Chapter 25
Keeper House, Emory, Washington
The wildflowers that dotted the meadow in front of Keeper house were in full fall bloom. The apple and pear trees were fully fruited. The peaceful beauty of the place had been interrupted this day by a legion of guardians who were carefully searching for clues to fully understand what had happened here.
Anna, the hedge witch, had come upon the wolf killed corpse of the young witch when she had come to collect Jeffery for his lessons. After hearing the tear-filled accounts of the two traumatized youngsters. She called Althea, collected the two children and left for her home trusting the others to do their job.
Althea Hayden was barely holding herself together as she and Birdey Penrose reviewed the scene.
"We were responsible for keeping that little girl safe. The mother only knows what Lachlan Quinn will do when he finds we've failed. Whatever was the Alpha thinking to sanction this. This is a full escalation of our conflict. He can't possibly gain anything."
"Bah, the boy will do nothing and good riddance to the shifter girl. Althea, surely you must realize that the alpha has done us a favor."
"What favor? You know how precious children are to us. Violet was my niece's youngest daughter. What am I going to tell her mother? That I sent her daughter to her death. You and I taught that girl her first spellcraft. The Alpha has declared war and war he shall have."
"Althea," Birdy's voice was calming. "There is no need to go there. I'm sure Violet's death was an accident. The Alpha assured me..."
Althea turned to face the other coven queen. "When were you talking to the Alpha?"
Then a terrible suspicion hit.
"What have you done, you stupid woman?" Her voice held a note of rising hysteria.
"I did what was necessary to protect the covens," Birdy Penrose's voice was smugly triumphant. "Sister, you know as well as I do that the Red Queens will sanction us severely if they find we have trained a shifter."
"You sacrificed one of our own acolytes to do this thing. Did you think of that?" Althea was trying desperately to hold on to her temper in the face of this monumental, willful stupidity.
"That was regrettable, but I did what I thought was right. That shifter needed to be back with her own kind."
"He will kill her. She is the last of the old alpha's line. Did you stop to think what the Keeper's boy will do to us?"
"That boy will do nothing. The Alpha assured me he was damaged—a shadow of what those monsters trained him to be."
This was too much. Althea was filled with an explosive mix of terror and fury. She stepped forward, slapped Birdy as hard as she could. Birdy fell to the ground in shock. Althea stood over and screeched, all reason lost.
"You miserable, stupid, stupid woman. You have killed us all. That boy as you call him, single-handedly destroyed an entire Dökkálfar Forge in one night. A hundred fully mature Sidhe warriors. Have you ever heard of a human successfully fighting even one? Do you imagine forty-three women will prevail against his vengeance?"
"Bah. He is a mere mundane. We have a hundred spells and hexes to stop him."
"Birdy, are you suddenly senile? Have you forgotten? The Vísdómur warded him. You've seen the glyphs on the boy's back. He is immune to our spell craft."
The other woman's face showed sudden uncertainty.
"Wait, I knew that. How could I have forgotten?"
Both women paled as the realization hit.
The Manna Surge they had been fearing had begun.
"The bounty of manna has corrupted you, you old fool."
Birdy lowered her head, knowing full well what was coming.
"Forgive me my friend, do what you must to protect us."
Althea stepped away and took a deep breath. Years of self-discipline took hold. She calmed herself. Muttered the spell.
And her oldest friend fell dead.
The covens cleaned their own house.
Chapter 26
Tavern District, Oldtown
Quinn had long made it a policy to never sleep on any of his missions in Oldtown. The truly dangerous beings who dwelled there generally avoided each other, but it was a good practice to not take unnecessary chances. He knew he could function well for up to three days without sleep, longer if he could find a safe place to meditate. The Troll Women had thought it a ridiculous indulgence for him to have to go offline for six to eight hours out of every twenty-four in order to be efficient. So they taught him some esoteric meditation techniques to fix that.
As soon as he left Elisabeth's Inn, he picked up a tail. The small female goblin was good. Most would have missed her. She gave herself away by one too many anxious glances. She was unlikely to be alone. Quinn made a note to himself to see if he could spot where her partners lurked.
A tail was good news. He was closer to his goal.
It was near evening, and he remembered there was another place to gather some gossip about his betters. He crossed Market Street and ducked down an alley that led to Northmarket's red-light district. Small Meg's bordello occupied a prominent corner.
He walked up the stairs, nodded to the doorman, and threw open the door.
"Honey, I'm home," he roared. "Where are my girls?"
There was excited squealing, and seven identical brown-eyed green-haired sirens, along with three voluptuous succubae, came tripping down the stairs.
"Treats, Lanlan? Did you bring treats?"
"I might have treats for good girls." He reached into his pack and pulled out his ever-present M&Ms. "Where is Mistress?"
"Dorielle in trouble," whispered one succubus, whose name he recalled was Qinyss. "Mistress, punish her. She greedy. Took too much from Simon the blacksmith. He won't work for days."
The sirens and succubus cared not a whit for coins they earned as long as they had enough for the eye-blindingly colorful silk dresses that the pixie clans fabricated for them. Their real wages were sips of their customers' life force. Tiny sips. Small Meg strictly enforced that. It was bad business to enervate and kill clients. Mag pocketed the customer's coins. It was a satisfactory arrangement all around.
"What is with all the shouting in my front parlor?" Mag was a seven-foot orc with a thick mane of copper-colored hair and dark purple eyes. She had been a fixture in the district for as long as Quinn could remember. When he was a youngster, he'd made more than one copper steering customers to her door. She was a favorite of the street urchins because she always made sure they had a meal before she let them go back on the street. Small Meg was a survivor and had learned long ago the necessity of keeping a finger on the pulse of the market. Her girls made convenient scapegoats for angry beings to rail against. She was ready to bolt at an instant's notice.
That intelligence was what drew Quinn to her door.
