Magic Rises

was, locked in the terrified haze where all you want to do is wake up and see your kid be okay. You want it so much, so desperately that you will do anything, anything at all for some magic cure, for the smallest chance. You want the nightmare to end, but it never does. How do you put a price on avoiding that?
    Curran studied the pieces of the smoker. “The spiel is that since I’m far away, I’ll be fair and neutral. None of their neighbors have volunteered for the job.”
    “They already have her in a neutral location,” I thought out loud. “It doesn’t make sense that they couldn’t find someone strong enough close by to keep the three packs in line. This is like going to L.A. to hire a bodyguard for a job in Atlanta.”
    “Mm-hm. Their story doesn’t quite add up. Desandra is still alive, which means one of two things: Jarek doesn’t really want to kill her, which means they don’t need me, or they’ve got her in a fortress where she is completely secure and he can’t get to her, in which case, again, they don’t need me.”
    “Did you ask them about it?”
    “They’re claiming that since all three packs will be in the place at the same time, only I am strong enough to keep them from turning the place into a slaughterhouse.”
    I liked this less and less. They could only give us a flimsy reason, but they wanted Curran specifically and dangled panacea in front of our noses. They knew he wouldn’t turn it down. “It’s a trap.”
    “Oh, I know it’s a trap.” Curran bared his teeth. “They’ve baited it with something they know I can’t refuse and let the Pack know about it. I met the envoys yesterday, just me and Jim alone. When I came back from the meeting, the rats and the jackals had already left messages asking if they could assist me in any way.”
    “Clever.” The shapeshifters gossiped worse than old ladies at a church picnic. Right now rumors about the ten drums of panacea were spreading through the Pack like wildfire. If Curran balked at going, every parent with a child under twenty would storm the Keep and riot.
    The Pack had very little contact with European shapeshifters. There were some tentative trade agreements, but the only thing Curran was really interested in was the panacea, and the European packs weren’t willing to sell or share.
    We looked at each other.
    “Have you done something to attract their attention?” I asked. “Why us? Why now?”
    He shook his head, his voice tinted with a growl. “I’ve done nothing and I don’t know.”
    “What could they possibly want from us?”
    “I don’t know. I’ll find out one way or another.”
    “What did Jim say?”
    “He doesn’t know either. He’s looking into it.”
    Jim Shrapshire was as devious as you could get. As the Pack’s chief of security, he hoarded information like gold. If he didn’t know what was going on, either it didn’t matter or it was really bad. My money was on really bad.
    “When do we need to be there?”
    “As soon as we can. She’s staying in a small town on the coast of the Black Sea. If we take a ship from Savannah across the Atlantic, we’re looking at about three weeks or more of travel, provided nothing happens.”
    We’d need to leave fast. The biggest hurdle would be finding a ship. Passages across the Atlantic didn’t always work out. The Black Sea wasn’t easy to cross either. The ancient Greeks called it Pontos Axenos, the Hostile Sea. In our day and age, Greek myths were lifesaving required reading, and I’d read enough of them to know that the Black Sea wasn’t a fun place.
    “Where on the Black Sea?”
    “Georgia.”
    Colchis. Bodyguard detail in the land of the Golden Fleece, dragons, and witches, where the Argonauts had sailed and nearly died. “We should get the terms in writing.”
    “Kate, do you think I’d walk out of that meeting without a contract?” He picked up a stack of papers pinned to the roof by the box and passed it to me. I scanned it. The three clans collectively hired us to protect Desandra from all threats and act in her best interests until the birth of her children and for three days after.
    “That ‘acting in her best interest’ is a really broad clause,” I thought out loud.
    “Mm-hm. I’ve wondered about that. Somebody must’ve insisted on putting that in.”
    “It almost sounds like she isn’t in her right mind and they’re worried she’ll harm herself.” I realized Curran was looking at me. “Yes?”
    “The