Gunmetal Magic: A Novel in the World of Kate Daniels

said. “You should’ve seen what happened to the vampire.”
    Jim smiled.
    I dismounted and gave The Dude’s reigns to a shapeshifter kid from the stables.
    “Some people are here to see you,” Jim told me.
    “What people?”
    “From the Guild.”
    Argh.
“Fine. How’s the boy?”
    “Doolittle says he’s the same. Your guests are in the second-floor conference room, third door on the left.”
    I marched to the second floor. Grendel decided to accompany me. Five people waited in the small reception hallway by the third conference room, guarded by a female shapeshifter. One of them was Mark, the late Solomon Red’s self-appointed successor, and the other four were Bob Carver, Ivera Nielsen, Ken, and Juke, collectively known as the Four Horsemen. Most mercs were loners. Sometimes, when the job demanded it, they paired up the way Jim and I did, but groups of more than two were rare. The Four Horsemen were the exception to the rule. They made a cohesive, strong team. They took rough jobs and finished them efficiently and mostly aboveboard, and they were respected by the rest of the mercs.
    The two parties stopped glowering at each other long enough to contemplate my dog.
    “What the hell is that?” Bob asked.
    “It’s my attack poodle. Did you agree to come here at the same time?”
    “Hell no,” Juke said, shaking her head with spiked black hair. “We were here first. He just showed up.”
    “I made an appointment,” Mark said. “Once again, you’re bringing your bully tactics to the table.”
    “You’re an asshole,” Ken told him.
    “And you’re a thug.”
    Why me?
    This was the first time I’d heard about an appointment. I made a mental note to ask Jim about that and pulled a quarter from my pocket. “Heads.” I pointed to the Four Horsemen. “Mark, you’re tails.”
    I flipped the coin into the air and slapped it onto the back of my wrist.
    “Tails.” I nodded at Mark. “Let’s go.”
    We stepped into the conference room, I shut the door, and we sat at a large table of knotted wood.
    “What can I do for you?”
    Mark leaned forward. He wore a crisp business suit and a conservative burgundy tie. His dark brown hair was cut in that executive/politician style: not too long, not too short, conservative, neat. His nails were clean and manicured, his chin showed no stubble, and he smelled of masculine cologne. Not overpowering, but definitely detectable.
    “I’d like to talk to you about the Guild arbitration,” he said.
    And here I thought he’d made the trip to chat about the weather. “I’m listening.”
    Mark looked at the dog. Grendel gave him an evil eye.
    “I’ll cut to the chase: I’d like to take over the Guild.”
    Ambitious, aren’t we?
“I kind of gathered that.”
    “I’m not popular. I don’t wear leather and I don’t carry guns.” He braided the fingers of his hands into a single fist and rested it on the table. “But I make the Guild run. I make sure the customers are happy, the profits are made, and everyone gets paid on time. Without me the whole thing would collapse.”
    I had no doubt it would. “I’m waiting for my part in this.”
    “Your vote will be the tiebreaker,” he said. “I’d like us to come to some sort of arrangement.”
    He’d just dug a lovely hole for himself. I waited to see if he would jump into it.
    “Of course, I understand that sufficient compensation is in order and our arrangement would have to be equitable and mutually beneficial.”
    And he had. I sighed. “Mark, the problem isn’t that you can’t run the Guild. The problem is that you think ‘white collar’ is a noble title.”
    He blinked, obviously taken aback.
    “In your world, everyone has a price,” I said. “You don’t know what mine is, but you think you can afford it. It doesn’t work like that. You could’ve gone many ways with this. You could’ve argued that with the leadership of the Guild in limbo, nobody is getting paid. You could’ve pointed out that the longer this goes on, the more talent the Guild will lose, as experienced mercs move on to new jobs to feed their families. Offering to bribe me was the worst argument you could’ve made. My opinion isn’t for sale.”
    “I meant no offense,” he said.
    “But you did offend, and you’ve demonstrated that you have no idea how to relate to me. A lot of guys are like me, Mark. Yes, you make the Guild run, but you lack the elemental understanding of what makes mercs tick, probably because