Magic Claims by Ilona Andrews

“Neither do I. I’m just acknowledging that I kicked this door open.” She had that calculating look on her face she got when she was assessing someone she was about to take down. “This Penderton problem is going to be complicated. I don’t like it, I don’t want to get involved in it, but you’re right, we need the woods and Penderton needs help.”

“Good. Then we agree.” I thought it would be harder to convince her. Something changed in her, and I’d missed it.

“The bad news is that we don’t know what we’re dealing with and it’s strong,” she said.

“The good news is that it has finite resources. It didn’t want to tangle with the National Guard. The Magic Rapid Response Unit has 75 veteran soldiers in it. That’s the max the National Guard could’ve sent, so we know that whatever is in the forest decided that 75 soldiers were too many. It sat back and waited for them to leave.”

“And it worked.”

“But we won’t be leaving.”

“No. We’ll stay until the end,” Kate said.

We didn’t abandon things half done. Both of us knew that when we said yes.

Kate lifted the file in her hand. “Everything in this file Ned gave us tells me that the evil in the forest is powerful enough to snatch people from Penderton whenever they want. They don’t need to formally request a tribute.”

I thought about it. “It’s about subjugation. Get the town under your thumb and keep them pinned to make sure that they won’t even consider rebelling. The forest broke Penderton’s will.”

She nodded. “It owns the town now. It can take from Penderton, and Penderton will comply.”

“We’ll have to force a confrontation. How terrible.”

She rolled her eyes.

Well, at least she had stopped looking so grim.

“Before we go there, I want to touch base with the Order,” Kate said. “According to this file, Penderton petitioned them. They sent a five-knight team in. Only the pathfinder came out.”

Pathfinders were an odd lot. To a pathfinder, there was no such thing as a maze, and if you presented them with a haystack and asked for the needle hidden in it, they would stick their hand in and pull it out on the first try. They were as close as a non-shapeshifter human could come to a trained werewolf scout.

“The Order lost four knights,” Kate said. “They wouldn’t have let it go, but I can’t find anything else about it. They didn’t follow up. I want to know what they know.”

“You think Claudia will tell you? Just like that.”

“She owes me a favor.”

“Okay. While you’re doing that, Conlan and I will go see his new favorite uncle. He can stay with them, or they can send him back here with babysitters. Either way, he won’t be here alone again, and he doesn’t need to go anywhere near Penderton for now.”

“Agreed,” she said. “He likes staying at Keelan’s. Especially if Darin will come to visit.”

Ever since Kate saved Darin, the merman kid made a habit of hanging out at the Wilmington Pack’s HQ and safehouses. Darin had been searching for something and now he seemed to have found it. He wasn’t our kind of shapeshifter, but we welcomed him all the same. He was a good, responsible kid. Everyone liked him, including Conlan.

“It’s about thirty miles to Penderton from the Wilmington Pack’s HQ,” I said. “I want to bring at least seven or eight shapeshifters. We’ll need a couple of cars.”

“Are you taking ours?”

“I’ll take Keelan’s.” The tech was holding, but sooner or later magic would come. Chanting at cars was never my favorite bit. If I could get someone else to do it, all the better. “It will take me a couple of hours to get everyone together. Do you think you’ll be done by then?”

“I should be,” she said.

“What do you need to bring?”

“I’ll make a bag.”

“Meet you on I-40 outside of town?” I asked, and leaned in to kiss her.

“Wait for me,” she said and kissed me back.

“Always,” I told her.

I watched her leave and wrestled that little anxiety I always felt when she left back down where it belonged.

Conlan returned a little later.

“They’re on the road,” he told me. “Where’s Mom going?”

“Into town,” I told him. “I’ll meet her on the road to Penderton later.”

My son’s face fell a bit. “And me?”

“You and I are going to play a game on our way to see Keelan. The choice is yours: catch, or hide and hunt?”

“Is it a punishment?” Conlan asked.

“No. I’m not sure what we’re walking into with Penderton, and your mother and I would feel better knowing you’re safe. What do you think you’ve done to deserve punishment?”

“I invited Mr. Calloway and Solina into the courtyard. I fed them.” He let it hang there for a moment. “Is that why you’re mad at me and I can’t go?”

Ah, best to nip this in the bud. “No. I’m not mad at you and, as I said, you aren’t going because it’s probably not safe. As far as giving cookies to Ned and Solina, that was polite. But human polite. Had they been shapeshifters...”