After a while, she started kissing my neck, causing me to focus on something else entirely for a while.
MARY LEFT QUITE LATE. I insisted on calling her a cab, though she refused to let me pay for it.
“Call me in the morning,” she told me, kissing me on her way out the door. With a sigh, I went to bed.
Morning came way too soon, and two late nights left me fuzzy with fatigue that coffee only took a slight edge off. Nonetheless, I struggled into the Queen’s enchanted armor vest and work clothes, and headed in to the office.
I traded vague pleasantries with Trysta and Bill while setting up my morning loads. I knew I was noticeably slower than usual, but neither of them commented.
Bill did call me aside when I was done.
“I got your email about the funeral,” he said quietly. “What happened?”
“There was an accident,” I told him. “They died together, a brother and sister.”
“Friends?” he asked.
“Members of my home community I was working on a project with,” I answered. It was close enough. “The accident was related, so I feel obligated.”
“It’s not an issue,” he told me firmly. “I’ll have Trysta note not to schedule you for an afternoon trip. You seem tired,” he added, “are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I told him. “I, um, have a new girlfriend...I think.”
He laughed. It was actually the first time I’d seen the man laugh, and it was a resounding, deep belly laugh that echoed around the office for a moment.
“You think, eh?” he said. “Yeah, that’s about the way of it with women. Enjoy it while you can, son, and try to avoid the messy divorce at the end, eh?”
I nodded, blushing slightly. He gestured me out to get started on my route.
Halfway through my morning run, I got the normal text from Michael to meet him at a Starbucks. For once, this Starbucks wasn’t exactly on my route home. Apparently, the Enforcers gifted with part of the Wizard’s Sight were not totally omniscient.
There was another Enforcer waiting with him when I arrived. They all seemed cut from the same press—the same black suit, the same rough build, the same orichalcum tattoos. This new one was a black-haired version I hadn’t met before.
“Mr. Kilkenny,” he greeted me, offering his hand as if it was balmy and warm outside instead of fifteen degrees below zero. “I am Enforcer Percy; Michael works for me. I handle all of our deliveries and out-city shipments. I wanted to meet you in person.”
I shook his hand. He may have been totally oblivious to the cold, but I was wearing gloves, which made it mostly tolerable.
“I always like to know the people I’m using for deliveries,” he continued silkily. “We have two packages for you to deliver today. One is for the airport outbound flight; the other is for Ink Quill again.”
“All right,” I said. “Give me the packages.”
“I must say that we do appreciate your willing assistance,” Percy told me. “It’s always preferable to not have to force cooperation.”
This guy really needed to work on his small talk.
“If you tried, I’d go to the Court,” I replied, trying to keep my voice as calm as his. “There are always limits.”
He smirked. “Of course.” He gestured for Michael, who’d remained silent throughout the entire exchange, to pass me the packages.
One got slightly squished between us, and we quickly double-checked the box as Percy stood there, watching us. It didn’t look too damaged, though I got a noseful of a strong, spicy scent—cinnamon or something like that. Powers only knew why the Enforcers were shipping cinnamon, but the one I worked for wasn’t overly talkative.
Michael and I loaded the boxes into my truck. Percy leaned against the blue sedan, watching us, then got in and started the car while waiting for the junior Enforcer.
“I’m sorry,” I told Michael as we lodged the box for Ink Quill under three other pickups.
“For what?” he asked.
“You having that douche for a boss,” I said dryly.
Michael tried valiantly to glare repressively at me, but the clear agreement in his eyes totally undermined the effort.
17
MY AIRPORT DROP-OFF went without any issues, all of the packages loaded up and ready to make their flights. Somebody in a rush to make sure he made his flight, however, was in an accident while I was offloading the packages. The entire road on my route to Ink Quill was blocked by emergency vehicles, and out of two lanes each way, only one lane was getting through.
I was running over an hour behind schedule by the time I made it through the accident, and was cursing out the Enforcers for adding this extra stop to my route. I pulled my courier van into Ink Quill’s parking lot and parked next to a giant black Hummer.
In more of a rush than was probably good for me, I grabbed the package and pushed through the outer doors into the office, only to stop at the sight of the inner door halfway off its hinges with its glass paneling shattered.
The scene inside the office had frozen as I burst in, and I looked in at it in complete shock. A security guard was lying groaning in the corner, his broken arm lying at an impossible angle and a pistol lying at his feet in two pieces.
A secretary with long blond hair was cowering behind the remnants of her desk, which looked like it had been broken by having someone slammed into it. Repeatedly.
A very large, very ugly semiautomatic pistol was being pointed at me by a gentleman I recognized as Barry Tenerim, one of the wolf shifters who seemed to follow Tarvers everywhere. Two more dark-haired men with the angular features I’d come to associate with the Clan stood behind him.
The final element of the frozen tableau was Tarvers standing there with James Langley held two feet off the ground by the collar of his expensive dress shirt, blood leaking from the human executive’s clearly broken nose.
“Help!” Langley squeaked when he saw me. “These men are totally insane!”
I walked in slowly and carefully, stepping around the debris while mostly ignoring the pistol trained on me.
“Tarvers,” I greeted the big man in my slow, soft drawl as I lay the package I was carrying on the floor next to the shattered desk. I looked from the Clan leader to the sobbing receptionist and laid a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s going to be okay,” I told her. “He’s just a big teddy bear unless you piss him off.” Still squeezing the receptionist’s shoulder, I looked back to the Tenerim Alpha and the print shop VP, still half-frozen in tableau, and sighed.
“Tarvers, would you care to explain why you have the man I’m delivering packages to floating in midair?” I asked. It seemed that unless I said something, everyone was just going to stand around like statues.
“I told you we were tracking the lifesblood,” the Alpha growled in answer, his face inches from Langley’s face. “We traced it, all right. The heartstone came from here; we’re sure of it.
“And this mewling prick knows something,” he continued.
“I don’t know...” Langley trailed off as Tarvers met and held his gaze. The human met the angry glare of an Alpha. It took a strong will to lie to an Alpha.
“Tell me,” Tarvers growled.
“I don’t even know what heartstone is,” the VP whimpered.
“Dark gray stone or dust,” Tarvers explained helpfully. “Smells like cinnamon.”
Even as the poor human slumped in mute admission, Tarvers’s words struck a chord, and I grabbed my package back up and sniffed it.
“Shit,” I whispered, and tore the package open. Inside the shoebox-sized delivery box, packed in bubble wrap and Styrofoam, were three small velvet bags. With the box open, the distinctive smell of cinnamon with a metallic tang I now realized was heartstone drifted through the air.