6

Veruca and I had driven for fifteen minutes when she broke the silence. “You okay, Colin?”

I wasn’t. The wolf-mother had been a spiteful old woman who had ordered my execution. Still, watching her die like that was something I wasn’t prepared for. I lied. “Yeah, I’ll be okay.”

Veruca knew better. That’s why she was driving Dora. Clearly, killing people was a normal day’s work for her. She had calmly walked up to the body, verified the woman’s death, and retrieved the wendigo head, all while keeping one long, sleek-barreled gun out and at least one eye on the rest of the tribe. As she escorted me back to my car, I had the feeling that she was accustomed to being horrifically outnumbered in hostile territory. She was all professional. I was shaking so badly that I couldn’t open the driver’s side door. Veruca took the keys.

As we drove past a pink and black rice-burner, she cursed, pulled out a keychain remote combo, and pressed a series of buttons. A loud explosion echoed out behind us as we sped away. “Third bike this month. Lucien is going to start docking my pay.”

I think I grunted in response. Words weren’t an easy thing for me.

“Not a killer, huh? Can I ask what you expected to happen?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Not that. I thought she’d see I had killed one of the wendigoes and fold.”

Veruca shook her head, a lone scarlet bang whipping around freely, while the rest of her raven feather hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail. “My guess: from her perspective, she and everyone she knew had been folding for a long time. People like that, once they decide they’re all in, they’re done folding. Nothing you said could have changed that.”

I didn’t like it, but I suspected she was right. “She spoke of poison…I wonder if it was all about drugs. Maybe she lost someone to a drug addiction. Whatever or whoever it was, it changed her. She broke all of her people’s laws, the peace of the Twins, by calling up the wendigo.” I paused as I reflected on how stupid I had been to go there alone. “There was no going back after that.”

“Yeah, you should have been more careful. Though to your credit, you looked like you were doing all right up until the end there.”

“I suppose. What do you think the rest of them will do? Call the cops?”

“I doubt it. I suspect they hate the police as much as they hate Valente. My guess is they pick up stakes and move some place else. Maybe split into three or four groups under new leadership. They’ve been rousted before.”

“And if they do call the cops?”

She shrugged. “What are they going to say? You didn’t give them your name, did you? There were no security cameras posted, so the cops would need an eyewitness and forensics to nail us.” The way she said the word “eyewitness,” it sounded sarcastic, as if witnesses were a hard thing to come by where Lucien Valente was involved. I thought about asking what would happen if one of them did go to the cops and decided I really didn’t want to know.

She picked up the conversation again while debating which way to turn at the next intersection. “So how did you find them? Lucien spent a lot of money trying to find out who sent that letter.”

“Tracking spell.” I tapped the necklace, now hanging limply from the mirror. “Used the letter and a little bit of the wendigo’s blood to back track her.”

“Not bad,” she said. “You must know your stuff. I keep telling Lucien he needs to use his connections to hire one of the military sorcerers, but he has this idea that he knows how to find his own talent. I don’t think he’d trust the government not to plant one of their own people in the Inner Circle. Maybe Lucien does know how to pick out fae bloods, demon bloods, and psychics, but wizards are a tough commodity these days. A lot of people talk the talk, but not many can walk the walk.”

Fae bloods, demon bloods, and psychics…the phrase bounced around in my head, especially the plural “s” on the end of each word. Duchess Deluce wasn’t the only more-than-human coworker on the payroll. Out of survival instinct, I threw up my trusty shell spell. “So which are you? And how did you find me?”

“No tracking spell, just followed you from your hotel. I owe you Burger King, remember? Oh, and nice moves, by the way. Picking up the wheels from the old man, you nearly shook me. Anybody else, you would have lost them. I figured you were staying on foot and was waiting for you at the end of the road, then you come whipping by in a souped up hotrod. Did you spot me or do you just normally assume you’re being followed?

I didn’t want to strike her as a complete idiot, and she had dodged my question, so I fudged. “Well, I’m a little on edge after having my old car totaled last night.”

She nodded. “You’re learning quick. You’ve got to be a little paranoid to make it in this company.”

I laughed, which bothered me. I shouldn’t have been able to laugh at anything right then. “I should’ve known there was a catch when I saw the size of the paycheck.” Pause. “So what do you do for Lucien?”

She pulled the car to a stop on the shoulder of the road, then turned to face me. “You really don’t know? Duchess just said to call me and you called?”

I sized her up. She was all of five-one and looked younger than me by a couple of years. She didn’t have the raw beauty of Miss Deluce, but there was a certain sexual energy about her. Her choice of clothing, and the bright red bang, confirmed my opinion that she was of my cohort: yet another rebellious twenty-something that didn’t quite know where she fit into 21st century America. She was either the world’s best shot or she had repeatedly risked my life back at the Old Ways compound. I pondered the pieces and didn’t come up with much of anything that resembled a job title. I shook my head. “Nope. All I’ve met so far from the company is Lucien and Duchess. Haven’t had the welcome to the company orientation yet.”

“I’m Lucien’s personal assassin.” Her look dared me to laugh.

I didn’t laugh.

“Hubba hubba. I think I’m in love.”

“You pick the weirdest times to come to the surface.”

“Hey, I’m still tired from last night, but I’m not dead. I mean, she’s sexy.”

“She’s also a professional killer, which likely implies lots of psychological problems, if not outright psychopathy.”

“Like I said, sexy.”