Karen Chance - Inked

“Oh, my God!”

“Cool, huh?” I glanced over my shoulder and saw Dieter. He’d acquired some jeans and a pair of sandals, courtesy of one of the abandoned shops, I assumed. He also appeared to have found some backbone. Instead of shaking, he was bouncing on his toes, looking pleased with himself.

“It shits napalm?”

“I said you didn’t want to know.”

“I assume you let it out?”

“Yep.”

“Why?”

“’Cause this is why everybody pitched in and bought the thing. Bonnacons hate wolves; it’s like they’re natural enemies or something.”

“I meant, why help me?”

“I wasn’t. That fucker was one of those who burnt me out this morning.”

“He’s a Predator? You’re sure?”

“Damn right I’m sure! I woke up to see my tent burning over my head and that bastard holding a torch. I lost everything because they decided they didn’t need the competition.” He grinned as the Were ran past screaming, with his hair on fire. “Let’s see how he likes it!”

The Were didn’t seem to be liking it. It also distracted him enough that he ran full tilt into the large cocktails sign, which crashed to the floor, sending bulbs bouncing and then shattering against the hard-packed ground. A second later, he changed, leapt over a counter and was gone—impossibly fast for so huge a beast.

“You said you were staying off Decatur, right?” I asked Dieter.

“Yeah.”

I smiled. I hadn’t managed to tag the Were, but it didn’t worry me too much. You don’t need a tag when you have an address.

“So, we going back to jail now?” Dieter asked hopefully.

“Naw. They’d just process and release you.”

“Yeah, but sometimes they feed us first.”

I tucked a fifty in his jeans. “Lunch is on me.”

It took me precious minutes to get out of Tartarus. The old man weighed maybe a hundred and fifty pounds, and no way was I in any shape to carry him out of there. But leaving him behind wasn’t an option, either. Not with a ten-thousand-dollar tat on his arm and a hungry Aswang in the vicinity.

I would have normally used magic, but right then I didn’t have any to spare. So I rigged up a travois out of plywood and blankets from the shop and dragged him out. Weak sunlight was filtering through angry clouds when I emerged, matching my mood. I leaned against the side of the drain, heedless of the mildew sliming my coat, and dug out my phone. The fact that it took me three tries to grab it probably wasn’t a good sign.

“You wouldn’t happen to have seen a young man?” Caleb asked, before I got a word out. “Bad skin, lots of piercings, dreads—”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Well, I’m sure it’ll come up at your court-martial!” Jamie said heatedly. Oh, great. We were on speakerphone.

“I don’t think I’m likely to be put on trial for borrowing a junkie for a few hours.”

“No, but you might be for disobeying the direct command of a senior officer!”

“Hargrove isn’t that much of a—”

“Not him! Sedgewick! The old man told him he’d sent you on an errand, or he’d have you up on charges right now!”

“Hargrove is covering for me?” Okay, now I knew I was hallucinating.

“Yeah, and I’d love to know the story behind that one,” Caleb put in.

“So would I,” I told him. “But it’ll keep. Right now, I need some—”

“You need your head examined!” That was Jamie, of course.

“Yeah. Concrete is pretty hard when you get slammed into it by a three-hundred-pound Were.”

There was a brief silence. “Is that the body the patrol just brought in?” Caleb demanded.

“I’ve only tagged two today so far, so—”

“And where’s the other one?” Jamie again.

“Tartarus. Some big market over by the Tropicana. I found a wardsmith stuffed into his own drop safe and then got jumped by a Were. He stole some wards, so I’m assuming he’s the one who did him, although—”

“What wardsmith? What was his name?”

“Like I said, we never made it as far as introductions. But he was still warm when I arrived; no rigor. So I’m guessing—”

“What did he look like?”

“Would you let me finish a sentence?”

“It’s important, Accalia.”

Something in his tone cut through the static. Not to mention that he never used my full name. “Older guy, shabby clothes, Thunderbird tat on his left arm—”

“Shit!”

Jamie didn’t say anything else, and Caleb took over. “Sounds like you’ve had a busy day. Why not come in? We can get your story straight before you see Sedgewick.”

“Can’t, although it would be great if you could reroute a patrol by here to pick up the body.”

There was some quiet conversation I couldn’t quite hear, and then Caleb came back on the line. “Will do. It’ll be about fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll be here.”

I passed the time on the phone with a guy I know in research. The Predators were composed of outcast wolves, as I’d assumed. There were twenty to thirty of them and they were known for being big dealers of illicit drugs—including the Fey variety. I guess I knew what Dieter had meant about competition. They also had a reputation for brutality.

“I kind of got that from the name,” I said, as an ambulance came around the corner. Four guys got out, two medics and…crap.

“Nice to see you, too,” Caleb said, hiking an eyebrow at me. I guess I might have said that last bit aloud.

“Where is he?” Jamie demanded, splashing through the current. A stretcher was whizzing through the air behind him, trying to keep up. That was definitely not SOP in an open area in broad daylight, any more than was the huge sword he’d slung over his back. But Jamie didn’t look like he gave a damn.

I indicated my makeshift travois, which I’d parked inside the drain to keep it out of sight of passersby. Jamie knelt beside it and pulled back the blanket. And said a word he rarely employed in the presence of a lady—or even me.

“You knew him?”

“His name was Toby Wilkinson, and he was a damn fine wardsmith.”

The two orderlies reached us and transferred the body to the stretcher. “Why was a talented wardsmith hanging around the drains?” I asked.

“Because he was a stubborn old coot who wouldn’t listen to reason, that’s why!”

“Could you be a little more—”

“Six years ago, Toby was one of the best weapons-grade wardsmiths in the southwest. Then a group of kidnappers took his daughter and demanded an exorbitant ransom. Toby paid it instead of coming to us, afraid they’d kill his only child if he didn’t do precisely as he was told.”

“I’m assuming they killed her anyway?”

Jamie nodded. “Didn’t want to risk being identified. But it wasn’t her death that sent Toby over the edge. It was the fact that they killed her using one of his own wards.”

“Jesus.”

“What could they possibly have hoped to gain by that?” Caleb asked.

“Nothing. That was the devil of it. We caught them eventually and one of them cracked. Said they’d thought it would be quieter than shooting her or some such. It was pure coincidence that the ward they used to suck the life out of her was one made by her father.”

“And afterward?” I asked, pretty sure I already knew.

Jamie shrugged. “Toby went off the rails. He started drinking, lost his practice, disappeared for a few years. The next time I saw him, he’d hung out his shingle in Tartarus. Turns out he’d been studying with some Native American master out in Arizona—healing spells, defensive wards and the like.”

“And weapons. I didn’t find any in his shop, but I’m pretty sure he was killed over some wolf tats. And I didn’t think they were used for defense.”