“Remy?” I started at her voice. “How did you get in here?”
“I have my ways.”
“You were stalking me again, weren’t you?” I squinted at her. “Are you even you?”
“Stop trying to define that which defies definition.”
“That sounds like a no.”
“I’m Six.” She walked closer. “Happy?”
“I’m trapped in a circle with a giant bug in a warehouse full of giant bugs, so not really, no.”
“You forgot him.” She jerked her chin toward Ambrose. “Hello, beastie. Fat and happy, are we?”
Ambrose ignored her and curled into a ball on the concrete.
“He took down the roach.” I shrugged. “He’s digesting.”
“I hear Bishop is on his way with a truck, so what do you need from me?”
“Ideally, I would like to pack up this nice, sedate Martian Roach for Abbott before the sentinels arrive to kill the rest.”
“Except the building is surrounded by giant bugs, so there’s no way that’s happening.”
“I said ideally.”
“Realistically?”
“Can you bring all yourselves here? Between them, Bishop, and me, we should be able to load this guy into the truck after the smoke clears. I’ll tell them we need the body for testing, which we do. I’ll just neglect to mention it’s still alive.”
“That could work.” She tugged on a piercing in her ear. “But I’m not out to Bishop.”
There was nothing I could trade her about him in kind. The geas prevented it. His secrets were his own to share or not. But she had seen where I took him, and who had taken him in. She might suspect the truth of his nature based on that alone. I wasn’t sure how aware fae were of one another. It’s not like necromancers could tell species from a glance, except when it came to vampires, but that was a result of the necromantic magic used to animate them. That’s what we picked up on, an active casting, basically. A long-term spell with a generous, but definite, expiration date.
“I’m not going to force you out.” It wasn’t my place. “What if he drops off the van, and you and me handle it?”
“How pissed are you about the Linus thing?”
The change in topic threw me. “I am both excited and terrified for the opportunity.”
“So, you’re not going to fire me?”
“Uh, no.” I couldn’t believe she would ask. “You got us into this mess. You’re going to get us out of it.”
A tentative smile teetered on her mouth. “You’ve been nicer to me than anybody has been in…a long time.”
“You were down on your luck when we met.” I slid my gaze toward Ambrose. “I know how it feels when you stumble and fall, but you can’t get up no matter how hard you try.” I frowned. “There are times in life when the only way to climb out of the hole you’ve dug for yourself is to have someone throw you a rope. You still have to pull yourself out, but at least you’ve got an anchor waiting for you at the top.”
“I tried to kill your man, and I’m not saying I’m over the impulse.”
“As long as you don’t act on the impulse, we’re good.”
“I can probably restrain myself from murdering him.” She cocked her head, considering. “As long as you give me a raise proportionate to my contributions to the company.”
“You’re asking for a partnership, aren’t you?”
“Oh. Hmm. A partnership?” She tapped her chin. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Yeah.” I snorted a laugh. “Seems to me, you’ve thought of everything.”
The world had indeed flipped upside down when I was handing off a business on the verge of becoming. I had invested years to earn my MBA, and I was turning over my franchised empire to a fae without any qualifications aside from wit and determination.
“Think on it.” She danced away a few steps. “Back in a few.”
There was nothing to think about, really. I struggled to run a mall kiosk and keep my head above water on the potentate front. There was no way I could manage more than one kiosk, let alone a store. This was Remy’s passion fueling an old dream of mine.
The surrealness of it struck me, that I was getting a thing I had always wanted only to discover I didn’t want it anymore. My world had been so small and certain back when I thought earning a respectable degree for a Low Society woman that would guarantee me a respectable job and a respectable match would earn my parents’ approval. Only after I realized that would never happen had I reached for bigger dreams that turned my life into a nightmare.
Now I had trouble picturing a life where that kind of work fulfilled me. Perhaps because it never had, but I had bought into the idea for so long I had been afraid to let it die until Ambrose helped me kill my old life.
The wail of sirens alerted me to the approach of the sentinels in their APD squad cars, the better to make this seem like a routine police raid and not a magical mutant shootout, which, now that I thought about it, would make an awesome movie title.
Used to the routine, I raised my hands to show they were empty and that I was not a threat. Most of them recognized me, but there was always a risk of a new hire getting trigger-happy before they determined I was one of the good guys.
And how wild was that? One of the good guys. That was me, all right.
Gunfire erupted all around, and insectoid screeches gave me a good idea of the formation the APD was using to infiltrate the building. Low Society necromancers rarely had any magic, and it wasn’t the type of magic you could fling at someone or something anyway. It required tools and preparation. It was all but worthless in a fight. But guns with armor-piercing rounds, which I suggested after the OPA’s first encounter with the Martian Roaches, worked just fine.
“Clear,” a woman called, and she was answered by several other voices. “What the actual hell, Whitaker?”
A short woman in black tactical armor with a vicious-looking firearm in each hand entered the building.
“Hey, Lizzy.” I lowered my arms. “Long time, no see.”
Lizzy Frommel was the pack’s liaison with the Atlanta Police Department. She was a lawyer, but she was also an enforcer. Kind of like Rambo but with a degree. She represented gwyllgi in police custody and made arrangements with the undercover sentinels to ensure justice was served outside human law.
Between her, my Lisbeth, and Ares’s Liz, I had a Liz adjacent overload in my life.
“It’s been a week, tops.” She kept her fingers on the triggers, and her eyes in the darkened corners. “What have you gotten yourself into this time?”
The tone recalled my insecurities about what Ares must have said to Midas to provoke the response I had overheard, but I couldn’t let it get to me here or now. I couldn’t go through life suspecting everyone wanted me out of the picture. I mean, that might be the case, but I couldn’t let it matter.
“You heard about Faete?”
“Your office sent mine a dossier, so yeah.”
“Well, here’s your origin.” I swept my arm out to encompass the destruction. “Don’t let these things bite you.”