Saiman shook his head. “His other investors are Grady Memorial and the Healthy Child, Bright Future charity fund. They are actually what they pretend to be—do-gooders.”
The volhvs wouldn’t have dumped the heads at his door. They would’ve just made the hired muscle disappear. No, that was a terrorist tactic designed to frighten and intimidate. It had to be the Lighthouse Keepers. Killing Saiman would’ve created too much noise. He maintained damaging files on every prominent person in the city. If he died, they would panic. Every law enforcement agency would be crawling all over his murder. The Keepers didn’t want noise, not yet.
“What do you know about the Lighthouse Keepers?”
Saiman’s face fell. “That would explain volumes.”
Crap.
“What happens if the device is broken?” Derek asked.
“The magic escapes in a huge burst,” Saiman said. “Theoretically, if the machine is activated, the people in the immediate area would survive the longest. Those on the perimeter would die first, because the magic would stream from the perimeter toward the device. Standing next to the device would be like standing in the eye of a storm, so it is possible to interrupt its operation. However, the individuals who stole it are unlikely to permit any such interruptions. The six heads in the garbage bag testify to their resolve.” He paced back and forth. “These people had me monitored, they killed my mercenaries, and they’ve taken the machine from under the noses of an elite Red Guard unit. This indicates to me that they’re both competent and highly motivated. If they are, indeed, the Lighthouse Keepers, they will use the device where it will inflict the most damage. They have to use it. The destruction of magic is the entire purpose for their existence. I need to resume my packing.”
I exhaled rage. The entire city was about to die and he was packing. God damn selfish asshole. “Why didn’t you come to me? I have fifteen hundred shapeshifters at my disposal.”
“I had a perfectly good reason.”
“I’m dying to hear it.”
“Please, allow me to demonstrate.” Saiman turned to the giant flatscreen, plucked a DVD case from the shelf, and slid the disk into the DVD player’s slot.
The screen ignited, showing an inside of a large warehouse, filmed in high definition from above. Cars sat in two lines: a Porsche, a Bentley, a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, something sleek I didn’t recognize . . . I’d never seen so much horsepower crammed into one place.
I glanced at Saiman. “What is this?”
“These are the contents of the Merriweather, one of the vessels in my shipping company.” Saiman braided his long fingers. “This fleet of cars was purchased in Europe, brought over to Savannah at considerable expense, and then shipped up to Atlanta to one of my warehouses.”
We looked at the cars. The cars looked back at us.
“After the events of that unfortunate night at Bernard’s, I expected immediate retribution from the Beast Lord. When it didn’t come, I called you to check on your well-being. You confirmed that you were in good health. I began to believe that perhaps I had dodged a bullet.”
“Let me guess, you didn’t dodge?”
“Keep watching,” Saiman insisted.
We stared at the cars.
“I don’t get it.” Derek frowned. “None of them are water-modified. What’s the point of having a vehicle that’s not drivable during magic?”
“To experience speed,” Saiman said. “Have you ever driven a luxury car at a hundred and sixty miles per hour? It’s a feeling you never forget.”
The door in the wall opposite the camera opened. Curran walked into our view. He moved in an unhurried way, almost relaxed. The camera locked on to him, zooming on his face. His eyes were dark.
The digital clock in the corner of the movie said 10:13 a.m. Twelve hours after Saiman had delivered a monumental insult to Curran while the Pack’s elite watched. An hour since Saiman had called and Curran listened to our phone call, rolling one of my metal plates into a tube. Forty-five minutes after I refused to go with him to the Keep to announce that we’d been mated and His Furry Majesty had walked out on me in a huff.
Alarm prickled my fingertips.
A large man in a dark uniform approached Curran from the right, brandishing a baton. “Hey, buddy.
You can’t be here.”
Curran kept walking.
“Why a baton?” Derek asked.
“Because I’m not about to give security guards a weapon that could make holes in my merchandise.”
“Stop!” the guard barked. A streak of light dashed along the baton’s length.
“That’s not a baton.” I leaned to the screen. “That’s a torpere. An electric stun weapon. It was the top of the line in crowd control just before the Shift.”
“Quite right. A typical stun gun delivers its voltage in short bursts to avoid the death of the target,”
Saiman said. “This is a modified model. When triggered, it emits a powerful uninterrupted electric current for up to twelve minutes. It has been shown to induce cardiac arrest in two.”
“Stop!” The guard swung the baton at Curran’s back.
Curran whipped about, too fast to see. His hand locked on the baton. Metal crunched, sparks burst, and the crushed mess of metal and electronics fell to the floor.
The guard took a step back. His lower jaw dropped. He looked at the torpere, looked back at Curran, and took off for the door.
Curran turned around.
Behind him a second guard edged outside.
What are you doing, Curran?
The Beast Lord surveyed the cars. His face was calm and cold, as if carved from a glacier. The amount of money tied up in those cars had to be enormous. The warehouse would have to have been well protected from the outside. I wondered how many guards he had chased off.
A muscle in Curran’s cheek jerked.
His eyes burst into gold. Curran grabbed the Porsche on his left, ripping the car door off as if it were tissue paper. He grasped the car from the bottom. Monstrous muscles bulged on his arms. The Porsche went airborne. It flew up, flipped over twice, and crashed atop the red Lamborghini. Glass snapped, steel groaned, and a car alarm went off in a sharppitched wail.
Holy shit.
Curran lunged at a silver Bentley. The hood went flying. He thrust his hand into the car. Metal screamed, and Curran jerked a twisted clump out of the hood and smashed it into the nearest car like a club.
“Did he just rip out the engine?” I asked.
“Yes,” Saiman said. “And now he’s demolishing the Maserati with it.”
Ten seconds later Curran hurled the twisted wreck of black and orange that used to be the Maserati into the wall.
The first melodic notes of an old song came from the computer. I glanced at Saiman.
He shrugged. “It begged for a soundtrack.”
Curran ripped the remains of a car in two. He raged through the warehouse like a tornado, smashing, crushing, tearing into the metal and plastic, so primal in his fury that he was frightening and hypnotic at the same time. And while we watched him rage, some long-gone man sang about being kissed by a rose at someone’s grave.
The song ended and still he kept going. Saiman’s face remained passive, but his eyes had lost their usual smugness. I looked into them and saw a shadow of fear hidden deep beneath the surface.
Saiman was terrified of physical pain. I’d seen it firsthand—when injured, he panicked and lashed out with remarkable violence. He had watched the recording, soaked up the full extent of the devastation Curran could unleash, and waited, wondering when the Beast Lord would show up on his doorstep. He’d watched the recording over and over. He’d attached a lyrical soundtrack to it, trying to diminish its impact through the sheer absurdity of it. One glance at his expression told me it hadn’t helped: the cold face kept relaxed by sheer will, the haunted eyes, the tense mouth. Curran had made Saiman paranoid, and it wore him down. He would do anything to avoid Curran’s wrath.
Curran stopped. He straightened, surveying the heap of tortured metal, ruined plastic, and torn rubber. He turned around. Gray eyes looked directly into the camera. The cuts and gashes on his hands and face knitted closed.
Curran’s clear, cold voice rolled through the room. “Don’t call her, don’t talk to her, don’t involve her in your schemes. She doesn’t owe you anything. If you hurt her in any way, I’ll kill you. If she gets hurt helping you, I’ll kill you.”
It was about me. This epic devastation was all about me. Curran must’ve thought Saiman had something on me and was using it to force me to help him, so he’d sent a message.
The Beast Lord walked out of the warehouse. The screen went dark.
My knight in furry armor.
Saiman opened his mouth. “This is why I didn’t. Personally, I think your smile is inappropriate.”
I caught myself and switched to a scowl. “Give me the recording, and I’ll mend this fence.”
“At what price?”
“You will tell me everything you know about the device and Adam Kamen. You’ll turn over all documents, notes, everything, and you will help us find it.”
Saiman braided the fingers of his hands together and rested his chin on his fist, thinking. “That homicidal maniac you’re in lust with will want more.”
“If he does, then I’m sure the two of you can come to an understanding,” I ground out. “In Atlanta, you’re a person of substance. Outside it, you’re an unknown. You’ll have to start over. It’s in your best interests to stop the destruction of the city. I will intercede on your behalf with Curran. Take it, Saiman, because that’s all I’m offering.”
Saiman frowned. A long minute passed. He rose, pulled the disk out, slid it into a thin plastic sleeve, and held it out. “Deal.”
I took the disk and slipped it into my pocket. “The documents?”
Derek grabbed us and dived to the floor, knocking over the couch.
The door behind us exploded.