Page 28 of Junk Magic

Because I had glanced over their paperwork, and magnifier hadn’t been on it.

I wondered what else they were hiding.

“This is bullshit,” Caleb said, pulling my attention back to him.

“Okay.”

“No, not okay!” He turned angry eyes on me. “We’re having enough trouble fighting normal enemies, if you can call the fey normal. What the hell are we supposed to do with this?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I took it down, but—”

“Your entire family line took it down, Lia. That coat was a goddamned marvel, oldest I’ve seen in service. And you had to burn it just to stay alive. What are the rest of us supposed to do?”

“I don’t know,” I said again. “But that’s why you need to think long and hard before you sign on. I’m going after these things—”

“Lia!”

“I have to. Cyrus isn’t going to let this go. It’s not in him, Caleb. And I can’t let him do this alone.”

“So, you’ll stick your head in the noose, right alongside him?”

“If necessary. I’m kind of hoping it doesn’t come to that. But you could help me out if you want—”

“By doing what?” Caleb was still staring at the photo, which . . . yeah. It did kind of draw the eye.

I gently took it back. And looked up to see a bunch of new responsibilities in the doorway, still splashed with water from the sink. Multitasking was not my forte, but maybe, for once, it didn’t have to be.

“Grocery shopping?” I asked hopefully.

Chapter Eight

An hour later, the kids were off destroying a grocery store with Caleb, leaving me free to visit the compound of a certain Were clan. Colin’s former family home was well out into the desert, past miles of dusty roads and pale blue skies, in the middle of a natural fortress of low-slung hills. It was also down what I called an anti-road, the kind that seemed to have more rocks and potholes than drivable surface. But eventually, I made it.

Only to discover that the compound had a lot in common with the road.

Someone had been burning trash, and the smell lingered on the air, along with the smoke. It had drifted across a dozen trailers, an old wooden house that looked like it was busy trying to return to the earth, and a bunch of long, thin, white plastic tarps. The latter had been made into tents by shoving poles up the centers every six feet or so and anchoring them down along the sides with a bunch of old tires and bricks.

Otherwise, there wasn’t much to see. Vegas soil dusted everything, and a few scraggly bushes clung to life here and there. The bushes were desert flora, brown and low slung, the kind that sprang up on their own. There wasn’t a piece of deliberately planted grass or a tree in sight.

But there was green. Something was growing under those tarps, visible in glimpses when the wind caused the edges to flap. But I couldn’t see what it was from here. And a couple of the biggest, meanest dogs I’d ever encountered had been chained outside, with their hackles rising.

Until I got close enough that they could smell me, that was, and the change was immediate. One whined and tried to lick my hand in a show of submission, and the other hunkered down and tentatively wagged a tail. I can’t transform, but the smell of Clan is unmistakable.

And dogs do not challenge wolves.

But other wolves do.

“It looks like a war mage, but it smells like Clan. So, which is it?”

I looked up from petting the good boys to see a skinny, sandy blond in a wife beater and dirty jeans, leaning against the side of a metal Quonset hut. It looked like old military surplus, and appeared to be in use as a tool shed. There was a wheelbarrow just behind the guy, a couple of dusty sacks of fertilizer, and a coiled hose that didn’t seem to be attached to anything.

I couldn’t see any further, because he was in the way, and while he didn’t have hackles to rise, the aura around him was the same: suspicious, unhappy, belligerent.

Funny; that exactly matched my mood, but I forced a smile anyway.

“Both. Lia de Croissets. And you are?”

My question was ignored. “Ah. Heard about you.” He looked me over. “Yeah, you look like Clan. What you doing with all those humans?”

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