Over time, bars, brothels, markets and casinos had opened up, forming a mirror image of the world above, only more desperate and a lot more dangerous. Someone in the Corps had named the place after the deep, dark pit reserved for evildoers in Greek mythology and it had stuck, maybe because it was so apt. I couldn’t imagine what interest Vegas’s shadow city could hold for someone like Sebastian Arnou.
“Jamie used to be a tunnel rat,” I said slowly. “If anyone is interested in Tartarus, he’d be the one to ask.” The Rats were a group of war mages who once patrolled the tunnels, before the current war in the supernatural community pulled them to other duties.
“But why you?”
“I’m dating his brother,” I admitted, because it wasn’t exactly a secret. Cyrus had haunted the infirmary while I recovered from my recent brush with the hereafter. And ever since, he’d been showing up for lunch in the cafeteria, despite what it considered food. He’d become so much of a staple that people had almost stopped staring at him as if he planned to eat them instead of the rubbery quiche.
“And is that all?”
I shrugged. “Technically, I am part of his clan. Sebastian trusts me. Well, as much as any Were ever trusts a mage…”
Hargrove threw an arm across the staircase, halting me in my tracks. “Let us have one thing perfectly clear,” he told me, gray eyes flashing. “Were or not, you are Corps. Therefore you answer to me, not to some bardric or whatever he is.”
“I’m not a Were,” I said flatly. “My mother was a member of Clan Lobizon, but my father was human.”
“Be that as it may, I won’t have someone on my team hiding things from me. The Weres have the right to deal with their own kind as they see fit, but if anything about this bears on our activities, I expect to be informed. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
Hargrove shot me a look that said it had damn well better be, but fortunately there wasn’t time for more. One didn’t keep a king—or the equivalent—waiting. A moment later, we caught up with the others at the top of the stairs and pushed through into the busy main corridor.
The Central Division of the War Mage Corps is part of the North American branch of the Silver Circle—the most powerful magical association on earth. Only it wasn’t looking much like it at the moment. The war had trashed our previous digs, causing a precipitate and only half-completed move to new quarters beneath a large warehouse. It was crowded, the air-conditioning didn’t work half the time and the place tended to smell of dust, body odor and the ozone tang of magic.
Today, it smelled like dung.
I glanced around, wondering what new problem had cropped up since I’d passed through this morning. Unlike the lower levels, this one was open to the public. As usual, it was crowded with a microcosm of the current war. Mages, apprentices and lab techs hurried along, skirting the long line of arms dealers waiting for permits. Informants slunk past with furtive expressions, hoping their tidbits were worth a payout. Mercenaries loitered against the walls, awaiting interviews for the kind of service the Corps preferred to pay others to do. And someone was selling chickens.
Okay, that was new.
A squat-necked, big-bosomed woman with nut brown skin and a graying braid squatted near the stairwell, surrounded by wicker cages of live chickens. They stared at us accusingly out of bright black eyes, their beaks protruding through slits in the weaving. A glance down the corridor showed a variety of other small food animals, bleating and squealing from cages dotted here and there among duffle bags, backpacks and fifty or so scruffy-looking people.
Hargrove grabbed a passing mage who couldn’t get away fast enough. “Lieutenant!”
The lieutenant stopped, looking resigned. His arms were full of baby goat, which was nibbling on his lapel. Like all war mage attire, his coat was spelled to resist damage, although that wasn’t working so well in this case. The goat took a nibble, the lapel grew back, further intriguing the goat. Repeat.
“Yes, sir.”
“What are all these people doing here?”
“I’m sorry, sir. We had to bring them down. They were picketing out front and drew the attention of the human police—”
“I told Aaronson to get rid of them an hour ago!”
“Yes, sir. But they refused to leave without seeing you,” the lieutenant said, before getting jostled aside by a man with black eyes, a weather-beaten face and a hank of greasy hair.
“It’s the gangs!” The man held up his arm, displaying a nasty burn. “They burnt us out this morning and we want to know what you’re going to do about it!”
“Where did this attack happen?” Hargrove demanded.
“In an encampment over on Decatur.”
“I know of no approved housing in that area.”
“It’s a flophouse, sir. In the drain,” Jamie explained.
Hargrove scowled at the injured man. “You were warned months ago that continuing to remain in an unsecured location puts you at risk. The Black Circle—”
“Do we look like we have anything those bastards would want?” the man demanded.
Personally, I thought he had a point. The powerful dark mages who composed our main enemy in the war tended to aim a little higher. But Hargrove wasn’t impressed. “They are known to hit civilian targets for the terror value.”
“All your secure locations cost too much!”
“We have arranged free safe houses for indigents—”
“Yeah, in the desert! Our homes are here!”
I couldn’t imagine anyone considering a murky, dangerous drain to be “home” and apparently, neither could Hargrove. “Be that as it may, you have the option. Should you choose to ignore it, there is little I can do. Other than offer you medical assistance for the wounded—”
“We don’t need charity! We need protection!”
“What you need is to moderate your tone!” Hargrove snapped. “And to face realities! I do not have the personnel to protect you if you choose to remain underground. That is why you were specifically instructed to evacuate—”
I stopped listening because a young man was tugging on my sleeve. He had gray eyes, dark hair and coltish limbs poking out of clothes that were at least two sizes too big. He looked like me ten years ago, before I grew into my height. He also looked lost, like maybe he’d misplaced his family in the crush.
“Do you know where I can find…” he glanced down at what I belatedly realized was an orientation packet. “Uh, Mage Beckett?”
Christ; the kid was a recruit. I opened my mouth to tell him to go home, to finish growing into his clothes, to finish growing up, but Hargrove beat me to it. “How old are you?” he snapped.
The boy’s eyes widened in dismay as he belatedly recognized Central’s resident terror. “Ei-eighteen, sir.”
“You don’t look it!” The kid appeared vaguely insulted, but he had the sense not to talk back. “Make sure you have proof of age. You will be asked for it,” Hargrove told him, before informing him where to find his drill instructor.
The young man nodded and backed off fast, only to trip over someone’s battered suitcase and lurch into a cage holding a piglet. The animal bit his shirtsleeve and held on. The boy panicked with his soon-to-be-boss’s eyes on him and slung a spell—which was just one syllable off. It should have given the pig a small electric shock; instead…
“Oh, dear,” Jamie said, as the pig swelled like a ripe melon, bursting through its woven home with a startled squeal.
I started to mutter the counterspell to shrink it back to size, when Jamie stepped on my toe. Oh, yeah. I fell silent and let him take care of it, then watched the red-faced teenager scurry down the hall toward the gym. It should have been funny—the kind of story you laughed at with your buddies years later. Only I wasn’t sure that kid would have a later.