hope for was immediate evisceration. And he was smart. To be fair, he was one of the smartest people Berne had ever met, probably the smartest on campus, but Sam Smalls needed everyone to know it, all the time. And he was majoring in English lit, for God’s sake. With a minor in media arts. Jesus wept.
Which was why it drove him crazy that Sue actually favored the worm over the Scot. Magnus hoped any kid Sam and Sue had (God fucking forbid) took after her side.
“Look, you have to leave,” Sam insisted. It was nearly dark and the temp was dropping. The three of them had left their coats inside, and Berne doubted they were going back for them. “Right now. You should, too, Maggie. Don’t look so shocked. I wouldn’t wish what’s coming on my worst enemy.”
“Didn’t know you cared,” Magnus drawled.
“It’s bad,” Sam said simply. “I don’t want to see anyone hurt, even you. None of us should be here.”
“So why are you?” Magnus asked, thinking, Oh, aye, it’s bad all right. If Sam Smalls, who wouldn’t spit on me if I was on fire, thinks I should leave, then we’re in trouble.
“It’s my job. You think no one notices when a group of weres with an agenda start mobilizing? People are coming.”
“Isn’t that the point?”
“God, you’re thick!” Sam hissed, then smacked Magnus in the chest with the back of his hand. If Sue hadn’t been standing there, Magnus would have pulled it off at the shoulder, then beat Sam to death with it. “They’re coming. This revolution or whatever it is will not get off the ground. Everything’s going to happen here, tonight. Everything’s going to end here, get it? There won’t be a worldwide chain reaction. When the smoke clears, the status quo will still be the status quo.”
“But…” Sue looked stricken. “Some of them are our friends. Yours, too.”
“They were never my friends.”
“You’re not a bear,” Magnus told him. “You’re a vole.”
“I can be both,” he replied, and pushed his glasses up again. “And better a vole than a mass murderer.”
“Barely.”
Chapter 51
Now.
“Fucking traitor is what he was,” Gulo said. “It was a pleasure to pronounce him dead.”
“Um. Gulo? Saying he’s dead doesn’t actually mean he’s dead. You get that, right?”
Gulo waved away the piddling detail of falsifying evidence in a homicide investigation. “He bailed on Sue. And I don’t mean figuratively. If he didn’t die in the crash, then where is he? It’s been days. If he lived, he crawled off somewhere to die like a tabby cat hiding under someone’s porch. Some Stable who thinks shooting herbivores means they’re a Big Bad Hunter will find his bones in a few years and that will be fucking that for Smalls. Both of them.” Gulo smiled at Berne. “I haven’t seen Sue in years. She looked pretty good on my table, all in pieces. What little there was of her.”
“That’s your cue to swing at him,” Oz volunteered, “because, again, Gulo doesn’t do original thoughts. Or subtlety.”
“Aye, lad, I’m aware. Sam wasn’t my favorite person, but he wanted to save lives. And not just ours. It’s not traitorous to stop people from jumping off a cliff.”
“Spoken like the guy who ducked and ran.”
“Yes,” Magnus replied, and Oz had to give it to the guy, he positively radiated dignity. “SAS wasn’t what I thought it was. And when I began to suspect, I should have trusted my instincts and acted right then. Instead, I dithered and hoped our other selves would reveal our better selves. That was a mistake, and people died.”
“So SAS started out fairly benign, then slowly evolved into a thing of unmitigated evil, feeding on itself and growing ever darker.” Annette paused expectantly.
“Go ahead,” Oz sighed. “You know you want to.”
“Just like the Republican party! Wait. Too political? Just like the DMV! Better?”
“For God’s sake,” Mock muttered.
Magnus didn’t even crack a smile.
“I ran to save us. I ran because I finally realized I never had any business being there. I couldn’t set the clock back, there was no way to make it right, but I could learn. O’course, a couple of buildings had to catch fire before I came to that realization.”
“Isn’t that the way it always is?” Annette asked wryly.
Chapter 52
Then.
They were still arguing when the incendiary device blew. They’d had no warning, there’d been no smell of gasoline or chemicals to tip them off. They hadn’t heard ominous ticking that induced them to flee. One minute Sam was exhorting them to