Inked

“Rescue me?”

I glanced around. Cyrus looked pretty beat up, but he was in one piece, which was more than I could say for the Were slumped on the floor behind him. A set of manacles had been ripped out of the wall and the chain wrapped around the creature’s neck, hard enough to half sever it from the body.

“Well. It seems awkward now.”

“I warned you off—twice! And I know you received the messages!”

“What messages? I haven’t heard from you since—”

“The memories!”

“Oh.” Those messages. “I thought you were sending me clues how to find you.”

Cyrus threw up his hands. “How is sending you Danger/ Ambush an invitation to come closer?”

“You never sent me—”

“The garden hose?”

“What?”

“You ambushed me.”

It took me a moment to get it. “Oh, come on! That’s hardly the same thing as—”

“At that distance, there was no way to send anything but memories, and the most powerful are the ones we both shared. That’s why I sent the soufflé for Disaster. As in, coming in here would be a very bad idea?”

I blinked. “You used my cooking to mean disaster?”

“It was a metaphor.”

“And what was the scene at the bar supposed to tell me?”

“What bar?”

“Never mind.” It sounded like I’d been picking up on a little more than was intended.

Cyrus bent to relieve the dead guard of his gun and his shirt rode up. He looked as though he’d been stitched together out of spare parts, his belly livid with bruises. I drew in a sharp breath. “You’re hurt!”

He shoved the gun in his waistband. “They used me for a punching bag for the last twelve hours, hoping Sebastian would sense it and come looking for me.”

“Sebastian?”

“This was a trap for him. Luckily, he was smart enough not to fall for it. What I’d like to know is why you weren’t.”

I did a little reciprocal glaring, half-pissed, half-scared. You had to do a lot of damage to Weres to outstrip their healing ability, but his body clearly hadn’t been able to keep up. I strongly suspected that he was on his feet out of pure stubbor

“I came because Sebastian asked me,” I told him. “He showed up at Central this morning, after patrol hauled Grayshadow’s body out of a ditch—”

“Grayshadow is the one behind this! He was here until a few minutes ago, torturing me. Then you showed up instead and now he’s gone to challenge!”

Cyrus strode back the way I’d come. I caught up with him edging around the body of the Were. “I think I’m a little behind on—”

“Yes, you are! Which is why you don’t come charging alone into a maze infested with creatures who have nothing left to lose!”

“I thought we’d settled this. It’s my job.”

“No. Your job is policing the human population. This is Were business. Sebastian had no right—”

“Sebastian had every right! Or am I not part of Arnou?”

Cyrus rounded on me, quietly furious. “You were brought into Arnou for your protection! Not so you can take on an entire gang by yourself!”

“And what about you? I wouldn’t have been here in the first place if you hadn’t decided to take on a Hunter alone!”

“There is no Hunter! And I had no plans to play hero. I was trying to find out who was killing our people. I intended to hand Sebastian any information I discovered and let him deal with it.”

“So what went wrong?”

“Everything,” Cyrus said bitterly. “Starting with my supposed helper. Grayshadow wants leadership of the clan. He hates the alliance with the humans and he’s half insane with ambition. He knows that replacing Sebastian now will not only give him control of Arnou, but will also make him bardric.”

I shook my head. “There must be some mistake. Grayshadow isn’t doing anything these days. We have his body at Central—Sebastian ID’d it for us himself.”

“He ID’d the corpse of a vargulf, an enemy of the gang Grayshadow hired to help with his scheme. The man was once part of Arnou, so he smelled right, and with that much mutilation, who could tell?”

I sorted through the mass of information he’d just dumped on me, and grabbed the biggest nugget. “You’re saying Grayshadow is the Hunter? But he’s a Were.”

“There is no Hunter! Grayshadow used the terror that term holds for us to cover his tracks. If Sebastian had shown up to rescue me, he’d have killed him as he did White Sun and blamed it on the Hunter. Then with both of them dead, he’d waltz into Sebastian’s position with no opposition. He’s my brother’s Third.”

“But Sebastian didn’t show.”

“No, he sent the Corps instead. So Grayshadow has gone with Plan B: to challenge. Sebastian’s inability to stop the Hunter gives him cause. And White Sun was the only warrior Arnou had likely to win against him. No one else will dare take the challenge, meaning Sebastian will be forced to fight himself.”

“I take it you don’t think he can win.”

Cyrus paused at the entrance to the main tu

“If it was?”

“Grayshadow doesn’t want a chance to win,” Cyrus told me grimly. “He wants certainty. And he thinks he’s found a way to get it.”

“The wolf wards.” A few things started to click into place.

“You’ve seen them?”

“I had them in my hand—briefly.”

“Well, Grayshadow has them now. He showed them to me when he returned this afternoon. He wanted to gloat about the fact that while Sebastian might defeat him, he couldn’t take out five wolves at once.”

“Five?”

“Himself and the four wolves he killed. The life force he stole from them will give him unbelievable strength. No way can Sebastian stand against that. No single Were could!”

“That’s why he was at the wardsmith’s,” I guessed. “To pick up the final ward. And once the man had delivered it, he was of no further use. So he killed him and left one of the gang behind to wait for me, to retrieve the rest of the weapons once I tracked the guy down.”

“I don’t know about that. I just know what he plans to do with them now.” Cyrus started for the corridor, but I pulled him back.

“But why did Grayshadow go to all this trouble? If he wants to discredit Sebastian, why didn’t he just tell everyone the truth about you? Sebastian said he knew!”

“Because the only way he becomes bardric is by inheriting the office,” Cyrus said impatiently. “By our laws, the bardric is the chief of the leading clan—in this case, Arnou—whoever that may be. But if a new election is called because Sebastian has lost the chiefs’ respect—which would almost certainly happen if they found out about me—”

“It would go to Whirlwind of Rand.”

“Very likely.”

“So instead of discrediting Sebastian, Grayshadow plans to kill him. But that doesn’t explain what you think you’re going to do.”

Cyrus’s jaw tightened. “Kill him first.”

He changed and slipped out the door so fast, I didn’t even see him go. But I heard Jamie curse and the sound of a knife hitting wood. “Jamie, no!” I hit the main tu

“It’s Cyrus!” I told them.

“That would be more reassuring if his hackles weren’t raised,” Caleb commented.

“And if he wasn’t growling at us,” Jamie added, yanking his knife out of a support beam.

“You just tried to stab him!”

“Well excuse the hell out of me!” Jamie said, livid. “It’s not like the rest of us can tell the difference! One huge hairy beast looks much like—”

Caleb gripped his shoulder. “Don’t go there.”

I belatedly realized that my feet were wet. There was maybe an inch of water in the hall, enough to slosh against the sides when I moved. “What’s going on?”