Magic Breaks

11

I WENT TO my room, took a shower, and lay on the ridiculously large sofa in our living room. Curran’s quarters were sized to his beast form. The bed, the tub, the sofas, everything was built to accommodate an enormous prehistoric lion. But in all of our time together, I had never actually seen him use the sofa as a lion. On the rare days when he trotted into our rooms in his fur, he usually lounged about in the tub or lay on the floor, and I usually ended up on the floor with him, leaning against his side and reading a book. Maybe it was the principle of the thing.

I missed him. Still no word on whether he was dead or alive.

I glanced at the clock. Eight forty-five a.m. Three hours and fifteen minutes until Hugh’s deadline.

They should’ve found Curran by now.

I would take Hugh apart. I would wipe that smug grin off his face. He wouldn’t have a face once I was done.

But I had to wait. Wait for Double D, wait for Hugh’s next move, wait for Curran to be found. I fucking hated waiting.

I forced myself off the couch. I had to get dressed and be seen. With Curran gone, the Pack would look for me. The People would be moving on us soon. I needed to check our defenses and to field questions from the Pack Council. I needed to check on Derek, Desandra, and Ascanio.

A knock sounded on my door.

“Come in.”

Andrea strode in, her face hard. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“I came back twice earlier and your goons wouldn’t let me in.” Andrea landed in a chair. “I haven’t heard from Raphael.”

She had known I’d ask.

“Anything from Curran?”

I shook my head. “I have something to tell you and you won’t like it.”

I explained about Nick and the massacre at the chapterhouse.

Andrea’s face turned white. She locked her hands together into a fist and bent her head toward it. Her fingers went pale from the pressure. “All of them died?”

I nodded.

“And Mauro?”

“Yes.”

“Are you okay?” Andrea asked.

“I’m peachy.” My voice sounded brittle and bitter.

“I thought something might happen with the Order, but not this,” she said. “Not this bad.”

“You thought something bad would happen?”

She grimaced as if she’d bitten into a rotten lemon. “After Erra almost took out the Atlanta chapter, Ted fell out of favor.”

“Been keeping tabs?”

“Oh yes. I always keep tabs on people I may need to kill.”

She sounded just like Aunt B.

“Moynohan was never one of the best knight-protectors, but he’d been with the Order since the beginning.”

“A knight-founder, I know. Mauro told me.”

Andrea leaned back. “I started to guess which way the wind was blowing when I found out that he had repeatedly refused efforts to increase the chapter’s size.”

“Why?” I’d never understood why a city the size of Atlanta had only seven knights assigned to it.

“Because a chapter of ten members or more requires a knight-diviner,” Andrea said.

A knight-diviner functioned like a chaplain in regular Army units. Greg Feldman, my now-deceased guardian, had been one. He handled whatever personal issues the other knights could throw at him, and they threw quite a few.

“I spoke to a couple of the new knights who’d transferred in,” Andrea continued. “Ted wasn’t shy about bending the rules to get where he was going, and he wanted a group of knights loyal enough to bend the rules with him. A knight-diviner would’ve diluted his authority. That’s one of the reasons why he let you in, by the way. He saw you as a nobody with a talent and a chip on your shoulder after your guardian died. He thought that if he gave you your big chance, you’d spend the rest of your life thanking him for it.”

Well, wasn’t he in for a surprise. “I bet he opened a bottle when Greg died.”

“Probably.” Andrea sighed. “I never thought he would retire. His ego was too big. He’d want to go out in a blaze of glory. Well, he did it, the asshole. He got his last hurrah. People died for it. God, poor Nick. He must’ve been through hell and Ted just burned him. That’s years thrown away. I would’ve killed him.”

“He was kicking his corpse the last I saw him.”

Andrea grimaced.

“The Order isn’t going to help us, is it?” I asked.

She faced me squarely. “No.”

Shit. “That’s what I thought.” The Order didn’t like the Pack or the People. It had no reason to get between them. They would come down, they would investigate, and they would hunt Hugh like a rabid dog, but counting on them to intervene for our benefit now was futile. Even if they were willing to help, they wouldn’t get here in time or in large enough numbers to make a difference.

“What are you going to do?” Andrea asked.

“I don’t know. Ask me after we recover Double D.”

She raised her head. “Whatever it is, Clan Bouda will back you up.”

“Thank you.” At least my best friend was still in my corner.

“Thank you for saving Ascanio,” she said.

“I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.” Andrea looked at me. “I should’ve gone to the Conclave with you.”

“You went last time.”

“You needed me to watch your back.” She sighed. “Sarah got herself arrested up in South Carolina, and I went there personally to get her out. I should’ve just sent a Pack lawyer, but I went myself because I feel like Aunt B’s looking over my shoulder. I feel like I have to be everywhere and do everything. I never thought I’d say this, but I miss her. I so wish she were here.”

“I know the feeling.”

Andrea hesitated, opened her mouth, and closed it without saying a word.

“What is it?”

“I’m pregnant.”

I closed my mouth with a click. “Congratulations!”

She stared at me and spread her arms as if to say, There it is.

“How are you? How far along?”

“Four weeks. I’m not sick yet. I just had a feeling, so I checked.”

“Are you okay?”

She leaned forward, her voice barely above a whisper. “I’m so scared.”

I had no idea what to say. I’d be scared, too. “Did you tell Doolittle?”

“Not yet.”

“You need to tell Doolittle. You need to take panacea.” And I was pretty sure neither she nor I knew how much to take. “Does Raphael know?”

She shook her head. “I took the test yesterday.”

Oh crap. We still didn’t know if Curran and Raphael were even alive.

“I know exactly how Jennifer felt when Daniel died,” Andrea said. “Raphael didn’t even want to go. He was trying to win a bid on some building for the business, and I told him, ‘Go, honey. We’re brand-new alphas and this will make us look good.’”

“They’ll be fine,” I said.

“Of course they’ll be fine.”

We looked at each other and made a silent effort to believe our own bullshit.

• • •

ANDREA LEFT AND I took myself down to the medward. Desandra and Derek had been treated, given a dinner, and both were asleep.

One of Doolittle’s nurses told me that Ascanio’s mother was with him. They probably needed some private time, so I went into the observation hallway instead. Dim and narrow, it ran along the individual patient rooms, offering a one-way window into each. Sean, a nurse in training, nodded to me from his perch on a pillow in the corner. An intensive care unit for shapeshifters meant patients who could go loup at any minute. The rooms were reinforced and someone was keeping an eye on them 24/7 until the danger passed.

Ascanio lay under the sheets. His color was almost back to normal. His mother sat by his bed reading him a book. He said something. Judging by his grin, he thought he was funny. His mother sighed.

The door opened and Robert joined me.

“He’s recovering,” the alpha rat said.

“Yes.”

Robert glanced at Sean. “Would you mind giving us a minute?”

Sean rose and left the room.

“I spoke to my husband,” Robert said.

“This sounds ominous.”

“I like you a great deal,” he said. “He respects and values my opinion of you.”

“But?” There was always a “but” attached.

Robert looked at the ceiling for a long moment. “I’m trying to find the right way to say this.”

“Go ahead, I’ve braced myself.”

“If Curran’s death is confirmed, the question of your retaining leadership will arise. There may be a no-confidence vote.”

Well, that didn’t take long. “Have you heard something?”

“Yes.”

That came out of nowhere. I guess I’d been too complacent and this was my wake-up call. I had no plans to lead the Pack without Curran, but it still stung. I had fought hard for them, and I thought I’d earned the Pack’s respect. What else did they need from me?

Robert frowned. “I might be asked about my experience during last night. I plan to answer truthfully. I realize it’s not the best timing, but I don’t want you to feel stabbed in the back.”

“Was there something wrong with my conduct last night?”

Robert met my gaze. “People like to assign their leaders noble qualities. Generosity, kindness, selflessness. The hard truth of it is, the best leaders are ruthless. Curran is ruthless. As long as there is a chance of him being alive, we will support you. We like you as a pair. You balance each other out.”

“So you don’t think I’m ruthless enough?”

Robert nodded at Ascanio. “I like the boy. He’s smart and brave. Funny. But when Hugh was playing with his life, I would’ve let him die.”

I turned to him.

“I would’ve mourned him with his mother,” Robert said. “I would’ve felt terrible and grieved. But I would’ve let d’Ambray kill him. He’s just one of the Pack’s children. You’re the Consort. If you had let yourself be taken by d’Ambray, we would’ve been leaderless. I would have to go to the Pack with the news that d’Ambray had captured you, and they would have marched on the Casino to either save you or retaliate. It would be a bloodbath. So as painful as it is, I would’ve let Ascanio die.”

“I can’t do that.” I didn’t want to lead, but now I was doing it and that was the only way I knew how.

“I know,” Robert said. “I think it goes against your nature. It makes you a better person than many. That’s what I am trying to say. We, the alphas, we’re not always good people. We try to be, but there are times when there are no good choices. If my clan were running from an enemy, I would sacrifice myself for their sake in a heartbeat. But if they were running to a door only I knew how to open, I would race ahead of them even if it meant that some of those behind me might fall. We think in numbers, not individuals.”

I didn’t know what I would do. It depended on who was behind me.

“You saved Ascanio,” Robert said. “But now Roland and d’Ambray know you have a weakness and they will use it against you. They will take someone you love and threaten to kill them, because they know you won’t be able to pass up that bait. You have to prepare to sacrifice your friends.”

If I had to do it over again, I would’ve done the same thing.

“I will stand with you for as long as I can,” Robert said. “But if I am asked about what happened in the Order’s chapterhouse, I will tell the Pack Council my opinion on it. No matter how I phrase it, all of them will see it in the same light Thomas and I do. I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize.” I looked at him. “I respect you as a fighter and as an alpha. Without you we wouldn’t have survived the night. If you ever need help, I will help you. You may want to let the Pack Council know that they may call as many votes as they want when this mess is over. However, if any of them do anything to derail my efforts to save our people by starting some sort of no-confidence vote while I’m trying to avert this war, I’ll have them confined to their quarters. I’m pretty tired of being judged on every turn, and my patience is short.”

Robert nodded. “Yes, Consort.”

He walked out. I leaned against the wall. Just what I needed. I hadn’t shown Hugh any gaps in my armor. He already knew them; he’d figured me out last summer. Now the Pack knew them as well. The Pack Council would have a field day with it when this was over.

That was fine. I failed Mauro. But Ascanio, Derek, and Desandra survived.

I was beginning to think in numbers. Well, wasn’t that sad?

The door swung open and Jim loomed in the doorway. “We found Double D.”

• • •

I STRODE THROUGH the hallways at a near run. “Where did you find her?”

“She was hiding at her cousin’s house in the attic,” Jim said.

“Have you called the alphas?”

“Yes.”

“The rats, too?”

He bristled. “What about the rats?”

“They think you’re hiding information from them.”

“I hide information from everyone. Do they think they’re special?”

I walked into the Pack Council room. A large table dominated the space, and what could be gathered of the Pack Council occupied the chairs: Robert and Thomas Lonesco; Martha, the female alpha of Clan Heavy; the betas from Clan Nimble, the female alpha of the jackals, Andrea for Clan Bouda, and Desandra, pale and bald.

“Where is the alpha of the wolves?”

George, Mahon’s daughter, looked up from her spot at a small desk. “She declined to attend. She sends her apologies.” She pointed at Desandra. “She’s all we could scrounge up on short notice.”

“Yeah,” Desandra said, her voice dry. “I’m a substitute alpha.”

Well, of course. Because this meeting wouldn’t end well for Double D, and Jennifer didn’t want to deal with the fallout. When the wolves pitched a fit and demanded to know why one of their own was sent to the People, she would tell them she had nothing to do with it. It was all Desandra’s fault. Marvelous.

“I thought your teeth fell out?”

“They did.” Desandra bared a new sharp set at me. “I found out I was coming to this meeting and they grew all on their own.”

Someone was pissed off.

I walked to the head of the table and sat in my chair, trying to valiantly ignore the fact that Curran’s chair stood empty next to me. If I let even a tiny bit of anxiety show, I would lose the Pack Council. They would begin to bicker and we wouldn’t come to a decision.

“Bring her in, please,” I said.

The door opened and Barabas led Dorie Davis inside. She didn’t look like a bombshell. She didn’t look like a streetwalker either. She looked perfectly ordinary. A woman in her early thirties, with a rounded face, blue eyes, and a shoulder-length blond bob. Not too athletic, not too curvy. Soft. The kind of woman who probably lived in the suburbs, made school lunches for her kids, and indulged in a glass of wine in the afternoon.

Barabas cleared his throat.

“Go ahead,” I told him.

He turned to Dorie. “Before we start, you need to know your rights. Everyone here is either an alpha, an acting alpha, or a member of the legal department. According to state law, no alpha can be compelled to testify against a member of their pack. The State of Georgia has no jurisdiction in this room. Nothing disclosed here can be used against you in a court of law.”

But it could be used against her in ours.

“Tell me what happened last night,” I said.

Dorie sighed, her face defeated. “I met Mulradin at the Fox Den.”

“Was he a regular client?” Robert asked.

“Yes, for the last ten months. He paid well. We had sex. He was getting ready for round two when someone busted through the door. There were six of them and they had shotguns. I was in my wolf form with a collar on and chained to the wall. One of them fired into the wall and showed the rest of the bullets to me. They were silver. The big one with dark hair told me that they would take turns shooting me. He said that I wouldn’t die right away. He said they would keep shooting me until I did what they wanted me to do.”

“Did you try to escape?” I asked.

“They were pointing shotguns at me.”

I took that as a no. “Describe the ‘big one’ to me.”

“In his thirties, over six feet tall. Very good shape. Muscular. Dark hair. Blue eyes.”

Hugh. “What happened then?”

“He told me that I had to kill Mulradin. If I tore him up, they would let me go.”

She stopped.

“So?”

“So I did.” Her voice was flat. “He screamed a lot. It was horrible. Then they took off my collar and I ran.”

So simple. No big mystery. Hugh had held her at gunpoint so he could manufacture this whole incident.

“Where did you go?” I asked.

“To my cousin’s house. She owed me some money, and I knew she’d hide me.”

“You didn’t notify your clan or your alpha?” the beta of Clan Nimble asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

Dorie sighed again. “Why not, why not? Because I didn’t want to be arrested. I didn’t want to go to jail. I just wanted it all to go away. I wanted my life back.”

“I’m sure Mulradin did, too,” I said. “Did anybody see you leave the crime scene?”

“No.”

I looked at Jim. “We have no witnesses and Hugh moved the body from the original scene.” A good defense attorney could do wonders arguing that any evidence found on the body was contaminated.

“You’re thinking surrender?” Jim’s eyebrows rose an eighth of an inch.

I was thinking I wanted to avoid killing Dorie and sending her head out on a pike.

“They filmed it,” Dorie said.

I turned to her. “What?”

“They filmed it,” she said. “While I killed him.”

Hugh had made a snuff film. Why was I not surprised?

“This alters things,” Thomas Lonesco said.

I nodded to Juan, one of Jim’s people standing by the door. “Put her under guard, please. Make sure she’s watched.”

He took her by the arm.

“What will happen to me?” Dorie asked.

“Come on.” Juan pulled her.

She came to life suddenly, flailing in his arms. “I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die! Don’t kill me!”

He picked her up and carried her out of the room.

I waited until her sobs receded and stared down the Pack Council. My memory replayed Curran’s advice for dealing with the Council in my head. I never go into the Council room without a plan. You have to give them a range of possibilities, but if they discuss them too much, they’ll never make a decision. Steer them toward the right choice and don’t let them derail the train.

Steer them toward the right choice. Sure. Easy as pie. “As you know, the People intend to start a war. They are likely moving toward the Keep now. We have several courses of action opened to us. We can surrender Dorie to the People. Opinions?”

I waited.

“No,” Jim said.

“We’d lose too much influence,” Martha said. “Pass.”

“No,” Andrea said.

“No,” Thomas Lonesco said.

That gave me a majority. Surrendering to the People was off the table. “Option two, we can execute Dorie and show proof of it to the People.”

The pause was longer this time. They were thinking it over.

“No,” Robert said.

“No,” Martha agreed. “We don’t kill our own without a trial.”

A trial would take time. We all knew it.

Nobody else volunteered anything, so I kept going.

“Option three, we keep Dorie and tell the People to screw themselves.”

“The casualties would be staggering,” Thomas Lonesco said.

“If they want a fight, we can give them a fight,” Desandra said. “But we’re at reduced strength and it will be bloody.”

“This isn’t an option for me,” Jim said.

“So, we don’t want to execute Dorie or turn her over to the People, and we don’t want to go to war,” I said. “That leaves us with only one option. We can surrender her to state law enforcement.”

The silence dropped on the table like a heavy brick.

Desandra frowned. “So like what, here’s Dorie, here’s her confession, take her off our hands?”

“Yes,” I said. “Technically the murder was committed in Atlanta, which makes it the business of Atlanta’s finest. If they take her into custody, the People can deal with them. Our hands would be clean. We’d remove their pretext for the war.”

“We’d be abdicating control over the situation,” Thomas Lonesco said.

“Yes,” I confirmed.

Martha turned to Barabas. “If we do this, what are her chances in court?”

Barabas grimaced. “Under Georgia law, and U.S. common law in general, duress or coercion is not a defense to homicide. The idea is that a person should not place their life above the lives of others.”

“Could it be self-defense?” the beta of Clan Nimble asked.

“No,” Barabas said. “Self-defense, by definition, is only applicable against the aggressor. Mulradin wasn’t an aggressor, he was a victim. To impose any kind of criminal liability, one has to prove both actus reus, the guilty act, and the mens rea, the guilty mind. Dorie committed the act, and if she denied it, there is videotaped evidence. That gives us the actus reus. Even if everyone believes her defense, that she had to choose between her life and Mulradin’s, the fact is, she made that choice, which means she meant to kill him. We now have both ingredients for a speedy conviction.”

“So the death penalty?” the Jackal alpha asked.

“Not necessarily. The big question is what will the DA want to do with this. If this is malicious homicide, and they would be fools not to charge her with that, we have to fight the death penalty. We can try to negotiate it down to voluntary homicide, which is a pointless battle unless we have something to trade. It’s possible they hate d’Ambray and will want her testimony if they manage to apprehend him and charge him. It’s also possible that they don’t want to take d’Ambray on and they would rather bury Dorie six feet under. Can we use it to our advantage? It depends on who’s in charge of the prosecution. An election is coming up. Do they want to plead it out quietly or do they want to make it an election issue? If we do go to trial, can we poke holes in their evidence? We don’t even know what the evidence is at this point, but the video will be difficult to circumvent. Dorie herself will be difficult. She is an unlikable defendant: she is a prostitute who engaged in bestiality with a married man.”

“I’d think the married man would be more unlikable,” Andrea growled.

“And you would be right, but he isn’t on trial. We can put him on trial, but it’s always a gamble. Who is the judge? Who are the jurors? Will attacking the victim predispose them to hate our client? Dorie is a shapeshifter,” Barabas continued. “The general public views her as being prone to violence.”

“Can you just give us a straight answer?” Jim growled.

Barabas pointed at Jim. “See? Prone to violence. And no, I can’t. You gave me a client who committed a murder under duress and who will likely have to confess to it to satisfy the People and asked me a question about her chances. I’m answering.”

My head was beginning to hurt. “Could you give us the idiot version, then?”

Barabas held up his hand. “Possible outcomes in order of most likely first.” He bent one finger. “One, conviction for malicious homicide, life in prison without possibility of parole or death penalty before a judge or jury. Two!” He bent his second finger. “Conviction for the lesser offense of voluntary manslaughter in front of a judge or jury. Three, a plea deal for a negotiated sentence or possibly immunity depending on how much they want to get at Hugh d’Ambray. That’s subject to many different factors. Four, acquittal before a judge or a jury based on reasonable doubt. Not bloody likely. Five, jury nullification. That would constitute a Hail Mary pass on our part. Jury nullification is much more rare than people think, and we would have to prove to the jury that Dorie was a victim of some great injustice. Six, we somehow blow holes in the prosecution’s case and get the whole thing dismissed. The likelihood of this last one is difficult to gauge because we don’t even know what evidence the prosecution has. Let me remind all of you that they may not have been notified of Mulradin’s murder.”

Silence claimed the table.

“If we go to the State with this,” Martha said, “they’ll use everything they have to smear all of us. There is a price to be paid here.”

“True,” the male beta of Clan Nimble said.

“We’ll face restrictions again,” the female alpha of Clan Jackal said.

“The alternative is worse,” I said.

“Depends on how you look at it,” Martha said. “No good choices, it’s true.”

I was losing them. My train was rapidly sliding off the rails.

Robert glanced at me and said very carefully. “What is the penalty for Dorie’s actions under Pack law?”

“Death,” Barabas said. “It was a malicious murder. A life for a life applies.”

He was helping me. I grabbed onto the straw. It was a weak straw, but people drowning in quicksand couldn’t be choosers.

“As alphas we have an obligation to our Pack members.” I made a mental note to thank Barabas again for making me learn the Pack laws backward and forward. “We must ensure the overall safety of the Pack and its individual members. Our first priority is the preservation of life.”

“We know, dear,” Martha said. “We’ve read the laws.”

“Barabas, what sentence would Dorie get if we gave her to the People?”

“Death,” he said.

“What if we try her?”

“Death.”

“What will she get if we turn her over to the State?”

“I don’t know,” Barabas said. “I can tell you that we will fight our hardest to keep the death penalty off the table.”

“So it’s a maybe?”

“It’s a maybe.” He nodded.

“Death, death, maybe.” I looked around the Council. “I vote for maybe. Who’s with me?”

Five minutes later the Council filed out of the room. Martha stopped next to me. “Nicely done.”

“Not really,” I said. “Have you heard from Mahon?”

She shook her head. “Don’t worry. They’ll show up.”

I hoped she was right.

At the door Jim spoke to someone and turned to me. “I just got a phone call from the city. The People have emptied the Casino’s stables. They’re coming for us.”