“Olfric the Hand was the last Bard, and he was murdered by Calico Jack Rackham and his pirate crew in 1718.” We both looked over our shoulders at the mention of pirates, who had strongholds in North Africa guarded, so it was said, by badass magic and wicked beasts. They’d never been a national security threat, so we hadn’t dealt with them directly. But we’d heard horror stories, and I sure as hel didn’t want to take any of them on. Especial y when they’d made it part of their code to exterminate the Bardish from the face of the earth.
I whispered, “Why would you want to be a Bard?”
“As a warlock I’m at the top of my game. Musical y I’m final y pul ing it together.” He lowered his voice.
“Sometimes when I’m playing, I think I can hear the universe singing back to me.” He made a pil ar of his fists on the table and rested his chin on them. Staring at the grouping of purple candles at its center he said, “That’s real y why I’m here. Because I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“What?”
He turned his head, letting his cheek rest on his hand. I watched his dark lashes sweep against his cheeks as he closed his eyes, wincing against the admission. “Nobody ever stood up to me before. For obvious reasons. I mean, we destroyed a fucking house.”
I nodded. “I was just thinking that we should probably be banned from property that has any value. At al .” Tiny smile that dropped right off his lips as he said,
“You were right. I needed to stop whining and start working.” He sat up and glared. “I stil think I’d have been a better man if I’d been born black.” His eyes softened. “But that’s probably because the only people who showed any kindness to me when I was a kid were a Jamaican named Tel er Keene and Skinny Day, who was African American.” I nodded. “Where’d you grow up?”
He looked through the curtain-framed opening to the sparkling blue of the fountain, then up to the ornate metalworked balconies. “Louisiana. First in a Catholic home for orphans. Then I spent a couple of years in juvie.” He glanced at me. “I may have been a kil er even longer than you.”
What do you say to that? Especial y when the guy revealing al these intimate details once tried to col apse a roof on your head?
“Why are you tel ing me this?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I’ve got a pretty thick skul . Skinny always said I was so hardheaded that I could drive nails with my eyebrows. But I’m not fool enough to turn my back on the few people brave enough to throw an honest opinion under my feet.” Again with the smile. “Especial y when it comes with the offer of a new instrument.”
“Never let it be said that I’m above bribery.” He swung his legs onto the couch, crossing them in front of him so he could face me as he spoke. “Cassandra said Vayl’s got a pretty serious problem.” My bottom lip started to tremble, so I bit it. “Yeah. About that. We haven’t been able to discover what could’ve caused it.”
He nodded. “During my flight I thought about al the dead ends you’ve been trying to make into highways. And then I realized there was one road you hadn’t considered.” He draped an arm across the couch’s metal backrest.
“Maybe this is a curse.”
I shook my head. “Curses are personal. My understanding is that you need the victim’s hair and clothing, stuff like that, to pul it off.” Sterling said, “That’s true. They’re also al about timing, meaning they can only be cast in special circumstances.
For instance, has Vayl been in New Orleans in the past three months?”
“No.”
“Has he kil ed an innocent or cursed someone else recently?”
“No to both.”
“Has he—”
“Wait a minute! Wait, wait, wait…” I rubbed my forehead, trying to pul a scene I’d wanted to forget forever back into focus. “About two weeks ago we were in Scotland. My mom escaped from hel to—wel , it doesn’t real y matter what she wanted with me. But before the dogs dragged her back down, Vayl whispered something in her ear that real y flipped her out. And then Satan’s Enforcer”— who’s trapped in my head right now, but I’m sure as hell not admitting that to you—“he said, ‘So it shal be.’ And he took her away. Does that sound like it might’ve been a curse to you?”
Sterling had started to straighten up and sit forward halfway through my story. He nodded and said, “When someone lays down a curse, they leave themselves vulnerable to the same kind of attack. It’s not a wide window. In fact, it starts to close right away, and by the time the moon changes again they’re safe. But if an enemy can attack that person within the month, they can do massive damage.”
I stared at the candles. Was it just my imagination, or had they begun to melt in the heat of my gaze? “The only person who knew about that curse before today was the Enforcer. Brude. Who, we just discovered on our last mission, has ties with the Sol of the Valencian Weres. Have you heard of him?”
“Just through office memos. His name’s Roldan, right?”
“Yeah, but he’s not just some superalpha who’s in the mood to throw his weight around. He’s so old that he met Vayl for the first time during the same era his mind is currently stuck in.” I looked up at Sterling. “Do you believe in coincidences?”
“Not when they click like a seat belt. How does Roldan feel about Vayl?”
“A week ago I’d have said he was just some creeper who’d backed a bunch of fanatical gnomes that were trying to gut NASA. I never knew about Vayl’s history with him until the end of the mission. And even then I’d have guessed Roldan was only after what he got when we were able to stop the Australian gnomes—you know, a major reputation boost among the moon-changers. But now I’d guess he’s probably hating like a reality-show reject, and it’s al to do with this ward Vayl had in the late 1700s named Helena.” Sterling raised a finger. “We also know he kil ed Ethan Mreck.”
Ethan had been one of us, a Were assassin assigned to infiltrate Roldan’s pack. News of his death had reached us shortly before Pete was kil ed. Sterling must’ve been thinking along the same lines because he went on. “Pete’s kil er was clawed too.”
I shivered, almost like I could feel the tips of those razor-sharp spikes brush against my neck. “That’s enough for me. You want to know what I think?”
Sterling’s eyes had begun to blaze. “Hit me.”
“I’m glad you don’t mean that literal y. There’s this guy named Yousef—never mind.” I took a deep breath. “I think Roldan was moving to fil the power void that was left when we took out the Raptor and Floraidh Halsey lost her coven.
He kil ed Ethan and Pete in a largely successful bid to bring down our department, which was the biggest threat to his safety. Take us out, he hamstrings his worst enemies. In addition, somewhere along the way, he learned that Vayl was working for Pete. I don’t know how or when. The chronology doesn’t real y matter. The point is that he’s chronology doesn’t real y matter. The point is that he’s created this perfectly geometric plan, which probably has him bouncing like a kid on a trampoline, where he gains power over al Weres by taking his revenge on Vayl.” Sterling shoved his plate away from the edge of the table so he could tap at its top, almost as if he was playing the notes of a song as he spoke. “But this kind of curse? It’s mondo magic. Only a few people can pul off the kind of mind-fuck Vayl’s experiencing right now.”