Magic Tides (Kate Daniels: Wilmington Years #1)(10)

I started down the street, leading Cuddles on. Thomas gave the firebug the kind of look that would haunt one’s nightmares and followed me, guiding his horse. We rounded the corner. Thomas drew even with me. The line of his mouth was straight and hard, like he was trying to keep his words in.

“Share,” I told him. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”

“They are traffickers. Slavers.”

“Yes.”

“You could’ve killed them all.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you? They sold Darin. God alone knows what’s happening to my son. Do you know how many kids they stole?”

“Many.” The cages were grimy and worn, likely used for years.

“Why did you let them go?”

“Your brother said Red Horn Nation has about 50 members.”

“Yes.”

“What’s the most important thing to a gang after money?”

He gave me a blank look.

“Reputation,” I said. “Street cred. They run on fear and pride. If I killed them all, it might take them awhile to figure out who did it. If I only left one alive, the rest might not believe what happened. They would want to verify and probably shut that survivor up to buy themselves time to think things over and plan their response. I don’t want them to think. I want them to react. “

Thomas blinked at me.

“Very shortly, five people will be explaining to the Red Horn’s big boss that I came into their house and squished them like the cockroaches they are. I killed their underboss, slapped them around, made them give up the name of their client, took their merchandise, and set their house on fire. Five people is too many to shut up. They will be making a lot of noise, so if the Red Horn wants to hold on to the tattered shreds of its reputation, they’re going to retaliate and fast, before this news spreads. I told them exactly where to find me. They will get every warm body they have down to Fort Kure tonight.”

“You want them to attack you?”

“I want them to attack my husband specifically, but yes.”

“You’re talking about 50 people! Maybe more than 50!”

“Well, they are one less since Jace is dead, so I softened them up for him.”

He stared. I winked at him. If the Red Horn thought I was scary, I couldn’t wait for them to meet Curran.

“You’re crazy,” he said.

“When my oldest kid was thirteen, her best friend sold her out to a group of sea demons. The demons tied her to a cross, and she watched as they devoured her birth mother’s corpse. When my son was a little over a year old, someone sent a group of assassins to kidnap him. They wanted to eat him so they could grow their power.”

Thomas was clearly having a rough time coming to terms with the words coming out of my mouth.

“Of all the human filth, I hate human traffickers the most. Wilmington is too small for both of us. It’s either Red Horn or me, and I just finished painting my second living room. I’m not leaving. Do you know how hard it is to make a straight edge along the trim? They used to have painter’s tape just for that pre-Shift.”

Actually, painting the trim wasn’t hard, since I had good hand-eye coordination, but Thomas looked like he needed a bit of humor to nudge him back to reality.

Thomas shook his head, as if waking up. “Where are we going?”

“To the Order.” I had a general idea where it was, but Thomas would know for sure.

“Why?”

“Because time is short. We need to drop off the children with someone who can protect them and take them home, while we get over to the People’s compound.”

Onyx was likely a Master of the Dead or a journeyman. Probably the latter. Masters of the Dead were premier navigators who made too much money and were under too much scrutiny from their power-hungry peers to dabble in human trafficking. But journeymen earned considerably less, and they lived in the dorms, on-base. Onyx had no means of keeping Darin for himself, so he was likely a middleman, an intermediary between the Red Horn Nation and the final buyer.

I seriously doubted that Red Horn people would let Onyx know that I was coming. They had bigger worries right now. Even if they had, he would stay put. He was at his safest in the middle of the People’s base. But I didn’t want him to warn whoever put in the custom order for Darin.

“Are you going to tell me what’s special about your son or do we have to play the guessing game?” I asked.

“He has gills,” Thomas said quietly. “He can’t drown.”

Ah. “Does he transform?”

He nodded.

“Is that something that runs in the family?”

“No. He’s the only one.”

There was a connection between the population and the mythical creatures spawning. If the area had a lot of Irish settlers, you would get kelpies and selkies. If there was a sizeable Brazilian population, the water might manifest an Iara. Some creatures were harmless, but most weren’t, because humans tended to focus on things that could kill and eat them and immortalize them through legends as a warning to future generations. Magic brought those legends back to life, and the more people worried about something, the greater the chance of it manifesting.

Wilmington had a thriving port, which was the reason the city became one of the vital trade centers after the Shift. Shipping by land had become more perilous, and the importance of ports skyrocketed. Not only was the city multicultural, but also crews from just about every part of the world traveled here to unload their cargo, bringing their myths with them. Oceans were deep, and sailors had a healthy respect for them. They believed in aquatic monsters, no matter their mythological origin. It was pointless to try to guess what Darin had turned into. I’d know more when I found him.