Chapter Thirty #2
“Yes, the grumpy old asshole. But he runs the whole medical department, he patches up war mages all the time, and he wouldn’t have cleared me if I was still in danger. I just need rest, and I’ve had days of it.”
“Which is why you couldn’t climb three steps by yourself?” Noah said grimly.
“I could have, but it’s nice being carted around by hunky guys.”
“Ha!” Jason laughed. “I’m gonna tell Cyrus you said I was hunky.” He thought about it. “Okay, no, I’m not.”
“It isn’t funny,” Noah snapped. “None of this is!” And he took his hand back.
“We got another one,” Jace said with a sigh, sitting cross-legged on the floor because Jason had taken the last spot at the table.
“You’ve been hanging out with Dave too much,” Andy said. “Stop trying to psychoanalyze us.”
“You ought to spend some time with him yourself. You all should,” was the serene reply.
“So I can start sounding like the Buddha, or some shit?” Noah snarled.
“It’s better than how you’re sounding now. And he isn’t a Buddhist—”
“You’ve been hanging out with Dave?” I asked Jace.
“Not hanging out so much as getting therapy. Cyrus suggested it, but I wasn’t sure at first.
And I didn’t know if he’d have time anyway, after getting everybody to Wolf’s Head.”
“Are they all moved in then?”
“The ones Sienna would accept. Some are still at Dante’s while Cyrus works on it. Mostly the oldest ones.”
“Sienna wouldn’t take them, even temporarily?” I frowned.
“She took some, and she also ended up taking some of the scarier guys. The ones who got in trouble in their days on the streets. She said no at first, but then decided they might make good fighters.”
Luis said something in Spanish, and he and Chay laughed.
“What?” I asked.
“She thinks she’s a queen or something,” Luis said, still grinning. “Ever since she and the bardric started knocking boots—”
“Luis!” He looked at me with an innocent expression. “You’re not supposed to know about that.”
The dark eyes rolled. “Everybody knows. All of us crammed in together like that at Dante’s, and they run around smelling of each other, like they think cologne’s gonna fool Were noses.”
“It’s sort of hard to miss,” Chayton agreed.
“Well, don’t say anything or she’ll think I told you!” I said.
“She won’t care,” Luis passed the bag of chips they’d been polishing off to Jace. “She’s too busy playing Furiosa.”
“What?”
He grinned some more. “She’s turning Wolf’s Head into an armed camp, or maybe a castle is closer.”
“Definitely castle,” Chayton said.
“Yeah, you should see the place. Last time I heard, they were talking about putting trebuchets on the walls.”
“What?” I said.
“They’re like fancy catapults—”
“I know what they are!”
“She’s thinking ‘bout flinging whole cars at her enemies,” he added. “Bought out a junkyard of everything they had. Now our ancestral meeting place looks like a used car lot, with rusted junkers everywhere.”
He said it so matter-of-factly that it took a moment to sink in. “She wants to do what?”
“Yeah. Sorry, but you’re not the only crazy Lupa around anymore. In fact, I think she’s coming for the title.”
“She has a way to go,” Noah said darkly.
Jason, who had gotten up to get a soft drink, thumped him on the head in passing, which did not appear to have much effect.
“It’s the kids,” Chayton explained. “She’s lost it over the threat to the kids.”
“There is no threat,” Andy argued. “No Were is going to make war on children—”
“Ha!” Noah said bitterly.
Andy frowned at him. “Is there a problem?”
“Yeah, there’s a problem! No war on children. What the hell are you?”
“Not a child.”
“Not now. But what were you when your clan threw you out? What were any of us? People make war on kids all the time, and those bastards who joined Rand are cowards. They’d damned well attack kids if they could find them.”
“They won’t find them—”
“But you can be sure they’re looking! It’s probably them carving up people left and right in Tart—”
He cut himself off, but too late, judging by the sudden ratcheting up of tension in the room.
“What?” I asked.
Nobody answered.
“What about Tartarus?” I repeated, rapidly getting tired of this. I wasn’t questioning perps at HQ; I was talking to my clan. And when I asked a question, I expected an answer.
“He’s talking about the other day, when you fought the Circle,” Luis said, but he didn’t meet my eyes.
“Don’t lie to your Lupa,” I told him. I might have bought it normally—plenty of people had been carved up in that fight—except for my repeated “dreams.” Every time I closed my eyes lately, I was taken on a cinematic trip through the Vegas underworld.
One that I was starting to suspect might be real.
Dark tunnels, the drip, drip, drip of water from somewhere, an ambush that went badly for some idiot mages who didn’t bother to run a questing spell over their victims first, and then…
What had happened then?
I tried to remember, but things were hazy. It felt like one of those dreams where you wake up halfway through, then go back to bed. And when you try to remember it the next day, all you get is a headache.
“What happened in Tartarus?” I asked Jace, as he seemed the most likely to answer.
“Don’t tell her!” That was Noah.
“She’s Lupa, and she asked,” Jace said. “I’m gonna tell her—”
“Damn it—”
“It’s not the right time,” Chayton said to me. “When you’re better—”
“Why would I need to be better?”
He looked uncomfortable. “It’s just, you know. You need to relax.”
“I can’t get off the sofa,” I pointed out. “What do you think I’m going to do?”
He sighed. “Kick my ass?”
“She has a point,” Andy said, although he sounded doubtful.
“Tell her, and I will personally kick every one of your asses,” Noah seethed, sitting forward and glaring around the circle.
“With one leg?” Jace asked, crunching potato chips.
“Goddamnit!”
“Can Noah and I have a minute?” I said, looking at the others.
“Yep.” Jace got up and grabbed his towel before heading for the door. “I can use another dip before the water heats up too much.”
“I thought black guys didn’t swim,” Andy said, following him out.
“What about Jason? He shouldn’t even be in the sun. His freckles got freckles.”
“Hey!” the man in question said.
“We need to keep you under the umbrella, or your skin is gonna be the same color as your hair.”
“At least I’ll be there to save your ass when you start to drown!”
“Not if all your skin falls off first…”
They left, followed by everybody else. And judging by his facial expression, that would have included Noah, but he was literally unable. Good, I thought evilly.
Maybe I’d finally get some answers.