Page 70 of Filthy Fae

He looked like he was going to say something more, but I jumped up, grabbed my stiletto heels, and rushed toward the back of the stage, ignoring the money that littered the floor.

Heading through makeup mirrors shining with overhead lights, I scrubbed away my tears.

“Scarlet?” Someone called from behind me, and I wiped harder at my face, expecting Mack.

When I turned, Darrel stepped in from the direction of the stage. “Hey,” he said, crossing the distance. “You okay? You looked like you were crying.”

His dark blue eyes shone with concern. Reaching out to one of the makeup tables, he grabbed a metal tissue box.

“You came in. I didn’t think you were—”

Darrel reared back and slammed the metal container into the side of my head. Pain exploded through my temple as my vision swam. I opened my mouth to scream, but someone shoved a ball of silky material into my mouth. A second shock of pain slammed into my forehead and then a third. Then, the world slipped away.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Darrel

Wind buffeted me as I sped down the dimly lit streets of Eureka toward the Mage Union hall. The union rep, Rick, had called as I slowed near the Full Moon club entrance. The call had gone to voicemail, and my phone showed ten missed calls from the man in the last hour while I’d been circling the building.

When I’d answered the call, Rick had said that he’d figured out the connection between the union mages that died, it was a sensitive matter, and that he’d tell me, but I had to come right away.

It was a pile of bullshit.

Unfortunately, the man’s words had the ring of truth. I’d told Lance, and my brother had said that between Mack sticking to Scarlet’s side, Aaron in the crowd, and Lance circling the doors, they had enough bodies at the strip club. She would want me to meet with my contact and help clear her pack.

Fuck. I shouldn’t have left them at the club.

No. That wasn’t true. The sooner they wrapped up this case, the sooner Scarlet and every other werewolf on the west coast would be safe.

The briny ocean air had a wet quality to it that seeped under my leather jacket as I took the street corners at full speed. When I stopped before the squat building where I’d spent several hours in near-torment, I found only darkness and an empty lot. Circling the building twice, I’d just decided that I didn’t have time for this shit and turned back toward the club when a door opened from a seemingly solid wall.

Light spilled out onto the otherwise dark street, silhouetting a man who looked a lot like Santa’s younger brother.

I pulled my bike up to the nearest parking space and yanked off my helmet. “I don’t have time to play your mage games—”

Rick held a finger to his lips and shuffled away, holding open the door. When I stepped up close to the older man, he gave me a meaningful look and mouthed the word, “Silent.”

Clenching my jaw so hard it hurt, I ducked through the door and followed Rick up a well-lit hallway. Posters of witches and wizards covered the walls. Each had a message like, “Safety First,” or “Together We Stand for Fair Pay.” The second floor emptied into an office building space with a long line of cubicles. Rick led me to one side and through a door that had been propped open.

The room we entered had to have twenty people gathered around, most furiously taking notes. A woman spoke in a dreamy voice from one side of the room. At first, I thought I’d stepped into a union meeting, but then I got a good look at the woman in the front of the room.

I stopped dead and had to bite my tongue to keep from shouting. A middle-aged woman floated inches from the ground. Her brown and gray hair stood on end as if she’d just gotten the biggest dose of static electricity a body could handle. Beside her stood a younger woman who could have been a daughter or much younger sister as they had very similar faces with a difference of perhaps twenty years.

“And what are you doing now?” The younger girl asked. She held the older woman by her wrist as if monitoring her heart rate. She could very well have been holding onto the woman to prevent her from floating away. When the older woman only grunted, the younger woman asked, “What do you see, Helen?”

“I’m looking down at a pamphlet. On the top of the paper, there are the words: Mage of the Ages.” The older woman’s whispery words send a chill up my spine. Her expression was completely blank, looking above us at the ceiling with unfocused eyes. She continued, “The words excite me, and I look up to stare forward at a long table. Several men and woman in suits sit at the end of the table telling us that they were contracted by the Los Angeles branch of the Mage Union. They tell me Mage of the Ages will feature the best and brightest mages from each branch of magic. I don’t know them. They look official, but I’m suspicious. These things don’t happen to me.”

“Can you describe the people at the table?” asked the younger woman.

A hand tapped my shoulder, and I jumped. My wolf rose, and my fingers itched, wanting to lengthen into claws. When I turned, I found Rick. He’d carried over a chair, and he was offering it to me. Trying to breathe evenly, I took the seat and turned back to the front of the room. Everything about this scene was putting my wolf on edge, though I wasn’t sure why.

“One of the men has short dark hair, a long face, and a sharp nose. He’s the one talking. I don’t look at the rest right now. He’s excitedly showing a poster that says Mage of the Ages. He says why each of us was selected. I barely recognize the other three witches and wizards at the table, but I might have seen them at the Union Hall meetings. I recognize one of them, Morte. He’s hard to miss, and the suit guy really lays it on thick with him.”

“Why do you recognize him?”

“People make fun of the showy necromancer, saying the guy messes up more jobs than he completes. I wonder if they say that about me. I’m waiting for the suit guy to tell me why I was selected. After months of being assigned to the most menial jobs and making more than one mistake, I’m almost certain I was selected by mistake. If this is the best and brightest, there are any number of mages that should have been singled out.

“The suit guy tells me that my reputation at rune precision has spread to the union in Los Angeles, Local seven-eighty. They’ve interviewed several reps who gave me glowing recommendations. Maybe I’m not as incompetent as I feel all the time. The Union is hoping to put its best foot forward for the Mage of the Ages, but it needs to remain a secret until the announcement. Leaks will not be tolerated.”