Pack of Lies (32 page)

That was the smell that had woken me up. “Thanks.”

Pietr had also gotten the newspaper from my front door—I
was probably the only person in the entire building who still took an actual newspaper, but the delivery guy still placed it, folded neatly, against my door every morning, Monday through Saturday.

“What time is it?”

“A little after seven. We still have time.”

He'd managed to take a shower, too, I noticed; his hair was still wet, and his face had a scrubbed look, clean and fresh-shaved.

“You didn't use my razor, did you?” Because, friend or no, if he had…

“Hell no. And I didn't touch your shampoo, either. I didn't want to go in smelling like…what the hell do you use, anyway?”

“Tea tree. My scalp's sensitive.”

“Yeah, well, you dye your hair that many times, it's a wonder it hasn't gotten pissed and left.”

“That line works better coming from Nick,” I said, recognizing the pattern of comebacks. “You can do nastier.”

He grinned, and snapped the paper back into its proper folds. “So. Have good hunting last night?”

I had to think about it for a minute. “Yeah. I think so.”

“Good. Go wash your face. You look like a raccoon after a week-long bender.”

 

After that crack, I didn't talk to him the entire way into the office. Venec was already there, wearing the same shirt he'd had on that night—and I was right, it was hand-tailored; under the office lights I could tell—but he'd changed into a pair of black jeans, and taken a shower somewhere along the
line. The waterfall noise came forward out of the background, and I realized it had never left, just faded to not-noticeable status. I gave it a mental shove back, and my awareness of him faded. Good. Maybe familiarity—and knowing what it was—would be enough to keep it contained.

Then he looked at me, and every hope of that went out the window. My breath caught somewhere between my chest and my throat, and there was an ache in my thighs that the tumble with Pietr should have put down for a few more days at least, damn it. I'd thought knowing what was going on would make it easier, not harder, but based on the oomph we just gave each other with a single look, keeping sex out of this thing was going to be trickier than we'd hoped.

Fortunately, we were both stubborn as sin.

Nick tossed me a glazed donut, and I caught it with one hand, even distracted. Nifty held up six fingers, rating my catch. I gave him one in return.

We had apparently walked into an ongoing discussion of the way the rumor-net was spreading. Nifty was the only pup who didn't seem worried.

“Relax, people,” he was saying. “We primped the pump, but good. It will come forward—or someone will make it come forward. Like Venec said, the word on the street is that they're afraid this will make them look even worse, feed the antifatae feelings. It's a
shonda
for the
goyim
.”

I couldn't help it, I laughed. Nifty had a way of coming up with Yiddishism that a good ol' black kid from Philly really shouldn't be using. “Let me guess. Your coach again?”

“Ex-girlfriend, actually.”

Venec held his hand up, and I could feel the tension in
him, a different sort from last night's, like a crack of thunder through the waterfall. “Hush,” he said, listening intently. The current strands around him were almost visible, and I got a sense of our rumor-net vibrating like a spider's web with a juicy fly caught somewhere in the sticky mess.

*stosser* a whisper of thought told me, identifying the ping Ben was listening to. I couldn't hear it myself, but I
knew
.

Somewhere out there, our lures had gotten a bite. But was it enough?

We waited, polishing off what was left of the box of donuts on the table, while Venec held a silent debate with Stosser, wherever he was.

“Heads up, puppies,” he said suddenly. “Ian wants to bring you in on this.”

“Bring us in?” Sharon asked, and I could see the others bracing themselves for a Translocation.

“Like a conference call,” Venec said. “The way you share mage-sight, only in a group. Ian will be lead, I'm the conduit.”

“Have you guys ever done a group like this before?” Nifty asked, which was the exact same thing I'd been wondering. Sharing the bubble with Pietr had been stressful enough. Holding seven of us? Over a distance? Stosser was damn good, but…

“No time like right now to learn something new,” Venec said. “Get ready. In ten.”

I started counting back, sliding into fugue-state, but somebody was off a beat because I was still at three when I felt a
tug somewhere around my midsection and midbrain, and fell into a group-fugue.

Wow. This was weird.
I was pretty sure that thought was mine, but I couldn't swear to it. A bunch of different flavors melting into each other, like too many scoops in a sundae. Then a coating of something heavy on top…Venec as hot fudge? Yeah, that was about right. Bittersweet fudge. Yum.

I managed not to share that thought with the group, and then we were all in the same pipeline, looking through Stosser's eyes. I knew that immediately, because the point of view was too damn high, and there was the shadow of a long narrow nose just at the edge of my awareness.

*focus* a cranky reminder came.

Heh. I wasn't the only one noticing the nose.

We were in a large room…no, a warehouse of some sort, or a repair bay. Concrete floors, metal walls, lighting far overhead, glaringly white. And, in front of us, the ki-rin.

The first and last time I'd seen a ki-rin, other than through my projected gleanings, was at the scene of the crime, when it was at a distance and covered in someone else's blood. I hadn't looked too closely then. Now, I—through Stosser's awareness—stared.

The fatae was about the size of a large pony, like I'd already noted, but its body was more like an elk's than a horse's. Dun scales sparkled at throat and belly, but a plush golden coat covered its legs and torso, leading to the long neck with the white-gold lion's mane, and scaled dragon's head. It was looking directly at us, and I noticed with a sense of shock that it had whiskers similar to Madame's. Well, I
suppose that made sense. Ironically, the horn in the middle of its forehead—the murder weapon—was the last thing you noticed. It was smaller than I'd thought it would be, barely a foot long, and not ivory the way a unicorn's was, but dun brown and slightly curved, more like an antler than a horn. Under the horn, looking directly at us, two large, deep-set eyes the color of coal and filled with an impossible sadness.

He killed a man, I reminded myself. He let his companion sell herself, and conspired to cover up murder.

I did only what was within my right to do.

I flinched, thinking that it was responding to me. But no, that musical voice was echoing in the warehouse; we were hearing it through Stosser's ears, via the current-link.

“We know, Si-Ja. We know.” Ian's voice, as filled with sadness and regret as I had ever heard. How could you not feel regret, confronting such a magnificent being? And how could there not be sadness, seeing the sadness in the ki-rin's gaze?

Sadness would not bring back the dead. Regret would not undo the harm.

You spread lies. It attacked my companion.

“Yes, he did,” Stosser agreed. “But did we lie? Or merely misrepresent the truth? Nobody is denying that the guy was scum. You were within your rights, by the standards of the fatae, to claim retribution, and defend her honor. But the truth is not truth when only part of the story is told, noble one.”

The ki-rin snorted, and I swear flames came from its
black-rimmed nostrils. Stosser stood his ground, despite the angry response.

You accuse me of lying?

“Ki-rin do not lie. And yet, I know that you do not tell all that you know.”

The ki-rin raised its head and stared directly at him/us.
It attacked my companion. She was in dishonor.

“You took money to be in that place at that time. She took money to approach those men, and to accept the consequences of what happened. I do not condone nor do I dismiss that man's actions—they were of his own volition and deserved punishment. But you knew what would happen. You were complicit in the attack, and premeditated the murder.”

Her honor…

“Her honor was sold. As was yours.” The sadness was still there, but it was delivered on a cold steel blade. Ian Stosser did not like being used, played, or made a fool.

There was a long pause, and those great coal-black eyes shone with tears.

The action was his. He could have walked away. He could have listened to her saying no.

“It's called entrapment. There is no honor in it.”

The ki-rin's head dropped, and something inside me crumbled. No Ancient should ever be cast down so, not even by its own actions. It was…it was painful to watch. Like Mercy's agony, this was private. We should not be here, we should avert our eyes….

Our job was to see what others would not, could not. We were there to make sure all the pieces fit together, that the
entire story was told, not just one side of it. Stosser did not turn away, and so neither did we.

“Why, Si-Ja? What reason…?”

I could refuse her nothing, my beloved child, my companion. She had such talent…and dreams, dreams I had fed, to grow and to see, but such things took money. I am old, human. Old even for my kind, and when I die she will be alone…and my wealth, what little remains, will not pass on to her.

The missing artwork on the wall. Not knickknacks—her own work. Destroyed, in a fit of rage, of shame, of despair. I knew it, kenned it, the way I knew Mercy's own signature. The information flowed from me into the rest of the pack…and Stosser, our point man.

“You wanted to send her overseas to study?”

There were people I knew, connections I had made over time—she would have had the best of teachers…but she would not be able to find work there to support herself, and such a life is not inexpensive. I had miscalculated the market, lost too much to recover in time. A man knew a man who knew my broker: we were approached, an offer was made. Mercy was not to be damaged—her virtue maintained. The price…

It sighed, and the tears fell.
We did not understand
.
The price was too great.

She was not to have been raped…but the price was paid nonetheless. Traditions were a bitch like that. Sometimes the magic cared about the literal interpretation, and sometimes it went for the heart, the soul of the agreement.

Mercy wasn't innocent any longer. Her purity had been destroyed the moment the deal was carried out. The ki-rin
had no choice but to reject her. And it had broken both their hearts.

Ian turned to his left, finally looking away, and we saw that the two of them were not alone. Three figures waited as witness. Two were human, a burly man in a leather jacket who looked more like a biker than a Talent, and a young woman in an elegant suit and expensively styled hair. They both nodded at him, indicating that they had heard the ki-rin's confession. Next to them, a tall, slender female with dark green hair and skin the color of birch bark closed her eyes once, and nodded as well, her hair falling in front of her face like the limbs of a willow tree. The
Cosa Nostradamus,
Talent and fatae, had their proof.

I don't know what everyone else did, the next two days. I went home to my apartment, closed the door, and crawled into bed. And stayed there. J's birthday party came and went with only my ping of apology. My mentor was kind enough to let it go, for now. There would be a reckoning, and explanation, later, although I was sure he already knew what had gone down. He had too many contacts within the Council not to know.

When I finally got hungry, I ordered out for Indian food, and let the scent of curry stink up my clothes and my skin, and then crawled back into bed. The shades were drawn against the light, and half the time I didn't even bother to turn on the lights, moving around comfortably in the darkness.

I was beat. Not just physically, but emotionally. The last time I was this drained…it had been when I was in college,
still, and I'd just discovered that Zaki, my dad, had been murdered because he admired a married woman too obviously. That had been a painful kind of exhaustion. This wasn't. I didn't feel pain, or sorrow, or anything. That was just it. I felt hollow.

Lying on my back, I summoned enough current to project colored lights on the ceiling, my own personal laser show. It was frivolous, and wasteful, and exactly the kind of thing that, if you screwed up and did it in front of Nulls, could cause trouble you couldn't explain away. But here, in my own little cocooned world, it was a distraction and a comfort. If I'd gotten around to buying a stereo, I could have added some of J's beloved Pink Floyd, and the mood would have been complete. Although I was tending more toward Werewolf Church, right now. Something grim and melancholy; hoping that their emotions would jump-start my own.

Current was a science. Hard magic. You knew what you got when you did
A
versus what you got from
B
. In theory, anyway.

Old magic, the wild power, the stuff the fatae lived on… It was messy and inconsistent and couldn't ever be trusted. But it was part of us, too. Passion. Art. Hate. Need. It was the power base of current, the spirit of the law, and would not be denied. I'd forgotten that, for a little while.

I wouldn't ever forget it again.

On the third morning, there was a knock on my door. I seriously considered ignoring it, but it was morning, and I did still have a job—hopefully—and eventually I was going to have to rejoin the rest of the human race.

Besides, my scalp was starting to itch, and I was tired of leftover curry.

I climbed down from my loft, and went to open the door.

“I brought coffee.”

Venec. Of course. I took the thermos from him, and stepped back to let him come inside. If I'd been aware of my unwashed hair and curry-scented skin before, I was three times as aware of it now, plus the fact that I'd answered the door in a pair of shorts that shouldn't be worn outside, and a tank top with rude anime on it, neither of which did much to actually cover my body.

“Drink the coffee. Go shower. We have a nine o'clock appointment.”

“With who?” Clients met with Ian, not us. So what…

“Council.”

Right. Shit. I gulped the coffee, already heading for the bathroom.

 

I wondered, as the hot water was returning me to a people-appropriate stage, why Venec had come to get me personally. It would have been easier to send a ping. Had he knocked up the others, too? Was Ian collecting them?

The answer came easily, the moment I wondered. He was worried about me. My mood had been reaching him, and he wanted to make sure I was okay, before I had to go face everyone else.

It was sweet, that concern. Kind of annoying, too—both the worry and the fact that I'd been leaking, despite my walls—but it was sweet.

Benjamin Venec was not a man who did sweet easily. Or well, for that matter. I was proud of myself for being mature enough both to recognize that, and to prize it.

By the time I got out of the shower, he was gone. The thermos, and a note scrawled and left on my table were all that reassured me I hadn't hallucinated the entire thing.

I couldn't remember ever seeing Ben's handwriting before. It was thick and slanted, and I'm sure a specialist could find all sorts of fascinating nibblets about him by studying it. I left the paper on the table and went off to get dressed. No funk this time: Council meant Council clothing. A knee-length navy blue pencil skirt and a cream V-neck sweater that showed just a ladylike hint of cleavage, a gold chain at the collarbone and subtle diamond studs in my ears, one to a lobe, and navy blue shoes with a demure two-inch heel, stockings, and I was ready to go.

The morning sunshine was a little shocking, and the world seemed to have taken a giant leap toward actual spring while I was hibernating. The trees were budding madly, and my eyes started to itch. The pollen count must be skyrocketing. Even so, and even knowing where I was going, and why, it was difficult to keep my mood low. Spring in New York City could be dreary…or magnificent. It was giving us magnificence today.

177 Union Street was a tall stone building, built at the turn of the last century. Ben hadn't needed to leave the address: I knew the building.

The home of the Eastern Council, New York City.

As usual, the Council was insisting on putting their thumbprint on things—once all the work was done. No, be fair, Bonnie: some of the players had been theirs, they had the right.

There was no receptionist in the front lobby, just a large marble desk with an old-fashioned register. I signed in, and noted that the Big Dogs were already there, and Sharon, but not the others. There was a steam-powered elevator that took a lifetime to reach the 13th floor, and it was with considerable relief that I got out intact. I might not be entirely comfortable with elevators, even now, but hydro-electronics just gave me serious heebie-jeebies. I don't care how many decades it had been running without incident in a building filled with Talent, it still wasn't my idea of safe.

“Hi.” Like me, Sharon was dressed in subdued colors and classic style—the difference was, that was normal for her. Her blond hair was back in a chignon, and she'd dragged a two-strand pearl set out from somewhere. She so totally channeled the 1940s cool screen-goddess look, I'd be envious if I didn't know it would be a total flop on me.

“The Guys already in?”

“Yes. They said to wait until we were called.”

Her hands were laced together, as though to keep them from twitching, and I reached out, on impulse, and covered them with my own. Her skin was cold, too cold for just the air conditioning.

“Hey. It's okay.” I left my hands there, trying to give her back some warmth, not even thinking that she might take it the wrong way. She didn't.

“I've never appeared before the Council before,” she admitted. “What are we supposed to do, or say?”

I'd forgotten, again, that Ian and I were the only Council-raised members of the pack.

“It's the sentencing phase,” I told her, tugging her hands so that she'd follow me over to the row of seats against the wall, and made her sit down next to me, letting go of her hands only because mine were starting to pick up her chill. “We present the evidence against the accused, and the Council members determine punishment.”

“You've done this before?”

“Not me, no. My mentor sat on the Council for a while, and used to consult for them, after. I've heard stories.”

Before she could ask about those stories—thankfully, because I didn't think they'd calm her nerves much—Ben appeared at the doorway. He didn't bother to look around for us, just pointed a finger, and then crooked it to indicate we both should come with him.

“Once more, dear friends…”

Sharon almost giggled, then she caught herself, and we marched into the Council chamber with suitably solemn and professional expressions.

What I hadn't told Sharon was that we shouldn't have been there. Council didn't hear testimony from peons, and we were assuredly peons. Ian should have been handling this. So why had they called on us?

I didn't bother to ask: we'd find out soon enough.

Despite lonejack assumptions, the Seated Council isn't a formal body. At any given time there are about twenty members, and only half of them are considered active, although
everyone tends to stick their thumb in the pie. When we walked in, the long board table had fourteen people seated behind it, so they had called out a considerable number for this. I tried not to let my uncertainty reach Sharon; the last thing she needed to know was that the Council was on high alert.

The Big Dogs knew, though. Venec's suit should have been my warning sign: he was a good dresser—and occasionally a hot one, as his club gear had shown—but today's outfit would have done a senior VP investment banker proud, with just the right hang to announce that it was bespoke, and just enough style to show he was alert and comfortable with himself. Stosser was…Stosser. His suit was a traditional navy that could have come from the same store as Sharon's gray pinstripe, this year's fashion with a timeless dress boot underneath that he'd probably owned since he was my age, and had resoled every few years. And topping it all off, he had slicked back his long red hair into a ponytail, and tied it with a matching navy cord. I wondered, for the first time, how many times his family had gotten on his case to cut it short, and blend in.

Like Ian Stosser was ever going to blend.

“And who are these children?” the woman in the middle asked. Sharon got her chin up at that, but I bit back a grin. Luce Jackson could call just about anyone in the city a child. J had once hazarded a guess that she was at least 93, and maybe older. Still sharper than the proverbial tack, the terror of her entire family, and the iron hand behind half a dozen liberal charities up and down the eastern seaboard.

“Madame, may I present Sharon Mendelssohn, one of our
top field operatives, and Bonita Torres, who is our finest lab technician.”

Technically speaking, we didn't have a lab, much less technicians, but I merely stepped forward and presented myself with a formal head-and-shoulder bob. Sharon did the same, about half a second behind me.

“And you have brought them here to testify?”

“If the Council wishes confirmation of details, they are the ones best to answer,” Ian said, smooth as cream.

“All right. Let them be seated until called.”

Our relief was probably visible as we retreated to the cushioned chairs along the back wall of this room, as several of the Council members chuckled softly. But it was a sympathetic sound, not a harsh one, so my anxiety level went down a bit, and I could practically feel Sharon unclenching her jaw and loosening her shoulders.

“The Council is here this morning to consider the instance of an attack against a sovereign fatae, the Honorable Si-Ja and his companion, the Talent Mercy Trin, and the resulting death of the Talent Roger Mack and injury given to the Talent Aren Geb. All parties have stated their rendition of the events, and there is a clear conflict between all versions. We have therefore requested that the situation be investigated, to determine where the truth lays. Ian Stosser has already presented to us their findings, with a rather…complicated explanation of the events.”

Just the people named. Not the man who had started all this: he was not their concern, he was not Council. But word was out: his community would pass judgment. It wasn't our job. Our job was to find the truth. No matter
what it took. The sour feeling in my stomach? That was just part of the job.

The members started arguing with each other over interpreting the testimony that Ian and Ben had already given, and I listened with one ear in case we were called on, and let the rest of my attention rest on the Big Dogs. Stosser was restless, tapping his finger against the knee that was crossed over his other leg, staring fixedly at something. Ben, on the other hand, looked like he had all the time in the world, and nowhere he'd rather be than sitting right there. I let down my wall just a bit, and was splashed with a wave of tension, agitation, annoyance, and, deep into the core of all that, a sense of anger that the Council had to even discuss the matter.

Poor Venec. He really was such a lonejack.

Thinking of that made me think of the men who had attacked Mercy, trying to scare her into silence. Lonejacks, probably. Fatae-haters. There was no justice there, except the beat-down we had given them: but they were still out there. Lurking. Building hatred, and there was nothing we could do to stop them. Not until, unless, someone hired us…and then it would be too late.

“Ms. Torres.”

I almost jumped when they called my name, only that part of my attention I'd given over to the Council murmur keeping me from being totally startled. I swallowed, stood up, and walked slowly forward. Better me than Sharon, was all I could think; she had audibly yelped when they called my name, what would she have done if they'd called her?

“Ms. Torres. You were the investigator on the scene, who collected the primary evidence, is that correct?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“And as part of that evidence, you, ah…gleaned the emotions from the scene of the attack?”

I hesitated, not sure how to proceed. Was this a trick question?

Into my hesitation came a gentle wave of reassurance. *answer the question* Ben told me.

Right then. I took a deep breath, and pushed my shoulders into a comfortable “at attention” posture. “Ma'am, no. I did not garner emotions from the scene because there were no strong emotions attached to the signatures we were collecting.”

“Are you sure that you simply were not able to sense those emotions? Empathy is a very rare skill, and you were no doubt overwhelmed by the scene itself.”

That came from another member, a—comparatively—younger male. He was trying not to be patronizing, but I still wanted to bare my teeth and snap at him. I resisted the urge.