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She glances at me, then at the chaos left behind as the Furies pull apart the few remaining fighters. “Fear. Paranoia. Absolute panic. Everything was fine until this awful scream came from the back of the bar.” Tisia goes quiet and stares at me as if waiting to see if I believe her.
“Could you tell if it was a man or woman?” I don’t have Nolan’s detective skills, but I can ask basic questions.
“No. I can’t even say if it was human. Thank the gods the Furies weren’t here, or we’d be carrying everyone out on stretchers with the way y’all are trained in combat.”
I help her to a seat on a bench outside the hotel. “Any other Houses not there?”
“The Styx. Those undead ladies don’t patronize our bar, and who knows what rattles them given we don’t even know what they are.”
That explains why the rainbow of House colors in the riot didn’t include any Fury black or Styx white. “What about the Huntresses?”
“A couple were showing off their archery skills in the gallery, but the sound didn’t seem to bother them.”
“I wonder why.” It doesn’t make sense that they’d be somehow immune.
“Maybe they’re so uptight that coming unwound a little just means acting like what the rest of us would consider normal. They kept shooting. The rest of the room, though, lost their collective mind.”
“You didn’t,” I say. Tisia’s tough, a formidable opponent on the derby track. She could’ve taken out a half dozen Nymphs without breaking a gold-painted nail.
“I do a hell of a lot of yoga and meditation to keep my issues under control.” She shoots a look at the sobbing Mad Mae and Muse nearby. “A lot of these bitches could use it.” Lighting a joint, she takes a long draw and tension seems to ease off her shoulders with the exhale of smoke. “Don’t judge. I quit smoking years ago, but I keep an emergency doobie on me in case shit goes sideways. Such as now.”
“How’d we get like this?” I can’t tell the red of Mad Maes from the blood-soaked baby blues worn by some of the Nymphs. “Going at each other like animals?” Maybe Devlyn has a point. Dear gods, I’m the one whose sanity’s slipping if I think Devlyn might be right.
“It’s not surprising.” She takes another puff.
“What do you mean?”
“Deity daughters need a release for the aggression that comes with whatever trauma brought us here. Now, we’re all stuck in the city together, House rivalries and tensions running high while rumors run rampant that The Rink’s gonna shut down permanently. People with deity daughter powers are not the ones you want going stir crazy and breaking apart when we’re locked down. My guess? This is the beginning of an ugly end unless things change.”
Devlyn heads our way, a crowd of Huntresses around her. “Tisia, you need to come with us for questioning.”
I step in front of the Gorgon. “She’s hurt. She needs medical attention, not a lecture from you.”
“Make this harder, Fury.” Devlyn gives a grin that’s anything but friendly. “I dare you.”
“She didn’t do anything wrong—” I stop when Tisia puts her hand on my shoulder.
“Don’t fight them,” she says. “It’ll just make things worse.” She squeezes my arm. “When this is done, we can have that makeup lesson you owe me, all right?”
I can’t stand to see them circling her while blood drips from a cut on her face. “But—”
She shakes her head. “I don’t need you to rescue me from their stuck-up prejudice. Go find your wolf marshal. Make him solve the shifter murders so this mess can all be over and things can go back to the way they were when you and I arrived in Syn City.”
The Huntresses lead her away before I can tell her Nolan isn’t mine. But perhaps I can help him fix this before more people get hurt.
11
NOLAN
Winding up in chains wasn’t my idea of a good time unless Sadie wanted to test out some kink. Then I might be down to play. But when Huntresses stormed my cabin demanding that I surrender for questioning? Yeah, not how I planned for this investigation to go down. Yet I played along with some high and mighty misses pretending to be cops.
A key jingles in the front door to the hotel. A moment later the scents of bear and rabbit waft my way. At least it’s not the mountain lion. Gods, cat shifters annoy me. So damn vain without the pack structure to back up the enormous ego.
“They locked him up in the next room, chained him to the check-in desk,” a feminine voice says softly.
“Thanks, Bunny,” a much deeper one answers. “You coming with?”
“Nuh uh. He’s a predator, trapped and cornered. A wolf marshal at that. I’m no dumb bunny.”
