Ilona Andrews - Magic Binds

“No, Amal won’t let anyone but Bahir ride her. Julie talked about sightings of flying horses last week. I thought I’d tug on that and see what happens.”

“You’re not serious?” Curran frowned at me. “You don’t even know if those flying horses are rideable.”

“My father won’t expect a flying horse. The Witch Oracle saw me on one, so the least I can do is cross it off my list. I don’t have a lot of choices if I want to outrun my father. He can do many things, but last I checked he couldn’t fly.”

If Julie talked about it, she must have filed a report somewhere in the office. If there was one thing Julie was good at, it was keeping a record of everything odd she came across.

“So what will you do in Mishmar?” Curran asked casually.

I got up, kissed him, and went to get dressed.

WHEN I GOT to Cutting Edge, Peanut wasn’t there. This was getting ridiculous.

Inside, Ascanio greeted me with a salute and a bright smile. “Good morning, Alpha Sharrim.”

Why me? “Where is Julie?”

“Escaped half an hour ago.”

Argh.

I went to the larger filing cabinet and rifled through the files. “Where is the Weird Crap folder?”

“Derek has it.” Ascanio walked over to Derek’s desk, grabbed the folder, and handed it to me.

I flipped through it, looking through paper notes and newspaper clippings. This was the folder where we stuffed everything that came across our desks that was too odd even for us or had no explanation. Let’s see, tentacle monster in the sewer on Grimoire Street, ball of blue lightning, no, no, no . . . Here it was, a newspaper article with notes written in Julie’s firm hand:

Third report of a flying horse in the area. Horse is described as 15–17 hands tall and golden in color. Horse breeds of ancient Greece were mostly ponies: Skyros pony, 10 hands average, Thessalonian pony, 11 hands average. Weird.

I flipped the page back to the newspaper clipping.

Milton County.

Misdemeanors: Jeremiah B. Eakle and Chad L. Eakle, charges of public indecency and disorderly conduct while intoxicated.

That was it. No additional text, no explanation of the article. No notes. Were these the people who reported seeing the flying horse? How were they connected? I flipped through the rest of the folder. The notes said this was the third report, so where were the other two?

I looked at Ascanio. “Where’s the rest?”

He shrugged his shoulders, his face a picture of perfect innocence. “Julie was the one who filed it. I just work here. I have no idea why the Blond Harpy does anything.”

Argh.

I picked up the phone and called home. Maybe she went back.

No answer.

There was a time when that would’ve freaked me the hell out. Now I took it as a given. Julie, if she was home, wasn’t picking up. Now that I was calm and somewhat rational, I didn’t blame her. In her place, I wouldn’t answer either. We both knew an ugly conversation was coming. Sooner or later, I would track her down. If I wasn’t running out of time, I would’ve done that already.

I dialed Beau Clayton’s office.

No ringing, but lots of dry clicks. The magic must’ve knocked out the phone lines somewhere on the way to Milton County.

“Stay here,” I told Ascanio. “If Julie shows up, tell her that she and I need to talk and to be home at a decent time tonight. My decent, not hers. If Curran shows up, tell him I went to see Beau Clayton. Everybody else can take a number, I’ll deal with it later. If my father shows up, don’t talk to him.”

Ascanio dropped the innocent act. His eyes turned serious. “I want to come with you.”

“Why?”

“Because I never get to and your father tried to slap you.”

“And how do you know that?”

“You need backup.”

He wasn’t wrong. Given that he was seventeen now, six feet tall, and able to control his aggression enough to think during a fight, I could do worse.

I wrote Went to see Beau on a piece of paper and left it on my desk. “Let’s go.”

I swung the door open a moment before Derek walked through it.

“I heard the conversation. I’m coming,” he said.

Ascanio rolled his eyes. “This will be fun.”

Derek parked himself in the doorway. “You need backup.”

“She has backup.”

“Yes, but someone will have to carry the Prince of Hyenas if he accidentally stabs his pinkie toe, and she isn’t a shapeshifter.”

“Fine.” I headed for my vehicle.

Behind me Ascanio snorted. “Idiot wolf.”

“Spoiled bouda brat.”

“Bigot.”

“Crybaby.”

“Shit for brains.”

“Momma’s boy.”

Universe, grant me patience.

I WALKED INTO Beau’s office carrying six bottles of root beer and a bucket of fried chicken. Beau raised his head from the paperwork he was reading behind his desk, sniffed the air, and sat up straighter.

Beau Clayton, the sheriff of Milton County, was a man who made his own legend. A few months ago Hugh d’Ambray had come to collect me and take me to meet my father. He went about it in a complicated way, and one of the Pack’s members ended up murdering one of the People’s Masters of the Dead. The People demanded that the Pack turn over the accused. We refused. They would’ve murdered her. She was entitled to a trial.

The People emptied the stables under the Casino and brought a vampire horde to attack the Keep. I was the Consort back then and most of our people were out of town. It was me and some regular Pack members, mostly parents with small children.

I had contacted the Atlanta PAD offering to surrender the guilty woman to their custody, but they didn’t want to risk it. Nobody wanted to risk it, so as a last resort I called Beau Clayton, because one hundred twelve square yards of the Pack’s land lay within Milton County. It had to be the flimsiest excuse ever used to establish jurisdiction.

The People besieged us, bringing hundreds of vampires. The field before the Keep was about to become a bloodbath. Beau Clayton chose that moment to ride between the two lines of fighters. He didn’t bring an army. He brought two deputies, put himself between the Keep and the horde of undead, and told them that he had been lawfully elected sheriff by the people of Milton County. He was the law and he had arrived to take the suspect into his custody. And then he told them to disperse.

I didn’t get to see the end of it all, but war didn’t break out on that field. The People took their vampires and went home. Beau took his suspect into custody and proceeded unmolested to the Milton County jail. People started calling him Beau the Brave.

Looking at Beau, it was easy to see why he would inspire legends. Huge, six foot six, with massive shoulders and powerful arms, he made his big wooden desk look small, but it wasn’t his size alone. There was something unflappable about Beau. A kind of measured steady calm. He knew exactly what his mission in life was: he was the voice of reason and when reason failed, he enforced the law.

“Is that fried chicken?”

“Yes.”

“Virginia’s fried chicken?”

Virginia made the best fried chicken in North Atlanta and never tried to pass rat meat off as chicken tenders. I managed to look offended. “Of course it is. Who do you take me for?”

Beau leaned back. “Might you be trying to bribe a law enforcement official, Ms. Daniels?”

“You bet.”

Beau glanced at Derek. “Gaunt.”

Derek nodded. “Sheriff.”

Beau turned to Ascanio. “And who would you be?”

I almost opened my mouth to tell him he was our intern and stopped myself. He was willing to take adult risks, he would get an adult introduction. “He’s Ascanio Ferara of Clan Bouda. He works with me.”