I had maxed out my friendship with Ford, and Midas was in no shape to help. Ares wasn’t a fan of mine at the moment, and Lisbeth wasn’t ready to report for duty. That left me with a pissed-off Bishop, and maybe Remy. If she answered her phone.
The magic saturating Ambrose swelled him like a tick and left him too dazed to be much use, except as a battery. That worked just fine for me.
I took the small jar of ink from my pocket and dipped my finger to draw a circle around the unconscious roach and myself, careful to keep Ambrose locked in too. I had to nudge him to push magic into the design until it snapped closed in a protective barrier the other roaches couldn’t penetrate.
First things first, I called the local sentinel HQ. They dispatched a unit of their Elite to help me crush the roaches. That took care of the most pressing danger but left me with a roach in the circle with me. Definitely a job for Bishop.
“Can you rent a U-Haul and meet me?” I gave him the address. “We need to move fast before it wakes.”
“You and I are going to have a talk,” he warned. “You’re getting in too deep with the fae.”
“I didn’t ask your friend to help, he just did it.”
As if Bishop already knew the friend’s identity, or could guess, he didn’t ask for specifics.
“No fae ever just does anything, kid. He’s marked you as a person of interest, or he wouldn’t bother.”
Magic tingled through my forehead where his fingers had touched my skin. “What does that mean?”
“Let him build enough debt between you, and he’s going to ask you for a favor in return.”
“How does him giving me this indebt me? I didn’t agree to anything.”
“You accepted his help. That’s all the opening he needs to worm his way into your life. Trust me.”
“He’s your friend.”
“He’s not my friend. He’s…” A spate of annoyed Gaelic filled my ear. “He’s trouble. Stay away from him.” He cursed, in English this time. “Don’t let the bastard touch you again. Gods only knows what else he did to you when he gave you this gift.”
“That sounds…bad.” I was not a fan of people doing things to me without my knowledge. “Ambrose?”
The shadow picked up on the drift of my thoughts, which creeped me out to no end, but he shook his head. Whatever hooks the fae had used hadn’t lodged in my skin. Ambrose would know, and he would do his best to devour the magic before I noticed what he was up to and reprimanded him for it.
“Don’t move a muscle,” Bishop snapped. “I’ll be right there.”
A glimmer caught my eye, and a figure emerged from the shadows. “He’s such a whiner.”
“Remy?” I started at her voice. “How did you get in here?”
“I have my ways.”
“You were stalking me again, weren’t you?” I squinted at her. “Are you even you?”
“Stop trying to define that which defies definition.”
“That sounds like a no.”
“I’m Six.” She walked closer. “Happy?”
“I’m trapped in a circle with a giant bug in a warehouse full of giant bugs, so not really, no.”
“You forgot him.” She jerked her chin toward Ambrose. “Hello, beastie. Fat and happy, are we?”
Ambrose ignored her and curled into a ball on the concrete.
“He took down the roach.” I shrugged. “He’s digesting.”
“I hear Bishop is on his way with a truck, so what do you need from me?”
“Ideally, I would like to pack up this nice, sedate Martian Roach for Abbott before the sentinels arrive to kill the rest.”
“Except the building is surrounded by giant bugs, so there’s no way that’s happening.”
“I said ideally.”
“Realistically?”
“Can you bring all yourselves here? Between them, Bishop, and me, we should be able to load this guy into the truck after the smoke clears. I’ll tell them we need the body for testing, which we do. I’ll just neglect to mention it’s still alive.”
“That could work.” She tugged on a piercing in her ear. “But I’m not out to Bishop.”
There was nothing I could trade her about him in kind. The geas prevented it. His secrets were his own to share or not. But she had seen where I took him, and who had taken him in. She might suspect the truth of his nature based on that alone. I wasn’t sure how aware fae were of one another. It’s not like necromancers could tell species from a glance, except when it came to vampires, but that was a result of the necromantic magic used to animate them. That’s what we picked up on, an active casting, basically. A long-term spell with a generous, but definite, expiration date.
“I’m not going to force you out.” It wasn’t my place. “What if he drops off the van, and you and me handle it?”
“How pissed are you about the Linus thing?”
The change in topic threw me. “I am both excited and terrified for the opportunity.”
“So, you’re not going to fire me?”
“Uh, no.” I couldn’t believe she would ask. “You got us into this mess. You’re going to get us out of it.”
A tentative smile teetered on her mouth. “You’ve been nicer to me than anybody has been in…a long time.”
“You were down on your luck when we met.” I slid my gaze toward Ambrose. “I know how it feels when you stumble and fall, but you can’t get up no matter how hard you try.” I frowned. “There are times in life when the only way to climb out of the hole you’ve dug for yourself is to have someone throw you a rope. You still have to pull yourself out, but at least you’ve got an anchor waiting for you at the top.”
“I tried to kill your man, and I’m not saying I’m over the impulse.”
“As long as you don’t act on the impulse, we’re good.”
“I can probably restrain myself from murdering him.” She cocked her head, considering.
