“How is everyone?”

  “Alive and kicking,” he assured me with a chuckle. “Couple of mild concussions, some fractured bones, but Jenna took care of that. I think she’s taken a liking to you.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at the gorgeous redhead in the gown.

  “After what she’s done for us without getting paid? Think you might be right.”

  “Be careful.” Daine chuckled good-naturedly. “She might not be spoken for, but those girls of yours strike me as a little jealous. Your place might get crowded.” He leaned forward on the bar and dropped the volume of his voice a little. “You want to tell me what happened?”

  I finished my glass, pushed it over to him, and grinned. “It’ll cost you.”

  Daine replenished it in a second, pushed it back, and I took a slower sip of the fantastic single-malt. I took a deep breath, mulled over what I saw in the Hellforge, and glanced over my flanks. The usual regulars were already neck-deep in their own conversations, but that didn’t stop them from giving me awed stares from time to time. The only guy who seemed blissfully unconcerned with my presence was the cowboy behind me. He looked half-asleep, and his eyes were locked on the ceiling. Something about him set me on edge, but I reminded myself that I was under the protections of the Castledaine.

  He couldn’t kill me here, even if he wanted to.

  “I met him,” I said, my voice barely louder than a whisper.

  Daine nodded. “Second time lucky. What did he give you?”

  “A gift. Something to help against our friends in white.”

  The barman hissed in a breath. “I make it a point to not pry. But this is an exception. What exactly did you take from him?”

  I trusted Daine. He’d saved my life three times over, at least.

  “He said it was part of his knowledge about the rifts.”

  Daine stared at me for a long, long moment.

  “Nothing else?”

  “Nothing else. Deals with the devil aren’t exactly my forte, but I know better than to try for anything more insane than that. Laughed himself stupid when I asked him.” I searched his craggy face for a long second. “They want me dead, man. They’ve already tried, and they’re going to try again. They don’t have the balls to come at my face—not with what we managed to pull—but the last time they took a run at me, they used the Other Side to do it.”

  “You’ve just—” Daine muttered a curse under his breath. “How hard did you think through the implications of that? I mean really think?”

  “Seemed like the best idea at the time. Hellforge isn’t exactly a picnic.”

  He grunted. “People would kill for that kind of knowledge, Matt. That gives you a leg-up on every single rift that opens. Which means that you’ve got the potential to get there before the other Guilds.”

  “That was kind of the idea.”

  He shook his head. “You’ve broken parity. I don’t know the specifics of how they work. And I doubt even the Arbiters have a real plan around it. But you get first pick of the litter, which means that Phoenix Guild is going to be at the front and center of the infighting.”

  “We have a truce.”

  “That’s only there because firstly, you know Bess, and secondly, Tessa doesn’t think you’re a threat to the day-to-day operations of her people. They’re not the heads of their respective Guilds. Less power coming into the Guilds means less influence. Which means that they’re going to be gunning for you. That kind of knowledge carries a price.”

  I blew out a long breath. “Unless I negotiate. Split everything up evenly.”

  Daine let out a humorless chuckle. “You’re new. Guild politics is always dirtier than that. You can’t just rely on the friendships you have anymore. You’ve got to start thinking bigger picture. And I can’t be involved in that.”

  I blinked. “You’re cutting me out?”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Daine growled. “I’m warning you. You and your people are always welcome here, you know that. But if you’re going to be making serious moves in Millbank, I can’t be associated with that. We put Wilson in the ground, the Leviathans are out, and that means that there’s a vacuum. Which means good business for my people.” He nodded to the people in the bar around him. “And they already think I favor you over them.”

  “I didn’t mean to put you in this situation—” I protested.

  “I know you didn’t,” he said heavily. “But it doesn’t change the facts.”

  I gritted my teeth. “I don’t want to lose you as a friend, Daine.”

  “You’re not going to,” he assured me. “I’ll always be here to talk. But this power you’ve just gotten hold of? It changes things. Changes things in a big way. Why do you think everyone here is staring at you like you’re some kind of celebrity?”

  “I was gone for a full day?”

  “You spat in the face of the Arbiters, fought Darxos, and lived.”

  “I had help.”

  He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. You had help, and each of us decided to throw our lot in with you because we owed you. It might not go over like that again. Not if people find out what you’re capable of. And not if you’re upsetting the established order.”

  I sipped at my whisky and took a moment to think.

  I hadn’t exactly thought it through. Daine was right.

  But it didn’t change the fact that I needed every advantage I could get.

  “You said you already called the girls?”

  Daine looked relieved that I’d changed the subject. “The second Burr told me that he saw you. Elsie’s already on her way over with the truck. They’ve been worried sick about you.” He watched me steadily for a long moment. “I’ll give you a heads-up because you’re out of the loop. Tessa’s still out of town, and Bess is renovating the Goldfire after the council. Contracts are going out left, right, and center, and not all of them are friendly.”

  I stiffened at the mention of the Sharks and didn’t turn to look at the Cowboy. “The guy with the hat and the spurs. I haven’t seen him here before.”

  “Neither have I,” Daine told me. “He’s staying upstairs, though.”

  My eyes widened at that. “You owe him?”

  “He had another way to pay. He’s got a lot of pull.”

  “And what’s he doing here?”

  Daine chuckled. “What do you think?”

  I could think of myriad reasons.

  But a certain upstart who’d just bargained for his own Guild was at the top of the list.

  I finished my whisky, placed it down on the bar, and gave Daine a nod. “I appreciate the heads-up. And thanks for getting in touch with my people.”

  My brisk, businesslike tone made him flinch. “No hard feelings, Matt.”

  “There aren’t any,” I assured him with a smile. “We’re all just pieces, right?”

  I couldn’t be mad at the guy. Not after what he’d done for me.

  It was the situation itself that frustrated me.

  I gave Daine one last searching look. “I never got a chance to thank you for helping us. With everyone else. You know I owe you my life. You ever need anything—”

  “I’ll let you know,” he assured me. “Watch your back, kid.”

  I bumped my fist against his, turned around, and made my way over to the Cowboy. Bright eyes glittered under half-closed eyelids as he watched me approach him, but he didn’t so much as blink as I pulled up a chair and sat down across from him. A half-smoked cigarette dangled from his fingers, and a leather pouch with rolling papers sat beside his calf on the table. Two empty bottles of inexpensive beer sat at his elbow. I couldn’t see any obvious weapons on his person, but Players didn’t need to worry about holsters or reloading.

  Not when they could conjure magic from their minds.

  The Cowboy barely seemed to register my presence, and that set off alarm bells in the back of my mind. We were safe here, sure, but it didn’t change the fact that most people still kept their eyes open and focused on the people around them. Sharks weren’t ever part of any Guild, which meant their life was practically forfeit once they took a job. They didn’t have the Arbiters to talk to or laws to keep them safe.

  I’d been the guy in the chair across from me once.

  And he was too damn relaxed. I decided to get straight to the point.

  “Who hired you to kill me?” I asked.

  A rich chuckle rolled out from under the hat, and he flicked ash onto the floor.

  “Does it matter?” he countered. “You’re still a dead man walking.”

  Chapter 4

  The man’s accent was thick, from the South, and definitely not Texan. I couldn’t quite place it, but the sheer laziness of his reply told me two things. The first was that he was either insane or so confident in his abilities that he didn’t think that I posed a threat to him. My gut told me that it was the latter, rather than the former. The man in front of me held himself so casually that it raised the hairs on the back of my neck. The second detail told me that he wasn’t in a hurry. Most Sharks had a serious time limit on their Contracts. I had a feeling that anyone who wanted me dead was willing to wait a while to make sure it happened.

  And I didn’t have time to be looking over my shoulder for a man with a gun.

  The Cowboy grinned at me from under his hat. “No comeback?”

  “Just figuring out where you are on my priority list.”

  He let out a low whistle. “Nicely delivered. Right amount of menace.”

  I bit back on my flash of irritation and decided to take a more diplomatic angle.

  “What’s the price on my head?”

  “High enough to make me get out of bed in the morning.”

  “Must be. You look bored out of your mind.”

  The Cowboy chuckled, flicked more ash from his cigarette, and tossed it carelessly over his shoulder. He slid his boots off the table, straightened up in his chair, and reached for the leather pouch of tobacco. “Nicely delivered again. You seem like a good guy to have a beer with.”

  “Why don’t I buy you one, and we can talk this out.”

  He winked at me. “You know that isn’t how this goes.”

  “Listen, I’ve got enough on my plate without having to worry about you turning Millbank into the OK Corral,” I said. “I’ve got shit to do. I wasn’t a Shark for all that long, but I know it’s smarter to take the easy money when it’s going.”

  “True. But it’s boring as shit.”

  I eyed him for a long moment. “I’m not easy to put down.”

  “Why do you think I’m here?” The Cowboy fished strands of tobacco out of his pouch and started rolling a cigarette with breathless ease. “I only take the big ones. The ones that everyone else is too scared to try and wrangle.”

  “It’s not worth it,” I told him flatly.

  “You’re making waves, causing problems, and you’re a walking meal ticket for the rest of my life,” the Cowboy told me. “I know about your little girlfriends. I know that you and Daine over there have a special relationship. And I know what happened to your dad.”

  I stared at him for a long, long moment, and he grinned at me.

  My blood ran cold in my veins. I’d never mentioned what had happened to my parents to anyone except the girls. The newspapers had been all over it, but that’d been a decade ago. The files were probably still out there in the world, but I knew that some of my father’s former friends made those records difficult to find. The man sitting across from me knew who he was hunting and didn’t give a fuck about what I’d managed to pull off.

  I was just a target. Another bounty. Another deer on some prairie.

  “So, I can’t talk you down, buy you off, or convince you that this isn’t a good idea.”

  “Nope,” he said with a smirk.

  “Then let’s keep this between us,” I said. “No B-teams, no external pressure, nothing. You want me, you can come at me. Clean. No one else gets involved.”

  He made a show of thinking about it. “Well, that doesn’t exactly seem fair, does it?”

  “Sounds fair enough to me.”

  “Sure does,” he agreed. “To you. I looked into you, Matt. Everyone around here’s running scared about the big new kid on the block. You’re a hotshot. It was harder than I thought it’d be shopping around for details. You’ve got friends in good places.” He met my eyes. “But not in the right ones, that’s for sure.”

  “Not a bad delivery,” I echoed.

  He slapped the table with a grin on his face. “There it is. You’re playing, now.”

  “You’re a merc with standards. Except when it comes to the people around me.”

  “More survival than anything,” the Cowboy said. “You won’t have to worry about them, though. Once I’ve got your head in a bag, I’m outta here. Your girls won’t find me.”

  I thought over my Contract with the coven, and a smile touched my face.

  He noted it, and his own smile grew wider. “You know, the more time I spend with you, the more I like you, kid. You’ve got balls.”

  “I can’t say the same.”

  “That’s alright.” He placed a hand against his heart. “I won’t take it personally.”

  The front door of the Castledaine exploded open, and my two girlfriends appeared in the doorway. Elsie led the charge. Her mahogany hair was a mess, heavy circles stood out under her eyes, and relief boiled through her eyes. She’d changed into well-worn jeans, a white shirt, and a leather jacket, and she looked like a million dollars of Texan-bred supermodel. Mayce marched inside beside her. A long black coat hung off her shoulders, fashionably torn up, and long fingerless gloves covered her hands. Solid black goth boots shrouded her feet, and her torn leggings hugged her muscular thighs in just the right way.

  They couldn’t have picked a worse time to make their entrance.

  I straightened up from the table just as Elsie hit me with a fierce hug.

  She buried her face into my shoulder, and instinct made me steer her away from the table. The Cowboy winked at me as I backed away from him, and he leaned back to light up his second cigarette.

  “Don’t ever scare me like that again,” Elsie whispered.

  “We need to go,” I told her. “I missed you, too, but—”

  Mayce caught me from the side and interjected herself into the hug. I’d never been upset about physical contact from the girls, even in public, but they’d picked the worst time possible to do it. I’d just faced down the literal god of hell, gained some of his power, and had a brief conversation with a man who wanted to kill me. I had insurance for the end of my life, but my girls didn’t, and the Cowboy had as good as said that he’d go after my people just to get to me.

  “Where the fuck have you been?” Mayce demanded.

  “Long story. Not the place to tell it,” I said, my voice muffled by her hair. “We need to go. Now.”

  Elsie pulled her face out of my shoulder. “An entire day. We thought you were dead—”

  “Elsie,” I said firmly.

  She hesitated at the ice in my voice and glanced over her shoulder at the Cowboy. He gave her an appreciative once-over and an easy salute with a cigarette still smoldering in his fingers. The Phoenix Guild’s knight stiffened at the touch of his eyes, and I bumped my hips against hers to steer her toward the door. She went willingly enough, but Mayce released me and turned on him a moment later.

  “Who the fuck are you supposed to be?” she demanded.

  “Just here to kill your boss, doll,” he replied breezily. “Don’t mind me.”

  Mayce’s eyes flashed, her hands went to the chair tucked under the table, and I managed to break Elsie’s grip early enough. I flashed across the floor, caught hold of the chair before Mayce could launch it at my would-be assassin, and heard a warning growl from behind the bar.

  “Mayce,” I snarled in her ear. “Place, time.”

  Hatred-filled eyes didn’t budge from the Cowboy. “He’s—”

  “I know,” I told her. “Remember where you are.”

  She hesitated for a second, her eyes cleared, and Burr appeared in the doorway. The bowling ball of muscle eyed the two of us for a long moment with passionless eyes. I knew the rules of the Castledaine, and so did Mayce. I’d seen Burr fight before without magic, and I had no intention of making him break up a brawl. My team’s rogue lowered the chair a second later with a shamefaced expression, and she shot a death glare at the Cowboy.

  “Be seeing you,” she told him.

  “Counting on it.” The Cowboy winked.

  Elsie stepped up beside me, got a good grip on Mayce’s jacket, and pulled her toward the door. The three of us stepped over toward the exit, and my eyes met Burr’s. The bouncer’s eyes flickered over the Cowboy, back to me, and he gave me a single nod.

  “Sorry about the trouble,” I said.

  “Glad you got to her in time,” he told me.

  “So am I,” I assured him.

  I took one last glance over my shoulder. The man sent to kill me made a show of shooting me with a finger gun. His easy grin widened as I glared at him and turned back to leave. I’d have to watch every step I took outside of the HQ or the Castledaine. Something about the man’s confidence and his easy manner bothered me. He wasn’t the most terrifying thing I’d come up against in the Game.

  But it was the quiet ones you needed to watch.

  I joined my team outside in the garden. My dad’s old truck sat parked just outside the gates, and the three of us hustled into it a moment later. Elsie took the wheel before I could protest, and I settled for shotgun. Mayce piled into the back, and the Texan fired up the Dodge. The engine growled appreciatively at fresh gas, and she dropped it into gear with the sheer instinct of someone who knew that we were in trouble. She swung the truck around and took us out of Underwood with a little too much speed.

  “Slow down,” I told her.

  “What the fuck was that about?” Mayce demanded behind me. “Matt, where did you go? Daine said something about you being on the Other Side, and we thought—”

  “I’m fine,” I told her reassuringly. “And I didn’t know I’d be gone that long.”

  “Matt.” Elsie’s soft, even tone made me pause. “Someone reached out to us last night. We’d barely rolled out of bed, and someone left a message for you in the lobby.”

 

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