a meeting.
At that moment, Errata led Darak into the room. The werecougar, tall as she was, looked like a child next to him. “Lore, your, uh, friend’s here.”
Lore and Darak exchanged a wary look.
“Hellhound,” Darak rumbled by way of greeting. Then he turned to Perry. “You look half-dead.”
“Working on it,” Perry replied, opening his eyes to slits. “Do I know you?”
“Perry Baker, Errata Jones,” Lore said, pointing to his friends. “Everyone, this is Darak.
“Of Clan Thanatos,” Darak added.
At that, Perry opened both eyes. “We’re going with the heavy hitters.”
“Damned straight.” Darak made himself comfortable in an overstuffed chair. “What’s this I hear about Talia being gone? How long?”
“Two hours,” Lore said.
“That’s not missing. That’s out for coffee. What else is going on?”
Uneasy, Lore took the other chair. Errata sat on the arm of the couch next to Perry.
Lore got to the point. “First problem: The airports are clear and Omara will be landing shortly. It’s New Year’s Eve and the town is packed with strangers. It’s the perfect time for this attack we’re anticipating.”
“Where is she going to be?” asked Errata.
“She’s staying at her usual hotel downtown. The Hilliard Fairview.”
“Shouldn’t she go someplace different?” asked Errata. “She knows there’s a problem, right? With the fire and the election and necromancy, etcetera?”
“Queens don’t move,” Darak replied. “It would be a sign of weakness.”
“Great.” Lore rubbed his eyes, wishing aspirin worked on half-demon headaches. “Problem two: Talia is missing. I think she’s with Baines, but I don’t know exactly why. Her cousin was beheaded by a necromancer we think was her sire. Her brother is a Hunter who may well be the sniper who shot Perry. Against everything we know about Hunters, they’re using magic.”
Darak made a noise that said he’d just figured something out. “So the Hunters are the interested parties.”
They all looked at him, Lore getting the creeping sense that matters had just got worse. “What are you talking about?” he asked.
“Belenos wants to destroy Omara,” Darak answered. “It’s not a leap to believe the Hunters would consider the election an abomination, and they’d cheerfully punish the queen whose influence made it possible. They’re working with Belenos. That’s why the Hunters have access to magic. A truce in order to kill a common enemy.”
“Wait a minute.” Confused, Lore got to his feet and began pacing. “The Hunters and Belenos? Belenos killed Talia. He addicted her brother. The Hunters would never work with him. Belenos has a feud with her father. She told me.”
“Am I missing something?” Perry asked.
“Talia was born a Hunter,” Errata said.
“What the hell? No way.”
“Her brother came to finish you off and she chased him through the hospital. You slept through the whole thing.”
“Thank God for that.” Perry winced. “Fido’s balls, Lore, I know you like the wild girls, but wow.”
“She is not a Hunter now,” Lore retorted, feeling his defenses rise. Where is Talia? Why hasn’t she called?
“I don’t know this tribe of Hunters,” said Darak. “But the ones I do know always put the killing of monsters ahead of their personal affections. Their children are the pawns and tools of their fathers. It’s an honor to sacrifice them to the cause.”
Lore stopped pacing and sat down again, feeling sick. “That fits with what Talia has said.”
“Not to be self-centered,” said Perry, trying to hitch himself higher onto the pillows. “But on the subject of my foiled assassination, I take it that Belenos sent the brother after me? Why?”
“Belenos must have found out that you have video images proving he’s in town,” Lore said. “I’m not sure how they knew.”
“I was working as fast as I could. Maybe I left a trail.” Perry winced and closed his eyes. “But still, how would they even know? More to the point, why do they care? What does it matter if we know Belenos was in town once the attack is over?”
“He needs time,” Darak said. “And he will try to get away without being discovered. He will try to stick the Hunters with the blame. And my people.”
“Why you?” Lore asked.
“Belenos hired me to kill the queen.” Darak’s words were matter-of-fact.
Lore’s heart began to speed. “Then why are you here?”
Darak shrugged, an earthquake in that massive body. “I care nothing for the queen, but Belenos is a pig.” And he told them how he’d found Belenos, and what he’d seen. “My guess is the attack will come through the sewers.”
“It fits,” said Lore. “Talia chased Max from the hospital into the underground tunnels.”
“If all this is true, at least we know what game they’re playing.” Errata rose to stand by the Christmas tree, hugging herself. “The next move is ours. Where do we go from here?”
Lore answered, his hellhound instincts utterly certain. “We confront them in their headquarters. Then we chew their bones.”
Perry cleared his throat. “Hell, Rover, this is Belenos we’re talking about.”
“The sorcery could be a problem,” Lore conceded. “But they are still flesh and blood.”
“From what I saw, Belenos has men stationed over a wide area. To catch them all, you’ll have to sweep all the tunnels under the city,” Darak put in. “That’s a large area. If Belenos is smart, he’s going to be on the move himself. His magic is one of their greatest weapons. He’s not going to make himself a stationary target.”
No one answered that one. A stray thought of Talia, the way she had looked at him from her pillow, reminded Lore of everything he could lose. He rose, anxious with what they were about to set in motion. He knew what had to be done, was willing to accept the responsibility, but that didn’t stop dread from crawling like cold lead through his veins.
He had to mobilize the hounds and wolves and invade the tunnels.
Taking his cell phone, he stepped outside the back door, not bothering to put on his coat. The night felt muffled by clouds, the sky hovering just above the rooftops. The square of light from the doorway splashed into the darkness, an island of homey warmth framing his shadow. He sucked in a lungful of the icy air, exhaled a cloud of frosty breath.
He tried to let go of enough tension to think clearly. Part of him was proud of what had just happened. He’d pulled together a team and figured out Belenos’s plan. Perry had paid a high price, but that only made Lore more determined to make their work count. He pulled out his phone and began making calls, first to Bevan and then to Perry’s father, the Alpha of Pack Silvertail.
Lore rubbed his hand over his face, willing to trade anything to be back in bed with Talia, lost in lovemaking. His skin remembered hers, the curve of her collarbone beneath his lips, the faint spray of freckles in the cleft between her breasts. The idea of her brought such a weight of joy and sadness that he struggled for the next breath.
The last thought had barely formed, when a familiar dread leached the softness from the gray winter night. Something evil was watching, just as it had on the night Talia’s cousin was killed. Lore’s gaze snapped upward, scanning for any clue. This has to be Belenos at work again.
He’d felt this same dark miasma just before the fire—except this time he was sure it was watching him. Lore banged back into the apartment, the door crashing shut in his wake. “We have to get out of here. Now.”
“Why?” Darak demanded.
Lore struggled for a moment, searching for the right words. “There’s dark sorcery watching us again. I felt it in the parking lot.”
“What?”
