Shadow of doubt the pote.., p.7
Shadow of Doubt (The Potentate of Atlanta Book 1), page 7
The problem with lying about who and what you are is you expect others to do the same.
Sadly, most people don’t disappoint. Vanity, ego, insecurity all drive lies out of mouths. I might be hiding for nobler reasons, but I was still a liar. Hard to feel entitled to expect truth from someone when you can’t offer it in return.
“Not exactly.” He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I am waiting for the right kind of woman to come along.”
Flirting.
He was flirting with me.
Again.
There must be something seriously wrong with him if he thought this hot mess was just plain hot.
“Good luck with that.” I did what I did best and blew him off before the spark fanned into a flame that burned my new identity to the ground. “The right person always seems to come along at the wrong time. Or maybe I got that backwards, and it’s the wrong person who always seems to come along at the right time.”
“Either works, as near as I can tell.” A beat later, he addressed the dog at my feet. “Corgi?”
“Midas says she’s a Pembroke? Pemberley? No, that’s Jane Austen. Definitely Pembroke.”
“Midas.” He slid the leash between his fingers, his skin throwing off warmth but not touching mine, and rubbed the nylon between his fingers like he couldn’t quite decide if it was real. The leash or his attraction, I wasn’t sure which piqued his curiosity more. “That explains your new pet.”
“This was our compromise. I have to work, and she has to blend.”
“Have you checked DORA? The cleaners have uploaded their preliminary findings.”
The best thing about the cleaners had to be their expansive database. Thanks to their in with all factions, they collated historical data on every crime involving supernaturals within city limits. Bishop nicknamed her DORA, and it caught on, but I had no idea what it meant, and no one would tell me.
A year later, I was still enduring my hazing with good humor. Mostly.
“Not yet.” I slanted Bonnie a pointed glance. “I’m heading for a meeting now. Bishop will brief me then.” Ford made no move to let me pass, so I tacked on, “I would invite you to tag along, but it’s OPA only.”
“OPA?”
“Office of the Potentate of Atlanta. Bishop likes OPA because he likes having an excuse to yell ‘Opa!’”
“He’s Greek?”
“No, he’s annoying.” Bonnie started tugging on her leash, and I took the hint. “Nature calls.”
I almost said duty, but I didn’t want to jinx myself since I didn’t have any doggie poop bags.
“Lee,” he implored, eyes downcast. “I don’t want you to think I’m pressuring you to cooperate with the pack, with me, but I do need you to keep me in the loop—in your loop—until we resolve this.” A grin hit his lips. “Think of me as your substitute Bishop.”
“Bishop is part of the team. There are things I could tell him that I can’t tell you.”
“I get that.” He shifted his weight, scuffed a heel. “I only want you to keep me in mind.”
“I’ll do that,” I promised. “Just like you have hard lines, I do too. I won’t cross them.”
“I can’t disobey my alpha,” he confided in a tone that hinted at secrets, and I heard the warning even if I didn’t understand it. “I always follow orders. It’s not a matter of conscience, it’s a physical compulsion for me.”
“Midas isn’t your alpha.”
“Yet.”
“He can exert that level of control over you?”
“The power makes him uncomfortable,” he neither confirmed nor denied. “That’s why he was happy playing second fiddle to his sister, but Lethe squirmed under her mother’s thumb. None of us were much surprised when she started her own pack where she can run things her own way.”
“He didn’t seem all that uncomfortable when he was staring me down last night.”
“Lee, darlin’, had you pulled that stunt with his mother, Tisdale would still be picking you out of her teeth.”
“Well, that’s comforting.” I ran a finger along the collar of my tee, but I had trouble swallowing. “He did say his control was excellent.”
“His position comes with certain…benefits. Midas isn’t fond of those either. He’s used to making eye contact with whomever he likes, so he gets frustrated when folks won’t look back. He snares them, like he did you. That’s why he didn’t punish you. It was his fault, and he knew it.”
Curious about that very topic, I prodded him. “What’s the deal with that anyway?”
“You can make brief eye contact with any pack member, with the exception of the alpha and the heir.” A pause told me he was thinking how to frame the rest. “Friends and lovers earn certain exemptions to the rules over time, but only with the gwyllgi they’re involved with, and only for as long as the relationship lasts.”
“I look at you all the time,” I pointed out. “I’m looking directly into your eyes now, as a matter of fact.”
“We’re friends, remember? I can look at you all day, and you can look right back, and it won’t ruffle that side of me.”
“I thought you said it happens over time? It’s been like twenty-four hours.”
“I’ve watched you for a lot longer.” He tapped the end of my nose. “You just recently made the mistake of letting me wedge my foot in the door is all.”
“Don’t blur the line between friend and stalker, Ford.”
“Gwyllgi don’t stalk.” Ford acted affronted as he escorted me out onto the sidewalk. “We’re not cats.”
Touchy, touchy.
With a promise to touch base soon, I set off under the pretense of walking my dog, which made her kind of handy as far as exit strategies go, then pulled out my cell to text Bishop.
HQ, which was less of a tongue twister than OPA, was fluid. Its location, I mean. Ask anyone on the POA’s team, and they would tell you we have several bases numbered one through twelve scattered throughout the city. They would also admit they had never stepped inside one.
Members of the team, aside from the POA (See what I mean about it being a tongue twister? Or maybe a brain twister. I mean, really. The POA is at the OPA. What’s with all the acronyms?), Bishop, and me, were kept anonymous.
Only Bishop knew their real identities, and he acted as a go-between. Yet another reason why he had been a desk jockey pre-Hadley. Maybe he was grateful I provided an excuse for him to venture out into the world, take a break from his computer screens. Or maybe he hoped I would fail in spectacular fashion, and the POA would remand him back to his techie temple to worship in peace.
I had a more pressing issue on my hands than whether Bishop liked or merely tolerated me. What to do with Bonnie. Only one person could grant her clearance to enter HQ with me, and I regretted there was no choice but to have the conversation in an unsecure location.
“Watch my back,” I told the shadow sniffing around Bonnie, hoping for a contact high. “I need about ten minutes.”
Slinking away, it began canvassing the area while I sucked in a fortifying breath and dialed the POA.
“Hadley.”
Even the way he said my name gave me chills. “Linus.”
Warmth tempered his voice, but it failed to thaw me. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I have a pet. Temporarily. A dog.”
“Congratulations.”
“Um, the thing is, she’s actually a friend’s dog. You know who I mean? The friend with a whole pack of them? So I guess I’m dog-sitting. Kind of.”
Even with Ambrose on the prowl, it was dangerous, so dangerous, to name any names.
“I see.”
“She got stuck, and she’s my responsibility until she gets unstuck.”
“Let me see if I have this straight. A pureblooded gwyllgi under Tisdale’s protection has glamoured itself to appear as a dog who is now in your custody. Did you perform a service for it? Or it for you to create this debt between you?”
Yet another reason why he was scary. He read between lines where air molecules wouldn’t fit.
“A little of both,” I supposed. “She doesn’t like men, so I acted as a buffer. We bonded over it, I guess. She took it personally when one of the cleaners got in my face about procedure. That’s when she…got stuck.”
“She was a witness?”
“She received a tip sent to her boss and followed up personally. We met her on-scene to assess the situation, and…it escalated from there.”
“Necromancers are forbidden to interact with fae.”
Since fae were more or less immortal all on their own—the very nerve!—and therefore required nothing from the Society, the Society viewed them as lesser beings rather than peers or—goddess forbid—superiors.
Our factions indulged in commerce—no surprise considering the Society prized wealth over life, or undeath—but those transactions were handled through specially bonded solicitors who negotiated on behalf of their clients.
“I didn’t knowingly interact with…her, but then it was too late. For what it’s worth, no one outside the, uh, top dogs, are aware of her…condition?” I bit the side of my cheek. “This covert stuff is harder than I thought it would be.”
All the awkward pauses made me sound like I was doing a Captain Kirk impression.
“You need clearance for your guest to accompany you to the meeting?”
“Yeah. That’s why I called in the first place.”
“Can you hold the phone to her ear?”
“Sure.” I crouched on the sidewalk, certain I’d fit right in with crazy dog moms everywhere for letting my pooch burn a few of my unlimited minutes. “Here you go, Snowball.”
Linus spoke to her for a minute or two, and Bonnie barked once at the end before nudging the phone away with her nose.
I held the receiver to my ear. “You speak dog?”
“Glamour doesn’t impair her comprehension. Her mind is just as sharp, no matter what form she takes. You would be wise to remember that if you’re going to work this closely with the pack.”
“I’ll do that.” I reconsidered Bonnie. “What did you tell her?”
“I explained she is more than welcome to stay with you for as long as you’ll have her, but if she expects to accompany you everywhere you go, and be privy to the details of your current investigation and beyond, she must swear an oath to our office.”
The oath prevented her from divulging the location of any or all HQs she visited, from sharing any case-related information she overheard, or spreading identifying information on the team, etc.
“Will it supersede any contradictory oaths?” I searched the darkness, but my shadow blended too well. “Her…owner…can order her to spill her guts. So can her owner’s son, apparently.”
“That is true to a certain extent. She will do as she’s commanded, a submissive seldom argues, but she’s fae, and fae can’t lie. She gave her word, and her vow is magically binding.”
“A bark is binding?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” I absorbed this information, filing it away. “You’re the boss for a reason.”
“Lethe has been attempting to educate us for our own safety now that a pack, and therefore its distant relations, will be living next door.”
Lethe Kinase, Midas’s sister, the former Atlanta heir and current Savannah alpha, had purchased the home next door to Woolworth House, where Linus would live after he married Grier.
No doubt those close ties were to thank for the prosperous relationship between HQ and Tisdale Kinase.
Yet another reason for me to keep my nose clean. The Savannah alpha knew my secret. The Atlanta one…did not.
Thinking of Ford, and Midas, I hazarded, “Maybe Lethe can send me some tips via email.”
“I’ll mention it at dinner.”
That was a polite way of saying I was holding him up, so I mumbled thanks and ended the call.
Then I gave myself a few seconds to just breathe.
Linus trusted me.
He believed in me.
He wouldn’t go off la-di-da to dinner if he felt Atlanta was burning in his absence.
I got this.
I can do this.
A sharp bark drew my attention to Bonnie, who had finally noticed Ambrose. Not everyone did. It required a smidgen of magic to see him, a dollop to track his movements, and a dash to comprehend his full range of motion. Most folks only saw a blur, if that, which made life easier for me.
“Ambrose, knock it off.”
While Ambrose bristled at the command, Bonnie made her move. She snapped at him, but her teeth—
“Goddess,” I hissed. “Bonnie, no.”
Jaw locked on a corner of shadow, she slung her head while snarling, and I hit my knees.
Stars sparkled on the edges of my vision, growing brighter, closer.
“Kill him,” I panted, “and you kill me too.”
Bonnie spat out the mouthful of darkness then reared up on me, licking my face while she whined softly.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.” I waited until I caught my breath. “This was my fault for not telling you. Most folks can’t see him, let alone touch him. I should have given you a heads-up.”
Only the POA had ever strong-armed Ambrose into submission, and that was before we fused into this…thing.
Learning gwyllgi, full-blooded ones anyway, could tear into Ambrose both comforted and terrified me.
I appreciated the need for fail-safes, but I didn’t enjoy discovering new vulnerabilities the hard way.
“Come on.” I checked for physical wounds, but there was only a sharp pang that radiated throughout my body. One thing was certain. Bonnie had just guaranteed I would have to feed Ambrose to heal him, and I didn’t mean chocolate ganache squares. “Bishop will have a conniption if we don’t hurry.”
For the next half hour, I exchanged long strings of code with him that guided me through the city toward the base selected for tonight’s meeting. About the time I started to worry I might have to carry Bonnie, her short legs flagging, a final text informed me Base Four was expecting me.
After tucking my phone away, I led Bonnie to the parking deck on the corner.
A swirl of shadows darker than the rest shot past me to race us to the stairwell.
Accepting the challenge from her new archnemesis, Bonnie barked at the top of her lungs and gave chase, straining against her leash. Until she remembered it was her own construct, anyway. Then it stretched like taffy between us as she ran flat out for Ambrose.
Frak.
Just my luck she would suffer delusions of grandeur while dressed in her fur suit.
“Snowball,” I yelped, belatedly realizing she might be small, but she was mighty. “Slow down.”
Ignoring me, the corgi dragged me clear across the bottom floor to the emergency exit doors. She cornered the shadow, who leaned down and patted her shadow’s head, which incensed her to new volumes of pissedoffedness. She didn’t bite him again. Thank the goddess.
“Ambrose,” I sighed, scooping up Bonnie so she would hush. “Why are you like this?”
The shadow gave an exaggerated shrug, returned to its usual Hadley shape, and started climbing to the correct floor, not waiting on me to follow.
Out of breath by the time we arrived on an abbreviated landing tucked between floors, I set Bonnie down and braced my hands on my knees. “You weigh a lot more than twenty-five pounds. What are you, fifty?”
She spun a tight circle and gave me a face full of her fluffy butt.
“Yeah, yeah,” I groused. “That was rude of me.”
I punched in my code and entered HQ before the overwhelming urge to smile set a bad precedent. I already had a misbehaving shadow who expected artisanal chocolate in exchange for not indulging his murderous whims. I refused to stuff jerky in my pockets for dog training too.
A quick glance at Bishop’s command center, which I preferred to call the bridge, as in his equipment was so advanced he could pilot a starship from here, told me I hadn’t missed the meeting.
The wall in front of me was painted an unrelieved black, and the two rows of monitors anchored there blended in when not in use. The upper row held four monitors, each about thirty-four inches, and they were blank. The lower row mirrored the one above it, but those were always on and flashing surveillance mooched off city cameras as well as our own private mounts. That or cartoons. Depended on if business was slow.
Bishop strolled in from the kitchen cupping a steaming mug that perfumed the air with its bright copper fragrance.
Since I wasn’t a practicing necromancer, I hadn’t built up much of a tolerance for blood. The way it smelled, the way it looked, the way it felt running through my fingers. I gotta admit, I wasn’t a big fan, but I was getting used to it. Mostly because Ambrose was a fan. That didn’t mean it was any less weird to watch someone walk around sipping it like the café mocha I forgot to brew on my way out the door.
Ugh.
No wonder I was so crabby tonight.
“You’re late.” Bishop licked his lips with a smacking noise when he caught me staring at his blood mustache. “We’ve been waiting.”
“An hour. Half that was spent talking to the POA. You saw me.” I gestured to the live feeds. “You have a billion cameras mounted across the city, and you watch my every move like I’m the star of your favorite television series.” I indicated the blank monitors. “No one is waiting. They’re probably running late, as usual, just like me.”
As much as I would like to claim I set a sterling example for the team by showing up on time to every meeting, I would be lying through my teeth. Between the circuitous route I took to get here, and never knowing where here was, I ran late as often as everyone else.
Gathering this many people, with lives and jobs outside the OPA, and on short notice, was plain hard. We were lucky when two-thirds of us showed and blessed when we had a full house.
On his way past, he caught sight of Bonnie and almost dropped his mug. “That is not a corgi.”
“No, it’s an Andulian liver worm from the planet Balfonz that I stuffed into a fur suit I bought off eBay. Using its newfound powers of adorableness, it will infiltrate our society. Soon we will all call it master.”
