I cleared my throat.
Everyone paused the game and looked at me.
“Eleven out of ten!” Arabella declared.
Leon held up two thumbs.
“Now this is a proper ‘you can’t have my man’ dress,” Grandma Frida said.
“Who is going to take her man?” Arabella asked.
Grandma Frida squinted her eyes. “Rynda Sherwood.”
“Grandma!” I growled.
“What?” Arabella whipped around. “Why didn’t I know this?”
“She isn’t trying to take my man. Her husband is missing. Besides, Rogan doesn’t want her, he—”
My phone chimed. Rogan. Yes!
I flicked my finger across the surface.
Something came up. Give me an extra hour.
“Oh no,” Grandma Frida said. “Oh no, no, no. That was something bad. Did he cancel?”
“He didn’t cancel. He got held up.”
“You look worried,” Grandma Frida said.
“Mhm.” Nothing short of a true emergency would’ve kept Rogan. I didn’t have a good feeling about this.
“Did he say where?” Grandma Frida asked.
“No.” For all I knew, he texted me between throwing a bus at someone and bringing down an office building.
“I bet he’s with Rynda.” Grandma Frida set her cup on the table so hard it clinked. “You should call that woman and tell her to back off.”
“Yeah, you should call that bitch out,” Arabella said.
“First, she isn’t a bitch. She’s a client with a missing husband. Second, butt out of my love life.”
“Call her out,” Arabella said.
“Tell her Rogan is yours!” Grandma Frida pumped her fist.
“Don’t let her take your man!” Leon declared.
We all looked at him.
“I was feeling left out,” he said.
“Butt. Out. I mean it.”
I clicked my way out of the media room and headed toward my office. That was the only place they wouldn’t follow.
There was probably a perfectly reasonable explanation for why he got held up. And when he showed up, I would ask him about it. If he got a lead and didn’t tell me . . . He would regret it. Cooperation went both ways.
Cornelius was still in his office, reading something on his laptop and drinking coffee, bathed in the soft yellow light of the lamp in the corner. His door was open. I knocked on the glass. “You’re still here.”
He looked up from his laptop and smiled. “Matilda is spending the night with Diana.”
Progress. A few weeks ago Cornelius’ sister barely acknowledged the fact that her niece existed. “Is it their first time?”
Cornelius nodded. “My sister is nervous.” He raised his phone. “I have six texts so far. I had to remind her that she’s a Prime and the Head of our House.”
Prime or no Prime, five-year-old girls were scary. I babysat my sisters when they were that age. It still gave me nightmares. “Are you nervous?”
“No. I have faith. They will work it out. But meanwhile, I thought I would read more on the case. I would like to be good at this. I like doing this, even if I have none of the qualifications to do it. At least not yet.”
“When I started out, I thought I had no qualifications.” I leaned against the wall. “I thought it would be like the movies or that TV show Justice and Code. I would be busting through doors wearing an armored vest and chasing people down. In reality, even cops rarely do these things. You know how most murders get solved? Someone reviews a hundred hours of CCTV camera footage, spends a week talking to people in the neighborhood, gets a few tips, and then quietly arrests his guy.”
“Patience.” Cornelius mulled it over.
“A lot of patience. Being thorough and meticulous. Sometimes you end up following someone for weeks, just for a twenty-second shot of him working bench press, taken through a gym window, to prove that he is cheating on his workers comp.” I shrugged. “Most people would find it boring.”
“Is that why there are always books in your car?”
I nodded. “I still love it, even if it’s boring.”
“I think I might too,” he said.
I smiled, went to my office, and sat at my desk. The clock mocked me: 7:16. No new messages from Rogan.
Not good.
This whole mess with Rynda’s husband disappearing smelled bad. When I thought about it, I got a sinking feeling in my stomach, like I was standing somewhere high and peering over the edge. It was just too coincidental that her husband got kidnapped after her mother died.
In theory, it made sense. Once Olivia was out of the picture, her connections and influence vanished. Former friends now actively tried to distance themselves. House Sherwood was disoriented and trying to get its bearings in the new social climate. If Brian had enemies, it was the perfect time to strike.
That was precisely the problem. Brian had no enemies. His company was swaying back and forth, like a giant on sand legs. Even his direct competitor wasn’t interested in pushing it over.
Kidnapping for ransom was a rare crime in countries with robust law enforcement. In the US, it was extremely rare. The problem was retrieving the ransom. It put the kidnapper or their accomplice in direct contact with the family and law enforcement lying in wait. With all the different means for the Houses to track people, starting from hiring experts to using their own private security, kidnapping was too high-risk. Besides, the Houses would do everything in their power to avoid paying the ransom. It wasn’t about the monetary cost. It was the loss of power and influence.
You would have to be desperate to kidnap the Head of a House. Unless you were also a Prime. Or several Primes connected to a conspiracy behind the attempts to throw the country into a state of unrest so an empire could be created, a new Rome. The people behind it were tired of democracy. They chafed under the accountability and legal constraints that democratic society brought. They were already in positions of power because of their magic and wealth, but it wasn’t enough. They didn’t want to govern with their every step scrutinized; no, they wanted to rule with absolute power, never to be criticized or brought to answer for their offenses under the law. They wanted an empire, led by a modern-age Caesar.
Olivia Charles was one of those people. We’d stumbled onto this conspiracy when Adam Pierce attempted to burn down Houston, trying to destabilize it. When that failed, the conspirators concocted a different, less obvious plan. They engineered the assassination of a US senator, which Olivia Charles and David Howling carried out, and planned to use it to put political pressure on their opposition within the Assembly. When that didn’t work as planned, because Rogan and I interfered, they tried to use the incident to inflame unrest. In the end, both David and Rynda’s mother died for their cause. We still had no idea who Caesar was. Whatever Olivia and Howling knew had died with them.
Olivia Charles had been a pillar of the Houston elite. When she was involved with anything, including the secret conspiracy to overthrow the social order, she ran it. She wouldn’t settle for anything less. It would be beyond naive to cling to the notion that Brian’s kidnapping was an isolated incident, but I had to keep that possibility open. Dad always warned against jumping to conclusions too soon. That’s how mistakes were made, and in our line of business mistakes had real human costs: reputations, marriages, and sometimes lives.
I should check on Rynda. All of this was tying me in knots, and I was a stranger. Her husband had been kidnapped. In her place, I’d be losing my mind. I picked up my phone and dialed Rynda’s cell.
Ring.
Another ring.
Ring.
Something was wrong.
Ring.
Ring.
You’ve reached Rynda Sherwood. Please leave a message after the tone.
Shit. I jumped up and marched to the front of the office, where I’d left my spare sneakers in the break room.
“What’s wrong?” Cornelius asked from his desk.
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I kicked off my shiny pumps and pulled the old shoes onto my feet. “Rynda isn’t answering her cell.”
“Perhaps she didn’t hear it ring,” Cornelius said.
“It’s the number Brian’s kidnappers used for their ransom calls. That phone is the most important thing in her life right now. She would have it on her at all times.” And I was the person she had trusted to fix it. She would take my call.
Cornelius got up and grabbed his jacket.
I sped down I-10. The beltway had been clogged all to hell, and the I-10 was a nightmare, but this time of day the surface streets were even worse. There were about eleven miles between our warehouse and Rynda’s house and I was driving like a maniac.
Cornelius took his cell from his ear. “Still no answer.”
We’d called Rynda three times in the last two minutes.
“Please try Edward Sherwood.”
“No answer on his cell.”
“Try BioCore.”
If people would just get out of my way, we could be there in fifteen minutes.
“I’m trying to reach Edward Sherwood,” Cornelius said into his cell. “It’s an emergency concerning his sister-in-law.”
A white truck cut me off. I braked, avoiding slamming into its back by two inches.
“Cornelius Harrison. She’s in danger. . . . I’m a Significant of a House. I’m telling you that the wife of the Head of your House is in danger. Do your duty and send assistance.”
Cornelius glared at the phone, incredulous. “Edward already left, and this idiot says he has orders to keep me from entering the building. He hung up on me.”
The traffic parted in front of me and I strong-armed my way into the right lane. We tore down I-10 and took the Wirt Road exit, flying through it like a bullet. I made a sharp right onto Memorial Drive and raced down the street. Trees flew past us, dark creepy shadows in the early night.
I pressed the voice button on my steering wheel and pronounced each word clearly. “Call. Rogan.”
My phone, tethered to the car’s stereo, obediently dialed Rogan’s number.
Ring.
Please answer.
Ring . . .
“Yes?”
“Rynda isn’t answering her phone.”
He swore. “Where are you?”
“Two minutes from her house.”
“Who’s with you?”
“Cornelius.”
Rogan swore again. “Why didn’t you take backup?”
“What backup, Rogan? Edward isn’t answering his cell either.”
“I have twelve people in my HQ.”
“They’re your people. I can’t just walk up to them and order them around.”
How exactly did he think that would work? Hi, I’m Rogan’s girlfriend, I need you to come risk your lives for his ex-fiancée whom you didn’t want to let into your base before . . . Yes, they would drop everything and rush right over. They were his people, not mine. They had no loyalty to me.
There was a pause. “I’m on my way. My people will be coming to back you up. Be careful. Don’t charge in there and get killed.”
The line went dead.
I made a left onto Rynda’s long, winding driveway. The headlights plucked a prone body in a Sherwood Security uniform from the darkness. He was sprawled across the driveway, hands outstretched. Something crouched over him, something furry, with a hunched-over back and paws that looked like hands with fingers and long claws. It glanced up. Two pairs of watery yellow eyes glared at me, set one under another on a nightmarish face above a mouth filled with a forest of needlelike deep-water teeth. Wet, bloody flesh hung from its jaws.
I rammed it. The armored CR-V slammed into the body, crushing the creature. The impact reverberated through the car. A wet thud hit the undercarriage. Something scratched at the metal. I slammed on the brakes, reversed, and backed over it. Bones crunched. I stomped on the gas pedal and we rolled over it again. If it was still alive, it wasn’t happy. I sped forward.
“Was that a summon?” I asked.
Cornelius swallowed, his light eyes opened wide.
“Cornelius?”
“Yes.”
A summoner mage had reached deep into the arcane realm and pulled that thing out and nobody knew how many more. Average and Notable level summoners could summon a creature but it vanished the moment they lost focus. Significants could summon several, and when Primes reached into the arcane realm, whatever they brought back stayed in our world permanently until they banished it back. Rogan and I had come up against summoned creatures before. They were hard to kill. I should’ve checked on Rynda sooner.
The front door stood wide open, spilling warm yellow light onto two bodies crumpled in the doorway. A man and a woman, their green uniforms stained with red. Something had eaten their lips and ears.
I slid the CR-V as close to the door as I could, shut off the engine and the lights, popped the glove compartment open, and grabbed my Baby Desert Eagle and a spare magazine. Twenty-four shots. I had my backup Sig in there too.
“Cornelius, have you ever fired a gun?”
“No. I don’t feel comfortable with guns.”
Scratch that idea. The last thing I needed was him getting uncomfortable and shooting me in the back by accident.
“There are seven creatures in the house,” Cornelius said. “I feel them moving.”
“This is an armored car. You’re safe here.”
“I’m not staying behind. I have to at least try to be useful.”
“I thought animal mages had no power over summoned creatures.”
“I never tried to make friends with one.”
“I don’t think they want to make friends.” I was pretty sure they wanted to kill us and devour our corpses.
“I’d like to come,” Cornelius said. His mouth was a thin firm line. His jaw muscles were locked. His gaze was direct. I knew that look. I’d seen it before on Rogan, Leon, and my own father. It was the look of a male who’d made up his mind and would not allow logic, reason, or arguments to interfere with his chosen course of action. If I left him in the car, he would follow me. I couldn’t really stop him and I had no time to argue.
“Stay behind me.”
He nodded.
I slipped out of the car, brought my gun up, and walked to the door, forcing myself to pay attention to the bodies. The guards were dead. Very dead, beyond all help. Someone had taken their weapons. The odor of blood hit me, salty and awful, mixing with something else, an odd stench that reminded me vaguely of ozone during a storm. I swallowed down bile and stepped over the corpses into the brightly lit foyer.
Blood marred the expensive marble tile, bright red against the soft cream hues. A few long, fading out smudges—someone had slipped frantically in his own blood, trying to get away. A bloodstain with feathered edges, as if someone had pressed a paintbrush against the floor—someone’s bleeding head met the marble tile. A long swipe—whoever had fallen here was dragged into the living room and he or she had tried to grab on to the floor with bloody hands. Please don’t let it be Rynda or the kids. Please.
I padded along the wall, avoiding the bloodstains. I was so glad I dumped my pumps for the sneakers. Best decision of the night.
The vast living room opened in front of me. The overturned Christmas tree lay on the floor, pointing like an arrow toward the center of the room, where, twenty feet away, two creatures crouched on their haunches over another dead body splayed out on the Oriental rug. About five feet long from head to the base of a prehensile tail, they had the build of a sleek greyhound, but there was something simian in the way they sat on their haunches, picking at the body of a young man with their black paw-hands armed with long white claws. Their stiff, greyish-blue fur stood straight up like bristles on a boar. Their heads, round and crowned by bat ears, swiveled toward me.
The man they were eating looked barely twenty. Death had frozen his face into an expression of utter horror. He had known he was about to die. He probably
felt it as they ate him alive. Anger swept through me. They wouldn’t be eating anyone else.
Summoned creatures or not, they looked similar enough to our animals, which meant their eyes were close to their brain. Brain was an excellent target.
I fired.
The gun roared. The first shot tore into the left creature’s muzzle. Missed. The second took it in the right top eye. The bat-ape stumbled back.
I turned and fired at its friend. Bullets punched into the second beast’s face, ripping through bone and cartilage.
Two shots.
Three.
The bat-ape collapsed facedown.
The first beast jerked on the floor, gripped in spasms, painting its own blood onto the rug. I carefully stepped over the body and put another bullet into the back of its skull just in case it decided to get up. Six rounds gone.
Cornelius touched my shoulder, pointed to the right, toward the kitchen, and held up one finger.
Something thumped above us. Echoes of faint voices floated down.
If we went up the stairs and the thing in the kitchen decided to follow, we’d be in a lot worse shape. Being attacked from the rear wasn’t fun.
I moved into the kitchen, slicing the corner. A dark shape leaped at me from the kitchen island. I squeezed off a single shot before the bat-ape landed on me. My back slammed against the floor. All of the air rushed out of my lungs. The beast tore into my shoulders, pinning me down. The awful mouth gaped open, the needle teeth like the jaws of a trap about to enclose my face. The odor of ozone washed over me.
Something smashed into the beast, knocking it off me. I rolled on my side. Cornelius stepped over me and bashed the beast’s head with a frying pan.
The bat-ape tried to rise.
He bashed it again, then again, bringing the frying pan down like a hammer. Blood splattered the walls. The bat-ape shook and lay still.
Cornelius straightened. I got off the floor and looked at the mangled corpse. Cornelius hefted his frying pan, pondering the body.
“But you don’t like guns?” I whispered.
“This is different,” he whispered back. “This is how an animal kills. This feels more real.”
My new employee was a closet savage, but I wasn’t going to complain. I would take this surprise savagery and be grateful. “Thank you.”