“Jason,” a voice croaked, and Talus and I both turned to look at the Enforcer.
“Rest,” Oberis murmured at him. “This isn’t as easy as it looks.”
“Have to,” Michael forced himself to speak. It looked painful for him to be speaking. “Winters—killing Enforcers.”
Killing Enforcers? Why would Winters be killing his own people? I knelt beside Oberis, focusing on the badly injured man he was trying to heal.
“MacDonald...is in chains,” Michael forced out. “We tried...to free him. Honor...our oaths.” He coughed, spewing blood over Oberis’s white suit. The fae lord ignored it—ignored everything around him. The white light shining between his hands and Michael grew stronger, and strain lines began to appear on the old Seelie’s face.
“No chance,” the Enforcer concluded. “Any who won’t join...he kills. Can’t...stop him. Can’t...kill him... MacDonald...forged his own...doom.”
Michael’s gaze locked on mine, his eyes clear and his voice suddenly unbroken for a moment.
“Stop him,” he pleaded. “I have fai...”
The light from Oberis’s hands faded as the badly burnt Enforcer slumped back on the grass. I looked at the Seelie Lord. Lines were drawn deep in his ancient face, and for the first time since I’d met him, Oberis showed every year of his centuries of life as he shook his head in silence.
“I have to go,” I told him simply. “The Queen commanded.”
“We all have to go,” another voice interjected, and I looked up to see Enli join us, the other Alphas walking behind him. “My fellows have pleaded and elected for me to be our new Speaker,” Grandfather told us.
“As Speaker, it is my duty to uphold the Covenant,” he continued. “And our Covenant is with Kenneth MacDonald, not the Enforcers—and Kenneth MacDonald is in danger. We must act.”
Oberis rose to his feet once more, the strain lines dropping from his face as he did. By the time the fae lord reached his full height, every hint of a mar in the perfection of his ancient and ageless face was gone.
“Winters is no easy foe,” he said quietly. “MacDonald bound many magics into that man—he is more of a construct than a man now, and no mortal weapon can harm him.”
“No shifter can face him,” Enli agreed simply. “But we can rescue the Enforcers in danger, eliminate the remaining vampires—we can clear the way.”
“I am the only man who can face Winters,” Oberis told us all. “Eric may be able to help,” he continued, and pointed at me, “and this one has no choice about coming.
“If your shifters can deal with the situation outside Kenneth’s Tower,” he said to Enli, “my Court and I will deal with the Tower itself—and I will deal with Gerard Winters.”
The old shifter Speaker considered for a moment, and then nodded. “Done and done,” he said simply. “Let’s go.”
THE NEXT FEW minutes descended into an apparent chaos as Enli promptly took charge, organizing the shifters into hunting packs. Oberis and Talus spent most of the same time frame on their cell phones, calling and coordinating the few gentry and greater fae of the city who weren’t already there.
After about fifteen minutes, Mary made a point of rejoining me where I stood by the two noble fae. She smiled and slipped into my arms, pressing a quick kiss to my lips.
“We’re splitting up and heading out,” she told me. “I’m a pretty good tracker, so I’m going with the team that’s hitting up downtown to see if we can follow the vampires from where you guys ran them off.”
“They may have fled through the sewers,” I warned her. “They had tunnels leading into them.”
Mary smiled sadly at me. “Unfortunately, that only means following them will smell much worse. I can track through that.”
I kissed her.
“Be careful,” I told her. “And good luck.”
“You be careful,” she responded. “I have big nasty shifters with me; vampires aren’t going to be an issue. You’re going to the Tower and hunting down Winters.”
“I have Oberis,” I told her, glancing over at the fae lord. “And no choice.”
“Yeah, that last is the part I have an issue with,” she replied, and sighed as an SUV rolled up beside us. “I have to go. Be safe, stay alive,” she ordered.
“I will,” I promised her, and watched her jump into the green truck before it shot away onto the back streets. I turned back to Oberis and Talus to see that Eric and the handful of other fae had joined them. More cars made their way out behind me as Calgary’s shifter Clans scattered to hunt down the feeders in the city.
“Everyone is heading for the Tower,” Talus said quietly. “It’s time we did the same.”
“You need a better weapon,” Oberis told me as I rejoined the group. “Eric,” he said sharply to the Keeper.
“What are you looking at me for?” the gnome protested as I followed Tamara back toward her car.
“You were a War Smith before you were a Keeper,” the fae lord told him dryly. “You have something in your portable closet.”
The gnome Keeper rolled his eyes and reached into thin air, producing a weapon that I thought was a rifle for a moment, until I realized it was way too bulky. A large magazine protruded halfway down its length, and the almost visibly sawed-off barrel led me to realize it was actually a shotgun of some kind. Orichalcum runes were traced over its remaining barrel and stock, glittering in the winter sunlight.
“This started life as an Italian SPAS-15 automatic shotgun,” Eric told me as he passed me the weapon. “Modified to fire full spread, no choke. Infrared laser sight—you can see it, but mundanes like the Enforcers shouldn’t. Enchanted to reduce weight, absorb recoil, and pull ammo from a pocket storage space.”
“It pulls ammo from where?” I asked as I hefted the weapon. If the gnome’s magic was reducing its weight significantly, I’m not sure I wanted to have to heft the weapon without it—it was easily ten pounds as it was.
“That ammo box is linked to a storage space like the one I carry with me,” Eric told me, offhandedly explaining how he kept pulling objects from thin air. “It’s not infinite ammo, but if you manage to use up the two thousand twelve-gauge shells I shoved in there when I built the gun, you have bigger issues than needing to reload. The gun is disgustingly illegal in Canada; don’t be seen with it,” he finished.
“Good, thank you, Eric,” Oberis said briskly. “Talus, can you ride with Tamara and coordinate everyone else by phone? Jason, Eric, you’re with me.”
At this point, I joined the Keeper in following Oberis to his vehicle: a shining silver Lexus SUV. We were apparently the only ones riding with the lord.
Eric and I had barely finished getting into the car before Oberis floored the accelerator, glancing over at me once we hit the road.
“You two are both Vassals of the Queen,” he said bluntly. “I know She has given you orders, and your fealty requires you to fulfill them by saving MacDonald. I intend to save him, and you two are here to bear witness.”
The fae lord pulled a blatantly illegal left-hand turn on a red light, neatly slipping into the traffic going perpendicular to us without a scratch, though several dozen horns sounded.
“I am the only person in this city with a chance at facing Gerard Winters,” he said simply. “What Talus knows without my saying, and what no one else will hopefully realize, is that every other greater fae and gentry in the city will basically be a distraction—we are the real attack.
“You two must make sure I make it to Winters,” he told us. “He is unlikely to be far from MacDonald, so once he and I are tied up, I expect you to rescue the Wizard. However Winters has prevented the Magus from destroying him once he acted on his treachery, I hope it is removable—if I fail, allowing the Magus to deal with his own garbage is our only hope.”