“Backup won’t be an issue,” Curran said.
I shook my head. “We can’t bring anyone we can’t afford to lose.”
“She’s right,” Dagfinn said. “I hired a crew. Six people. I was the only one who got out and only because he ate them first. My advice, hire someone you don’t know and tell them up front it’s a fight to the death. They’re just flesh speed bumps for him.” He looked at me. “You need to talk to the Cherokees.”
“Yes, I know.” Thinking of going to see H?kon sent ice down my spine.
“Well, I’m out.” Dagfinn rose. “Thank you for the fight, I had fun, we should do it again sometime. It was nice knowing you.”
Curran pushed from the wall. “I’ll walk you out.”
“I can find my way,” Dagfinn said.
“I’m sure you can. I’ll save you the trouble.” Gold rolled over Curran’s eyes.
Dagfinn sighed and they left.
I went up onto the roof. We had set up a small dining area there, two chairs and a table. Lately, every time we sat down to eat in our kitchen, someone would knock on the door with some bullshit emergency, so when we didn’t feel like being interrupted, Curran and I would go up to the roof and eat in peace. His Furry Majesty was threatening to drag a grill up there and “cook meat” for me. Knowing him, “grill” meant a giant pit and “meat” stood for half a deer.
I sat on the low stone wall bordering the top of the roof. It was late afternoon, and the sun was slowly rolling to the west. The stone wall was nice and hot under my butt. Summer was coming.
I sat, enveloped in warm air. It felt nice, but not hot enough to chase away the ice built up on my spine. I didn’t want to visit H?kon. Several people I knew had gone to see him. Only two had come back, and Dagfinn was one of them.
The world blinked. The magic vanished, snuffed out like a candle by a draft. A mixed blessing: as long as the magic was down, the necklace wouldn’t constrict Roderick’s neck any further, but we couldn’t see H?kon without it.
Voron, my adoptive father, had always warned me that friends would make me soft. When you cared about people, you forged a bond, and that bond made you predictable. Friends weren’t for me. Greg, my now-dead guardian, took that a step further and added lovers to that ban. When you loved someone, your enemies would use it against you.
Neither of them had predicted that being in love and being loved in return made you value your life much higher. I liked my life. I had a lot to lose now.
Curran emerged from the door, pulled the bag off his hand, and tossed it into the garbage can we kept up here for the times we ate outside. He walked in complete silence, like a tiger stalking through the forest, quiet and confident. I liked to watch him, provided he didn’t know about it. His ego was threatening the ozone layer as it was.
Curran sat next to me and put his left arm around my shoulders and kissed me. There was a slightly possessive edge to the kiss.
“Through the Guild and no.”
“Hmm?” he asked.
“You were about to ask how I know Dagfinn and if we were ever more than friends. We never were friends, actually. I got suckered by the Guild into bringing him in twice. He was wanted for unpaid fines and destruction of property.”
Curran grimaced. “No, it never crossed my mind that you’d be with Dagfinn. He’s an undisciplined idiot. Give me some credit. I know you better than that.”
I shrugged and leaned closer against him. “This is fucked up.”
“Yes, it is. Can you think of any other way to find Ivar?”
“No. Maybe Doolittle can try removing the collar during tech?”
Curran shook his head. “I asked. He says it will kill the boy. He says we have thirty-six to forty-eight hours, depending on how long the magic lasts. There is a good chance the next magic wave will be the boy’s last.”
Two days before Roderick with his owlish eyes died, choked to death.
“Do you remember a few years ago a detachment of PAD disappeared? Eleven cops, armed to the teeth? It was in the papers?”
“Yes.”
“That was H?kon.”
“Is that his name?”
I nodded. “I didn’t say it in front of Dagfinn so he wouldn’t freak out. Whoever we take will die. If we don’t take anybody, the boy will die.”
“We explain it and ask for volunteers.” Curran drew me closer. “Those are the choices we make.”
“I’m tired of those lousy choices.” If you put all the people I’d killed together, their blood would make a lake. I was wading through it and I had no desire to make it any deeper.
We sat next to each other, touching.
If Curran asked for volunteers, the Pack would cough some up. I would have to look at their faces, I would witness their deaths, and then I would have to tell their families about it, assuming I survived. Assuming Curran survived.
The thought pissed me off. We’d do it. There was a child on the other end of that equation, so yes, we would grit our teeth and do it. But it made me so mad. I could’ve strangled Aurellia if I got my hands on her. She knew what the collar did, and she had deliberately chosen between her husband and her son.
“Can H?kon be killed?” Curran asked.
“No. The Cherokees have tried for years. All they can do is contain him on that hill. If he’s destroyed, he just reassembles himself.” I growled. “I don’t want to do this.”
“I know,” he said.
“Do you think less of me?”
“No.” Curran stroked my back. “Like I said, these are the choices we make, and sometimes every choice is bad, and then you sit by yourself and remember all the horrible shit you had to do and have done, and you deal with it. It will eat you alive if you let it.”
I straightened and touched his cheek. “Well, you don’t have to sit by yourself anymore. We’ll sit together.”
He caught my hand and kissed it. His eyes turned dark. His fingers curved into a fist. He looked predatory. “I wish I could rewind back to that second and crush her skull before she put the necklace on the kid.”
“I know. I wish there was a way to get to her.”
He looked at me. “I thought about it. If we approached Forney’s house at night…”
“Curran, we can’t break into the house of the DA. The fallout for the Pack would be enormous.”
“I know, I know.” Muscles played along his jaw. He hated to have his hands tied and so did I. “But if we use someone outside of Atlanta for the DA job…”
“It’s a bad idea. Even I know it’s a bad idea.”
He looked at me. He was still thinking about it.
“No,” I told him.
Curran swore.
Screwing with the DA would get us a witch hunt in a hurry. He knew it and I knew it. No, there had to be another way. Some way where the boy survived and our people didn’t die.
I sighed. “I envy navigators sometimes. All they do is sit in the Casino and drink coffee, while the bloodsuckers run into dang—”
I stopped in midword.
Curran’s eyes lit up.
“You think he’ll go for it?”
“Oh yes. Yes, he will go for it.” He jumped off the wall. “Come with me.”
“Shouldn’t we have some sort of a plan? Ghastek isn’t an idiot. We can’t just call down to the Casino and tell him, ‘Hi, we’re going on a suicide mission, wanna bring some vampires to be our bullet meat?’” Bloodsuckers were expensive. The very idea of taking four or five of them into danger with minuscule chances of survival would give Ghastek an aneurysm.
“I have a plan.” Curran grinned at me.
“Please enlighten me, Your Majesty.”
“I’m going to make Jim figure it out,” Curran said.
“That’s it? That’s your plan?”
“Yes. I’m brilliant. Come on.”