Change of Heart (The Potentate of Atlanta Book 3) Page 3

  “But not today.” I straightened and adjusted my soggy top. “I take omeprazole.”

  “Omeprazole isn’t a hazmat suit for your digestive tract.”

  Flicking water at his face, I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Or is it?”

  Writing me and my stomach lining off as a loss, he shook his head. “We hitting Greenleaf before or after?”

  There was no question we had to investigate. “Before.”

  We caught a Swyft to the Midtown club, but the street was quiet, and the entrance locked when we arrived. I mashed the buzzer, since it was a private party, but no one answered. I didn’t like it, any of it, especially how affected the wargs had been, but we couldn’t kick down the door without probable cause.

  When no other options presented themselves, we left with the intent to return the following night and try our luck catching it open then.

  After Bishop and I ate, which left me sweating in my chair at the outdoor table, we hit the streets for a few hours before I went home to Midas. How weird was it to think about him waiting on me? Weird, but nice. I could get used to it, and that terrified me. Happily, those ghost chilis were guaranteed to burn the fear right out of me, at least for a few hours. It was as good a place to start as any.

  Three

  The trauma of the previous night, and the cringeworthy memory of Deric Mendelsohn’s hairy butt cheeks shining like twin moons, if the moon was made of moldy cheese, had been dimmed somewhat by spending the remaining hours before dawn enjoying Their Eyes Are Always Watching while snuggled up to Midas on the futon with dinner in our laps and chopsticks in our hands.

  I woke in much the same position, minus Midas, ready to face the night. As soon as I got my eyes open.

  A musical ting prompted me to check my phone, and I groaned at being forced to move.

  Fingers groping for my cell, I touched paper and pulled the scrap to me where I could squint at it better.

  “Duty calls,” I read out loud, snuggling into his pillow. “See you at home.” I breathed him in. “Midas.”

  Sadly, the phone didn’t see fit to stop ringing while I basked in the giddy thrill of receiving his note.

  Clearly, it didn’t have the circuits of a romantic.

  Unable to ignore the persistent racket, I palmed the blasted cell, read the growing string of urgent texts, then shot upright with a growl on my lips. “Do you believe this crap?”

  Ambrose stretched and yawned, faking interest in my outburst, but I didn’t waste breath elaborating.

  While I struggled into fresh clothes, I called Bishop with a clipped order. “Meet me out front.”

  Odds were good he would beat me to the sidewalk. He was forever lurking outside the Faraday these days. Like he didn’t want me to be gruesomely murdered or something.

  Sure enough, I exited the building, too busy to hassle Hank for a change, and aimed straight for Bishop, who waited for me at the curb.

  “There’s a party spilling onto Crescent Avenue Northeast.” A cold knot cramped my gut as I summarized the rest of the text from Remy to him. “A new drug hit the streets tonight.” I watched his face as I told him the rest. “They’re calling it…Faete.”

  Ambrose perked at the word Faete and slithered closer to hear the rest, his interest genuine this time. The defunct fae club where we found Bishop half dead after the witchborn fae coven finished torturing him had shared the same name.

  I doubted it was a coincidence. More like a billboard-sized message.

  Bishop locked down his emotions before a single one escaped. “Any idea where it originated?”

  “Remy tracked it to Greenleaf.” I filled him in on what Gayle told me about the fancy invitation Mendelsohn received from an unknown sender and got a bad feeling he had been invited to enjoy a sneak peek at coming attractions. “With his reputation for partying, I bet his name topped the mailing list.”

  Clubs in Midtown wooed high-profile paranormal clientele with promises of discount booze, new drugs, or sex to keep them coming back for more—and bringing their friends with them.

  “But,” I had to admit, “given its lingering effect on Mendelsohn and his pack, he might have been targeted for the pre-release bash for more clinical reasons.”

  “No drug currently on the market affects wargs for more than an hour, tops.” Bishop stared off into traffic. “Faete gave those wargs an unprecedented high, if that’s what did it.”

  If, because we needed proof before we started making accusations.

  Sometimes being one of the good guys sucked. There were so many more rules for us to follow.

  “I’ll touch base with the cleaners.” Bishop dialed them from memory. “We’re a day late and a dollar short, but they need to know the Mendelsohns are possible ODs on an unidentified substance so they can pass it on to the medics if they haven’t figured it out yet.”

  Leaving him to tie up loose ends, I walked off for privacy to make a call. To Midas.

  “We can’t confirm it yet,” I said when he answered, “but it looks like the coven made their next move.”

  “Faete.”

  A pang slid between my ribs and sharpened my voice. “You knew?”

  He would have made the same connection with the name as me, and gwyllgi protective instincts being what they are, he also might have decided I was better off not finding out about it until it came to my attention through other means.

  “As of forty-five minutes ago, yes.”

  Or he could have found out in the last hour, same as me, and hadn’t had time to share the deets.

  What can I say? Relationships were alien to me. No. Wait. Alien was a bad comparison. I watched enough science fiction to feel comfortable with the existence of life on other planets. But to love another person enough to forsake all others and make a life together? Little green men seemed more plausible.

  “I’m in Midtown rounding up some of our teens,” Midas said when I kept quiet. “We’re missing four.”

  “Bad idea.” I gripped the phone harder. “We don’t know enough about this—”

  Techno music assaulted my ears, and I figured he must have entered a club. The noise made conversation impossible, even before the call dropped with a hiss.

  “Bishop,” I called to him as I redialed Midas. “We need to go.”

  No surprise, Midas didn’t answer. I told myself he couldn’t hear the phone ring over the noise, but I was a good liar and had trust issues. Even with myself.

  “Consider us gone.” Bishop stepped back up to the curb and flagged down a yellow cab. “Our chariot awaits.”

  Once he settled in, I slid across the seat next to him and gave the driver Greenleaf’s name and address.

  Unsure why Bishop had chosen this mode of transportation, I offered, “Remy doesn’t work for Swyft anymore.”

  “She never did,” he reminded me. “She was using the app to psycho stalk your boyfriend.”

  “You’re not wrong” about summed up the situation. “But a cab?”

  Swyft was cheaper, quicker, and their drivers could handle their passengers, for the most part, if things got ugly. At the very least, they knew who to call—namely me—if that happened.

  “We need to quarantine Crescent Avenue Northeast and the surrounding area,” he explained. “Until we get a sample of Faete, and a lab analysis on it, we can’t be sure who it will affect or how. We don’t need to invite more paras to the party.”

  With a name like Faete, the drug must be geared toward the paranormal community. That didn’t mean it was safe for human consumption. Likely, the opposite was true. A Swyft driver could be in more immediate danger than our cabbie, but I hadn’t registered that either. I had been too focused on Midas.

  “Smart.” I gave Bishop a pat on the head. “That next-level thinking is why you’re my wingman.”

  “And here I thought it was because you took sick pleasure in watching me wrestle Mendelsohn naked.”

  “First off, I got stuck wrestling Mendelsohn naked. Secondly, has an
yone wrestled him not naked?” I wasn’t joking. “It’s like he’s allergic to pants.”

  The trip to Midtown was short, and I ponied up the cash—or the plastic, as the case may be—for the ride and the tip.

  Bishop didn’t trust banks, or plastic cards, and he never carried more than twenty dollars in his pocket in the highly unlikely event he was mugged. He preferred the debit card Linus had issued him for purchases, which would be fine. If he bothered carrying it.

  “Ever been to Mardi Gras?” Bishop gazed out the window. “All that’s missing are the beads.”

  “Yes. Once. I’m not interested in a repeat.” I checked with him. “Are you okay to do this?”

  Fae immune systems weren’t my wheelhouse, seeing as how good little necromancers avoided them, but his had been compromised recently by the Martian Roach who attempted to use him as its host.

  “I’ll be fine.” He opened the door nearest the sidewalk and exited into the crush. “Watch your step.”

  The crowd hid what he meant until I stepped out—and onto—someone’s twitching hand.

  Bodies littered the concrete. Some curled into tight balls, others sprawled with their limbs flung wide.

  Most weren’t moving, and I couldn’t tell if they were breathing.

  “Goddess.” I accepted the elbow he offered until I found my footing. “Are they alive?”

  “Most of them.” He nudged the nearest man onto his back and out of his own vomit. “What a mess.”

  “The drug turned Mendelsohn and his females into giggling children with short tempers who wanted to play in a fountain.” As much as I wanted to crouch and examine the nearest victim, I didn’t dare. I might fall, and that would get me trampled or worse. “These people are comatose, not manic.”

  This was either a different faction, or they had it worse for not leaving the area after their first hit.

  Part of me questioned how the dealers could stomach lavish festivities after what happened to the Mendelsohns and whoever else had the bad luck to attend last night’s soiree. The rest figured they didn’t care, or they wouldn’t be dealing in illegal substances to begin with.

  “I don’t recognize any of the partiers.” He cut a path to Greenleaf and the bouncer at the door. “We’re here on official business.”

  The tall black man wore a fitted suit in a rich emerald fabric that shimmered under the club lights spilling onto the street. His thin tie, light shirt, and darker shoes were shades of grass, spring, and leaf. He jerked his chin toward the drunken line winding down the block. “I already heard that once tonight.”

  The silver of Bishop’s eyes gleamed bright, hungry. “We’re with the Office of the Potentate of Atlanta.”

  The bouncer flicked a glance past Bishop to me, took in my bleached jeans and holey tee, and smirked.

  “Sure, fella.” He pointed out the queue, in case we missed it the first time. “End of the line.”

  “Hadley.” Bishop stepped aside and shoved me front and center. “Assert your dominance.”

  Assert my dominance, my foot. “Look, just because I’m dating Midas doesn’t mean—”

  “He’s the pack prince,” Bishop said flatly. “You had to have picked up on some of his tricks.”

  “That guy from earlier. He claimed he was pack.” The bouncer wet his lips. “He was legit?”

  We had come to the right place if Midas beat us here, but the sensual music spilling out onto the street conflicted with the earlier techno beats. This wasn’t where his call dropped then. He must be elsewhere.

  “Midas Kinase.” I waited for recognition to dawn. “What rock have you been living under?”

  Gray skin mottled his fists as he clenched them. “You got a problem with stone trolls?”

  A troll able to turn his fists to stone would be just the ticket for policing rowdy supernaturals.

  “You’re fae.” I didn’t step back, but I shifted my weight onto my heels. “I thought this was a warg party.”

  “Blithe Danann is hosting.” He adjusted his tie, which was pinned with a silver oak leaf. “This is her place.”

  The name meant nothing to me, aside from the obvious nod to her heritage, but Bishop set his jaw.

  “We should go.” He closed his hand over my arm. “Now.”

  “What about Midas?” I jerked free of him. “We have to warn him.”

  “You do not want Blithe to notice me.” He ground his teeth. “Trust me. We’re done here.”

  “All right.” I did trust him, and this Blithe person was freaking him the frak out. “Let’s go.”

  While Bishop watched the swirling crowd, waiting for it to eddy, I kept an eye on the bouncer.

  “Repeat that.” Plugging one ear against the ruckus, he shoved his earpiece in tighter. “Are you certain?” Adjusting his tie yet again, he shifted his gaze to Bishop with a swallow. “Ms. Danann wishes to see you.”

  “No,” Bishop said without turning, then stepped into the flow of bodies and dragged me with him.

  The laughing crowd with their bright eyes and grasping hands shoved against us, herding us backward, toward Greenleaf, as if it possessed one consciousness and one purpose.

  “Bishop.”

  The single word rang with deafening finality, despite the utter chaos around us.

  “Find Midas.” He shoved me through the front line into the less turbulent core. “Go.”

  Flinging my arm back, I cursed him as my fingers slid free of his. “I’m not—”

  “You’re leaving,” he snarled, “or I’m calling Linus.”

  The threat worked its magic, and I stopped fighting the current and let it sweep me away.

  “Jerk,” I muttered as I navigated the streaming bodies in search of any port in the storm.

  A clammy hand circled my ankle just as I broke clear, and I almost kicked it off me on reflex.

  “Hadley,” the slight woman crumpled at my feet rasped. “Hadley.”

  With the space around me as open as it was going to get, I hooked my hands under her arms and hauled her against the nearest building to give us a wall to put at our backs. Only with that scrap of reassurance did I risk crouching to examine her.

  “Do I know you?” I checked the pulse at her throat and found it thready. “Hey.” I patted her cheek. “Can you hear me?”

  “Lis…” Her eyes rolled around without settling on me. “Lis…”

  Whatever grip she had on my name had slipped as she repeated the new one over and over.

  “Hang in there.” I pulled out my phone. “I’m going to get help.”

  The sentinels had been alerted to the situation in Midtown, but this woman needed immediate medical attention.

  “Lis…” The woman closed her hand over my wrist. “Lis…”

  “You’re okay.” I eased out of her grip when her nails started to bite. “Medics are on the way.”

  “Lisbeth,” she murmured. “Lis…beth.”

  Sweat popped down my spine and blended with the dampness already there. I hadn’t met any members of the OPA team, aside from Bishop, and I wasn’t meant to. Ever. I didn’t know what to do. There were no protocols for this. This—this was like spotting a unicorn in the wild. One that might stab me with its horn to preserve its anonymity once its mind defogged from the high.

  “You’re Lisbeth?” I clutched her hand. “My Lisbeth?”

  A long exhale passed her lips, and she slumped against the pavement.

  “Lisbeth.” I shook her shoulder, and her head sagged to one side. “Frak. Frak. Frak.”

  Bishop had ditched me, and I had yet to spot Midas. That left me precious few other allies to call.

  No.

  Not allies.

  I had to stop being such a coward about labels.

  Friends.

  I had few friends to call, and the first one who popped into my head wanted space.

  With that in mind, I dialed up Remy. She didn’t answer, which wasn’t unusual when she was on the clock at the kiosk, but her dedica
tion to the sale had never irked me more than it did right then.

  Hating myself for putting him in this situation, I called my first choice before I changed my mind.

  “Ford,” I blurted. “Don’t hang up.”

  He blasted a sigh across the receiver that spoke volumes.

  “I’ve got a team member down on Crescent Avenue Northeast one block east of Greenleaf.” I trained my gaze on the raucous partygoers, praying to spot the familiar in the churning faces. “Near as I can tell, she ingested the new drug that hit the streets tonight. She needs to be evacuated immediately.”

  Before any sharp ears overheard us, realized who she worked for, and figured payback might be a giggle.

  “A member of your…” He grew more animated. “She’s OPA?”

  “Yes.” I trusted him with another clue that risked exposing her identity. “Her name is Lisbeth.”

  “Damn it, Lee.” A tick, tick, tick filled the background. “I’m on my way.”

  “Thank you.”

  He ended the call with a muttered curse that made me feel three inches tall.

  Hunkered down while I waited for backup, I sought out Ambrose through our bond and found him strolling down the center of the sidewalk, uncaring if I noticed him absorbing trickles of ambient energy from the crowd. The effort of snatching him back to my side was exacerbated by his mini power trip, but I got him locked down before he stirred up more trouble.

  Crouched over Lisbeth, checking her every so often, I caught a flash of gold fur from the corner of my eye.

  Midas had shifted. And so had…Ares?

  This section of Midtown was heavily populated by paras, and clubs on this strip were for paras only. That didn’t mean clever humans never tricked or bribed their way in, or that the club owners didn’t pay them to be the entertainment for a night or two before wiping their memories.

  That said, Gwyllgi had no business on four legs in this area without a frakking good reason.

  The golden gwyllgi walked right up to me, his gaze sliding over me with a questioning air.

  The dark gwyllgi beside him tipped its head in greeting but kept vigil on the clubgoers.