I wasn’t going to wait for Marshal, who was still parking his car. They wouldn’t let him in. I’d be surprised if I got in without some trouble; invited or not, the FIB didn’t trust me anymore. Stupid-ass prejudice. How many times did I have to prove myself?
Chin high and eyes scanning, I edged through the crowd to where the yellow ribbon met the wall, deciding I would just slip under the line and hope for the best. My motion to dip under the tape was halted, however, when I almost knocked heads with a familiar face doing the same thing.
“Hi, Tom,” I said acerbically as I drew back. “We just keep running into each other.”
The former I.S. agent dropped the tape, his shocked expression turning to frustration. He took a breath to say something, then clenched his jaw. Silent, he shoved his hands into his pockets and walked away.
Surprised, I stared after him until the snow and the crowd took him. “Huh,” I muttered, then, sort of disappointed he hadn’t stuck around to exchange barbs, I dipped under the yellow tape and yanked the closest door open, eager to get out of the cold. The air was still between the twin sets of doors, and I could hear voices echoing, raised in anger and frustration. A cluster of FIB uniforms gathered past the second set of doors, and I decided that was my best bet.
“Sorry, ma’am,” a low voice said, and I jerked my hand from the inner door, instinct pulling me back before a thick-fingered hand could touch me.
It was a dead vampire, a fairly young one by the looks of him, set to be door guard. Heart pounding, I cocked my hip and gave him an up-and-down look. “I’m with the FIB,” I said, and he laughed, the rim of his blue eyes thinning as he started to pull an aura.
“Witches don’t work for the FIB,” he said. “You look more like a reporter. Get behind the line, ma’am.”
“I work outside the lines, and I’m not a reporter,” I said, looking up at his clean-shaven face. Any other time, I would have stopped to enjoy the view, but I was in a hurry. “And knock off the aura crap,” I said, ticked. “My roommate could eat you for breakfast.”
The vamp’s eyes went full black. The background noise of angry people abruptly vanished. The blood drained from my face, and I found my back against the outer doors. “I’d rather sip you for breakfast,” the undead vampire murmured, his voice running like cool fog through my soul. A pulse from my scar sent a shock of reality through me. Damn it, I hated it when vampires didn’t recognize me.
My gloved hand had covered my neck, and I forced it down and my eyes to open. “Go find a rat,” I said, even as his playing on my scar felt really good. My thoughts went to Ivy, and I swallowed. This was so not what I needed.
Vamp boy blinked at my unusual resistance, and with that slight show of confusion, his hold on me broke. Damn, I had to quit teasing the dead ones.
“Hey, Farcus!” a masculine voice shouted from beyond the glass, and he turned, even as he kept me in his vision. “Leave the witch alone. That’s Morgan, the FIB’s whore.”
Farcus, apparently, dropped back, the rim of his blue eyes growing in surprise. “You’re Rachel Morgan?” he said, then started to laugh, showing his pointed canines. Somehow that irritated me more than him playing on my scar had.
I pushed forward. “And you’re Farcus, rhymes with Marcus, another lame-ass vampire. Get out of my way.” His laughter cut off as I bumped him, and he growled when I leaned on the door and passed into the warmth of the mall.
As far as malls go, it was nice, with the food court up front, wide aisles, and two stories to make a fun place to shop. I slowly loosened my coat and scarf as I scanned the open area. I was too late to do anything. Thick in the air was the choking scent of angry Were and the spicy tang of angry vampire, all mixing with the aroma of burgers, fries, and Asian food ruined by too much grease. Over it all was the sound of eighties pop done instrumentally. Surreal.
The surrounding shops on both levels had their gates down, and employees were clustered behind them, loud with gossip. The lower floor was a mess, with several tables sporting broken legs and everything shoved out of place. A red smear on the floor and pilings gave me pause until I decided the splatter pattern wasn’t right for blood. It was ketchup, which might be why the humans had gathered by the ice-cream counter. Young kids wearing too much black mostly, but there were some late shoppers braving the encroaching Inderlander shopping hours, too. They looked scared, but there were no paramedics.
At the other end of the food court were the Inderlanders, and here was where the lawsuits would come from. Most had makeshift bandages pressed against their arms or legs. One was flat out on the floor. Weres and vampires. No witches, who were like humans in that they knew to get out of the way when predators fought. It was quiet over there, and most looked confused, not angry. Clearly the riot had ended as quickly as it had started. So where’s the little instigator? I thought, not seeing anyone matching Mia’s description among the walking wounded.
Stopping in the middle of the open hall, I dug the locator amulet out of my bag with a faint, foolish sense of optimism. Maybe I’d done it right and didn’t know it? But as I held the smooth disk of wood in my hands, it stayed a slightly damp disk of wood. No glow, no tingle. Nothing. Either I’d flubbed the charm, or she wasn’t here.
“Damn,” I whispered, brow furrowed. It had been a long time since I’d misspelled a charm. Doubt in one’s abilities wasn’t healthy when you worked with high magic. Self-doubt led to mistakes. Double damn. What if I really messed up one day and blew myself to bits?
The familiar cadence of Ivy’s boots pulled me around, and I shoved the amulet back in my bag. I was really glad she was here. Bringing in a banshee, even a cuffed one, was not as easy as it sounded—which was probably why the I.S. was either ignoring or covering up her activities.
“I thought you were working,” I called out as she approached, and she shrugged.
“I finished early.” I waited for more, disappointed when she shook her head and added, “Nothing. I didn’t learn jack.”
Jenks was with her, and he lit on my offered fist, looking tired and cold. “You’re late,” he said. “You missed all the fun.”
A passing vampire with his hands cuffed snarled at us, trying to scratch at the new blisters on his neck. “Pull your damned wings off and then see if you can fly,” he muttered, lunging, and making the I.S. cop with him jerk him back.
“Shove it up your ass and make a breath mint out of it!” Jenks shouted after him, and I wondered just how much “fun” I had missed, and if it would be showing up on our doorstep in about forty-eight hours, after it posted bail.
“Making friends, I see,” I said, gazing at the aftermath.
Ivy took my elbow and began leading me from the Inderlander side of things. The I.S. officers were watching me, and I felt uneasy. “What took you so long?” she asked. “Edden said he called you.”
“I was at my mom’s. It takes three times as long as it should to leave.” I exhaled loudly, not seeing Mia anywhere. “It’s over? Where’s Mia? Was Remus with her?”
Jenks clattered for my attention, and he pointed to the human side of the food court. My lips parted, and I blinked. The fussing child should have clued me in even if the man standing protectively over the slight, elegant woman hadn’t. Damn, she looks midthirties, not three hundred, I thought as I took in her slight, almost fragile-seeming frame next to the average-looking man as he held a baby bundled up in a pink snowsuit. The toddler was probably only hot, and I wondered why he just didn’t take the snowsuit off her. Not a scrap of skin was showing apart from her face and her hands, gripping a sticky lollipop. Disappointment that my amulet hadn’t worked filled me, then I shoved it aside.
Apart from his ever-moving eyes, Remus looked entirely unremarkable in his jeans and cloth coat. Not ugly, not attractive, maybe a little tall and bulky, but not overly so. That he could have beaten up Glenn looked doubtful, but knowing how to hurt a person and the willingness to use that knowledge, coupled with surprise, could be deadly. To be
honest, he looked harmless—until I saw his eyes follow an FIB officer, hatred in the way he clenched his jaw, an almost eagerness to hurt reflected in his gaze. And then he dropped his attention and shuffled his feet, becoming a janitor standing over a woman way out of his league.
“Why are they just sitting there?” I asked, turning away before they felt my eyes on them. “Did the warrant fall through?”
Jenks slowly rose from Ivy’s shoulder to see them better. “No, Edden’s got it, but both of them are quiet right now, and he doesn’t want to do anything until he gets more people out of here. I’ve been listening, and the I.S. doesn’t care that Mia’s killing humans.”
A pang of worry made me stiff with tension. “Are they covering it up?”
“Nah. Just ignoring her. Everybody has to kill to eat, right?”
He said it with just the right amount of sarcasm, and I knew he didn’t agree with their policy. Everyone had to eat, but eating people wasn’t polite.
Jenks’s wings fanned, to send the smell of soap to me. He was wearing his wraparound robe instead of his usual work clothes, making him look exotic, and I wondered how Bis was doing watching the church by himself. “I think she and Remus think they are going to slip out with the humans,” he said as he landed on my shoulder.
Ivy laughed softly. “I call dibs on the big one.”
“I don’t know,” I said, trying to read Mia’s body language from across the large room. “They have to guess we know who they are. I mean, we’ve been to their house. I think they’re waiting because we are.”
Ivy smiled, showing a slip of teeth, potent after Farcus’s play for my blood. “I still call dibs on the big one.”
“Rache,” Jenks said, his voice concerned. “Look at Mia’s aura. Have you ever seen anything like that?”
Taking a slow breath, I willed my second sight into play. All witches could see auras. Vampires couldn’t. Weres couldn’t. Some humans could, gaining the ability from hybridizing with elves. Pixies saw them all the time whether they wanted to or not. If I tapped a ley line and worked at it, I could see the ever-after layered over reality. This far out from the center of Cincinnati, it would likely only be stunted trees and frozen scrub. When I’d been in my early teens, I’d spent a lot of time overlaying the ever-after on reality until a trip to the zoo cured me. The tigers had known what I’d been doing, and they’d started for me as if they could walk through the glass to reach me.
I didn’t look at auras much. It was illegal to screen employees by their auras, though I knew for a fact some food chains did. Dating services swore by them. I was of the opinion that you could tell more about people in a five-minute conversation than by looking at their auras. Most psychiatrists agreed with me, whether they were human or Inderlander.
Exhaling with a long, slow sound, I turned back to the cluster of humans. Blues, greens, and yellows predominated, with the accompanying flashes of red and black to give evidence of the human condition. There was an unusual amount of orange in a few people’s outer fringes, but everyone was upset, and it didn’t surprise me.
Remus’s aura was a nasty, ugly red with a sheen of purple and the yellow of love at its core. It was a dangerous combination, meaning that he lived in a world that confused him and that he was moved by passion. If one believed in that kind of thing. Mia’s…
Jenks clattered his wings, shuddering almost. Mia’s was not there—sort of. I mean, it was there, but wasn’t. Looking at her predominantly blue aura was like looking at the candles of a protective circle when the candles existed both here and in the ever-after. It was there, but sort of displaced sideways. And it was sucking in everyone else’s aura with the faint subtlety of the incoming tide filling a tidal pool. The baby’s was exactly the same.
“Look at Remus,” Jenks said, shifting his wings to tickle my neck. “His aura isn’t being touched at all. Even by the baby’s, and he’s holding her.”
“That might explain why he’s still alive,” I said, wondering how they managed it. I’d been told that banshees didn’t have any control over whose aura they sucked up along with ambient emotions, but clearly that wasn’t the case.
Ivy stood beside us with her hip cocked, looking miffed that we were discussing things she couldn’t see. It was with an unfamiliar enthusiasm that she straightened and smiled, saying loudly to someone behind me, “Edden. Look, she finally made it.”
I dropped my second sight and turned, finding the squat, muscular man almost to us. “Hi, Edden,” I said, shifting my bag up higher and unintentionally making Jenks take flight.
The captain of Cincinnati’s FIB department shuffled to a stop, his khakis and starched shirt saying he was in charge as much as the badge pinned to his belt and the blue FIB hat he had dropped on his graying head. The gray seemed to be heavier now, and the few wrinkles deeper.
“Rachel,” he said as he extended his hand and I shook it. “What took you so long?”
“I was at my mom’s,” I said, watching the cops behind him start to gossip about us, and he raised his eyebrows knowingly.
“Say no more,” he said, then went silent when a Were walked past, limping and with a nasty gash on his forearm.
“You gotta keep ’em separated,” Ivy murmured, then turned to us, her expression sharp. “You really think having those two in with the humans is a good idea?”
Edden put a thick hand on my shoulder and turned us away, moving slowly to the cluster of FIB officers by the kiddie rides. “I’ve got three plainclothes with them. We’re getting people out one by one. Nice and easy.”
I nodded, seeing the cops in there now. Ivy seemed less than convinced, and at her sigh he held up a hand. “We’re waiting for social services to get here to take custody of the kid,” he explained. “I don’t want charges dropped because of a sympathy plea if it goes to trial.”
His voice was grim, and I remembered that these were the people who’d put his son in the hospital.
“That’s great,” Ivy said, her eyes on the group, “but I don’t think it can wait any longer.”
Jenks spilled a yellow sifting of dust, and Edden and I turned. Remus watched from under lowered brows as two more bystanders were escorted away for “questioning.” As we watched, his voice became loud, almost echoing. Holly started crying in earnest, and Mia took her, holding her close, clearly peeved.
“Edden, do something,” I said, ready to go over there myself. Missing baby wagon or not, Remus had put an experienced FIB agent in the hospital. I didn’t like unaware innocents surrounding him. And if I could tell who the plainclothes were, so could Remus. He was a child of the system, all grown up and made deadly. Like raising a wolf among people, society had turned something already dangerous into twice the threat.
Edden looked at the three officers in with the humans and, frowning, he bobbed his head in a meaningful way. Immediately the female cop got between Remus and the last few people. Two hefty-looking men in identical coats went for Remus, one angling to get him away from his wife and child, the other pulling his cuffs. It was way too soon, and Remus lost it.
Shouting, Remus jabbed a fist out, almost scoring on the smaller FIB agent, who stumbled back. Remus lunged after him, smacking an elbow viciously into his head, then grabbing the hand of the dazed officer and twisting it to force the man to the floor. Remus knelt on his shoulder, and at a snap of cartilage, the downed officer cried out in pain. My gut clenched. It sounded like Remus had just dislocated the man’s shoulder; Jenks vaulted into motion, Ivy leapt at them, and suddenly—I was standing alone.
“Jenks, no!” I cried out, heart pounding at the thought of Remus’s hand smacking into the small pixy. But he had come to a halt two feet from contact. Ivy, too, slid to a stop. The sound of fear rose from high-pitched voices, and every vampire in the place turned, their eyes black.
Remus had taken a hostage. And with one hand, he worked the gun from the downed officer’s holster and stood up with it, still holding the downed officer’s wrist with one foot o
n his shoulder. Shit. Why had I agreed to this again?
Mia and the baby were in the grip of the second officer, being slowly pulled back. She could kill them in an instant, but she only looked annoyed. The third officer had the humans and was hustling them out. The click of six safeties going off sounded loudly, and then Edden shouted, “Don’t do it, Remus! Let him go and get your face on the floor!”
“Stay back!” Remus screamed as the remaining humans and Inderlanders dove for cover. “Let go of my wife! Let go, or so help me, I’ll kill him! I broke his fucking arm, and if you don’t get back, I’ll shoot him!”
Ivy was between me and Remus, feet wide and hands out in a show of goodwill. Her body was tense, but she was about ten feet back—it was too far away for her to grab him easily but also far enough that she could evade all but the most accurate bullet. Jenks had vanished into the ceiling somewhere; I’d be willing to bet he could dust someone’s eyes in half a second if he wanted to. Edden and the rest of the FIB officers had frozen, not wanting to trip the man into further action—but it was Mia who was the real threat. From across the court, I.S. officials were watching with concern, not wanting to have to take action. Mia sniping a human in corners and dark alleys could be overlooked to promote a greater peace. Murdering FIB officers in the mall would force them to react, and neither party was eager for a war.
Mia’s lips were open and her pale eyes were narrow in anger. Holly’s voice was high, complaining, and the banshee looked insulted as she jerked out of the grip of the FIB officer holding her. Upstairs, the people behind the gates pressed close, trying to see, thinking they were safe. A cool draft replaced the fleeing Inderlanders and humans.
“I said back off!” Remus shouted, glancing up at the people whispering from the second floor. “Let my wife go! You’re hurting my baby! Let them both go!” Eyes wide and wild, he looked to the front of the mall. “I want a car! Get me a car!”
Edden shook his head. “Remus, we can’t let you out of here. Put the gun on the floor and lay down with your hands on your head. I promise you no one will hurt your wife or baby.”