It was daytime, but I wouldn’t have gone into the seethe without my lamb unless someone dragged me kicking and screaming.
Adam said, “I wasn’t certain. I’m not certain now. It could turn out that there’s a cult of fae spiders who practice some sort of mind control.”
When I winced, he glanced at me. “Sorry. A little close to the bone.”
“Next time, you get to be the spider incubator,” I told him.
“Fair enough,” he agreed meekly. “Anyway, the whole focus on scaring the public and reducing confidence in our pack’s ability to do our job is right in line with the reason Bonarata kidnapped you.”
He stopped speaking, and when I glanced at him to see why, his eyes were glittering bright gold.
“Truthfully, I am surprised that he moved again this soon,” I said, as much to give Adam something to distract himself with as to communicate anything important. “It sounded to me as though you convinced him that the real power in the TriCities rests with the Gray Lords, who are using us as a public shield.”
Adam had managed that because it was absolutely true.
He nodded. “Honestly, I expected him to move against us—if only because we make Marsilia’s position more powerful in a way that does not depend upon him. But Bonarata has the reputation of being a long-game thinker. So I expected him to spend the next forty years building his game before he engaged with us again.”
I thought about the silk belt in our weapons safe. Adam was right, Bonarata was a patient hunter.
“For a straightforward man, you think awfully twisty.”
“Thank you,” he said. “It’s all those years of dealing with Bran. He gets in your head.”
I winced theatrically. “People have been disappearing since September. That means this all started just a couple of months after we got back from dealing with Bonarata in Europe.”
“Maybe this isn’t something new,” Adam said slowly. “Maybe it’s a continuation of the vendetta he’s had against Marsilia since he banished her however many years ago.”
“That sounds about right,” I said. “So maybe my kidnapping this summer was a part of a much longer plot.”
Adam smiled grimly. “God help us. It’s like trying to unweave something Bran put together—or claimed credit for. I imagine we’ll figure out everything eventually. As long as we survive.”
Our wolves were waiting for us in the parking lot. I was a little surprised to see one of the bay doors open and Zee standing outside talking with Adam’s second. Zee looked frail and small next to Darryl’s muscular sleekness. No one would suspect that he was the more dangerous of the two.
I got out of the car and waved at the assembled werewolves but headed straight for Zee.
“I thought that you weren’t going to be here today,” I said after greeting Darryl.
“Do you have a minute that we can talk?” Zee asked.
I glanced at Adam and said, “Give me five?”
“We’re still waiting for Warren and Zack,” he said. “Take your time.”
Zee led the way to the bathroom and shut the door, turning on the fan for good measure. He listened to the gentle hum and made a sound of disgust.
“The fan in the old building would have kept our voices from carrying to a werewolf sitting with his ear against the door,” he complained.
He turned off the fan and waved a hand. I felt his magic fill the room.
“Bonarata is here,” he said.
“We think so,” I agreed. “Both Adam and Larry have word that he’s still in Italy, but all signs point to that being wrong.”
“Talked to a friend in Seattle,” Zee said. “Bonarata is building a home there. My friend says that there’s been a black copter flying in and out of the property three, four days of the week. The only person who uses that helicopter is Bonarata. He’s been in Washington State for five, maybe six weeks.”
“Okay,” I said. I’d felt better when we weren’t certain.
“Bonarata’s at the heart of this,” Zee said. “Found out that he’s had the Soul Taker for centuries. I didn’t look in that direction because, given a few centuries, I would have thought that the Soul Taker would have found a way out of his hold, one way or another.”
“You said that you didn’t think it could take Bonarata,” I said.
“Bonarata doesn’t fill his castle with old, powerful vampires,” Zee said. “It should have found someone.” He frowned. “I think he found a way to contain it. After you helped me understand exactly what it’s doing with its dead, a web of death magic that spans an abyss we have no way to measure, I don’t think anyone is safe. Not you. Not Bonarata. Not me.”