They took off.
“What’s eating you?” Andrea asked.
“I had a fight with Curran.”
“What about?”
“He’s managing me.”
Andrea raised her eyebrows.
“He maneuvers events, taking away my choices until there is only one possible solution to a problem. It pisses me off.”
“That’s what alphas do.” Andrea grimaced. “I got a note from Aunt B last night.”
Warning, warning, spiked traps ahead. “And?”
“She wants to meet. For a ‘nice chat.’”
I knew exactly what this chat would be about. Andrea was a shapeshifter, and no shapeshifter could exist within Atlanta without becoming a member of the Pack’s furry horde. Before, Andrea was a member of the Order, and the boudas kept her secret. Now she was unattached. Andrea would have to make a choice: enter the Pack and become one of Aunt B’s boudas or move. After her childhood, Andrea would rather cut her arm off than become a bouda.
“I’m not going,” Andrea said suddenly.
Aunt B wouldn’t just let it go. Of all the alphas in the Pack, two gave me pause: Mahon, the Pack’s executioner and the head of Clan Heavy, and Aunt B. Screwing with Aunt B was like sticking your hands into a meat grinder. She was all sweetness and cookies, and then giant claws came out and people’s guts ended up as garlands on the chandelier.
“It’s a courtesy,” I told her. “She’s letting you come to her on your terms. You blow her off too many times, and she’ll have you brought to her.”
“I know.” Andrea locked her teeth. Right. No intelligent life there. Arguing about it would just make things worse.
The two shapeshifters trotted back and took their seats at the table.
I explained about Chernobog, Adam’s last name, and the fact that he likely had ties to a Russian community.
Andrea frowned. “A sacrifice gives the priest a magic boost.”
I nodded. “It only lasts a couple seconds, but yes.”
“Could he grab Adam and his doohickey, and teleport out?”
Now there was a thought. “If he was a really, really powerful volhv, probably. But why would the volhvs need Adam?”
“I don’t get it,” Derek said. “Why can’t we just go to talk to them directly?”
“When I was a merc, I took a job to guard a man. He had stolen something from the volhvs, and I kept them from killing him. They won’t talk to me or anyone associated with me.” I paused to make sure I had their attention. “Volhvs throw around heavy-duty magic. Once we start asking questions, they will be on us like white on rice. We need a security protocol in place.”
I looked at Derek. Start earning your keep, boy wonder.
He pushed away from the edge of the desk. “From this point on, we’re on high alert. We leave together, we arrive together. This office is a small fortress.” Derek pointed at the door and looked at Ascanio. “While in the office, that door stays locked. The back door is reinforced with a metal grate. That door stays locked and barred at all times as well. We do not open the doors unless we know the person on the other side and they smell right. If you have to leave, let someone know where you’re going and when you will be back, unless it’s an emergency.”
The phone rang. I picked it up.
“Kate?” Ksenia’s voice said. “Evdokia says meet her at John White Park. I’d run, not walk, if I were you.”
“Thanks.” I hung up. “I have an audience with the witches.”
“We divide and conquer.” Andrea rose. “Derek, you and I need to dig into de Harven’s background. His house, his neighbors, history, everything we can get.”
“What about me?” Ascanio asked.
“You hold the fort,” I told him.
“But . . .”
“This is the point where you say, ‘Yes, Alpha,’ ” Derek said.
Ascanio shot him a look that was pure murder. “Yes, Alpha.”
This wasn’t going to end well, I just knew it.
CHAPTER 9
IN ANOTHER LIFETIME, JOHN WHITE PARK HAD housed a golf course flanked by a nice middle-class neighborhood of brick houses and arbitrarily curving streets. The houses still survived, but the park had gone to hell some time ago. Dense underbrush flanked the crumbling asphalt road, and past it tall ashes and poplars reached their way to the sky, vying for space with mast-straight pines.
The pre-Shift maps put the park at around forty acres. The recent Pack map, which was the envy of every law enforcement official in the area and of which I was now a proud owner due to being the “Consort,” put it closer to ninety. The trees had eaten a chunk of the subdivision south of Beecher Street and chomped their way through Greenwood Cemetery.
Ninety acres of dense woods was a lot of ground to cover.
I turned the corner. A large duck sat in the middle of the street. To the left of the duck, a deep ditch took up half of the road. No way through.
The magic was up and my Jeep made enough noise to give a thunder god a complex. You’d think the stupid bird would move. I honked the horn. The duck stared at me, ruffling its brown feathers.
Honk-honk. Hoooonk!
Nothing.
“Move, you silly bird.”
The duck remained unimpressed. I should get out more. This mated life made me too soft. I couldn’t even scare a duck off the road.
I got out of the Jeep and walked over to the duck. “Scoot!”
The bird gave me an evil stare.
I nudged her gently with my boot. The duck rose and flopped on my foot. The bill pinched my jeans and the bird tried to pull me to the left. One of us was nuts and it wasn’t me.
“This isn’t funny.”
The bird turned left and let out a single loud quack.
“What is it? Did Timmy fall down a well?”
“Quack!”
I took a few steps forward and saw a narrow gap in the wall of green. A path, diving deep into the park. I peered at the forest. It didn’t give off an “I’ll kill you with my trees” vibe the way Sibley did, but it didn’t look welcoming either.
The underbrush was too dense for a duck flight. Hard terrain to cross on foot, especially if you have to waddle.
“How am I supposed to follow you in there, you demented bird? You can’t fly through that wood. Unless you’re planning on dropping ten pounds . . .”
The duck shivered. Feathers crawled, sinking back into flesh, folding on themselves. My stomach lurched. Dense fuzz sprouted as the duck’s body flowed, reshaping itself. The blob that used to be duck stretched one last time and snapped into a small brown bunny.
I closed my mouth with a click.
The bunny swiped some nonexistent dust from his nose with both paws and hopped down the path.
I went back to the Jeep, shut off the engine, and chased the duck-rabbit down the path into the dense thicket of the John White woods.
THE FOREST TEEMED WITH LIFE. TINY SQUIRRELS dashed up and down the trees. A ruffed grouse shot from the forest floor. Somewhere to the left a feral pig grunted. Three deer watched me pick my way down the path from a safe distance. I sank into the quiet measured gait I used when walking through the woods: quiet and deceptively unhurried. The little rabbit fell in step and scampered down by my side.
A bowstring snapped. I jerked to the side and jumped behind an oak. The rabbit crouched by my feet, shivering.
I leaned out just enough to see. An arrow sprouted from the ground where my foot had been a second ago. The angle was high. I looked up. Across the path, a man crouched in an old tree, poised in a spot where the trunk split into two massive branches. Young, mid- to late twenties. Tattered jeans stained with brown and green, plain brown T-shirt. Looked like Army issue. Hair cut short. The branches obscured his face and most of his chest. No place to sink a throwing knife.
When unsure of the stranger’s intentions, the best policy is to open a meaningful dialogue. “Hey, dickhead! Who taught you to shoot, Louis Braille? That arrow missed me by a mile.”