A few more agents were looking uncomfortable.
“We’re freely and peacefully presenting ourselves to see justice done, and with a young man’s life in the balance, I require only that you prove he is a demon mage before executing him for a crime he isn’t guilty of.” Darius’s voice hardened with command. “Call your Demonica expert to perform the test—or call someone with actual authority.”
Harris’s nostrils flared.
“You never change, Mr. King.”
At the woman’s voice, the battalion of agents parted, revealing the tall figure who’d just walked through a nearby door. A stack of folders tucked under her arm suggested she was an analyst, but she carried the dominating aura of a leader as blatantly as the other agents carried their weapons.
She strode through the group with a general’s grimness and stopped a step ahead of Harris. With chin-length blond hair, model-worthy cheekbones, and probing eyes, she could’ve been thirty or fifty. I had no clue.
“Ah,” Darius murmured. “Captain Blythe.”
Her laser stare swept down Darius and back up. “Playing games again, are we?”
“I have never been more serious.”
She snorted in an “I’ll believe it when I see it” sort of way. “Then, as part of your peaceful surrender, your guildeds will be handcuffed.”
“Of course.”
At Darius’s easy agreement, Harris shook with visible fury, which the GM completely ignored. Blythe gestured at two agents behind her—not Harris, despite the fact he still held his useless restraints. His face went even redder.
Trying not to stiffen defensively as the agents approached, I held my wrists out. The agent clipped a set of cuffs on me, the metal cold against my skin. Beside me, Ezra submitted to the restraints without changing expression. His poker face was as good as ever.
“This way, Mr. King.” Turning, Blythe waved at the gathered agents and barked, “Back to work!”
They obediently hustled through the doors into the bullpen. Harris hesitated, his burning need to object written all over his face, but he stumped after the others without a word.
Blythe led us into a long hall, then opened the first door on the right. Stepping aside, she let Darius precede her into a small interview room with a table and four chairs. Ezra and I followed, and Blythe stepped in last, closing the door behind her.
Darius leaned against the table, assessing Blythe with surprisingly wary eyes. “This is unexpected, Aurelia.”
I blinked bemusedly. Darius was on a first-name basis with Vancouver’s precinct captain?
“I’m not complaining,” he added, “but I fully expected you to jump on the chance to put me in handcuffs as well.”
She stepped closer to him, her narrowed eyes raking over his face. “How many times have you done this, Darius?”
“Protected my guildeds? I’ll do it as many times as needed.”
“How many times have you exploited rules and bent laws to fit your ambitions?” Another step toward him. “How many fines and charges have you dodged by quoting my own laws back at me?”
“In this case, Aurelia, I’m saving an innocent life.”
She slashed a look at Ezra, then took another step—which put her almost on Darius’s toes. She glared into his face, their noses scarce inches apart, and I could’ve cut the tension with a knife.
Tensions, actually. Plural. Because there was a whole lot more than a battle of professional wills buzzing between those two. I was getting distinctly personal vibes, and I goggled at them in astonishment.
“You got overconfident once, Darius,” she said in a low voice. “And it cost you your career.”
“You’re assuming I still wanted that career—and that losing it was unintentional.”
Her eyes narrowed even more. “Then I hope this oversight was intentional too.”
Darius’s expression didn’t change, but his fingers curled around the edge of the desk, knuckles turning white. “What oversight is that?”
“You assumed you could throw the book at me, and I’d cave because laws are laws.” She stepped back. “But I’m not in charge here anymore.”
His eyes widened.
Turning on her heel, she strode to the door and laid her hand on the knob. “And the one who is—he’s not a ‘play by the rules’ man.”
She shoved the door open and marched out. As the door began to swing shut, a hand caught it and pushed it wide open.
An agent stood in the threshold. Tall, wiry, dark brown hair, and a face like a fox. He smiled but the expression didn’t touch his flat brown eyes. Gooseflesh ran up my arms.
“Darius King. Your reputation precedes you.”
Another wave of gooseflesh shivered along my spine. The man’s voice shared the same dead quality as his eyes.
“And you are?” Darius asked with cool poise.
“Agent Söze, Internal Affairs. We have a great deal to discuss.” He stepped into the room, and more agents filled the doorway behind him, their faces cold and hard. “But first, it appears Captain Blythe neglected a fundamental safety measure.”
Söze unhooked a pair of shiny silver cuffs from his belt, the chain jingling as he stepped toward Darius.
Chapter Twenty
“Get your hands off me,” I snarled, wrenching my arm.
My efforts earned me an eruption of stinging pain in my wrists from the handcuffs and an annoyed huff from the agent holding my elbow.
I knew resisting was pointless, but I couldn’t stop myself. Not while Darius was handcuffed to the table back in the interview room. Not while four agents had led Ezra somewhere deeper into the building. And not while two more agents were steering me down a flight of stairs into the MPD’s lower levels.
“Where’d they take Ezra?” I demanded as the lead agent opened a security door. “He isn’t a demon mage, and if anyone hurts him …”
I trailed off, unable to finish the threat. My sketchy knowledge of the MPD justice system included nothing about any of this. I didn’t even know how appeals worked.
The silent agents steered me through another set of security doors and into a cell block. Prison-like bars filled the left wall, the individual cells separated by thick concrete barriers.
I dug in my heels. “You
