“What the hell is that thing?” he said to Grant.
“Stage prop,” Grant said. “Among other things.”
“Shit,” Ben said, then buried his face in my hair and took a long, comforting breath. I giggled, a tad hysterically.
The rest of the Band of Tiamat approached, stalking like cats but not attacking, fearful maybe, as if unsure of what they’d seen. Grant moved to the end of the stage and addressed them, his voice calm but tired.
“The show’s over. Leave. Scatter. Or follow your masters into that place.”
The half dozen lycanthropes who were left looked at us, looked at each other. Without their show, their alpha, their context, they just looked like young men in jeans and T-shirts. Good-looking, but maybe a bit lost. Would they be able to make it on their own, without their pack? Without their show and their cult? Were they thinking the same thing?
The answer must have been yes, at least to the first one who turned and walked away. One by one, the others did likewise, glancing over their shoulders, resignation settling over their features.
The show was over, and maybe, just maybe some of them were relieved. Maybe this was for the best.
Eyes wide and shocky, Peter emerged from backstage. The theater was quiet now, as if nothing had happened. The box was still, and the scent of fire had faded. The only clues that there’d been a fight were Ben and me, hugging tightly, and Grant, who sat down on the edge of the stage, his shoulders slumping as he ran a hand through his hair.
“It’s over?” Peter said.
Grant looked up at him; his smile was tired, but he was smiling. “It’s over. Though I think it may be time to retire that particular prop.”
It wasn’t over. This battle was over, but Roman—Dux Bellorum—was still out there, scheming and plotting, a major player in the Long Game. This cult had been one of his pawns. He’d tried to use it to get a wedge into Denver, and he’d failed. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d let a defeat like that pass.
For me and my city, this wasn’t over by a long shot.
Epilogue
This time, I was excited about going to visit Cormac in prison.
This wasn’t to say I usually hated going. Hate wasn’t the right word. Seeing how Cormac was doing, live and in person, on a regular basis, was reassuring. But the situation was uncomfortable. The prison, even the visitors’ room, smelled like being trapped to the Wolf side. I hated to think of Cormac being trapped, and he looked terrible in orange.
I brought a file folder with me and, along with Ben, grinned at Cormac through the glass.
“You found something,” he said.
“I did,” I said.
“Which means, I assume, that the demon problem is all fixed and everything’s okay.”
“Would I be smiling if it weren’t?” I said.
“Sorry,” Ben said. “We forgot to tell you. The genie is bottled and everything’s okay.”
Cormac pointed. “See, I know when the problems are solved even when you don’t tell me, because you just stop talking about them. And did you say genie?”
“Can I tell you about your executions now?” I said quickly, opening the folder. He leaned forward, interested. “If you take in the twenty or so years before and after 1900, there were about half a dozen women executed. There was only one woman executed in 1900.”
“What was her name?” Cormac said.
“Amelia Parker. Her story’s a little different.” I even managed to dig up a few scraps of information here and there, a footnote in an old history book, a couple of hundred-year-old newspaper articles copied off microfiche. I talked like I was delivering a lecture. “Lady Amelia Parker. British, born 1877, the daughter of a minor nobleman. By all accounts, she was a bit of a firebrand. Traveled the world by herself, which just wasn’t done in those days. She was a self-taught archeologist, linguist, folklorist. She collected knowledge, everything from local folk cures to lost languages. She has her own page in a book about Victorian women adventurers.”
Something lit Cormac’s eyes, some recognition, familiarity. He knew something. I stopped myself from calling him on it and demanding that he tell me, because I wasn’t finished with Amelia’s story yet.
“She came to Colorado to follow an interest in Native American culture and lore but was convicted of murdering a young woman in Manitou Springs. The newspaper report was pretty sensationalist, even for 1900. Said something about blood sacrifice. There were patterns on the floor, candles, incense, the works. Like something out of Faust. The newspaper’s words, not mine. She was convicted of murder and hanged. Right here, in fact. Or at least, in this area, at the prison that was standing here at the time.”
Cormac leaned forward. “The victim. How did she die? Did it say what happened to her?”
“Her throat was cut.”
He chewed his lip and stared off into space.
“What is it?” He didn’t say anything, and I pressed. “You know something. This all makes sense to you. Why? How?”
Finally, he shook his head. “I’m not sure. May be nothing. But she’s got a name. It’s not all in my head.”
“What isn’t?”
He looked at me, square on. “She didn’t kill that girl. She was trying to find out who did. What did.”
I blinked. “What do you mean what?”
“Never mind,” he said, leaning back and looking away. “I’ll tell you when I know more.”
“Why is she important?” I said. “She’s been dead for over a hundred years.”
His smile quirked. “And you really think that’s the end of it? You’ve been telling ghost stories for years. Are you going to sit here now and tell me it isn’t possible?”
For once, I kept my mouth shut.
Ben leaned forward and smirked. “She just doesn’t like the idea that someone else is having adventures without her.”
“I’ll have you know I’m looking forward to a good long adventure-free streak from here out,” I said.
They chuckled. No, actually, they were doubled over and turning red in the face with laughter. At me.
“A month,” Cormac said finally, wheezing. “I bet you don’t go a month without getting into trouble.”
“How are we defining trouble?” I whined, irate. “Are we talking life-or-death trouble or pissing-off-the-boss trouble? Hey, stop laughing at me!”
Which only made them laugh harder, of course. I growled.
Ben straightened and got serious. “I’m not taking that bet.” Cormac shrugged as if to say, oh, well.
I closed the folder. “I could try to mail this to you, but I’m not sure it would get past the censors.”
“Just hang on to it for me,” he said.
“Right,” I said.
We had a whole box of stuff waiting for when he got out. A whole world waiting.
A couple of months later, Paradox PI broadcast an entire episode on the Band of Tiamat and its aftermath. Peter dug up all kinds of dirt on the Band of Tiamat and their King of Beasts cover operation, including evidence that the group had been quietly murdering werewolves for almost a decade. They did a class job on the episode, bringing in experts with opinions on all sides of the debate. What could have been an exploitative show featuring fire and mayhem ended up being a fairly reasoned documentary on spells, djinn, and what happens when magic goes awry. Which wasn’t to say they didn’t air plenty of footage of flaming chaos.
Some skeptics still claimed that we’d staged the whole thing. I didn’t care, because the djinn was gone and Denver was safe. And we got in a big old plug for The Midnight Hour.
I also forwarded all the data to my contacts at the NIH’s Center for the Study of Paranatural Biology. Let those guys see if they could figure it out. Did a being made of fire even have biology?
We had a party at the refurbished and open-for-business New Moon when the episode broadcast. Rented a couple of big-screen TVs, served up lots of beer and pizza. Even my parents and Cheryl and her family came. I kind of wished they hadn’t, since I’d have to suffer my mother’s appalled expression when she realized what was really going on during those weeks. Maybe I could convince her that we’d staged the whole thing and hadn’t really been in danger. Enough skeptics out there were already claiming it.