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“She’s an MP investigating a string of murders. People will notice when she goes missing,” Stella’s southern-accented voice pointed out. “We could just tie her up, leave her to be found by the cooks in the morning.”
“That would put the police and the military both on our trail immediately, love. Her death purchases us time,” said an upper-class English voice that sounded a lot like Lady Daphne but wasn’t. “It could be days or even weeks before they trace her disappearance to the Mirror Club if she simply vanishes, especially if no one knows she left Fayetteville.”
To see inside the kitchen, Liliana opened her fourth eyes. The surfaces in the large professional kitchen gleamed. Spotless pans with copper bottoms hung from racks above the broad preparation counters and multiburner stoves.
The big, dark-haired woman in the apron, who Liliana had narrowly avoided earlier that day, stood with a meat cleaver in her hand, arguing. Sergeant Giovanni lay unconscious on a butcher-block table with blood grooves around the edge, clearly meant for cutting up large slabs of meat. The shiny, metal garbage pail marked “Edible Garbage” that Liliana saw in her earlier vision stood nearby.
“Is it really worth killing her, just to gain us a little more time to run?” Stella, the athletic, dark-skinned widow spider who’d knocked out Sergeant Giovanni, stood between the unconscious sergeant’s helpless form and the large woman with the cleaver. “We can be two states away by morning.”
Liliana found herself liking Stella but fought against the urge. She could not afford to become fond of an enemy she would likely have to kill soon. Rather than listen to the rest of the argument, she jumped forward in time to the moment when Sergeant Giovanni would die. In her vision of the future, Stella wore the chef’s apron and reluctantly wielded the cleaver, killing the helpless detective in the same swift, painless way Liliana had killed Kristen.
The kitchen was empty of any other people. The vision was solid, as certain as any event that hadn’t yet come to pass could be. Stella would lose this argument. And she would be alone when she killed the sergeant.
Coming back to the present, Liliana shifted the focus of her fourth eyes.
“Move out of the way, love.” Margaret said gently on the other side of the kitchen door. “I’ll do what needs doing.”
“No. If it has to be done, then I’ll do it.” Stella sighed. “Just…give me a little time, okay?”
Liliana grabbed Pete’s clawed hand and dragged him toward a hiding place. Or tried to. She pulled ineffectually on the mountain of fur and muscle.
Pete’s big boots didn’t budge. His large ears pointed at the kitchen door. Clearly, he could hear the argument too.
She pulled on his hand again, frantically. Margaret would come out of the kitchen at any moment. If they let her pass, they would have only one enemy to fight. If they stayed here, they would have to fight both widow spiders at once.
Pete shook his head, muzzle swinging from side to side in a stubborn, wordless refusal. He leaned down so he could breathe in Liliana’s ear. “They’re going to kill Zoe!”
His warm breath tickled Liliana’s ear distractingly. They didn’t have time to argue. On the other side of the door, Margaret was passing over the cleaver and apron to Stella. They had only seconds. If they fought both widow spiders at once, they would almost certainly die.
Despair hit Liliana hard. If Pete would not follow her lead as he promised, then there was no chance at all they would survive the night. She looked up at the wolf-kin. “You gave me your word,” she whispered desperately.
For a moment, the wolf-kin stood there, glaring down at her.
Liliana opened her third eyes and glared right back at the mountain of stubborn red fur and muscle. His warm breath blew on her cheek, smelling faintly of blood and raising distracting goose bumps on her arms.
He turned away and bared his fangs toward the closed kitchen door in a silent snarl as precious seconds ticked away. Walking away from an endangered friend would have been difficult for him in human form. In demi-wolf form, his protective instincts were even more powerful.
Liliana’s third eyes gave her a front row seat for the battle raging in the wolf-kin. Her despair deepened. Pete would lose the battle. Such powerful instincts would overwhelm anyone.
But Pete had given his oath.
He shook himself, looked back down at Liliana, and nodded sharply.
No time for Liliana to express her relief or how much Pete impressed her. She just grabbed a clawed finger and ran on silent, slippered feet for the men’s room. The closest hiding place.
One side of the double kitchen doors swung open just as they ducked into the bathroom. Margaret walked out of the kitchen while the bathroom door was still shutting behind them. It would make a click sound as it shut that Margaret couldn’t fail to notice. She was too far into the room to reach the door, and Pete was in the way.
She inhaled sharply and covered her mouth with her hand to keep the sound from escaping.
Pete saw the direction of her horrified gaze. One long claw hooked the edge of the door just before it would have latched shut, stopping it silently.
Margaret didn’t so much as glance in their direction as she walked past.
Liliana noticed an odd smell, like licorice only gaggingly intense. Little blue cakes of some chemical sat in the urinals beside her. She looked around curiously. She had never been in a men’s bathroom before. The social rule against entering the bathroom of another gender was immutable under normal circumstances.
Pete’s big ears did a weird sort of embarrassed dip as he saw her looking curiously at the facilities men used for relieving themselves. His ears were remarkably expressive in demi-wolf form.
One of his ears cocked toward the door as Margaret went out to the elevator foyer. The elevator dinged, and the doors opened, then closed.
