Hunter's Oath Read online

  Inside nestled six cold iron spikes that resembled giant nails as much as anything else.

  “She had me arrange for those,” he told me. “That Maria Chernenkov is not going to let the fact that you kicked her ass stand. So, you’ve got a Pouka Noble coming for you, and they’re about as nasty as Unseelie get.”

  “That will make finding her easy,” I admitted, opening the Escalade to drop the leather folder and its cold iron spikes into the central console.

  “You want to find her first,” Eric said. “If she comes at you, she’ll come at you sideways, in the shadows and the dark. You’re tough for a changeling, but she’s an Unseelie Noble. Even ignoring that she’s a Pouka, which makes her almost impossible to kill, she’s a Noble.”

  “And the new Unseelie Court isn’t going to make this any easier on us, is it?” I asked quietly.

  “No,” he confirmed. “Thankfully, the order for Chernenkov’s termination comes from the full High Court at this point, so Andrell can’t screw with it. Doesn’t mean he won’t try, though.”

  “Wonderful,” I said dryly. “So, what do I do?”

  “Keep your ears to the ground and keep those spikes to hand,” the Keeper instructed. “You have six. You need three to kill her—nail her shadow to the ground and burn her to ash.

  “You’ve got time. It’ll be a day or two still before she can fully rebuild herself—but she is going to be pissed once she’s done so.”

  “You’ll let me know if you hear anything?” I asked.

  “Of course,” he confirmed. “With two Courts in town now, the Manor and the Keepers start being their own power center. Not that we’re going to be much of one. Tarva’s an apprentice Keeper and I’ll probably hang on to Zach for a bit, though I should arguably pass him into Andrell’s keeping.”

  “The kid’s Unseelie?” I asked. He hadn’t felt like it to me, but changelings were hard to read.

  “Of the ‘a Redcap raped my mom and left her for dead’ school,” Eric said flatly. “I don’t think he knows that, but I pulled enough pieces together. If I ever find the kid’s dad, he won’t live long enough to find out he has a son.”

  Eric might be small, but I wasn’t going to underestimate him. I suspected there were more than a few graves with occupants who’d made that mistake.

  “And Andrell’s Court?” I asked after a moment.

  “Setting up in a warehouse. You and I will have to go visit once he’s ready.” Eric shook his head. “Don’t expect it to be too awful. The Unseelie aren’t that bad.”

  “Mostly,” I said.

  The gnome sighed and nodded his agreement.

  I got as far as starting up the Escalade and starting to plug in the address of my meeting when the car’s electronic brain informed me I had a text message. I stared at the note on the screen in confusion for several moments, and then shrugged and pulled out my phone. I wasn’t driving anywhere yet, after all.

  The text was from Talus.

  Meet at my restaurant at 7:30PM. Bring Mary if you can. This MUST be social.

  Or, unspoken, it must at least appear to be only social, regardless of what he and I actually discussed. Talus was roughly eighty years old, looked thirty, and was a good friend…and spectacularly rich.

  “His” restaurant was a location of a higher-end chain. Technically, he didn’t own the restaurant itself—there were no franchises for this one—but he owned the building and sponsored half of the senior staff’s immigration visas.

  No one was under any illusions who actually owned the restaurant, regardless of what the paperwork said.

  I sent back a quick text confirming that I would be there. My mediation might run too long for that, but his time did give me over four hours to try and talk people down from the ledge.

  I considered texting Mary, but given how busy we’d been lately, I was finding myself missing her more and more. So, I called her.

  “Hey,” she answered almost instantly. “You have good timing. Grandfather just kicked everyone but the Alphas out of the room, so I have a few minutes.”

  “That’s…not a good thing, is it?” I asked carefully.

  Mary chuckled.

  “It means he’s about to rip a strip off a bunch of overgrown furries with ego problems,” she concluded. “Michael and the others are freaking out over the new Unseelie Court, where Enli, I think, has a far better idea of just what it means.”

  “Headaches but not bloodshed,” I summarized instantly. “Are you free tonight?”

  She hesitated, then sighed in a firm tone.

  “Not really, but I’m pretty sure Grandfather will give me the evening off if I point out that it’s been about ten days since I wasn’t working twelve hours a day. What’s up?”

  “Talus wants to meet us for dinner,” I told her. “Seems like as good a time as any to hit up our rich friend for a good meal.”

  Mary was silent for a few seconds. She understood what I wasn’t saying as well as what I said. I’d acquired a very smart girlfriend.

  “I’ll get the time free,” she promised.

  I filled her in on the details.

  “I’ll see you there,” I told her. “I love you.”

  “You too,” she replied. “Be careful.”

  I chuckled.

  “I’m dealing with a glorified condo board squabble,” I pointed out. “My only danger is being bored to death!”

  Supernaturals of all sorts tended to clump together. There was a lot of fae living with fae, Shifters living with shifters, et cetera, et cetera, but there was also a tendency for the different types of supernatural to congregate towards the same area.

  It was useful, after all, to have neighbors who weren’t going to ask awkward questions if you accidentally transformed into a wolf or a parakeet in the backyard. Some supernaturals became developers specifically to take advantage of that tendency and need, which tended to result in gated communities in places that allowed such things.

  Calgary didn’t, but that hadn’t stopped several cul-de-sacs becoming private, No Trespassers areas. The communities that were all supernatural ended up with community associations that were less than condo boards but more powerful than the usual block-party teams.

  Like every condo board ever, however, they had their personality conflicts. And when the people involved in those conflicts were fae, shifters, and other supernaturals, well, things could get messy.

  Which resulted in me sitting in the kitchen of one of the members of Calgary’s tiny Kami community, watching an Unseelie and a shifter lay into each other over dog poop, of all things.

  Juro Mori, our hostess, leaned against the wall with an amused smile as the two men argued. She was a petite thing, a second-generation immigrant from Japan, but she was also a rock spirit. If it came down smacking heads together, she was probably more capable of it than the werewolf or the will-o’-the-wisp arguing in her kitchen suspected.

  “Let me get this straight,” I interjected, hoping to cut the chaos down to a minimum. “You”—I pointed at the shifter—“are complaining that Davis here is letting his dogs crap all over your lawn, which is extra annoying here because you then have to deal with that smell in wolf form.

  “Am I roughly correct?”

  “Yes,” Roger Aalmers ground out. The big Dutch werewolf spoke with a thick accent and was trying hard not to glare at the fae. “He is letting his beasts mark my territory.”

  That was…a very shifter complaint.

  “And Davis is arguing that his dogs are doing no such thing, except when you, in wolf form, invite them onto your lawn to seduce them?” I asked, turning a sardonic eyebrow on the Unseelie.

  A will-o’-the-wisp knew everything about luring, I supposed, even if my own family lineage of the type was of the “leading people out of the marsh” tradition. Davis looked uncomfortable, and Aalmers was just looking angrier at the accusation.

  “Exactly,” the Unseelie snapped. “He lures my dogs onto his land to have his way with them, and th
en blames me for it!”

  “I have never pursued a dog while shifted in my life!” Aalmers growled. “This is ridiculous—what is so difficult about keeping your dogs off my damn lawn?!”

  “The fact that you leave damn scent trails to bring them onto it!” Davis snapped.

  This was frankly getting ridiculous.

  “Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Davis, that you’re incapable of keeping your dogs restrained on a leash?” I asked calmly. “Surely, one of the Unseelie has sufficient physical strength to keep a pair of German shepherds from wandering off where you don’t wish?”

  I looked from one to the other.

  “I think it is reasonable, Mr. Aalmers, to ask that you no longer harass Mr. Davis’s dogs, in exchange for Mr. Davis no longer allowing his animals on your property.”

  From Aalmers expression, I was judging correctly when I guessed that the shifter had been doing no such thing—or at least, not in the scale or manner that Davis was implying.

  Davis snarled.

  “I don’t have to listen to this,” he told me. “You’re clearly biased—I’ll take this up with Lord Andrell!”

  “Over dog poop, Mr. Davis?” I said quietly. “I am here because you asked me to mediate. What you should realize is that by asking for my mediation, you agreed to the Queen’s mediation, which overrides Lord Andrell.”

  I shook my head.

  “We all know that this began with Mr. Aalmers complaining about your dogs crapping anywhere in the cul-de-sac,” I pointed out. “That was unreasonable, and Mr. Aalmers has come down to you keeping them off his lawn…though I’ll note that city bylaw calls for you to clean up after them everywhere.

  “You, however, have made some rather extreme and unnecessary accusations through this discussion…and I see no reason to give any more credence to them than that,” I warned him. “You asked me to mediate, and I believe we have reached a reasonable compromise: you keep your dogs off Mr. Aalmers’ property, and Mr. Aalmers does not harass you or your animals.”

  What harassing there had been had probably been over Davis not cleaning up dog crap. Of course.

  “But again, I remind you that you chose to accept my mediation,” I told him. “And that my mediation cannot be appealed to the Seelie or Unseelie Lords of this city. I am neutral for a reason, Mr. Davis.

  “Now.” I checked the time. This had gone on for hours, but I still had time to make it to dinner. “Are we going to have a problem, or can we all be reasonable for once?”

  8

  The hostess from the restaurant ushered Mary and I into a quiet side room that didn’t, so far as I could tell, officially exist. Talus was waiting for us there, along with his mortal lawyer and girlfriend Shelly Fairchild.

  The slim auburn-haired woman was dressed in a light blue summer dress that was almost a perfect match for the light green one Mary was wearing. Summer sunlight streamed in through a window in the roof, rendering the artificial lights in the room unnecessary.

  “It’s good to see you,” Talus told me as he shook my hand and quickly embraced Mary. “The addition of a new Court has all sorts of wrinkles.”

  “Agreed. I wish fewer of them could be personal,” I admitted as I took a seat and glanced over the menus. “I’d love to get back to actually being able to take Mary on dates.”

  The adorable shifter next to me wrinkled her nose and sighed.

  “What are those again? A type of fruit?” She shook her head. “The Shifter Clans are nervous, people. A lot of Clans have dealt with dual Courts, but no one here in Calgary has. Not on an institutional scale, at least.

  “We’ve got a lot of twitchy Alphas, and twitchy Alphas are dangerous Alphas.”

  “And a new Unseelie Court is inherently prickly,” Talus said with a sigh of his own. “That’s part of why I wanted Jason to bring you, Mary. Partly, you are a friend and I did want to keep this mostly social, but I also wanted to get your feel of where the Alphas are.

  “Like my uncle, I can no longer speak for all of the fae in Calgary,” he reminded her. “But the Covenants we swore to are binding on Andrell. There will be official introductions later this week, once Andrell formally opens his new Court and invites everyone. Until then, the Clans will need to reach out to him through us.”

  “Which can only be awkward,” I said grimly. “Wonderful.”

  “So, quiet channels are good,” Talus told Mary. “You have my phone number. So does Enli, for that matter. Let him know that it may be easier to reach Oberis through me for a while as we find a new balance.”

  “What if you leave again?” she asked. Talus normally split his time between Calgary, Edmonton and Fort McMurray, handling the fae component of the operation that removed heartstone from oil sands production.

  Neither Edmonton nor Fort McMurray even had a joint Court. The handful of fae across those two cities currently paid fealty to Oberis…which was going to be a headache pretty soon, I was sure.

  “For now, I will be remaining in Calgary to help counterbalance our new friends,” he told us. “Tamara will be taking over in Fort McMurray. She will be permanently located there now.”

  “Shouldn’t she be signing on with Andrell?” I asked. There had been no Unseelie Nobles in Calgary before Andrell’s arrival, which had left the Nightmare Tamara as one of the most powerful Unseelie in the city.

  “Tamara’s interview with Lord Andrell was apparently…fractious,” Talus said carefully. “She requested the position in Fort McMurray, as an excuse to not have to officially join his Court. Several of the lesser Unseelie, while now technically under Andrell’s protection, have made it clear that their Fealty is still owed to Oberis.”

  “From what I can tell,” Shelly interjected, “this kind of thing is normal for the formation of a new Court. The fae, of course, do nothing simply and don’t keep very good records.”

  “Why would we?” I asked with a chuckle. “We don’t want anyone to know all of our secrets—not even ourselves.”

  “Or your employees,” she noted. “You lot are annoying to work for.”

  “You love me,” Talus objected.

  “I do,” she agreed. “But not necessarily as a boss, my dear. And your race has secrets and melodrama bred into their damn bones.”

  “She’s got you there,” I told the Noble. “We do. And this is exactly the kind of clusterfuck that brings out the worst in our people, Unseelie or Seelie alike.”

  “I know,” he allowed. “You’ve met my new counterpart, Gráinne?”

  I remember the grouchy Unseelie Noble.

  “I have, yes.”

  “She hates you,” Talus said bluntly. “I don’t know why. Andrell seems to like you well enough, and the rest of the Unseelie Nobles don’t give a damn about you beyond that you’re supposed to be the formal mediator for conflicts between us.”

  “A role that I look forward to with bated breath,” I snarked.

  “Gráinne, Oberis, Andrell and I spent the afternoon closeted in private, going over all of the major files in play right now,” he continued. “Everyone here knows we need to renegotiate the Covenants in Calgary. The Wizard’s decision to dissolve his Enforcers leaves us in an imbalanced state. It’s not a great time for a new Court…but it also means they’ll want a say in those new Covenants.

  “It’s going to be ugly,” he said quietly. “And in the midst of all of that, we have a rogue Pouka Noble, unquestionably Unseelie, causing havoc.”

  “She may have left,” I suggested. “But…my impression is that everyone thinks she’s going to come after me.”

  “Most likely,” Talus agreed. “Andrell didn’t say much about it today, but I got the impression from Gráinne that they don’t like that you, a Seelie in their minds at least, are responsible for hunting Chernenkov.”

  I snorted. I was a Hunter’s changeling, and the Wild Hunt stood apart from the Courts. Plus, since I was a Vassal of the Queen, I was again separate from the Courts.

  Which didn’t change the fact that
I regarded myself as Seelie. My early encounters with the fae had been when everyone assumed I was a will-o’-the-wisp changeling, and that bloodline of mine was Seelie.

  More importantly, however, I regarded Oberis as a friend and a teacher. Being neutral in affairs involving him was going to suck.

  “They don’t expect me to be neutral,” I admitted. “They may not be wrong, but…I swore an oath and it’s part of the damn job, little as I like it.”

  “I have faith,” Talus replied. “But yes, that is their concern and, as you say, it is not illegitimate. It’s also not applicable in this case, but you’re going to have to fight for it. Probably when Andrell holds his open Court on Friday.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked carefully.

  “I expect him to formally call on Oberis to strip the investigation from you,” the Noble told me. “The counterargument is that you don’t actually answer to Oberis and your investigation is independent, under the authority of the Queen and the High Court, but I’d prepare to lawyer up if I were you.”

  Another part of the job I hated. But given that we’d stopped a massacre already this week, it was pretty easy to remember why I did the job right now.

  “I’ll do what I must,” I said quietly, feeling Mary sneak her hand onto mine. “I hope that’s the last of the business for tonight?”

  Talus chuckled.

  “If you’re ready to order, I’ll flag a waitress,” he promised. “And then we can discuss calmer things, like heat waves and merely human politics!”

  9

  The rest of the week passed in a blur of training and meetings. Inga took over my mornings, which forced me to condense the inevitable meetings and duties of being a Vassal into the afternoon. It was an exhausting series of days, made no easier by continually watching out of the corner of my eye for a vengeful Pouka to materialize.

  Friday morning, however, was the first time I actually managed to intentionally conjure a blow of Force. It was far from precise enough to knock the sword from the Valkyrie’s hand. It was basically the same blast I’d thrown at Chernenkov the weekend before, but this time, I knew what I was doing.