I forced the words out. They sounded strained. “Who snitched?”
“We have people monitoring police radio frequencies. They gave Jim a heads-up in case our security had to storm the PAD offices and bust you out of there. I found out when I saw Jim walking down the hallway snickering to himself.”
I made a mental note to punch Jim in the arm the next time I saw him. “Thought it was funny, did he?”
“I didn’t think it was funny.”
I bet. “People were about to die and I could save them. There was a girl . . . Anyway, I’m not hurt. I’ll be home for dinner.”
“As you wish,” he said.
My heart made a little jump.
The tension in his voice eased. “You sure you don’t need your Prince Charming to come and save you?”
The knot in my stomach evaporated. My Prince Charming, huh. “Sure, do you have one handy?”
“Oh, I think I could scrounge one up somewhere. As often as I have to rescue you . . .”
“I’m going to kick you in the head when I get home. Repeatedly.”
“You could try. You probably need the exercise since you sit on your butt in the office all day.”
“You know what, don’t talk to me.”
“Whatever you want,
Now he was just jerking my chain. I growled at the phone.
“Hey, before you hang up—I sent Jackson and Martina down to track Julie. We should know something tonight.”
“Thanks.”
I hung up.
“Nothing changed, I see.” Andrea grinned. The smile looked a bit brittle around the edges. “Still enjoying your honeymoon? It’s all rainbows, and sugar hearts, and chocolate kisses?”
I crossed my arms. “Where is my dog?”
“In my truck, eating the upholstery.”
We both looked at the blood. If we let Grendel in, he’d try to lick it.
I went to the back room and got rags, peroxide, and a bucket. Andrea set her rifle aside and pulled up her sleeves.
We knelt and began to mop up the stain.
“God, that’s a shitload of blood.” Andrea grimaced. “Do you think the girl will survive?”
“I don’t know. She took several shots from an M240B. Her leg is all tore up to hell.” I squeezed the blood from the rag into the bucket.
“How did it happen?” she asked.
I wanted to grab her and shake her until she told me where she had been these past months. But at least she was here and she was talking. I would get the story out of her sooner or later.
“Ghastek called. Said they had a loose vamp and it was heading my way. I went out there and chained it up. I had it wrapped around the tree, then Ghastek got close enough to grab it. His guys and the PAD’s First Response showed up with the big gun. They had some words, and then Ghastek fainted.”
Andrea paused, her hands on a bloody rag. “What do you mean, fainted?”
“Took a dive. Kissed the pavement. Swooned like a Southern belle after her first kiss. Had a dreadful case of the vapors.”
“That’s weird.”
“His eyes rolled up and he went down, like someone knocked him out.” I dumped some clean water on the floorboards. “Then the vamp’s eyes ignited red and the PAD opened fire. Ghastek had three people with him. The man was cut down in the first second or two and the bloodsucker went for him.”
“And then?”
“And then I got the four of us in here and barred the door, and the rest you know.”
Andrea sighed. “It’s not good to deny the PAD access. They don’t like that.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” Like where she’d been these past two months. Maybe she’d joined a nunnery. Or the French Foreign Legion.
“You could’ve called the Casino. They would’ve unleashed a horde of lawyers.” Andrea poured peroxide onto the wet wood.
I straightened. “The First Response Unit is all trigger-happy jocks. They were still swimming on the high of taking out a bloodsucker. I listened to them pound bullets into the pavement for nearly five minutes. It was overkill. The only way their day could have gotten better would be if they could kill another vampire. Or perhaps several. If I called the Casino, no matter what I said, the People would send a vamp out. That’s their default response. The PAD would shoot it, and the People would retaliate. It would spiral out of control, and I wanted everybody calm so I could keep Emily breathing.”
“Did Ghastek say why they had a loose vamp running around?”
I grimaced. “Something about a pregnant girl fainting.”
Andrea wrinkled her nose in a telltale shapeshifter sneer. “I smell bullshit.”
She was right. Two navigators, both fainted while piloting the same vampire? Ghastek fainting? That just didn’t happen.
I got a dry rag and wiped up the peroxide. The stain didn’t look too bad now. Still, once blood stained something, it stayed there forever, even if you could no longer see it. My office was christened in Emily’s blood. Yay.
I dumped the rag into the bucket and looked at Andrea. “My day didn’t go well.”
“I see that.”
“The PAD probably wants to shut me down, the People will find some way to blame me for the slaughter of the vampire and expect restitution, and Curran found out that I risked my life to save a Master of the Dead, which means I’ll have a lot of explaining to do at dinner, because Curran believes I’m made of glass. If I had been shot and the Pack found out that the Beast Lord’s mate and sugar woogums had been injured as a result of the People’s fuckup, they would have collective apoplexy and storm the Casino.”
“Aha,” Andrea said. “I’m going to ignore that you just referred to yourself as ‘sugar woogums.’ Is there a point to this story?”
“The point is, I have no patience left. You will tell me where you went when you vanished. Now.”
Andrea raised her chin, as if daring me to take a swing. “Or?”
Or what exactly? “Or I will punch you right in the face.”
Andrea froze. For a second I thought she would bolt for the door. She sighed instead. “Can I at least get some coffee first?”
WE SAT IN THE KITCHEN AT THE OLD, SCARRED TABLE, and I poured two-hour-old burned coffee into our mugs.
Andrea looked into her cup. “I was on the north side of the gap when your aunt appeared for her final showdown. I was still pissed off about . . . things and it messed with my head. So I picked out a nice spot for myself on a pile of debris right on the lip of the gap and set up my rifle. It seemed like a good idea at the time. When your aunt made her grand entrance, I tried to shoot her in the eye. Except she moved and I missed. And then she started blasting fire all over. That’s where the lack of clear head bit me in the ass—I had no exit strategy. She barbecued me like a rack of ribs. By the time they peeled me from that debris, I had third-degree burns over forty percent of my body. The pain was too much. I passed out. Apparently I changed into my other self in the hospital bed.”
Shit. Lyc-V, the shapeshifter virus, stole pieces of the host’s DNA and dragged them over to its next victim. Most of the time animal DNA transferred over from animals to human hosts, resulting in a wereanimal: a human who took on beast shape. Once in a while the process happened in reverse, and some unfortunate animal ended up as an animal-were. Most of them were pathetic creatures, confused, mentally shortchanged, and unable to comprehend the rules of human society. Laws meant nothing to them, and that made them unpredictable and dangerous. Regular shapeshifters murdered them on sight.
