MacRieve (Immortals After Dark) (9 page)

“The clan just got a message at the den,” Rónan said. “A Lore-wide alert. There’s to be an auction at the demon crossroads at midnight, hosted by the House of Witches.”

Witches. Devious creatures.

Rónan read from the paper:
“Members of the Pravus Rule and the Vertas League are both welcome to bid on this capture, a female who will have tactical value against a common enemy.”

Wide-eyed, Will exclaimed, “Someone was captured? No shite? Wonder what that’s like!”

Munro asked, “Who’s the female?”

Rónan raised his brows.
“The highest wire transfer will win that which all the Lore covets. . . .”

“Chillin’ by the fire while we eatin’ fondue,”
crooned Justin Bieber.
“I dunno about me but I know about you. . . .”

About an hour ago, Chloe had awakened on the floor of an RV to the tunes of J.B.—with a strip of cloth gagging her mouth and shackles around her wrists and ankles. The RV was strewn with Mardi Gras beads and the air outside smelled of marsh and jasmine. She was definitely no longer in Seattle.

Because her front doorstep had been replaced with a trapdoor to hell.

Three teenage girls were inside the RV with her, listening to the music, doing their makeup, stepping over Chloe with little regard. For the most part they looked human. One was a Scandi-looking blonde, one a pale brunette, one a willowy Asian—all pretty, like post-modern Charlie’s Angels.

But Chloe sensed something was
off
about this trio. There was an eerie grace to their movements, and their eyes seemed to flicker under different lights.

Once she’d roused, two realizations had struck Chloe: Detrus were totally real. And she was about to suffer at their hands. She’d started struggling against her bonds, trying to squeeze her contorted hand through one manacle.

Earlier the three had cracked open wine coolers to celebrate their catch. “We are the tanda of twenty-thirteen!” the brunette said.

Tanda?

“This is our year!” the Asian beauty said. “Our auction will be talked about for eternity!”

Was Chloe about to be . . . auctioned?

“Long live the House of Witches!” They all clinked bottles.

Witches.
Going to vomit.
The
Book of Lore
said that Wiccae were mystical mercenaries, obsessed with amassing wealth. They sold their spells and tonics—and apparently, they weren’t above human trafficking.

But then, Chloe wasn’t quite human, was she?

Rub some dirt on it, rub some dirt on it.
She realized that her optimism had gotten benched tonight, and might never return to the game.

She could only conclude that the Order was real, her dad’s mission was real, and he’d made some immortal enemies carrying it out. Having met some of these detrus, Chloe wished Dad all the success in the world with his extermination endeavor.

Except she was one. That house of cards had come tumbling down.
Time to face facts, Chlo.
If detrus existed, then she was transforming into one of them.

Because her mom had been one. Chloe’s eyes widened. Her mother could never have passed away from cancer! That had been just a cover story. So how
had
she died?

I need answers!
Filled with impotent frustration, she yelled against her gag, “Ey! Elp a itch out! Ake is ag ov!”

The witches ignored her, turning up the stereo. She cringed when yet another Bieber song pumped away. Great, she’d been captured by fucking Beliebers.

They planned to sell her at auction? When “Beauty and a Beat” played for the fifth time, Chloe decided she was ready for the block.

With a huff, she renewed her struggles. If she could get free, she could yank up that removable table—the one with all the old wads of teenage-witch gum stuck to the underside—and use it as a weapon.

The RV door opened, revealing a young black-haired female with luminous brown eyes. Definitely not human; no one’s hair could possibly be that glossy without Photoshop.

She had a clipboard in hand, a walkie-talkie attached to her belt, and a backpack slung over her shoulders. The others greeted her with a chorus of “Belee!”

At the sight of the wine coolers, this Belee’s shoulders stiffened and a weird electricity began to fill the air. “Drinking on the job?” The RV briefly shook as the other girls scrambled to dump their drinks.

Alpha-bitch alert. If this was a team, Chloe had just met the playmaker.

Belee’s walkie-talkie hissed.
“Bee, you said there might be a few hundred people here tonight,”
another girl’s voice said. An audible swallow sounded over the line.
“We’ve got about five thousand, and they’re still filing in. What are we going to do?”

Five. Thousand.

“Hellooo, then start charging for admission,” Belee snapped. “You’re acting like this is your first rodeo.”

“It
is.
We’re worried. If Mari and Carrow find out, they’ll bring the heat,”
she added in a
Mom and Dad’ll bust the party
tone.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have added that last part to the auction announcement.”

“What last part?” Belee asked.

“That they had to forward the message to ten other people or something bad would happen to them.”

Chloe rolled her eyes.
You have got to be kidding me.

Belee pursed her lips. “Mari and Carrow are deep in the bush, offplane for all we know. They’ll find out
after
we’ve staged this coup! Belee out.”

The walkie-talkie continued transmitting. Two girls spoke:

“Belee scares me.”

“All the transfer students from Blåkulla do. What do you think that coven must be like?”

Blåkulla? Chloe had never read about that.

Belee radioed: “Your transmitter’s still on, idiot!” After gazing up at the ceiling for patience, she turned to Chloe, telling no one in particular, “The package isn’t displayed as well as it could be.”

I’m the package? Kill her!

From her backpack, the witch produced a white, nearly transparent nightgown.

Chloe preferred to wear loose jerseys, looser shorts. Now she was supposed to wear a see-through gown?

Belee appraised her with a critical eye. “Pretty face.”

Chloe wanted to spit in hers.

“Shame to cover it up, but . . .” From her pack, Belee also drew out a black silk bag. “We need to remind everyone why we’re here, Daughter of Webb.”

“At’s no mi na!”

“It
is
your name. You just didn’t know it. Your father, Dustin Todd, is also known as Preston Webb. The commander of the Order. You’re the daughter of the most hated man in all the Lore. . . .”

SEVEN

I never scented him,” Will muttered with a chin jerk toward a centaur in the distance, past row after row of parked cars at the demon crossroads. Centaurs aligned with the Pravus, the evil side of the Lore.

“Probably because I dialed down your nose,” Munro said, his mood improved. Tonight they’d received a lead on Webb, a daughter of his for sale. Which meant there was
possibility
, after weeks of nothing.

Munro had a bloody spring in his step.

The centaur in question had a nymph pressed up against the side of a sports car and was rutting her with zero-to-sixty thrusts.

The ride was a Mustang. Fitting.

“We’re no’ to fight them,” Munro said. “From the sound of it, there’s an honest-to-gods truce going on tonight.” Not far in the distance, they heard scores of immortals peaceably milling.

As they strode by the couple, Munro muttered in Gaelic, “Did one—or both—of us do that nymph?”

“Odds are,” Will said casually, though he made a point of remembering, so that he never bedded the same one twice.

Twice was too close to three times, and to this day, he had a phobia about that.

Munro’s question was answered when the nymph waved happily at the brothers; the centaur shot them killing looks and thrust more aggressively. Between his angry shoves, she gasped: “Hi, guys . . . unh, see you . . . unh, later?”

“Ah, sure thing, sweet,” Munro said.

Nymphs were easy and pleasant bed sport, seeking nothing but mutual pleasure. Unlike seed-feeding succubae.

Munro told Will, “Perhaps a comely nymph is just what you need to get back in the saddle? I know it’s been weeks for you.”

Try months.

“You could burn off some . . . aggression?”

Munro also knew all about Will’s many sexual hang-ups and peculiarities. Though Will had long since recognized his “relationship” with Ruelle for what it was—a violation of a young mind and body, a nightmare—the scars remained.

“I’ve no time for that. Come on, we’re late.” Will had taken scant seconds to change, plucking clothes from his floor, an array of garments that appeared less worn/dirty than others. “It’s nearly midnight.”

Munro had driven his brand-new Range Rover turbo here, topping the thing out on old Louisiana county roads. “Does no’ matter if we’re late,” he said. “I doubt we can win this auction. I could only drum up a million-dollar wire on such short notice. And the lowest number on the witches’
bidding app
—I shite you no’—was one mil.”

“What good is it to be rich if we canna scrape up the scratch to buy a political prisoner on a whim?”

Past a line of pecan trees lay a wide-open field packed with Loreans. Understandable. Webb had upended countless lives, and this capture was the first lead on him since the prison break.

As Will and Munro strode into the crowd, they saw all manner of immortal species, even a few gypsy and berserker humans who lived on the fringe of the Lore.

Most immortals here belonged to one of the two major alliances, Pravus and Vertas. Amazingly, the temporary truce between them
was
holding. But then, they had a common enemy: the Order.

The brothers passed a group of young Vertas shifters—fox, wolverine, and cheetah—that Will recognized from the island. While the Pravus shifters were predominantly reptilian, the Vertas were most often mammalian.

One of these pups called out, “Mr. MacRieve!” and they all turned and gazed at Will as if he were some goddamned hero. He scowled at them and turned away. He might have organized them and saved their lives—as Nïx had predicted—but only to save his own arse.

He’d fought to live solely for revenge.

Aside from the alliances, there were the neutral factions like the nymphs, who were likely only present to scope out new bedmates—from both sides. A gaggle of them cooed, “Hot and Hotter!” to Will and Munro, trying to get their attention.

Will muttered, “I really fuckin’ hate that.” He crossed his arms over his chest, found a new hole in his shirt.

Munro nodded. “Hate it—beyond the telling of it. But you do know I’m Hotter, right?”

“No’ even on your best day,
bràthair.
”

They spotted a few more Vertas allies: the fey, Furies, Valkyries, and behorned members from some of the solid demonarchies.

There were at least as many Pravus members: soldiers from dark demonarchies, Sorceri, nearly two dozen centaurs, and countless Cerunnos—giant snakelike humanoids that were as fast as lightning and just as deadly. Crocodilae and viper shifters abounded.

Will followed Munro, surveying the sea of Loreans for succubae. What if they were here tonight? Seed-feeders were Pravus as well.

Then I’ll be jeopardizing this truce directly.
Because nothing would stop him from killing any he came across. Just as he’d done for all his life. To date, he’d ended twenty-four.

When a witch passed close by him, his hackles rose. There were several scurrying around with headsets, as if they were on a trading floor. “Phone bidders?” Will glowered in one’s direction. If his Instinct were intact, it’d warn: —
Guard yourself.
—

Their cousin Bowe might have married Mariketa the Awaited, the leader of the grand mercenary House of Witches; didn’t mean the rest of the clan had overcome the Instinct’s constant cautions against Wiccae.