If that wasn’t his real name, it had to be the worst fake name in history.

  “Like it’s any better than Clare Voyhent?”

  “Sure, but still. I assume there’s more to this than a weird name, though.”

  “Right.” Anselm nodded. He was still hiding something, but he’d concluded his best bet was to be as honest as possible. “It’s actually Senior Adjudicator Anselm Horst, Summerland Third District.”

  Her good mood evaporated. Even faster when he drew the badge from his coat and placed it on the table. It was either the best fake she’d ever seen, ticking all the boxes for the anti-counterfeit markers, or she’d seated herself in front of a real-ass fucking adjudicator.

  On the ground.

  She didn’t think they were allowed on the ground. Probably that was why he hadn’t announced himself as loudly as possible and interrogated people. She’d heard plenty of stories of what the adjudicators could do. Many supernatural folks existed in the world, and she couldn’t categorically dismiss them all. Still, they sounded outlandish, to say the least.

  Unfortunately, every one of those stories screamed back into her head now. It was her turn to reassess their interactions from the moment she’d sat in the corner booth with him. She doubted he could read minds, but the way he studied her seemed to pick up more details than she thought possible.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” She stood, her hand on the knuckle dusters in her pocket. “What do you want with me?”

  If he knew she was reaching for a weapon, he didn’t react. Instead, he remained seated and inspected the pale-green bandage Florence had placed over his hand. “I was honest about that part. Sort of. The Summerland City Council sent me to find you, although their intelligence operatives down here didn’t know much more than your moniker and that you were maybe in New Houston.”

  She snorted. “What the fuck do those gasbags want with someone like me? Don’t you have your classically trained technicians to call on?”

  Clare wasn’t sure, but she thought she caught a smirk on his face when she insulted the council. It was too dark to tell, and it was gone too quickly.

  “I assume, since they sent me to find you, it means the issue stumped all those techies. They need you because they have a problem with the gravitium holding the city up. I’m unclear on the details, but they are concerned the failure could cause a chain reaction and drop the city. Therefore, if you can help, you can name your price.”

  She blinked a few times. They’d developed their entire society around gravitium. Its infallibility was the reason millions of the great and the good of the world built their lives in the sky, as far from the dregs and mutes as they could get.

  “Fuck me.” Clare wasn’t sure she could believe a word he said. The fact that he’d shown up with the best adjudicator badge she’d ever seen and claimed they needed her help up top did make it somewhat believable. “How many people would die if the city came down?”

  He paused and tilted his head. “I… What?”

  “It’s got to be millions. I don’t know how many people in Summerland would die, but so many on the ground would get caught in the destruction if a whole fucking city dropped out of the sky.”

  Anselm studied her for a few seconds before surprise entered his expression. “I thought you’d be more interested in the money you could demand. You care about the human collateral?”

  Clare scowled at him. “What, you think because I’m not a mute, I can’t have feelings for people who aren’t in the same situation? Empathy is inherently human, and mutes are humans with genetic mutations. I guess you’re a purist?”

  He opened his mouth to answer and snapped it shut. He was not there to coerce her into helping, clearly. Adjudicators were the blunt club of the law in the sky cities. Incredibly effective, but the hammer sort who saw every problem as a nail.

  This one wasn’t like that.

  “I’ll admit to certain prejudices.” He shrugged. “Ignorance, for the most part. I’ve never been down here.”

  “Seriously?” Clare snorted. “I assumed you’d visited the other side of the railroad tracks a couple of times. You people come here to taste the forbidden fruit.”

  That earned her an annoyed look.

  “Why does everyone think I came down here to get laid?”

  “Uh…” Clare was willing to admit a few prejudices of her own. “I wasn’t talking about a visit to the pleasure palaces. I meant the food. You’re the one with dirty pictures in your mind.”

  “Food?”

  She nodded like she’d been talking about that the whole time. “Right. Most humans come down for the food and the fun. Some for the sex, some for the kinks. We get people for business too, but they prefer to do that from a distance. A long, long distance. Why? Did a woman up there warn you about the scurvy-infested hoochie down here?”

  “Not in so many words.” Anselm seemed distinctly uncomfortable with the line of conversation. “I see how she might have meant that, though.”

  Clare raised an eyebrow. “If she’s not a grandmother, I’d say she might be trying to become Mrs. Senior Adjudicator.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. She’s already a senior adjudicator and has a corner office.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “Strange.” Clare shook her head. There was plenty to unpack there, but if he was telling the truth, they didn’t have the time. “Come on. I’ve set it up so you can join me in the workroom.”

  “Workout room?” He stood and tested Florence’s efforts.

  Not quite her type, but the knowledge that he was an adjudicator changed how she saw him.

  “No. Workroom. If you don’t take it easy, you’ll pop your stitches, and I’ll have to call Florence back to fix you.”

  He nodded. “Right.”

  Clare didn’t like the idea of letting him into her inner sanctum. Yet if he was serious, it wouldn’t be her sanctum for long. She doubted they’d let her stay up there, but she could ask for a better place for her and the pack. Somewhere on the East Coast, where werewolves freely roamed the forests.

  He buttoned his shirt and followed her through the path she’d created among her alarms and traps. Old school and new. Clare wondered if it wasn’t only her need to collect anything wonderful she found out there.

  “Come on in. I don’t let the pack down here.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  It seemed Clare could do anything. Whatever she couldn’t do, she had bots and machines to do it for her.

  She kept all her best work in her workroom. Interestingly, she wasn’t particularly proud of any one point. She went through her various contraptions and devices, muttering about how she would never get them to work right. How she needed the proper tools and equipment to make them functional.

  Acting like he wasn’t in the middle of a technologist’s wet dream.

  She walked around the room, picking up items she needed. He recognized only a few tools and weapons. Most of them, he couldn’t begin to guess at.

  “Hold on.” He shook his head. “Does this mean you’ll accept the job?”

  “If I don’t, people will die. I’m not taking that chance. Not for you assholes up there.”

  “You won’t be allowed any weapons.” Anselm raised an eyebrow. “It’s against the law for mutes.”

  “Humans from the surface are considered mutes on Summerland?”

  “Typically.” He disagreed with that classification. Considering the problems with regular humans carrying weapons, he would have kept them unarmed, too. “Living down here with the leftover issues of nuclear fallout. The muddled bloodlines of the fur—the weres, then the genetic modifiers in people’s bodies from the biological agents. You can understand why it would be the general assumption.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Yet all that pure blood doesn’t help you fix your own shit, does it?”

  Anselm shrugged. He didn’t know enough about genetics or the studies of creatures after the Curtain falling. He’d never been interested in the details. He never had to worry about what was happening down here before.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Anselm rubbed his chin. He’d thought letting his beard come in would scruff up his appearance and endear him to the people on the ground. He hadn’t considered how itchy it would be. “The best sources of gravitium are in the shadow of what used to be San Antonio. That’s also one of the most powerful fang bastions on this side of the hemisphere.”

  “Wait, is that why the Dominio de la Noche set themselves up in there?” Clare hefted a pneumatic press that had been adapted into something else. “They’ve been a problem?”

  “I’m not entirely sure.” He cleared his throat. Anselm regretted not paying attention when people discussed these things around him. “Over the past few decades, the fang lords have tightened their hold. The sky cities have realized they need to make do. If they knew about the trouble people up there have, they would make demands humans couldn’t live up to. Hell, they might decide to let the cities fall. They’d be able to harvest the tech and use it as a lesson to the other sky cities of what could happen to them if they don’t comply with the Dominio’s demands.”

  Clare paused in her preparations. She had nothing to say, but it was an interesting thought. Horrifying, but interesting. The gravity of their situation was apparent.

  After she came to terms with it, she continued gathering her things and packing them in bags. They were designed for easy carrying, although the weight seemed excessive.

  “So.” It sounded like she wanted to break the silence. “Everyone up there is terrified of mutes, huh?”

  He needed to keep her on his side. She likely saw him as nothing more than a stooge for the councils. As long as she decided to help, he’d let her continue thinking that.

  “You’ll want to keep it civil,” he answered after a pensive pause.

  “I’ll give you the weapons when we get to your safe zone, but I’m relying on you to keep me safe.” She grabbed her gear and handed him a bag. “Until then, neither of us is safe enough for me to be left unarmed.”

  “I need to get my contact online for a shuttle up to the city.” Anselm rubbed his chin again. He could hand her off to someone else, get a shave and a proper meal. And a drink. “Shouldn’t have any need for them—”

  “How long have you been down here, bub?” Clare flicked her wrist to pull what looked like a particle gun from up her sleeve. A weapon like that, and that small? She could sell the rights for enough money to buy herself a small mansion on the upper west side of Summerland.

  “About twenty-four hours.”

  “Then we’ll be relying on my word. When we get up there, I’ll listen to what you say and take your word for it. I’d appreciate it if you could do me the same courtesy. Especially since I’ve had people come after me twice in one day. I don’t imagine the next batch will ask any nicer.”

  He was still stuck on the wrist-sized particle gun on her arm. How did she power it? Maybe she really was the ideal person for this job.

  “Right.” He cleared his throat and followed her as she wound through her traps and alarms, setting them up again. “This explains why our cities don’t want mutes with weapons.”

  “And I’m sure every pure-blooded human is an outstanding citizen, a real beacon of righteousness.”

  “Not true, or I wouldn’t have a job.” Anselm hefted the bag she’d given him. It looked full of batteries. “Though I mostly deal with crimes of passion.”

  “All crimes are crimes of passion to some degree or another. When I was a kid, I was passionate about not dying of hunger, so I stole a can of soup from one of the carts. Folks who are looking to get a fix are passionate about that. More passionate than people who want to knock the shit out of their two-timing spouses.”

  “What, are you a lawyer or something?” He’d never dealt with that side of the criminal justice system. His job was to find criminals and enough evidence to send them before a judge for sentencing. He avoided lawyers, knowing they hated adjudicators. They whined about how they were elements of fascism and about how juries and judges believed someone could be sent to the rehab centers on their word alone.

  “What does it matter? I’m a techie first. That means your job is to get us off the ground and into the sky. Get to it.”

  Anselm rolled his eyes. He’d never done anything so emotional in front of his coworkers. She had a way of getting under his skin. He watched while she flipped her short, bronze-colored hair out of her face and spun up a curse he’d never heard before.

  Not quite under his skin, then. He only needed to get back up top and wash the stench of the city off.

  Maybe after that was done, he could pick and choose his jobs. Regular corporate espionage work sounded good. Making the supposed masters of the universe sweat under his gaze. Those were the people who believed the stories about the adjudicators.

  People talked about coming to the surface like the place was appealing. Maybe up in the mountains on the other side of the ice ocean. People set up skiing resorts there, as removed from the surface as the sky cities. Removed from the clouds and the radiation.

  He had to trigger the brass ring, but he didn’t want to do it around her. She could probably replicate it. Nanobots were bleeding-edge tech, and if anyone thought he was sharing that tech with her, there would be hell to pay.

  “You ready to go?” he asked.

  “Just need to do a quick once-over on my place.” She nodded at the door. “Go ahead and step outside. Don’t wander too far, though. Won’t take me more than a few minutes, and I don’t want my pack getting the wrong idea.”

  “Wouldn’t want that, no.”

  She flipped him off as he closed the door behind himself. It was as good a time to trigger the brass ring as any other.

  As if the nanobots could read his mind, they jumped from the skin around his finger.

  “Alpha-Sierra Priority,” he whispered into the device. “Mic check on all frequencies, respond as soon as possible. Need transport for myself and asset. Over.”

  The message would reach the embeds in the area. Hopefully, one would respond in the next hour or so. He couldn’t expect them all to be readily available. They had lives to live, and it would be inconvenient to suddenly stop whatever they did in the middle of the night to talk to a ring that appeared on their finger.

  Not to mention it would be obvious they were embeds.

  A few long, uncomfortable seconds later, he felt a vibration in his finger. The comm bead in his ear went live.

  “Read you, Alpha-Sierra Priority.” Interference garbled the voice. “Acquiring transport for priority and asset. You’ll need to board the tram with the asset, with your brass ring on display for confirmation.”

  “How will I—”

  The bead beeped. The contact had disconnected. Likely wasn’t interested in revealing anything more about himself on an open line. Lines weren’t always compromised, but if one was, they wouldn’t want too much shared. One never knew who was listening…or why. Other embeds could cause trouble for each other. They were paid handsomely but on a per-job basis. The fewer embeds, the more available jobs for those who remained.

  He’d been assured that wasn’t an issue, but what the fuck did the people up top know about the desperate lives of the people down below?

  “Look at that. You’re still here.” Clare rejoined him and locked the door to her personal fire station. “Here I was thinking you’d run off or ended up a fang’s midnight nibble.”

  “It’s like you said. While we’re down here, you’re the one calling the shots.”

  She grinned. “He can be taught. Now, the shot I’m calling is to tell you to tell me what we’re doing next.”

  “Let’s hit the tram.” Anselm didn’t need to say more than that. They were in hostile territory. He had his asset, and he would protect her with his life. And he would crack out the instruments of his work as needed.

  The people upstairs wouldn’t complain about him protecting the person who was supposed to save their lives.

  She nodded and pointed in the direction of the nearest station. Tracks spread across the whole city, crisscrossing and rising above the ramshackle buildings. It was a sharp contrast since the system was built back when the sky cities made a show of supporting the neutral cities. When they realized it didn’t encourage the mutes to cooperate with them, they stopped.

  Still, New Houston had been left with a useful souvenir from those days.

  Elevators took people up from the ground to the trams. They were in surprisingly good condition. He would have thought the desperate folks would go after the devices and strip them for parts. Then again, they needed to move around the city without additional vehicles. Most of the motors were better used as generators, anyway.

  “I have to say,” Clare noted when the doors to the elevators closed behind them. “You seem anxious to get back home. Do I make you uncomfortable?”

  “You and this whole damn place.” He wasn’t ashamed to admit it. “I’ve spent my whole life learning and understanding every detail of how society works up above. My job depends on it.”

  “So you’re telling me you can’t actually read minds.” She sounded like she was only half joking.

  He tossed her a mocking look. “Of course not. Your thoughts are safe from my view. Not that my judgment should matter to you. I want to get back to the sky city for plenty of less-than-pleasant reasons. For the most part, I want to be where I understand shit.”

  She studied him for a few seconds. “Probably wouldn’t want you to see my thoughts. They’re private.”

  “Again…they’re safe.”

  Clare stared at him like she was trying to judge his reaction to something she hadn’t said yet.

  “What?”

  “I’m just checking. Choir boy like you, you’d be blushing at what’s going through my head right now.”

  “You need to focus.”

  “Sure.”

  He’d been trained to keep his emotions from openly displaying on his face. He was thankful for those lessons. Otherwise, his ears would be burning red.