“Who’s your source?” Sylvia asked, her folded wings twitching anxiously.
“An old friend,” Delilah said. “She had a close scrape with some of their muscle recently, but she managed to nab a souvenir.”
She produced a smartphone and tapped on the screen, flipping through messages until she full-screened a photograph of a folded piece of paper. She slid it across the table to us. Cliff immediately cursed under his breath beside me.
The weathered green sheet looked like it had been crumpled and submerged in water before being photographed, but I could make out enough of the text to know I was looking at a cargo manifest.
Siren — intact, mature, 2
Fairies— intact, mature, 3
Phoenix — injured, 1
Lycanthrope — sedated
The remainder of the text was smeared from water damage, but a logo marked the top left corner.
“Holy shit,” I murmured.
ThatEfrom the church basement in Louisiana. The very sameEhad been on Rhett’s grocery list of monsters he had tasked the hunters’ outpost to acquire.Eros. I couldn’t shake the feelingthat this had been connected longer than we’d had the pieces to stitch together.
I zoomed in on a bit of Latin that wrapped below the logo like a mission statement.
Propter amorem humanitatis.
“For the love of humanity,” Lee filled in, his voice low.
Rhett’s greedy, ice-blue eyes flashed through my mind—the plan that had been at work behind them in plain sight. Those crates of ahools and the weakened siren on the docks secured by military-grade locks… Did any of the hunters at the outpost know the true destination of their captured supply? Did they even care, after money had been exchanged?
“Can’t believe this shit’s happening all the way over here,” I muttered.
“You’ve seen something like this before?” Ben said suddenly, then looked like he regretted addressing us when I glanced up at him. He reacted like holding eye contact with me was poisonous.
“Yeah, on some asshole in south Louisiana,” I said.
Sylvia exchanged a look with me, silently asking permission to disclose more. I nodded.
“This Eros, whoever he is,” she said. “He’s using hunters to collect the creatures.”
Ben made a face somewhere between a sneer and a grimace. “That’s nightmare-inducing. But maybe it’ll work out in our favor. I mean, hunters are savages. It’s only a matter of time before they turn on each other.”
“Watch it,” I intoned, shooting him a look.
I didn’t think it was possible, but he paled two shades whiter. “No offense meant.”
“How do Inottake offense to that?”
“So you expect us to be your butchers?” Cliff glared around the table. “I mean, we aren’t really in the business ofsavingmonsters.”
“I thought you’d be thrilled at the proposition. We’re practically serving you monsters on a silver platter to massacre. Unless you’d prefer them to be in the hands of assassins and drug lords?” Lee asked, that fire burning brighter in his stare. “You should know there’s one very clear memo running around every guest, buyer, and seller at the gala—allfairies and sirens go to Eros. No exceptions. You sure you can just walk away knowing that?”
Sylvia shot me a breathless look.He has a point, her eyes seemed to say. I didn’t want to admit it, but fuck, she was right. Still, the people across from us didn’t sit well with me.
“And why do you care?” I leaned back in my seat and dug my boots into the carpet. “What gain does this really have for a witch and a… I’m sorry, what exactly are you? A waiter?” I frowned at Lee, who I admittedly couldn’t get a damn read on. No magic or evident combat experience. Maybe his preternatural power was being a punchably smug asshole.
Lee’s answering smile was humble but not without its edges. “World-class acquisitions expert for selected clientele,” he recited. “Before I retired, of course.”
“So, a thief,” Cliff said flatly.
