Green Mage, page 25
part #2 of Mackenzie Green Series
So, Lucan had not only gone to the Triad with his suspicions. He’d gone to the Council as well. I smiled inside. No wonder he’d had such a bee in his bonnet.
“The two groups discussed it, and in our arrogance, decided that no one would dare attack a joint venture.” The vampire's eyes darkened, and I realized something. Master Dagmar wasn’t cold. He was enraged and keeping it locked down tight.
“There was one voice who was adamant that we should source more guards for the Council during the event. He would have both the influence and funds to hire mercenaries.” A contemplative look softened his features. “You must have noticed the majority of the mercenaries went after the shifters. Only a token force came after the Council and our seconds.”
I nodded. I had noticed that, but with no proof, I hadn’t said anything to Lucan.
“I can promise you that the name you give me will be investigated by me alone, and only if I find adamant proof will I bring it to you. If nothing comes of it, I will scrub their name from my list, and no one will be the wiser.”
It was the standard offer that a hunter of the guild made when talking to reluctant witnesses. It gave them peace of mind. If the accused were innocent, no one would be the wiser. Curtis enforced that promise ruthlessly.
“Please, Nickoli. I need to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.” My use of his first name seemed to shake him more than anything.
“Rebekkah Cade. Her heir is Joseph Smythe. He didn’t take it well when we brushed aside his concerns and refused to bring in more protection. He has the means and was overheard by a friend of a friend speaking ill of his Mistress.”
I scribbled his name down. I had contacts in the city where the mercenaries originated, people I’d cultivated in the two years my siblings and I were running. I didn’t trust them, but they would sell me the information I needed for the right price.
“Thank you. I will pull you aside if I find anything. If I don’t, Joseph's name will never come up again.”
A name was all I needed. It would allow me to get his appearance at least. I was a few messages away from getting some answers. Or more questions.
Master Dagmar and I parted ways, and I headed up to the second level to talk to Curtis. I would need his permission to access the locked library. It held all the information we’d gathered on the major players in the city. It wasn’t as good as the Hall of Records, but I didn’t have time to skip across town.
The moist jungle fragrance caressed my nose as I walked into Curtis’s office. Speedy lazed in her pond. I briefly wondered if Saber had forgiven her yet.
The energy of the plants wrapped around me. Accustomed to my touch, they had no problem making a connection and feeding me a bit of their strength. I sucked it up greedily. The last few days had been exhausting, and I would need as much energy as I could absorb.
Curtis sat behind his massive mahogany desk. Papers rustled as he set them aside. “What do you need?” It was one of the great things about Curtis. Once you earned his trust, he didn’t require in-depth explanations.
“I need access to the locked library. I have a suspect behind last night's attack, and I need to confirm a few details before meeting with Lucan tonight.”
He nodded. “I trust you will be careful with the information you share. The Dragon Protector might be your client, but the vampires can be a deadly enemy.”
I gave him a reassuring smile. “No worries. I’ve already promised to share my information with Master Dagmar first. The vampires deserve a chance to do some house cleaning, especially since I think this treaty will be a great boon for the city.”
Curtis pulled out an iron key from his desk and waved me away.
“Mackenzie.” I looked back at my boss and friend. “Be careful tonight. Something dark is heading your way. I haven’t seen much, but there is pain coming, and I don’t know if you can avoid it.”
I suppressed a shudder at the seriousness on his face, thinking about the horrors I’d endured as a child. I gave him an unconcerned answer. “I’m sure I’ll be able to handle it. Pain and I are old friends.”
Without waiting to see his reaction, I strode toward the door. A sharp left, and I picked up my pace down the wide hallway. At the end, a carved wooden door stood tall and strong. The key slid effortlessly into the slot.
The room behind smelled of musty paper. Hundreds of tomes lined the walls. Unlike most libraries, this one was ever-growing, evolving. The massive volumes sitting on the shelves contained the past, present, and sometimes, the city's future.
I went over to one section. All the tomes there had red leather covers. Their pages contained everything we’d ever learned about the vampires in GreenRiver and the known world.
Each book contained information on one Master Vampire. When a fledgling vampire rose to the position of Master, a notation went in their origin tome, and a new book started.
My hand landed on the leather spine for Rebekkah Cade. If we had any information on Joseph, it would be here. As I settled into one of the tables, I sent a quick text off to my contact in Seaforth and asked him about any strangers recently looking to hire some thugs. I’d worked briefly with Chase years ago when I hadn’t been comfortable settling in any town for long, still prone to running. I’d cautiously reached out when we’d settled in GreenRiver, and we maintained a tentative alliance.
The response came quickly. Chase would investigate and get back to me. It was more than I’d hoped for.
I skimmed through the pages. Rebekkah was a Master Vampire, and her territory extended under Stone territory. Many of her children had businesses in the Hub, and her nest was one of the wealthiest in the city.
I found Joseph Smythe ten pages in. He’d been inducted as the heir to Rebekkah’s nest ten years ago and was considered young for such a prominent position. He’d only been a vampire for fifty years, one of the first in our area to be turned after the Resurgence.
The notes in the book were vague. Someone, years ago, had speculated that being turned at the onset of the Resurgence had given Joseph secret abilities. No one, however, seemed able or willing to share what they were.
I tapped a finger on my chin. Another thought flitted through my head. What if this wasn’t about the treaty at all? What if it was a power grab by an heir? The deaths of any Triad member would disgrace the host. In this case, the host was the Council. Each of them would have suffered the consequence of not protecting their guests, especially since they had hidden behind their guards and seconds while the shifters had faced a threat unaided. It might cause enough upheaval for a coup to take place.
Another half an hour of investigation and I had nothing to tell Lucan. At this rate, I was going to have to bank everything on my Seaforth contact. I looked at my watch. Ten minutes to six. Lucan was due soon, and it irritated me that I had nada.
I was still in my chair with the dusty tomes around me when my phone pinged.
FeatherHead: Hey, Alec and I are downstairs. Saber’s with us. We have to talk.
I shook my head at the name Chris had given Quinn.
GreenThumb: Be right down.
Not wasting time, I tucked the book back in its proper place and locked the door behind me.
I signed the key back in at Chris’s desk and went down the stairs. Quinn and Alec were waiting for me at the bottom. Quinn had his arm lazily slung over my brother's shoulder, and Alec had a faint blush on his face, but his arm was around Quinn’s waist. He may have been embarrassed, but he was proud of his mate and willing to show it.
“Hey, guys. It hasn’t been that long. What’s up?” I hit the bottom stair, and the three of us made our way to the galley.
The kitchen area was at the back of the guild. A maze of hallways led out into a cafeteria of sorts. It was a mishmash of long tables with benches and isolated round ones with four chairs. Along one wall were stainless steel coolers that held pre-made food like sandwiches and salads. Along the opposite wall, the not-so-healthy snacks like chips and candy bars were on display. If the cook, a retired Jack, was in a good mood, you could persuade him to make you a hot meal.
None of us grabbed any food. Instead, we sat at the end of one of the long tables. Quinn and Alec slid into one side with me on the other.
“Tell me, what’s been going on with Brooke since I left? I need everything.” Alec’s eyes were fierce. He suspected something, but he wanted to prove it first.
“Do you want just the facts, or do you want my thoughts as well?”
“Just the facts. I want to make my own opinion, and then we can compare notes.” I nodded, expecting as much.
Leaving out no detail, I started with the morning Brooke brought Ben in for breakfast—how he acted, what he said, how Connor had dismissed him too fast, and how Tyr had done the same when he’d gotten there. I moved on to Brooke’s attitude and how it had gotten more confrontational the longer she spent around the boy. By the time I got to her late-night drinking escapade and the worry we’d all had, I was cradling my head in my arms. I was so ashamed. I felt like I’d failed Brooke, even if she was perfectly old enough to know the consequences of her actions.
When I finished recounting the last week, Alec leaned back in his chair, his ocean blue eyes closed as he put the pieces together. While he was thinking, I looked at Quinn.
The gryphon was staring back at me. It was an intensely scrutinizing gaze. I resisted the urge to squirm.
“What’s wrong?” I had to say something. The discomfort was too great.
“There’s something different about you. I’m trying to pin it down.” Quinn, as a gryphon shifter, could sense the truth. The more powerful the gryphon, the more ways they saw, heard, or felt the truth of a person.
Quinn’s dad, Alec’s mentor, was a natural healer. Tollas worked by seeing a person's real body and instinctively knew how to correct that truth if something was interfering. Quinn had more magic than his dad, and as far as I knew, he could see the truth on every level. There was no hiding from him when he bent his powers your way.
“Will you tell me when you figure it out?” His dark skin made his white teeth flash brighter when he grinned.
“Maybe.” Quinn, never one to waste words, continued to puzzle me out.
Alec sat forward, his hands clenched into fists in front of him. “Okay, first off, there is definitely something up with our sister. What you just told me filled in some of the blanks on how she acted today.” My brother took a deep breath, steeling himself. “Brooke and I had a heart to heart this afternoon, shortly after you left, actually.” Quinn placed a hand on the nape of Alec’s neck, calming his mate.
“At first, she raged about all the ‘stupid’ rules we had. Then she dissed you for your punishments, which, just so you know, I think were completely fair.” He would never know what that support meant to me. “Then she got quiet. There was an odd light in her eyes. One moment her amber eyes would go pale yellow, then deepen. It was almost like there were two parts of her warring.” Alec wiped a hand down his face.
I reached over and placed a hand on the arm still resting on the table. My brother wasn’t the only one who could offer support.
I suddenly realized I’d seen the same look and dismissed it as a trick of the light.
“Quinn had a peek at her when we left her room. There’s foreign magic on her. It’s messing with her mind, taking her deepest annoyances and rocketing them up to ten. This Ben kid is messing with our little sister.” It was a statement. One Alec was confident of.
“Yes, he is. Ben is a mage with compulsion magic. I felt it brush against my shields the first time we met, but some must have sneaked through because I forgot about my suspicion until we faced him again in the drunken warehouse incident. I was able to throw off his magic enough to ban him from the house.” It was my turn to rub my face. “I tried getting Brooke into a different class, but he’s got the teachers and deans wrapped around his little finger. The little weasel played the ‘simply human’ card.” My agitation ratcheted, and I started to drum my fingers on the table. “He’s got his tendrils in her good. He’s painted me out to be some faux mother figure. Convinced her that if her real mom was there, she would treat her so much better.”
Alec and I exchanged looks. Brooke’s mother had sold her to the human government for experimentation as an infant. If she was still alive, which I doubted, she would have been a terrible mother.
I let out a heavy sigh. “You know the deal with mind magic. Only the caster and the victim can break the compulsion. If Brooke fights the suggestions enough, she will snap out of it.” I let the pain and sorrow I’d been holding in coat my face. “But I decided to keep Brooke’s mother a secret, letting her have her fantasies about her kin. If I tell her now, she’ll only think I’m lying to manipulate her.”
Quinn and Alec both reached out and placed a hand on my shoulder, giving it a quick squeeze.
“How could she throw away everything you’ve done for her?” Quinn’s voice was a rumble of suppressed emotion. Since Brooke was Alec’s younger sister, he was fond of her, but he was my friend first and always took my side.
Alec spoke before I could. “What Kenzie told you and your dad was all true. But it wasn’t everything she suffered. And while Brooke saw more than any of us would have liked in the facility, we shielded her a great deal. She was able to retain more of her innocence than the rest of us. It’s helped her forget—or maybe deal with is a better term—our childhood trauma. Brooke isn’t stupid, but that next level of trust she’s capable of has left her vulnerable. Ben has exploited that vulnerability to his own end.” Alec was right that Brooke’s more trusting nature had left her open to the manipulation, and as a family we’d failed to shore up that area of weakness.
“I set the boys to reading about better mental defenses. We should have been on top of it earlier, but it never seemed a priority,” I said, and Alec nodded.
“I’ll have a go over it too, but I’m better protected now that I have Quinn.”
I looked away. I’d kept important things from my family. Knowledge that would keep them safe, but despite everything going to shit, I didn’t regret my choice. If Alec and the others knew the serum was gone, that the facility had plans to breed us like animals, they would be more jaded than they were. Just look at me. And Alec’s mating with Quinn may never have happened. I would never put that burden on them. Never.
Quinn looked at me—really looked. His golden and copper eyes could see far more than I liked, but I let him look longer. There was a freedom to having at least one person who knew some of the truths.
“Back to Brooke,” Quinn said, but he didn’t let on anything of what he’d seen. I was grateful for it.
“I’ve planted the seed. I’ve told Brooke the truth about who Ben is, what he is. That’s all any of us can do until we meet Ben in a dark alley somewhere,” I replied.
I gave Alec a dark smile. His answering one was just as sinister. My brother may have taken on the vocation of a healer, but we were both trained assassins and old instincts died hard.
Alec’s face lightened. “Agreed. For now, all we can do is wait.”
I nudged Alec’s foot with mine under the table. “You have to be on her side. Even if it means slamming me.” That got a startled look out of both my tablemates.
“Why in the name of the Old God would I do that?” Alec’s tone was ripe with indignation.
“Because we love her, and if we're going to get her back, she needs to have someone to support her. I’ve put Tyr and Connor in a tight spot by getting them to watch and escort her. You’re the only one who hasn’t ‘caged’ her.” Those were the words Brooke had texted me before Connor took her to school this morning.
Alec let out a harsh breath. “This is more of you protecting us. I don’t like it, Kens.”
“I know. Tonight is the last night of my gig, then I’ll have time to hunt Ben down and show Brooke his true nature. Will you do this for me? She’s sixteen and feels alone. She needs one of us on her side.”
That got through to him and he nodded, though a frown still marred his mouth.
Quinn looked up sharply at something over my right shoulder. He tensed, and a scary, intense look crossed his face, but I couldn’t pin it down before the giant gryphon was jumping out of his seat and striding across the room. Alec looked over my shoulder as I spun in my seat to see who had sparked such a reaction in Quinn.
When I saw who he was heading towards, I had the urge to bang my head on the table. Because standing in the doorway stood Saber, the Dragon Protector at his side.
Chapter 30
Quinn was up and off the bench before Alec could stop him. Anger radiated from his broad shoulders as he stalked across the room. Shit! Quinn’s going to kill him.
Lucan watched, arms folded across this chest, and Saber sat at his side, unconcerned. I sent my familiar a questioning look, but he only yawned at me, showing off his massive fangs.
Lucan wasn’t the only one staring at Quinn. Every guild member in the vicinity had turned to watch the drama unfold.
Quinn stopped within touching distance of Lucan. He spoke in a low clipped tone. Whatever problem he had, it was for Lucan alone. The Protector’s eyes glowed as the one-sided conversation continued. It seemed like whatever Quinn was saying, the Protector didn’t like.
Lucan’s eye’s flickered over Quinn’s shoulder and met my own. That moment of connection sent shivers through me. He broke contact quickly and, in the same low tone, started to lecture Quinn in return.
A buzz started around us as people speculated what the two shifters were discussing.
Alec leaned over. “What do you think they're talking about?” Curiosity shone in his eyes.
“My guess, Quinn is giving him the ‘if you get her hurt, I’ll gut you’ speech.” I’d twisted my body so I could lean back onto the tabletop with my elbows.
