Gunmetal Magic: A Novel in the World of Kate Daniels

fallout for the Pack would be enormous.”
    “I know, I know.” Muscles played along his jaw. He hated to have his hands tied and so did I. “But if we use someone outside of Atlanta for the DA job…”
    “It’s a bad idea. Even I know it’s a bad idea.”
    He looked at me. He was still thinking about it.
    “No,” I told him.
    Curran swore.
    Screwing with the DA would get us a witch hunt in a hurry. He knew it and I knew it. No, there had to be another way. Some way where the boy survived and our people didn’t die.
    I sighed. “I envy navigators sometimes. All they do is sit in the Casino and drink coffee, while the bloodsuckers run into dang—”
    I stopped in midword.
    Curran’s eyes lit up.
    “You think he’ll go for it?”
    “Oh yes. Yes, he will go for it.” He jumped off the wall. “Come with me.”
    “Shouldn’t we have some sort of a plan? Ghastek isn’t an idiot. We can’t just call down to the Casino and tell him, ‘Hi, we’re going on a suicide mission, wanna bring some vampires to be our bullet meat?’” Bloodsuckers were expensive. The very idea of taking four or five of them into danger with minuscule chances of survival would give Ghastek an aneurysm.
    “I have a plan.” Curran grinned at me.
    “Please enlighten me, Your Majesty.”
    “I’m going to make Jim figure it out,” Curran said.
    “That’s it? That’s your plan?”
    “Yes. I’m brilliant. Come on.”
    I hopped off the wall and we went down the stairs.
    If anybody could figure out how to rope Ghastek into this scheme, Jim would be the man. Served him right for all those times he’d pushed me into the line of fire.
    Payback is a bitch.
    We trapped Jim in one of the conference rooms and explained our brilliant plan.
    “This is payback, isn’t it?” Jim glared at me.
    “Don’t be ridiculous,” I told him. “As the Consort of the Pack, I’m far above petty revenge.”
    Jim tapped the clipboard with several pieces of paper on it against his forearm. “I’ll do it if you go to the Guild tomorrow.”
    “You’ll do it, because I asked you to,” Curran said.
    Jim turned to me. “Will you do the Guild thing?”
    I had a dying kid on my hands and all he cared about was Guild idiocy. “Maybe. I don’t know yet. I’m kind of busy at the moment.”
    Green flashed in Jim’s eyes. He yanked a piece of paper from the clipboard and thrust it at me. It looked like a long list.
    “What is this?”
    “This is the list of all the phone calls I’ve gotten about this shit in the last week and a half. The mercs have gotten every damn member to call me here.” He shook the list in Curran’s direction. “You want to know why your background checks aren’t done? This is why! I could get it done if your mate would stop dicking around and just deal with it.”
    Oh, it’s like this, then.
“Then I have a great idea. Since they’re all calling you, why don’t
you
stop dicking around and deal with the Guild. You have the same time in as I do.”
    “I have a job!”
    “So do I! Why is your time more important than mine?”
    The clipboard snapped in Jim’s fingers. He dropped it on the ground and raised his hands. “You know what, I’m done. I quit.”
    “Oh my God, seriously?”
    Jim wiped his hands against each other and showed them to me.
    “Is that you washing your hands off?”
    “Yes.”
    “Really? So what, you’re going to retire and open that flower shop you always wanted?”
    Jim’s eyes went completely green.
    “Enough,” Curran said. An unmistakable command saturated his voice. Jim clicked his mouth shut.
    I crossed my arms. “I’m sorry, is this the part where I fall to my knees and shiver in fear, Your Furriness? Silly me, I didn’t get the memo.”
    Curran ignored the barb. “What’s your problem with the Guild?”
    “The only way to resolve it involves me being entangled in running it and I don’t want to do it.” I waved my arms. “I have the Consort crap and I have the Cutting Edge crap and whatever other bullshit the two of you throw my way. I don’t wantto go to the Guild every month and deal with their crap on top of everything else.”
    Curran leaned toward me. “I have to dress up and meet with those corpse fuckers once every three months and be civil while we’re eating at the same table. You can deal with the Guild.”
    “You, dress up? Wow, I had no idea that putting on your formal sweatpants was such a huge burden.”
    “Kate,” Curran snarled. “They’re