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I crouched by him, my sword still bloody.
Blaine's breath was coming in quick ragged gasps.
"Who hired you?"
He wheezed, his fingers shaking.
"Who hired you?"
"Go to hell!"
Blaine's eyes rolled back into his skull. He went rigid and sagged down. His hands stopped shaking.
"I have a laaive one." Derek picked up a body off the floor. The man shuddered in his grasp. His right leg hung at an unnatural angle--broken femur. A huge cut gaped across his back, where Derek's claws ripped through his flesh. Derek turned him, so I could see his face. Pale, terrified eyes looked at me.
"If you stay as is, you'll live. Tell me what I want to know, and I won't make it worse," I said.
The man swallowed. "I don't know! Blaine made the contracts!"
"What were your orders?"
"We had to sit on this apartment. If law or any PIs showed up, we had to hit it fast."
"Did you have specific orders to attack if you saw me or Derek?"
The man nodded. "You--yeah. But not him. Blaine had pictures of you and the blonde."
They knew who Andrea and I were, which meant they knew where the office was. If they'd hit us here, they'd target the office. I would.
"Why did you use a concussion grenade instead of shrapnel?"
The man gulped. "Blaine said the freak had money. He said nobody would care when or how he got dead, as long as he got dead in the end. We'd just hold him for a bit, get him to give us the money, and then terminate him. Blaine said it would be a bonus."
Nice. "Did you kill some people in Sibley?"
"Us and some other guys. We knew exactly when and where they would be coming from. We wiped them out. Shot them all to hell. It was easy." Mystery solved. "Drop him."
Derek opened his fingers and the man crashed to the floor.
I walked to the phone and dialed Cutting Edge. Julie's voice popped on the phone. "Good afternoon, Cutting Edge. How may I help you?"
"Hey, it's me. Put Andrea on the phone."
"She isn't here."
Damn it. "Where is she?"
"Some boudas came to talk to her. She said she would be right back and left."
Aunt B. Just couldn't wait, could she, old bitch, had to speak to Andrea right that minute.
"Joey is staying with us."
I struggled to put the name to a face. Joey, Joey ... My mind served up a man in his early twenties, his hair dark, nearly black. "Put Joey on the phone."
A young male voice said, "Why hello there, Consort. And how are you?"
"We're under attack. Bar the door, do not open it to anyone you don't know. Make sure the kids understand. I'll be there in half an hour. Stay put, do you understand?"
All mirth vanished from his voice. "Yes, Consort."
I hung up and punched in the number for the Keep's Guard Station. "I need access to Jim. Now."
"He's out in the city," a female voice began.
I sank enough menace into my voice to terrify a small army. "Find him."
The phone went silent. I waited. The Lighthouse Keepers had hired a crew of killers. Made sense; their own people were embedded and too valuable to risk. We had to assume they already knew that the attack on the apartment had failed and what little cover they had was blown wide open. They would be coming for Saiman.
The phone clicked and Jim's voice came on the line. "Kate, I'm a little busy here."
"There is an anti-magic secret society in the city. They have a bomb. When activated, it kills anything that uses magic in a radius of several miles."
Jim didn't miss a beat. "What do you need?"
"I'm at Saiman's apartment. We've been attacked; there are seven bodies, one survivor. I need to know where the attackers came from, who hired them, anything you can get. I'm sending Derek with Saiman to the western safe house. Saiman has the documentation describing the device, and he is now their primary target. I'm going back to my office. Julie and Ascanio are in the office and I need to get them out to the Keep."
"We're on the Southside, near Palmetto," Jim said.
Across the city. Great.
"I'm sending an escort now. It will be there in an hour."
"Is Curran there with you?"
"He's out in the field, but I'll get hold of him."
"Tell him ..." Tell him I love him. "Tell him I'm sorry we didn't see each other last night."
"Will do."
I hung up and looked at Derek. "Take Saiman and the documents to the western safe house. Keep him protected; we need the knowledge in his head."
Derek's muzzle gaped, like a bear trap swinging open. "Yeshh, Conshort."
THE MAGIC HIT ONE MILE FROM THE OFFICE. THE Jeep's gasoline engine faltered and died and I guided it to a slow stop at the curb.
The worry that had sat in the pit of my stomach since the phone call grew stronger and stronger until it blossomed into full-blown anxiety. Something was wrong; I felt it.
The kids were fine. They were in a fortified office. They had a full-grown bouda with them. Reinforcements were on the way.
I stared at the wheel. It would take me fifteen minutes to chant the water engine into life.
They were fine.
Screw it.
I jumped out of the car, locked it, and took off down the street at an easy jog. My knee protested, sending a warning spike of pain into my thigh with every step. A nagging ache gnawed at my ribs. It was a good kick, but in retrospect I should've punched him instead.
The streets rolled by. I was doing a seven-minute mile. Still faster than warming up the car. I turned onto Jeremiah, passing a couple of delivery trucks, blocking most of the street. Not too far now.
Something lay in the street in front of the office. Something small and wrapped in fabric. My heart hammered. I sped up.
A child mannequin rested on the pavement, swaddled in a grimy sweater. Blood stained its clothes and plastic face.
The door of the office stood ajar. Ice rolled down my spine.
I pulled Slayer from its sheath and forced myself to slow down. I'd need my breath. The door was intact. Someone had opened it. I tested it with my fingertips and it swung, revealing the office. My desk lay on its side, a flurry of papers scattered on the floor. Red stained the wood, where someone's bloody hand had gripped it.
A nude body sprawled on the floor on my right. It lay on its back in a puddle of blood, its chest a forest of bone shards where someone had wrenched ribs out of their place. Male. A hole marred his neck and left shoulder. Something had bitten him with preternatural teeth. The head was a mess of blood and battered tissue. A chair leg protruded from the stomach, where someone had pinned the corpse to the floor like a butterfly.
