Predatory

SASHA POV

“Ah, you have returned…Commander Sukoshku,” the tall, otherworldly elf who interrupted my conference with my team remarks as I open the office door. He looks me up and down, as though he’s expecting some sort of fae trick. This one’s loyal to top brass. And none of them are taking any funny business. I just look at him, waiting for him to continue. “The Ruling Council sent me to…check the status of your office. I imagine…they will be pleased to know that you are here.”

I arch an eyebrow but otherwise do not react. I want him uncomfortable.

“Um…. They instructed that, if you were here, you should come with me to their Inner Sanctum. They would like to speak with you at your earliest convenience,” he adds once it’s clear that I will not be encouraging this conversation.

“Of course, I would be most pleased to engage in civil conversation with my colleagues,” I reply. Berach ought to love that, if he’s heard it.

The elf’s face contorts for a moment, as though he’s heard something unpleasant in his head or he’s resisting some sort of destructive impulse. Called it. This elf is Berach’s puppet.

“Are you all right?” I ask him. I hear Rika’s stifled snickers in my earpiece. She and Zoe are out of sight, protected by Ariadne’s and Tempest’s wards. Good. Stay safe.

“Yes, perfectly fine, Commander,” he responds, but he’s tinged pink with embarrassment. “Please come with me, if you are ready.”

“No time like the present.” Neutral tone, clean poise, cool confidence. The elf grimaces again as he leads the way through the twisting maze of cold white corridors. I haven’t missed this place while I’ve been in the field. My escort’s shoes click with each step he takes, but I move without sound, which seems a great inconvenience to the elf in front of me; he pauses frequently to look back and make sure I am following him, and each time he appears more unsettled and displeased.

He breathes a quiet sigh of relief when we arrive at the doors to the Inner Sanctum, which is not far from what was once Anselm’s office. With a mechanical hiss, the doors slide open before either of us has a chance to knock, revealing a room just as cold and white and unwelcoming as the corridors. The atmosphere in here is oppressive, stifling, stuffy; there’s something unnatural at play, but I can’t pinpoint what it might be. Tread carefully. Opposite the doors is a long, gently curving white desk; behind it are the four remaining members of the Ruling Council and the empty chair reserved for the Commander of Special Ops.

“Thank you, Duadhrin. You are dismissed,” Berach calls from his place at the center of the desk. “Sukoshku. Step center, if you please.”

I very much want to ignore him, as Duadhrin scuttles away and the doors hiss close behind me, but now is not the time to be tipping my hand. I comply with sedate grace, looking over the Ruling Council as I do so.

I haven’t had the privilege of coming here or meeting the Ruling Council myself before, but I know them all from official portraits and the rumors about them. Furthest to the right is Ruadh, a russet-bearded dwarf with a permanent scowl and a massive warhammer. On his left is Anisha, who looks like a Bollywood version of Morticia Addams, beautiful and severe. To her left, sitting center, is Berach the Great and Terrible; the form he has chosen closely resembles American television reporter Anderson Cooper, with the sharper features typical of fae and longer hair, and he regards me with venomous contempt. On his other side sits Najwa, with the grey swirling eyes of an air elemental; she shows the only hints of kindness and empathy in the whole room.

Beside her is the empty chair where I would be sitting if any of them had any intention of letting me actually take Anselm’s place.

“You know why you are here,” Berach addresses me after a long, tense silence.

“Because you requested my presence,” I answer. My goal is to be simultaneously as compliant and as frustrating as possible. Judging by the twitching at the corner of Berach’s eye, my efforts so far have not been in vain.

“Anselm Lange. Where is he?”

“I do not know.” I would assume that his corpse is rotting in that warehouse where we fought, but I don’t know where that is and I can’t be sure whether his body was left there or not.

“What was the nature of your last interaction with him?”

“A duel.”

“For what purpose, and with what terms?” Ruadh cuts in. His patience is always thin, from what I’ve heard, but the vein throbbing in his forehead would indicate that he’s already down to a single fraying thread of it.

“To determine which of us was worthier to occupy that chair.” I gesture to the empty seat next to Najwa. “Terms were to the death.”

“Why so extreme?” Najwa inquires.

“Commander Lange has never been one to surrender or admit defeat. And neither am I.”

“You would have been eligible to run for his position in the most recent election, if I am not mistaken,” Anisha points out with frigid deliberation. “Why a duel, if you were so driven to occupy that seat?”

“I have no desire to occupy that seat.”

“Then you wanted to kill your commanding officer for sport?!” Berach demands.

“No.”

“Agent Sukoshku, please tell us, in your own words, what led you and Anselm to engage in this duel, and why,” Najwa requests. I get the impression that the four of them are all sides of the same die, aspects of the same entity. Right now Najwa, Ruadh, and Anisha are conspiring to keep Berach from trying to eliminate me before they have all the information they want that only I can provide. Perfect.

“He ordered me to execute a target I was investigating, but I did not have sufficient evidence to merit a conviction and death sentence. Following his order would have been a violation of my oaths of service.”

“As is defying a direct order from your commanding officer,” Berach points out.

“But issuing such an order is a violation of his oaths of service, as I understand them. A duel seemed the only honorable way to proceed.”

“You would deem killing your commanding officer an honorable course of action.”

“I would deem removing someone unfit to continue as a member of the Ruling Council, due to his willingness to violate his oaths of service, an honorable course of action. I gave him multiple opportunities to surrender and abdicate. He refused and continued fighting. The situation was life or death for both of us.”

“I do not understand how you could stomach killing him, even so. He led us to believe that the two of you were…quite close. In every sense,” Najwa tells me.

For a moment all I see is red. I remain very, very still to avoid betraying my temper. Cold as this room. Cold as ice. Do not let them see you as you are.

“Anselm might have had a different view than Agent Sukoshku,” Ruadh suggests, his flinty eyes boring into me. “You started training as a special operative after he executed the rest of your family for violations of WASP law, is that not so?”

“Accurate,” I reply.

“Damn, girl, my steel ingots have more emotion than you right now,” Zoe’s voice comes through my earpiece, barely audible even to me—no chance these bastards will hear it. I’m glad my team is watching over me. They might not be able to save me if this blows up, but it’s nice to know they’re with me in spirit.

“Did he not raise you, afterward? Anselm and that vampire tech wizard?” Anisha questions.

“Affirmative,” I respond.

“You killed him to avenge your family,” Berach guesses.

“I killed him because the terms of the duel were ‘to the death’ and he did not accept my offers to surrender or abdicate instead.”

No value in letting him know the rest of it.

“You realize that killing your commanding officer is treason, punishable by death.”

“So is violating my oaths of service. Once Commander Lange ordered me to execute someone not convicted of violating WASP law, my life was forfeit no matter how I chose to proceed.”

“And so you chose to murder your commanding officer—”

“Murder implies premeditation. My choice to duel was made in the moment, out of my deep and abiding commitment to justice, and to give him chances to rescind his orders that I violate my oaths of service, which he refused. We are the World Organization for Supernatural Protection, and the target Commander Lange wanted me to eliminate had not been proven guilty. I chose to protect the innocent and see that justice was served.”

A long, heavy silence. Berach looks livid. The others are less transparent.

“An interesting assertion,” Anisha remarks with a sideways glance at Berach.

“I cannot imagine but that it was a difficult kill to make, even so, given your history with Anselm,” Najwa shakes her head. Not worth acknowledging.

“Agent Sukoshku. How many have you killed?”

“I lost count years ago. My records will show the numbers,” I tell them.

“One thousand, nine hundred and seventy-four,” Ruadh supplies, flipping through some papers on his desk. “The highest kill count of any WASP special operative living.”

“Not a difficult thing, then, to kill Anselm, beyond the fight he must have put up in the duel,” Berach surmises. “Desensitized to it.”

“How could she be otherwise?” Najwa argues, consulting a tablet. “Records show she started training her as a special operative, under Anselm’s supervision, at the tender age of ten, right after she lost her whole family. And she is now…twenty-four. More than half her life has been kill or be killed.”

“There is no room for compassion, only the law,” Berach snarls, and Najwa seems to wilt under his harsh gaze. “The fact remains that she killed her commanding officer—”

“In a duel he agreed to with terms ‘to the death,’” Ruadh interjects.

“—which has created a major setback for our plans. She must be made an example of, that no one else might attempt to thwart us in such a way.”

“How do you mean to do that? As fearsome a fighter as Anselm was, and with this kill count, seems Agent Sukoshku might well be just as helpful to our plans as her predecessor.”

“And, deplorable as we may find her actions, to hear her tell it, they were entirely lawful,” Anisha adds. “A show of loyalty to WASP, over loyalty to a commanding officer or any other particular individual.”

“An interesting theory,” Berach muses. His unnerving deep violet eyes settle on me, and his thin fingers toy with an ornate, bejeweled pocket-watch. The atmosphere thickens. Breathing is difficult, but I won’t let on. Does he mean to suffocate me with some spell?

“Perhaps it would be worthwhile to offer Agent Sukoshku a bit more clarity, as to what a disruption Anselm’s death is to us,” Najwa suggests. “If she is willing to cooperate with us and carry our plans forward, would that be sufficient recompense for what she has done?”