Page 87 of Junk Magic

“Just wear something that won’t immediately make people think about the Corps,” I said. “You’re a friend doing me a favor, that’s all, and bring your forensic kit—”

“Are you going to talk me to death or tell me where this is?”

“I need—”

“Oh, for the love of God! Yes! Off-off. Wait at the door. Look normal. Bring my kit. Now where the hell is it?”

I told him. The line immediately went dead, leaving me holding the phone and hoping I wasn’t going to regret this. Technically, Hargroves had given me carte blanche with this investigation until Conclave, so I wasn’t technically breaking the rules. But I didn’t think he’d envisioned anything like this.

The treaty made it clear: Were business was Were business and the Corps was to stay the hell out. If Weres attacked humans or interfered in Circle affairs, then it was a different story. But as long as they stayed in their lane, we had to as well.

There were no exceptions.

So, if the clans found out that I had deliberately involved the Circle, or if Hargroves discovered that I was risking the treaty . . .

Yeah. Goodbye job, pension, and possibly freedom. So why the hell had I done it?

Because Sienna had a point. Because we needed answers and neither group was likely to get them alone. And because, for once, my background might actually serve as a bridge instead of a wall, allowing for some cross-species cooperation to nail whoever did this to the goddamned wall.

At least, that’s what I told myself.

And then Sebastian came to find me, and I was out of time.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Unacceptable!” I’d rarely seen Sebastian angry, but I was seeing it now. Which was a bad sign considering that we hadn’t even gotten to Jenkins yet.

But this was impressive enough, with the bardric’s power rattling things on the desk in the groundskeeper’s office, which he’d commandeered for our talk. I’d put a silence spell on the room as soon as we walked in, before spilling my guts about the events of the last few days. Not that it was helping much.

Because “speaking privately” had a different meaning when you were with a bunch of Weres.

I glanced behind us, to where various locals were trying to peer through the frosted glass panel in the door, to the point of pressing their faces against it. The guards positioned outside kept dragging them off, but others just took their place. And I didn’t see that changing.

They wanted Sebastian to come back outside. They liked the feeling of safety he gave them. They did not like the closed door.

And then one of them simply opened it and came inside.

The rest almost fell in after Ulmer, but his bulk blocked them and he calmly shoved them back out again. There were some squawks of protest, but nobody tried getting past him. Or if they did, they couldn’t budge the bulge.

Except for one tiny boy, who breeched the sanctum simply by crawling through the big man’s legs. That might have tripped up a human, especially one of Ulmer’s size and age, but he wasn’t one. And he made a light-footed, almost balletic movement out of the way.

The little brown-haired interloper, on the other hand, who was all of maybe a year old, stopped abruptly upon seeing Sebastian. And froze in place, as if he’d not quite gotten this far in his clever plan. And now that he had, it was too much and his face scrunched up, and he began looking around for mama.

“And who is this?” Sebastian picked him up, with the ease of a man who had a teenaged daughter at home and knew the drill.

The incipient crying jag cut off before it began, once the tyke realized that he wasn’t in trouble. His thumb found his mouth, and he sucked on it happily, gazing at Sebastian with big gray eyes. But someone else was less reassured.

“Bardric,” a man’s voice squeaked in a way that a wolf’s just shouldn’t, no matter what form he was in. And then he went down to one knee, while literally quaking in his boots. Possibly because the last bardric, elected a century ago during a war among the clans, had been a real bastard.

And because, as a war time leader, Sebastian wasn’t hedged by many rules. He could kill with impunity and never give a reason. And, unless the victim was someone from a prominent clan, nobody would probably even ask for one.

Although why the man thought that applied here, I had no idea. But maybe seeing a field full of corpses had shaken him. Sebastian seemed to think so, because he did nothing but jiggle the boy on his hip.

“This one is yours, I take it?”

The man, who hadn’t met Sebastian’s eyes yet, nodded. He had brown hair like his son, and the stereotypical Were build: stocky, muscular, and a decent height, maybe six feet when he wasn’t kneeling in terror. But he seemed unusually timid for a species who normally ran the other way.

“He’s a fine boy,” Sebastian added. “Strong and inquisitive. He’ll make an impressive wolf one day.”

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