I kept moving past the line of shapeshifters, slowing to a walk. I really wanted to bend over but I was on display, so I forced my body to remain upright. Breathing is like riding a bicycle. You never forget how to do it, and eventually my body remembered that it too could breathe instead of biting the air and swallowing it down in great big gulps. I walked on, past vehicles, until the bulk of the Jeeps hid us from the bloodsuckers’ view. The rest of the group followed me.
My mind finally processed what had happened at the Conclave. Hugh d’Ambray had come for me. Everyone associated with me had just acquired a big target on their chest. He would kill them one by one or a dozen at a time, whatever it took. My memory replayed Hugh’s voice. “It’s his will. Let it happen.” My father had targeted the shapeshifters before, but never so openly. Roland knew I was here, and he’d sent Hugh to break the Pack’s back and pry me loose while he was at it. The thing I’d been dreading had come to pass. My friends would die because of me.
Acknowledging it was like dunking my head into a bucket of cold water.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. In my plans Curran was always with me. In my plans we stood together, we fought together, and we did it on our terms. Instead Curran had disappeared into some Appalachian wilderness, and I was stuck here, with a murder on my hands and fifteen hundred people to keep alive. I was the Consort. I had a job to do. I had to quash this war.
I would have to take it one step at a time. Step one: find the killer.
Jim matched his stride to mine. “What the hell was that back there? You almost let him goad you into walking right back to him.”
“I need you to find Curran. Hugh hates him and he likely knows exactly where Curran is. Best-case scenario, Gene is keeping him away from here. Worst case, it’s a trap.”
Jim bent toward me. His gaze met mine. “Hey. Look at me.”
I looked.
“Curran will be fine. He’s got this. They would have to have sent an army to North Carolina in order to bring him down. I have people watching Gene’s territory. Nobody came in or out.”
That’s right. Jim would have someone watching them.
“Hugh will try to f**k with your head. Don’t let him. Do your job. You’ve got fifteen hundred people depending on you.”
“Awesome pep talk.”
“If you want a pep talk, get yourself a cheerleader. Did you recognize the crusader with Hugh?”
“Yes.” I’d recognized Nick, alright. I saw him shoot Desandra.
“Why did we run?” a man demanded behind me.
I stopped and pivoted on my foot to face him.
It was one of Jennifer’s bodyguards. In his early twenties, he was large, with a head of wild blond hair, athletic. His eyes shone yellow, catching the moonlight. His lips trembled, baring his teeth. Right, all the lights are on and he’s exhaling aggression with every breath. Adrenaline junkie. Bad choice for a bodyguard.
“We had the numbers on them. We could’ve taken them.”
“Make him sit,” I told Jennifer. “Or I will and he won’t like it.”
Jennifer’s expression was blank.
“We look like f**king cowards,” the blond snarled. “We should’ve . . .”
Desandra shot forward, grabbed the blond by his throat, and slammed him on the stone surface of the bridge. His back slapped the rock. Desandra’s voice was a ragged snarl. “Do not question the Consort! Do not shame your clan in front of your alpha!”
The blond gasped, trying to breathe.
One does nothing, the other does double. I didn’t know who was worse.
Desandra pulled the blond up to his feet and stared in his eyes, her face an inch from his. “Look at me.”
The man stared at her, his face shocked.
“Jennifer is lenient. Search my face; do you think I’m lenient?”
The blond swallowed. “No, Beta.”
“Do you want me to demonstrate that I’m not lenient?”
“No, Beta.”
“When you earn the right to question the Consort, you can speak. Until then, when she gives you an order, you shut your mouth and obey, or I’ll rip out your tongue. I had it done to me once and it takes six months to grow back. Are we clear?”
The blond nodded.
“Enough,” Jennifer said.
Desandra opened her hand and ducked her head at me. “Our apologies, Consort.”
“I don’t need you to apologize for me,” Jennifer said. “Watch yourself.”
Desandra’s spine went rigid for half a breath, then relaxed so fast I would’ve missed it if I wasn’t looking for it. She shrugged, looked down, and purred. “I’m sorry, Alpha.”
I didn’t have time for their games. “We have less than eighteen hours until Hugh d’Ambray and the People attack the Keep. Once war starts, it will be difficult to stop.”
The People and the Pack had never seen eye to eye, and both sides had plenty of idiots who thought they had something to prove.
Desandra shrugged off her jacket and turned her back to a male wolf. He pulled a knife out and sliced her back open. She bared her teeth for a tiny second. The bullet was probably still in her body.
“We have to prevent the war,” I said. “Mulradin’s body, thoughts?”
“The killer’s a shapeshifter,” Jim said. “Not a bear. They tend to crush. The body had punctures consistent with canine or feline teeth.”
“I agree.” I looked at Jennifer. I needed a consensus, because none of them would like what I was about to say. “What do you think?”
“It’s possible that it was a shapeshifter,” Jennifer said. “Someone outside the Pack. I can’t imagine any of our people doing it.”
“I got a good whiff of the body. It’s a wolf,” Desandra said. “One of ours.”
“You’re lying!” Jennifer spat.
Desandra shrugged. “Why would I lie? I recognize the scent. I smelled it before a couple of times, at the Keep and at the clan house. It’s not someone who is at the Keep often, but I know the scent and it’s one of ours.”
Anger and hate clawed at each other on Jennifer’s face. “Why are you doing this? What could you possibly gain from this?”
“I’m telling the truth,” Desandra said.
“This is one of your schemes, isn’t it? Not this time.”
The three wolves escorting Jennifer and the wolf render next to me simultaneously decided to look everywhere except at the two women. Behind them, Derek also pretended that nothing was happening. Ascanio rolled his eyes.
“Not this bloody time, do you hear me?” Jennifer’s voice spiked, picking up notes of hysteria. “No more plots, Desandra. No more Desandra Show.”
And Jennifer had just lost it in public. Awesome. Because that was what we really needed, to have this pissing match right this second in front of witnesses.
“Table it,” I said. “Back to Mulradin’s body.”
“Desandra’s right,” Robert said, his voice cold and precise.
We all turned to the alpha of the rats. He’d been so quiet, I had forgotten he was there.
“It’s a wolf,” he said. “I didn’t get a scent because the odor of blood was too thick, but I was close enough to see the wounds in detail. Mulradin had fought back. He must’ve grabbed at his attacker, because I saw fur stuck to his bloody hands. Wolf fur.”
Jennifer glared at him. It was like flicking a match at a glacier. Robert remained unperturbed.
“We need to find the killer before the deadline is up,” I said before she could freak out again. If we had the killer in custody, there was still a chance to defuse the situation.
“If he or she still lives,” Jim said.
Good point. If I were Hugh, I’d kill this wolf to make sure we couldn’t turn him or her over.
“And should we find this person, what will happen?” Robert said.
The question was asked in a mild tone, but I got the feeling a lot rode on how I answered.
“If the killer is apprehended, an investigation will be conducted within the Pack,” I said.
“And if found guilty?” Robert persisted.
“Robert, what are you really asking?”
Robert paused. “I’m asking about custody.”
“I have no intention of giving the People one of our Pack members for their burn-a-shapeshifter-alive party,” I said. “We don’t roll over when they stomp their feet. But we need to find whoever is responsible. We can’t act until we know what happened.”
“We need to examine the crime scene,” Jim said. “The body didn’t smell of wolfsbane.”
Wolfsbane was used to obscure the scent trail. Once a shapeshifter smelled it, even the best tracker would dissolve into sneezing fits. No wolfsbane meant a slight possibility that somewhere an intact crime scene waited for us and shapeshifters could read its scents like an open book.
“We don’t even know a crime scene exists,” Robert said. “They could’ve set it on fire.”
“No, it exists,” Barabas said.
“D’Ambray likes games,” Derek said. “He wants us to play.”
If there was a crime scene, where could it be? The blood on Mulradin’s body was fresh. “Desandra? Did you get an idea of how long he’s been dead?”
“I’d say less than two hours,” she said.
Jim nodded. “That sounds about right, but it would put Mulradin in the Casino at the time of death.”
My nose had six million olfactory receptors. A wolf’s nose had two hundred and eighty million. If Desandra said he had been dead a couple of hours, I was inclined to believe her, but there was no way a shapeshifter had walked into the Casino, murdered Mulradin, and walked out. I turned to Jim. “Are you sure he was in the Casino?”
“Yes,” Jim said. “Ghastek and Mulradin switch off supervising, so that one of them is at the Casino at all times. Ghastek was at the Conclave, so Mulradin had the evening shift. He wouldn’t have left the Casino.”
“Not necessarily,” Robert said quietly.
Jim turned to him.
“Two weeks ago I got a report that one of my people saw him outside when he was supposed to be on call,” the wererat said.
“Where?” I asked.
“The Warren,” Robert said. “My scout saw Mulradin go into a building, but was unable to follow up because he had a different objective that night.”
“And were you planning on sharing that with the class?” Jim asked.
“There are a number of things the class chose not to share with us,” Robert said.
Clearly there was some tension there. “Which building in the Warren?” I asked.
“The scout didn’t specify.”
That narrowed it down about as much as pointing out which of the haystacks had the needle hidden in it. When magic wrecked Atlanta, it had stomped on the Warren, crushing entire streets. Anyone who could have moved, did. Now the Warren consisted of slums, populated by the destitute, criminals, and street kids, and it was huge.
“Can we ask the scout to narrow it down?” I asked.
Robert looked slightly uncomfortable. “Yes. But he’s at an observation post.”
“Where?” Please don’t say in the People’s territory.
“The People’s territory.”
This was not my night.
“Phone line?” I asked.
Robert shook his head.
Of course. The phone probably wouldn’t have worked with the magic up anyway. “I’ll need a small strike team to go in with me to find the observation post.”
“No,” Jim said. “You can’t go.”
“Overruled,” I told him.
“Kate!”