Indigo Rain by Watts Martin Page A

weight off her injured foot, he trudged forward with his hands in his pockets. Lisha spent most of the time glancing back and forth, alternately putting her hand out in front of the raccoon to signal a stop and walking a little too fast. Both her scent and body language spoke of her agitation.
    “They’re not going to come after us at the Society,” Roulette said.
    “We can’t be too careful.”
    “I know. But they’re busy with…with something.”
    Lisha was looking off to the left and motioning Roulette forward as she responded. “With what?”
    “Something involving water connections in a building. I couldn’t see it.”
    Even at the slow pace, it was less than ten minutes’ walk back. “Their secret headquarters is this close?” Roulette asked.
    “It’s not their headquarters. Just a warehouse one of the Brothers owns. One of many in this district, I’m sure.” Her words were casual but her tone had a we’re deep in enemy territory edge to it.
    Gregir held the door open for both of them, revealing Tiran pacing in the reception area. He hurried over to put his arm around Roulette and start to guide her to a chair. “Lords. What did they do to you?”
    “Not as much as they wanted, I think,” she said. “But Lisha is right.”
    “About what?”
    “About everything,” she sighed. Temperamentally she was inclined to Tiran’s nuanced diplomacy, but right now she felt far more sympathetic to Lisha’s start-breaking-heads air. “It was Massey’s group. The Brothers of…whatever.”
    Tiran furrowed his brow. “Atasos. Are you absolutely sure?”
    “He was there, Tiran. Massey was there. With the ones who kidnapped me.”
    Tiran’s ears folded back. Lisha balled her hands into fists.
    “You can’t be sure it was him,” he said weakly. “You’ve never met him.”
    Roulette reached into her pocket, then limped over to the receptionist’s desk, pulled out the recording orb and set it down, leaving a finger on it until after she said, “Show.”
    The image was at an odd angle, but it showed Massey and the two men standing by the wall in front of the drawings. “The best connection point we’ve determined is here,” Massey’s image said tinnily.
    “Those are the people who were at the bakery,” Lisha said tightly.
    Roulette nodded.
    Tiran opened his mouth, then closed it wordlessly. He listened to Massey describe the crawlspace, the water junction, the timer; listened to the argument between his men; watched the last few moments when they pointed at Roulette’s cell and the recording cut off abruptly.
    After the playback ended, he swallowed, staring at the desk with a blank expression for several seconds. Then he reached for the recording orb.
    Before his hand got there, Lisha slapped both of hers down—one on top of his wrist, one on top of the orb. She held his hand in place while she pocketed it.
    He looked up at her in shock. “What do you—”
    “You’ve been taking that bastard’s blood money for two years, denying everything I’ve been telling you about him.” Lisha’s quiet, tight tone radiated more menace than Roulette had yet heard from her. “Don’t expect me to trust you with the proof.”
    “Proof?” He gave her an incredulous, almost pitying look. “Lisha. Please. We don’t have any idea what they’re talking about. Connection point to what? The lengths who will go to?”
    “It’s proof of Massey’s direct involvement with a fucking kidnapping, a threat against Roulette’s life, and a plot that sounds like it involves injecting acid into water lines. We don’t have to know exactly what they’re talking about to know that it’s got something to do with the rally tomorrow.”
    His voice grew warning. “Lisha—”
    The vixen’s voice grew hotter. “It fits with everything I’ve been tracking. Secret meetings. More activity in their underground network. The herani. That they have to do whatever they’re going to do tonight.”
    Tiran had rolled his