“So, you think he hopes Roland will take me out?” Curran asked, his voice almost nonchalant.

“Not you.” Christopher looked at Conlan.

No. I could believe that Jim would sit the fight out, but he wouldn’t go that far. “He wouldn’t,” I ground out.

“By now he likely knows that Conlan can shapeshift or suspects he may be able to in the future,” Christopher said. “Shapeshifters tell stories about you now. In a couple of decades, they will be legends. If Conlan is allowed to grow up, he’ll be the son of the first Beast Lord, the man who created the Pack, the man who knew no equal while he ruled. He will have the physical power and the enhanced shapeshifting of a First. He’ll be a natural leader. If you see a weed in your garden, would you pull it out now, while it’s small and weak, or would you wait until it grows?”

“This is nuts,” I told him.

“In my former life I was the Legatus of the Golden Legion,” Christopher reminded me, his voice gentle. “My existence depended on eliminating my rivals before they came into their full power. I would eliminate your son now, in a way that couldn’t be traced back to me. Perhaps a raid by Roland’s covert team on the grandparents’ clan house while your son is there. Everyone would be murdered. A great tragedy, an atrocity. Terrible. It would evoke outrage, of course, but also breed fear. Terrified people cling to familiar leaders. As to the two of you, there are few greater challenges to a marriage than the death of a child.”

I hated this. I hated sitting here and imagining people who were our friends plotting to murder my kid. There was something wrong with the world that it was even a possibility.

“What do we do? We have to warn them that this could happen, and we can’t tell Mahon,” I said. “If he even suspects it, he’ll storm the Keep, roaring, and he will get himself or someone else killed.”

“We’ll tell Martha,” Curran told me.

Martha would defend Conlan with her dying breath. My imagination flashed a picture of her mangled, bloody body curled on the floor around my son. It was too much. I got up.

Curran was looking at me, concern in his eyes.

“I need a minute.”

I opened the door and stepped onto the Guild’s main floor. Mercs moved here and there, some tired and covered in grime or blood coming from a gig; others, clean and bored, waiting for one. A group of Curran’s elite team sat on the raised platform stuffing their faces. The food in the Guild mess hall had gone from slop to legendary. Shapeshifters challenged each other to the death for power and had the potential to snap into psychotic spree killers, but give them bad food and they were mortally offended. The first time Curran smelled the old mess hall’s food, he’d gagged. He overhauled the mess hall the moment he had the chance.

The mercs were grinning. Ella, petite and pretty, said something. Charlie shot back a reply, his eyes narrowed to mere slits. Douglas King rocked his massive six-foot-five frame back in his chair and laughed, the light reflecting from his bald head and off the mess of glyphs and runes tattooed there. The man was obsessed with “magic runes.” The weapon sellers around Atlanta knew this and were always peddling junk to him, because he’d buy anything as long as it had some mysterious inscription on it. The last sword he bought was engraved with a word in Elder Futhark. He’d brought it to me to read. It said DICKHEAD, spelled out phonetically with Norse runes. He barely survived the disappointment.

A few years ago, I would have gone and sat right up there with them. Back then I didn’t have a care in the world. My biggest worry was paying my meager bills and trying to earn enough for a new pair of shoes.

Suddenly I felt homesick, not for the house but for a different time and a different me. Not-in-charge-of-anybody me. Not-protecting-the-city me. Not-wife me. Not-mom me. Just me.

That’s the way Voron had intended me to be. I’d been his version of a lone gunman. No ties, no roots, no attachment to friends or possessions. Back then I could’ve picked up at a moment’s notice and vanished, and nobody would’ve worried or cared. I was a no-name merc, minding my own business. But inside I was still the same. Still a killer, still Roland’s daughter. Hands still bloody, and no amount of magic could turn that blood to dust.

Back then I’d given Curran a speech. I couldn’t remember exactly what I’d said, something about dragging my beat-up carcass to a dark empty house. Nobody cared if I made it home. Nobody waited up, nobody treated my wounds, nobody made me a cup of coffee and asked me about my day. When I thought about it now, my memories of that time seemed gray, as if all the color had been leached out of them.

When I thought of my house now, it was filled with warmth and light. It always smelled of seared meat or a fresh pie or fresh coffee. It was my little piece of the world, welcoming and comfortable, a place I’d built with Curran. A place for Conlan. A place where I belonged.

Christopher was right. We looked at the past with rose-colored glasses.

I’d picked this new life. I built it day by day. I had friends, I had a husband who loved me, I had my son and a city to protect. Standing here wallowing in self-pity and wondering who might betray me next and how I would deal with it accomplished nothing.

I’d made no progress on Serenbe. I still had no idea who’d sent me the box. I had to figure out how to protect Conlan. I would take this moment, get all of my “woe is me” out of my system, and be done, so I could do all of the other things I had to do.

At the table Douglas bared his right arm and flexed, showing off a bicep the size of a baseball. Yes, yes, you are big and mighty. New tattoo, too.

Wait a minute.

I pushed from the wall and made a beeline to Douglas.

“Hey, Daniels.” Ella grinned at me.

“It’s Lenna-a-a-art,” Charlie sang out. “It’s been Lennart for two years. Get your shit straight, Elle.”

“New ink?” I asked Douglas.

He bared even white teeth. “Yeah.” He tapped the skin on his arm, still red from the needle. A serpent in the shape of a sideways S. Between the loops of the serpent, a broken arrow formed a Z, the section with fletching vertical, the rest of the arrow diagonally piercing the loops, and the last bit, with the arrow head, pointing down. Serpent and Z-rod.

I almost heard a click as pieces snapped together in my head.

“It’s Scottish,” he said.

“Pictish,” I told him. “Nice one.”

I turned and walked away to my small office.

“What the hell was all that about?” Charlie asked behind my back.

“You cut her some slack,” Ella told him. “Someone tried to kill her baby today. She beat her to death with her hands. I was dropping off a package for Biohazard and I got to see the body. The chick had no face left. Just raw hamburger.”

I walked into my office, leaving the door open, and went to the bookcase filled with my reference books. It was either here or at Cutting Edge. I ran my fingers along the spines. Not that one. No, no, no . . . There. I pulled a green volume off the shelf. V. A. Cumming, Decoding Pictish Symbols.

I flipped through it. There. Two circles, joined together, with wavy lines through them, two dots in the center, and a Z-rod, a broken arrow. Double disc and Z-rod. It looked right. The proportion, the thickness of the rectangular piece connecting the two discs. It felt right.

I landed in my chair, the book in front of me. Nobody knew much about the Picts. Everyone knew about Hadrian’s wall, but the Romans had built another one, the Antonine wall, in AD 142. It bisected Scotland. The Romans called the “painted” people on the other side of that wall Picts. Later, they were called Caledonians. Nobody knew for sure who they were or how long they lived in Scotland. Some claimed they were Celts, others argued that they came from Gaul. Pictish myths referenced Scythia and arriving to Scotland a thousand years or so before Anno Domini. Nobody knew for sure.

They left behind metal jewelry and Pictish stones. Dozens of ancient stone steles, covered with mysterious carvings. Most occurred on the eastern side of Scotland. But the earliest Pictish stones dated back to the sixth century. Way too late for Erra’s invaders.

There was no Z-rod on the box, but the knife matched. The knife looked like it came from the British Isles.

Tags: Ilona Andrews Kate Daniels Vampires
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