Fire Kin (15 page)

The other two Beasts were surrounded by nine Templars. They paced a tight circle, snarling at the knights, but made no moves to try to break free.

“This will be easier if you change,” Guy said. “Don't make us hurt you.”

The Beasts snarled again and exchanged glances that were far too intelligent for the beasts they resembled.

I pushed my way into the circle of mounted knights surrounding the Beasts, pistol still in hand.

“Silver bullets,” I said loudly. “Hurt like hell, I'm told. Want to find out?”

One of the wolves looked up at me and howled.

“I don't think your friends are coming to help you,” Guy said. “Not on this side of the border now that the alarm has been raised. So it's up to you. You can give in or you can do it the hard way.”

“Of course,” said Patrick, one of the other Templars, “the hard way is sometimes fatal.”

The wolf howled again but then he sat back on his haunches, sides heaving. His companion paced for a minute or so, then, with a final snarl, came to sit by his pack mate.

“Change,” Guy ordered shortly.

They did. It was a disturbing sight. I'd never actually seen a Beast Kind change form before, and the melting shifting shimmer of flesh and bone was unpleasant to say the least. For a moment I thought one of them was going to press his luck and stay in the hybrid man-wolf form that comes between human and beast and can be the most dangerous of all three, but he seemed to decide that discretion, if not the better part of valor, might at least equal keeping his head attached to his shoulders and completed the change.

Naked in the moonlight, both covered with cuts and bruises, they were less defiant. They were both taller and broader than most human men. The taller of them would've had a good few inches in height on Guy, which was impressive. In human form, they had dark brown hair falling to their shoulders and dark eyes—brown, I thought, though it was hard to tell in the shifting yellow gaslight.

“Hands on your heads,” Guy said, and as the Beasts obeyed, three of the Templars dismounted and approached with cuffs for ankles and wrists.

“These aren't silver,” Guy said as the Beasts watched warily. “But we have silver. You wouldn't enjoy those, so be sensible lads.”

They obeyed sullenly, submitting to the restraints. And then, brooking no chance, the knights knocked both of them out neatly with a well-practiced move.

Well, sore heads would be better than no heads.

“Take them back to the Brother House,” Guy said.

“What about the dead one?” Patrick asked.

“Him too. They don't like not having the bodies to bury. It's a bargaining chip if it comes to that.”

Guy's voice was flat. All business. This was the warrior, not the Templar wading through politics. He played the civilized man well, from what I had seen of him over the last few days, but apparently he had decided that it was time for the gloves to come off.

“Should dump it at the border as a warning,” Patrick said.

“It may come to that,” Guy said. “But let's not rush into things. We want these three to cooperate. Tell us something useful.”

“Get one of the Fae to make them talk, if they won't,” Patrick retorted. He looked over at me. “You can do that, can't you?”

“A geas, you mean?” I nodded, hiding my distaste. “If I have to. There are other ways. Bryony would have something to loosen their tongues, I'm sure.”

“She does,” Guy agreed. “So let's not waste any more time.”

“How do we get the wolf back to the Brother House?” I asked. The two in human form were easy enough; the knights were already hoisting them across saddles and lashing them into place.

In answer, another of the knights patted his saddlebag, then flipped it open and drew out a massive net made out of something dark that didn't resemble normal rope.

He tied one end to the horn of his saddle and then walked his horse toward the unconscious wolf. He spread the net and then, with a grunt of effort, he and one of the other knights rolled the wolf into the net. The second knight fastened the free end to his own saddle and the horses moved obediently sideways until the wolf lifted off the ground.

“Neat,” I said.

Guy grinned. “Useful at times.”

“Good horses.”

“Yes. And yours needs attention.”

I looked down at the gash on Alfie's neck. The blood had slowed to a trickle, but the muscles around the wound quivered. I could heal it roughly, as I had done with Bryony's arm, but I didn't know much about working on animals and I didn't want to risk doing something that might render him unfit for use in the future.

I swung out of the saddle instead. “I'll walk him back.”

Guy shook his head, reached a hand down. “Not safe. You can ride behind me and we'll lead Alfie. He's a tough old thing.”

I hoped he was right. I'd lost horses in my time, and each time it was a wrench. Fae-bred horses had longer lives than ordinary breeds but still only another ten years or so. Which made their lives fleeting compared to ours. Some Fae hardened their hearts and saw animals as merely useful tools . . . like plants or stone. Nothing to get attached to. But I'd never managed the trick of that and I grieved for each horse that was killed or grew too old for battle. I found good homes for them to live out their years when I could but it wasn't what I wanted. So I hoped Alfie would be fine and that I hadn't shortened his career with the Templars. Though really, maybe it would be better for him in the long run if I had. He could have a nice life in a field somewhere.

As long as the Blood didn't control all the fields.

We reached the Brother House without further incident despite the prickling of the hairs on the back of my neck as we turned our back on the border and headed back toward the cathedral and the hospital.

We moved at a steady pace, Guy and me bringing up the rear leading Alfie.

I was still trying to work out what the point of tonight's attempt was when we reached the gate.

There were several Templars standing in the street, guarding the space left by the ruined gate. And there were several metalmages standing by the gate, studying it by the light of half a dozen torches and several more sunlamps. One of them was a young woman with dark hair that gleamed reddish under the sunlamps.

At the sight of her, Guy swore and picked up the pace.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded as we stopped beside the gate.

The woman smiled up at him. “My job.”

“Has Master Aquinas lost his senses?”

“Have you?” she snapped back. There was something about the set of her jaw as she spoke, the angle of the head, and the set of her shoulders as she stared up at Guy that made me think that this must be his sister, Saskia. The metalmage. The one involved with Fen.

Apparently she was no one to be messed with.

“It's dangerous out.”

She snorted and gestured toward Alfie. “And you've been out for a nice gentle ride around the neighborhood? We've had this conversation before, Guy. You do your job and I'll do mine. Stop worrying.” She turned back to the gate and frowned. Then she reached toward one of the twisted bars and suddenly the metal began to glow and straighten.

Impressive.

Not many women had an affinity for iron, from what I knew of the metalmages. In Guy's place, I wouldn't be happy that my sister was one of them, but nor would I waste time arguing with someone clearly cut from the same cloth as he was.

Still, I was no one to counsel anybody about family disagreements, so I contented myself with climbing down from Guy's horse and leading Alfie off toward the stables, leaving the DuCaine siblings arguing in the background.

“Almost home,” I muttered to the horse soothingly as he snorted a little whilst we walked.

At the stable door, several of the novices and an older knight I hadn't met suddenly appeared.

The older knight looked at Alfie, then clucked his tongue. “Beast?” he said to me.

I nodded. “I didn't want to mess around with it after it stopped bleeding.”

“Good,” he said. Then he took the reins from me and led Alfie toward the stables, crooning under his breath as they walked.

A man of few words, it seemed.

And one who'd just left me with not much to do. I turned on my heel and almost stumbled over Rhian.

“Boss,” she said. “Back in one piece, I see.”

“For now. What's been happening here?”

“A lot of sound and fury.” She looked half-amused.

“No follow-up attacks.”

Her amused expression vanished. “No.”

“I don't like it.”

“Me neither. You don't do something like that unless you want to draw folks out or test their defenses. You're all back in one piece, so I'm assuming they were testing the defenses.”

“Bold move, attacking the Brother House directly.”

“Yes. But if they could pull it off at a time when most of the knights were here, they would put a big hole in the humans' defenses in one stroke. And if the knights weren't here, then they'd get access to the hospital. And those other Blood. You think those are prizes they might want?”

“I can see that Ignatius might be keen to kill the Blood who've taken the humans' side,” I said. “I'm not sure about the hospital. It would be a loss, but there are other hospitals and the healers can work anywhere.” Healers used herbs and various potions, but they could do a lot of their healing without any of them. Particularly the Fae. I'd have to ask Bryony if there was anything I should know about the hospital or the people within its walls.

Rhian nodded. “That's what I thought. But still. I don't like it either, boss.”

“I know. So let's keep sharp, eh? Are the men all settled?”

“Yes. And the patrols and rosters have been sorted with the Templars before you ask. Charles has briefed the men who will take first patrol tomorrow.”

I nodded, satisfied. I'd speak to the men myself as well, but the point of having lieutenants was to have other people you trusted to get things done. “Good. Then get some sleep, if you've got nothing else to do. The metalmages are repairing the gate, and the Templars have doubled their patrols.” It was also getting close to dawn, which meant the Blood weren't likely to suddenly coalesce out of the darkness and mount a second attack tonight. Sunlight was lethal to them, and they'd be heading for their warrens, ready to sleep and do whatever else it was that the older ones who didn't need to sleep through the day did when it was daylight.

“Did you catch the Beasts?”

I nodded. “Caught three, killed one. The Templars will be questioning them soon, I'd imagine.” And I was going to be there when they did. Which meant I had something more to do after all.

BRYONY

At
first the summons to the Brother House was a welcome distraction. Until I realized what the likely reason for them wanting me at this hour of night was. We'd already dealt with the minor wounds resulting from the explosion at the gate earlier. I'd been filling in time, walking the floors of the hospital, making sure that all was in order and my charges were safe while I worried about Guy and his Templars and . . . Ash. Mostly Ash, if I was honest.

I didn't want to be honest.

Didn't want to admit that perhaps letting him into my bed wasn't the simple proposition that I'd convinced myself it could be. Because with his touch came the connection we'd once had. As though his skin against mine sent fine invisible hooks sinking through my flesh to catch in my heart.

Every time I passed a window, I looked out at the darkness, turned toward the borders, and worried whether he was coming back.

Whether all of them—including Lily—who Simon had informed me with worry to equal mine clear in his eyes—had gone scouting for Guy that night.

She, at least, was safe in the darkness.

No one could reach her in the shadow. No one could slash her with claws or rend her flesh with teeth or break her bones by knocking her down.

Still, Simon worried about the woman he loved and I worried about the man I—no. Not loved. That wasn't the word.

Not one that I was going to think about, anyway.

But now it seemed they had returned and they had brought someone or several someones back with them.

And they wanted me to help question them.

I didn't like doing such things. I was meant to heal, not harm. I tried to tell myself that really it was preventing harm. If I didn't use my powers to make the captives speak, then the Templars would be forced to use other methods of persuasion that would be far less considerate.

I hurried through the fading darkness, hearing the earliest sounds of the City waking around me as I kept pace with Liam, sent to fetch me.

He looked strained as he always did these days when the Templars saw action. The frustration of being kept out of it scented the air around him, and I wished, for the thousandth time, that there had been something more I could have done for his arm.

We reached the Brother House just as the sun started to peek over the horizon, which made the feeling of descending into the depths to the cells belowground feel even more unpleasant.

A small circle of Templars waited for us outside the cells. Father Cho. Guy. Patrick and Brother Bartholomew, one of the other patrol leaders. And Ash. I almost went to him but managed to stop myself, studying him covertly to see if he was injured.

Half-dried blood stained his leather vest, and a matching splotch of dull red brown smeared across one cheek, but he stood straight and easy and showed no signs of pain, so I had to assume the blood belonged to someone else. One of the prisoners perhaps.

Fen stood with the group of soldiers, his face remote and set the way it got when he wished he was elsewhere.

It seemed I wasn't the only one with no stomach for coercion.

But it had to be done. One of us had to find out what had been the purpose behind tonight's attack so that we could try to figure out what was coming next.

We were all alone now, no Fae queen to come to our rescue, so if we were to survive, we had to be more ruthless. Try to think like Ignatius.

Which was a particularly unpleasant thought.

“How many?” I asked as Father Cho greeted me.

“Three,” he replied. “Beasts. Theissens and a Krueger, we think.”

Ah. That explained some of Fen's expression. His
grandmere
had been a Krueger before she was cast out from her pack for the sin of loving a human. Fen didn't seem to like the Beasts, but he had little family and it couldn't be easy to see someone from the pack he had ties to captured in a plot against the side he'd chosen.

I put down the bag of supplies I'd brought with me. “Are they conscious?”

“One is. He's not terribly happy with things right now.”

“Oh?” I turned toward the cell. I couldn't hear anything from its depths.

“I put an aural ward on the door,” Ash said. “He was making quite a racket, and the men need their sleep.”

As if to prove the truth of his words, there was a sudden shudder in the wooden door. It was made of planks several inches thick and reinforced with metal bars and nails. There should have been an accompanying crash to go with the force necessary to make it move even slightly, but there was nothing. Ash knew what he was about, apparently.

“Aren't they restrained?” I asked.

“They're shackled. And chained to the wall. Apparently we should have used a shorter chain,” Ash said. He didn't look particularly concerned.

“What do you want to try first?”

“Have you got something that will calm him down?” Guy asked.

“If you can get him to drink it, yes.” I had sedatives and calmatives enough to drug several squads of knights. Beast Kind could be tricky to treat, given their rapid healing abilities, but I'd learned a trick or two over the years. I would be able to render the prisoners less excitable easily enough.

“Well, let's do that,” Guy said. “Then Fen can get close enough to try seeing what there is to see before we try anything else.”

Fen's jaw clenched, but he didn't offer an objection, so I nodded.

Ash dissolved his ward with a wave of his hand, and a sudden snarling crash echoed through the room.

Guy walked over to the door and flipped open the little wooden shutter that covered a barred grille. “Shut up and stand back from the door.”

“Fuck off, Templar.”

Ash joined Guy. “We have plenty more silver bullets here,” he said, cocking his gun casually at the level of the bars. “Care to reconsider?”

The Beast said something indecipherable. I spoke a little of their language, but I didn't know that particular phrase. Probably just as well judging by the wince that crossed Fen's face.

“I'm going to give you some water,” Guy said. “You must have worked up a thirst with all that yelling.” He looked back at me. I took the cup Father Cho handed to me and then poured in a few drops of the mixture I thought would work best.

Guy passed it through and the Beast drank noisily, then thrust it back. “More.”

Guy obliged, this time without stopping for me to doctor the liquid.

He looked back at me with a question clear on his face.

“A few minutes,” I mouthed back, and we settled to wait.

Sure enough, after a few more minutes, there was a sigh and the sound of someone sliding down the wall.

“How much did you give him?”

“Enough,” I replied. “Open the door and bring him out.”

“Out?” Ash questioned.

“You don't want the other two to wake up and join in, do you?”

“I can put a binding on them.”

“Let's not do that unless we have to.” Bindings were nasty things. Guy's frown of distaste showed he agreed with me. Well, he would. He'd been on the receiving end of one once and also had had to deal with Holly being placed under a geas.

Two of the knights brought out the Beast, who was now limp and smiling drunkenly. He had dark hair and olive skin, like Fen's. And, like Fen's, his eyes flashed green under the lamps as he gazed around at us. The Krueger, then. They chained him to a chair, anchored the chains to bolts set deep in the stone floor, and stepped to stand behind him. I moved closer, studying him, trying to judge how deeply the drug had affected him.

He seemed quiet enough. And young. Too young to be here in what was really a dungeon, about to argue for his life.

Too young to be setting explosions in the night and working for a Blood lord. Though in some ways that was how it was in the Night World, the Beasts doing the Bloods' dirty work, so maybe for him it was all completely normal.

I moved closer and, when he didn't react, pressed fingers to his neck. His pulse was a little faster than I liked but within the range of what he could tolerate. The tincture I'd used did that sometimes.

I stepped back and nodded to Guy. “Ask away.”

It wasn't Guy who spoke, though; it was Father Cho. “Son, we want you to tell us who sent you tonight.” His voice wasn't loud, but it held a crack of command despite the pleasant phrasing of his request.

The Beast smiled and for a moment I thought everything was going well as he opened his mouth to answer, but then he threw back his head and howled and launched himself forward. The chains anchored to the floor held him in place and he jerked to a stop with a snap that made me fear he'd broken something.

Father Cho still had good reflexes, it seemed, and he'd moved smoothly out of the way, having not been too close to start with.

I took a deep breath, trying to get my heart back out of my throat.

“He doesn't seem that calm,” Ash said dryly.

I shot him a look. “Beasts are tricky. Hold him down,” I ordered the knights, and they obliged, even though the Beast struggled.

I walked closer again. The Beast snarled but I ignored him, relying on the Templars to do their job and keep me safe.

The man's pupils were wide and dark. My stomach twisted. Damn. I knew what the problem was now. We weren't going to be doing this the easy way. And I didn't like the hard way one little bit.

“Lune de sang,”
I said. The Beast jerked and snarled and I smelled the strange peppery green scent on his breath that confirmed my suspicions. “He's taken moon's blood.”

“What's that?” Ash asked as the Templars muttered.

“It's a drug. I don't know what it's made of—the Beasts guard that information very closely. It's used for some of their religious ceremonies.”

“It makes them feel invincible,” Fen said. He came closer, one hand rubbing his right wrist, and peered at the Beast. “Makes them feel like they can't be hurt.” He looked at me. “Like that stuff you gave me once times about twenty if what I've heard is true.”

The potion I'd given Fen to combat the pain of his iron-induced headaches during a trip to a Blood warren had enough kick to fell Guy's horse. And several others. “It also makes them resistant to other drugs,” I said. “It's one of the few things that take a long time to leave their systems. I'd imagine the other two will have been dosed as well.”

“What does that mean?” Guy asked.

“It means that nothing I can give him is going to make him talk if he doesn't want to. The only thing that's going to get through to him is pain.”

Guy's mouth went flat. “That can be arranged.”

I held up a hand, knowing what I had to do. The thought made me want to retch—being against everything I was trained to do—but I could do it without the Beast actually being physically harmed, unlike the Templars. “No,” I said, with another deep breath. “I'll do it.”

The men all stared at me.

“You can't beat up a Beast,” Fen said.

“I don't need to. I can make him hurt without touching him. Or without hitting him, at least.” I needed contact with his skin just as I would to work a healing.

“Bryony,” Ash objected. “That will hurt you too.”

I shrugged. “Not much.” No more than I could bear at least.

“Let me do it,” he said.

“No.” I wagged my fingers at him. “You don't have a delicate enough touch. You proved that yesterday. You could damage him.”

“I—”

“I could ask Simon,” Guy said at the same time.

I held up a hand. “No. I'll do it. I'm not going to shatter into a thousand pieces from a bit of dirty work.” I shook my head at them. “Don't forget who I am.”

I had no doubt Simon would do it if Guy asked. He was almost as skilled a fighter as his brother and could be deadly when he was roused to anger, but he had fought hard to conquer his darker side and valued his healing powers deeply. I didn't want to make him do something that would sully that for him. He was one of the humans I was closest to in the City, almost like a younger brother. And, like any big sister, I would protect him if I could. I would protect all of them, these men who fought so hard, but forgot sometimes that I was older and more powerful than any of them besides Ash.

“You can use that binding now,” I said to Ash. I didn't like bindings, which were one step away from the truly revolting magic of a geas, but they did sometimes have their use in medicine to restrain a patient. Or for times like these. I didn't want to split my attention to hold a binding and do what I had to do. One tiny spill of power in the wrong direction and I would do more than hurt the Beast.

Ash nodded and held out a hand toward the Beast. “Step back,” he ordered the knights. They did so with speed.

Ash said several quick phrases in Fae, the words familiar to me, and the Beast froze in place, only his chest still rising and falling and his gaze darting around the room, sudden panic darkening his eyes further.