Gunmetal Magic: A Novel in the World of Kate Daniels

you never were one. If I wanted to endorse you, which I don’t, I’d have to defend my position before the Guild, which I find difficult under the circumstances.”
    He chewed on that for a long minute. “Fair enough. So you’ll vote for the Horsemen then?”
    “I don’t know yet.”
    “Thank you for seeing me.” Mark got up and left.
    The door had barely had a chance to swing open before Bob shouldered his way in and dropped into one of the chairs around the table. Ivera followed, uneasy, watching me.
    Bob was the leader of the Horsemen. If our world had spawned any veteran gladiators, he would be one of them. He was on the other side of forty and built with that mature strength and endurance that would make him a toughopponent even for people half his age. He might not be as fast as he used to be, but he had plenty of experience and he used it. Ivera was a tall, large Hispanic woman. She was nasty in a fight and a firebug—fire mage—on top of it.
    The other two members of the Horsemen remained outside. Ken, a Hungarian mage, measured out words like they were gold and Juke, well, Juke was barely twenty and made up for her lack of experience in natural viciousness and a hot temper. She was fast and she liked to talk trash. I understood the urge. I liked to talk trash too, but twenty-year-old me would’ve chewed Juke up and spat her out.
    I looked at the two veterans. “What can I do for you?”
    Bob leaned forward. The chair creaked and I almost winced. He was a big guy and the chair was none too sturdy.
    “I’ll come right to the point,” he said. “Solomon was one of us. A merc. A working stiff.”
    “Actually, Solomon only worked as a merc for the first three years after forming the Guild, and given that he’s been underground for a few months, we can drop ‘working’ from his description.”
    Bob plowed ahead. “All the same, he knew what it’s like to be out in the field. He knew how to take care of the guys. The man had a heart, unlike that prick. He’ll bleed us dry if we let him.”
    “By ‘that prick’ you mean Mark?”
    “Who else?”
    I nodded. “Just checking.”
    Bob knocked on my desk with his scarred knuckles, making a point. “That pencil neck wants to run the Guild. Between the four of us, we’ll do better. Someone’s got to look out for the guys.”
    I spread my arms. “More power to you. What do you want from me?”
    Bob scooted forward. The chair groaned. “Solomon, you, and Mark are the only people with any sort of official designation other than Guild member, except for the clerk and the payroll ladies. You were the first of us to make it into the Order and you did good work as a liaison. People remember that. And now you’re the Beast Lord’s…” He groped for a word.
    “Mate,” Ivera told him.
    “Yes, that. You have street cred. The mercs will never follow Mark. You know it, I know it, Ivera knows it.”
    I glanced at Ivera. “What do you think?”
    “What he said,” she said grimly.
    I leaned back. They wouldn’t like it, but it had to be said. “Three mercs go on a gig. One bails midway through the fight, the second dies, the third loses a hand. Are they eligible for Guild disability pay?”
    Bob thought about it. “The guy that ran off gets nothing, that’s abandonment in progress. The dead guy’s next of kin gets thirty percent. The guy without a hand gets disability.”
    I sighed. “The first question to ask is how long any of them have been in the Guild. You have to hit the five-year mark to qualify for disability and do seven years to qualify for the death benefit. Until then, you die, your family gets a flat ten grand from your standard life insurance. The next question is, when did the first guy take off? If he did it once the fight started and the danger was evident, the Guild is entitled to garnish his wages, because his abandonment in progress becomes abandonment in imminent danger. How much do we garnish, Bob?”
    Muscles played on his jaw. “I don’t know.”
    “Then we move on to disability. How much do we pay? What’s a hand worth? Does it matter if he was right- or left-handed?”
    “I don’t know,” Bob said again. His eyes told me he didn’t like where I was headed.
    “Neither do I. But you know who does? Mark. I can call Mark right now and he’ll rattle it off the top of his head. Let’s talk contracts. Who provides the ammo for the Guild supply room? How much of a discount do we get from them? The Guild has a