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It was the biggest loup cage I'd ever seen too, eight feet wide, eight feet long, seven feet tall. They had to bring it into the office in pieces and assemble it in the room. The steel-andsilver-alloy bars were as thick as my wrist. All Pack offices came equipped with a loup cage. The shapeshifters knew better than anyone how quickly they could snap. But since I was technically a human, Jim kept trying to find some diplomatic name for it. He thought calling it a loup cage would scare off my clients.
"It's not a loup cage, you know," I told her. "It's a holding cell. Or safe room. Or secure room. I don't think Jim ever settled on a term he could live with."
"Aha. It's a loup cage." Andrea cleared her throat. "I touched it with my finger and it hurt. Is that in case of marital problems?"
"Did the Order return your sense of humor as part of the severance package?"
"Oh, burn. Burn!" Andrea hesitated. "Kate ... Are you happy? With Curran, I mean."
"When I can get out of my own way."
She glanced at me. "And the rest of the time?"
"The rest of the time I'm in a state of silent panic. I'm afraid it will end. I'll lose him. Lose Julie. Lose everyone."
"I've done that," Andrea said. "Lost everyone. It's a bitch." No kidding.
Andrea lifted a black firearm, holding it as if it were covered with slime. "This is a Witness 45. It has a molding flaw on the grip right here, see? If you fire it, it will blister your hand."
She picked up another gun. "This is a Raven 25. They haven't made them since the early nineties. I didn't even know they were still around. It's a cheap junk gun. They used to call them Saturday Night Specials. You can't put twenty rounds through it without it jamming, and the way this one looks, I wouldn't even risk loading it. It might blow up in my hand. And this? This is a Hi-Point, otherwise known as a Beemiller."
"Is that supposed to tell me something?"
She stared at me. "It's like the crappiest gun out there. Normal guns cost upward of half a grand. This costs like a hundred bucks. The slide is made out of zinc with aluminum."
I looked at her.
"Look, I can bend it with my hand."
I'd also seen her bend a steel rod with her hand, but now didn't seem the best time to mention it.
Andrea put the Hi-Point on the desk. "Where did you get these again?"
"They're surplus guns from the Pack. Confiscated, from what I understand."
"Confiscated during violent altercations?"
"Yes."
Andrea sagged into her chair. Her blue-tipped hair drooped in defeat. "Kate, if someone used a gun against the shapeshifters and now the shapeshifters have said gun, it wasn't a very good gun, was it?"
"I'm not arguing with you. I didn't have a choice. That's what was here when I moved in."
Andrea extracted a fierce-looking silver handgun from the box. Her eyes widened. She looked at it for a moment and tapped it on the corner of her desk. The gun responded with a dry pop.
She looked at me with an expression of abject despair. "It's plastic."
I spread my arms at her.
Andrea tossed the plastic gun to Grendel. "Here, chew on this."
The poodle sniffed it.
A careful knock echoed through the door.
Grendel surged to his feet and snarled, bouncing up and down. It was probably the PAD come to shut me down. Knock, knock, let us in, we brought a court order and a howitzer ... "Come in!"
The door swung open and a redheaded woman carrying a manila envelope stepped into my office. Tall, lean, and longlimbed, she moved like a fencer, light but sure-footed. You had a feeling that if lightning struck her, she'd lean out of the way and stab it through before it hit the ground. She wore khaki pants, a turtleneck, and a light leather vest. A leather glove hid her left hand. The long rapier on her sword belt and tall boots completed the outfit. I'd seen her before. Her name was Rene and the last time we'd met, she was running security for the Midnight Games, an illegal gladiatorial arena featuring things that went bump in the night.
Behind her two men brought up the rear. Both wore tactical vests and carried enough weapons to take on a small army and win. The man on the right was young, blond, and walked with a light spring in his step that telegraphed a seasoned martial artist. The man on the left was leaner, older, and darker, with a distinct military air and a small scar on his neck. The scar had ragged edges. Something had clawed his neck at some point, but he had lived to fight another day.
Rene's dark gray eyes regarded me.
"I'm sorry, milady," I said. "Athos, Porthos, and Aramis just left."
"They said something about riding to England with d'Artagnan to retrieve some diamonds," Andrea added.
"You two think you're really funny," Rene said.
"We have our moments," I said. "Down, Grendel."
The dog showed Rene his teeth, just in case she decided to try something funny, and lay down to gnaw on his gun.
Rene looked at Grendel. "What in the world is that?"
"That's our mutant attack poodle," I told her.
"Is he chewing on a gun?"
"It's not a real gun," Andrea said.
Rene sighed. "Of course not. That would be irresponsible of you, wouldn't it?"
The older man on Rene's left leaned to her. "This might be a bad idea."
She waved him off.
The blond man on Rene's right squinted at Andrea's desk. "Is that a Hi-Point?"
Andrea turned beet red. I leaned forward. "What can we do for the Midnight Games?"
"The Red Guard no longer works with the Midnight Games." Rene carefully folded her long frame into my client chair. The two guys behind her remained standing. "In the aftermath of recent events, we had to answer a lot of questions and we chose to disengage from the venue."
Translation: you ruined our fun and screwed me out of a job. "I thought you were an independent hire."
She shook her head. "No, I'm Red Guard. Have been for the last twelve years."
Twelve years in the Red Guard was nothing to sneeze at. "In that case, what can we do for the Guard?"
"We would like to hire you."
Come again? "In what capacity?"
Rene folded her hands on her knee. "We've misplaced an item and we need it retrieved."
"Do you know where the item is?"
She grimaced at me. "If we knew who had it, we wouldn't need to hire you, would we?"
"So the item wasn't misplaced, it was stolen."
