Chapter 12
Wanda was as good as her word. When Alistair arrived at The Pride first thing Monday morning, workers were already there reinforcing the steel door and its frame.
Alistair didn’t even want to look at the ledger. “How much is this going to cost us?”
“More than I’d like,” she said unhappily.
Shit. “Maybe I can dip into our savings. It’s mostly Sam’s earnings, but…”
“No.” She gave him a quelling look. “No telling when you might need that.”
He didn’t bring up the fact Sam was already sending money to his worthless family back in Gatesville—that wasn’t Wanda’s business. “Fine.”
“I’ve arranged a meeting with the rumrunner, Brown,” she went on. “I’ll stay here and run things. The rest of you, including Reinhold, will meet Brown this evening.”
“Does Reinhold have a gun?”
“He will by tonight.”
Right. Alistair looked again at the new door, then went back into their office and sat down at his desk. Faint bangs and echoes sounded through the walls.
Fur and feathers, this was a mess. There had always been some risk in what they were doing, but he’d imagined anyone busting down the door would be police or prohees.
He’d seldom been so wrong in his life. The tension in the city was rising with every day that passed; Fabiano’s offer had just been the first sally.
Was this really the life he wanted for Sam and him?
No. No, it wasn’t, but what else could he do? Sam was enmeshed with Sullivan now, and even if they were able to get out of the business and move somewhere else, Wanda and the others would still be here.
From his first days in the Home for Orphaned Familiars, it had been the five of them against the world. They’d had no other family; even the other familiars gave them a wide berth, though he suspected that was because the adults—all non-familiars, of course—told them to.
Then he’d met Forrest, and briefly dreamed of another life. Forrest loved him for him, not because they’d been thrown together as children.
If the war hadn’t happened, if Forrest had gotten whatever help he needed, if Alistair had done things differently…
He might still be sitting here, but he doubted it. Forrest had always wanted to go to New York, try his hand on Broadway. He’d been born with the face, been working on the singing ability. Maybe he would have made it big, who could say?
Instead, the war came. Forrest first walked away from Alistair, then life itself. Alistair had nowhere else to go, no one else to go to, so he came home to his adoptive brother and sisters. They took him in without question, the only people who would always love him no matter what.
He couldn’t up and leave them. Certainly not in the middle of a gang war.
Night fell—he couldn’t see it from his windowless office, but the sound of workmen had ceased hours ago, and the noise of customers replaced it. Eventually, Reinhold stuck his head inside.
“Ready to go?” he asked.
“As I will be.” Alistair stood up and reached for his coat and hat. “Who’s manning the kitchen?”
“Holly called in a few favors. Some of her friends are filling in for Teresa, Philip, and me. Wanda is on the door.”
They went through the speakeasy proper, collecting Teresa and Philip as they went.
Doris waited on the street outside, the truck already running with her in the driver’s seat.
Reinhold climbed in beside her, and the rest of them hopped in the back.
Philip took on snow leopard form to shield himself from the wind with his fur.
Alistair just put his back against the cab and hunched down in his coat; cheetahs weren’t made for cold weather.
Teresa curled up beside him in panther shape.
Thankfully it was only four blocks to the water tower.
The skyscrapers hadn’t shouldered up to it yet, so it still dominated its immediate surroundings: a slender limestone tower jutting out of a crenelated gothic revival base that looked like a cross between a church and a castle.
On the one hand, the landmark seemed too obvious for a bootlegger to want to go near.
On the other, no one would be inside this time of night.
Three entrances led into the square base; they’d been instructed to park beside the one on the west side, as it was more secluded. A short flight of stairs led to a pair of double doors that swung open as soon as the truck was parked. Someone was keeping an eye out for them.
Ross Brown emerged and beckoned them inside. There wasn’t much to see; unlike the associated pumping station on the other side of Michigan Avenue, the water tower existed primarily to house an enormous standpipe. The base was little more than an empty square wrapped around the interior tower.
Empty, that is, except for the pile of sopping wet crates stacked near the door. Several men and women lounged near them, their dark eyes sharp.
“Why are they wet?” Doris asked with a frown.
Brown grinned. “Because they’ve been hauled by yours truly—and my crew, of course—underwater from Canada. Then we take the tunnel from the water crib all the way here, and out through the standpipe.”
“You’re swimming through the city’s drinking water,” Philip said, looking faintly appalled. “I thought there were screens to keep detritus out.”
Brown shrugged. “I know a guy who works the crib. Don’t worry about it.”
Alistair decided this was something he wasn’t going to think too hard about. “You know we have to test the booze.”
“Be my guest. Just keep it quick—the faster we’re out of here, the safer we all are.”
“We’re not amateurs.” Alistair pointed to a crate at random. “Philip, do the honors.”
The bottle shone pure when Philip hexed it.
Thank heavens—he’d bet good money all of Brown’s people were seal familiars, and if they were elephant seals the men would weigh several tons once they shifted.
Awkward on land as they might be, not even Doris would be up to fighting them if an argument broke out.
Even in human form, they were all strong as hell, and the truck was loaded in record time.
The higher price Brown charged would hurt their bottom line, but that was a worry for later.
Right now, they had a good supply of booze and could keep The Pride running for a little while longer. The rest would have to wait.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” Brown said, extending his hand as they stood by the truck. His crew had already mopped the floor and put a locking hex on the door so it would seem undisturbed come morning, and were dispersing onto the streets around them without looking back.
“Same,” Alistair said. “We’ll be in touch.”
As he turned away, there came twin popping sounds. The first was accompanied by a dull thud; the second by the stir of air through the space where his head had just been.
The old instincts from the war came back and he hit the ground on his belly. Brown lay sprawled inches away, a bullet hole in his forehead.
* * *
“Everybody down!” Alistair yelled, then shifted into cheetah form.
There was no sign of the gunman. A sniper? No—the smell of gunpowder was too strong, it had been fired mere feet away.
Footsteps pounded away across the pavement in front of the water tower. But no one was there to make them.
Danny Queen had been killed in the middle of a crowd. Camille’s sister swore no one had been in the apartment when she was assassinated. As for the bomber who’d come to finish the job on Sullivan at the Silvervine, no one had seen him. They’d assumed because of the smoke…
There was no smoke here. This was magic.
No matter how he scanned the area, he couldn’t see anyone there. But over the scent of blood and gunpowder, his cheetah’s nose picked up an unfamiliar human nearby.
He was no bloodhound—but for this, he didn’t have to be.
Alistair burst from his crouch, claws giving him traction as he sprang in the direction of the scent. His shoulder collided with something he couldn’t see, and his quarry let out a panicked shout, steps staggering then back to running.
As though any human had a chance of outrunning him.
He exploded into motion, limbs stretching to their full. The assassin’s scent turned sour with fear as he tried to flee, and for a moment the incongruity of seeing nothing threw Alistair off.
So he simply closed his eyes and followed his nose.
He took the gunman down with ease, sinking his claws in so they couldn’t get away. A body thrashed under his and he snarled, showing his fangs. The form under him went stiff with fear, and the smell of piss stained the air.
“Stay still!” Reinhold yelled. “And if you know what’s good for you, end that spell right now.”
Sobs filled the air, and Alistair opened his eyes. Doris, Philip, and Teresa all came bounding up in cat form, crowding around and growling menacingly at…
For a moment, the magic held, and he simply could not look at what he was holding onto without his eyes sliding away. Then, with a sob, a man said, “Let me be seen.”
The hex ended. Alistair’s claws were snagged in the legs of a pale man with gray in his hair, a man he had met once before, the day Fabiano’s people shot up the original hexworks.
Sam’s co-worker, Luke Gallo.