The creature’s small ears went back, and its eyes widened before it started beckoning frantically with a paw. “Get in here!”
It could have been a trap, but I didn’t think so. He looked genuinely panicked. Before I could move, the horn snagged my jacket and dragged me inside. The door slammed shut behind me, and I found myself in a narrow hallway smelling of mildew, urine and spices.
I didn’t get a chance to look around, because I was dragged into an apartment before my eyes had even adjusted, and another door slammed shut behind me. “He’s dead? Are you sure? What happened?” The luduan’s tail was twitching excitedly back and forth as he prowled across the floor. He looked freaked.
“Yes, yes, and someone gutted him,” I said, looking around for a chair and not finding one.
“But he had protection!” The little thing looked genuinely upset.
“You mean Naudiz?”
“That thing!” He wrinkled up his features in what I guess was a scowl. “I wish I’d never heard of it!”
“That seems to be the consensus. So what happened?”
He sighed and sat back on his haunches, but that still left his head too low for his liking. “Sit down, can’t you?”
“Where?” The apartment was clearly set up for nonhuman use. The weak streetlight angling in through gaps in the blinds striped a nest of blankets on the floor, a large rawhide chew bone with one end gnawed off and a couple food dishes. I assumed these were for the cat, because a wash of junk-food wrappers had collected in the corners.
“It’s over there,” he said, reading my body language. “I keep one for bipedal clients.”
He used the horn to point to a stack of folding chairs in the dining room area and I fetched one, bringing us closer to eye level. “Tell me.”
“Worst night of my life; I thought I was dead for sure.”
“You were there? You were in the office when he was attacked?”
“Yeah. I’d been there maybe a minute. I was late because I had to wait for that vampire who owns the club to leave. There was supposed to be a diversion to get him out of the office, but it wasn’t needed. He left on his own and I walked up. And a few seconds later the attack came.”
“You were working for Geminus.”
“I didn’t want to do it, but I needed the cash. I was in debt to him, big-time. Fin’s boys will just beat me up; he would have killed me.”
“In debt? For what?”
He blinked those massive eyes at me. “You’re kidding, right? Geminus owns half the illegal fights around here. Between fey and humans, fey and fey, humans and humans—anything, really, as long as someone will pay money to see it. Or to bet on it.”
I stared at him, a few things sliding into place. Along with drugs and weapons, no-holds-barred fights were another illegal import from Faerie. Ironically, it was the sort of thing the Dark Fey, who were treated like animals by some of their light counterparts, were fleeing Faerie to try to escape. But, once here, they had few contacts and fewer choices.
The authorities shut the matches down when they stumbled across them, but it wasn’t a priority. They weren’t a factor in the war, and that was all anyone cared about right now. Or maybe there was another reason.
“You’re telling me a senator was involved in a smuggling ring?”
“Involved in it? He runs it. He’s been smuggling for longer than anybody. He started bringing people over for the fights, and then branched out. He’s into a little of everything now.”
I sat there, growing quietly furious. No wonder we’d had so much hell stopping the smugglers. Geminus must have been tipping them off to our every move. Leaving us to clean up his competition—like Vleck or Ray—while he grabbed a bigger and bigger share of the pie.
I guess he’d been telling the truth when he said he wasn’t interested in politics.
“Why did he want the rune?”
“He didn’t give me the details. But I guess so he could control the fights. Give the stone to the fighter he wanted to win, and he could determine the outcome of every bout. And clean up even more than he already does. My debts were nothing compared to that.”
“You agreed to make the switch.”
“I thought it would be easy: a little sleight of hand, and no harm done. Jókell would get his money, I would get out of hock to all the people I owe and Geminus would get off my back. But I didn’t expect to be attacked!”
“What happened?”
“I’d barely gotten in the door. Jókell had taken the rune out of its carrier and was about to hand it to me, when the door burst open and someone threw me across the room.”
“Who attacked you?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see.”
“What do you mean, you didn’t see? You were right there!”
“Right there and almost unconscious. I hit the wall and all but cracked my skull open. I heard the fight going on behind me, realized something had gone wrong and knew I had to get out of there. But the only window was bricked up, and the fight was between me and the door.”