his idea. I wanted to go on a weekend.”
I looked at Raphael. He hit me with a dazzling smile. If I had any capacity for swooning, I would’ve hit the floor like a log. Some men were handsome. Some were sexy. Raphael was scorching hot. Not traditionally handsome, he had dark blue eyes, intense and heated from within by a fire that instantly made you think of sheets and skin. Coupled with his long black hair and the toned, supple body of a shapeshifter, the effect was shocking to all things female. Since he was my best friend’s honey bunny, I was pretty much immune to his evil powers, but once in a while he caught me off-guard.
“It was the only night that was available in the next six months,” he said, “and I had to call in a favor to get it.”
Andrea waved her hands around. “And we spent it in a jailhouse. Do you have any idea how hard it is to go out in public with him? We can’t go anywhere, we can’t do anything, because he gets hit on all the time. Sometimes women come up to him like I’m not even there!”
“I sympathize, but you can’t drown them, Andrea. You’re trained to kill and they aren’t. It’s not exactly a fair fight.”
“Fuck fair! Fuck you and fuck him, and whatever.”
She strode off.
Raphael was grinning ear to ear.
“Well, you’re taking it well.”
His eyes shone with a faint ruby sheen. “Mating frenzy.”
“What?”
“When two shapeshifters become mated, we go crazy for a few weeks. It’s all about unreasonable aggression and irrational snarling at anyone who looks at your mate a second too long.”
“And you’re loving every moment of it.”
He bobbed his head up and down. “I’ve earned it.”
Andrea reversed her course and came up to us. “I’m sorry I was an ass. Thank you. I owe you one.”
“No big,” I told her.
She looked at Raphael. “I’d like to go home.”
He bowed with an exaggerated flourish. “Your wish is my command, my lady. We need to go back to the hotel, scale the wall, and steal our car back.”
“That sounds good.”
They walked off.
Mating frenzy. The world had gone completely i
nsane on me. I sighed and went to get Marigold. I had an appointment with a sexual deviant and I didn’t want to be late.
CHAPTER 12
WHEN I TOLD SAIMAN THAT I RECOGNIZED HIS eyes, I wasn’t lying. He looked at the world through a prism of intellect, arrogance, and subtle but smug contempt, and he was unable to hide it. It took me precisely two seconds to zero in on him in a half-deserted Guild Hall, but this time it wasn’t his eyes that did it.
Today he chose to appear as a lean male in his early thirties. When I entered, he stood with his face in profile, casually speaking to Bob, Ivera, Ken, and Juke seated at a table. Saiman’s black jacket showed a light Mandarin influence with a high collar and a formfitting cut that accentuated his narrow waist and the straight line of his shoulders. Dark pants hugged his legs, showcasing muscular thighs, but his was the smooth, long muscle of a fencer or a runner, not the bulk of a weightlifter or the crisp definition of a martial artist. His hair, the color of dark alder wood, fell down to his waist without a trace of a curl.
Saiman turned at my approach, presenting me with a well-defined oval of a face: crisp jawline, a wide nose with a shallow bridge, and almond-shaped, slightly hooded eyes with shockingly green irises. He oozed professionalism and expertise the way I sometimes emanated threat. Had I not known who he was and met him on the street, I would’ve thought him one of the high mages from the local college, the type who could decipher three-thousand-year-old runes, speak a half-dozen dead languages, and level a city block with a sweep of his hand. He stood out among the mercs present in the Hall like a professor of medieval studies in a bodybuilder bar.
Saiman smiled, showing even white teeth, and came toward me, gracefully stepping past a large wooden trunk.
“Kate,” he said, his voice a smooth tenor. “You look lovely. The cloak, in particular, is an intimidating touch.”
“I strive to menace,” I said.
“Do you like my working persona?” Saiman asked softly. “An aesthetically pleasing combination of intelligence and elegance, wouldn’t you say?”
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