Dark Queen (Jane Yellowrock #12)

The cops didn’t ask for the numbers. They were still freaked at the idea of a were.

Bruiser reentered. His nostrils widened at the stench of werewolf blood; Onorios have better-than-human sense of smell, but he hadn’t caught it the first time. His eyes searched me for signs of bite marks or torn flesh. I gave him a thumb up to let him know I hadn’t been bitten. To the cops he said, “Medic is caught in traffic. If you can clear the street they can get in to help that one.”

“We need a werewolf cage,” I said again.

Bruiser frowned and punched in a number. “PsyLED has portable cages.”

“If you have silver ammo,” I said to the cop, “now’s the time for it. If he gets shifted and is still in pain”—I glanced at Andromeda and half-joked—“things’ll get messy.”

Andromeda laughed, the sound only slightly panicked now that the shooting was over. “Call me Andy.”

“Jane.”

“I can’t shoot a suspect on the ground,” the cop said.

“You can if he’s a menace to the public.”

The cop looked at the wolf, at his partner, at me. “You shoot him.”

“Not my job once the cops are here. I’d stake him if he was a vamp and a menace to the public, but not a furball. He’s all yours.”

The guy on the ground started growling. He must have had strong feelings about the direction of the conversation. More hair sprouted. The cop cursed under his breath and changed out mags while calling his supervisor.

After that it was disorganized organization, with the cops putting a round in the were’s knee to keep him in a partial shift and out of action. The wolfman was seriously ticked off about being shot again. The local LEOs took our weapons. All of them. Even the stakes.

And my adrenaline dissipated enough for me to realize two humans had attacked me and now they were dead. Twenty-somethings, not children. Violent and ready to kidnap or kill me, or some violent combo of the two. But still. Humans. There was a time when killing humans would have broken my heart, sent me into depression. But there are just so many times one’s heart can be broken before it hardens in some sad, fragmented, disarranged formation, where it doesn’t work right anymore. I felt almost nothing and I was more sad about that than I was about killing the gangbangers.

Unconcerned, Beast thought, Jane is war woman. I/we are Beast. Killed enemy.

All the last of the battle energy drained out of me. I sat on a stool perched in the corner, sick to my stomach.

Rick walked in the door, his cat scent sending the doggy on the floor into spasms of fury. He flashed his badge and ID, then glared and pointed a finger at me. “We need to talk about my new housecat.” I nodded once. To the cops he continued, “This is a PsyLED investigation. I’ll take over as OIC until my superior arrives.”

OIC was “officer in charge.” I started to relax when the cop who had reshot the furball said, “Sorry. Gang Task Force is here. They have jurisdiction.”

Rick frowned. The cop grinned. He clearly found it amusing that the meddlesome bureaucrat-cop in street clothes was not going to get his way. And then Ayatas walked in with a portly man in a suit, and the cop’s amusement faded away. “LaFleur,” Ayatas said, “this is Gomez, GTF. He’s been tracking the local gangs for two years.” Rick and Gomez shook hands. Ayatas glanced at me and Andromeda but didn’t acknowledge us. His hair was braided back and hung down the center of his spine. “GTF’s had reports of strangers running with the Zips.”

“Werewolf strangers?” Rick asked.

Gomez dropped to one knee and studied the downed were, comparing him to photos of men on his phone, one thumb flicking from pic to pic. He stopped on one and held the cell up to Andy and me. “He’s a little too furry right now to be sure, but this him?”

“No,” we said.

“This?” Gomez brought up another pic.

“No.” I realized we were getting a quickie photo lineup, like in the basement of a cop shop.

“This?” Gomez asked.

“Yes,” Andy and I said.

Gomez marked his screen, grunted, and stood. To Andy, Gomez said, “He’s been seen with the Zips and with a guy who goes by the name Marco Agrios, white, just under six feet, brown and brown, sharp dresser. You or your brother know anything about Marco?”

Andy looked as if she would rather not answer, but she finally said, “I can ask around some. Gimme your card.” Gomez held out a business card and Andy tucked it behind the register.

Gomez nodded, looked me over, and spoke to Ayatas. “You got a safe place to store him until he heals? We don’t want his kind in with the lockup pop, making furbabies outta the locals.”

“Yes,” Rick said, when Ayatas glanced at him. “We’ll take care of it.”

Gomez gave another grunt and left the jewelry shop. Ayatas studied me. I watched him back, wary. “Why would he target you?” he asked.

“No idea.”

“If you need protection, I can arrange it.”

I raised my eyebrows at him. “Really? For little ol’ me? You want I should curtsy and clasp my hands to my chest? Maybe flutter my eyes and sigh some?”

“What about me?” Beside me, Andy dropped into a clumsy curtsy and fluttered her eyes at him. “I’ll do a lot more than that to get you for my protection.”

Ayatas laughed kindly, flashing pearly whites, clearly accustomed to people trying to pick him up. “A war woman can die too. Be careful out there.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“War woman?” She pointed at her right arm above her wrist. “I might have that tattooed right here.” I just smiled.

Rick pointed a finger at me and said, “We are not done with cat business.”

Moments later, Andy and I were hauled off to the Eighth Precinct and separated. My last words to her were, “I owe you a lawyer.”

Her last words to me were, “Make him pretty.”

We spent time in holding cells until lawyers could arrive and we could be interviewed. Leo had several lawyers on retainer, but Brandon Robere was my lawyer of choice, a graduate of Tulane Law, LLM, back in 1946. I hadn’t seen him in a couple weeks. The Onorio looked good, though his suit hung on his leaner frame, he moved less fluidly, and his eyes were still a little hollow. It took time to get over being tied to a beam, tortured, and drained of blood. Sometimes life just sucked. “Jane,” he said. “I’ve requested an interview room. Are you hurt?”

“No. I just hate cages.”

“Yes. I know what you mean.” He followed, silent, as the cops moved me to an interrogation room, stood as they locked the door on us, and leaned with his back against the wall. He asked, “Is it true they targeted you specifically? Not the store owner?”

“Yes. There’s security video. And one wasn’t a gangbanger. He’s werewolf.”

“So I hear. Is it true you wish me to offer legal services to Andromeda Preaux?”

“Yeah. She tried to get me out the back door before the shooting started. Would you check on her?”

“In a moment. You do seem to attract heroes. How do you know they were targeting you?”

“Andy said the car had been patrolling the streets in the area for days. They hit on me and rolled past.”

“Hit on you?”

“Offered me their services?” When he looked confused I said, “Offered to take me to bed, and not to snooze.”

Brandon shook his head. “Horrors. Go on.”

“Yeah. Then they came back. They followed me into the shop. They said, ‘Get the woman,’ or something like that. It wasn’t hard to tell I was their target.”

“They left and they came back,” he clarified. “And they had been patrolling the area around St. Peter Street?”

Something was wrong here. More carefully, I said, “I hadn’t seen them before. But that’s what Andromeda said.”

“When they came back, was their demeanor the same or different?”

“I’m not following you,” I said.