Jace sighed. “Five.”
Damon closed his mouth and the room fell completely still. Jace stood and leaned against the nearest wall.
“Right after David called me about the meeting, I found her in an alley. Same M.O.—ripped to shreds and then raped while she bled out.”
Damon’s hands clenched into fists. “You’ve had three weeks. Three weeks to find this son of a bitch, and yet innocent girls are still being murdered on your watch.”
The anger Jace directed toward himself and his rage at the killer combined with his current frustration and bubbled beneath his skin. Had the Mateba been clipped at his side, a bullet would already have zoomed straight through Damon’s smug face.
David and Shane glanced away from the argument in progress, uncomfortable with the skyrocketing level of anger on display. They busied themselves pretending to multi-task. Shane started scribbling notes on his paperwork, and David fiddled with the items surrounding his computer as if counting paperclips was an extremely important task.
Jace pointed straight at Damon. “You can’t pin this on me. You aren’t out there every night trying to track this monster down. I’m the only one working this damn assignment.”
“Because it’s
Jace pushed away from the wall and straightened to his full height. “Just because the guy’s a werewolf, that doesn’t make it solely my problem.”
“What if he
Jace’s head whipped in his direction. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Shane ignored his pissed-off tone and continued. Sometimes the kid had more guts than Jace gave him credit for.
“I mean, have we really considered the possibility that this could be something else? Maybe that’s why you’ve had such difficulty catching him?”
“Shane has a point,” David said. “Have we really thought about it? We need to keep our minds open. For all we know, it could be some bastard who likes to pretend he’s the new and improved Ted Bundy. He could be human.”
Jace slammed his fist against the wall. “I
Shane piped in again. “But how can you be certain if—”
“I’ve never been so certain in my damn life. The way this shithead rips open his victims isn’t possible with human hands or human weapons—or human teeth. So unless he’s siccing a pack of rabid dogs on these girls after he rapes them, then there is no damn way this is anything other than a werewolf attack. Everybody got that?”
David moved to stand at Jace’s side and slapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Why don’t you call Trent tonight and see if he’ll check it out? Maybe it’s some other kind of shifter. He’d know. We can talk to him and Ash when they get back from helping the Brooklyn division catch that ghost shifter. They’ll be at the meeting tomorrow morning.”
Jace gritted his teeth together and kept his jaw clamped shut. He thought of the female wolf out in his car. What the hell was he going to do with her? He pulled at his sleeve and hoped to hell that the blood from his wound wasn’t seeping through his trench coat. At least the wound was starting to knit itself back together. He could feel it.
“While we’re at it, why not have Shane take a look, too? Maybe this has to do with the voodoo stuff he likes so much,” David said. “I’ll go with you, Shane.”
Shane smiled from ear to ear. He didn’t get to do much out in the field, and Jace could tell he was stoked. “I can examine the scene for any possible evidence of occult ritual activities. But you know, rarely is there actually a—”
Jace let out a low growl. “The cops have probably stumbled across her by now. Though even the beat cops avoid those back alleys, so who knows, maybe you’ll get lucky and find her the way I did—legs spread, heart missing and organs thrown around like fucking confetti over the asphalt. So once you’ve all taken a good long look and made a spectacle of this poor girl’s corpse, why don’t you give me a holler so I can say I told you so?”
Damon glared at Jace, his high cheekbones casting shadows across his features, hollowing him out like a dead man. “If this
“That isn’t gonna happen. I’m the best damn werewolf hunter on the East Coast, and you know it, Damon. Don’t give me that shit.”
“Please, Jace, no reason to use so much humility.” Damon wrenched open a drawer and pulled out a large stack of papers. “This meeting is over.” He turned away from Jace and glued his gaze to the pages. “All of you fill out your damn paperwork so HQ can have their damn signatures, then scan it into the computers and go home. David, I need the updated report on that Vetis demon possession, and someone call Trent and tell him to get his shit together and give me some notes on the influx of shifters. I want to know why the hell, on a regular basis, we’re being overrun with freaks who shift into alley cats. And while you’re at it, tell Ash I need a report from him on the haunting in that old psych ward.”
Jace fought hard not to put his fist through one of the computer screens. “Why the hell did we have a damn meeting if it’s only going to last ten minutes? You could’ve picked up a phone if all you wanted was to verbally ream my ass.”
Damon didn’t look up. “Perhaps it would have lasted longer if you hadn’t pissed me off.”
Without another word, Jace strode out the door, and back up the stairs.
David called after him. “J., I’m—”
The large metal entrance to their haven slammed in its frame, cutting him off. The cold air of the unheated warehouse hit Jace hard. He exhaled and watched his breath swirl in the overhead light, like steam from his anger. His thoughts flashed through the night’s events, and he frowned.
Mutilated dead girls, a pissed-off werewolf hunter and a naked vixen. Not a good combination.
DAVID SAT DOWN at his desk and stared at the back of Damon’s head after Jace stormed out. Another meeting, another “my dick is bigger than yours” contest between Jace and Damon. They might as well pull their cocks out for everyone to see so they could settle the battle once and for all. Damon’s constant harping on Jace’s every move was getting old.
David crossed his arms over his chest. “Why do you have to bust his balls like that? You know it only makes him want to challenge you more.”
Setting down his pen, Damon looked up from his paperwork. “David, it would serve you best to keep your mouth shut.”
David threw up his hands in surrender. Man, was Damon good at overreacting. “Look, I’m just trying to promote some camaraderie here.”
Damon turned and glared at him with his piercing, ice-blue eyes, then returned to his reports. “When I want your input, I’ll let you know.”
David frowned. He swore Damon lived with a permanent stick shoved up his ass. It would explain the pissed-off attitude 24/7. But pissed off or not, there was no way he was about to let Damon dismiss him that easily. “HQ encourages all hunters to form alliances with each other. We’re an international network, not a bunch of loosely affiliated individuals. Their words, not mine.”
Damon threw his pen onto his desk, his jaw clenched tight. He turned to David again. His eyes narrowed with a look of sheer annoyance. “I suggest that unless you want to join Jace on the fast track to losing your job, you shut the hell up while you’re ahead.”
David gripped the edge of his chair. He was willing to put up with a lot of bullshit, but leader or not, no one talked to him like that, and no one threatened his job.
Standing, he pointed at Damon. “Don’t think that just because I’m not as rebellious as Jace that means I’m gonna sit here and take your shit. If that’s the game you wanna play, then so be it. But
“Are you implying that I don’t follow protocol?” Damon asked.
