A memory flashed. She rode the sand-colored pony beside her charge. Takami’s face, laughing as her black hair streamed behind her and the shouts of their escort faded in the distance. Ana kept her pony in check, letting Takami pick the path. For as much as she excelled at the sport and gloried in the feel of an unchecked gallop, she never forgot her role. Follow and protect.
Introduced to the household as a distant cousin, she’d been forbidden to acknowledge their connection in any way. Takami was a solitary child raised as the single focus of her household. Ana remembered staring in wonder at the pampered, elegant girl a year her junior but who seemed so much younger.
Even Ana’s cover as a country relative could not disguise her poor manners and ignorance in proper behavior. Takami’s mother, who disapproved of her husband’s decision to bring Ana into her home, mocked her ruthlessly. But they were only words, and Ana had endured much worse.
The intimacies of childhood brought them close. Ana taught Takami to run through the market, dodging vendors and animals. To the bully of a piano teacher, Ana put the fear of the sword in such a personal, delicate way that he could never report it. And Ana proved a good student. She enjoyed all the benefits of her role, singing and dancing lessons, private tutors, and a trunk full of traditional attire and newer Western fashions for a girl her age. With Ana to challenge her, Takami excelled in her studies and the rigorous collection of activities assigned to her.
The only way in which their treatment differed was Ana had a share of household tasks to complete and extra comportment lessons. The labor gave her a chance to continue building strength and discipline as her master had assigned on her departure. It also provided an excuse for her to be absent to continue her sword work.
The voyage to America across the ocean had been a delightful adventure for Ana, though Takami grieved to leave behind friends and the life she’d known in the wealthy district. Ana turned the voyage into a game. How many nights had they spent curled beneath the blankets in the narrow bed while Nanny snored from her pallet of blankets on the cabin floor and Ana whispered stories that turned day’s sights extraordinary?
She would never forget her first sight of San Francisco, the low-slung, foggy port city emerging from the hazy sea air, flanked by hills.
“See the lighthouse there,” she whispered “The eye of the ogre watching over his city.”
“You are so brave,” Takami whispered as their nanny hurried them back into their cabin in preparation to disembark.
The entire filthy city teemed with life, reeking of industry. Takami clutched Ana’s fingers in sheer terror at so many pale, furry faces and light eyes. Ana listened with one ear to Nanny and the mother complaining about the crudeness and lack of manners. But for Ana, shedding the trappings of an ancient culture that had disdained her was like breathing fresh air for the first time in her life.
Takami withdrew. The only way Ana could reach her was with outlandish tales of the sights she’d taken in on her daily walks with Cook to do the shopping. And riding. They both loved their rides.
A quick check in the side mirror and she smiled in spite of herself at the sight of the familiar headlights sliding behind her rear tire. Of course Gregor could keep up. She tipped her head in acknowledgment of his presence and let go of the reins.
Unlike at the college, she removed the layer of geas that kept her unnoticed the moment they stepped into the first club. Tucked away in the relative quiet of the Pacific Northwest, a vibrant grace blood community thrived with ports connecting populations as far north as Alaska and south to the border.
Rathki’s move had been bold, and an example needed to be made for anyone else who thought Raymond’s hold on the territory open to challenge. By morning every grace-blooded creature in the city would know that the Nightfeather’s Talons and the Black Blade of Azrael hunted together on Raymond’s behalf.
She counted on it. Any advantage Rathki would provide by warning his allies would be lost by their open appearance. If Rathki lost his value, he might be cut loose. And then she would have a nice talk with the little horned asshole.
The first two clubs were a bust. They’d certainly ruffled feathers—in the case of the gryphon bartender at Smoky’s, literally—striding into Seattle’s grace-blooded underground side by side, asking about a rogue satyr.
Most of the lesser creatures would sit this one out. Anyone contemplating aiding the opposition might reconsider. And maybe one or two would see it as an opportunity to curry the necromancer’s favor and help them.
On their way out of the second club, Gregor brushed her arm. Ana scanned until her eyes hooked on what had caught his attention. Moving in the shadows of a Pioneer Square alley, a lanky figure darted back toward the exposed brick where her bike was parked. Without slowing, she shifted her helmet to free up her left hand. Gregor’s stride shifted to a stalk as he parted from her as if returning to the car, out of the alley’s line of sight. She paused at the bike, leaving her back to the alley and fiddling with the ignition for a moment.
The air behind her trembled with movement. She ducked, spinning out and catching the startled figure beneath the chin, shoving him into the shadows of the alley and pinning him to the wall.
Large brown eyes bulged from a round, dark-skinned face. In the low light she made out a full nose and generous lips, tightly curled black hair clipped close to his skull. Beneath, as a double exposure, was a face lupine and furred. He thrashed for a moment, surprisingly strong for one so thin. The thrashing ended when Gregor slipped a semiautomatic to his temple.
“I’d hold still, little wolf,” Ana said. “He’s got an itchy trigger finger and I’m not in the mood to wet a sword.”
“I don’t mean to…” He wheezed, eyes flicking from Gregor to Ana with a distinct whine in his voice. “I just wanted to talk. If anyone saw me…”
Ana nodded and Gregor withdrew.
“He’s alone,” Gregor confirmed, stepping back to keep an eye on the alley opening.
She let the boy’s feet return to the pavement. He seemed young, though she estimated him in his early twenties. He was clean, but his clothes had seen better days, and he looked like it had been a while since his last meal. Lone wolves didn’t do well in cities.
“Talk.”
“I just… I can’t get seen.” He licked his lips in an expression as submissive in human form as it would be in lupine. “I know something. I mean something you want to know.”
Gregor looked doubtful, but Ana sighed. “Get in the car.”
The boy looked between her and Gregor, swallowing hard.
“He won’t hurt you,” she said, addressing Gregor without looking at him. “Will you?”
“Not unless you want me to.” Gregor sounded almost optimistic at the prospect.
Ana sighed. She faced the were. “What’s your name?”
“Fred,” he said. “Smith.”
“Okay, Fred Smith,” she drawled. “Get in the car and I’ll take you someplace where you can get a meal and you won’t be seen. If you cooperate, neither of us will hurt you. You have my word.”
He swallowed. Gregor unlocked the doors, and Ana opened the rear passenger door.
The boy hesitated. “You want me to go alone, with him…”
She sighed. Riding in a car while wearing her swords was a pain in the ass. She tossed her helmet in, removed her blades, and slid in. “Better?”
Gregor chuckled as he started the car, finding Ana’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Where to?”
“Broadway and Pine.”
Gregor groaned as they pulled into the parking lot of a burger stand bustling with mortals. “Not another one of these.”
“Go wait in the park.” Ana told the young were.
She and Gregor crossed the street to the park five minutes later with four greasy bags loaded with food. She picked an empty bench under a tree where the light of the streetlamp wouldn’t reach. This late, the park was quiet except for a game resembling polo on bicycles
going on at the tennis courts at the other end.
Fred emerged from the shadows as she handed Gregor a bag of fries and a milkshake. He sidled over, nostrils working overtime. She slid three bags his direction and ignored Gregor’s impatience as Fred worked through the contents of two bags full of hamburgers with impressive efficiency. She fancied she could see his stomach beginning to bulge by the end.
After the were had unleashed a thunderous belch, Gregor spoke. “May we begin?”
Fred Smith put down his fries and turned those large, liquid brown eyes to them. “I came down from Idaho a couple of months ago. After I got out of the army. Heard there was a pack taking recruits.”
The outline of dog tags pressed against his thin T-shirt. Lone wolves sought discipline and community wherever they could find it.
“They’re pretty rough, these guys,” he admitted. “Had me running some errands to prove myself.”
“But they don’t bother to feed or protect you,” Gregor said, quiet rage in his voice. “And they collar you.”
Fred scratched at his leg. Maybe she’d missed it due to her ability to see beyond his human form, but Gregor’s words brought the faint bruising at his neckline into stark relief.
Her teeth clenched. “They did that to you?”
He looked away. “They’re testing me. Making sure I’m strong enough.”
“So why are you here, talking to us,” Gregor asked, “if everything’s so good with your new friends?”
The brown eyes looked up with such stark despair she frowned.
“It’s not right, the things they do,” he said. “I don’t want to be part of that just to have a pack.”
“Maybe you should just tell us what you know,” Ana said, pushing Gregor’s abandoned bag of fries back at him.
She didn’t like the air of desperation or the way the skin stretched over his bones. If the packs were involved, life wasn’t going to get any easier for the young wolf once they got to the bottom of this. Raymond wasn’t known for mercy against those who wronged him. And his preference was vengeance served wide as well as deep. If she could get him out of the city…
Fred dragged in a long breath. “About a month ago, Jax—that’s the big dog—he starts going up to Canada. The pack has connections up there, his brother’s pack. They run weed back and forth and… other things…” His gaze skittered over Ana before falling away. “I heard them talking about something new. Taking advantage of a ‘unique opportunity.’”
Ana shook her head. “That could be anything, pup.”
“Fred,” he said, the flare of pride in his eyes.
She bit back a smile. “Go on.”
“They’re working with this necro, has a funny accent like your friend here.” He jerked his head at Gregor. “Been giving them lots of powers—like ’roids, you know. I only saw him once, but he scared the shit out of me. Don’t know his name. He had beef with your boss. Gonna make trouble for him. The Nightfeather.”
An old necromancer. Did he think himself strong enough now to make a play for Raymond’s territory?
“When do they meet?”
“Just before dawn,” he said. “At Murphy’s on the water. I’m supposed to work the door.”
“Then I guess you’d better be on your way,” Gregor growled.
The young man jumped.
Ana slid a few hundreds into the last bag of burgers and fries. “If you breathe a word of this to anyone…”
He shook his head. “They’ll kill me if they find out I talked to you.”
They watched Fred disappear into the shadows, then rose to return to the car. Gregor tossed the empty paper cup into the nearby wastebasket. “Next time, I pick the restaurant.”
Chapter Thirteen
“What are the wolves like in Prague,” Ana asked on the way back to the waterfront.
Gregor inhaled. A damn nuisance. More so since Azrael insisted on including them in patrols. But for all that… “They’re pack oriented. They don’t dominate. They work together, protect their mates and their children. They are a family.”
Ana exhaled. “How is it everything is so different, here and there?”
He shrugged. “They’re American, you know, the Prague pack. Parents lived here for a time.”
He left off the fact that he’d been the one to help them emigrate, but the brief exchange with Fred made him glad he had intervened.
He didn’t like the furrow in her brow or the way she’d turned inward after the young wolf’s tip. The darkness in her eyes when she turned them on him didn’t feel much better. She looked worried, or as close to it as he had seen her. He found he liked the other Ana better—the one who led the way into traps. Make trouble, her stride suggested. I dare you.
“How did you know Fred was a wolf?” Gregor asked.
“It’s part of my bargain,” she said. “I see things as they are. Grace bloods disguised as humans, the animal natures in shifters, a lie being told, though not the truth behind it.”
“Clever,” he said. “What did you miss?”
Her gaze snapped to his face.
“As a human,” he elaborated. “You missed something, something you should have seen. And you wanted to make sure you never would again. Aegis always ask for the thing they’d wanted as mortals.”
“Is that how you got your soul steel?”
He inclined his head, letting her steer the subject away from herself. “I got what I asked for and more than I deserved.”
She studied him a long pause. He wondered what she saw when he spoke. Apparently his words were judged truthful, if not entirely detailed.
“What’s the plan?”
She allowed the change of subject. Her smile sharpened. “We wait until they’ve gathered, go in, ask a few questions.”
He dipped his head once, liking the idea there might be some resistance. Just one other thing niggled at him: a necromancer capable of summoning demons in daylight was nothing to be toyed with. That kind of power should have been detected earlier. “And the necromancer?”
“I’ll let Raymond know,” she said. “We get a name if we can. Our objective doesn’t change. We neutralize the creature. Necromancers handle their own business.”
Gregor was relieved to hear she wasn’t planning to go up against one strong enough to challenge Raymond. “Any necromancers show an increase in power lately?”
Ana shook her head. “By the mid-twentieth century he’d killed or forced an accord out of anyone who would have been a threat. That’s part of what the traveling-circus crap was all about. They all work for him now.”
“Should I speak with Azrael?”
“You took a vow. It could trigger the Retribution.”
“But perhaps he can help identify—”
She shook her head once. “No.”
Gregor sighed. “I would enjoy a cup of coffee while you break the news to Raymond.”
The American obsession with drive-throughs amazed him. This one delivered hot, gourmet coffee at all hours, served by pleasant baristas. Ana’s order sounded like a set of coordinates. But he could get used to her leaning over the console with a hand on his leg as she completed her request.
“Coffee, black,” he said after Ana confirmed her order.
In the long silence, the speaker crackled. “Just… a coffee?”
“Black,” he repeated.
Ana reached for her wallet, but Gregor held up a hand as he pulled up.
The young person at the counter swallowed when the tinted car window rolled down. Gregor’s smile was all charm as they handed him the order. And the consort said he didn’t have it in him. Ha. This attendant looked like they would have slid into the car on his lap if he had so much asked for a packet of sugar. The crisp bill he passed was accepted with a sigh.
“You may retain the rest.”
“Have a nice day. Night….”
Gregor tapped the window button and resumed his position behind the wheel, tucking the coffee into the drink holder. Ana
lifted the cup to her mouth, pausing at his stern expression.
She snorted but put the cup in the neighboring cup holder. “Out of the driveway make a left, then a right at the light. There’s a parking lot by the water.”
“Thank you.”
She didn’t speak again until they were at the stoplight. “Does that work for you?”
He made a questioning sound at the edge in her voice.
“That routine,” she said. “The smirk and the bedroom eyes.”
“Bedroom eyes?”
She sat back in her seat, drumming her nails on the center console. “I suppose if you like them like that, that’s all it takes.”
He couldn’t keep the amusement out of his voice as he pulled into the parking lot she indicated. “Like that?”
“Young, naive,” she said. “Mortal.”
He parked at the far end of the lot, closest to the water, and shut off the car before replying. “Ms. Gozen, you have no idea what I like.”
He plucked his coffee and left her to her phone call. Before he could talk himself out of it, he put in a quick call to Ito, Azrael’s head of security, for a list of necromancers of any known power in the Americas. Ito knew better than to ask why, and Gregor didn’t offer. He hung up, then found a scrap of paper, scribbled a name and phone number, and tucked it into his breast pocket.
The overflow parking lot for the ferry terminal was empty at this hour. He walked to the edge, gazing out over the railing. The generous expanse of Puget Sound stretched out before him, blending into the darkness of the mountains on the peninsula across from the city. There were a few lights demarcating buildings close to the waterline. An enormous engine rumbled, and the brightly lit ferry carrying cars and passengers began the slow slide into the dock. Even this late, gulls circled the green-and-white boat, coasting on the gusts of air.
The breeze lifted the hair from his forehead, ruffling it along the back of his neck, and he took simple pleasure in the sensation of the natural world.
The Talon & the Blade Page 11
