Page 137 of Junk Magic

“And their concern when Noah mentioned Lyall, the name you use in Tartarus when preaching rebellion to young outcastes. It freaked them out, not because he was telling on some street preacher, but because said preacher was right outside. Who had already given me part of the spiel, one too practiced to be the first time you’d delivered it.”

He grinned. “This is fun. But those seem pretty thin reasons to suspect me?”

“I didn’t suspect you; I just noticed things that seemed out of place. Like at the funeral, when I had a vision about the massacre at Wolf's Head. I didn’t realize what it was at the time, just thought I was remembering the grow farm assault. But later I began to wonder. The only other visions I’d seen had been of Jace, one of Cyrus’s boys.

“Maybe the same thing had happened again.”

“And I asked you how you were, just afterward.” He pursed his lips. “Bad timing.”

“It made me think of you,” I agreed. “I have a link to Cyrus; maybe it gave me a link to all of you, as well. Enough to get a flash of something when your emotions were running high, as Jace’s had been, because you know what was about to go down. But the real kicker was your cologne—”

“My cologne?” He laughed. “Come on!”

“It’s true. When I first met you, you had on enough Axe Body Spray for five teenaged boys, even though Weres don’t usually wear scent. But you didn’t have a choice. You’d just massacred an entire clan at Wolf’s Head as bait. And while you’d bathed afterward, you didn’t dare go around people with sensitive noses without insurance. Insurance that was still clinging to you when you rescued me later that day.”

“Ah. I had wondered why you looked so strange, when I jumped down there.”

“You’re also older than the rest, when it’s unusual to survive on the streets for so long without someone to protect you. Like I suppose Jenkins was doing?”

“Part of the deal,” he said, and then his head tilted again, and after a brief pause, he came over and sat down beside me.

The cigarette was almost overwhelming this close, and a distraction—like the no holds barred fight going on below. I could hear it perfectly, as if I was ringside: every body blow, every grunt and gasp, every scream from the crowd as the combatants rolled into them. I desperately wanted to sit forward, to see what was happening, but that would have left me vulnerable, so I didn’t.

“But you didn’t arrest me,” Danny said. “Didn’t come after me. Not even today.”

“I knew you were helping Jenkins. What I didn’t know was if you were the mastermind or just another follower. Whirlwind also wanted Sebastian dead, and no offense, but he seemed more the type. And he had the entire resources of Clan Rand behind him.”

“And you didn't want to tip him off.” He looked thoughtful. “But you figured it out. That was my picture you showed the girls. What finally gave me away?”

I shrugged. “Nothing you did. I knew when Whirlwind tried everything he could to avoid the challenge just now. If he was coordinating this, and you were just an employee, he’d have the potion, too.”

“And if he had the potion, he’d have accepted.”

I nodded. “As challenger, he can choose any form of combat he wants. Most choose their Were form, as it’s stronger, but he doesn’t have to. And even when unchanged, the potion gives strength, heightened senses, speed. He’d have won easily, yet he didn’t want to fight.

“Therefore, you were the one behind all this.”

“Smart.” He leaned back against the pyramid, smoking for a moment. “You’re not wrong about Whirlwind. My associates were actually kind of pissed at him. He kept sending people to kill Sebastian, and they kept getting in the way of the people they were sending. It was entirely too many assassins, and made the clan appoint Ulmer—”

“So, that’s why there were so many attempts.”

He nodded. “And Ulmer is paranoid, so security got increased tenfold, making it impossible to get at him. Which is when I offered them the deal.”

“And you knew the Dark Circle how?”

“They’re all over Tartarus, recruiting. We were competitors, you might say. I’d planned to bring onboard enough people to take out the council on my own. After I realized what Jenkins was working on, and what it could do, it seemed feasible. But I’d only managed to find three I could trust, and I didn’t know if that would be enough.

“In peacetime, maybe, but everyone is getting antsy since the war, and I kind of wanted to survive the attempt. I thought, why not let the mages die for me? The alliance between the Corps and the Council has really been harshing their buzz, so they were happy to accept.” He laughed suddenly. “Probably less happy now.”

“There is still one thing I don't know,” I said, and saw him quirk an eyebrow. “Why? Why do you want the council dead so badly?”

Once again, he looked surprised. “You get the hard stuff from some bad cologne and a little youthful bravado, but the easy part you can’t fathom?” He leaned back against the glass, giving me plenty of time to attack him if I was going to.

But it was too easy. He was making it too easy, almost as if testing me. And the jitteriness—could that be an extra dose? Did more of the potion make him stronger?

I didn’t know, and in my uncertainty, I didn’t move.

He smiled suddenly.

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