A day in the sun did wonders for Trixie’s disposition, just as Manny’d predicted. She no longer wailed. With no way to safely leave with her, Eli brought her back to her captor.

But where Eli was instructed to lay her was beyond the pale. Instead of putting her on the dog rug set at Manny’s feet, he stared the asshole down, willing him to combust.

Manny finished smoothing out the hay. “What?” he snapped.

“She’s not a bird.”

“She is a fucking harpy. Close enough. And it is all we have got. Just put her here.”

Eli studied that stupid grimace for ages. Finally, he came to a very serious conclusion.

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re doing.” Everyone sitting at the massive wooden table gave no response. Eli couldn’t believe the nerve. “You kick off this shitstorm, and you don’t know what the hell you’ve done.”

Manny looked up at him. “Put her down and I will tell you what for.”

Slade made her way around the table and sat on the floor next to the spot put out.

“E, it’s okay. I’ll sit down here with her. But...I can’t touch her either.”

“You were right about him,” Eli said, “he just wanted her gift of foresight. Even now, it’s what he’s hanging on to. That’s why he’s holding onto that egg.”

Slade took to brushing the blankets off. “We’ll talk about the egg later. Here. Put her here. Now that her skin’s dried, it’s best on the ground. We can’t leave her alone in a room. Harpies sleep high up. I’ll sit with her,” she repeated. Her skin wasn’t just dried, it was brittle and even cracking in some places.

Maybe nobody else would show the harpy respect, but Eli resolved to when he lowered her. She curled up and Slade covered her bare body with the fabric she was wrapped in.

Manny sat at the head of the table, looking down at her as if she were a prized pet.

“We will drain her rune,” he decided. He met eyes with Eli. “But we cannot until she has...turned into whatever this is.”

Eli gritted his teeth. “How generous of you. But what gives you the right? So now after you’ve forced magic on her she never wanted, you’ll hold her down and extract it against her will?”

Manny ignored him. His light brown eyes never left the harpy.

Werewolves, now grateful for the silence, lined the walls. One face stood out against the rest, and not because of his fancy badges and designer cape. Lomos; that prick.

Manny was his old self as he sat back in his chair, laughing. “Surprised?”

Eli grumbled, “Mild compared to the word I’d choose.”

“Yeah.” Manny laughed. He held his belly in the process. “I think he was more shocked than you. Hell, as was I.” After reclining, he explained, “I am there flopping around with Trix, about ready to eat my g’damn arm off, I am so hungry. This was about...four years after it all went to shit. And suddenly this dog is following me around. And I am playing with it.” One leg over the chair arm, he tapped his head. “Right? ‘Cause I am not all there.”

Eli’s eyes gravitated to the hypocritical brigade captain who wouldn’t even look at him. “He got stuck in wolf form—”

“Yup!” Manny’s laughter had the room singing. “Because his rune is loyalty and there is none when you do not serve your sovereign. Which is me. Ha!”

Those words made Eli’s lips part. Lomos was five years Eli’s senior but...it couldn’t have been true. Eli searched his memory for the timeline. When it occurred to him, he was stunned. Lomos wasn’t serving Slade all this time, even when he was generous and understanding to her, it was in his sovereign’s presence—in Manny’s presence. He served Manos and was too ashamed to admit it because none of Manos’s wolves escaped the neutering. Except him, this mangy mutt.

Lomos and Eli traded a glance. That meant one thing, his ability to walk around on two legs proved his loyalty to a fault. And Manny knew it.

With Slade on the cold stone floor, as promised, patting Trixie’s arm covered by the blanket, Eli decided to let things play out. At least they had Lomos’s wolves...and maybe half of the wolf brigade here had pledged allegiance to Slade. Maybe it was enough. Their plan they’d formulated before coming could still work.

Eli dragged out the heavy wooden chair closest to him and sat. “You’ve said Legion was your landlord? And you want to break the covenant. To...to get back to how you were when you were alive. To go back to normal.”

His train of thought put Manny at ease. “Maybe we will not be technically alive. But....” He cleared his throat and focused on Trixie. “Not pushing women in the path of trucks either.” With a clap of his hands, he told Eli, “Of course, it’s in your best interest to do this—to help me do this.”

“No,” Eli lamented. “No way it’d be that easy.”

“Well no, I’m afraid.” Manny confessed, “Like with any gang, it is blood in, and blood out. But we just catch an unsuspecting drifter. Does not matter much if it is a Child of Rune or not. And slice him up. Drop his ass on the altar and we are set.”

Eli sagged in his chair, defeat. The monster said it so casually like he’d hardly cared.

“And then you’d make a new covenant.”

“Right. One that uses something plentiful for currency. Like grass, or....”

“Or the sun.” Eli hadn’t meant to make the suggestion, but he found himself playing along. “Something that can’t be extinguished.”

Manny’s smirk was slow but full in no time. “I had considered that. But sun and moon deities are not easy to access. We would have to know which animal is bound to them.”

He stared Eli down so intently that the werewolf nearly backed into his chair. “That’s a myth. We howl at the moon. But we don’t have a connection to power that total. Nobody knows.”

The vampire’s eyes drifted to the harpy but so did Eli’s.

“But Trixie,” Eli breathed out. “Trixie’d know the deities—and which was best.”

Manny shrugged. “Sure.” He stretched his arms over his head. “And once we are set, we are done. I would say the rabbits but all they do is fuck and die. So no. Though....” He grinned. “The idea of crashing the hell out of that currency does make me hard.”

Eli gagged. “Right.” He paused. “Wait, but a covenant formed and a covenant broken...that requires the original rune. Blood. Human blood you don’t have.”

“Says who?” Manny smirked. He called back over his shoulder, “Bring in Louis III.”

Mouth agape, Eli stood when Lomos returned and handed Manny something Eli thought he’d never see again. A baby. A human baby.

“Shifted.” Manny grinned. “A werewolf shifted in the womb and forced out in human form. Isn’t he precious?”

Eli stood. Slade wasn’t far behind.

“Brother,” Slade began but no other words came. “Brother,” she said again.

Manny cradled the child and smiled at it. He threw the child up and caught him again, eliciting a giggle. When his grinning fangs gleamed, that gummy grin faded, replaced with a frightened cry.

“Urg,” Manny handed him back without looking. “Somebody catch this.”

Lomos gasped. He arrived by Manny’s side in time to rescue the baby from meeting the stone floor the hard way.

“Get it out of here,” Manny commanded. “Don’t need it disturbing the harpy.”

When Manny met Slade’s gaze, he said, “We will bleed the harpy of magic once she has transformed. Then you, and I, we will feed off her rune.”

Nodding, Eli said, disgusted, “So you won’t feel anything with hurting an innocent child. You fucking monster. No one’ll stand for this.”

“Oh, you’ll stand for it,” Manny said, rising to his feet. “You’ll stand, you’ll sit. You’ll wag your g’damn tail.” The room fell silent and he reminded them. “Because loyalty is what was promised... Evelyn.”

In a flash, Manny vanished. When he returned, he held Slade...and a butter knife. He brought it to her throat.

“She will not die, Evelyn. But rest assured, this wound will never heal either. I have no quarrel with her, with any of you, but if you get in my way....”

The knife pressed to Slade’s skin and Eli raised his hands. “No. Don’t do anything drastic.”

“Command him to stand down,” Manny ordered Slade. “Now.”

Eyes wild, Slade scanned the room and swallowed hard.

Eli tensed.

Do it. Please. He willed her to do the incantation to bring them all to Davenport once more. They’d decided on it in that parking lot. That thing, whatever he was, must have known they’d come back. He’d be ready. He’d definitely know how to subdue Manny.

But Slade remained quiet, however, and Eli understood why she wouldn’t—the egg was gone. But this was no time to be picky. Maybe they could come back for it somehow.

At the silence, Manny grabbed a fistful of Slade’s brown hair and yanked it back so far her head tilted.

“Do it. Now. Command him to stand down.”

Rage lit through Eli and he decided to end this—to end Manos right here, damn the consequence.

He shot forward but couldn’t move. Like a statue bolted to the floor, his feet weighed him down.

Slade observed his distress and whispered the incantation louder. Everyone froze on the spot and she shoved Manny back and touched the floor. Once the spell was finished, the world faded to white.

Eli blinked and blinked again. It took ages for him to focus. The first thing he saw was Slade’s face which made him sigh with relief. He rushed her but she didn’t greet him in kind. In fact, she looked horrified.

“Where is everyone?”

Davenport waved at them from behind the counter of his shop. “This is everyone. Just you two.”

“No.” Slade rushed to him. “No, there were...there were five of us in that spot. Me, Eli, my brother, Trix...and a dwarf.”

The harpy eased off the counter and stood to his full height. He didn’t answer so Eli held Slade’s shoulder and explained instead, “Anything with an active Legion can’t come in, ma’am.”

“No.” Slade brushed his hand away. “Manny didn’t have an active Legion. I know my brother. That was him—that was his arrogance.” She turned to Eli and demanded, “Why would Legion formulate how to break the covenant?”

“A Legion wouldn’t,” Davenport offered.

But Eli still wanted her to face facts. “It was Manos. I’m sure of that too, he looked me in the eye more than once. But ma’am, when he had you, when he held that knife to your throat, he wasn’t meeting eyes with me then. I think...I think when threatened, they come.”

Slade backed away, fingers raking through her hair. “And what about the rest? Huh? The wolves were too far away. But what about the rest.”

“Oh, one wolf was close by,” Davenport said. “I took the liberty of subduing him. But he’s the only one that came.”

Both Slade and Eli turned to Davenport, disbelieving of the bastard’s delayed info-sharing.

“Oh. Was I supposed to say that sooner?”

Eli was the one holding Slade back now as he muttered, “It would have been nice.”

“He was holding something, but it didn’t come through. Sorry.”

The baby. Slade made a sound but Eli was the one who wanted to cry. Lomos. They got Lomos but didn’t get the baby.

Eli found himself trembling when he turned to Davenport and asked a stupid question. “If—when humans were alive, did—did you cater to them?”

The harpy gasped, clutching his collar. “Oh, No. Of course, not.” He tapped the counter. “Standard cloaking spell.” He leaned in and whispered, “My shop looks small and shabby, but I keep it safe.”

Body vibrating, Eli turned with his back to Davenport but faced Slade and met her gaze. She didn’t dare vocalize it but he knew she understood.

Either that baby had a Legion in him, which was unlikely, or...it was human.

Slade brought both hands to her mouth. “Trixie has a Legion?”

“Not just Trixie,” Elie confessed, “how well do we actually know that dwarf?”

“You didn’t believe me about the Hindsight,” Davenport called out. “Otherwise, I would have told you that answering his distress call was sort of...a bad idea.”