Kelly Meding - Requiem for the Dead

When Milo slept peacefully again, I returned to the exam rooms. Mark and Peter's necks were both shiny with ointment, and they'd settled onto their beds to rest.

The compound intercom buzzed, and then Astrid's voice came over. "Stone and Truman to Ops, now."

"I'm not going," Wyatt said.

I blinked. "You're not?"

He planted himself between the boys' beds and crossed his arms over his chest. "No. I won't leave them alone." Again hung off the end of his sentence. I got it, and I agreed. If he left and one of the boys—namely, Peter—panicked, they could get hurt.

Or hurt someone else.

He probably also needed a break from me for a while. He couldn't work through his anger at me if we were attached at the hip. "I'll let you know what's going on," I said.

"Evangeline?" Peter said.

I stepped a little closer to his bed. "Yes?"

His silver eyes flashed. "Find our brother. Please?"

"I'll do everything I can to bring John home. I promise."

I hoped that I could keep my promise and bring John not just home, but home alive.

Just when I didn't think anything else could surprise me tonight, I walked into Ops and found Eulan conversing with Astrid, Marcus, Rufus, Kismet, and Tybalt. All eyes turned on me, but I only had eyes for the vampire in our midst.

"Greetings, Ms. Stone," Eulan said. "I am pleased to see that rumors of your death were exaggerated."

"That happens to me a lot," I replied. "I didn't think you made house calls."

"In a situation such as this, I would entrust the task to no one else."

"So you're paying the ransom?"

"We would pay ten times the asking price to save our people."

"You don't know it'll work. All you have is the word of a gnome."

Eulan tilted his head, as though indulging a stubborn child—I hated it when vampires did that. "It is a risk worth taking."

"Where's Wyatt?" Astrid asked.

"Babysitting." Before she could argue, I added, "They trust him, Astrid. They're scared and hurt, and he can keep them calm better than a couple of armed guards and an Ursia doctor can."

"All right. Marcus gave me his report. Gina and Tybalt have too. You want to fill us in on what you've been doing since you pretended to kill my grandfather?"

Ouch. I deserved that. I recapped my day, which sounded really long and a little bit insane the more I talked. I touched on everything up to and including the Lupa pups' exams. "No permanent physical damage," I said. "But they're scared for their brother."

"Do you believe Vale will insist on trading the Lupa for you?" Astrid asked.

"It's likely. We played him and he's pissed. Now he has leverage."

"Does he really?"

I blinked, unnerved by her hard stare. "He's a kid, Astrid, and he's important to Wyatt. And before you start, no, I have not forgotten what they did last month. Neither has Wyatt. But he's protecting them because he's part of their bloodline now. They're family to him, which makes them important to me."

Good lord, I'd really said that out loud.

Kismet and Astrid looked at me like I was crazy. Tybalt and Rufus both seemed more curious than appalled. I couldn't read Marcus or Eulan at all.

"What I want to know," Rufus said, "is how Vale came upon knowledge of Wyatt's apartment and the fact that he was harboring the Lupa?"

"Add that to list," I said. Since no one else was addressing the elephant in the conversation, I did. "Right after the question of how Vale found out I was still alive in the first place. A scant handful knew, until Elder Dane and I agreed to share it with the Watchtower. An hour later, the pups are attacked and John is kidnapped."

I don't like being lied to, Stone.

Marcus caught my eye, a gentle warning there. So he hadn't floated this to his sister yet.

Astrid's face went first white, then her cheeks flushed. "You think someone inside the Watchtower is loyal to Vale?"

"Or being paid to feed him information, yes," I said. "He knew we were at the Lincoln Street Bridge. He knew about the pups. He knew I wasn't dead. Maybe the pups weren't as a big a secret, but the other things? It was privileged information."

"Is there anyone from the Felia Clan whose loyalty could be called into question?" Kismet asked.

This time, Marcus and Astrid shared a look. "Perhaps," Astrid said.

"Who?" I asked.

"Lynn Neil."

I couldn't make that one fit. Lynn was a were-lioness with the aggressive personality of a newborn kitten. She was also Kyle Jane's girlfriend, and they were the only inter-Clan couple in the Watchtower. She had to have one hell of an interesting past for them to suspect her right off the bat.

"Back in May, when Aurora and Joseph were kidnapped by a group of Felia intent on keeping her and her unborn child safe," Marcus said. "Do you remember?"

As if I'd forget. "Hell, yes, I remember. I was the one they tried to kill in the process. I shot Belle and another one of her pals."

"The pal you killed was a jaguar named Kiefer Foss."

"You stabbed me with a nail file.” I remembered that night clearly, and I remembered being told later that Belle had been executed for treason against the Assembly. "The name doesn't ring a bell."

"That's because it wasn't released beyond Assembly records," Astrid said, shooting her brother a glare that said he probably shouldn't have released it now. "At the time, Foss was living with Lynn. They weren't mated, and when she was questioned, Lynn denied all knowledge of Foss's activities with Belle."

"You believed her?"

"Yes. Kyle believed her too, and his faith in Lynn convinced the rest of us."

"But how does that connect Lynn to Vale?"

"It doesn't, not directly. Even Belle isn't directly connected. She was a Siberian Tiger, and Vale is Bengal. Vale was never, to our knowledge, connected to Belle's movement."

"So Lynn could be a dead end?" My head was spinning a little with all of the dot connecting going on, and we had no clearer picture than when we started.

"Perhaps," Marcus said. "We should still question her."

"Kyle's going to shit kittens." So to speak.

"He'll understand."

"And alibi her, as well," Rufus said. "They've been in the field for hours, aiding our efforts to locate Vale. I doubt she's found time to leak information to him."

"Call her back in," Astrid said. "We should still talk to her."

"Tell me you have other suspects," I said.

"Not on the tip of my tongue, no. Every Therian at the Watchtower is here because I trust them to be discreet and to keep what happens here within these walls. I despise the idea of anyone I hired being a leak." Her copper eyes flashed with hurt and anger, and I believed her.

"The leak could be human," Tybalt said. "I couldn't guess as to a motive, but there are two species working here."

My brain jumped to Alejandro, the new kid who'd been brought into our compound today, but that didn't fit for two reasons. First, he wasn't even a blip on my radar when Vale attacked us on Lincoln Street. Second, the kid had been searched for all electronic or tracking devices, and he didn't have access to anyone's phone. He was new and twitchy, but that didn't make him a plant.

Tybalt went still, as if something had occurred to him. "What?" I asked.

"I thought of someone who might be able to give us a little information," he said. To Astrid, he said, "Castle."

The look she shared with him and Marcus told me that the name meant something to them. Not to the rest of us though. Even Kismet seemed confused. "Do you know where he is?" Astrid asked.

"No, but I can find him."

"Take Shelby with you."

"Will do."

Tybalt headed out. I kind of wished I was going with him, but for now, my place was here. Vale wanted me dead, which would make Tybalt a bigger target than he already was with me running around the city in his pocket. And Wyatt still needed me close. His mood was as volatile as the pups'.