“I’d love to see the place, but I have to get back to our dispatch,” I told him. “Like you said, the city is a bit of a wreck, but the deliveries must go through.”
“‘Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,’” Langley quoted at me, and then laughed at my somewhat blank return look. “I guess that’s the US post service, isn’t it? And it’s just an inscription anyway, if a totally awesome one. Powers speed you; drive safe.”
“And may They guard your hold,” I answered automatically before I realized this theoretically mortal human had just used an inhuman blessing. He winked at me and buzzed the door to allow me out.
“Like I said, we work for some amazing folk,” he told me, and allowed me to flee to my courier truck, where I found myself huddling in on myself for warmth as it warmed up and I thought.
There were humans who knew about the inhuman world—I was pretty sure that was part of how we kept our presence secret—but I’d assumed most were like Bill. Bill knew something was going on and was not unwilling to help if favors were called in, but he didn’t know or want to know everything.
Langley was clearly sufficiently “in the know” to either know or guess that I wasn’t human, and to know a blessing most inhumans would respond to instantly. I guess even our world needed its books and pamphlets, and a small print press would be the perfect size for the sort of quantities we would need.
I started the truck into motion, both intrigued and somewhat disturbed by the thought of a world that had never even occurred to me existed—one of humans recruited into supporting the inhumans and given enough knowledge to be able to do so.
It was a surprisingly strange thought.
13
THE REST of the day passed in the calm frenzy inevitable when the roads were horrible and your job mainly involved driving from place to place. I passed at least five separate accidents, but thanks to my fae reflexes and the high quality of the delivery truck’s tires, I made it through my delivery routes an hour or so late but perfectly safe.
I returned home through now mostly clear streets to an email from Oberis, letting me know that he was coordinating several people, and that I should come to the Court tomorrow for five PM. I dashed off a quick reply letting him know I would be there, and moved on to other emails.
The second of these was from Tarvers.
I know you are forbidden to contact us, he began, but nobody has been stupid enough to tell me I can’t contact you.
We’ve dug into the files in Sigridsen’s computer. They’re all majorly encrypted and some pile of gibberish my tech boys fed me to explain why it’s taking so long to get any useful data out of them. From what they have got, we’ve managed to track down two of the cabal’s members—both outsiders brought into the city.
Neither was overly cooperative and both are now dead. One, however, had a quantity of lifesblood in his apartment—if you don’t know what that is, suffice to say it has an ingredient that is highly controlled by the Enforcers.
We are backtracking the feeder’s movements and dealings as best we can, and we think we have some clues as to where he got the ’blood. I’m going to see them followed up, and I will email you again once we know more.
I will be in touch. And call Mary. If anyone counts that as contacting the Clan, I’ll claw them into silence.
I reread the email twice. At least someone was getting somewhere productive with this whole mess. The fact that the shifters had found lifesblood confirmed the suspicion Eric and I had shared. Hopefully, they could track it back to its source.
If we could identify the specific Enforcers who had broken the Covenants and provided heartstone to the vampires, we could get the Magus to punish them. That kind of proof would shake up the whole city, but it would also see the guilty punished—which would probably lead us to the cabal and whatever conspiracy against MacDonald the Queen wanted me to pursue.
Reading the email a fourth time, I decided to obey his last instructions and called Mary. The phone rang several times, and I was beginning to fear I’d either called at a really bad time or she didn’t want to talk to me after all.
Then she answered the phone.
“Hi!” she said breathlessly. “Sorry, you caught me in the middle of something.”
“I can call back later,” I offered, suddenly worried I’d caught her with a guy or something. That thought triggered a spark of an anger and unexpected spasm in my chest.
“No, I was, um, just thinking about you, actually,” Mary said awkwardly. “I wasn’t sure I’d ever hear from you again; Tarvers told me you’d been banned from contacting the Clan.”
Not quite sure what she meant by that, I answered her second comment.
“Tarvers told me to contact you,” I told her. “He said he’d ‘claw into silence’ anyone who counted it as contacting the Clan.”
She chuckled quietly. “I guess he likes you,” she said. “I think he threatened to claw the last guy I was interested in into pieces if he didn’t go away.”
I swallowed. Somehow, the concept of Tarvers as overprotective patriarch of the women of his Clan was...very plausible.
“I do have to ask one question,” Mary said, and her voice was suddenly colder. “Were you only seeing me to use me for information?”
“No,” I said instantly. “That you could help me made it easier to work up the nerve to do so, but it was hardly my only reason. And I never lied to you,” I added.
“So Tarvers said.” Her voice was suddenly warm again. “He said you looked him in the eye and said that, but that you couldn’t explain why not.”
“I have orders from a fae Court,” I said simply. “Just not Oberis. I really can’t say more.”
“I guess,” she answered, and was quiet for a moment. “I’m still pissed at you.”
“I don’t suppose I can blame you,” I said after a moment, feeling small.
We were both quiet for a long moment, and then a hunch struck me.
“Can I buy you dinner to make it up?”
“Good boy,” she said with a soft laugh. “Yes, yes, you can. There’s an Indian restaurant—Namskar’s—about fifteen minutes’ walk north of you. Meet me there in an hour?”
“Tonight?” I asked, surprised by her sudden shift in mood.
“Why not? I had no other plans!”
I mentally shrugged.
“In an hour, then,” I agreed. “I need to change; see you then?”
“Me too,” she said. “See you.”
Shaking my head, I hung up the phone and went looking for some of my nicer clothes.
I’D DONE a little bit of clothes shopping since being employed and collecting a few payouts for various services, so I managed to come up with nice slacks and a dress shirt to wear underneath my heavy winter jacket.
I quickly showered, shaved and threw on said slacks and shirt before heading out. It was likely to be faster to walk than wait for a bus, but it was a chilly night. Walking briskly through the foggy dark lit by streetlights and car headlights, I managed to stay somewhat not-frozen until I reached the red brick building that contained the restaurant Mary had suggested.
Stepping inside, I found the restaurant was quiet enough that I quickly secured a table for two and managed to shed my winter coat. Looking less like the Calgary winter default of a puffy marshmallow, I settled into my chair and ordered a tea while I waited.