Deadtown

that.”

It was another bluff, of course. I couldn’t turn into smoke. Shapeshifters can only change into animate creatures. But it was clear that Norden didn’t know squat about my kind. Besides, whether I turned into a mosquito or an elephant, I didn’t much like my chances against Sykes’s strength and Norden’s gun.

I closed my eyes and tried to look like someone about to vanish in a wisp of smoke.

“Goddamn it!” Norden stomped his foot. But he holstered the pistol.

“Okay, boys,” I said. “Let’s go.”

I led the way through my living room. Sykes held my left arm in a near-crushing grip. Norden followed so close behind us I could feel his onion-and-cigar breath on my neck. I was in the clutches of the Goon Squad, but I was walking out of here on my own.

IN THE LOBBY, CLYDE SHOOK HIS HEAD LIKE HE’D EXPECTED to see something like this. He probably thought they were hauling me in for public indecency. But his face creased into a frown when his gaze shifted to Norden, who stuck as close as he could without actually touching me. Nobody in Deadtown liked the Goons, and most felt that norm cops had no business inside our borders. “Is everything all right, Miss Vaughn?” he asked, still staring at the cop.

“Just peachy, Clyde. Would you mind giving Kane a call? Tell him to meet me at Goon Squad headquarters ASAP.”

“Very good, Miss Vaughn.” He reached for the phone.

“Goddamn monster with a goddamn lawyer,” Norden grumbled. “And the lawyer’s a monster, too. What next?”

The big zombie growled, and the human half turned in his direction. “Shut up, Sykes.”

Sykes gave his partner a look that would reduce most norms to a quaking puddle of fear. The two stared at each other, tense, fists clenched on both sides. Then Sykes pulled up his hood, put on his sunglasses, and shambled out the door, sorting his fingers into gloves.

Norden watched him go, his lip curled in pure hatred. Odd. Most norm cops joined the Goon Squad because they thought hanging out with the monsters made them tough. This one seemed to be here because he hated us. Wasn’t I lucky the lucky one, drawing him as my dance partner.

Poor Norden, though. It just wasn’t his day. I wasn’t playing nice, his partner was snarling at him, and he couldn’t even have the fun of dragging me into headquarters in handcuffs. The guy was mad, and he was looking for someone to take it out on. He picked me, shoving me hard toward the door.

“Mr. Kane is out of the office, Miss Vaughn,” Clyde said, putting the phone down. Damn, I’d forgotten about the press conference. “But I left an urgent message.”

“Thanks, Clyde. And could you send someone up to fix my front door? The Goons kicked it in. The lock’s busted, and Juliet’s asleep in her coffin.”

Clyde picked up the phone again as Norden hustled me out the door. Good old Clyde. He’d have the door fixed before Juliet woke up. Good thing, too, I thought, looking at Norden. In this neighborhood, you couldn’t be too careful.

5

THE GOON SQUAD WAS HEADQUARTERED IN THE BASEMENT of a rundown building in the New Combat Zone, down one flight of rickety stairs. Sykes gripped my arm as we marched down a featureless hallway with gray metal doors lining each side. The sound of our footsteps ricocheted off the anonymous walls, and I tried not to wonder what lurked behind the doors. Offices, probably, but the place had an eerie sense of despair, as though people were trapped and forgotten behind those blank doors. We stopped in front of one, seemingly at random. Norden rapped once, then turned the knob and went inside. Sykes propelled me in behind him.

“Here’s your freak,” Norden said. He spun around, shot me one of his piggy-eyed frowns, then pushed past me and out the door. “C’mon, Sykes,” he said from the hallway.

Sykes regarded me over the top of his sunglasses, looking like he wanted to say something. Instead of tender farewells, though, he settled for a nod. Then he shambled into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

The room was small, with scuffed, white, windowless walls. Two people sat at a banged-up metal table—a woman directly across from me, and a man to my left. There was no third chair, no place for me to sit down.

I glared at the woman, who cringed, then I turned my evil eye on the man. At least, I tried to. It’s hard to glare into a pair of astonishingly blue eyes with a hint of a smile crinkling the edges. I blinked and took in the rest of the view: a headful of curly blond hair—half an inch too long for a cop—high cheekbones, and a strong jaw. He wore a suit, not a uniform, so I must have been looking at a detective. I didn’t know they made detectives that good- looking. The guy should’ve been modeling Armani suits instead of having me hauled in by the Goon Squad. I looked him over again. Nah, he wasn’t pretty enough to be a model. More like the kind of actor who makes a gazillion bucks playing tough-but-sensitive action heroes. Whatever. He still looked damn good.

He stood and picked up his chair, carrying it around to my side of the table. “Here, why don’t you sit down?” he asked. “I’ll find us another seat.”

I sat, and he actually held the chair for me as I did. Wow. A gentleman. Under other circumstances, I’d enjoy meeting this guy. Circumstances that didn’t involve my being pulled out of my bed and dragged here in my pj’s by the Goon Squad.

Suddenly I realized I hadn’t even had time to comb my hair. I must look like a total mess. Thank God the interrogation room, or whatever it was, didn’t have one of those one-way mirrors. I didn’t want to see.

The detective disappeared through the door, which shut with a bang but no click. Was it unlocked? Norden hadn’t used a key to get in. I thought of reaching over to try the knob and glanced at the female detective. She sat across from me, silent, blinking like a startled owl. She was on the far side of forty, with frizzy hair, scanty eyebrows, and saucer-sized dark circles under her eyes. Her jacket, green plaid with linebacker shoulder pads, could’ve been an exhibit in a 1980s museum. She swallowed, looking terrified. I thought about how easy it would be to walk out of there—stand up, open the unlocked door, waltz down that hallway and up the rickety stairs. She’d be too paralyzed to stop me.

But they’d just send the Goon Squad again to haul me right back.

The door opened, and the good-looking detective wrestled a metal folding chair into the room. He hefted it over my head to place it at the end of the table, then sat and gave me a dazzling smile.

Suddenly, everything about him annoyed me: the good manners, the even better looks, the two-hundred-watt smile. Who the hell was he to look so attractive and friendly and . . . attractive? This was the guy who’d sicced the Goons on me.

He opened his mouth to say something, but I beat him to it.

“I have no clue why you dragged me out of bed and brought me here against my will. But you’d better know right now that I’m not saying a word until my lawyer arrives.”

The two detectives exchanged a look, increasing my annoyance factor. “My attorney, by the way, is Alexander Kane. Ever heard of him?”

“I—” the good-looking detective began.

“Kane will be most interested in the civil rights aspect of my treatment today. I’m a demi-human, you know.” You’d think that would give me half the rights of a human, but it didn’t work that way. Shapeshifters were either active, like me, or inactive, like my sister, Gwen, a suburban wife and mom. Inactive demi-humans had the same rights as humans; we active ones had no rights at all. Kane had several civil rights cases grinding their way through the courts, trying to get such issues in front of the Supreme Court. He wouldn’t rest until all the monsters had rights.

“But—” the detective tried again.

“But nothing. That’s what you’ll get from me without my attorney present—nothing. Do you understand that? Not a word.” I sat back in the chair and folded my arms across my chest. Hah. That told them.

The female detective looked suitably bludgeoned by my words. I glanced at her partner. He was biting his lip, trying to suppress a smile.

“Something amusing you, Detective?” His smile broadened to a grin. “What the hell is so damn funny?”

“It’s just that, well, for someone determined not to say anything, you haven’t let me get a word in