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"Ah. You're a difficult man to reach. Of course, I'm using the term `man' loosely."
"What do you want?" Curran asked. "As I told your staff, I represent the Lighthouse Keepers. These are our terms: Return the device you've taken and cease all efforts to find us. In return, you have my personal guarantee that the Keep will not be targeted."
Aha. And that seaside property in Kansas he was selling was a steal.
Curran graduated to a full alpha glow. "Is that so?"
"To be honest, destroying you isn't on our short-term agenda. It's simple logistics: the location of the Keep makes it impossible to target you and the city center at the same time. We prefer to deploy within the city limits. Returning Atlanta to its natural state and making it suitable for habitation by an unpolluted population is our primary goal. However, if you refuse our terms, we will classify you as an imminent threat. Evacuating will accomplish nothing. We will simply follow your people to their destination and destroy you at the evacuation point. Cease your endeavors to apprehend us."
Andrea's eyes widened.
I'd heard those words before. Shane had used them in a letter he'd sent to Andrea about her guns. Shane. Holy shit.
To the left, one of the Vikings whispered, "What did he say?"
Ragnvald glared at him.
"Will you acquiesce to our terms?" the man asked. "Your answer?"
"No," Curran said. "Here are our terms: you line up in front of the Capitol, beg forgiveness for murdering hundreds of people, and blow your brains out. You can hang yourselves or fall on your swords. You can set yourselves on fire. I guarantee that any method of suicide you choose will be pleasant compared to what we will do to you. You have until the end of the tech."
The disconnect signal sounded like the toll of a funeral bell.
Ghastek grimaced. " `Cease your endeavors to apprehend us'? Really?"
"Clearly he reads a thesaurus before bed," a Cherokee shaman opined.
Bob, one of the Guild's mercs, grimaced. "He sounds like a rent-a-cop who read too many police procedure manuals."
"Or an MSDU officer," someone from the other end of the table offered.
No. No, he was a knight of the Order. Ted had to know. We would never prove it, but Ted had to know. "As I was saying, we have ten hours and fifty-nine minutes from the beginning of the next magic wave," Curran said. "That's how long the device will take to charge. Either it's in position already or they are moving it into position now. If we find it with time to spare, Adam here will disarm it."
A vampire at the far left tensed, gathering its muscles. It was a minute movement, barely noticeable. I squeezed Slayer's hilt, feeling the familiar texture under my fingers.
"If there is no time, whoever finds it may have to disarm it themselves," Curran said. "Now Adam will explain to us how to do this ..."
The vampire jumped, claws raised for the kill. It sailed through the air toward Kamen, clearing the table in a single powerful leap. I jumped onto the table and sliced left to right, in a classic diagonal strike. Slayer's blade cleaved through undead flesh like a sharp knife through a ripe pear.
The bloodsucker's body dropped at Kamen's feet.
The bald, fanged head flew and bounced off the table, spraying the People with thick undead blood.
A dark-headed journeyman jumped to his feet so quickly that his chair toppled backward. A gun flashed in his hand. I ran to him. I was jumping over Rowena when he shoved the barrel against his temple and pulled the trigger. The gun spat thunder. The gory mess of blood and brains sprayed the window.
The steak house exploded with noise, Ghastek's voice cutting through it, shaking with rage. "Find the person who admitted him, find the people who did his background check, find his Master. I want these people in front of me in half an hour!"
I SAT IN THE GLOOM OF THE HOSPITAL ROOM. JULIE lay unmoving on the white sheets, her exposed semihuman arm caught in the web of tubes of the IV drip feeding sedative into her body. Her face was twisted, her jaws too large and distorted, with fangs cutting through her lips. Her eyes were closed. A shock of pale blond hair was the only thing that remained of my kid.
It felt unreal.
I'd come here straight after the furor at the steak house had died down. I'd been watching her, sitting here hoping against everything I knew that somehow her body would beat this, that she would flow and streamline and shift back into a human. Or a lynx. I would settle for a lynx at this point. Anything but the twisted thing she was.
The magic would hit tomorrow. If not, then the next day. I would have to perform the ritual. If the device worked as Kamen promised, if the witches managed to channel power into me, if if if ... If everything went as expected, I still had no idea how exactly I would pull the blood from her body. At the end of it either Julie, or I, or both us could end up dead. Of all the strange and rash things I'd done, this was the craziest. If someone had told me a week ago that I would be contemplating cutting Julie's throat, I would've knocked them out on the spot.
Doolittle said she couldn't even hear me. To keep the loupism at bay, he'd had to put her completely under. I wanted to tell her that I loved her, that I was sorry, so, so sorry. That I would do anything, give anything to fix it. But she wouldn't hear.
The door opened. A tall, lean woman slipped inside. Jennifer. Surprise, surprise.
She sat next to me. How did she even get here? The room was supposed to be restricted.
"Came to gloat?" I asked.
The wolf alpha startled. "Do you really think I would ... ?"
"You tell me."
Jennifer said nothing. We sat side by side and looked at Julie. Her chest rose and fell in a steady, slow rhythm.
"Do you ever think about how fucked up life is?" Jennifer asked.
"Yes. That's why I have a punching bag."
"I think about it a lot lately."
We looked at Julie some more.
"I'm pregnant," Jennifer said. "Four months. Doolittle says it's a little girl."
"Congratulations," I told her. My voice came out monotone. "Does Daniel know?"
"Yes. My scent has changed." Jennifer looked at Julie. "Every time I see you, you remind me of the way Naomi died."
"I can't help that."
"I know," she said. "But every time I see you, you make me think of all the things that can go wrong. I hate you for that."
"Is that a challenge?" I asked, unable to keep fatigue from my voice.
"No." Jennifer looked at her hands.
We sat quietly for another long minute.
