Gunmetal Magic(154)

The wind brought a whiff of hops from Ghastek’s vamp loping next to me. The Vikings had tried to drown it in the barrel of beer and most of its green sunblock had come off, so Ghastek had ended up rolling him in some mud to keep the skin damage to a minimum. The mud had dried to a nasty crust and the vamp looked like something that would come out of Grendel’s tail end.

Grendel had spent most of the fight barking and biting random people and was now smeared with someone’s vomit.

Curran had escaped unscathed, mostly because when people tried to assault him, he punched them once and then they didn’t get up. He walked now next to my horse in his human form, a big smile on his face.

“What?” I asked him.

“Good thing you took the lead on that one,” he said. “It could’ve gone badly and degenerated into a huge brawl.”

“Screw you.”

“Oh, I hope you do, baby.”

In your dreams.

“And that’s why I don’t like visiting the neo-Vikings,” Ghastek said, his voice dry. “They’re an uncivilized, idiotic lot and nothing good ever comes from it.”

“They started it,” Ascanio said.

“Of course they started it,” I growled. “They’re Vikings. That’s what they do.”

Ghastek cleared his throat. “I can’t help but point out that now Dagfinn knows we’re looking for him. He may go into hiding.”

“Dagfinn doesn’t do hiding. If he isn’t involved in this mess, he’ll show up on my doorstep demanding to know what’s going on. If he is involved, he’ll show up on my doorstep, waving his axe and trying to crush skulls. Works either way.”

“So we wait?”

It made me grit my teeth. I’d hoped we’d get a hold of Dagfinn today. Roderick was running out of time, but there wasn’t anything else we could do. “We go home and wait.”





CHAPTER 6




We parted ways with Ghastek and the four of us—Curran, Derek, Ascanio, and I—made our way back to the Keep. Jim waited for us on the stone steps as we rode into the courtyard.

“What happened to you?”

“We went to see the Vikings,” I told him.

“This is nothing,” Curran said. “You should’ve seen what happened to the vampire.”

Jim smiled.

I dismounted and gave The Dude’s reigns to a shapeshifter kid from the stables.

“Some people are here to see you,” Jim told me.

“What people?”

“From the Guild.”

Argh. “Fine. How’s the boy?”

“Doolittle says he’s the same. Your guests are in the second-floor conference room, third door on the left.”

I marched to the second floor. Grendel decided to accompany me. Five people waited in the small reception hallway by the third conference room, guarded by a female shapeshifter. One of them was Mark, the late Solomon Red’s self-appointed successor, and the other four were Bob Carver, Ivera Nielsen, Ken, and Juke, collectively known as the Four Horsemen. Most mercs were loners. Sometimes, when the job demanded it, they paired up the way Jim and I did, but groups of more than two were rare. The Four Horsemen were the exception to the rule. They made a cohesive, strong team. They took rough jobs and finished them efficiently and mostly aboveboard, and they were respected by the rest of the mercs.

The two parties stopped glowering at each other long enough to contemplate my dog.

“What the hell is that?” Bob asked.

“It’s my attack poodle. Did you agree to come here at the same time?”

“Hell no,” Juke said, shaking her head with spiked black hair. “We were here first. He just showed up.”

“I made an appointment,” Mark said. “Once again, you’re bringing your bully tactics to the table.”

“You’re an asshole,” Ken told him.

“And you’re a thug.”

Why me?

This was the first time I’d heard about an appointment. I made a mental note to ask Jim about that and pulled a quarter from my pocket. “Heads.” I pointed to the Four Horsemen. “Mark, you’re tails.”

I flipped the coin into the air and slapped it onto the back of my wrist.

“Tails.” I nodded at Mark. “Let’s go.”

We stepped into the conference room, I shut the door, and we sat at a large table of knotted wood.

“What can I do for you?”

Mark leaned forward. He wore a crisp business suit and a conservative burgundy tie. His dark brown hair was cut in that executive/politician style: not too long, not too short, conservative, neat. His nails were clean and manicured, his chin showed no stubble, and he smelled of masculine cologne. Not overpowering, but definitely detectable.