Page 136 of Junk Magic

The wobbly, indistinct body paused, and the head came up at that. “Really?” he said. “You don’t know that yet?”

“I have an idea.”

“Oh? Tell me. Let’s see how close you came.”

“I know it has something to do with the council. Jenkins didn’t choose to kill the Windward clan at Wolf’s Head; he didn’t know anything about it. Just wanted them dead for stealing from him and imperiling his great plan. But someone chose that venue, and then turned a dark mage army loose on us all—”

“Not on you,” he corrected. “You weren’t supposed to be there.”

“No. I was a last-minute addition, after Sebastian called me to consult. I never thought the attack had anything to do with me; I’m simply not worth that kind of risk. But once I had time to think about it, I realized that nobody there was, including Sebastian himself.

“Killing one man, even one who has proven difficult to assassinate, hardly requires an army, although they were after him. So, I started to think: what is Sebastian? Not just a man, but the head of something—”

“Very good.”

“—something that showed up shortly after the battle was over, and should have been walking into a massacre—their own. And they always travel with an army of bodyguards and retainers. They would take a large force to overcome, particularly when you couldn’t be sure how many they’d bring. So, you wanted the council dead, but you missed them at Wolf’s Head. I thought maybe you’d try again tonight.”

He clapped, the sound echoing dully off the fake stone behind us. “Excellent, except that I didn’t miss them. The damned mages saw Sebastian’s back up squad arriving from Vegas, and assumed it was the council. They jumped the gun.”

“And attacked too early.”

He nodded. “And once it was on, it was on, with no way for me to stop it. The mages had been given orders to take out the council for me—as my payment for setting everything up—but their masters were mainly after Sebastian. They honed in on him and I thought he was a goner. But then you decided to ride to the rescue.”

“Wasn’t much of a rescue,” I pointed out. “I failed. They were about to gut us all when you saved us . . . Danny.”

He laughed, and again it sounded genuine. His head popped out from behind the pyramid. “Boo.”

Looking at him, it was almost impossible to believe that we were having this conversation. He looked the same as he had at the bar-b-que, when he’d been grilling us some next-level ribs: greasy dark hair falling into his eyes, scarred up cheek, and stained wife beater/dirty jeans combo. He could have been any homeless person checking the slots for spare change.

But he wasn’t; he was something very different. Yet, I still couldn’t see it. Even when he walked closer and smiled at me, although he still kept some distance between us.

“Why so cautious?” I asked.

His head tilted. “I’m still not sure about you.”

“Yet you saved me.”

“Did I?”

“You know you did. Caleb and I would both have died in that corridor if not for you.”

“Then I guess you owe me a life debt, huh?” I didn’t say anything, and after a moment, he chuckled. “Worth a try.” He paused to light up a cigarette. “The truth is, the boys didn’t give me much choice.”

“Lee, Noah and Jason.”

He nodded. “They were very upset to learn that Cyrus’s mate was involved in all this, and the idea of letting you die when you’d fought for them . . .” he shook his head and blew out smoke. “Weres.”

“Thank you anyway,” I said.

He shrugged and looked around for stars, which he didn’t find. “I hate it here, in the city,” he said. “It feels like my clothes are too tight all the time.”

Cyrus had said the same thing to me, more than once, but Danny looked like it, too: antsy, hyperaware, and keyed up. But also oddly animated, almost as if he was high on something, and maybe he was. But the cigarette didn’t shake as he paced back almost to the edge of the pyramid, before suddenly returning.

“How’d you guess?” he asked abruptly.

“That you were Jenkins’ Alpha?” I shrugged and kept my hands where he could see them, because he kept looking that way. “A bunch of little things. Like the boys being too willing to take on the Corps, almost eager for it, when no sane wolf—much less an outcaste with little back up—would even think of such a thing. But someone who could Change into a Relic . . . they wouldn’t have the same reaction to perceived danger to their Lupa, would they?”

“Touché.”

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