Chapter Twenty-Four

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Martin. The guy who was so casual, so relaxed and unobtrusive that I had forgotten he was even present, the one time we met. He had felt peaceful, even. When I found him sitting next to Chris’s dead body, there wasn’t even a flicker of concern that he was a threat. And I’d basically forgotten him entirely since then.

But he was the one who had been pestering Maddie about magic and plants and how they intersected. He was the one who had known that Saori was in contact with Chris and where to find her, and why she had been briefly implicated in his murder. Now that I thought about it, he was also the person who had told Jack that Capinera was linked to the Midnight Court. Which wasn’t false, but it sure as hell was misleading.

It was always the quiet ones you had to watch out for. Someone who was loud and aggressive was usually someone who felt the need to prove something. They were insecure on some level. In my experience, really dangerous people tended not to make threats at all. They didn’t use fancy titles or dramatic pseudonyms. They didn’t get aggressive. It was just…understood by all parties what they could do to you if you gave them a reason to, without them needing to say a word.

Similarly, someone who was quiet and unobtrusive often understood the value of subtlety. They knew that being underestimated was a potentially very powerful thing. Martin, I thought, was one of those people. My guess was that his associate, whichever of these mages got off on necrosis and murder, probably felt a bit dismissive of Martin. But all of the violence combined, so far, had done less real damage to us than Martin had by being calm and unobtrusive and offering a few quiet pieces of advice. He hadn’t even lied, not that I could tell. He’d just given us a few selective, poisoned bits of truth, and it had very nearly been enough to spell absolute disaster.

It was always the quiet ones.

---

Jack Tar was practically vibrating with restrained emotion and energy when we got back to Pittsburgh. It was subtle, though; the only signs were a slightly faster tempo to his words, a tension in his gait, and a slight feeling of mingled anger and excitement in his tone and his aura.

Jack, I reflected, was a great example of that earlier observation. The druid hadn’t made any threats around me. Where Saori gleefully talked about her incendiary life goals as applied to the mages, and Andrew had mentioned ripping their hearts out, Jack hadn’t said anything of the sort. He didn’t need to. Everyone already knew that it would go badly for someone when they had done this much to upset him.

“Aight, so, you were definitely right,” he said without preamble, in the parking lot of a small drugstore. It seemed a bit of a random meeting point, but that was Jack Tar for you. “Bastard was a plant, showed up a month or two before this all started. I love the Tribe, but these kids are kinda stupid in that way, they’ll take basically anybody. Guessing he’s the one who snagged that werewolf, probably did some other shit, not quite sure.”

I nodded. Pretty much what I’d expected; the calm feeling I got from Martin was distinctive. It fit very neatly with the peaceful, soothing magic I’d felt where Mike was abducted without any anxiety in him at all. “Where is he now?”

“At a certain funeral home,” Jack said with a loose grin. “It seemed appropriate, and I don’t know any cleaners around here to take care of the body. You have great timing, by the way. Pretty sure we got him right before he was going to leave the city for the show tonight.”

I nodded again. At this point, it was a given that if we caught one of these people they weren’t going to survive the experience. Not after all the things they’d done. “You get any information out of him first?”

Jack grimaced at that. “Very little,” he admitted. “He didn’t want to come quietly, and it’s not like any of us are great interrogators to begin with. We know there are at least four of them still active, maybe more, but not sure of much else. Pretty sure he was fishing for the details we put together about local points of interest, and unfortunately he did send those on before we got there.”

“So we basically did the legwork for them, in terms of finding the target.” Saori sounded displeased.

“Does seem that way,” Jack said. “Did you get anything from the Sidhe?” I hadn’t taken the time to give him much of an update about that yet, I realized. It had seemed somewhat more urgent to take out their mole, and apparently the timing was close enough to suggest I’d been correct.

“A bit, yeah,” I said. “Pretty sure we’re looking for a guardian tree, whatever that is. It’ll have a weapon in it that seems to be what they’re trying to find. Oh, and the Sidhe are apparently forbidden to interact with it at all, so not getting direct help there.”

“Guardian tree,” Jack said, sounding thoughtful. “Narrows things down a bit more. We already had it down to three possible locations. One of them is just completely wrong, it’s an island. Basically no trees on it at all. And one of the others I’m about ninety-five percent sure is out, no sign of activity and the ley lines don’t actually have the right kind of energy for that binding ritual. Last one is some grove in the forest. The werewolves have a serious taboo against going near the place, but don’t really know why.”

“Sounds like that’s it, then,” I said. “How hard is it to get to?”

“Not great,” Jack said, shrugging. “No access road, and none of the established hiking trails go near it. Going to be an overland hike to get there from the nearest road, and the terrain is a bit rough. We also don’t have an exact location, it’s a pretty big chunk of forest and I’m not sure where the tree would be within that area.”

Saori groaned. “This is going to suck so hard.”

I was inclined to agree with her. At least four mages in a dense forest, plus anyone else they brought along, possibly including a strong, inhuman patron of unknown nature. They were probably already out there, too, so we were attacking into prepared ground. They’d had someone spying on us enough to know our capabilities better than we knew theirs. We didn’t even have the advantage of local expertise with the terrain, given that the werewolves shunned the area. I was not a brilliant military strategist, but even I could see that this was a tactical nightmare.

“Yeah,” Jack said quietly. “I think it probably is. Don’t have a ton of time to work with, either.” He looked at the sky, where the sun was by this point starting to drop noticeably. Not dusk yet by any means, but it was solidly into the afternoon, and September was late enough in the year that sunsets came fairly early.

“Better get started, then,” I said.

“Yeah. I’ll start calling people, see who all we can get on board with this. I figure meet at the nearest access road and go in from there as a group. You both coming along?”

I hesitated, then sighed. I really wished I hadn’t started to actually care about this. Going into that forest tonight was stupid verging on suicidal, but I couldn’t make myself opt out. It was too personal now, in too many ways. If nothing else, Saori was already nodding vigorously, and I didn’t like the idea of the kitsune getting killed out there. I’d only known her a short time, but like I’d told her, I just didn’t have enough local social bonds to take any of them lightly.

“Yeah,” I said, somewhat reluctantly. “I’ll be there.”

Jack looked at me, and there was something in his eyes that wasn’t quite pity. Closer to empathy, but mingled with sorrow, pride, and a delicate pathos. It was very nearly as complex and layered as the emotions I’d seen in Cerdinen, very nearly as poignant as those woven into the Blackbird Cabaret.

I got the impression that he knew exactly what had just been running through my head. I also got the impression that Jack Tar had thought those things himself at one point, and that while he was somehow proud of me for stepping up, he also felt regret about it, a sorrow at seeing me take this step.

But all he said was, “Alright then. We’ll be taking separate cars. You two riding together?”

I nodded. It seemed like a fairly natural choice, and it wasn’t like I wanted to be in a car with Audgrim right now. Or with Jack for that matter, though for entirely different reasons; he still smelled terrible.

“Aight. I’ll text you the details about the access road we’re using. Not sure who all else will be coming along, going to ask around a bit. I’m guessing it’ll be about an hour before everyone’s prepped and we head out. I’ll keep you updated.”

“Thanks, Jack,” I said, feeling very tired, and not just because I’d been getting shit sleep lately. “See you there.”

He smiled a little, and walked away.

---

An hour was an awkward interval of time. It wasn’t long enough to actually do much. I couldn’t do a lot to prepare in that time, even if there were preparations I could make. Which, really, there weren’t any that I could think of. I already had my weapons picked out. The closest thing I had to armor was a reinforced leather jacket and pants, the kind serious bikers wore to mitigate road burn. Those were also already in Saori’s car. I couldn’t really think of anything else to do, definitely not that I could get done in that time frame.

But at the same time it was too long to be pleasant. I felt sick, felt small and lost and scared. An hour was a long time to wait. Waiting had too much room in it for thinking.

We ended up going to some café I didn’t know and eating. I didn’t eat a whole lot, between anxiety being hell on my appetite and knowing that I was about to be running around in the forest in the middle of a battle. That wasn’t the kind of situation where you wanted a full stomach. But you also didn’t want to be hypoglycemic, so I made myself eat at least a bit, and got fluids and caffeine. After a few minutes sitting in a park, we just gave up and went out to the meeting point ahead of schedule. It was probably stupid, but I couldn’t take another forty minutes of sitting around waiting for the signal to leave.

---

It was a pretty ragtag collection of people out in the woods. I didn’t have a reason to use that word often, and I was savoring this one, if only because it was better than thinking about the implications. As groups of people to trust with my life went, I had to admit this was…less than inspiring. There were some people who were individually very dangerous, sure, but I still really didn’t love what I was seeing.

We were the first ones out at the random spot on the access road where we were meeting up, so we got to watch them arrive, and they got to listen to Saori’s idea of pre-fight music while they were getting out of their vehicles and getting ready. That was worth showing up early all on its own, really. Seeing the expression on Andrew’s face when the werewolf found her playing a power metal song about how we were the wildest wolves of the pack and leading the storm was priceless. A moment later, as the other werewolves started getting out of their two vans, the music switched to a song that wove a few gentle interludes into the middle of significantly heavier metal. I was pretty sure I was the only one who could parse the screaming well enough to realize that the song was about how every moment slipping past was a precious thing you never got back. In context, she was transparently complaining about the wolves being late, and I needed most of the song to get my laughter under control.

The werewolves were the first after us, showing up in two large unmarked vans. Andrew was driving one, Cassie was in the other, and there were two others in skin that I didn’t know. The cargo area of each van, meanwhile, was packed with a heap of fur and teeth and hunger. Half a dozen in each, at a guess, so it was sixteen werewolves total. Not the entire pack, only about half of it, but it was still a lot of wolf.

Audgrim showed up next, along with half a dozen humans who looked like a cross between security guards and a paramilitary force. Audgrim himself was wearing actual metal armor, and he had a literal sword belted on, though he was at least also carrying a pistol. There were no full dvergar with him, but that wasn’t really very surprising; all things considered, I highly doubted he had the standing to ask for any of them to be here, at the moment.

Jack was right behind him, riding in a car with two other people. One I knew, a sorcerer named Richard who was associated with the Tribe. He was good company, as long as you could overlook the fact that he was completely, sincerely insane. The guy talked to and about fire like it was a living person he was friends with. The other was some woman I didn’t recognize at all who burned with gleaming, shivering human magic.

The problem, I reflected idly as people were getting out, stretching, and grabbing various weapons out of various cars, was not exactly that they were incompetent. Far from it; all of the people I actually knew here were quite good at what they did. The problem was that each group was very clearly its own individual group. They were keeping a distance from each other, eyeing each other warily. There was zero coordination between them.

Not that I could throw stones, I supposed. I didn’t even get out of Saori’s car until all of these people had shown up.

A few people split off to do strategy things. It was pretty much who I’d expect: Audgrim, Andrew, Cassie, Jack. The woman who was in the car with Jack also went, and one of the other werewolves in skin, whose name I didn’t know. Saori and I drifted over to join them.

“I don’t love the terrain,” Audgrim was saying, looking out at the forest. “How far are we talking here?”

“At least a mile, maybe up to three,” Jack said. “Hard to pin down from here. It’ll be a mix of tracking the mages in and following the ley lines on the ground, I think, to find the target.”

“Not great. You have any other mages showing up?”

Jack shrugged. “Not sure. This isn’t their kind of fight, not most of them. The Tribe are very urban in their focus, and most of them aren’t fighters at all, not really. Clueless mages who are out of their element aren’t a great idea.”

“We have two others coming, I think,” the woman said. “Not mages, but possibly useful. They should be here very soon.”

“Not enough,” Audgrim muttered. “Kyoko. Are you coming with?”

I started, not having expected to actually be involved in the conversation, and then nodded. “Yeah. Think so.”

He nodded, sighed. “Wish we had more information. Andrew, do you think any of your people could do some scouting, see what’s going on out there?”

The three werewolves looked at each other. Cassie shrugged; the guy whose name I didn’t know nodded. Andrew looked back to Audgrim and nodded as well. “Yeah, maybe. Risky, we don’t know how good their surveillance is, but it’s possible. Be good if we had someone else out too, don’t know that any of us can identify much in the way of magic.”

Jack grunted. “Yeah. None of us are all that sneaky, though. Hm. Saori, think you could help the wolves with that?”

The kitsune glanced at me, then nodded. “Yeah, that shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Good. Tell Anderson I want him out there too. He’s ex-Special Forces, he should be able to get some other details.” Audgrim looked back out at the forest, while Saori and the werewolf whose name I still didn’t know peeled off and went to look for Audgrim’s person. I felt uncomfortably exposed, once she was gone, nervous and isolated.

“How long until dusk, do you think?” Jack asked. One hand was toying with what looked like a tire iron hanging from his belt. It figured that someone like Jack Tar wouldn’t use the traditional wands and staves as his magical foci.

Andrew shrugged. “Depends on what you think of as dusk. One to two hours, I’d estimate. New moon tonight, too.” He grimaced. “We won’t be at peak performance. Bad timing for us.”

That hadn’t occurred to me until he said as much. And I wasn’t sure it was intentional on the part of the mages we were here hunting. It seemed like the lunar phase might just be helpful for their ritual. Bad either way, though. I didn’t know why werewolves were beholden to the moon any more than I knew why they were vulnerable to silver. It’s not like actual wolves give a shit about it. But they were, and the new moon wasn’t going to be good for them.

Audgrim sighed. “Yeah. Give it twenty or thirty minutes for the scouts to work, then. I’ve got some topo maps of the area too, let me grab those and we can review them.”

I drifted away from the conversation at that point. I was well aware that turning a topographical map into tactical data was outside my skillset. Somewhat to my surprise, Cassie was stepping away as well, and she wasn’t going over to join the scouts. She wandered off towards the edge of the forest instead, away from any of the others.

On impulse, I followed her. The werewolf stopped at the edge of the trees, far enough down the road that even the werewolves were out of earshot. I didn’t think that was a coincidence, and from how she glanced over her shoulder at me, I was pretty sure I knew why.

“Hey,” I said quietly as I walked up beside her. “Thanks for the help the other day. From what Saori said, you handled it pretty well when I went into that seizure.”

She glanced at me, with a smile that didn’t show teeth. Baring teeth means something very different to a werewolf than a human. “I have my EMT certification. Tonic-clonic seizures were included. Though maybe not quite like that one.”

I laughed a bit. “Yeah. Sounds like. I get the impression you might want to chat about that.”

“What gives you that idea?” She didn’t actually confirm or deny it; she just sounded curious.

I shrugged. “Eh, a lot of little things. You’re not in fur, which, I mean, neither are a few of the others. But Andrew is carrying weapons, and I get the impression he might be going in on two feet. You’re dressed like you’re going to be shifting shortly, though, so why not before you got here? You also seem to be the best tracker in the city, as far as I can tell, so it’s noteworthy that you’re not going in with the scouts. And I noticed that you’re the one who thought quickly enough to take notes about what I was saying during that episode. But the portion you actually understood, in German, those notes are very vague about that section. The other languages I heard specific phrases, and all I heard about that was that it was about hunting. That’s an interesting discrepancy to me.”

“You’re observant.” Cassie said that like it was very high praise. “And you’re not wrong. I do want to talk to you about what you were saying. Because it was…I mean, yes, the stuff you said in German was about hunting. But some of the details were concerning to me.”

I nodded. Pretty much what I’d been expecting. “How so?”

“It’s a little hard to explain.” The werewolf was quiet for a moment, apparently trying to phrase something. When she did continue, her voice was a little slower, hesitant. “Some of it doesn’t translate very well. You were talking about…mm, about desperation. About the meaning of hunger and what it drives someone to do.”

I didn’t like that much. “There are a lot of ways to read that one.”

“Yeah. I don’t like it; it feels…ominous. Similarly, when you said something about the prey wanting to be caught, the tone was just…odd, there was too much of that feeling of desperation in it again. You mentioned hunting accidents twice, and again, the tone was odd, it wasn’t quite how I would expect someone to talk about that.”

I was quiet for a moment. “There have been a lot of people,” I said eventually, “who were assassinated using a hunting accident as the cover.”

“Yes. There have. And that’s why the notes were vague.” Cassie sounded distant as she said that, and her eyes were slightly haunted. It made me think about Jack, and how I’d apparently alluded to a story from his past. It made me wonder if this was personal for Cassie. “I don’t know if any of that’s actually meaningful, or what you were getting at with it, not really. But it seemed like it might be worth mentioning.”

I sighed. “Guess we’ll find out. Thanks for letting me know, I appreciate it. If that’s all, I’ll get out of your way.”

She was pulling the sundress off by that point, and I was turning away. I had very little issue with nudity; it just didn’t register for me in the same way that it did for most people. But watching werewolves change always felt…really uncomfortable to me, on several levels.

It was a very, very unpleasant process, from what every werewolf I’d known had said. It took anywhere from five to fifteen minutes, during which time you could visibly see their body changing. There were bones snapping and moving around under the skin, there were moments where the skin tore and you could see muscles shifting underneath, the general body plan was changing in ways that were often asymmetric and disturbing.

So on one level it was uncomfortable for pretty much anyone to watch. It was a slow, messy, violent process. Bodily fluids got everywhere, there was often some whimpering or snarling involved, and it was an unsettling kind of intimate. Even other werewolves didn’t usually like to watch each other changing.

For me, there was also another element, a sort of guilt about how good I had it. I could float between a fully human shape and the more bestial raiju form instantly, with no pain or effort at all. When I was in fur, I still had the ability to use tools, to use language with only slight difficulty.

And sure, I didn’t have all the same advantages either. I didn’t seem to be able to reach a fully lupine state, and two legs will never be as fast as four, all else being equal. I didn’t have quite as rapid of healing, or quite as much strength. But then, I also had lightning in my veins, wasn’t susceptible to silver, and wasn’t chained to the moon’s cycle. I’d felt something sort of similar occasionally, a euphoric excitement and need to be moving when the moon was full. But it was nowhere remotely close to the same kind of compulsion. So it sort of evened out, even without considering their hellishly painful form of shapeshifting.

I didn’t like watching werewolves change. I didn’t like changing in front of them, either. It seemed rude to remind them that they had a worse experience of changing forms than any other shapeshifter I was familiar with, by a wide margin.

I could hear Cassie whimpering as I went back to where we’d left the others.

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