Pack of Lies (29 page)

“So. Any idea where we can find a handful of fatae to whisper into their tufted ears? I doubt they're still hanging out in the park….”

My first thought had been to call Danny back, but something held me back. Danny had been helpful to us already, had ties, if indirectly, to the case. He had a bias toward our side of things. Ideally, the rumor should spread from someone who had no horse in the race; someone other fatae would not doubt. Plus, Danny was half-human—he might be doubted, for that reason.

Bobo? Maybe. I didn't know how to find him, though— I'd have to wait until he came on the job tonight.

But I wasn't without connections, in the meanwhile.

“Come on. Time to visit an old family friend.”

 

From the street, it just looked like an old brownstone, the same as all the other brownstones lining the side street
off Fifth Avenue. In other words, it looked like you needed a personal worth of at least a million just to be allowed inside.

“Miss Bonnie!” The maid who met us at the door was all smiles, and gave me a good, rough hug. “You finally come to visit! You are well?”

“I'm fine, thanks, Li. Is Herself in?”

“In the sunroom, as always.” Li took our coats, and stepped back, letting me find my own way to our hostess.

“I take it you know these people,” Pietr said dryly, at this show of familiarity.

“Herself was friends with my mentor's mentor,” I said, and that was all the warning he got.

“Oh, my god.”

I didn't turn to look at Pietr, but allowed myself just the slightest smile of one-upmanship.

“Bonnnnita. You are playing gamessss with your friennnnndsssss againnnn?”

I made a low bow, but couldn't keep from laughing, which probably ruined the effect. “My apologies, Madame. I am a very bad worm.”

Madame was curled in her usual place, directly under the glass roof-panes that gave the room its name. She didn't need the sunlight; her body chemistry kept her warm in any weather, but dragons, like cats, loved nothing better than to nap in a sunbeam.

“You have lived here for nearly a year, and only now you come to visit? Tsssssssk.”

You haven't been scolded until you've been scolded by a Great Worm. I kept my bow, and waited.

“Bah. Innnntroduce me to your friennnnnd, Bonnnnita.”

“Madame, this is my friend and companion, Pietr Cholis. He, like I, is an unworthy worm.”

Pietr got over his shock long enough to step forward and make a better-than-passable bow.

Madame ducked her great head down to inspect him, the foot-long silver whiskers on either side of her triangular head twitching forward to test the air around him. Greater Dragons were blind as bats, in more ways than one—their eyes were gorgeous, faceted things, completely useless in daylight, but their whiskers were like sonar, telling them everything they needed to know and maybe some things you'd rather they didn't.

“Greetingsssss, Pietr. You are welcome to my home.”

“The honor is mine, Great Lady.” He shot me a look that promised retribution, but he was grinning like an idiot. Madame had that effect on humans.

“I regret that we cannot stay long, Madame. You are correct, I have been tardy in paying my respects, and I desired to remedy that, and yet my responsibilities carry me elsewhere.”

“Ohhhhhh?” Madame's long length coiled down from her divan, her movements somehow conveying an eager leaning forward, the way a human might to hear something better. Pietr shifted, but held his ground without fear. I'd known he would; having sex with a guy doesn't tell you everything about him, but you get a sense for how they'll react under
pressure, and Pietr was as much a rock as his name suggested. I wouldn't have blamed him if he'd flinched, though.

I'd thought I'd been prepared when J first brought me here: I'd already encountered a rock dragon; how much more could Madame be?

I had been, as I said, an unworthy worm. To compare an Ancient with a common rock dragon? Useless. No matter how many times I saw her, Madame never failed to enthrall: the paintings artists had done for millennia failed to capture how iridescent her tiny feathers were, or how delicate her breath felt when it touched your skin, carrying the faintest hint of jasmine and warm tea.

It was only after you got past the magnificence of her form that you realized that she had the soul of a gossipy old grandmother.

“Yes,” I said solemnly. “We are on an errand of great significance for our teachers.” A teacher, to Madame, would carry much greater weight than “boss.” My association with J meant that, to her, I was no menial worker to be employed; a student obeying her teacher's command was something she could respect, however. “There has been a terrible scandal, and we need to right it, before any more are harmed.”

“A ssscannndal? You are teassssing me, Bonnnnnita.” Those whiskers twitched in interest.

“Never, Madame.” I would have placed my hand to my heart, but she would suspect me of mockery, then. “It is merely a matter of delicacy….” I paused, as though suddenly struck by a new thought. “Indeed, perhaps you might advise us, you who have seen so much, if such a thing has happened before?”

Madame leaned forward even closer, the ears set at the back of her head now twitching forward like a cat's.

“A ki-rin,” I said into those ears, “has failed the truth.”

The story we were spreading was that the ki-rin, rather than defending his companion, had killed the human for putting the moves on her, after she had encouraged his attentions. Two birds with one stone: we insulted both the ki-rin's honor, and that of his companion, to say that she would solicit sexual attention without formally ending her relationship with the ki-rin and retiring with respect. Nasty, but effective, and within the bounds of what we believe happened. The ki-rin had not lied…but was refusing to tell the truth not lying by omission?

“It is impossible.” Madame's response was natural, but she was sniffing the bait with interest. I played the thread out carefully, willing Pietr to follow my lead and look saddened and yet resolute. I didn't dare look to see how he was doing, though.

“All that we have been taught tells us so. And yet…on my own honor and that of my mentor, and my mentor's mentor whom you knew, Madame, it is so. You have heard the story, of how a ki-rin took justice for the despoiling of his noble companion, as only proper.”

Madame nodded, but did not speak, waiting for me to continue.

“The facts do not agree with the ki-rin's story, Madame. The facts, in fact, contradict its story, and tell a different one. It is distressing, and worrisome to my teachers, who value truth and tradition above all things.”

Well, truth, anyway. I'm not sure Stosser ever met a tradition he didn't screw with, somehow.

“Annnd what will you do with thesssssse facts?”

“Madame, we would speak with the ki-rin, but it refuses to return to speak with us. Is that not odd?”

“Asssss though it were guilty connnnscience?”

She said it, not me. I felt the hook settle in Madame's cheek; all I had to do was make sure it stayed there. “I would not believe it so,” I said, willing my confusion and, yes, my hurt, my sense of betrayal to show through. A ki-rin had to be better than the rest of us. If it wasn't… “And yet…what else are we to think? It is a terrible thing, and not to be spoken lightly of.”

“Innnndeeeeeed nnnnot,” Madame agreed, her expression looking far more feline than serpentine. Bingo.

 

We excused ourselves soon after, regretfully declining the offer of afternoon tea. Li met us at the door with our coats, and once we were back out on the street, I let myself breathe normally again.

“That was…you just manipulated a dragon!”

“Yeah.” I felt a bubbly sort of giddiness hit me. “I did, didn't I?”

“I fear you,” Pietr said solemnly, and lifted my hand to his lips and planted a dry, tickly kiss on my fingers. “Where next?”

“Downtown. There are a couple of bars that cater to the fatae…. And I hear they've got damn good beer on tap.”

It took us four bars and more beer than I was comfortable drinking that early in the day, but we finally found a little
pub where at least half the clientele were nonhuman. The rest looked to be Nulls, surprisingly. Or maybe not surprising at all: people who were half in the bag before noon probably didn't blink if their drinking buddy, in better light, might possibly have horns, or wings, or iridescent skin. The bartender was Talent, but he seemed more intent on the racing pages on the bar in front of him than anything we might say or do.

“You're wrong,” I said to Pietr, as though we were continuing a conversation we'd started just before we came in.

“I'm not. You're a sentimental fool who clings too hard to tradition, without any basis in fact. Hell, I don't see why it matters, anyway. The guy deserved to die. So what if maybe the ki-rin lied about the details—the world's a cleaner place for it.”

Even in the dim bar interior I could see Pietr's eyes widen slightly, indicating that he'd seen someone within earshot show interest in our conversation. Excellent. Inevitably, one of the roots we had planted today would reach the ki-rin. All we had to do was wait, and be ready.

A human, or any other fatae, might ignore the rumor, or deny it, or even become violent in his or her defense. A ki-rin, accused even by whisper of lying, would be so deeply and personally insulted that there would be no other option but to respond to that accusation. Once it did that, we would be in the position to ask questions it either could not answer, or would expose the entire plot.

We might not be able to put any of them in jail, but everyone involved would be exposed for what they were—not
victims, not noble creatures, but killers for hire. We were doing good work.

So why did it leave such a nasty taste in my mouth? I took another sip of my beer, hoping to wash the taste of ashes away. We were almost done.

“Seriously,” Pietr went on, readying the hook the same way I'd done with Madame, “it's so obvious the ki-rin was covering for whatever the girl did, but—”

“You lie!”

Maybe we'd set the hook a little too hard, as Pietr's target got physical. I barely had time to duck before a fist about the size of a Virginia ham came slamming down on the bar next to me, knocking over my beer and sending the liquid in a foamy rush down the bar.

I noted, almost absently, that the bar had a definite slant in the middle, making all the beer run into the channel. I wondered if that was planned, to make sure customers didn't wet themselves after a few taps too many, and then I was heading for the floor, looking for cover.

“You lie, you stinking human gutter-trash!”

Pietr, of course, had disappeared. I swore once, but my heart wasn't in it. It was instinct for him, he didn't mean to run out on the fight, really. Not that his intentions, or lack thereof, helped me a bit.

“You shouldn't eavesdrop if you don't want to hear unpleasant things,” I told the fatae. A particularly normal-looking specimen, if you ignored the fact that it had a beak like a squid's instead of a nose. I had absolutely no idea what breed it was, and didn't particularly care.

“Take it back!”

“The hell I will. The ki-rin lied!”

Oops. I had been the one arguing against the ki-rin lying. Pietr had been the one saying it had. Oh, well. I didn't think my pugilistic dance buddy cared who had been saying what, anyway. All us be-nosed humans probably looked alike to it, anyway.

It took another swing at me, and missed, the attempted roundhouse almost coming back and clocking it in the face. Long arms and poor depth perception did not a good brawler make. Also, I suspected it had been there drinking for a while before we arrived.

“You break it, you pay for it,” the bartender said, barely looking up from his papers. I ducked under another wild swing, and tried to see if anyone else was going to come join the dance. There were three fatae sitting at a nearby table, watching, but they didn't seem inclined to do anything, and the human in the corner was carefully not seeing a thing. If I wanted to, I could just head for the door; Pietr would get out on his own. No part of the deal had involved getting a concussion; our medical plan sucked. I judged the dash I'd have to make past my dance buddy to get to the door, then abandoned the idea. The hook wasn't set yet. It was more than just making sure the suggestion took, there was a “tag” on it, a sort of sticky-note made of current. A Talent might notice it, if they were the suspicious type, but only if they were looking. Nulls and fatae should be oblivious, heeding the urge to pass it on to whomever they mentioned the rumor to, passing it along like a cold virus.

“Stinkin' lyin' humans, tryin' to drive us out of town…”

Sounded like our unfriendly neighborhood bigots had been priming the pump for us. Good. Or: not good, but useful. The fatae took another swing, and I ducked inside rather than away, getting right up in his face.

The smell of fish and stale beer almost knocked me over, but I leaned in anyway, and whispered, “The ki-rin lied.”

Tag.

The fatae snarled, even as I tried to duck back away, and those overlong arms clobbered me good. The room spun, and I swayed, just as a bottle came down on the back of squid-nose's head. He fell forward onto the barstool and crumpled to the ground. Pietr stood there, blinking at me and grinning lopsidedly. “I think we're done here.”

Two down, four to go.

Ben had seen his partner exalted, exhausted, despondent and in the grips of a terrifying and dangerous euphoria. He had never seen Ian look quite the way he did right now. It wasn't sadness, it wasn't exhaustion, or resignation, but some terrible blend of them all, on a base of fury.

The moment the pups had left on their various missions, his partner had let his facade slip, making Ben leap to the only possible conclusion.

“Aden.”

His partner nodded curtly. Only his beloved little sister could so tangle Ian up that he didn't know what to do.

“She really doesn't learn, does she.” Ian wanted to remember the little girl she had been, once upon a time, who adored her big brother and would do anything for him. Ben knew better. That little girl had grown into a woman
who still adored her brother—and would do anything to stop him.

Although Aden probably called it “bringing him back to his senses.”

“She was behind the most recent rumors, too? I'd have thought she could do better than that.”

“Oh, she did. She went several steps better.” A strand of Ian's hair lifted, staticky with current, and he smoothed it down, focusing until his core settled again. “Our Pusher was there, in the meeting.”

“I assume you had him taken out and beaten.” Ben wasn't joking.

“After he told me who hired him, yes. The meeting was adjourned rather quickly after that. Nobody wanted to admit that they had been manipulated by a Null. Oh, yes. Aden only gave the man his doorway into me. The rumors were the work of someone else—Aden's partner. A Null.” His mouth twisted like he'd bitten into something rotten.

“She brought an outsider in?” The only thing Aden Stosser hated more than her brother's pet project was mixing Nulls with what she saw as Council business.

“I suspect they brought her in,” Ian said. “Which means that her obsession has become a commonly known thing beyond the Council. She needs to be warned.”

Ben had his own opinions about that—namely, that it would do her a world of good to be taken down by a Null; teach her some humility—but this was his best friend's sister they were talking about. So he merely nodded, and twenty minutes later, without permission of or warning to their target, Ian Translocated them directly into the house Aden had been renting, down on the Carolina shoreline.

It took a minute to recover, and by then Ian was already striding forward.

She was sitting in an oversize living room, a glass of tea resting on the table beside her, a book open on her lap, and soft music playing from speakers in another room. Behind her, the shoreline ebbed and flowed under overcast skies.

“You're being used.” Ian's voice was like molten lava, cutting through Aden's protestations at their unannounced entrance, and practically making the air sizzle in reaction.

Aden didn't even bother to deny his implicit accusation by asking what he meant. “Maybe I'm using them?”

Ben bit the inside of his lip, knowing any comment he made right now would only make things worse. Aden thought she was far more of a player than she was. She was formidable, yes—she was a Stosser, after all—but she still wasn't as good as she thought she was.

Ian and Aden stared at each other, the family resemblance striking in both the physical and the feel of the current rising in both of them. They had been born of the same family, trained by the same mentor…they were so very similar, and yet completely opposed in this matter.

“Pick better tools,” Ian said, finally. “This one will cut you, too. And I'm tired of bandaging up your damned booboos, especially when you get them working against my people.”

His sister stood up and stalked forward to face him. She was a foot shorter, but carried herself with the same arrogance that made her seem taller. “Your people? Your puppies. Your little lapdogs, sniffing and peeing everywhere.” She pulled back her words, and tried again. “My Pusher was only
supposed to make you both reconsider. But something went wrong with your partner. He—” her voice dripped venom; she had never liked Ben much “—was warded somehow, the Push kept getting misdirected.”

Ben checked himself slightly at that—misdi…oh. Damn. Bonnie, the connection between them, had she gotten hit with it? But there was no time to worry about it now.

“Ian, stop this.” Aden sounded sincerely worried. “Stop this before someone gets hurt.”

“And by someone you mean…what?” Ian had his temper on but good now. “A Council member who did something they shouldn't have, and gets called on it? Or a Null teenager killed because current got out of control? Which is the greater sin, Aden?”

Her temper flared again to match his own. “Don't you blame that on me! It was your fault for starting this. The Council has been taking care of their own for generations, and doing a good job of it, and lonejacks are lonejacks, they deal with their own people. That's the way it's always been, and it's a good system.”

“It's a crap system. You of all people should know that.”

Ben tensed. Any mention of Chicago was thin ice, even in the best of situations. This…wasn't that.

“Is there a problem, Aden?”

Two men in the hallway, suddenly, and a large dog next to them. Ben felt his skin prickle. If they were Talent, they were holding back, hiding themselves. But Nulls could be just as deadly. And dogs…

For all that he joked about the puppies, Benjamin Venec was afraid of dogs. And Aden, that bitch, knew it.

“Is there a problem?” one of the men repeated.

“There's no problem,” Ian said, his voice practically oozing the confidence and sincerity that got them out of—and into—trouble on a regular basis. But the speaker had his eyes on Aden, and gave no sign of having heard him.

“Bill. This is my brother, Ian. He stopped by to see if we couldn't work our little differences out.” Aden's voice was high and brittle, filled with…anger, Ben decided. He didn't know her well, not as well as he did her brother, but he could tell that much. She was angry, and a little bit afraid—but of Ian? Or this Bill? Was this their mysterious businessman?

“Ian Stosser. What an…unexpected pleasure.”

Ben, thus ignored, felt free to step back from the scene, even as the man with Bill did the same, taking the dog with him. They were not the players in this little playlet, just understudies.

Or stagehands.

“So. You're the scum trying to use my sister's delusions for your own purposes.”

Ben groaned. Ian had gone from Player to Big Brother. Damn it, this was no time to protect the crazy little bitch….

“Ian. Be polite to my partner.” Aden's voice was sharp…the fear was rising. Why? Ben reconsidered Bill. Tall and well-dressed, with a face that could pass as comfortably handsome…but there was something about him that set Ben's hackles on alert. This was a nasty bastard. A sadist, possibly. Mean, definitely.

“Why?” Ian stalked forward, circling the man. “I know
you,” he said flatly. “Bill West. You were involved in the Sagara incident, back last autumn. Eight people died.”

“Hardly involved. We employed one of the consultants who worked for the company in question. The Sagara field was completely out of—”

“Eight people died because your consultant said it was all right to drill. Right into an unquiet ley line.”

Venec hadn't heard about that. The Council must have hushed it up. That meant this man had his hooks into at least one Council member, somewhere.

West made an elegant gesture with his hands. “Sometimes, people die. That is the price of risk. You know that, certainly, of all people. Or have I heard the story of the Chicago incident incorrectly?”

Ian turned on his sister, his teeth bared in a snarl. Ben stepped forward, realizing as he did so that he was intending to protect Aden, not Ian. Both Stossers had tempers that could combust in an instant, and regrets would only come later. The dog snarled, and Ben stopped cold.

“You told him?” Ian's hair lifted with static. “Private Council matters—
that
Council matter—you told to an outsider? Have you totally taken leave of your senses, Aden? And they say that I'm a loose cannon? You are the one who endangers us!”

Infuriated, she raised her hand, wreathed in dark blue current like a neon torch. Ben swore, pulling current from his own core to form a shield. Ian would do anything for a cause…but he would not believe his sister could willingly kill.

The current in her hand said differently.

“I told him nothing.” Her voice was tight: she was afraid of her partner. That made him the priority.

Getting between two Stossers was not something he would recommend, but he would have done it if the first man, Bill, hadn't raised his hand as well, summoning not current, but his companion. Ben hesitated, feeling the current rising in him, waiting for direction.

“If they die now,” West said, almost conversationally, “our problems are solved. Such a shame, the siblings driven to this…”

Even as Ian and Aden turned at that comment, the second man moved forward, and Ben saw that he was holding a nasty-looking handgun.

“Idiot Null,” Ben muttered, and shifted his aim, the lash of current he had planned for Aden instead flickering out and wrapping itself around the gunman's hand. The man yelped as it burned the skin, jerking his hand upward even as he pulled the trigger.

The bullet escaped the muzzle, smashing into something that broke with a hard crash. The current wove around the metal, fusing the internal workings. If that bastard tried to fire again, it would explode in his hand.

“Don't bring a goddamn gun to a goddamn current fight,” he snarled. Guns worked against Talent if they were unprepared, not expecting the blow, but Venec was never unprepared.

“You dare?” Aden asked West, her voice a perfect match for Ian's: hard and hot and outraged. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Ben felt the urge to roll his eyes. There were
days he sympathized with people who wanted to kill this family.

“I dare whatever I please,” West said, somehow refraining from showing the sneer that was in his voice, as though his gunman hadn't just been unarmed and rendered useless. “I told you I wanted to stop him…. And you've just given me the perfect scenario. Nobody will doubt that you two let your tempers get the better of you, his loyal partner tried to intervene, and tragedy ensued….”

He let his other hand dip into his pocket, and came out with a long black tube. “One of my associates came up with this,” he said, lifting it so that they could see it clearly. “It's a prototype, but I am assured that it works quite well. Try to use current against me, and you will regret it, I assure you.”

“There are many things in life I regret,” Aden said flatly. “Killing you won't be one of them.”

Current flashed, a hot orange neon that filled the room and made Ben blink, but before he could recover there was a backlash like he'd never seen before, the current somehow twisted on itself and sent back toward the caster. Aden absorbed most of it, the shock dancing across her skin like the static globes they sold in novelty stores that mimicked lightning storms. Ian recovered first, slapping a dark blue bolt at their attacker's torso, aimed directly at the heart. This time, Ben saw the wand lift, and the current redirect itself to the mouth of the tube, regurgitating at only slightly less power, heading directly back at Ian.

In the afterflash, Ben also saw the second man pulling a long, narrow knife from somewhere and lunging at Aden.

Personally, he'd let her take a blade, if he thought it would get her out of their hair. But explaining that to Ian could get dicey. So he lunged in turn, going low under the current streams, and knocked the guy's feet out from under him, bringing them both onto the hardwood flooring. He was tired, and annoyed, and worried about that tube-thing, so he didn't use any finesse, shoving his hand down on the man's chest and stopping his heart with one swift blow of current.

The body ran on electricity. Current ran alongside electricity. Killing someone with current was easy, if you had the stomach for it.

He rolled, as soon as the job was done, and came up behind West, crouching. The tube, he assessed quickly, was enough to hold off one Talent, but not two: the combined brother-and-sister attack was making West stagger. All it would take to finish him off would be one distraction.

Ben shoved forward, grabbing West's arm and tearing it downward, so the current he was redirecting went down into the floor. He felt a sharp tingle run through him, but a Talent was grounded to prevent that sort of thing from doing damage.

Bill West wasn't that fortunate. He let out a scream, even as the current surged through him like ground-to-cloud lightning, frying his entire system.

He fell to his knees, his nice suit barely mussed, and dropped forward.

Silence, and the scent of burnt flesh, filled the room.

“I hope you didn't put too much of a security deposit down on this place,” Ian said, stepping forward to pick up
the tube. It had melted under the current rush; the plastic was fused into a solid, misshapen rod. There was no way to determine what it had been or how it had worked.

“Damn you, Ian.” Aden sounded more tired than angry, however. “West was…out of line. I want to stop you, not kill you. I don't want to kill anyone.”

“And yet,” Ben said, unable to stop himself, “people keep dying every time you get involved. Maybe that should be something that you consider?”

“Ben,” Ian said, cautioning him. Then he turned to face his sister. “We did good work together here. Teamwork, even.”

She almost smiled, and for an instant Ben could see the little girl she had been, the one his partner still saw when he looked at her. Then it was gone. “Don't get used to it.”

“You have to stop this. Ben is right. If you're going to ally yourself with people who don't have the same scruples you maintain…either yours will get bent, or they will get you dead. Is that what you want?”