I had been too idealistic. I saw now that it had been overly optimistic of me to expect wargs, vampires, gwyllgi, and everyone else to unify under one representative with no guarantees of their impartiality.
Lesson learned. No more brainchildren for me. I was brainchildbirthed out for the foreseeable future.
“They’re not ready. Nowhere near it. They still think they’ll get cooties sitting next to one another.”
“Hadley,” she said softly. “You got this.”
Staring out the window, I cringed from my pinched reflection. “How can you comfort me right now?”
“Linus isn’t the only one around here rooting for you.” Her heart was in her voice. “We’re friends too.”
“Yeah.” I smiled to hear her say so, given all we had been through. “We are.”
No longer two girls whose bond was forged in a time of innocence and youth, we were women who shared similar goals and outlooks, who had each seen enough of the ugly side of life to appreciate an honest friendship for what it was worth.
“We’re here.” Bishop rolled his hand. “Wrap it up.”
He couldn’t hear me, but I heard him fine. Grier must have too.
“I’ll let you go.” She paused. “Just keep me in the loop.”
“Will do.”
Delegate, delegate, delegate.
That was the lesson Linus and Bishop kept hammering into my head.
With that in mind, I got out of the car and wiped the sigil off on my thigh as I texted Anca.
>Can you forward all information, past and future, to Grier on my behalf, please?
>>Consider it done.
>Don’t tell the others, but you’re my favorite blank screen.
>>Milo will be crushed.
>By his ego? Yeah. Probably. One day.
A call interrupted our roasting of Milo, a pity, but I got twitchy at the caller ID. “Hello?”
“You don’t sound happy to hear from me.” A frown deepened Midas’s voice. “Everything okay?”
Phew.
“I was scared it was Ford,” I admitted. “He made it sound like you were in gastrointestinal distress.”
Though I couldn’t say I had ever heard of a gwyllgi suffering worse than mild indigestion from overeating. Their metabolisms were too fast for much to phase them.
“I’m never trusting him with my phone again,” Midas decided, “or letting him talk to you.”
While I hung back to talk, Bishop hit the receptionists’ desk and worked his mojo on a flustered woman.
Deadly he might be, but he was also handsome beyond the scope of mortal men. I tended to forget that. He didn’t. As most fae did, he wielded his beauty as a weapon to get what he wanted with a smile.
“I’ve got a better idea.” An evil idea, perfect for revenge. “Let me bake Ford Ex-Lax brownies.”
“That’s cruel and unusual punishment.” A chuckle slipped free of him. “Do it.”
With gwyllgi metabolism, I would be lucky to give him gas. But I was willing to put in the effort.
“Care to enlighten me on your bathroom shenanigans then?”
“The police corralled everyone until they finished taking statements. For once, that worked in our favor. I was able to find the teenager. I roped a sentinel in an APD uniform into informing the boy the footage had to be confiscated due to the ongoing investigation.” He sighed heavily. “The boy ran. His parents got involved. Patrons panicked, thinking the assailants had circled back, and people scattered like ants.”
A quick check on Bishop revealed a doctor striding toward him. “How does the bathroom factor in?”
“I don’t have authority humans would recognize, so the sentinel claimed I was an APD consultant. The restaurant was packed with witnesses, so once the teen was caught, I escorted him to the men’s room for a private conversation. It was as far as his parents were willing to let him go without them, or a badge.” He sounded both annoyed by and approving of their caution. “I paid him five hundred dollars for the story and another thousand for the phone.”
“You keep that kind of cash on you?”
“Only when we go out on kidnapping cases. We’ve had more success on those with bribes.”
This approach was markedly different than any the pack had used up to this point. Then it hit me.
“Neely is human.” I thought it through. “You think money will get us answers faster.”
“When human mates or children of gwyllgi go missing, there’s no time for posturing or politics. They’re too fragile. We have to act fast, and money greases wheels quicker than threats or interrogations.”
“Who in their right mind would steal a gwyllgi’s mate or child and expect to survive it?”
“The culprits are usually human relatives, either concerned about a family member’s secretive lifestyle, if they’ve newly married into the pack, or the children’s wellbeing. Our young experience uncontrolled shifting at certain ages and are required to remain isolated on pack lands during that time.”
Close-knit families would freak if their loved ones fell off the radar. Those cases deserved sympathy.
“There are malicious incidents too,” Midas admitted, a growl in his voice, “but those are rarer.”
No imagination was required to picture a gwyllgi shoving cash down an informant’s throat until they choked on it when packmates’ lives were at risk. Or them making a withdrawal, the hard way, if it was discovered the informant was involved in any way.
“Cruz said vampires took Neely,” I recalled. “Will your method work on them?”
“I doubt it,” he admitted. “Chances are good we’re dealing with mercenaries.”
Everybody and their momma hired vampires to do their dirty work. It was a whole thing.
Kind of made me wonder why the Society didn’t require background checks on potential candidates.
Oh.
That’s right.
They were in it for the money.
“Marx’s is a human establishment,” he continued. “We figured better safe than sorry.”
Most clans were financially sound, thanks to the longevity of their members, but every system let people slip through the cracks. Mercenaries tended to hide in those crevices. The deeper and darker, the better.
They also worked for favors more often than cash. Big favors. High Society-sized favors.
“Your forethought paid off.” I noticed Bishop waving me over to him and the chatty doctor. “Gotta go.”
“I’ll deposit the phone in the nearest OPA drop box.”
“Thank you muchly.”
As if I hadn’t heaped
