Chapter 16
Austin
“Get Sebastian,” Austin demanded, standing over the body of a shifter male. His clothes were ripped, as though he’d been starting to shift when he died.
The sun barely peeked over the horizon, just after dawn.
The body had been found a half-hour ago but had been lying here for longer.
This had to have happened in the middle of the night or in the small hours of the morning.
No one had seen it happen or heard the yell.
No one besides this guy had been reported hurt, and still no one was reported missing.
The latter was suspect.
Actually, a few things about this situation were suspect; he just didn’t know whom to point the finger at. He needed to find someone, though, because this was the first death. Barely day two and someone had already died from violence. That wasn’t good tidings for the success of this conclave.
An empty vial lay beside the man. There were two puncture marks in his back and on the side of his neck. Knife wounds.
Shifters wouldn’t typically use a knife. Neither would basajaunak. Gargoyles might if it were a drunken brawl, but not in the back. Mages did this type of thing, and there was a vial beside the body to prove it.
He glanced around the alleyway, the last before the edge of town.
It was a quiet area and patrols weren’t as heavy here.
Across the street and beyond, well-manicured homes lined the way.
There was a corner store, a real estate office, an antiques dealer—nothing a mage might be interested in.
Then again, he’d thought that about the tourist office.
The beating of gargoyle wings announced Tristan’s arrival. He landed, depositing Sebastian in front of him. Niamh flew in right behind, her golden hooves thumping down before she shifted.
“Here.” Sebastian handed off a bundle of purple.
Niamh took it as Sebastian stepped forward. She slipped a muumuu over her head and then gave Tristan another.
“What’ve we got?” Sebastian noticed the vial, then the wounds. “Where’s—”
“What’s all this?” Armendale walked down the street, showered and awake and dressed for the day despite the early hour. Two alphas flanked him, his biggest support in the alpha network, followed by a half-dozen of their combined enforcers.
“Is that…” The gaze of Theo, the burlier alpha on Armendale’s left, stuck to the form at Austin’s feet. “That’s Calvin’s man.”
From the angle, there was no way Theo could’ve known that. He couldn’t see the face and the body was in a limp heap, the outline hardly discernible.
Austin glanced back at Niamh, whose eyes tightened. Keep your mouth shut.
“What were you planning to do, Black Sheep Barazza?” Armendale said, coming to a stop ten feet away. “Hush this up so no one would know your territory isn’t as safe from mages as you claim?”
“Keep calling me names, Armendale, and you’ll make me mad,” Austin said in a growl. “The body was discovered a half-hour ago. We’re assessing the situation.”
Fancy meeting you here, right on time to “discover” the body, he wanted to say.
After Austin’s dealing with mages and working with Nessa and Niamh, Armendale couldn’t be any more obvious.
He’d clearly had a hand in this, but without proof, Austin couldn’t make an accusation, something Armendale was obviously counting on.
“Sebastian?” Austin prodded.
“Where’s the cork for the vial?” Sebastian pointed at the little glass canister that had been “discarded” near the body.
“You have a body on your hands.” Armendale sneered. “A man died, and you’re worried about a cork? Obviously, a mage got in here with his invisible potion, happened upon Calvin’s man, and created a situation. It doesn’t seem like you are very on top of things, Austin.”
The other guy with Armendale was named Chris. He was leaner, but Austin had heard he was trouble in a fight. Chris made a soft sound, barely discernible—a baa, if Austin wasn’t mistaken.
Keep taunting us, boys. I will rip your limbs from your bodies the second I have cause.
The look Sebastian gave Armendale held all kinds of swagger, Elliot Graves peeking out from the nerdy mage. His command was clear: Shut up, I’m working.
Armendale’s expression darkened. Power curled into the air around him, but he didn’t press. He clearly knew better. Too bad.
“With a consumable potion, a mage always puts the cork back in the vial and drops it into his or her pocket,” Sebastian explained.
“We then wash them and use them again. The right kind of vials are expensive. We don’t waste what we don’t have to.
A mage in a hostile territory, where other mages are present, certainly wouldn’t discard a vial that once contained a potion. May I?” He glanced at Austin.
“Please.”
Sebastian gingerly stepped over the body, looking at the wounds as he did so. His posture gave nothing away.
“You’re just going to let him—” Armendale cut off with a hard look from Austin.
Sebastian used the edge of his shirt to pick up the vial, his fingertips pinching the glass. He looked into it and then smelled it.
“Niamh.” He held the vial for her.
Without questioning, she used her muumuu to take it from him.
“This is ridiculous,” Armendale groused to Theo.
She smelled it and then held it out for Austin. He took a whiff and then shook his head. “I don’t get anything other than your smell, Niamh, and Sebastian’s.”
“Probably because it’s a scentless invisibility potion, no?” Armendale’s annoyance was plain. “Let’s stop all the theatrics, Barazza. Call this what it is.”
“Yes.” Sebastian looked harder at the wounds.
“Let’s. This was done by someone who doesn’t know how potions work, how mages work, and how blood congeals after death.
” The three alphas froze. Sebastian pointed down at the body.
“The obvious issues? Leaving the vial behind. Where’d you even get that vial? Regardless, it hasn’t been used.”
“Excuse me?” Armendale said dangerously.
Sebastian didn’t seem to notice the warning in Armendale’s tone. He’d essentially just accused the alpha of having something to do with this murder, probably without even realizing it. He was solving a riddle.
“Invisibility potions hide the person who ingested it, but their containers don’t hide the magic.
That is why you don’t leave them behind.
If someone had used that vial, I could work backward from the smell alone, or a remnant of the taste, and figure out how they created it.
If it was Momar, that would be a huge bonus for me.
But I can’t imagine Momar ever being this sloppy. The Guild, maybe.”
He waved that away.
“The mages have been running away in here, probably because shifters are largely terrifying. Mages don’t engage one on one if they can help it, not even from behind.
Because this shifter was big and powerful, all he’d have to do was turn around and there’d be trouble.
If a mage wanted to kill this guy, they would’ve done it with magic. ”
He nodded to himself and stepped back. Armendale watched him with calculating eyes.
“And then, of course, the obvious.” Sebastian looked around.
“Someone strong picked this guy up from wherever he was actually killed and brought him here. Dead men don’t bleed.
This guy has some congealed blood in the wounds, but not on the ground.
His wounds bled, but not here. There are no drag marks.
A mage wouldn’t have been able to carry this guy.
Shifters and gargoyles could, obviously, but gargoyles don’t stab people in the back.
They’d stab someone in the face, so the person knew who was killing them.
The planted vial is just obvious. It’s the wrong evidence.
I mean, why go through all this trouble… ”
Sebastian trailed off, and he looked up at the three alphas staring at him from across the dead body, a murder they’d likely committed.
Maybe they hadn’t used the knife, but they’d had a hand in this shifter’s ending up here.
Calvin, the dead guy’s alpha, was one of the weaker in attendance, a generational alpha at the tail end of his family’s legacy.
He still had political clout, which was why he was here, but he couldn’t keep up with someone like Armendale.
The eyes of the three shifters held a promise of violence.
Sebastian took a step back. “Ah. It seems you probably knew all that.”
“We all did.” Niamh held up the vial to Armendale. “Do ye want this back?” She lifted her eyebrows. “Count yer blessings now, boyo, because if Jessie and Austin Steele go down, ye won’t be long in following.”
Armendale put out his hands. “The way I see it, you’re the ones bringing all the mage interest, not us. And if this wasn’t done by a mage, then it looks like you didn’t live up to your promises, Barazza. This territory isn’t as secure as you say.”
Austin stared the other man down, desperate for a challenge. Wanting to rip his face off right this moment. But he didn’t have anything on Armendale, not without proof.
“Good timing, by the way, Armendale,” he gritted out. “I’m surprised you weren’t the one to call me.”
Armendale’s eyes glittered. “It is good timing, isn’t it? Now you won’t be able to sweep this under the rug.”
The alpha’s eyes darted to Sebastian, assessing.
Sebastian had mentioned that shifters were terrifying.
To a shifter, admitting that was a sign of weakness.
This crew might think that meant he wasn’t as powerful or good at magic as Austin and Jess claimed.
Austin wondered whom Armendale would convince to test out that theory. It surely wouldn’t be him.
“Run along, now,” Austin said. “Go gossip to your fan base. Feel powerful for a little longer. Soon you won’t be nearly so interesting to the alpha network.”