by K. N. Banet
Tonight proved everyone was right. I got onto my laptop and started printing every picture I could find of key individuals. I requested access through email to the prison’s records, so I could use those later as well. As everything printed, I started pinning up pictures and articles to the corkboard, then wrote notes and stuck them on as well.
In the center, the prison breach. Everything radiated from it.
I found a picture of Eliphas and Kartane and put them up, writing out what I knew. They didn’t get along. Kartane attacked Eliphas. He wouldn’t be able to take the Warden position since Eliphas survived and could report it to the Tribunal through me, but Kartane was still dangerous.
Next, I put up Tarak and his current status: deceased. I put Korey next to him, writing ‘new Alpha’ on that notecard. Possible betrayal? I didn’t know and couldn’t assume, but I knew the thought would be in the back of my mind until this all settled down. If Kartane betrayed Eliphas, there was a case where Korey betrayed Tarak—a chance there was a coordinated effort to change the leadership. Why, I didn’t know. Being a Warden was a shit job.
Finally, I got to the fae, who were a can of worms unto themselves. Cassius and Sorcha, who I had wedding pictures with, were the only two people I hoped and prayed weren’t involved. Cassius, I was certain of, but I didn’t really know Sorcha, and that made her unpredictable. There was Dian, in the fae lands. His second was probably there as well since I had not seen the guy while I was there. I had seen fae guards, so the grunts weren’t in on this—hopefully.
I didn’t bother yet with the inmates I knew escaped. I wanted access to the prison for that. Instead, I put myself on next. I knew they wanted to kill me. Erline and Levi tried. Erline was dead, but knowing my luck, Levi would try again.
Finally, I put Raphael underneath me. I went back to the fae and put Ardghal, connecting them. Ardghal was my connection to Mygi, and I really hoped it wasn’t them. This was bold and stupid if it was too obvious. Everyone who was privy to the situation would look at them with suspicion.
I have no way of connecting Mygi and the prison. I’m sure I’ll find something sooner or later. There are dozens of people who would love to see me dead—time to get them on here.
I grabbed the next set of pictures that had finished printing. One was a mob boss I pushed out of the territory several years ago when I moved in. When several of his known criminal enforcers and employees started dropping, he knew I was onto him and had cleaned house. He never came back.
But he could use recent events to exploit a weakness.
There were a few others, including my very own resident vampire Mistress.
Then I had to wonder if this was an attack on me as a naga—the last adult female. I got to tack on the adult distinction now because one of the guys revealed their wife was pregnant with a girl. That was a good thing.
In a few more months, I’ll be one of two. Small blessings, I guess. If I die, there’s some hope on the shoulders of a little newborn girl.
I probably shouldn’t get myself killed.
I put up pictures of my people. I had no idea who was behind the extermination of the nagas. I always wished I could just pin it on black market behavior, but it was never just that. Adhar thought I was insane for thinking that, but I knew he was just trying to protect his own peace of mind.
I wasn’t paying enough attention, so when I turned away from my board and saw Raphael, I nearly jumped out of my skin. There was no way in hell Nakul escaped, and no one could get in my condo, so I had let my guard down.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
“You were gone, and I got worried. I could hear you mumbling to yourself when I got close. What’s this?” He nodded to my corkboard of pictures, articles, notecards, and string. I hadn’t even thought about putting the string connections, it was just second nature.
“My…mind map, I guess,” I answered, shrugging. “This is how I put things together and see how the world works. It helps me organize my thoughts.”
“Nakul isn’t up there yet,” he pointed out softly. “Should he be?”
I snapped my fingers, then rushed to my computer, quickly printing an old photo I had of my uncle. I put him on the board, connected to me, the prison, and the rest of the nagas, represented by a picture of a snake.
“That’s better,” I said when I was done. “Thanks. He’ll get connected to whoever approached him to kill me once this is over.”
“This is really intense.” He took in every little detail, hovering over my picture, then his. He followed the connections like a professional, though I knew he wasn’t. I was self-conscious about him seeing how I did this, wanting to see something in him that probably wasn’t there.
“I know it seems craz—”
“It’s really helpful. Hopefully, you can keep working on it. I’m starting to see why you can be so…paranoid,” he finished carefully, looking over at me. “Maybe that’s not the right word. Thoughtful? When I met you, I heard you talking about things and people I didn’t understand. Cassius made it seem like you were making leaps of logic, but now I get it. You think like this.”
“I’m always looking for the connection,” I agreed, nodding slowly. “I know it looks batshit insane.”
“It…lends itself to that impression, but I don’t think it is. It’s a good tool.”
You haven’t seen The Board. You’ll think I’m crazy then. You’ll be like everyone else, trying to pretend it doesn’t exist.
That thought hurt more than it had any right to.
“Look, why don’t you head back to bed—”
“I’m not leaving you alone,” he said quietly, staring at the work. “Maybe I can help with this, even if you just want me to put stuff up for you.”
“I’ll be fine—”
“I didn’t mention it earlier because everything was happening, then Nakul…but I think that redcap was trying to kill you, too,” he said, cutting me off again, his words dropping like a heavy stone on my chest.
“Dunter tried to kill me?” I asked in a hushed, harried way. “Raphael, are you positive?”
“He knocked me off you, probably thinking the hit would take me out, but I was already nearly healed from the blast. You were really out of it right after the blast, so you missed it, but he nearly took your head in his hands. His focus was on you, and I was able to pull him away before he got his hands on you.” I watched my not-human roommate rub his hands together before simply staring at them.
“Don’t feel guilty,” I said gently. “Please. He—”
“I don’t,” he said sharply. “I don’t feel guilty. Don’t worry about that.”
“What’s bothering you, then?” I knew something was.
“How easy it was,” he whispered.
That made the blood rush from my head, but I didn’t let that stop me from remaining calm and composed.
Easy? He thinks it was easy to kill a redcap? Really? There’s not many who can do it on a good day, much less when something akin to a bomb goes off right behind them.
“He was surprised by how strong I was. I figured I took him off guard but thinking back…”
“Dunter would have been at his top strength the moment the magical wards and protections failed,” I said, sighing. “Look, we don’t know what you are, and that’s going to come with surprises. Redcaps are considered one of the most physically strong creatures among the supernatural. They’re a type of fae, but…there are different types of fae. Not all of them are like Cassius, Sorcha, and Alvina.”
“Human looking, you mean.”
“Exactly. In reality, very few look human…including Cassius, Sorcha, and Alvina. They all use glamours to fit in with our world.” I shrugged. “Most pure children of Titania and Oberon look like what humans call elves. Long pointed ears, unearthly, and slightly alien. The clan-fae, those mixed with human, look more human, their features more balanced but still off. I’m so used to it, I barely even register whether they have their glamou
rs up or not. Cassius always just looks like Cassius to me. Then there are the species of fae, the creatures. The idea of what fae are is a complex one.”
“Yeah, I got that over the last four months of studying,” he retorted, a small smirk forming. “I have paid attention.”
“Yeah, I know,” I whispered as I looked back at the board. But we don’t talk a lot and most of the time, telling you about things is all we do talk about.
“The idea of being fae is actually something from the fae lands. There’s a lot that falls into that. The Sidhe, the children of Titania and Oberon? They control everything, but they aren’t the only fae species. Just the one everyone is accustomed to dealing with,” he quoted as if he were reading directly from one of the dossiers I had given him over the last few months. By the smile on his face, it was as if he read my mind. “Did I get that right?”
“Yeah, you did,” I answered, trying not to smile. Wanting to talk to him was a need I didn’t like having, but I was glad he was willing to indulge it. Biology and my own loneliness were getting the better of me. “Do we have records of every species that falls under fae distinction?”
“No.” His voice was suddenly soft. “It’s crazy to me, just how big everything really is. I grew up with such a small viewpoint of the world.”
“Worlds,” I corrected. “Remember, planes of existence. Demons, angels, fae, and others came from different places and mostly just use this world as a place to hang out, make money, get away from their own politics. Same for the gods. Pocket dimensions and shit.”
“Worlds,” he agreed, nodding. “Sorry.”
“We got way off track,” I declared, waving a hand back at what had kept me up. “If you don’t want to get back to sleep, you can definitely help me.”
There wasn’t much left to do. A couple of notes to write now about Dunter, who was deceased. Raphael made sure I understood that.
“I ripped his head off,” my roommate said, swallowing an obvious lump in his throat.
“Ah. Yeah, he’s dead,” I mumbled, knowing it wasn’t an easy thing for him to admit. Ripping someone’s head off was a feat. We had witnessed Sinclair do it.
An hour after I got out of the bed and thirty minutes since Raphael had joined me, my cell phone started going off. I grabbed it quickly, not bothering to see who was calling. I would talk to anyone if it meant getting even a shred of information.
“Executioner Sahni, I come bearing news. Listen and ask questions when I’m finished,” Hasan said, starting the conversation off on a strong foot. I didn’t even greet him, waiting for more. “We’ve put Executioners on alert worldwide. Our current directive is to wait for the concentration of the problem to spread out. If we pull them from their regions, we leave vulnerabilities around the world, and they don’t understand Phoenix as well as you and other locals. It would also be a major exposure risk. If the escapees go to ground outside your region, others are waiting on them. Have you learned anything new, anything that might help us further develop a plan against this?”
I considered my board, frowning. I thought about Nakul and knew Hasan would want to know this was in some way personal for me now, but I still didn’t know if I could trust him.
The best way to find out is to test it. Maybe he’ll say something to ease my nerves. I’ll give him a little, and maybe that will give me some leeway to break the rules without getting fired or killed myself. He’s a member of the Tribunal, and I don’t know how deep this goes.
“Some of them tried to kill me, remember? I’m going to assume they aren’t going to be passive and disappear just to make my night a little easier. I have a little evidence toward that. I’m in for a fight, I bet.” I couldn’t tell him exactly where that had come from, but I could back up my claims later when anyone came asking.
“Kaliya, I’m going to make a recommendation. Stop pissing off people enough to create schemes to kill you.” He didn’t sound amused, but something about the advice made me want to laugh.
“I’ve never needed to piss off anyone to get them to want to kill me. It’s a natural-born talent,” I retorted. “People have been trying since I was a kid, and I don’t see it stopping if I start behaving myself now. Honestly, it’s why I began misbehaving. Might as well give them a legitimate reason.”
“I’m beginning to tell,” he muttered. “Because I know my son, and you were trained by him, I’m going to make an assumption.”
“Go for it.” I wanted to hear this.
“You don’t want us to send in help, do you?”
I considered it, looking at the board. Aimlessly and still not answering Hasan, I wrote the Tribunal down on a notecard, then each of their names. Callahan, the male werewolf of the Tribunal, had asked Tarak to get the review done if I remembered correctly. Not that I could ask now. Oisin wasn’t happy with my current arrangement and hated me. Alvina was unavailable, like every other fae. Perfect timing with that. I had no idea where the witches stood, but I knew the local vampires still didn’t like me. The connection between them and the vampires on the Tribunal was too close for comfort.
“No.” Now was the time to ask for the world. I needed a longer leash and permission to do things they wouldn’t give me under other circumstances. Hopefully, I could phrase it right and get what I wanted. “I would prefer if I was given leave to defend myself from the escapees and perform a personal investigation into the matter. They’re trying to kill me. If that gets back to the Tribunal, and I feel your safety is at risk, I’ll let you know, but right now, I don’t need a lot of people I’ve never worked with running around the city. The risk of injury is too high, and as you said, other Executioners and Investigators don’t know the area.”
“Do you understand that nothing you find can be used until it’s verified by an Investigator? I’m more than willing to give you the freedom to act on your own, considering the situation. Since one of your loudest detractors isn’t currently available to vote on the manner, I’m certain the rest of the Tribunal will agree with me. Due to extenuating circumstances, without Lord Cassius available to do the investigation and the safety risks involved with sending others your way at this time…”
“Exactly. Can we do that? Are you sure?”
“I’ll pass it along and make it happen,” he confirmed. “You’ll hear back from me in an hour with a final answer. Wait until then, and don’t act on your own.”
I knew I liked this werecat, even if I didn’t trust him yet. Part of me wanted to tell him about Nakul and get his viewpoint on the entire matter. Since I had met him, he’d done nothing but stir up shit, but he was reasonable. Just like his son, it seemed like he had a very straightforward way of doing things, and he saw no reason to lie, cheat, or steal.
Well, someone must have had to teach Hisao that. I guess this would be the guy.
We said a few more pleasantries, then he hung up before I could.
I put my phone down and sighed at Raphael.
“An hour. What do you want to talk about?” I tried to be nonchalant, but something was bugging me. Something is always bugging me.
He didn’t answer, so I continued.
“Because I was considering asking you why you would risk your life to save mine.”
12
Chapter Twelve
Raphael seemed surprised. It was a simple question.
Why?
We stared at each other in my dark office for longer than I considered tolerable.
“If you don’t want to answer, you don’t have—”
“You’re the first person to give me a chance and help me move forward,” he answered swiftly. “You saved my life from Mygi, from Sinclair, and from a bounty I couldn’t do anything about. You’ve helped me start a new life and leave behind the…” He looked away from me. “When I saw him going for you, I figured it was the right thing to do. I couldn’t just let you die and save myself. Not after what you’ve done for me.”
“Oh.” I honestly hadn’t been expecting that. For some reas
on, I had been expecting something more selfish. Everyone was selfish. Everyone considered their own survival first. He’d just considered what he thought he owed me. He’d said it was the ‘right thing to do.’
“That’s it? Oh?” he scoffed, which turned into a sad chuckle. “Of course.”
“Now wait a min—”
“Not everyone is a terrible or selfish person, you know. Some of us just do good things and try to be good people.”
“I didn’t say—”
“But from your perspective and the things you’ve probably seen, I guess you would—”
“Stop fucking cutting me off,” I snapped. “I get it. I have a more cynical view of the world. There’s no reason to nail that point home every time you get the chance. Thank you, by the way, for the whole saving my life thing. I like being alive.” With an angry shake of my head, I walked out of the office, pissed off.
I couldn’t shake the feeling I was one of those terrible or selfish people he talked about. I never really considered myself a good person, but rather a survivor. I had to be. Good was subjective when it came to staying alive another day.
“Asshole,” I muttered as I went into the kitchen to make a fruit smoothie. If I was going to be awake, eating something was a decent idea.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly, walking in behind me. He dared to grab the frozen fruit from my hands and put it on the counter for me. “I didn’t mean to insult you.”
“I know how I come off,” I said, refusing to look up. I grabbed my things and went to a different section of the counter. “Not all of us have the privilege of doing the right thing all the time. We’re not allowed. Sometimes, staying alive and meeting another sunrise means we have to do the wrong thing. Look, I haven’t killed Nakul, even after all the terrible things he’s done. I’m breaking the rules of my job. Why? Because he has information that could save lives. Not just mine, but yours, and who knows who else.”
