Kelly Meding - Wrong Side of Dead

He was quiet a moment, then looked at me with a familiar and comforting expression of sheer determination. “You’re right.”

We left the apartment as we found it, careful to wipe the few surfaces we’d touched. Without the protection of the brass (a hilarious concept, now that I knew just what the brass had been), we needed to be extracautious about not leaving fingerprints. Our report on the apartment was greeted with similar reactions of surprise and dread from our companions in the SUV.

“I don’t get it,” Milo said. “If all the Fey want is mass chaos and to see humans and vampires and Therians fighting one another, why all the subterfuge? They’re insanely powerful.”

“But they are also, by their very nature, pacifists,” Marcus said. “They suggest and whisper in your ear, and they provide certain means, as they’ve done for centuries, without direct interference. They will not raise their hands to strike directly, nor will they order someone to do it for them.”

“So they have both the ability and the desire to see this city in ruins, but they won’t just do it because … they’re too nice?”

“Something like that. Sprites could no more raise their hands in violence to me than you could shift into a jaguar.”

Milo’s face screwed up into an epic frown, and he turned his head to glare out his window. Marcus reached over and gave the younger man’s shoulder a tentative squeeze. Milo impressed me by not shrugging off his touch.

“So option one was a bust,” I said. It was four o’clock. Three hours and counting. “Now what?”

“While you were inside,” Kismet said, “Reilly came through with some information on Matthew Goodson.”

“Alias?”

“Yep. Reilly stumbled across the name in his earliest research into the city’s vampires. He has a surveillance photo of Goodson meeting with an unidentified vampire female, and he’s traced him to an herbal tea shop in Mercy’s Lot owned by a man named—”

“Brutus Longfellow,” Wyatt said. His fists were clenched in his lap, his eyes narrowed.

I knew that name. “Why do I know that name?”

“He’s a mage I’ve done business with before.” A low, deep growl filled the SUV. “Bastard.”

Then I got it. “The invisibility spell.”

Wyatt had traded with Brutus for the enchanted orange crystal that briefly rendered me invisible to the eye, so that I could attend Alex’s funeral service. I never met Brutus, but I knew that Wyatt had done business with him in the past for various things. I guess Brutus didn’t discriminate with his customers.

“Old World Teas,” Wyatt said. “It’s in Mercy’s Lot, corner of Adler Road and Cottage Place.”

The drive took less than ten minutes. Cottage Place was a block north of Wharton Street, and Adler Road intersected it two blocks east of the Black River in a busy little slice of the Lot popular with college students and wannabe hippies. About six blocks farther east, my old neighborhood crept up like a dirty little secret. Lined with loft apartments and dozens of shops and unusual restaurants that sold everything from used records to chipotle ice cream, the trendy area was bustling with business this Saturday afternoon.

Old World Teas was situated in a narrow building between a beeswax candle shop and a tattoo parlor, with a simple, painted-wood sign the size of a mailbox. If you weren’t looking for it, you’d probably wander past it. A parking spot didn’t look likely, so Kismet drove half a block down and stopped.

I climbed out with Wyatt, Phin, and Marcus. The SUV pulled away.

A trio of girls sitting in an outdoor café giggled and pointed at us, and it took me a moment to realize they were admiring my male companions. All three were incredibly handsome in their own ways—something I probably didn’t stop to appreciate often enough.

Wyatt led the way back down the sidewalk. We followed single file, with Marcus in the rear. We didn’t have time to plan this carefully, and none of us knew what to expect from Brutus. So Wyatt barged inside the shop door, which rang with the jingle of a happy bell.

The shop was long and narrow, with polished wood shelves lining both walls and filled with dozens of jars of teas. Two small tables with mismatched chairs filled the front window, and a three-foot counter sported an antique register, an antique balance, and an electric kettle. Teacups hung on hooks behind the counter. The entire place had an air of magic, rippling just below the surface like water trapped in the desert. Just waiting for someone to tap into its potential.

A teenager was browsing a row of teas halfway down the shop. He saw us and left, either assuming we were cops or intimidated by the glares he was likely receiving. The bell dinged as the door shut.

“Be right there,” a voice bellowed from the far rear. I noted the beaded curtain, and what was probably a storeroom beyond it.

Marcus locked the front door and turned over the Out to Lunch sign.

Wyatt didn’t wait. He stormed down the length of the shop. A shadow moved behind the beads and a meaty hand reached through to brush them aside. Wyatt grabbed the hand and yanked Brutus into the shop, hard enough to send the larger man crashing into a shelf of teapots. Several broke; Brutus yelped.

“There’s cash in the register,” Brutus said.

Snarling, Wyatt crowded in and grabbed the front of Brutus’s shirt, making sure Brutus got a good look at his old client. Brutus went pasty white. His lips parted and his eyes widened. I pulled my gun and took a position opposite the pair, giving me a good line of sight on both men—just in case one of them did something stupid. Phin and Marcus flanked me.

“Mother and Earth, Truman, what happened to you?” Brutus asked.

“Seen anything with eyes like this lately?” Wyatt said.

Brutus swallowed hard.

“I smell them,” Marcus said.

“Go,” I said.

He and Phin disappeared behind the beaded curtain. Brutus started to protest. Wyatt shoved him hard against the shelves.

“You sold a sunscreen to the vampires three years ago on behalf of a human named Walter Thackery,” Wyatt said.

Brutus shifted from surprised to annoyed in a single breath. The magic around us felt denser, as though it was crowding in. Our resident mage was not a happy guy anymore. “Yes, I did,” he said.

“Why?”

“I’m a businessman, Truman. I’ve done jobs for a lot of people in the thirty years since I opened this shop, yourself included. I stay in business and I stay alive because I keep my blessed nose out of things and don’t rat on my clients.”

I snorted. “Which means he paid you a lot of money.”

Brutus tried to look at me, which earned him a firm shake from Wyatt. “Money buys monthlong vacations in warm, tropical climates.”

“Money also signs death warrants for entire races of living beings,” Wyatt snapped. Even from his profile, I saw the solid silver color of his eyes. His canines had grown just enough to hang below his upper lip—far enough for Brutus to notice the change.

“What in the name of Mother Earth happened to you?”

Wyatt bared his teeth. “Werewolves.”

“Werewolves don’t exist.”

“Try telling that to the one who bit me. Are they here?”

“Are who here?”

Another hard shake sent a ceramic teapot shattering to the floor. “The Lupa. Teenagers. They work for Thackery.”

Brutus started to shake his head, then stopped. Thought about something. “Wait, those kids were werewolves?”

“They were here? You saw them?” I asked.

“A few hours ago. They paid me a grand to babysit a pair of caged birds until six-thirty.”

My heart leapt into my throat and my hand jerked.

“Go,” Wyatt said. “I’ll watch him.”