my attack poodle, who had ended up in her care after the chaos of my aunt’s demolition derby. Then I’d pestered Jim, the Pack Security Chief and my Mercenary Guild buddy, until he put one of his units on combing the city for her. They came back empty-handed. Andrea Nash had vanished into thin air.
Apparently she was still alive. If I got out of this siege, I’d punch her in the face.
The cop’s voice gained a new edge. Knights of the Order didn’t screw around. “That’s nice, Miss Nash. Step back or we’ll place you under arrest and you can call the Order from the station and have them bail you out.”
“Look up above the door. You see a metal paw bolted to the wood?”
“And?”
“This business is the property of the Pack. If you break the door down, you’ll have to appear before a judge and explain why you invaded these premises without a warrant, arrested guests of the Pack, and caused damage to Pack property.”
“We can do that,” the cop said.
“No, you can’t—because I’ll testify that you had no reasonable cause to enter said building. Unless you’re planning on killing me, in which case, start praying now, because I’ll put a bullet through the head of every man in your squad before you get off a single shot.”
“I wouldn’t call that bluff,” I said. “I’ve seen her shoot. She’s being modest.”
“Whose side are you on anyway?” the cop growled.
“I’m on the side of serving and protecting,” Andrea said. “Your squad killed a civilian in the cross fire.”
“It was a justifiable kill,” the cop said. “I’m not going to debate it with you.”
Andrea’s voice vibrated with steel. “One man is already dead. And judging by the blood trail on the pavement, somebody in that building is wounded. Someone either crawled or was dragged to that office and is probably bleeding out inside it. You now have a choice. You can either get the paramedics in there or you can let another civilian die of their injuries, break into an office owned by the Pack, assault the Beast Lord’s wife, and shoot a knight of the Order. You can do it either way, but I promise that if you somehow survive, twenty years from now, when you’re old and broken, you’ll look back at this moment and wish you had taken two seconds and thought about what you were doing, because this is the point where it all went very wrong.”
Wow. “What she said.”
There was a long pause. They were thinking it over.
“Look, I worked with you guys before,” I called. “Call Detective Michael Gray. He’ll vouch for me. If you get paramedics here, I’ll open the door. No fuss, no damage, everybody is happy, nobody gets hauled to court. We’re going to need an ambulance pretty soon, too. I’ve got one of the girls in a tourniquet and if we don’t hurry this along, she’ll bleed to death.”
“Tell you what,” the cop said. “Open the door, let us take the wounded girl out, and then we’ll call Gray.”
Like I was born yesterday. “The moment I open the door, you’ll rush me. I’ll wait until the paramedics get here.”
“Fine. I’ll make the call, but you’re playing with her life. She dies—it’s on you, and I’ll personally book you.”
I slid the metal guard shut and went back to the women. The dark-haired woman stared at me with haunted eyes. “You’re going to let them have us?”
“If it’s a choice between your friend’s life and your freedom, yes. For now, we’ll wait. My best friend is on the other side, and she won’t let them do anything stupid.” I looked at the dark-haired woman. “When Ghastek fainted, why didn’t either of you grab the vampire’s mind?”
“I tried. It wasn’t there.”
“What do you mean, not there?” Vampire minds didn’t just blink out of existence.
The dark-haired woman shook her head. “It wasn’t there.”
“She’s right,” Emily said. “I tried, too. It’s like I couldn’t navigate anymore.” She shivered on the floor. “I’m cold.”
I went into the storage room, pulled a spare cloak from the hook, and covered her with it.
Emily’s lips had turned blue. “Am I going to die?”
“Not if I can help it.”
CHAPTER 3
MINUTES DRIPPED BY, COLD AND SLOW. FIVE. SIX. Eight.
A loud knock echoed through the door. “Kate?” Andrea’s voice called.
“Yeah?”
“I have paramedics with me. Let me in.”
I unbarred the door and swung it open. Four paramedics sprinted into the room. Andrea followed them. She was short and blue-eyed, and for some reason the tips of her short blond hair were frosted with neon blue. The barrel of a rifle protruded over the shoulder of her jacket. Knowing her, she probably had two SIG-Sauers under that jacket, a combat knife, and enough bullets to take on the Golden Horde.
Normally Andrea’s face wore a nice easygoing expression that made random strangers want to pour their hearts out to her. One look at her now, and they would cross to the other side of the street. Tension locked her face into a rigid, strained mask, and she moved like a soldier in enemy territory, expecting a bullet between the shoulder blades at any moment and ready to fire back in a split second.
Behind her two cops in PAD uniforms waited at the door, giving me their best versions of a cop scowl. Strangely, I felt no urge to quiver in terror.
Andrea stepped closer and kept her voice low. “I leave you alone for eight weeks and you get into a pissing match with the PAD.”
“That’s just how I roll,” I told her.
Emily screamed.
“Excuse me.” I went over to where the paramedics had lifted her onto the stretcher. She reached out and gripped my hand.
“It will be okay,” I told her. “You’re going to the hospital. They’ll take care of you.”
Emily didn’t say anything. She just clutched my hand and didn’t let go until they loaded her into the ambulance. A stretcher with Ghastek followed into the second vehicle, and then the dark-haired woman came out, wrapped in a blanket, led by two paramedics. The ambulance doors closed and the two emergency vehicles took off wailing like banshees.
When I came back into the office, it was empty, except for Andrea and a puddle of blood on the floor. “Where are the cops?”
She shrugged. “They cleared out.”
We looked at each other. She’d saved my bacon. That didn’t change the fact that she’d disappeared for two months. And now something was wrong.
“What the hell?” Andrea glared at me. “How in the world did you end up with three navigators in your office with the PAD outside? They were ready to storm your office. Are you nuts?”
“What the hell back at you. Where have you been? Did you forget how to use the phone?”
Andrea crossed her arms. “I wrote you a letter!”
“You wrote me a note that made my hair stand on end.”
The phone rang. Now what? I marched to my desk and picked it up. “Yes?”
Curran’s voice filled the phone. “Are you okay?”
It was completely absurd, but hearing him instantly made me feel better. “Yeah.”
“Do you need help?”
His voice was perfectly even. The Beast Lord was a hair away from charging to my aid.
“No, I’m good.” For some reason my insides clumped into a painful knot. I could’ve been shot and I would have never seen him again. That was a new and unwelcome feeling. Great. Now I had anxiety. Maybe if I slapped myself real hard, I’d snap out of it.
