“Don’t you know I count as two?” Claude announced, his green light moving toward the dartboards.
For a moment, Gem and Hooper’s light merged, the colors rippling together like two streams converging. Niko sensed they had exchanged a kiss, and his stomach knotted. Why would a Sensor have any interest in a Mage, who could kill him during intercourse? Sexual light pooled in a Mage’s hands when aroused, and only another Mage or Vampire could handle that energy. Aside from that, a Mage couldn’t have children.
Once alone, he steered his attention toward Shepherd. “You haven’t been yourself since our last case. I’ve never seen you so sullen.”
Niko recognized the familiar sound of a match striking.
“You read into things too much,” Shepherd grumbled. “You should turn that shit off and give yourself a break. I do. You think I like constantly feeling people’s emotions?”
The smell of onion rings wafted by their table, trailed by the faint floral scent of a woman’s perfume. Then both smells were obliterated by Shepherd’s cigarette smoke.
“If I may speak plainly, your attitude changed at Patrick’s party. I’ve never seen light so black, so… infinitely layered.”
“I don’t know what the fuck that’s supposed to mean.”
“You can fool the others, but there’s no point in lying to me when I can see past your words. Does Mr. Bane have anything to do with it?”
“Keep your voice down.” Paper crackled as Shepherd pulled in another drag. “You can’t ask me that.”
Niko rose from his chair and pressed his fingers firmly against the table, knowing his Sensor friend would feel his frustration skating across the surface. “Get your jacket and follow me outside.”
Shepherd needed to get something off his chest, and Niko was growing concerned about his despondent behavior. Viktor had assembled an unlikely crew of vigilantes, but he’d never accounted for how complicated it would become to keep them out of trouble. Having a partner helped, but something told Niko that Shepherd wasn’t sharing his problems with anyone, including Wyatt.
He left the game room and turned down the hall where the restrooms were, carefully dodging people and hoping no one had placed any obstacles on the floor, like a beer bottle or purse.
Niko drew his hood over his head and exited through the back door into an alleyway. Aside from being able to smell the trash in the bins, he could also estimate the space around him by the proximity of sound and how it reverberated. Moments later, the door opened behind him and Shepherd’s familiar light emerged, crackling more intensely.
Niko harnessed his Thermal gift and increased his body temperature to take the chill off. “Is there somewhere we can sit?”
“They salted down the alley for the garbage man, so unless you want to sit in a puddle of sludge, we’re standing.”
Niko tucked his hands in his coat pockets. “Perhaps it won’t mean much, but I owe you my loyalty. I pretended to take this job seriously, but not enough to support you when it mattered. I’ve not forgotten the job where we left you behind, and it presses on me like a weight. We all carry the burden of the past on our shoulders, but what good are we to one another if we can’t be more than just a team? We’re a brotherhood, and that’s more than a tattoo on our body; it’s a vow. I can’t fix your problems, but I can listen, and maybe that’ll lift the heavy weight off your shoulders.”
Shepherd’s boot scraped against the cement and made Niko think he was stamping out his cigarette. “If you tell Viktor, I’ll be out, and you and I will be done.”
Niko gripped the pommel of his katana. “You have my word.”
After a moment of silence, Shepherd heaved a sigh. “Remember the story I told you about my woman?”
“Yes.”
“And the bomb Cristo dropped about my baby being alive?” Shepherd’s light pulsed. “I know where he is.”
Niko’s jaw slackened. The black market made it nearly impossible to track down victims, especially years after the fact. “And you’re thinking of rescuing him,” Niko concluded.
“I don’t know.”
Niko stepped forward. “What does that mean?”
Shepherd’s voice grew tight. “It means I don’t know. Going after him puts his life in danger—puts your lives in danger. The buyer threatened to take down Keystone if I make a move.”
“He knows about Keystone?”
“It’s Patrick Bane. He’s the one who has my kid.” Shepherd’s light flared with the admission, and Niko could read the truth in it.
“Your child… is Patrick Bane’s little boy? The one you saved that night when he was thrown over the banister?”
“The very one.”
Niko lowered his head, thunderstruck by the revelation. “What is your intention?”
“I don’t know.” It sounded like Shepherd kicked the wall behind him. “He’s got me in a tight spot. If I go after him, he’s going to bring us down for good, arrest me for treason, and keep my kid. If I somehow manage to kidnap my own son, I’ll spend the rest of my life on the run from Patrick’s men. He threatened to kill the boy. That arrogant pissant doesn’t love him. He’s using him like a slave.”
“Does he have special abilities?”
Shepherd sighed. “He’s both a Sensor and a Relic. His gifts didn’t cancel out. But that motherfucker wants him for something else. Maggie had a lot of knowledge about human genetics. She wouldn’t cooperate for him, so the next best thing was her kid. The boy’s too young to give him what he wants. He’s not mature enough to understand his own knowledge.”
“But soon he will be, and Patrick will have earned his loyalty as a father figure. Are you sure it’s Relic knowledge that he wants?”
“Pretty sure. For now, he’s using the kid to read people he does business with. Sensor shit, like feeling a lie. Now that I think back to those parties, I remember how Patrick would make him take empty glasses from business associates. There were plenty of waiters to do that shit, but he was using the kid to read people. Nobody thinks twice about it because he’s told everyone the kid’s a Relic. How much you want to bet he also does it in private meetings?”
“Did he do it during the dinner he invited you to?”
“Nah. It would have been foolish on his part to try to trick a Sensor. I didn’t feel he was lying when the kid appeared from underneath the table.”
Niko considered the situation. A man like Patrick would have covered his tracks and acquired forged adoption papers. Even a DNA test to prove Shepherd was the father wouldn’t implicate Patrick in any wrongdoing. A man like him had access to private records, and he’d probably altered the documents about the child’s mother and how she died. The man who killed her was now dead, and there weren’t any other witnesses to the crime. Going after someone without sufficient evidence was slander.
Going after a member of the higher authority without proof was treason.