Magic Strikes(38)

«So as far as he knows, you and your crew went AWOL?»

He nodded.

«Rogue,» Doolittle said. «The correct term is 'rogue.' What the cat isn't telling you is that right

now Curran thinks a good chunk of his security force split from the Pack. He's turning the city

upside down looking for Jim. There is an order out for Jim to contact Curran.»

«I'll call him in the morning,» Jim said.

«Which will only make things worse, because the Beast Lord will give the order to return to the

Keep, and, you see, this young man here will decline.»

Jim growled low in his throat. It bounced from Doolittle like dry peas from a hard wall.

«Now why would you do that?» I stared at Jim.

«I have my reasons,» he said.

«To refuse a direct order is a breach of Pack Law,» Doolittle said. «By tradition, Jim will have

three days to change his mind. And if he doesn't, Curran will have to do what the alpha does when

he is defied.» Doolittle shook his head. «It's a hard thing to contemplate, killing your friend. Bound

to make a man crazy.»

Crazy Curran ranked right up there with monsoons, tornadoes, earthquakes, and other natural

disasters.

I turned to Doolittle. «And you? How did he get you into this mess?»

«We kidnapped him,» Jim said. «In broad daylight with much noise. He's safe from Curran.»

«And right after I got Derek into the tank, I had to treat my kidnappers for injuries.» Doolittle

shook his head. «I didn't take kindly to being shoved into a cart and sat upon.»

Since Jim had gone through all this trouble to set Doolittle up as an innocent victim, Jim must've

expected a shit storm of hurricane proportions when Curran found them.

«I was kidnapped.» Doolittle smiled. «I have little to worry about. But someone who helps Jim

hide from his alpha of her own free will, well, that is a completely different story.»

«Don't you have someplace to be?» Jim's eyes flashed green.

Doolittle got up and rested a heavy hand on my shoulder. «Think before you sign your death

warrant.»

He left the room. It was me and Jim.

In a fight, Curran was death. He'd never liked me. He'd warned me to stay away from the Pack's

power struggles. I'd get no leeway this time.

«Jim?»

He looked at me and I saw it, right there, shining clear through all his mental shields: fear. Jim

was terrified. Not for himself-I'd known him for a long time and threats to his personal well-being

didn't inspire terror in him. He was off balance, as if he'd been knocked down in the dark and had

sprung to his feet, not sure where the next blow would come from.

He had «his reasons,» and I needed to know them. «Tell me why I shouldn't call Curran right

now and blow this whole thing out of the water.»

Jim looked into his glass. Muscles clenched on his arms. A brutal internal battle was taking place

inside him, and I wasn't sure which side was winning.

«Seven years ago, a string of loup infestations hit the Appalachians,» he said. «I had just started

with the Pack. They brought me along as an enforcer. Tennessee let us in right away, but it took

North Carolina two years to decide they couldn't handle that shit on their own. We went in. It's all

mountains. Old Scotch-Irish families, separatists, religious nuts, they all run there and squat on their

own personal mountaintops and then they breed, and their kids set up trailers and cabins right there,

a spit away. People come there to be by themselves. Everybody minds their own business. Nobody

talked to us. Families had gone loup, entire clans, and nobody knew. And sometimes they knew and

didn't do anything about it. You've been to the Buchanan compound. You know what we found.»

Death. They found death and kiddie pools full of blood and half-eaten children. Women and

men, raped, torn to pieces, and raped again, after they were dead. People flayed alive. They found

loups.

«We were combing through Jackson County when the local cops called us. A house had caught

on fire on Caney Fork Road, but none of them wanted to go up there. Claimed Seth Hayes owned

the house and he shot trespassers on sight. Since we were close and would get there faster, could we

please swing by.»

Bullshit. The cops knew Hayes had gone loup. Probably known it for a while. Otherwise why

call shapeshifters about a house fire?

«The place sat on the edge of a damn cliff. Took us an hour to come up on the house. The

building was a ruin by that point. Nothing but charred coal and greasy smoke and that stink. The

loup stink.»

I knew that smell. Thick, musky, sour, it overlaid your tongue with a harsh, bitter patina and