Black hat 8 gray seas, p.7
Black Hat 8 - Gray Seas, page 7
And why Derry had fallen in love with her. To paraphrase Marita, her crazy complemented his crazy.
As I waited for Clay to return after checking his babies into daycare, an envoy of black SUVs turned in, along with three white vans filled with cleaners.
Much to my surprise, I recognized the first agent on the scene.
Fergal.
Another of my lieutenants.
Look at me, matching faces to names like a pro.
“Isiforos called you, didn’t he?” I met him halfway and shook his hand. “You were in Baltimore.”
“An attempt was made on your life.” His gaze skated past me. “Make that two.”
“Four dead black witches.” I led him to the bodies. “They were waiting at the hotel where we spent last night. Clay went to pick up our things, and they followed him back here.”
Although I was certain most of the agents would smell warg, I didn’t want to drag Derry into this in an official capacity. The less the director knew about my friends, the better off they—and their loved ones—would be.
“I see why Isiforos summoned me.” Fergal crouched to examine the bodies. “I brought my team.”
After I made Fergal and Isiforos official, I urged them to select their own teams of loyal and trustworthy agents. We needed more people within the Bureau we could depend on, and it started with them. Call it a trial or an experiment. Whatever it was, I hoped it proved successful.
Change one person’s mind, change the world and all that.
“Excellent.” I watched them flock to him, grim-faced and ready for work. “Can you handle this?”
“Type up your statement.” His focus drifted toward the hotel, and he lifted a hand. “Email it.”
On the balcony, sandwiched between Marita and Derry, stood Asa.
“How is your mate?” He slid his gaze back to me. “The challenge was…brutal.”
Part of me wondered if Isiforos had talked him into watching it. The other part worried more that the daemons were paying close attention to what Asa and I got up to these days. But I didn’t have room on my plate for another scoop of worry, so I let it go.
“He’s fully recovered.” I didn’t even have to lie. “He’s keeping a low profile for obvious reasons, but we’ll resolve that situation soon enough.”
“Let us know if your resolution requires our assistance.”
“Aww, Fergal.” I winked at him. “You softy.”
Had a proctologist sprung up behind him and performed a surprise exam, he would have looked more comfortable than he did with my teasing. Vampires were a stuffy lot to begin with, and anyone who ended up in Black Hat had no other options. Join or die was the company policy for good reason.
“What are your plans?” He rerouted our conversation. “Hunker down until we have a bead on the bomber?”
That was the safest excuse, and one I could get away with until he knew me better, so I decided to take it and run. “Yes.”
Whoever decided today was a good day for me to die had done me a favor. Now I had the perfect excuse to ditch the office, avoid the director, and go into hiding until this matter was resolved and the person or persons responsible were brought to justice by my trusty lieutenants.
Not that I would actually go into hiding, but it was a solid cover while I searched for Luca.
Without knowing where Calixta was in her plan to overthrow Stavros, I couldn’t free Aedan all willy-nilly. I had to let them secure the throne in Hael first. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t keep working toward the goal of earning the director’s trust by handing over the solution to one of his problems.
Which reminded me. I should call the director and alert him to the agents’ deaths before he heard it secondhand. I wasn’t ready to risk my goodwill project blowing up in my face if another Marty was crouching in the bushes with a phone to his ear.
Ugh.
The dutiful granddaughter would be my hardest role yet.
Grateful the director couldn’t see my scowl, I dialed him and waited to see if he would answer.
“I understand a second attempt was made on your life.”
Freaking Marty. I had to get word to Jase to lock him down tighter. He was really on a crusade this time.
“That has yet to be determined, but the evidence suggests it’s a strong possibility.”
“Return to the mansion and—”
“With all due respect, I’m concerned these attacks might stem from my father’s reappearance.”
Silence filled the line, and it bothered me I couldn’t read into it whether I had hooked him.
“In what way?”
Pumping my fist in the air, I mentally patted myself on the back before laying it on thick.
“Father announced his return to the paranormal world in New Orleans. He has enemies. A lot of them.” I let that sink in. “That’s why he refused to meet with me himself. I never saw him. I only received a letter. A warning. He’s worried I’ll become a target for anyone seeking revenge against him.”
More silence, which I waited out, crossing my fingers he bought the lies I was selling.
“You didn’t see him?”
“No.”
“He only sent you a letter?”
“Yes.”
The line strung taut between us, his end thoughtful and mine crackling in anticipation of his move.
“Then we don’t know for sure that he’s alive.”
The softness of his voice reminded me of a parent comforting a frightened child, and that warmed me to my cold, black heart. Because he wasn’t directing that tone at me. It was inward facing. He was comforting himself.
“Rumors have been circulating, but that’s nothing new.” I played into his paranoid hope that I hadn’t yet chosen a side, that he might wake up tomorrow to find this had all been a bad dream. That Dad was still trapped in a cell, and he was safe from the consequences of his actions. “Who’s to say what’s true?”
Perhaps he thought he still had me on his hook. Perhaps he thought he could still turn the tide of my opinion in his favor. Or perhaps he was so afraid he was willing to believe his own lies to save his hide.
“What are your intentions?”
“To pursue whoever has targeted me and make an example of them. They must be made to understand what happens when they come after Black Hat.” Not a total lie. “The cleaners are processing four black witch corpses recovered from the scene of the second attack. Given the rise in rogue black witch activity within the Bureau, I request permission—” my teeth gritted until I feared they might crack, “—to go off the grid with my team to perform the investigation personally.”
Not quite what I told Fergal, which might land me in hot water with him, but it was the better cover.
“Very well.” The director lingered a moment longer. “I expect regular updates.”
Had he been anyone else, I might have read his hesitance as concern for me, but I knew better.
“And, Rue?” He channeled every ounce of menace I had come to expect from his reprimands. “If your father, or the person pretending to be him, reaches out to you again, I expect you to inform me immediately.”
“Yes, sir.”
He ended the call, and I slumped against the wall, allowing myself a momentary reprieve.
By the time I recovered from the lecture, the others had gathered their things and stood in a line on the balcony like refugees ready to flee toward safety.
Clay and Asa had changed into their own clothes, their black suits, but I was fine with my tee and jeans. I didn’t need the custom tailoring they did, plus I was a casual girl at heart. The half-off sticker that came on my tee when it was delivered had earned Colby a smile at how well she knew my taste.
“Let’s do this.” Marita slapped Derry’s butt and ran down the stairs. “Dibs on shotgun.”
“There’s an order to our chaos.” Clay plodded after her. “Asa drives, Rue pretends to navigate while secretly ogling him, and Colby and I chill on the backseat.” He turned up his nose. “You two can ride in the cargo area. There’s plenty of room for you there.”
“Good idea.” I clasped my hands in front of me. “They can guard your wig boxes.”
“On second thought—” He rushed forward and slung an arm around each of their shoulders. “Backseat besties.”
Mmm-hmm.
I thought that might change his tune.
While they settled in, the wargs crammed on either side of Clay, I stood with Asa, watching Fergal and his team do the heavy lifting for me.
Not gonna lie.
This delegating thing was growing on me.
“You’re having to referee your friends more than usual,” Asa observed. “Clay is particularly miffed.”
“Miffed, huh?” I allowed myself a chuckle. “A little competition is good for him.”
“This has nothing to do with him rubbing how Colby is his best friend in your face?”
“As a wise warg once said to me…” I couldn’t stop the grin from stretching my cheeks, “…stay petty.”
CHAPTER SIX
Aedan
A hand as cold and damp as a corpse rested on my thigh, drawing my attention from the churning waves to my sovereign. Calixta Damaris, former High Queen of the Haelian Seas, and future High Queen of Hael if the gods allowed it, no longer resembled the feral drowned creature I had freed from her watery cage.
Glamour coated her from head to toe, concealing the ravages of her captivity, and she was…stunning.
Long silver hair hung in a sheet down her back, the ends twisting in the breeze kicked up by the speed of the boat, and her eyes were the flat black of a hungry shark. Her skin was the pale white of a fish’s belly, but her cheeks were bright red, as if she had used a daub of fresh blood for rouge.
Both of us wore thin bodysuits that fit like a second skin in a shade of navy as dark as the ocean’s heart. But only I wore a silver torque around my neck. The mark of an heir. Its warm metal flexed each time I swallowed in a constant reminder I now belonged to her, that I was hers to command and had no choice but to obey. That was the purpose of a torque. To prevent heirs from setting their sights on the throne before their time.
“You’re quiet.”
The melodious voice I first heard underwater was smoky above the surface. “Apologies, Majesty.”
“You’re unhappy.”
Happiness was a cold creek behind a small house on a hill.
Happiness was warm brown eyes and blonde hair that defied elastics to tumble around thin shoulders.
Happiness was…a myth. A lie. A dream.
Angling my head toward her, I asked, “How could I be anything other than content in your presence?”
“Clever wordsmithing, but I catch your meaning.” She gazed out at the horizon. “We have much work to do, Aedan.” She smiled when the engine cut, and we began drifting. “Do you have the stomach for it?”
“Yes, Majesty.”
“We shall see.” She rose with a sway in her hips that spoke to her connection to the sea beneath us. “Come then, heir, and prove your worth.”
Calixta dove over the side of the boat, and I followed her down, down, down, to a white coral castle.
This wasn’t right. None of it. We ought to be in Hael. Not here.
But then Calixta whispered in my ear, her first true command, and as the torque threatened to garrote me for balking at her orders, I battled against her will with everything in me.
And lost.
When we left its halls, the waters were dyed a dark crimson, and the sharks had come to feast.
CHAPTER SEVEN
As much as I would have liked to fly to Ogunquit, that would mean leaving Clay behind with a driver, and I didn’t want to risk the public scrutiny involved in a flight. The diversity of our group was guaranteed to leave a lasting impression on our fellow passengers. The paranormal ones, anyway. Driving was safer.
All it would take was one person recognizing Asa, or me, and placing a call. Then we would have Incident Three outside an airport, which the director would use to reel me in and place me under lock and key. I was shocked when he let me go on my merry way earlier, but if I proved incompetent right out of the gate, I could kiss my freedom goodbye.
“Still no word from Aedan?”
I hadn’t realized I was rubbing my phone’s screen with my thumb until Asa mentioned it. “No.”
“He’s a survivor.” He believed it, and he made me believe it too. “He’ll hold on until we come for him.”
“Yeah.” I tossed my phone on the dash to get it away from me. “No news is good news, right?”
A white flash announced Colby as she zoomed to my shoulder. “The database has been updated.”
“Anything good?” I leaned my cheek against her, comforted by her softness. “Tell me all, oh wise moth.”
“She needs food, stat.” Colby placed a hand on my forehead. “She gets loopy when she’s hungry.”
“She just ate,” Clay argued. “It’s probably a late onset concussion from all the blowing up she’s done lately.”
“Anyway.” I ignored him, one of my favorite hobbies. “What have you got?”
“The four black witches were Black Hat agents.”
“Why am I not surprised?” I thumped my head on the back of my seat. “Have they determined the cause of death?”
“Fanutculaceae,” she fumbled through the pronunciation. “What is that?”
“King killer is the Faerie equivalent of a street name for it.” Hands tightening on the wheel, Asa gave her the answer. “It’s a rare and poisonous fae plant. Rare enough I’m surprised they identified it so quickly.”
“The cyanide of Faerie.” Clay, who had been around long enough to have encountered most everything, had a knack for memorizing random factoids. “The nickname comes from how many royals have been killed with it.”
“The expense is as prohibitive as its elusiveness.” Asa frowned. “Not many can afford it.”
“Somehow it doesn’t surprise me that monarchs rate all the good stuff, even when it comes to top-shelf poisons used to kill them.” I almost wished I could get my hands on some for Calixta to slip into her toast bubbly after she accepted the crown. “Dead is dead.” I pushed aside that self-indulgent fantasy. “Why get fancy with it?”
“The black witches’ deaths were fast and painless.” He wet his lips. “But, when used on fae, king killer is the equivalent of a human drinking bleach. It causes vomiting, diarrhea, low blood pressure, respiratory failure, abnormal heart rhythms, and acute liver failure.”
“And then death,” Clay spelled it out in case I missed any nuances.
A swooping sensation in my gut left me dizzy at the possibility such a poison existed, let alone that it had found its way down the throats of Black Hat agents in our vicinity. That didn’t sit well with me. Not even a little bit. Asa was finally recovering from his brush with cold iron. I didn’t need another fae bane to fear.
“Okay.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Asa, I will be tasting all your food and drinks going forward.”
“I don’t mind.” A smile warmed his voice. “But you should know, there’s no cure.”
“Of course, there’s not.” I threw my hands in the air. “Why would there be?”
“The agents who committed suicide were black witches?” Marita leaned forward between the seats. “Why not off themselves with magic?”
With a poison in the mix, suicide was a strong word. Maybe the wrong one. It was too early to tell.
“Or a potion or a charm.” Derry drew her back to him. “They had options. Why choose that one?”
With the Black Hat and black witch link, I couldn’t stop my brain from circling a particular name.
“If Luca has bargained with other witches of Dad’s caliber, I’m sure she could get her hands on some.” Dark arts practitioners tended to be friendly with their local rare herb black market venders. “I just don’t see the point. Like Marita said, they had other options.”
Long-term deep-cover agents Black Hat imbedded in other organizations had been known to sacrifice themselves to avoid being taken alive for interrogation, sure, but it was rare. And, usually, they took their lives with their own magic. King killer was extra hassle and expense, so what had been the point?
To make a statement?
That only worked if we understood the message.
“What about dumpster dude?” Clay rested his hand on the back of my seat. “Any updates on him?”
“His species is unconfirmed,” Colby reported, “and his prints weren’t in the database.”
For him not to have a file, he was either an innocent bystander—bycroucher?—or he was up to no good but hadn’t been caught yet, which meant he was good at being up to no good.
“Have they discovered anything new about the restaurant?” Asa checked with her. “Or the bomb?”
“There was an abandoned car in the lot. They thought it belonged to one of the staff, but it’s a rental.”
“Can you trace it?” Marita widened her eyes. “Like on those cop shows?”
“Yeah.” Colby puffed up her fluff. “It’ll take me a minute, but I’ll find the records.”
“Nice.” Marita offered her a finger for a high-five. “Maybe I need a moth on my team.”
“Find your own.” Clay held out his palm for Colby. “This one’s taken.”
“Yep.” Colby kicked off to return to him. “I’m taken.”
With his bestie cuddled in the crook of his arm, they began listening to a podcast together.
I didn’t have to ask to know it would be wall-to-wall cheat codes and game rumors.
After a good ten minutes, Marita wedged herself between the front seats again. “This is a lot for a kid.”
“Yeah.” A pang arrowed through my chest. “I wish there was another way.”
“Colby isn’t a normal child.” Asa was quick to defend me. “Rue protected her for as long as she could, but Colby wants to help.” He forced his hands to relax on the wheel. “She doesn’t want another child hurt the way she was hurt, and doing what she does…it helps her too.”
