“Omega?” Declan asked, holding up his left wrist. What looked like an iWatch suddenly spoke in quiet, well-modulated tones.
“Agent Terez Calhoun is Department of Defense. There has been a sudden burst of electronic communications activity happening as we speak. This has something to do with a joint operation of the US State Department and the DoD regarding recent political events in Taiwan and China.”
“Any indication at all that the attackers knew of Stacia and Kristin’s presence?” Declan asked.
The watch shifted slightly, just a tiny sort of reshuffling of its structure. Hmm, new tech that I didn’t know about.
“A meet was set between Calhoun and a Taiwanese foreign national who never showed up. There seems to be significant alarm that Stacia was present.”
As Omega spoke, I was simultaneously listening to Calhoun explain to the cops that he was engaged in a sensitive US operation and that the person he was to meet had either been killed or ghosted after sensing the trap.
“Other federal agents are inbound to take charge. As are, I might add, various news agencies. It might be time for you to all leave. Security driver Stevens is approaching from the west in a Demidova vehicle.”
I looked to the west in time to see a black Volvo XC-90 pull to the corner of the nearest intersection.
“Go ahead; I’ll just speak to the detectives for a moment,” Declan said.
I only went because I knew what kind of a media circus it could turn into and I knew I could listen to what he had to say to them.
Awasos took that as his cue, clearing a path to the SUV by the mere virtue of being three hundred pounds of moving wolf.
“Excuse me,” I heard Declan say to the officers behind me, always the polite one. “I’m taking the ladies back to Demidova Tower.”
“We don’t have their statements yet,” Detective One protested.
“Well, you’re welcome to come to the Tower and meet with them,” Declan said.
“Listen, kid,” Dectective One said, a note of temper in his voice. “We tell you where we’ll interview them.”
“My mate is wounded. Do you have a medic qualified for lycanthropic medicine? Also, I’m still carrying most of the energy from that fire. I need to discharge it soon. Would you rather I did that here and melt the street, or at the Tower, where I have means of containing it?”
My wound was gone, the ricochet, which is what must have happened, going straight through the side of my abdomen. Hard to tell because even the red spots of entry and exit were gone.
But the cops didn’t know that. Kristin and I got to the car and slid into the backseat, while ‘Sos jumped under the remotely opened tailgate. Stevens nodded to me in the rearview as he pressed the button to close the back of the SUV. I looked out the window to watch the negotiations that I could still hear.
“Detectives Trevano and O’Neill, this incident is under federal jurisdiction,” Agent Calhoun said. “I’ll take responsibility for releasing Miss Reynolds and her companion.”
That was the first time I had heard the cops’ names.
“We gotta have clearance from our… what the hell?” Detective One said, stepping away from Declan, who wore a slightly sheepish expression as waves of heat rose visibly around and off him. “Oh,” the first dectective said, realization flooding his features.
“Yeah, you just go ahead and take those ladies home,” Detective Two said, his tone polite and slightly urgent as he too backed away from what was clearly uncomfortable levels of heat.
My witch nodded and turned toward the car, a sly grin on his face as his eyes met mine.
The crowd parted for him on its own, although sadly no magic was involved. Just old-fashioned fear.
Suddenly the waitress who was clutching her children yelled something in Mandarin and moved toward him, burdened by her kids. He stopped and turned, surprised, as she rushed up, speaking mostly Mandarin but with the English words thank you mixed in.
He had been calm and determined the whole time, confident yet displaying his normal resignation to normal public reaction. He was surprised by her gratitude, thrown off his stride. He pulled his act together enough to smile at her and the kids, nodding shyly before continuing on toward us… toward me.
The onlookers let him through, more than a few using phones to video him, but they didn’t pull back as far as they had before the waitress’s display. A few moments later, he was at the car, hopping into the front passenger seat.
Stevens pulled out before my witch even had his seatbelt buckled.
“What happened?” Declan asked as the car turned toward the Tower.
I gave him a blow-by-blow of the events in the restaurant. The car was quiet when I finished, but I could feel Declan thinking through our link.
“It was so fast,” Kristin said.
My witch turned and looked over his shoulder at her, waiting to hear more.
“I heard… something. A sharp snapping sound, sorta. And she was gone… and the table with her. Everything else took just seconds. Then we were running from the fire, which bloomed up as fast as everything else.”
“It’s shocking, isn’t it?” he asked her. “How fast violence can happen. Which is why we train and train. To condition responses that are useful, rather than bad.”
“Attacking a gunman is useful?”
“Better to go head-to-head than take a bullet in the back of the head,” I said.
“If you decide to go to Arcane, and I hope you do, you’ll have a crazy werewolf for a self-defense instructor,” Declan told her. “Jenks will expect you to attack and keep attacking at least until you can safely run away. With you sitting there, Stacia had to attack. Plus, people who use suppressors to kill in broad daylight in a public restaurant probably need to be stopped.”
“That agent fellow would agree with you,” Kristin said. I noticed that she wasn’t nearly as shy as she had been just a few hours ago.
