Firebug (24 page)

“If we were actually in Portsmouth, on their turf, then that'd be a different story,” Les said, the firelight casting ruddy shadows on his face.

Well, so much for that. “Okay,” I said. “I'm on my own—got it. Now can we get back to the history lesson?” Olive glared at me until I added a “please.”

“Venus's predecessor died rather suddenly, as people in their position tend to do. Usually there's a lieutenant ready to step up and take over. That time, the situation aligned itself so that there was no clear successor. Venus was pushing for the position, but she was unpopular with a few of the other higher-ups, and she was new—she'd only been with the Coterie for a year or two. A couple of those higher-ups sought me out and asked me to step in.”

“No offense, but you don't really seem to be a likely candidate,” Lock said, leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees.

“It was different then. I'm not saying it was a benevolent organization, but it wasn't as … lethal. With the right leadership, it could have become something close to a new Council. Venus took it in the other direction, I'm afraid.”

He paused there, letting it sink in. The information still didn't make any sense. “They asked you to take over the Coterie? Why you? And, more important, why didn't you do it? You'd have been a damn sight less psychotic than Venus. You would have steered it right, I know you would've.” Duncan as the head of the Coterie would have been a dream. If Duncan had taken over the Coterie, I probably would have had a lot less work. In fact, I might not have any work. If he'd stepped in, we wouldn't even be here. No one would have kidnapped Cade, no burnt store … and then I took it even farther back. “When was this?” I asked.

Duncan shrugged. “Twenty years ago? Twenty-five? Not sure, but about then, I guess. Time is a funny thing.”

“Yes, funny,” I said hollowly. Before my mom … My heart twisted and my stomach roiled. “Why didn't you accept?”

“Didn't want it, I guess. I'm old, Ava. I was old
then
. Tired. I want to live in my cabin, fish when I feel like it, and enjoy the simple things. Coterie isn't simple.”

Fishing. My mom was dead because he wanted to go
fishing.
Yes, the voice of cold logic was telling me that there was no way he could have known. He didn't send the goon squad after us. It was listing all kinds of reasons why it wasn't Duncan's fault, but that cold voice was being overpowered by another, stronger voice—one hell-bent on hurt and destruction. And that voice was whispering that Duncan wouldn't have ordered my mother captured … even if he had, Duncan wouldn't have sent such a piss-poor recovery team. He would have sent professionals who wouldn't have botched the damn job. She wouldn't be dead, that voice jeered, and you know it.

I felt sick, raw, and I was trying to control it. Hissy fits, when thrown by a firebug, can be incredibly nasty. I gripped the armrests and tried not to scream. “Why you, Duncan? Why offer the job to you?”

“Because,” Duncan said, his eyes back on the fire, “I was Coterie before I retired.”

Stars and sparks—the only surprising thing was that Venus had waited this long to make a move on Duncan. They'd offered the job to him. Which meant that, until he was eliminated, she'd continue to see him as competition. As a threat.

“What if they offered you the job now?” I asked.

“I'm still tired, Ava. Still old.” He examined the half-finished carving in his lap. “I have no desire to rule.” With one thumb he brushed away a tiny curl of wood from his project. “Go to bed. There's nothing more you can do tonight. The drove will keep an eye on your cabin and what's left of Broken Spines. They'll do what they can to run down some information. They're good like that.”

Though he didn't so much as glance at us, I knew we'd been dismissed.

We were ushered into a guest room—and, yes, guards were put on the doors. I would be bunking with the boys again. The room held a queen bed and a fold-out cot. The boys settled in, Ezra flopping onto the cot and stretching out, but I was too busy sitting on the bed and being entirely incoherent to really pay attention. Duncan had been Coterie. I just couldn't believe it. He looked like Santa; he fished and whittled. People like that don't work for crime families. They sit around and drink beer and talk about their arthritic knees and the weather.

Lock didn't respond right away when I presented this argument. I glared at him. “Why do I think I'm not going to like what's about to come out of your mouth?”

He pulled some of Cade's pajama pants out of the bag I'd packed for him, along with a toothbrush. “Look, Ava, I know how you think. Coterie is evil. Evil should be punished. Hulk smash, remember?” I narrowed my eyes at him, which was usually enough to make Lock hold up his hands in surrender. This time, all I saw was his jaw tighten as he stuffed the rest of his gear back in his bag.

“And you think what, they're all rainbows and glitter? If you thought that, why did you help me?”

“I helped you because I agree that Venus is one homemade shiv and a tinfoil hat away from being absolutely and psychotically bonkers.” He finally met my eyes, crossing his arms and trying to look defiant, which was kind of hard to do when holding pajamas and a toothbrush. “But I hesitate on absolutes, cupcake. The Coterie can be good for some, especially when there's no Council to rely on.”

“Bullshit.”

“Fine,” he said. “Don't listen. Be a fucking child. But the way you think sometimes, Aves? It's dangerous. Black and white. There's a whole lot of gray in this world. You need to be open to it.”

“I don't understand.”

“You wouldn't,” he said hotly. “We're not all firebugs. Not every creature in the Coterie is rare or powerful. Some are weak. They need the protection. They need certain resources to survive that they couldn't afford or wouldn't have access to without the Coterie.”

I opened my mouth to argue with him, but he waved at me to wait. “I'm not saying you've had it easy, but you at least have some leverage. You're not disposable like some of the other supernaturals I know. Why am I here, Ava? Why am I Coterie?”

I looked down at my socks. “You're a tithe.”

“Right, a tithe. And what is Ezra?”

I couldn't remember the last time Lock had yelled at me. “He's a tithe too.”

Lock splayed his hand on his chest. “I put in my time, an entire forest of dryads gets left alone. Ezra's here so his little sisters can go to school. Be normal. Be protected. Without the Coterie, who's going to protect us? The training we have, the skills we have now—that's all Coterie.”

“Except my lock picking and general sneaking skills,” Ezra said. “Those are all fox.”

“I would protect you guys,” I said, softly, my arms crossed over my stomach.

Lock rested his hands on my shoulders. “Would you? Or would you be too busy fighting off all the poachers and ne'er-do-wells who wanted you for their own? You'd want to protect us. We'd want to protect you, but it's just not enough.”

He hadn't moved his hands. “I get it.”

“I don't think you do. I mean, you look normal, to boot. You can pass as human. Do you know how great that is?”

I didn't answer, but he wasn't waiting for me to. “We have a troll at the Inferno who manages the dish-pit staff. He has to have all kinds of wards to pass as human, just so he can do things like own a home and go to the store, things you and I take for granted. He has three kids. Three kids delivered by Coterie doctors. You think he could have taken his wife to a human hospital? What if her wards fell off? What if something went wrong and they had to do some tests? You think anything in his life would be possible without the Coterie? It's easy for you to pass judgment because you're in a position that makes it possible.”

“Couldn't a Council do that? They might even do it without blackmail and treachery.”

“You want to tell Luther to wait it out until that magical day happens? I'm not saying the Coterie is a pile of awesome, I'm just saying that they aren't all evil.”

Lock's words hit me like a slap. I knew Luther. We chatted sometimes. I'd seen pictures of his kids. I hadn't known he was a troll and warded to the hilt just so he could work. But I didn't know how to process what Lock was saying with my vision of the Coterie. It was easier to just get angry and yell at him while I figured it out, so that's what I did. “Are you saying I should go back to Purgatory and throw myself at Venus's feet and beg forgiveness? Is that what you want? And really, is this the best time? They have
Cade
! Doesn't that bother you at all?”

“Of course it bothers me!” He ran a hand through his hair. “You think we're not both worried? That he isn't family to us, too? It's just, there's no good time to talk about this stuff, Aves.”

“I don't like it when Mom and Dad fight,” Ezra said watching us from the cot. “Never mind about the two Christmases.”

“Ezra, be quiet. Lock, I feel bad for all these people, but I'm not the villain. It's not my fault that I am what I am. It's not like it didn't land me in the same place as you, strength of powers or not.”

Lock threw his arms up in the air in frustration, the legs from his pajama pants whirling about him. “Forget it—you're impossible to talk to when you're like this.” Then he stomped out of the room. I grabbed the only thing handy—my pillow—and chucked it at the door. It was entirely unsatisfying.

I whirled on Ezra, but he merely held up his toothbrush. “I was just going to brush my teeth. Hygiene is important.” He edged around me but stopped before he got to the door. “We're as freaked out as you, you know?” He rested one hand on the doorknob. “I called home. With all this … I wanted to check on them. Did you know my mom is making Cade a sweater?”

I frowned. “Your mom makes things?”

“Making, stealing, whatever. The thing is, she's getting him a sweater. She thought about someone she isn't related to by blood. That's huge.”

“She's met him only, what, three times?”

“I talk about him. And you. And Lock. What I'm trying to say is, you're not alone. He's family to us, too.” He slipped out the door before I could respond.

While they were out, I changed angrily into my pajamas. Which is totally possible—it involves a lot of air punching and feet stomping and, on occasion, fury-filled buttoning. The whole time, my brain was flitting from thought to emotion, which was hard because it was such a tangled mess. What the hell was I going to do? Laying siege to the Coterie walls would be next to useless. We were completely outnumbered. Plus, now I was imagining Luther's body in the wreckage, and his wife and children sobbing over him while accusing me of murder. Not good.

According to just about everyone, seeking out the Council in Portsmouth was equally useless. My angry buttoning slowed. Or was it? What if I could present the Council with something—in exchange for some backup, I'd wipe out the Coterie. Hand them this area on a silver platter, so to speak. If they were weak, this would only strengthen their position. Then again, if they were weak, how much would their backup be worth?

I dug my own toothbrush out of my bag and sat on the bed, thinking. Normally I'd run something like this by Cade. Only, Cade wasn't here. Going to Portsmouth to talk to the Council would eat up half a day. More if they made me wait around for a few days to talk to them. And all the waiting would mean extra time for the Coterie to do terrible things to Cade. I tried really hard to not imagine what those terrible things might be.

I was pretty sure they wouldn't kill him, since dead people make terrible leverage, but Venus had plenty of torturous tricks up her sleeve.

Lock took his sweet-ass time brushing his teeth. I think he wanted to let me cool off. His plan worked, a little. By the time I got back from brushing my own teeth, I only wanted to hurt him a bit instead of tons.

“I'm tempted to make you sleep on the floor.”

Lock eyed me carefully. “It might be safer, considering what you did to Duncan's ladle.”

I deflated onto the bed. “You be a gentleman,” I said, “and I promise I won't turn you into cinders.”

“Of course,” he said with a huff. “I'm not
Ezra
.”

“I am a perfect gentleman,” Ezra said. “It's not my fault that no one can resist me.” He lifted up his shirt. “I mean, have you seen these abs? Who can blame them?”

“And that's why you're getting the cot,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Because there's no way we'll be able to sleep if we're constantly touching your
abs
.”

Lock and I curled into the bed, tossing and turning until we both got comfortable. I was exhausted. I needed to sleep. But my brain kept whirling—a frenetic spinning top of motion.

“What are we going to do?” I whispered to Lock. He took so long to answer, I thought maybe he'd already drifted off to sleep.

“I'm not sure,” he finally whispered back. “I know you want to ride in there all avenging-savior style—”

“Suicide.”

“Yes, exactly. Sneaking in with a small team would be as stupid as the avenging-savior plan.”

“What we need to do is draw them out.”

We both considered that. The cabin creaked around us as the drove moved about. I heard the clinking of dishes, probably being washed and dried, and Ikka's laughter. If we hadn't been in our current situation, I'd have found it soothing. I've never lived in a place with a lot of people, and it was kind of nice. At first it had been mostly just Mom and me. Then Cade and me. If I wasn't smart, and if I wasn't careful, soon it would just be me.

“We should go see the Council.”

I rolled over and stared at him, though I couldn't see much in the dark room. “I thought they were next to useless.”