Chapter Forty-Three

Jacken rammed a clip intohis M-16 rifle, then glanced at Nyko, seated next to him on the passenger side of the Pathfinder. "You ready?"

Nyko had an M-249 "SAW" machine gun propped between his legs, a huge motherfucking weapon for a huge motherfucking man, but as Nyko peered down at it, he frowned forlornly. "I'm much better with knives, you know."

Weren't they all. The warriors had only, er, borrowed these U.S. military weapons from a shipment headed for the Marine Corps Base at Camp Pendleton for the rare times they required firepower. "I just need you to look like a sociopathic Godzilla, Nyko. Point the damned thing at –" Movement in the rearview mirror snagged Jacken's attention. A black stretch limousine was pulling into the gloomy, underground parking garage. "They're here." He twisted around to glance at the men in the backseat. "You two ready to rock?"

Sedge blew a Bubble Gum bubble and lazily snapped it, his own M-16 cradled in his lap.

Dev had an M-4, a rifle similar to the M-16, but with a shorter barrel, gripped in his hands. His pointy smile spoke volumes.

Jacken shifted his gaze to the man wedged between the protective muscle in the middle seat. "Roth?"

"Of course," Roth replied. Only two words, but they cut like honed steel.

Yeah, he'd say so, then. Over Dev's shoulder, Jacken saw four men climb out of the limo. One was that trigger-happy mutt from the shoot-out at the Water Cliffs, black flames slithering up his jaw. The other three Jacken had never seen before, but they were all black-haired, tall, beefy, and to a man looked like the types who strangled kittens and drowned puppies just for shits and giggles. One's hair was cut into a viciously spiked mohawk – not that he needed help in the menacing department – another had a scar tugging his upper lip into a permanent sneer, and the fourth was sporting black flame tattoos up both arms from his elbows to underneath the short sleeves of his T-shirt. Scar Lip and Mohawk's requisite black flames must lie elsewhere on their bodies, nowhere Jacken had a need to see, thank you very fucking much.

They were armed for a damned street war, most with Uzis and Glocks; Scar Lip had an AK-47 assault rifle. An interesting amount of hardware to be carrying for a business deal that all parties had agreed would go down "non-violently" as an "act of good faith" between races.

Roth snorted softly. "It appears that nobody trusts anybody."

Roth had that right. "Stay tight on your game," Jacken ordered his warriors, hopping out of the Pathfinder. "The shit could hit easily with these fuck nuggets."

He prowled to the end of the car and took up a wide-legged stance across from the four Half-R?u, his M-16 held nose-down. Roth stood beside him, Sedge and Dev flanking the two of them a little behind.

They all waited.

The garage was silent as a tomb; no keys jangled, no engines cranked over, no footsteps echoed out. No one was around. Anything at all could go down here and the world would never know.

Scar Lip finally broke the silence. "Bring Murk." The two words sliced cold and hard, edged with barely-suppressed violence.

"No," Jacken returned. "We have matters to settle first. Tell your leader to stop sucking down caviar and join the party."

The limousine door swung open again and a well-polished shoe emerged, then a sleek pant-leg, and finally the rest of a man, tall, elegantly dressed. "Debonair," chicks would call a guy like this, or "silver fox" with his thick, silver-blonde hair and steely cheekbones. Jacken would call him a damned meteorite. The intensity of power coming off him filled the entire garage, an electrical current that surged and ebbed through Jacken's body as if electrodes had been attached to his 'nads and some kids were fooling around and rapidly turning the switch on and off.

Roth stiffened. Apparently, his 'nads weren't having a jolly time, either.

Mr. Elegant headed across the garage, the heels of his dress shoes tapping sharply on the concrete floor. He came to a stop a few yards away, his blue eyes cold and piercing, his hands clasped loosely behind his back. "Raymond Parthen," he introduced in a cultured accent. "I detest caviar, if the truth be known. Terribly fishy stuff."

Hatred corroded Jacken's veins. He ached to squeeze the trigger of his M-16 and keep squeezing until this man was a sieve. The look on Toni's face in Spike Boy's bedroom when she'd discovered that her father was head of the Topside Om R?u would be burned into his memory forever.

"Roth Mihnea," ??ran?'s leader counter-introduced.

"Charmed. My son, Murk?" Parthen inquired blandly.

Roth swept a fleck of dust from the sleeve of his blazer. "He's here."

"You'll get him back," Jacken informed Parthen, "when you agree to what we want."

"Which is?"

"Leave Toni the hell alone. I don't want you anywhere near her again. Ever. You got that? You've hurt her enough to last a lifetime."

"Have I? My, what distressing news. And after I had my lads use pellets to save her the gore of all those killings, too. Tut. A wasted generosity. But here nor there …." Parthen flicked a careless hand through the air. "I need my daughter, gentlemen, regardless of your concerns."

"And your douchebag son?"

"You're welcome to keep him. But I daresay you'll risk Murk learning valuable information about your underground hole, Varcolac, and for no discernible gain on your part. You see, my dear chaps, the moment I found Ren dead, I changed my entire operation. Murk no longer knows anything about my affairs."

Jacken curled his lip. "I just might have to shed a man-tear over your fatherly devotion."

Parthen offered Jacken a smile that didn't defrost his eyes. "Shall we cease this palaver and make a mutually beneficial deal?"

Jacken shrugged. "As long as nothing you have to say includes Toni. I daresay I've already made my position clear on that."

"Your position." One golden brow arched upward. "Who are you, might I ask, to comport yourself with such authority on my daughter's behalf?"

Jacken tightened his grip on his M-16. Here comes the fun part. "Her husband."

Parthen burst out laughing.

Jacken had to fight like hell to keep blood from rushing into his face.

"You jest!" Parthen's gaze made a contemptuous trip over Jacken. "Dear Lord, has Toni gone barking mad?"

Jacken showed his teeth. "As father-in-laws go, you're not exactly curling the hair on my balls, either."

Parthen tugged on the cuffs of his dress shirt. "As uncouth as you appear, it would seem. It's bloody fortunate that we shan't be holding the positions for long, isn't it?"

The comment was followed by a deep base note of electricity thrumming through Jacken's body. Something that might've been unnerving had Jacken not been so caught up in despising this fucker.

"You see, my dear boy, I have long-term plans for my daughter, and those don't include her dipping into the primordial ooze that's clearly your gene pool for her offspring."

Jaw clamped, Jacken chinned at the four men by the limo. "And you think those shit-stains have better pedigrees? They're Half-R?u, too, you dingus."

"Half-R?u and half-Fey," Parthen corrected. "Bred correctly, this brood of mine will have progeny with active enchantments. Hence the reason my son and daughter are so important to my endeavors. I realize that someone of your suspect intelligence might have difficulty understanding –"

"Yeah, I get it. With their royal bloodlines, Toni and Alex's children will be some of the most powerful."

"Ah! There you go, old tosspot! You're not as much of a gobbin as you appear."

"And you're obviously not as powerful as you appear." Jacken broke topside rules and let his fangs show in a smile. "Or else why the need for so much help?"

Parthen made a sweeping gesture with his hand. "It's a mammoth task I've set myself, boy, requiring many bodies in a multitude of different places. I'm taking back everything, you see – land, money, governmental positions, power – regaining the supremacy us Fey folk used to have in this world many years ago, before the regulars came along and managed to snuff most of us." He tilted his chin. "This is a bit of history you Varcolac should be well familiar with, is it not? Indeed, our two races could join forces in this venture. In all truth, I'd never thought to include you Varcolac in my plans. With your blood and sun weaknesses, you're worthless creatures, but, after all, there'll be a need for servants and lackeys in the new world order."

Jacken laughed darkly. What would this egomaniac say if he knew that a few shots of Fiin?? from a lowly Varcolac could bring today's Fey generation into their full enchantments. "Power lies where you least expect it, Parthen. I'd remember that if I were you." Jacken nodded toward the Pathfinder.

Nyko stepped out into the open from the side of the car.

The four Om R?u across the garage shifted and stiffened, hands going knuckle-white on their weapons. It wasn't so much the SAW they were reacting to, as Nyko. In keeping with Jacken's request to just look like a sociopathic Godzilla, Nyko had removed his shirt, exposing the full panorama of his body's muscles and … artwork. Yeah, that pretty much did it.

Nyko opened the Pathfinder's rear hatch and hauled Murk out by his shackles, plunking the man on his feet.

Parthen noticed his son's arm cast at once; he stiffened, just barely, but it was enough.

Roth's voice went flat and hard. "Before instigating a war with us, Mr. Parthen, it would be wise for you to note that we can get your rings off."

More shifting from the four Om R?u, their collective tension like a blast of hot, dense air.

Parthen's eyes turned so glacial, the blue of the irises became almost transparent. He chuckled, the sound equally wintry. "Do you have any notion who you're toying with, lads?"

Sparks of pain shot down Jacken's arms and deep into the bones of his legs. He kept his face blank, though, knowing Parthen was checking for a reaction.

"I believe," Roth said, sounding remarkably calm, considering he was probably undergoing an internal barbecue, too, "that you're the one misjudging us."

Parthen inclined his head. "It appears we are at an impasse. I shall leave peaceably now, Varcolac. I'm a man of my word, and there shall be no violence today. But eventually" – he sighed, as if truly regretting what he had to say next – "I'll have to destroy you. Surely you must realize that." With a final, sideways glance at Murk, he turned and strode back to his limousine.