Ilona Andrews - Magic Bleeds

He came to an abrupt stop in front of me. “Kate, I need to talk to you.”

“Is this regarding Solomon’s death?”

He grimaced. “It’s regarding its consequences.”

“If it doesn’t directly relate to the investigation, it will have to wait.”

Bob narrowed his eyes. “Moving fast, are you, Mark? Wasting no time.”

Mark ignored him. “Do I have to make an appointment?”

“Yes. Give the Order a call tomorrow and they’ll make sure to coordinate something with you.” I headed toward the stairs to examine Solomon’s quarters.

Behind me, Bob said, “Tomorrow the front page of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution will be screaming all about how Solomon Red voided his bowels and then his mercs had to chase the puddle of his blood and shit across the floor. Shouldn’t you get on that?”

“Mind your own business, and I’ll mind mine,” Mark said.

Solomon’s death created a power vacuum. Something had to fill it and they were already drawing the battle lines. They could draw all they wanted. You couldn’t pay me to get involved in it.

I walked up the stairs, past a desiccated Solomon. The Guild leader sagged on the spear shaft, reduced to a sack of dried-out skin over the skeletal frame. The man who’d built himself into a living legend had died with great indignity. The universe had a razor-sharp sense of humor.

The Biohazard team was filing out without Solomon. All of the disease had ended up in the puddle, which Biohazard took into custody. Solomon’s corpse was now a mere inert shell. Mark must’ve convinced them to let the Guild have the body for burial.

I climbed up to the third floor and entered the internal stair leading to Solomon’s quarters. A variety of weapons decorated the walls: bearded axes, slick Japanese blades, simple elegant European swords, modern tactical weapons . . . I came to an empty space between two bare iron hooks. Just large enough for a spear. My hope that the spear in Solomon’s neck belonged to the Steel Mary just went up in flames.

He could have anything he wanted, but he chose the spear. Why a spear?

The stairs led me to a hallway bordered by a balcony. Four floors below, in the main hallway, mercs mulled about, still shell-shocked. The front door of Solomon’s quarters hung ajar, its left side splintered. The Steel Mary must have shattered the wood around the lock with a single kick.

I stepped inside. Barren walls greeted me. No paintings broke up the malachite green paint. The plain, almost crude furniture supported no knickknacks. No photographs on the mantel over the small fireplace. No magazines on the coffee table. No books. The place resembled a hotel room awaiting a guest, instead of lived-in quarters.

I stepped through to the left into the bedroom. A simple bed, a simple desk with a flurry of papers. Chair overturned on the floor. Solomon must’ve been sitting here when the Steel Mary broke in.

A tape recorder lay on the desk. I picked it up and pushed play.

“Seven lines down. Sign,” Mark’s voice said. “Count three pages. Page six. Count three lines from the bottom of the page. Sign.”

What in the world . . . I rewound for a few seconds.

“It’s just like the old contract,” Mark said. “You should still have the tape of it in the box from last year. It’s the one numbered thirty-four. The only thing we did was change the dates and two paragraphs involving the new city ordinances. The first is on page three. Count two paragraphs down. It now reads . . .”

Solomon Red couldn’t read. And Mark had covered for him all these years. None of the mercs knew.

“Kate?” Mark’s voice called.

What now?

I stepped out of the room and looked down. Mark stood on the floor below. Next to him waited two men. The first was muscular and dark. He didn’t really need help in the menacing department, but he chose to amplify his badass status by wearing a long, sweeping black cloak edged with wolf fur. Hello, Jim.

The man next to him wore Pack sweats. For shapeshifters, sweats meant working clothes—they were easy to rip off before a fight. The man stood with the easy animal grace particular to the very strong. Even from this distance, his pose telegraphed violence, tightly coiled and reigned in, but ready to explode at the slightest provocation. The mercs sensed it and gave him a wide berth, like scavengers recognizing a predator in their midst.

The man looked up, tilting his head of short blond hair. His face matched him—powerful and aggressive. A square jaw, prominent cheekbones, nose with a misshapen bridge that had been broken but never healed quite right. Gray eyes glanced from under thick golden eyebrows and locked on me.

Curran.

THE TRICK HERE WAS INDIFFERENCE, I DECIDED AS I took my sweet time coming down the stairs. Act cool. Detached.

Something potent and violent boiled inside me and I strained every nerve in my body to keep it on its chain. I could do this. I just had to stay cool. Zen. No punching in the face. Punching would not be Zen.

The stairs ended. I wished I knew the jackass who’d made the staircase so short. I’d throw him down the damn steps so he could count them with his head. I stepped onto the floor and walked over to the two shapeshifters, looking straight at Jim.

“Jim. What a lovely surprise.” I smiled, aiming for cordial.

Mark winced and took off. I caught a glimpse of my smile in the wall mirror. Very little cordiality but lots of homicidal maniac. I dropped the smile before I caused an interagency incident.

Jim nodded at me.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Curran’s face. Like looking into a glacier.

“Please relay my greetings to the Beast Lord,” I said. “I appreciate his willingness to alter his extremely busy schedule and make an appearance.”

Curran showed no emotion. No gloating, no anger, nothing at all. Jim looked at me, looked at Curran, looked back at me again. “Kate says hi,” he said finally.

“I’m ecstatic,” Curran said.

My hand twitched to touch Slayer’s hilt protruding over my shoulder.

Silence stretched.

“What can I do for you?” I asked finally.

Jim glanced at Curran again. The Beast Lord remained stoic.

You stood me up, you sonovabitch. If I made it through this in one piece, I’d need some sort of medal to commemorate it.

“The Pack would like to extend an offer of assistance to the Order in the matter of the Steel Mary,” Jim said.

Knock me over with a feather. The Pack cooperated only when forced. The shapeshifters almost never volunteered. “Why?”

“Why is irrelevant,” Curran said. “We’re willing to put our considerable resources at the Order’s disposal.”

We stared at each other. Add some whistling and a rolling tumbleweed, and we’d be all set.

A green sheen rolled over Jim’s eyes. Reacting to the tension.

A couple of mercs lingered some distance from us. A third one stopped. They were expecting a brawl and didn’t want to miss it. We needed to get away from the audience.

I nodded at the small workout room, separated from the main floor by a wall of frosted glass. The hotel had used it for private dining. The mercs had emptied it, thrown some mats into a corner, and turned it into a makeshift dojo. “Let’s go someplace more private.”

We moved off the main floor. Curran stalked into the room as if he owned it, turned, and crossed his arms on his chest. Biceps bulged, stretching the sleeves of his sweatshirt. If there was any justice in the world, he should’ve gone bald, lost all his teeth, and developed a terrible skin rash. But no, the bastard looked good. In perfect health.

Just keep cool. That’s all I had to do.