Inked

settled by bums, druggies and the portion of the supernatural population who couldn’t pass for human even with a glamourie.
    Over time, bars, brothels, markets and casinos had opened up, forming a mirror image of the world above, only more desperate and a lot more dangerous. Someone in the Corps had named the place after the deep, dark pit reserved for evildoers in Greek mythology and it had stuck, maybe because it was so apt. I couldn’t imagine what interest Vegas’s shadow city could hold for someone like Sebastian Arnou.
    “Jamie used to be a tunnel rat,” I said slowly. “If anyone is interested in Tartarus, he’d be the one to ask.” The Rats were a group of war mages who once patrolled the tunnels, before the current war in the supernatural community pulled them to other duties.
    “But why you?”
    “I’m dating his brother,” I admitted, because it wasn’t exactly a secret. Cyrus had haunted the infirmary while I recovered from my recent brush with the hereafter. And ever since, he’d been showing up for lunch in the cafeteria, despite what it considered food. He’d become so much of a staple that people had almost stopped staring at him as if he planned to eat them instead of the rubbery quiche.
    “And is that all?”
    I shrugged. “Technically, I am part of his clan. Sebastian trusts me. Well, as much as any Were ever trusts a mage…”
    Hargrove threw an arm across the staircase, halting me in my tracks. “Let us have one thing perfectly clear,” he told me, gray eyes flashing. “Were or not, you are Corps. Therefore you answer to me, not to some bardric or whatever he is.”
    “I’m not a Were,” I said flatly. “My mother was a member of Clan Lobizon, but my father was human.”
    “Be that as it may, I won’t have someone on my team hiding things from me. The Weres have the right to deal with their own kind as they see fit, but if anything about this bears on our activities, I expect to be informed. Is that understood?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Hargrove shot me a look that said it had damn well better be, but fortunately there wasn’t time for more. One didn’t keep a king—or the equivalent—waiting. A moment later, we caught up with the others at the top of the stairs and pushed through into the busy main corridor.
    The Central Division of the War Mage Corps is part of the North American branch of the Silver Circle—the most powerful magical association on earth. Only it wasn’t looking much like it at the moment. The war had trashed our previous digs, causing a precipitate and only half-completed move to new quarters beneath a large warehouse. It was crowded, the air-conditioning didn’t work half the time and the place tended to smell of dust, body odor and the ozone tang of magic.
    Today, it smelled like dung.
    I glanced around, wondering what new problem had cropped up since I’d passed through this morning. Unlike the lower levels, this one was open to the public. As usual, it was crowded with a microcosm of the current war. Mages, apprentices and lab techs hurried along, skirting the long line of arms dealers waiting for permits. Informants slunk past with furtive expressions, hoping their tidbits were worth a payout. Mercenaries loitered against the walls, awaiting interviews for the kind of service the Corps preferred to pay others to do. And someone was selling chickens.
    Okay, that was new.
    A squat-necked, big-bosomed woman with nut brown skin and a graying braid squatted near the stairwell, surrounded by wicker cages of live chickens. They stared at us accusingly out of bright black eyes, their beaks protruding through slits in the weaving. A glance down the corridor showed a variety of other small food animals, bleating and squealing from cages dotted here and there among duffle bags, backpacks and fifty or so scruffy-looking people.
    Hargrove grabbed a passing mage who couldn’t get away fast enough. “Lieutenant!”
    The lieutenant stopped, looking resigned. His arms were full of baby goat, which was nibbling on his lapel. Like all war mage attire, his coat was spelled to resist damage, although that wasn’t working so well in this case. The goat took a nibble, the lapel grew back, further intriguing the goat. Repeat.
    “Yes, sir.”
    “What are all these people doing here?”
    “I’m sorry, sir. We had to bring them down. They were picketing out front and drew the attention of the human police—”
    “I told Aaronson to get rid of them an hour