I hooked her legs out from underneath her before she processed that I was that close, and she went flying face first into the pavement. Before she could try to get up, I was on top of her. I grabbed her cuffed hands to immobilize them and drove a knee into her shoulder, pinning her to the ground.
“Stay down,” I ordered, and she looked up at me in surprise.
“Damn you, Hunter,” she gasped. “Who are you, truly?”
“Jason Kilkenny,” I snapped. “Vassal of Queen Mabona,” I finished, and a horrified understanding filed her eyes. “You aren’t going anywhere.”
I roughly manhandled her to her feet, pushing her before me with a hand on the chain of her handcuffs as I delivered her back to the motel rooms Eric had turned into a sanctuary. Celine, her burdens delivered to the basement, was waiting for me, her eyes glowing with black fire.
“We need her alive,” I told the Fury roughly.
“I’m not going to kill her,” Celine promised.
“Just lock her in a closet or something,” I ordered. To my surprise, the Fury—who could easily have taken me apart—obeyed instantly. She dialed down the black fire in her eyes and took the hag in care with a rough but not damaging grip.
Tamara had made it into the sanctuary and Talus had helped her into a chair from which she watched as the fae noble laid George O’Malley flat on top of a desk.
The room had very obviously started as the motel room it once had been. Where the beds had once been had been replaced with four desks, and the bathroom had been torn out and replaced with a storage closet that Celine was now removing boxes of weapons from so she could lock Laurie in it. A door on the right side led into the other converted rooms, and a door by the closet, still slightly ajar, presumably led to the basement and its refrigerated morgue.
“You never told us he was a Vassal,” Celine told Talus, somewhat accusingly.
“I take it everyone heard that,” I realized aloud, remembering just how good the hearing of gentry and greater fae could be. I should never have said anything. Laurie didn’t need to know, and neither did anyone else here.
“Yes, we did,” Talus confirmed, drawing a blanket over O’Malley and stepping back from the now stable and mostly healed gentry. “And I didn’t tell you,” he said to Celine and Tamara, “because one huge advantage that Jason has as a changeling and a Vassal is that no one expects one of the High Court to hold a changeling’s fealty.”
“I’d prefer it if it stayed that way,” I admitted, pulling up a chair and trying to calm my breathing and loosen my muscles. “The idea of painting a giant ‘shoot here’ sign on my head for the Queen’s enemies doesn’t appeal to me.”
“We live in Fort McMurray,” Celine told me dryly as she finished barring the closet door shut behind Laurie. “Who are we going to tell?”
“Heartstone flows from the oil sands,” Talus said quietly. “Power flows from the heartstone. For all that it’s the backwater of the world in almost every sense; Fort McMurray is the center of a lot of things both mortal and inhuman. Hell, the Fort is probably at least half the reason for the chaos here.”
“So, what happens now?” Tamara asked, carefully shifting her leg to make sure it didn’t heal crooked overnight.
“Tarvers’s funeral,” I told them. “The shifter clans will elect a new Speaker afterwards, and then Lord Oberis will request that Speaker’s aid in waging war against Magus MacDonald.”
“So far, so good,” Tamara pointed out. “The Enforcers caused this whole mess; kicking their ass sounds good to me.”
“The whole thing is a trap,” I explained slowly, trying to lay out the pieces I’d uncovered so that the others would understand. “Oberis isn’t going to kill MacDonald—force him to leave, yes, but not kill—firstly because he probably can’t, but secondly because if you kill one Wizard, three more descend to destroy you and anyone associated with you. It’s how they protect their own when they’re so scattered.
“But while the war is going on, Winters is going to kill the Magus.”
Talus had worked it out, I knew, but clearly, he hadn’t explained the whole situation to his people, as both Celine and Tamara stared at me in shock.
“The Alpha of Clan Fontaine is creating chaos and violence to undermine the other candidates for Speaker,” I continued. “Right now, Darius Fontaine is the most likely Speaker for the Clans—and as either Speaker or a high-level Alpha, he can and will accuse Oberis of ordering the murder. The Wizards would destroy the Court and place Winters, as MacDonald’s former right-hand man, in charge of the city in their name—and in charge of the heartstone.”
“The vampires’ role in this is done,” Talus realized aloud, picking a point out of the whole mess that I’d actually missed. “All we’ve done is made it so that Winters doesn’t have to include them in his new Covenant in payment.”
“So, we have to stop the war,” I told them all quietly. “We have witnesses who know what Fontaine was up to, so we should be able to stop him being elected. I’m hoping that Laurie can tell us enough of the truth to get Oberis to call it off.”
“Why don’t we interrogate her now?” Celine asked, with a toss of her head toward the closet we’d locked the traitor in.
The door to the outside opened before Talus could answer, and then slammed shut behind Eric as the gnome slipped into the room.
“Because she’s protected against truth magic,” the Keeper told us as he took a seat on one of the desks, looking around at us all. “Sorry,” he continued, “I’ve been eavesdropping on you all—I figured I’d need to be up to date on what’s going on and with whatever we’re planning.”
“Laurie, like Talus here and other fae who serve at that high a level in the Court, is shielded from truth magic by Oberis,” Eric explained. “Only Oberis himself can force her to tell him everything and not lie.”
“Damn,” the Fury said quietly. “So, what do we do?”
“We air all the dirty laundry,” I told them all. “We drag Laurie into the center of everything and throw her at Oberis’s feet. We have our witnesses condemn Darius Fontaine before his clan and the other Alphas. We stop the war before it even starts.”
Tamara inhaled sharply, looking at me with a tilt to her head. “Sounds simpler than it is,” she observed. “What do you have planned for an encore?”
I took a deep breath and turned to look Talus in the eyes. Of anyone there, he was the one who had to understand just what my orders were in all of this.
“I fulfill my mission from the Queen—and rescue the Wizard from his own Tower.”
Talus nodded, once, silently communicating his understanding to me. Not a promise of help, nothing like that, but it was an acceptance that he knew what I had to do.
“We’re going to have a busy morning,” he told everyone. “I am going to call Shelly and let her know to bring Mary and Holly. We will bring Laurie. Eric, can you keep an eye on our prisoner?”
Eric nodded. “I’ll call a couple of friends I can completely trust,” he promised. “I’ll make sure she’s still here. There are beds still in here for you to rest on,” he continued. “It’s probably best if you all stay here till the funeral.”
That was about all the encouragement I needed. Celine and I helped Tamara—already healing from the break Laurie had given her—through to one of the beds, and then took others for ourselves.
Tomorrow was going to be a very big day.
32
THAT DAY STARTED, as odd as it sounds, with clothes-shopping. With the exception of Talus, who lived at least part-time in Calgary, none of us had full formal wear. Even if I hadn’t been inclined to dress up to show respect to Tarvers, Talus made it clear to us all that we were to dress appropriately.