Chapter 16

Chapter

Sixteen

If I'd thought the NDA clause of Matthias's contract with the Court was a problem for our strategy for dealing with the vamps, that was nothing compared to Arkady's reaction. Matthias's refusal to disclose its contents blew up their truce three minutes into our meeting.

"God damn it, Matthias," Arkady said, swinging her feet down off my desk so she could sit up in my chair and glare at him. "Those fangy fuckers are trying to kill you . For shit's sake, if that doesn't wake you up, what will?"

For his report to us, Matthias had chosen to stand at attention near the bar in our office, his hands folded behind his back, as if we were his former employers. "I am very awake," he rumbled. "I gave my word of honor. What is my word worth if I choose when and where to keep it?"

Sean and I exchanged a glance. I'd let Arkady keep her seat at my desk when we began our meeting and taken a spot on the couch while Sean stayed at his desk. Sean had his hard alpha mask on, but the hard set of his jawline told me he shared Arkady's feelings. He stayed quiet, however. Maybe he thought she had the best chance of getting through to Matthias.

As usual, Arkady showed absolutely no sign of backing down. "Call me crazy, but the Court broke its word to you the minute Charles Vaughan decided he wanted you dead."

"I have a feeling Court contracts are one-way streets, though," I said.

She flicked an angry look in my direction. "Sure, Court contracts are extremely self-serving, especially the kind Matthias signed. But there are provisions in that contract that stipulate his life and service has value to the Court. They are obliged to protect him—even if it's only to avoid wasting Court resources ." She put air quotes around the latter.

Matthias studied her. "How do you know what may or may not be in the kind of contract I signed?" I noticed he very carefully didn't admit or deny what she said was true.

"Really?" She snorted. "You know me well enough to know I find out all kinds of stuff I'm not supposed to know. I know the broad strokes of your agreement and gave that information to Alice's hunky lawyer. I wish I'd been able to dig up a copy of your actual contract. I'd give it to Sean and Alice so they didn't have to put up with your bullshit and misplaced loyalty."

He started to object, but she rose and marched over to him. "Alice saved your life, when ninety-nine people out of a hundred would have let you die when that mansion collapsed," she said, poking him in the shoulder. "On top of that, this pack is offering you freedom, a family, love, and protection. That is a million times more than the vamps would ever do."

"You are not listening to me." Matthias leveled a full-on werewolf stare at her, but she didn't even blink when his eyes glowed amber. "This is not a matter of loyalty or a debate over who treats me better. It's a matter of my word. And even if I was willing to break my word, which I am not , violating my NDA is a serious crime under vampire law. I would be subject to imprisonment on that alone. "

"Who's to say you told us anything?" she pointed out. "Every organization has leaks. The Vamp Court is no exception. ‘Unidentified sources' gave us the information. Boom. Done."

Speaking of unidentified sources, maybe Moses could get us the information we need , I thought. He was already snooping around Charles and the Court. What was one extra phone call?

Immediately after I thought that, I reconsidered. It was one thing for Moses to offer assistance without being prompted; asking him for favors was something else entirely. At this stage in our working relationship, I didn't feel comfortable asking him for anything outright.

"I don't mean to bring up old news, but this is why we couldn't stay together," Arkady said, interrupting my internal debate and drawing my attention back to their argument. "Your blind loyalty. Your absolute deference. Your inability to see grays because you think in black and white. Honestly, I hoped everything you've been through would have gotten it through your thick skull that you don't mean shit to the vamps and never have. Your value to them was only ever what you could do for them. I'm sorry you believe their bullshit, because you are worth a hell of a lot more than that. Alice and Sean and I can see it. Why the fuck can't you?"

Arkady had her back to me so I couldn't see her face, but I heard the slightest crack in her voice just then. They might've been "old news," but she still cared about him. He felt the same way, because his expression softened, just a little.

But if I'd hoped Arkady might be able to get him to talk, I was destined for disappointment. "I am sorry," Matthias said. "But I can't tell you the conditions of my contract."

For a moment I thought Arkady would take a swing at him. Matthias eyed her warily. He might be twice her size but she could knock him down if she decided to. I'd seen her flatten enforcers before. And werewolves too, for that matter.

Instead, Arkady stomped back to my chair, sat down, and thumped her boots back on my desk with enough force that I winced. She crossed her ankles and glared at Matthias. "Fine, asshole. We'll figure out how to save your bacon, with or without your help." She pulled out one of her tactical knives and flipped it in the air end over end to catch the handle each time. I knew how sharp that blade was and it took all my power not to ask her to stop.

I'd come to the same conclusion as Arkady while Matthias and I had talked on the deck. Between the geas and the NDA, he wasn't able to assist very much in his own defense. That put the burden on us.

If I considered the Court indictment and Matthias's situation to be a case, our newest pack member was essentially a reluctant client who didn't want to spill his secrets but still needed our help. Far from an ideal situation, but not the worst problem I'd had to deal with as a mage PI.

Thinking about this as a case switched some gears in my head. "We've been reactive," I said. "Given this all came out of nowhere, that's not a surprise. But as of this moment, I'm done reacting. We're going on the offense."

"I agree." Arkady caught her knife one final time and returned it to the sheath in her boot. "And I think we start by unraveling two things: Matthias's geas and what the fuck is going through Charles Vaughan's head."

Matthias's expression darkened. "There is no unraveling a geas ."

She pointed at him. "False. There is always a way to unravel a geas . The key is in the wording. We just need a copy of it and smart people to figure out the magic words to unlock it. How did they get you to agree to it? The usual way?"

"Wait, he agreed to it?" I asked. "And what do you mean, the usual way?"

"If it's a geas , he had to agree to it," she said, ignoring Matthias's scowl. "It's a contract, not a curse. You can't slap one on someone like it's a parking ticket under a windshield wiper. The usual way the Court gets people to agree is to have them read their contract aloud, state that they agree to it, and give their full name. They think they're just formalizing their agreement with the Court in some fancy ceremony. And they are, but that's not all that's going on. Hidden in the wording of the contract is the geas . By speaking it aloud, agreeing to its terms, and giving their full name, they're accepting the geas whether they know it or not. And by the time that first pain hits and the spell kicks in, it's too late."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Matthias clench his fists. Uh-oh. It looked like Arkady had hit the nail on the head.

"So they tricked him," Sean said, his voice a low growl. "Dishonorably and maliciously."

"Probably." She kept her tone businesslike. A man like Matthias wouldn't want sympathy, even hers—or maybe especially not hers.

"What about the unraveling part?" I asked.

"Here's where it gets interesting. Basically, as a contract, a geas encourages adherence to its terms by promising rewards for obeying it and threatening suffering if you don't. And how do you get out of a contract?"

"You find the loopholes," Sean said.

"Bingo." She gave him a little salute. "Or in this case, find the loose thread to unravel it. The key is in the wording, which is why we need a copy of the actual contract and somebody who knows this kind of magic and can figure out where the loopholes or the magic words are."

I crossed my arms. "If it's a contract, then it binds both parties, right? So the Court has to have a way to end it if they needed to."

Arkady waggled her fingers at me. "Magic words."

Damn it, now we really needed that contract. How could we get our hands on it?

Again, I thought of Moses. Ten minutes ago I'd talked myself out of asking him for help, but now I was rethinking my position. If it's a business deal, what's the harm? I reasoned. After all, we had a partnership. I could offer him something in return. A favor for a favor.

Sean would not like the idea of asking Moses for help one bit, but his anger at the news that the Court had bound Matthias into this geas against his will, or at least by trickery, meant he wanted Matthias freed from its conditions. In fact, as Matthias's alpha, Sean was a protector first, and now he knew this geas had Matthias trapped like a net.

"While you think about that," Arkady continued, "Let's get back to figuring out what the hell Charles Vaughan is plotting. We know he's virtually locked Northbourne Manor down. Most of my usual sources of info are either dead or incommunicado. Vaughan went scorched earth as soon as Valas croaked."

"Scorched earth is right," I said. "I would have thought he'd give at least some of Valas's people who'd been with the Court a long time the chance to swear allegiance, but apparently not. Even Ezekiel Monroe wasn't safe."

She raised an eyebrow. "Where'd you hear that?"

I couldn't very well say Moses told me, so I said blandly, "Unnamed sources."

"Touché. Anyway, what I've got is pretty fucking grim." She outlined some of the same information I'd gotten from my grandfather last night, including Charles's intentions to stack the Court with toadies and protect himself with a small army of dhampirs.

"He's setting the tone for his regime," Arkady said. "But in my opinion, this strategy of mercilessly wiping out anyone who was loyal to Valas and brutally squashing even the slightest hint of dissent is going to bite him right on his undead ass."

"For all her faults, Valas was old enough and smart enough to understand that a stable regime has to tolerate some dissent on key issues," Sean said. "Debate and different perspectives have value too."

"An echo chamber of people who think alike, or simply think and do as they're told, is about as stable as a two-legged chair," Arkady said. "The whole thing might work for a little while, but all it will do is breed resistance, not loyalty. In the end, whether it's next week, next year, or a decade down the road, he'll end up as ash."

I didn't want to care whether Charles ended up as ash, but I did. Even after I'd found out he'd betrayed me by subtly influencing me for years in hopes of getting me into his bed, not to mention turning me into a weapon in his arsenal, I still cared. I was such an idiot sometimes.

Speaking of Charles's arsenal… "What do you know about Charles's consort Morgan Clark and the rest of the Silver Thorn coven?" I asked. "What role are they playing in all this?"

"About what you'd expect," Arkady said. "The witches have thrown themselves wholeheartedly into the work of offing Vaughan's enemies, or potential enemies. Morgan in particular seems to be enjoying herself."

Ugh. More good news. As if a black witch needed more of an excuse to hurt people.

"What exactly is the relationship between Vaughan and Morgan Clark?" Sean wanted to know. "He named her his consort to get the coven to back him in the coup, but I can't picture Morgan's mother Bridget, the coven High Priestess, being content to stay in the back seat for long."

"You're right about that." Arkady took a drink of coffee and glared at the mug, apparently for having the audacity to not keep her coffee at the perfect drinking temperature. "This is one of the areas where I'm having trouble getting reliable intel. The vibe is that as soon as there's any kind of threat to Vaughan, whether it's real or perceived, Morgan and her mommy are going to use that as leverage."

"Which I'm sure Charles knows." I shook my head. "He's going to rue the day he got in bed with the witches—both literally and figuratively."

"It's a fucking bloody mess," Arkady said with a sigh. "There hasn't been a coup like this in a North American vampire court for a long time. The vamps want stability as a general rule."

"How are the other vampire courts reacting?" I wondered aloud. "I know enough about Elizabeth of the Chicago Court and Lucien of the Court of New Orleans to think they aren't happy. Elizabeth and Valas in particular go way back. "

I sensed Malcolm cross the house wards. A moment later, he appeared in the office and floated over near me. He seemed less morose, so that eased my worry.

"Hey, everybody," he said. "Your favorite dead guy is here."

Sean's eyes glowed, but said he nothing.

"What's up, Ghost Boy?" Arkady said. "Anyway, to answer your question, Alice, the Courts usually stay out of each other's business because, as you know, they don't want other Courts sticking their noses into their own affairs. However, nobody likes to think their authority or life might be endangered, so they're watching this situation very closely."

"And watching their own Courts even more closely," Malcolm said. "Somebody might get ideas."

"Exactly." She raised her coffee mug in his direction. "It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the closest Courts released carefully worded statements that stop just short of condemning Vaughan's actions. What action they'll actually take is anybody's guess. I don't see any of the other Courts attacking, especially when there's no chance of restoring Valas to her seat. It might be different if Valas was still kicking around. Then they'd have something to fight for."

"Good thing she's toast, I guess," Malcolm said. "I mean, Charles sucks, but I think all-out war would suck more. Pun totally intended."

Pain lanced through my head and became a throbbing sensation behind my eyes. I flinched and rubbed my temples.

"What's wrong?" Sean asked.

"Headache." I grimaced and looked into my empty coffee mug. "I don't think I've had enough caffeine."

"How much water have you had in the last few days?" Arkady asked accusingly.

"There's water in coffee," I protested.

She confiscated my mug and headed for the kitchen. "You could bring me both water and coffee," I hollered.

"I didn't hear the magic word," she called back .

I sighed and massaged my temples. "Please?"

Sean joined me on the couch and took my hand. "Fainting, nightmares, and now a bad headache seemingly out of nowhere," he said. "Do we still think this is all just stress?"

"I think so." I rolled my neck and shoulders. "There's a fine line between reasonable concern and whatever the word is for being paranoid that you're on the wrong end of bad magic."

"Hypo-magic-ondria?" Malcolm suggested. "Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue."

Sean turned his golden gaze in Malcolm's direction. "I don't think this is the time for jokes."

Malcolm floated back and forth and didn't reply. Only I could see the way he looked at Sean: part hurt and part irritated.

Arkady broke the tension when she returned from the kitchen with a large bottle of water and two cups of coffee. When I reached for my mug, she held it out of my reach and shoved the bottle into my hand. "You drink half of this first."

I scowled. "That's extortion."

"I know. I'm a bitch." She handed Sean my mug and returned to my desk. "Anyway, we were talking about the other courts. I think a lot is going to depend on how Charles approaches them in terms of diplomacy. He'll have to establish diplomatic relations soon, if he hasn't already done so. It's gonna be real touchy for a long time, even best-case scenario."

"Why would anyone even want the job of being head of the Court?" Malcolm asked, somewhat rhetorically. "I mean, I get the power thing, but every word you say or don't say, and everything you do or don't do, has a million possible consequences. It sounds exhausting. And to take over by force like this? It multiplies all that by a thousand. Charles will never have a moment of peace or safety. It just seems…dumb."

I had to chuckle at that, though my head hurt and none of the others seemed to find Malcolm's observation funny. "He must have thought it was worth it," I said. "For the power. "

We all sat with that for a minute. I downed my prescribed amount of water and retrieved my coffee mug from Sean.

Matthias had stayed silent for so long that when he spoke, I jumped. "The Silver Thorn coven poses a significant threat to Charles Vaughan," he said. "They're positioned closest to him. He'll probably have something in place that protects himself, but it might not be enough."

"Thought you couldn't say anything, Mr. Suddenly Chatty," Arkady said. "Changed your mind?"

"No. But even if I can't reveal what I know from my time at the Court, I can still reason based on available evidence."

"How very generous of you." She made a rolling gesture. "Any more pearls of wisdom?"

"Have you considered why Vaughan served the pack with the indictments, other than to reclaim me?" Matthias asked.

Arkady, Sean, and I exchanged glances. Malcolm looked puzzled as well. "I mean, other than the obvious?" I asked.

Matthias raised his eyebrows and waited for us to get it.

"Oh," I said. "It's not obvious at all, is it?"

"Not in my opinion." Matthias regarded us. "Vampires have been known to initiate a transaction or alliance with an attack. It's a way of testing your opponent and opening lines of communication."

My mouth fell open. "This mess is Charles trying to make a deal?"

"I don't know if that is the case, and I say that in all honesty," Matthias said. "But it's a perspective I suggest you consider."

"What the ever-loving hell would Charles think he could get from the pack by suing us and threatening to throw Sean and Alice in prison?" Malcolm demanded. "Or by leaning on the Were Ruling Council?"

Matthias's gaze went to me.

"Oh, hell no." I stood up. Headache or not, I wasn't going to deal with this sitting down. "He's not getting me. I have made that abundantly clear. "

"Have you ever known a rejection to dissuade a vampire?" Matthias asked. "You have strong magic and great skill, as well as power and influence. You walk in more than one world, both literally and figuratively. I think you underestimate your value to someone in his position."

"Careful with all that flattery," Malcolm said, in an attempt to lighten the mood. "You'll make her conceited."

Matthias wasn't about to be distracted, however. "He may know more about you than you think. This is only more reasoning on my part, but as your pack develops your strategy for responding to the indictments, you should take all of this into consideration too."

" Our pack," I corrected him. "As if Charles is going to get anything from me. Or us. Or the Council."

"Knowledge is always power," Matthias reminded us. "If this is his way of initiating something, you need to know what's on the table. What he wants, and what he'll give."

"And what he'll try to take," Sean snarled. His fury had built steadily since Matthias had suggested the indictments were possibly a vampire version of an icebreaker. "He only ever takes. We know that as well as anyone. He's taken, and taken, and taken from Alice. He's not going to take one more damn thing."

The pain in my head, almost forgotten, came roaring back. I flinched. "Damn it." I sat on the couch and rubbed my temples. Of all the times to have a splitting headache.

Meanwhile, something Matthias had said bothered me. "What did you mean when you said Charles might know more about me than I think?" I asked. "What do you think he might know?"

"I can't speak to what Vaughan does or doesn't know," Matthias said.

Maybe I'd gotten better at reading Matthias's eyes or body language, but suddenly I felt certain there was a specific reason he'd suggested Charles knew something. "Matthias, I need you to tell me what you think Charles knows."

"I can't," he said. "The geas . "

"You implied Vaughan knows something, and you did it on purpose." Sean's eyes glowed bright gold. "If you can do that, you can give us more."

Matthias barely had a chance to shake his head. In a blink, Sean crossed the room, grabbed Matthias by the neck, and dragged him from the office. Two distinctive kinds of shifter magic surged from the direction of the living room, followed by blood-curdling snarls. I recognized both Sean's and Matthias's wolves in the sound.

Oh no. No, no, no.

Glass shattered. The wards tingled and the house shook. The fight was on.