Gray tidings, p.1
Gray Tidings, page 1
GRAY TIDINGS
HAILEY EDWARDS
Copyright © 2022 Black Dog Books, LLC
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Edited by Sasha Knight
Copy Edited by Kimberly Cannon
Proofread by Lillie's Literary Services
Cover by Damonza
Illustration by NextJenCo
CONTENTS
Gray Tidings
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Join the Team
About the Author
Also by Hailey Edwards
GRAY TIDINGS
Black Hat Bureau, Book 6
Corpses are vanishing from New Orleans morgues, there’s talk of a sea monster in Lake Pontchartrain, and Hiram Nádasdy is turning the French Quarter upside down in search of a witch with the power to bring the dead back to life.
When the director assigns Rue the case, she suspects he’s sending her hunting all right. For her father, not the creature. Too bad she’s got her hands full with dueling covens, drunk revelers, and a whole lot of pool noodles. Oh. And it’s Mardi Gras. Of course it is. But as the locals say, laissez les bons temps rouler.
1
Cage diving with sharks had nothing on spending the day in my office. Sharp-toothed predators circled, a carousel of menace, bumping against my newfound authority, testing for weak spots, hoping for an easy meal. The bars protected as much as they confined me, but I had entered this cage, agreed to swim with these carnivores, of my own free will. Though it didn’t help that the director had tied a juicy steak around my neck when he announced my relationship to him along with my promotion. That steak? Raw and bloody.
Just like I would be if I didn’t figure out my next move soon.
“More coffee?” Inga placed a fresh mug on my leather blotter before I could answer. “Another donut?”
“I’m good.” I signed off on the sixth warrant of the day with a hand already cramping. “Send in Clay.”
Please kept trying to wiggle in there, but I couldn’t afford politeness. It would only be seen as weakness.
“Yes, ma’am.”
On dainty hooves, the cervitaur exited with a swish of the fluffy white tail that might get her killed one of these days.
Light glinted off the enchanted Deputy Director plaque affixed to the door, a warning of what lay in wait if you dared enter. The ash wood door with its ornate silver vine inlay and cold iron knob were beautiful.
The symbology, however, was grotesque.
Ash wood? Silver? Cold iron?
They were banes, each element lethal to a faction of my allies.
Witches. Wargs. Dae.
The placement made it clear the director wanted them kept out of my office.
And my life.
“You’re growling,” Asa noted from behind me. “You’re also clutching the letter opener again.”
Swiveling in my chair, I found him right where I left him four hours ago. One ankle crossed over his knee, knitting needles clacking in his clever fingers, and a tablet with the pattern for a shawl resting on his thigh.
The official line was I had demanded a security detail. The truth was, I didn’t want to be alone.
On my own, I was vulnerable to the memories of this place. The tap-tap-tap of the director’s cane across the marble floors. The phantom pain as he cracked that cane across my knuckles. The ache of broken bones mending. The well of hatred filling me until it threatened to drown my fledgling conscience.
I could become who I once was here. I could become that black witch again. I could become his heir in truth as well as in title.
Some days, Asa was the only barrier between the dark memories pounding in my head and the identity I had spent so long crafting from the qualities I wanted to embody. Rue Hollis was more than a checklist. I had breathed life into her, and Asa’s presence reminded me to keep filling my lungs and not suffocate on the past.
Today his earrings and septum piercing were orange coral, and so was his neat pocket square. The bright color popped against his immaculate suit and brought out the vibrant green of his eyes. For no particular reason, I had braided his hair in a single queue that hung down his back, but now I missed his usual style.
The sleek black pantsuit with matching stilettos I wore had me missing my usual style too. And the white blouse? Worst idea ever. Had these people never seen me eat? I would have to get my tops spell treated to repel stains or wear my lunch down my chest every time I overpoured hot sauce on Taco Tuesdays.
“Inga clips, and she clops, and she swishes her tail.” I flicked a finger back and forth. “At you.”
I drove the blade an inch into my desktop with an angry stab I pretended fell between two doe eyes.
“I haven’t noticed.” He got distracted by a tangle in his burgundy yarn. “Except for the growling.”
“If I killed her, and I’m not saying I would, but if I did, no one would blame me.”
“You’re the deputy director.” He lifted his gaze to mine. “No one would dare blame you. For anything.”
Ugh.
The reminder of the power in my hands unclamped my fingers from the comfort of the handle I was too lazy to dig out of the wood. He was right. I knew he was right. But I still wanted to mount Inga’s head on my wall.
“A cervitaur.” I spat the word. “He chose a cervitaur for my assistant.”
A rare breed of centaur, Inga was half impossibly beautiful woman and half sleek deer.
Deer.
Had the Silver Stag survived, I bet the director would have drafted him to fetch and file for me too.
The unsubtle reminder of the case that cleaved me from Black Hat’s bosom kept my molars grinding.
“Inga had no say in her assignment.” He zoomed in on his pattern, searching for where he left off. “This is just another job for her.”
“How is she in Black Hat anyway? Was she pulling the sleigh when Grandma got run over by a reindeer?”
“Rue.” A tender smile spreading across his face, he set aside his project. “You’re doing it again.”
“Fascination is exhausting.” I slumped in my chair. “I’m tired of being jealous all the time.”
“You want to talk about jealousy?” He cocked an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Not this again.” I dismissed what I knew was coming with an annoyed huff. “He wasn’t serious.”
“He threw a vial of his blood at you and chanted an invocation to bind your souls for eternity.”
The he in question was a black witch whose name escaped me.
“And I kicked him in the balls so hard he sprouted a second uvula.” I rubbed underneath my chin. “That’s the dangly thing in the back of your throat, right?” I hummed. “Or would it be second and third uvula?”
As the first woman deputy director in the history of the Black Hat Bureau, I was experiencing a mutualist phenomenon akin to ballsy pilot fish ridding a lethal shark of parasites in exchange for not getting eaten.
And no, I had no idea why I kept circling back to sharks.
But it fit, what with the director chumming the water the second I dipped a toe into the family business.
I still couldn’t believe he had outed me as his granddaughter to the entire Bureau.
On the heels of that bombshell, I expected the outrage from those who cried nepotism. I anticipated the pushback from good ol’ boys like Marty who didn’t want to take orders from a girl. Unexpected? The opportunists who viewed me as the next gleaming rung within reach on the corporate ladder rather than the long fall to the bottom awaiting them.
After I kicked them in the teeth for thinking they had some claim on me.
“Keep a kill list.” Clay slipped in and shut the door behind him. “Write down the name of every person you want to kill and why. After you fill up a notebook, leak it. It’s better than a fart for clearing a room.”
As the second half of my security detail, Clay wore a comms charm spelled into a chunky vintage Rolex wristwatch that allowed us to communicate. For emergencies. But, as he proved by jumping right into our conversation, he often used it to eavesdrop on Asa and me out of boredom from his post in the hall.
Does the existence of the comms charm imply I could have summoned him myself?
Yes.
But then I wouldn’t have had an excuse to get rid of the director’s handpicked spy for a few minutes.
“You had me up until the end.” I angled my chair to see them both. “Well?”
“The line wasn’t too bad today.” He flopped into the chair across from me, one I’d had reinforced to support him. “Seven guys with diamonds in their pockets. One woman with fresh hearts, with pr ovenance, on ice in a cooler. And four assassins I fed to Earl.” He pulled one of the light-brown curls in his wig straight then let it spring back into a coil. “You remember Earl, right?”
“That literal void in the floor?” He did have his own office, though. “I didn’t realize it—he—had a name.”
“Maybe not an official one, but he’s got that Earl look to him. Real down-to-earth guy, that Earl.”
“Of course, he’s down-to-earth.” I snorted a laugh. “He’s a hole.”
“I’m not familiar with Earl.” Asa stood and stretched, a show which I did not mind watching one bit. “What, exactly, is he?”
“There’s some speculation Earl is a portal to Faerie,” I told Asa, who had not been allowed much access to the manor or the compound prior to meeting me. “One time a high fae staggered out and peed on a rug in the hall.” I lifted a shoulder. “He was drunk and claimed he thought it was his bathroom.”
“The director keeps a portal in the compound?” Asa raised his eyebrows. “A two-way portal?”
“The benefits outweigh the risks.” Clay pulled a candy bar from his pocket. “Earl has been a valued member of the Bureau for two centuries. He makes body disposal so much easier, and there’s only been that one security breach. If the director awarded employee of the decade, Earl would win every time. I’m telling you. He’s good people.”
“The director isn’t concerned he might be dumping dead bodies at an undisclosed location in Faerie?”
“The void, aka Earl, is naturally occurring.” Clay crammed the whole thing in his mouth. “His office?” I don’t think he even chewed before swallowing. “It was built around him.”
That was news to me, but I saw the appeal of having unlimited access to a magical landfill.
A buzz in my pocket informed me it was time for our team strategy session, and I couldn’t stop my smile.
With a tap of my finger on the desk, I activated a soundproof ward that coated the inside of the room. A variation on the spell I used to soundproof our hotel rooms, I had anchored this one semipermanently to make activating it quick and deactivating it even faster. Just in case Inga got curious about the silence.
“Agent Smarty Fuzz Butt,” I greeted Colby as I put my phone on speaker. “What do you have to report?”
“Saint received your message,” she answered with a distracted air. “He’s in New Orleans.”
“Makes sense.” Clay drummed his fingers on his armrests. “New Orleans is a mecca of the paranormal.”
“Black witches flock there in droves,” Asa agreed. “You can source almost anything in the Quarter.”
Like a miracle.
One big enough to bring Mom back to life.
Proving he had the same thought, Clay asked, “Do you think his quest is Luca approved?”
“I doubt it.” I began working the letter opener back and forth, splintering the desk as I pried it free. “I bet he dropped her like a hot potato.”
I had yet to identify Luca, but she must be Black Hat to have gained access to Dad once, let alone several times while she built trust with him. However, their earth-shattering bargain had been struck prior to his reunion with Mom. Now he had no time for another woman in his life.
Ask me how I know.
“The Toussaint coven owns the French Quarter.” Clay twisted his lips into a corkscrew. “Rue and I have had dealings with them. They’re not fans of ours. We had to put down their matriarch a couple decades back.”
“She was eating teenagers,” I explained to Asa. “She lured them into a Mardi Gras float garage with a charm that wafted magical cannabis smoke.”
“To be fair,” Clay countered, “she was so high from inhaling her own potion in such close quarters, she thought I was a giant talking pizza.”
“She kept asking me why they left off the bell peppers.”
“No,” Clay chided me. “Red pepper flakes.”
“Ah.” I snapped my fingers. “That makes more sense.”
Clay, whose mind was a vault and his stomach an abyss, sketched a small bow from his seat.
Asa, used to us getting sidetracked by food, asked, “Do you think Saint is searching for Howl’s bones?”
Jai Parish, the former deputy director, had strewn Mom’s remains across the world. Maybe across multiple worlds. He was fae, after all. I doubted she would be put back together again anytime soon. There were simply too many missing pieces.
“Bones or a cure.” I sobered in the face of that reality. “Or both.”
There was no cure for death, but that was beside the point as far as Dad was concerned.
“On the upside,” Colby said, her keyboard clicking, “the tracking chip is working.”
After Dad and Mom ditched me—and no, I wasn’t still bitter, why do you ask?—I sent him a short note via the bottle he magicked to travel my creek like our personal mail route. Colby had hidden a sliver of metal in the cork that reported its location to her. I couldn’t begin to guess how long it would last before he found it, his magic nullified it, or the water fried it, but I wanted to keep tabs on him for as long as possible.
“Hey.” Clay chucked me on the chin. “He might lead us straight to Luca.”
To the heart of a rebellion that I hadn’t decided whether to join or to crush.
“She might come hunting him.” Asa reclaimed his chair. “She’ll expect a return on her investment.”
While I appreciated Luca discovering my dad was alive and then springing him from his prison cell below the compound, I had my doubts as to the nobility of her quest to bring down Black Hat and the director.
Parish’s death had drummed one simple truth into my brain: As bad as things are, they can always get worse.
With Luca stirring the pot, encouraging rogue behavior, and generally making my life miserable, I had reason to doubt she had altruistic motives for, well, anything. A nice chat would go a long way toward convincing me where I ought to fall on the line she was quickly drawing down the center of the Bureau.
“We’ll find her before that happens.” Clay folded his hands behind his head. “She can’t hide forever.”
“If Saint breaks faith with Luca, she may come to us.” Asa slanted his eyes toward me. “To you.”
“Come to me or come after me?”
“Saint is a nuclear option. He’ll mushroom cloud if she harms Rue.” Clay spread his fingers. “Ka-boom.”
I wish I had their confidence, but I doubted Dad would notice me if I was writhing and screaming on a lit pyre in the French Quarter, burning while the director toasted marshmallows in the flames and tourists sipped café au laits, crammed sugary beignets in their maws, and marveled at the New Orleans performance art scene. Claps would ring out as I was rendered to ash and blown across the hot pavement into nothingness.
Yeah.
That was grim.
Even by my standards.
“What you need—” Clay’s eyes glittered, “—is to escape this claustrophobic office for a few hours.”
That sounded better than doodling in the margin of my notepad to avoid more paperwork. “Oh?”
“What she needs,” Colby cut in, “is to come home.” Her voice went soft. “I miss you, Rue.”
“I miss you too.” I rubbed the aching spot over my breastbone. “I’ll be home tomorrow, okay?”
Since my big promotion, I wasn’t there as much. The commute was a nightmare, but worse, it was dangerous to let people believe I had an important reason for returning so often to Samford. The more curious among them might decide they ought to pay a visit and discover its hold over me for themselves.
Until I conjured a more permanent solution, Aedan was sleeping in Clay’s room.
Colby wasn’t alone, but it wasn’t the same.
For any of us.
“We’ll have the whole weekend together,” Clay added. “Forty-eight hours to kill the kraken. I bet you and Blay do it in twenty-four.”
The kraken.
From the Mystic Realms pirate expansion pack.
