Storm's Heart

TEN

“I like your duck waddle across the parking lot,” Tiago told Clarence “JoBe” Watson. “It made its own statement. Maybe it wasn’t the one you wanted to make. But it was definitely its own statement.”

Tiago had found Clarence hanging with three of his homies on South Damon Avenue. They were wearing gangsta bling, displaying their colors and jamming to 50 Cent. The brothers had taken one look at Tiago striding toward them in his black fatigues, barbed wire tats and visible weaponry. The gods only knew what they saw in his face. Flares of white lightning kept flashing in his eyes. He had hidden them behind sunglasses. The brothers had bolted like so many rabbits flushed by a wolf.

Tiago had increased his pace to a quick walk. He had caught Clarence three quarters of a block later, grabbed him by the back of the neck and slammed him into the side of a brick building.

Tiago said, “You might be wondering if you could have gotten away if you’d had your pants pulled up instead of hanging down around your thighs.”

“What the fuck, man?” Clarence shouted.

Clarence was twenty-two years old, six-foot-one and one hundred and ninety pounds. Tiago took hold of his jeans by the waist. With a heave, he lifted Clarence two feet off the ground. In one quick jerk Tiago shook him the rest of the way into his pants.

“I don’t think so,” said Tiago. “But we can always try this again.” He stepped back. “Go ahead. Run.”

“I’m gonna take you out.” With a flick of his wrist, Clarence opened his switch as he whirled around. “You crazy mo-fucker!”

Tiago took the knife from the child, pressed the flat of the blade against the nearby brick wall, and snapped it at the hilt. He said, “That was just another one in a long series of unwise choices, son.”

“You whack-job sum-bitch from hell.” The whites of Clarence’s eyes showed.

Tiago spun the guy around. “Here’s the good news, Clarence,” he said. “It pains me to say this, it really does, but you get to live.”

“Whatever it is I didn’t do it!”

“Oh yes, you did. If you hadn’t posted your little impromptu film footage, those of us in New York might not have found out about the shit going down in Chi-town in time for us to stop some more shit from happening. Now here’s the bad news.”

Tiago grabbed him by the back of the neck and the seat of his pants, and threw him into the wall. Clarence accelerated from a baritone, took the freeway past soprano and hung a sharp exit to arrive at a teakettle shriek.

“Life for you is going to get really fucking painful for a little while,” Tiago told him. “You might get away with only a few broken bones. And you don’t get to keep any of your toys.” He dragged Clarence to his feet again and pinned him by the back of the neck to the wall as he fished through the pockets of the kid’s jeans and jacket. He confiscated a nine-millimeter and continued his search. There had to be one. “I’ve been to your crib. I’ve taken out your PlayStation, your Xbox, your Wii, your laptop and two PCs, the 52-inch, the TiVo, the Blu-ray, the Pioneer and the home theater system. Oh, and your Flip, of course. Speaking of which, that’s a mighty lot of toys for someone who has no job on record. You dealing or did you just steal the shit?”

Ah, there it was. He pulled out an iPhone, dropped it to the pavement and ground it under one booted heel, which prompted more teakettle whistling. He picked up Clarence and reacquainted him with the wall.

“Now I’d have to stop doing this if some witness chose to call 911,” Tiago said. “What do you think, Clarence? You see any dots that connect from, oh, say the attack you watched and filmed the other night without doing any goddamn thing about it to your current state of discomfort?”

The teakettle whistle dissolved into a soggy snivel. Tiago reached down to pick the guy up again.

A strong, lean tanned hand came down to grip one of his wrists.

Rune said in his ear, “You got the chance to discipline him, T-bird. That’s enough.”

Tiago turned toward the gryphon. Rune had lion’s eyes the color of sun shining through amber. Whatever Rune saw in Tiago’s expression made those golden eyes turn careful. “Hey, buddy, it’s time for a debriefing,” Rune said. “You need to catch me up on what’s happened since we last talked.”

“I fucked up,” Tiago said. “It was a stupid fucking mistake and it hurt her. Bad. I don’t know how bad.”

Rune gripped him by the shoulder hard, his keen gaze steady. “All right. Whatever it is, we’ll fix it.”

“I had to walk away,” Tiago said. His voice had turned guttural, harsh. “Give her a little space. I don’t know how much space to give her. Couple hours? The rest of the night? I was just”—he looked down at Clarence, who had crumbled in a heap at his feet—“I was killing something. Killing time I guess.”

Rune looked down at the guy too. Clarence had stuffed his bleeding nose into the sleeve of his jacket. Rune said to him, “You know what a lucky little pissant you are that I came along when I did?”

“Yeah, I thick so,” said the kid. He swiped at his streaming eyes.

“Wyr don’t forgive easily,” Rune said. “And we never forget. You need to become a model citizen now.”

“Cross by heart,” Clarence said into his sleeve. “I bean it. I thick I saw Jesus in the wall just now. I’b gonna start going to church with by bob again. Baybe I’ll join the arby.”

No matter how sumptuous and inviting her penthouse bedroom was, Niniane had no desire to go back to it after her conversation with Carling. She wandered with aimless restlessness throughout the penthouse’s common areas.

She paused by the grand piano and opened the lid to finger the cool, smooth keys. It was a Steinway, the black surface polished to a high shine, and she suspected it was in perfect tune. She loved music, loved to sing and adored dancing, but her piano playing skills were desultory at best. Besides, the time had to be well past ten o’clock by now. That wasn’t terribly late and the Vampyres would be wide awake, of course, but some of their human companions and the Dark Fae might be readying for bed. She eased the lid back down with a sigh.

She looked up at the Vampyre who had become her soundless shadow. It was the stairwell Vampyre again. He was beautiful as Vampyres tended to be, with cool dark looks and a slim frame that hid what she knew would be a tensile inhuman strength. Rhoswen had disappeared, perhaps to attend to her mistress.

She couldn’t keep thinking of him as the Stairwell Vampyre any more than she should keep thinking of Carling as the Stepford Vampyre. She asked, “What’s your name?”

“Duncan,” he said.

“It’s nice to meet you, Duncan.”

“Thank you, highness.” He watched her with an attentive dark gaze and a calm neutral expression. “It is a pleasure to meet you as well.”

“When you came back out of the stairwell this afternoon, I was glad that the first thing you did was look toward Carling and that you didn’t go after Tiago again,” she said. “But I’m curious. What made you do that?”

Duncan said, “We could all feel when she stopped us. At least the Vampyres could. I’m not sure about our humans. Their senses are so much less than ours. When she released us and I returned to the hall, it was important to find out what had changed, preferably as quickly as possible.”

Niniane’s eyebrows rose. No wonder Rhoswen had no sympathy for Cowan. He’d gotten two warnings to stop before he lost his head.

Duncan spoke with a slight pleasant accent. Normally she loved to talk to people and to find out about their lives—or spooky undead existence, as it were—and the impulse to ask him more questions drifted through the back of her mind. The impulse faded almost at once. She wasn’t able to muster up a social mood.

She asked, “So what’s a girl got to do to get a drink around here?”

“She has merely to state what she would like,” said Duncan. He smiled at her. “It would be my pleasure to get her whatever she desires.”

He had an attractive smile and a pleasing manner. Niniane knew better than to believe those were the only qualities that won him a place in Carling’s entourage. “I’d like a bottle of red wine, please,” she asked.

“Anything in particular? Merlot, Beaujolais, Syrah?”

She said, “Alcoholic will do just fine.”

She went onto the slate-tiled patio where potted trees and plants were arranged attractively around a couple of wrought iron tables and chairs. She sat and looked out at the city lights while a warm breeze played with her hair. A few minutes later Duncan brought a tray out. He placed a glass of wine in front of her. He murmured, “I thought perhaps a Malbec.”

“Thank you,” she said.

He placed the bottle on the table, along with an assortment of cheese, crackers and fruit. Wishing him gone, she thanked him again, and he gave her another smile before he stepped away to take a position by the doors.

Her life felt like too much of a burden to pick up and examine at the moment. She sipped her wine and tried to exist in the now, but she couldn’t turn off her thoughts.

You should be careful where you step, Niniane. You are in a fragile place right now.

Yeah, thanks for that reminder, Carling. Like I hadn’t noticed.

Niniane downed the contents of her glass and rubbed at her forehead. On the plus side: Her identity had been easily verified so that it was no longer in question. Nobody could contest her right to the throne.

Wow, that was on the plus side? That was the only thing on the plus side?

On the negative side: Aside from her releationship with the Wyr (which was not in jeopardy), she had no strong alliances upon which she could rely with any degree of confidence, she had no real Power to speak of and she had a long estrangement from Dark Fae politics and society. She had no idea which of the delegation members she could trust.

And her relationship with the Wyr was a long-distance relationship. Her father’s relationship with the Wyr had been in good standing as well. That hadn’t saved him or his family.

She really was up shit creek without a paddle. If she was in a betting pool, she would give herself less than a year.

Then a thought occurred to her. Perhaps dear dead cousin Geril wouldn’t have tried to kill her if she had been less obvious about how unwelcome his attentions had been. Perhaps that was why he had taken her out to dinner first then tried to kill her. Otherwise why bother to feed her? Had he really thought his distant connection to the throne would be enough to make a play for it on his own? That was hard to believe. Or had he been working with someone else and decided to play all angles of the game? If she had responded to his flirtation, he might have thought he had a shot at sharing the throne with her.

Anxiety gnawed at her. She wished she had a pack of cigarettes. She took the bottle, tilted a liberal amount of wine into her glass and tossed it back.

If she wanted to lose at that betting pool and live longer than a year, she had to make an alliance with someone who had power. Or Power. Working to build a good relationship with Carling was all well and good, but that would be a long-distance relationship too, and she had to do more than build a distant alliance with another demesne. She had to make an alliance with someone close at hand. What did she have to offer that she could hope would make someone’s loyalty stick?

She looked at her plus side. Well crap.

She said out loud, “I’m going to have to marry.”

The warm wind took her words and blew them away. Not that it changed anything. She was going to have to marry to solidify her position and survive. She was going to have to find someone who wanted the throne, who couldn’t get it on his own and who had enough political clout or Power, or both, to help her hold on to it. She needed someone who had as much of a vested interest in keeping her alive as she did.

This time when she reached for the wine bottle she didn’t bother with the glass.

A rush of immense wings sounded overhead, and for a wild, heart-leaping moment she was so full of hope. She jumped to her feet as she searched the sky. A pale film of clouds draped the dark blue night sky, and a gorgeous nightmare descended onto the patio.

The creature had the form of a tall female with a wingspan large and powerful enough to support her long, flowing muscular form. She was a study in pale and dark grays and black, her lower torso and strong legs covered with short, fine feathers. She had a wide rib cage and chest that supported long flight and fast speeds, high slight breasts and magnificent sooty wings that deepened to midnight toward the primary feathers. Her long hands and feet were tipped with razored lethal talons that could slice through metal or split open a person’s skull with a single swipe, and the lines of her angular face were severe, upswept. In her human form, the Wyr sentinel Aryal had a strange, gaunt beauty. In her harpy form both strangeness and beauty were accentuated, her stormy eyes magnified, and her long black hair moved in the wind as if it had a life of its own.

Duncan blurred past Niniane with his Vampyre’s lethal strength and speed. The harpy picked him up by the neck and slammed him onto the patio so hard the slate tiles underneath him cracked. She held the Vampyre pinned as she inspected him curiously with her piercing raptor’s gaze.

“Hmm, pretty,” said the harpy. She looked up at Niniane. “If you don’t want him, can I have him?”

A confused tangle of emotion roared up inside, gladness mingled with a bitter disappointment. She said, “Aryal, don’t hurt Duncan.”

“I wasn’t going to hurt him,” said Aryal. “Not unless he asked for it.” The Vampyre’s eyes had started to glow red, and his fangs had distended as he strained against Aryal’s powerful grip. The harpy tapped his temple with one curved talon. “That’s even prettier. Dude, you ever taste harpy’s blood? We’re rarer than shit so I’m betting not. Want to go out for a drink sometime? If you put out, I might let you have a sip.”

“Aryal!” Niniane exclaimed.

“What!” The gorgeous winged nightmare blinked at her. “You know how hard it is to get a date in New York.”

The Vampyre looked so confused and aggressive, but at the mention of harpy’s blood, a startled avarice crept into his bloodred gaze.

Niniane started to laugh. She couldn’t help it. “Duncan is a very nice guy. Would you let him go, please?”

“But I’m not done sexually harassing him.” Niniane dipped her chin and glowered at the harpy, who scowled back and grumbled, “Oh all right.”

As soon as Aryal’s grip around his throat loosened, Duncan sprang to his feet and lunged to take a stance between Niniane and the harpy. It was a brave, stupid and totally useless gesture of protection.

Aryal blurred into a Wyr’s shapeshift as she rose to her feet as well. In her more human form, she was a six-foot-tall powerful woman, armed and dressed in leather, with an angular face, lean muscles, tangled black hair and stormy gray eyes. She said to the Vampyre, “You wanna hug it out?” She feinted forward and Duncan jerked back a step. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.” She bounced once on the balls of her feet and gave Niniane a feral grin. “Hey, pip-squeak.”

Aryal looked so happy to see her, the pleasure on her odd gaunt face so sincere and uncomplicated, for the moment Niniane’s disappointment that Aryal wasn’t Tiago took a backseat and she was simply glad to see her friend.

Niniane put a hand on the Vampyre’s shoulder and pressed down, silently telling him to stay put as she told him, “You know, Duncan, I have seen this harpy drunk on her ass more than a few times. Once she even—”

“Don’t say it,” Aryal warned.

Niniane grinned. “She even let me put pink lipstick on her and her hair up in pigtails.”

“Traitorous bitch!” Aryal said. “You carp-carp-carped. ‘Lemme just see what you look like, Aryal. C’mon, Aryal, I won’t tell anybody. Five minutes and you can wipe it right off.’ And now what do you do? You tell every freaking body you can every chance you get.”

The Vampyre relaxed only slightly at their banter. He asked, “How did she look?”

“You know how she looked just now when she smacked you down?” Niniane asked.

Duncan’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah.”

Niniane started to giggle. “She looked a lot scarier.”

The harpy rolled her eyes. Still laughing, Niniane launched forward. Aryal grabbed her and hauled her in for a tight hug. “How are you doing, pip-squeak? I was awfully proud of how you kicked the shit out of those three Dark Fae assholes, but you gave us quite a scare when you disappeared like that.”

She pressed her cheek against Aryal’s leather vest and her laughter dissolved into a harsh sob. “I’ve had a rotten day.”

“Whoa,” said Aryal. She sounded alarmed. She patted Niniane’s back. “You know how tears freak me out. Who do I have to kill to make it better?”

“I don’t KNOOOOOW.”

Aryal said over her head to the Vampyre, “Go guard the inside of the patio door. Pretend you can’t hear us.”

“Count me deaf and gone,” said Duncan.

Aryal’s hug turned bone-bruising. Niniane tilted her head back. She gasped, “Let go already. I’m not going to cry anymore.”

Wide, worried storm gray eyes looked down at her. “You sure?”

She nodded. Aryal released her and she sucked in a deep breath. She turned to walk back to the patio table and sit. The harpy threw herself into a nearby chair and sprawled, arms crossed and long legs stretched, her piercing gaze fixed on Niniane’s face.

Niniane said, “What are you doing in Chicago?”

“Rune and I are here to investigate those fuckers who attacked you and Tiago,” Aryal told her. “Tiago called us just after you got back to the hotel and saw the doctor. We blew in a bit ago. We were barred from coming up through the hotel to see you. Then we heard from a Chicago PD chick that you and Tiago had separated. Rune went to find Tiago. I took the alternative route to see you.” The harpy tilted her head. “Now it’s your turn. Why isn’t Tiago still with you, and why are you having a rotten day?”

“Oh gods, where to start.” Niniane put her elbows on the table and hid her face in her hands.

“Wait a minute, you were awfully spry just now when you jumped at me,” Aryal said suddenly. “What happened to your knife wound?”

“Carling,” Niniane said. Speaking between her hands, she told Aryal everything that had occurred since she and Tiago had returned to the hotel. Well, minus the blisteringly personal stuff. She hugged that to herself, to be examined in private later when she had the chance. “I went into shock when I found out that it had been Wyr and not Dark Fae in the attack. I’ve been dealing with old bad memories anyway, and to hear about it in the meeting—well, that wasn’t a good way to find out.”

“I bet,” Aryal said. The harpy sat forward to put her elbows on the table as well. “Tiago should have told you.”

Niniane sighed. “He tried to tell me he got busy and forgot. I just wasn’t able to hear it at the time, so I sent him away. Now I can’t get ahold of him to apologize.”

“He’s used to giving orders. He’s not used to sharing.” Aryal narrowed her eyes on the plate of cheese, crackers and fruit. She raised her eyebrows at Niniane who gestured for her to help herself. Aryal popped a piece of cheese into her mouth.

“It didn’t make any sense,” Niniane said. “Why would you attack me?”

“We wouldn’t,” Aryal said. “That’s ridiculous. We love you.”

There was the reality she knew. Niniane whispered, “Yeah.”

The harpy patted her back. “And forgive me for being brutally practical in saying this, but setting aside personal feelings, it’s to our advantage to have you safely on the throne. That would give the Wyr an alliance with the Dark Fae for the first time since your father was alive.”

Niniane nodded. “Of course. It was one of the reasons why the Wyr attack came as such a shock.”

“I’ll tell you what’s even more ridiculous,” Aryal said. “Those Wyr attacked when Tiago was with you.”

Niniane looked up quickly. “I hadn’t gotten that far in my thinking,” she said. “They wouldn’t have if they had known who he was, because it was a death sentence for them.”

“Exactly. Do you know any Wyr in his right mind who would go up against Dr. Death?” Aryal said. “And nobody but Dragos and the sentinels—well, and of course Pia—knew that Tiago had come out to look for you.”

Niniane said, “So those Wyr were either working on their own, or they were working for someone else. Carling brought up the possibility that there might be a schism in the Wyr we didn’t know about.”

“Okay,” said Aryal. The harpy hooked the heel of one boot on a rung of her chair. “Maybe there’s a supersecret anti-faerie Wyr faction out there that we haven’t heard of before. Maybe they don’t want us in an alliance with the Dark Fae.”

Niniane watched the harpy’s face. Aryal was in charge of Wyr investigations. “It doesn’t make sense that you would know nothing about a faction like that,” Niniane said. “Factions tend to grumble, write manifestos, protest, maybe blow things up. They often claim responsibility for things too.”

Aryal ate a grape.

“So what makes the most sense?” said Niniane. “Somebody wants me dead, and if they succeed in killing me, great. But if they fail, the next best thing is to drive a wedge between me and my strongest allies, because that would leave me vulnerable for when they try again. And they do want me dead, because if they just wanted to drive a wedge between me and the Wyr, there are lots of ways to try to achieve that that are much less potentially dangerous than an assassination attempt.”

“Ding ding ding. Give the girl a gold star.” Aryal grinned and popped another piece of cheese into her mouth.

Niniane told the harpy about Geril’s flirtation on the flight to Chicago and at dinner out at the Greek restaurant.

“I was wondering what happened to you for those couple of hours before the alley attack,” Aryal said.

“Again, there was no reason that I can think of for Geril to kill me if he was acting on his own,” Niniane said. “We didn’t know each other. There was no direct line of inheritance between us, and his connection to the throne was too diffuse for him to make a play for the crown himself. I may not be all that connected with the ins and outs of current Dark Fae politics, but I know that much.”

“Right now, I have just one question,” said Aryal. “Are we looking for one entity—one person, conspiracy, or faction trying to kill you—or two?”

Since before 1842, the Cook County morgue in Illinois had conducted an official inquiry on every questionable death in the county, which included the city of Chicago. Shortly before the Great Chicago Fire had occurred in 1871, the morgue opened its Office of Magickal Inquiry to investigate every questionable death relating to matters of Power or the Elder Races. In 1976 when Cook County established its Office of the Medical Examiner, the Office of Magickal Inquiry was placed under the Medical Examiner’s purview. The outdated term “Magickal” was dropped and the office given the simpler name of Paranormal Affairs.

The intent behind the move had been to modernize this section of the morgue and rename it with a view to greater accuracy and political neutrality, but in this attempt the county officials failed miserably. Many of the Elder Races, including several humans with Power, were offended by the name. Paranormal was a term that indicated something was outside the realm of normal experience or scientific explanation. Opponents to the term argued that it was racism and bigotry of the highest order.

Or so Dr. Seremela Telemar informed Tiago and Rune in her History of the Morgue 101 as she led them to the Paranormal Affairs section. Telemar was a medusa of late middle age, as evidenced by the length of her head of snakes that dangled down to her shapely hips. Medusas guarded their young ferociously. Tiago had personally never seen one of their children, but he knew young adult medusas had slim, short snakes that covered their heads like curly undulating afros.

A medusa’s head snakes were semi-independent sentient creatures that shared a symbiotic relationship with their host, which included an exchange of sensory input and thought impressions. A medusa never had her back turned if one of her snakes was looking at you. For the most part the head snakes remained as peaceful as their medusa, but if a medusa felt frightened or threatened, they had a venomous bite that could paralyze most creatures and might, if the snakes were induced to multiple bites, cause death. When Telemar reached old age, which for her species would be between four hundred and fifty and five hundred years, her snakes would reach her feet or perhaps trail a little on the ground. For now, she bound them back gently in a loose headcloth like they were dreads.

The medical examiner’s skin was a pale, creamy green that was several shades lighter than her snakes, and it had a faint iridescent pattern that resembled snakeskin. Her blue-green eyes had vertical slits for pupils and a nictitating membrane that flicked into place as she looked over her shoulder at the sentinels who followed close on her heels.

“Like other morgues across the country, my department doesn’t usually see anything near the kind of traffic that the main morgue does,” she said. Several of her head snakes looked around her waist and over her shoulder at them, tasting the air curiously with their flickering tongues. “It is a significant event for us to get six bodies back-to-back. The main morgue conducts around fifty-two hundred autopsies annually, and usually I spend half my time working with them. We’re lucky if we see two hundred.”

“Lucky?” Rune quirked a sleek tawny eyebrow at her. The gryphon was working his male charm on the medusa. She was, like every other female Tiago had seen around Rune, falling for it hook, line and sinker.

“Well. Perhaps ‘lucky’ is not the right word, but you get what I mean.” She widened her eyes and smiled at Rune as she tucked a few of her snakes behind one shoulder. She pushed through a pair of swing doors and Rune and Tiago followed. “As you no doubt are probably aware, most Elder deaths are not even reported to a medical examiner’s office. Many of them happen in Other lands and/or they are processed and investigated by their own demesnes. The deaths that tend to come to me are human ones that involve a Power exchange or discharge of some kind. This has been a real kick in the pants in more than one way.”

“I can imagine,” Rune said. “Politically as well as medically.”

“Quite,” said the medusa.

When Rune and Tiago had arrived at the morgue, the medusa had given Tiago one startled look that took in the implied threat flowing like silver mercury through his massive physique, his dark glasses and the banked aggression stamped in the strong bones of his face. Then her nictitating membranes had snapped shut and she kept herself busy looking anywhere else but at him.

Tiago was down with that. The gryphon and the doctor’s conversation was more blah-fucking-blah as far as he was concerned. The First stood in an easy stance, his thumbs hooked into the back pockets of his jeans as he chatted with Telemar.

Tiago let Rune run interference. It left Tiago’s mind free to pick over the pieces of the puzzle they had to date, and to grapple with what raged inside of him. He had a precarious hold on the beast. It would not take much to send him over the edge again, and he could tell that Rune knew it. Rune kept his body language casual and relaxed, but somehow he managed to always stay between Tiago and other people.

At least Aryal had texted Rune to let him know that she was with Niniane, and that Niniane was okay. But Aryal was known for not being girl-savvy. What did okay mean to the harpy—not coughing up arterial blood? Hell, by that standard, Tiago had left her okay. He had known she would be physically safe under Carling’s protection. Mentally and emotionally were two different matters.

The need to get back to Niniane gnawed at him. Every minute he spent away was agony. He kept having something like a PTS-fucking-D reaction every time he saw in his mind’s eye how she had flinched from him and turned lifeless as a little doll, and that had happened goddamn hours ago.

It helped to have an agenda. He had stuff he had wanted to accomplish. He had corralled Cameron Rogers and they had gone to the nearest police station to look at the reports that had been filed on the two attacks. He hadn’t gleaned much more than he already knew, but it always paid to be thorough. He had taken a gander at Clarence/JoBe’s rap sheet, which was mostly full of petty shit involving break-ins and robberies. Tiago had memorized his address. After he had parted ways with Rogers, he had gone to check out Clarence’s crib and then gone to find Clarence himself.

Checking out the morgue was the last thing on his list. He wanted to see the bodies for himself and get what information he could from them. Then Tiago was going to head back to the hotel, and nothing, not the freak-show Vampyres, not the snippy-ass Dark Fae delegation, not even Niniane herself, was going to keep him from having a word with her, or maybe even three or four.

The room they had stepped into was utilitarian, full of steel and industrial-painted concrete, with tall cabinets in one corner that had to contain magical tools, for the cabinets gleamed with Power. There were no windows, of course. Tiago had been in many a morgue before—he had even been in the original Cook County morgue once—and he automatically loathed the place. The autopsies on the bodies of the three Dark Fae males had been completed. They were stored in drawers awaiting release for cremation or burial. The three Wyr were still being processed. Their bodies were laid out on tables and half covered in sheets.

Tiago prowled around the tables, looking at the males, his lip curled. That one—yeah, he remembered that one. The Wyr had died of blunt-force trauma to the head. The trauma had been Tiago’s boot heel coming down on him. One side of the Wyr’s face was now concave, but there was enough left of the other side to get an idea of what he had looked like.

Rune was still ostensibly chatting up Dr. Medusa What’s-hername, but he said telepathically to Tiago, You recognize any of these gentlemen, T-bird?

Just from the attack, Tiago said. You?

Nope. They’re all new to me.

One advantage to conducting an autopsy by magical means was that the examiner could use disinfecting spells instead of chemicals. The decision was a tricky one for the examiner to make, as it depended on the forces involved in a death, since spells could disrupt any lingering Power that might provide vital clues, or they could even have a toxic effect when certain kinds of differing Powers combined.

These jokers were not that complicated. Death-by-stupidity was the cause as far as Tiago was concerned. Who the fuck didn’t know by now that Niniane had been sheltered and was supported by the Lord of the Wyr?

The most important thing about these autopsies was how any information might aid in the investigation of the attacks. Dr. Medusa What’s-her-name had foresight. She knew the Wyr would have a keen interest in the proceedings and had kept the autopsy procedure clean of any scent contaminants. Tiago found a box of gloves on a corner cabinet and snapped on a pair. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye as the medusa took a sudden step forward. Even her head snakes looked alarmed. Rune put a restraining hand on the medical examiner’s arm, smiling down into her anxious face.

“It’s okay,” Rune told her. “Tiago knows what he’s doing. He won’t mess with your results.”

She nodded although she looked uncertain. They both fell silent and watched as Tiago examined the bodies. The visual inspection didn’t tell him anything he did not already know. Inspecting them by scent was more complicated, as the bodies had accumulated layers of different scents. No matter how tightly a crime scene might be processed, a certain amount of scent contamination occurred. Aside from their individual scents, these bodies carried scents from the last places they had been, including the scene where they had died, along with residue from the plastics and rubber gloves that had been used in transporting, storing and examining them.

He could detect the faintest hint of cigarette smoke on all three. He checked the teeth and gums of each dead guy. None of them had smoked, which didn’t surprise him. Wyr, with their greater sense of smell, tended not to. Did that offer a clue to where they might have been, or had some police officer fucked up and taken a smoke break at the scene of the attack? Frowning, Tiago moved from the Wyr themselves to their clothing and possessions, which were sitting bagged and tagged on a nearby table.

None of the guys had carried an ID. All they had carried were weapons and cash, and one of them had a half-empty packet of Chiclets. Still, their possessions helped to solidify scent impressions much better. Confident now, Tiago said, “They met at a bar. Someplace that serves draft beer, greasy food, and allows smoking, because none of these guys smoked.”

“That’s certainly consistent with the contents of their stomachs,” said the medusa. She gave Tiago a look of surprised approval. “Two of them ate a meal of fish and chips, and the other one had a large cheeseburger with jalapenos. All three had consumed a certain amount of alcohol, maybe some form of Dutch courage as they were gearing themselves up to fight. I don’t have a tox report back yet, but at a guess I don’t think they would have imbibed enough to impair driving or motor skills. That takes some heavy drinking for Wyr, and there’s no other evidence to support it.”

Tiago looked at Rune. “There are other scents of Elder Races on their things, but no one scent stands out. I just keep getting hints. We need to have someone canvass the bars in the area that are frequented by the Elder Races.”

Rune nodded. “Somebody served dinner and drinks to these fuckers. We might get lucky and get a positive ID on one or all of them, which would mean we could look for where they lived and check to see if any of them received any large amounts of money recently. They had some motive for the attack. Maybe they got paid to do it.”

“We might also get a description of somebody they met,” Tiago said.

The two sentinels exchanged hard-edged predatory smiles. They didn’t have to ask what the other one was thinking. In that moment both Wyr were of one accord. It felt good to go on the hunt and not stay stuck in a position where they were forced to react to a situation beyond their control.

“Skeert of the both of you,” muttered Dr. Telemar.

A cold voice spoke from the doorway. “Or maybe you’re hoping to plant evidence that leads other investigators away from the Wyr,” said Dark Fae Commander Arethusa. The tall female stepped into the room. “I should not be surprised to see you here contaminating the autopsy results on the three bodies.”

The beast in Tiago lunged to the end of its chain and clawed at the air. Everything dropped away except the sight of the Commander’s anger-filled face. Growling, Tiago started forward. Arethusa drew the two short swords she had strapped to her back.

A Mack truck slammed into Tiago. He crashed back into a wall. The truck turned into Rune, who pinned him with a muscled forearm across his neck. Dragos’s First went nose-to-nose with him, his fierce golden lion’s eyes blazing. “No, Tiago.”

Tiago swore and tried to heave Rune off him. He was heavier than the other sentinel and stronger, but Rune was faster than shit and had the weight of his long, lean body distributed too well for Tiago to shake off. He said, “She’s been asking for an ass-kicking for a while now.” His voice had changed, turned more guttural.

“My give-a-shit button’s broken. You’re my boy, and I say no.” Rune slapped him in a controlled flat-handed blow. It dislodged the sunglasses on Tiago’s face. They fell to the floor with a clatter. “Snap out of it.”

Dr. Telemar backed into a far corner. Arethusa stared at them, her face whitening.

Tiago snarled at Rune and heaved again. He gripped Rune’s imprisoning arm with taloned hands and shoved as hard as he could, but he could get no leverage with which to break the other sentinel’s hold.

Rune stared point-blank into Tiago’s gaze, his handsome face hard and unflinching. The First said in a calm voice, “I know you’re in there. You can hear me or you would have drawn blood by now. Think for a minute. Who needs us?”

Tiago sucked in a deep breath that shuddered through his frame as he fought to contain the beast. He turned his head to one side and growled, “Niniane.”

“That’s right.” Rune lowered his voice to a barely audible murmur. “You better listen to me. You fuck things up now and you can’t go back. They’ll never let you get near her again. Got it?”

That snapped Tiago’s head back into place like nothing else could have. He stopped straining against the other sentinel’s hold and said, “Got it.”

Rune’s tawny eyebrows rose. He lessened the pressure he had been exerting against Tiago’s clavicle. Tiago remained quiescent, as he maintained a hard grip on his beast. Rune nodded, let go and clapped him on the shoulder.

Rune turned to face the Dark Fae Commander. He said, “Okay, first, you’ve been harshing my good friend’s chi. I’m not liking you so much right now.”

“I’ll add a second point to that,” said Dr. Telemar, who stepped out of her corner. All her head snakes were looking at the Dark Fae Commander. “I’m not into inter-demesne politics, but you just maligned the integrity of my office and I’ll not stand for it. There’s not one damn thing out of place with my autopsy procedures, up to and including how the bodies of these Wyr are being processed.”

Despite getting her ass chewed on two different fronts, the cold anger in the Commander’s angular face dissipated. She straightened out of her defensive fighting crouch and looked thoughtful as she sheathed her swords. A couple of the medusa’s head snakes turned to blink at Rune. He gave them a whatthe-fuck shrug.

Arethusa looked from Rune to Tiago. She said, “I heard what you said.”

Tiago might have gotten a grip on his beast’s leash again, but he didn’t trust himself to speak. The muscle in his jaw jumped. He bent to pick up his Ray-Bans and slid them back on his nose.

Rune was the one who replied. “To which bit are you referring, Commander?”

Arethusa looked at Tiago. He noticed she took care to remain on the other side of the room, but the scent of aggression had faded from her pheromones. She said to him, “Whatever else the Wyr could be involved in, it really does matter to you that the Dark Fae heir might need your help.”

“You think?” Tiago said from between his teeth. Sometime he wanted to get just one good shot at the Commander’s face. One of these days, Alice, he thought as he stared at her. Straight to the goddamn moon.

Rune said, “I have to ask you, Commander. What part of this”—he made an all-encompassing gesture that included the three dead Wyr, and Tiago and himself—“makes any kind of sense to you? Why would we send Tiago to find and protect Niniane and then send these bozos after her too? There are a lot easier and more straightforward ways to execute a couple of guys.”

Arethusa sucked a tooth as she considered them. “When I came in, you were talking about trying to get a positive ID on these three so you could look for a money trail. That’s what we did for Geril,” she said. “We looked for a money trail. You know what we found? He had a new Bank of America account in which he had received a substantial deposit this week from an Illinois company owned by Cuelebre Enterprises.”

Tiago’s eyes narrowed. “Which company?” he asked.

“Tri-State Financial Services,” Arethusa said.

Tiago looked at Rune, and they both started to smile.

Dr. Telemar spoke up. “I missed something. What is there to smile about in that?”

Tiago crossed his arms as he leaned back against one of the autopsy tables. He told Arethusa and the medusa, “Somebody made another mistake. Cuelebre Enterprises doesn’t own a company named Tri-State Financial Services.”

The Dark Fae Commander’s eyes narrowed, her expression full of skepticism. “And you know this so conveniently how?”

Tiago said, “Cuelebre Enterprises owns six companies that are based in Illinois. Thanks to Urien’s and Dragos’s recent fight over Urien’s attempt to secure a U.S. defense contract, those companies have come under a great deal of scrutiny at the head office in New York. Stocks have taken a dip, and Dragos is tired of fucking around with them. He’s working on getting them stabilized so that he can sell them off. If you dig deeper into your information, I think what you’re going to find is that you’ve got a dummy corporation on your hands.”

Arethusa stepped forward. She gripped the edge of an autopsy table and leaned on her hands, her mouth pursed as she regarded the corpse in front of her without appearing to really see it. “Okay,” she said after a few minutes. “I’ll check it out. Now what do you mean, somebody made another mistake?”

“Whoever set Geril and his buddies on Niniane didn’t know how much self-defense training the sentinels had given her,” Tiago said.

“Which was a lot,” Rune added. “She was not exactly an easy study. That’s simple enough to verify. Just ask her. We had to keep going over and over some things. That training was what saved Niniane’s life.”

Tiago continued, “They also didn’t know how much scrutiny Cuelebre Enterprises’ Illinois companies have been under recently in New York, or they might have chosen a different, less easily verified way to frame the Wyr. They also didn’t know that I had come to Chicago, or they would never have sent these guys after her. And that’s not all. We’ve now got two attempts to frame the Wyr. What do you have when you have the same MO in two different crimes?”

This time Dr. Telemar stepped forward to join the circle around the autopsy table. She cradled a snake head in her hands and pet it, her eyes wide with fascination. She said, “You’ve either got a copycat or you’ve got the same perp.”

Rune smiled at the medusa. He said, “It’s possible we could have a copycat, but unlikely. A copycat would have to know some pretty obscure information that we’re only just now piecing together, which would indicate some intimate knowledge of the perpetrator of the first attack. He would also have to have the means with which to act very fast in setting up the second attempt. The odds are we’re looking at the same perp for both attempts.”

Tiago buried his chin in the heel of one hand as he regarded the Dark Fae Commander from under his brows. Arethusa cocked her head at him and said, “What.”

“Something else occurs to me,” he said. “We’re only talking now by accident. And if we hadn’t talked, we wouldn’t all know what we know.”

Arethusa said, “Are you thinking someone has been counting on that lack of communication between the Dark Fae and the Wyr?”

Tiago nodded. “Maybe if we start sharing more on our investigations, we should keep it quiet. That might give our perp the opportunity to make another mistake.”

The Dark Fae Commander’s eyebrows shot up. “Well, nobody’s going to see me chatting up you guys in public,” said Arethusa. “Everybody knows I think you’re all a bunch of rat bastards.”

More blah-fucking-blah happened. Other people called it pleasantries. Polite chitchat. Tiago called it agonizing. The beast crouched inside him and waited, and its silence took over his mind.

He watched the slight rhythmic flutter of the pulse at the Dark Fae Commander’s neck, and took note of the increasing flicker of the medusa’s nictitating membrane. The medusa did not look at him directly again, but half a dozen of her head snakes peered at him from around her waist and shoulders. They tasted the air as they watched him with their tiny jeweled eyes glittering.

Tiago’s sharp hearing caught a slight buzz, and his entire attention focused on tracking it. The tiny sound emitted from the front pocket of Rune’s jeans. He watched as Rune dragged out his iPhone, checked the screen and frowned. Rune started to put the cell back in his pocket while he began uttering good-bye blah-fucking-blahs.

Tiago’s breath stilled, and every muscle in his body tightened. He knew in his bones that the message Rune had received was about Niniane. And Rune didn’t appear to be inclined to share.

Before the instinct had the chance to fully form in his mind, Tiago sprang forward and snatched the iPhone out of Rune’s hands. The Dark Fae Commander grabbed one of her swords and the medusa made a high-pitched sound and leaped back two feet. All her head snakes whipped around to hiss at Tiago as Rune swore and spun to snatch at his phone. The other sentinel might be famous for his speed, but Tiago caught him by surprise and he was too late.

“Goddammit, Tiago!” Rune swore. His lion’s eyes blazed. “GIVE IT BACK!”

Tiago drove the heel of his hand into Rune’s chest and knocked him backward as he tilted the phone to read the screen.

It was a text from Aryal: OUT 4 BEERS + SHOTS. PD CHICK > BIG RED’S = GD COP BAR. FARY NEEDS STRSS RLIEF BAD. GNNA TRY 2 GT HR LAID.

Tiago’s beast snapped its leash.