"Not now."
She turned to me. "I don't think I can do this."
"You can," I told her. "You're a survivor."
"You don't know what it's like."
I laughed. It sounded cold. "You're right, I have no idea what it's like to take shit from people I could kill with my eyes closed."
Andrea exhaled. "Okay. Sorry. That was a stupid thing to say. I just ... Argh."
"In the end, Shane doesn't matter," I said. "As long as you avoid him and don't give him an opportunity to hurt you, he's powerless to do anything except lather up some spit. However, if someone were to do something stupid, like shoot at him from some roof one night, we'd have real problems."
"I was a knight," Andrea said. "I'm not just going to start shooting every dickhead who mouths off to me."
"Just making sure."
"Besides, if I shot him, I'd do it so nobody could trace it back to me. I'd shoot him somewhere remote, his head would explode like a melon, and they would never find his body. He would just vanish."
This would be a long climb uphill, I just knew it.
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER WE MADE IT TO THE OFFICE and met Teddy Jo, who was waiting with the freezer in the parking lot. I gave Teddy his down payment, we wrestled the freezer into the back room, and then I spent an hour chanting preservation spells and laying down wards just in case de Harven decided to rise in the middle of the night and have himself another ant party.
It was eight o'clock by the time I turned off the highway to the narrow dirt road leading to the Keep. I was tired and dirty, my leg hurt like a sonovabitch, and I hadn't eaten all day. You'd almost think I was back to working for the Order or something. Except I was working for myself. I could relate to Andrea. My life had been much easier with the Order ID, too; I could bully people into answering my questions, I had access to criminal records, and if I did end up with a body full of ants, the Order would take care of it for me.
Still, I wouldn't trade my small office for anything in the world.
We had a lot of evidence, and none of it made much sense. De Harven had dropped the sleep bomb. That much we knew. The kava kava residue on his hands confirmed it, and we found a gas mask in the corner of the workshop.
He'd deployed the sleep bomb and gone into the workshop. Then something had happened that concluded with his death and Kamen and the device disappearing. Perhaps de Harven had tried to steal the device or harm Adam, and Adam had retaliated by killing him. Except Adam Kamen looked like he would have a hard time baiting a fishhook, while de Harven was a trained killer.
Suppose Adam did somehow best de Harven. Why take the time to sacrifice him? Besides, Adam's r?sum? had `magical theorist' written all over it. Guys like him built complex devices. They wouldn't urinate on the walls, turn the flesh of their attacker into ants, and then disappear into the night with a device weighing upward of three hundred pounds. Pulling off that kind of magic meant complete dedication to the deity to which the sacrifice had been offered. Devotion meant constant worship, and worship required ritual. The guards had never even seen Adam pray.
The cut on de Harven's stomach bothered me. An inverted crow's foot. It had to be a rune. There was no anatomical reason to cut the body that way, and runes were associated with neo-pagan cults and often employed in shamanistic rituals, which was consistent with the magic at the scene. Runes predated the Latin alphabet. Ancient Germanic and Nordic tribes used them for everything, from writing down their sagas and foretelling the future to bringing the dead back to life.
Runology wasn't my strongest suit, but this particular rune I knew very well. Algiz, one of the oldest runes, associated with sedge grass, and Thor, and Heimdall, and a number of other things depending on who you asked and which runic alphabet you used. Algiz had a universal meaning: protection. As a ward, it was completely reactive. It served as a warning or provided a defense, but in any case, Algiz wasn't going to do anything to you until you messed with it. It was the most responsible way for a runic magic user to protect his property, because Algiz would never attack first.
Why put it on a body? It didn't protect the body; it didn't warn anyone of anything. I'd been breaking my brain against it since I had seen it, and I'd come up with nothing. Zip, zilch, zero. And none of the gods from the Norse pantheon were strongly associated with ants.
Something was going on here, something bigger and uglier than it appeared. The fear in Rene's eyes bothered me. It started as a mild concern when I first saw it, getting worse and worse as the day progressed, and now it had matured into a full-blown anxiety. You have a lot of friends, Kate. You have a lot to lose.
Voron's voice surfaced from the depths of my memory. "I told you so." I took a deep breath and tried to exhale my worry. Too late for warnings now. I was Curran's mate and the female alpha of the Pack. The welfare of fifteen hundred shapeshifters was now my responsibility. Whatever storm was brewing in Atlanta, I'd find it and fight it. If it was the price of being with Curran, then I would pay it.
He was worth it.
The Jeep rolled over the huge roots. The road needed clearing again--the thick trees crowded it, like soldiers trying to bar passage to intruders. Magic hated all things technology and gnawed its monuments down to nubs, turning concrete and mortar to dust. Skyscrapers, tall bridges, massive stadiums--the bigger they were, the quicker they fell. The same force that had turned the Georgia Dome to rubble also nourished the forests. Trees sprouted here and there, growing at record speed, as nature scrambled to reclaim the crumbling ruins that were once proud achievements of technological civilization. Underbrush spread, vines stretched, and before you knew it, a fifty-year-old forest rose where ten years ago were only thin saplings, roads, and gas stations. It made life difficult for most people, but the shapeshifters loved it.
The Pack's humble abode really deserved a better name. "Keep" didn't do it justice. It sat in the clearing among the new forest, northeast of the city, rising against the massive trees like a foreboding gray tower of doom. The tower went down for many levels underground. Not satisfied, the shapeshifters kept building on to the Keep, adding walls, new wings, and smaller towers, turning it into a full-fledged citadel of Pack supremacy. As I maneuvered the Pack Jeep to it, I couldn't help but note that the structure was beginning to resemble a castle. Maybe we needed a neon sign to brighten things up. MONSTER LAIR, WIPE YOUR PAWS AND CHECK YOUR SILVER AT THE DOOR.
I drove the Jeep through the massive gates, parked in the inner yard, went inside through a small door, and walked down the narrow claustrophobic hallway. The narrow passages were one of Curran's defensive measures. If you tried to storm the Keep and broke through the gate and the reinforced doors, you would have to fight through a hallway just like this one--three, four men at a time. A single shapeshifter could hold off an army here for hours.