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I stood up. “Excuse me; I have to make a call. I’ll just step into the hall, if you don’t mind.”
Camille gave me a confused look, but I just smiled. Morio let out a slow breath. “Do you need company?” he said softly.
I shook my head. “No, why don’t you stay here with Camille and the boys.” No way in hell was I leaving my sister alone with these creeps. Harold and Larry might be human, but they were up to no good, and I didn’t have any intention of putting her in danger.
I hurried into the hallway and pulled out my cell phone. Two rings, and Iris picked up. “Hey, listen. Call me in five minutes. We need to extricate ourselves from here before we get into trouble. And there’s plenty of trouble afoot—we just need to figure out what.”
Iris sucked in a deep breath. “There’s more trouble than you think.”
“What’s going on?”
“Vanzir just called. He heard through that fiendish grapevine of his that a new general’s moving into town to take Karvanak’s place. In other words, there’s another big bad on the loose.” She fell silent.
“Thanks. We’ll head out. Don’t bother with the rescue call—I’ll think of some excuse.” I flipped my phone shut and stared at it for a moment. We were in trouble. We were in big trouble. Karvanak had been bad enough; the Raksasa had nearly destroyed us and he had managed to kidnap and torture Chase. Shadow Wing wouldn’t bother with small fries this time. No, we’d be facing something worse. That much I knew for certain.
I hurried back into the room where I found Harold on the floor, with Morio on top of him, his hands wrapped around the dork’s throat. Camille was trying to pull Morio off of him, to no avail. Larry had moved toward the other side of the room, eyes wide.
“What the fuck is going on?”
Camille glanced up at me. “Morio decided to—”
“Camille, just shut the fuck up. I’m taking care of this, so back off,” Morio said, letting go and standing up. He dusted off his hands and gave Harold a rough kick with his toe. “Get up. Now.”
I blinked. Morio never spoke like that to my sister. But his eyes were shifting color. Any minute, and I had the feeling he’d be transforming into his full demonic form. And while he was on our side, that wasn’t going to help us out right now.
“Everybody just chill, or I’ll take matters into my own hands,” I said.
Harold stood up, wincing as he rubbed his throat, his gaze glued on Morio. His eyes were flashing with a familiar psychotic twitch. He reminded me all too much of Dredge.
I stepped between him and Morio. “I’m not going to ask what happened, but that’s enough.” As Harold let out a snort, I turned on him and hissed, letting my fangs descend. He jumped, taking a quick step back.
“Thought you’d see things my way,” I said. “This obviously wasn’t the best idea. Let’s just consider the story dead, and we’ll let ourselves out. And you,” I jabbed my finger against Harold’s chest. “I strongly suggest you rethink whatever might be going through that little brain of yours. You’re asking for a world of hurt, and you know nothing about what’s really out there.”
With that, I motioned for Morio and Camille to leave, then I backed out of the room. As soon as we were outside, I pushed them toward the car.
“Get in,” I said. “We need to have a long talk. And Delilah needs to hear what Vanzir has to say, too.”
“Bad news?” Morio said, his voice still thick with anger.
“Yeah. Bad news. We’ll stop at the bar and pick her up, then head over to the FH-CSI building.”
“Not a good idea,” Camille said. “If the Karsetii is attacking one of the officers still, then it’s going to be right there and might notice Delilah’s presence. Remember—those things are all linked to the hive mother. If it senses her, chances are she’ll spin off a second, and we’ll be fighting two of them.”
“Damn it. We need her. Okay, we have to get rid of this motherfucker so she can get back into action. We’ll tell her in a while, then. Camille, if you can get in touch with Smoky, call him and have him meet us there. Vanzir called Iris with some bad news.”
“Oh lovely. Just what we need.” Camille sighed and stepped on the gas.
I leaned up between the front seats. “Meanwhile, what the fuck happened back there?”
Morio shrugged. “Harold put his hands on Camille.”
“Since when do you fly into a fury over that?” Morio had never seemed terribly possessive, but now his eyes flashed again, and he let out a growl.
“She’s now my wife. And no one touches my wife—or any woman I know—without her permission. Harold didn’t ask for permission. Therefore, I put a stop to it.” With another shrug, he looked out the window.
Subject closed. That’s all she wrote, folks.
I glanced at Camille. “Harold was really stupid enough to try something in front of Morio?”
