CHAPTER 21
AN HOUR LATER THE INSIDE OF THE STEAK HOUSE had been cleared, every table in the house set into a square. The People had brought four out of their seven Masters of the Dead, headed by Ghastek.
Nataraja must’ve declined to make an appearance. Because the meeting was held in the Pack’s territory, the People had their choice of seats and positioned themselves with their backs to the window, so they could observe the front and back doors.
The four Masters of the Dead—Ghastek, Rowena, Mulradin, and Filipa—took their places at the table.
Behind them a gaggle of journeymen sat in their chairs flush against the window, their faces carefully blank. Between the journeymen, vampires crouched like monstrous gargoyles: hairless, corded with a tight network of steel-hard muscle, and smeared in lime-green and purple sunblock. Bubble-gum-tinted nightmares.
I had to fight the urge to keep glancing at Rowena. Short, only about five two or so, Rowena was a teenage boy’s wet dream. Perfect figure, sensual face, emerald-green eyes, and fiery red hair falling in a cascade of glossy waves all the way past her waist. An elegant business suit molded to her curves like a glove. When she smiled, male heads turned. If she said something, people nodded in agreement. There was something about her that made you want to earn her approval. She could make you feel like a hero for passing her the salt.
This was what my mother must’ve been like. I might’ve had her DNA, but not a drop of her magic had made it through.
To the left of the People sat the representatives of the Mercenary Guild. I recognized three veteran mercs and Mark, nominally the Guild’s admin and in reality the Guild’s overseer now that Solomon Red, the Guild’s founder, lay six feet under. At least some of him did. After my aunt was done with him, there hadn’t been much left.
Next to the Guild sat representatives of the Natives. I recognized shamans from the Cherokee, Apalachee, and Muskogee Creek tribes, but the other two I’d never seen before.
Norse Heritage took up the next three seats. The Norse Heritage Foundation claimed that their goal was to preserve Scandinavian cultural traditions. In reality, they took the idea of Vikings and ran with it as far from any cultural or historical accuracy as they could go. Norse Heritage took everyone in. As long as you were willing to drink beer, get rowdy, and proclaim yourself a Viking, you had a place at their table. Ragnvald, their jarl, a huge bear of a man, came easily enough, but Jim’s people had the devil of a time getting his escort to surrender their axes and horned helmets. There was a lot of roaring and cursing and promises of doing indelicate things and screams of “Make me!” and “Over your dead body!”
until Curran came out, looked at them for a while, and went back inside. Ragnvald read the writing on the wall, and his crew decided to disarm voluntarily.
The College of Mages provided three representatives, followed by us, and then by the witches, volhvs, druids, and half a dozen other smaller factions. Getting everyone to take a seat and be quiet was like trying to roll Sisyphus’s boulder up the mountain. By the time we were done, I wanted to stab myself in the eye. Nobody seemed ready to make trouble, but I kept Slayer on my lap under the table just in case.
We put Kamen in the middle of the square in his own special chair. Just in case he decided to wander off and invent a black hole generator out of a box of matches and paper clips while we weren’t looking.
Rene and the Red Guard brass sat at the table directly behind Kamen. Rene looked a bit green in the face.
Tea, coffee, and water were served, and then Jim rose and gave a succinct summary of Kamen’s invention and the aftermath of its usage. The Red Guardsmen were presented as being heroic; the volhvs’ involvement was tactfully omitted. When he moved on to explain the third device, silence claimed the steak house. Five miles. Absolute destruction. If you had a drop of magic, you would not survive.
People paled. The jolt was so strong, even Ghastek looked disturbed.
Next Andrea stood up and profiled the Keepers. Most of it I already knew, and I watched the faces while she spoke.
“The Keepers are very well connected and financed. During the attack on Cutting Edge, the Keepers deployed exploding boltheads,” Andrea continued. “Analysis and an m-scan of the residue provided a profile consistent with Galahad Five warheads. These warheads are manufactured exclusively by the Welsh to combat giants. They’re prohibitively expensive and their export into the United States is limited and only semilegal. I had obtained a small number of said warheads for the Atlanta chapter of the Order during my tenure there, and I had to call in several favors just to get them through customs.
Either the Keepers have a unique connection or the Order’s armory has been compromised.”
“Or the Order has been infiltrated,” Rowena said.
“It is a distinct possibility,” Andrea agreed. “I can guarantee that no boltheads had left the Order’s armory prior to November, because the inventory and security of the armory had been my responsibility up to that point.”
“Is that why there are no representatives of the Order at this Conclave?” one of the druids asked.
“The Order has never been a part of the Conclave,” Curran said.
Ghastek permitted himself a narrow smile. “Considering the success the Keepers had with infiltrating the Pack, if we were to exclude all the organizations whose screening and security measures couldn’t stand up to close scrutiny, this assembly couldn’t take place. Banning the Pack alone would halve our numbers.”
Even now, with threat of complete destruction, Ghastek couldn’t pass up the opportunity to poke at Curran.
Jim bared the edge of his teeth.
“They recruit damaged children,” Andrea said. “Victims of abuse and tragedy, who have reason to hate themselves and their own magic. They find teenagers who are most vulnerable and indoctrinate them, and then these children go on to have careers and lives until they are called to duty by the Keepers. Nobody is immune. Not the Pack, not the People.”
“Where is the device now?” Ragnvald asked.
“Hidden,” Curran answered. “It will be destroyed shortly in a secure location where it will cause minimal damage to the environment.”
“How can we be sure that you will follow through with it?” Mark said.
Ghastek condescended to stare for half a second in Mark’s direction. “I was led to believe that you possessed at least moderate intelligence. That assessment was obviously in error.”
“What?” Mark recoiled.
“How do I know that if I hand you a loaded gun, you won’t thrust it into your mouth and pull the trigger? Of course he isn’t going to keep it, you idiot. None of us would keep it. Using it would be tantamount to suicide.”
Jim nodded and Derek and Barabas circled the table, handing out paper. “This is a list of the chemicals with quantities required to build the device. Some of these are rare. Purchasing them would leave a paper trail.”
“We have ten hours and fifty-nine minutes from the beginning of the next magic wave,” Curran said.
“Either we find the device or we . . .”
Barabas leaned over to him and whispered something in an urgent tone.
Curran’s eyes flared with gold. “Bring it here.”
Barabas nodded. A female shapeshifter set a phone in front of Curran. He pushed the speaker key.
“Yes?”
“Who am I speaking with?” a clipped male voice asked.
“You’re speaking with the Beast Lord.” Curran’s face could’ve been carved from ice.
“Ah. You’re a difficult man to reach. Of course, I’m using the term ‘man’ loosely.”
“What do you want?” Curran asked.