“Get to the mortuary immediately—as fast as you can. We found Rose.”
I looked at my car, a hundred feet away through the snow. “What? At the mortuary?”
“Are you running?” she demanded.
“Yes,” I said, and broke into a run. Boy Dog followed, panting with exertion. We still didn’t know who had kidnapped Rose, but finding her at the mortuary meant one of two things: either Elijah had taken her there, or she’d shown up the way most people show up at a mortuary. “Is Rose dead?” I asked. “Did Elijah kill her?”
“Elijah’s not even here,” said Diana. “Gidri’s gang showed up about forty-five minutes ago, with Rose slung over their shoulder—we haven’t dared make contact so we don’t know what condition she’s in.”
So Gidri kidnapped Rose? But why? Did Elijah tell him to? Was Elijah the leader of the whole wretched group?
We could figure out why later—first things first. “Don’t make contact,” I said. “Every human in that building will die.”
“That’s the problem,” said Diana. “The cops won’t believe us—they still think this is some kind of drug ring and they’re gathering at the gas station around the corner.”
“Gathering?”
“Armed and armored,” said Diana. “They’re going to go in.”
*
I screeched to a stop on the edge of a crowd of cop cars, their lights turned off in the hope that the mortuary half a block away wouldn’t know they were there. I left Boy Dog in the passenger seat, hoping that he’d be okay—would I be back soon? Would he freeze? I couldn’t hurt him or allow him to be hurt; I had to follow my rules. I hovered a moment in indecision, then ran toward Agent Ostler.
“Where have you been?” she snapped.
“Selling cigarettes to children,” I said. “Have they gone in yet?”
“Do they look like they’ve gone in?” She pointed to the massing crowd of police in armored vests and helmets, clutching assault rifles as Detective Scott gave them a final briefing. Fort Bruce was too small for a real SWAT team, but in every situation they typically encountered, this group would be enough. This was not a typical situation.
I counted them as quickly as I could. “Looks like eighteen guys? Against four Withered?”
“And all four are here now,” said Diana, walking toward us. She had a bulletproof vest of her own, with a small radio handset clipped to a strap on the shoulder. “Elijah drove up right after I talked to you. That puts him twenty minutes late to work, if that means anything.”
Ostler sneered. “It’s a miracle he didn’t drive past this … bonehead parade. Surprise might be our only real weapon here, but it’s better than nothing.”
“Are you going in, too?” I asked Diana. “That’s a death trap in there.”
Detective Scott approached with a frown, his handheld radio squawking. “This is your last chance to be straight with me,” he said. “We’re not going to let that woman die, but that’d be a whole lot easier if you’d just tell me what my men are going to find in there.”
“I’ve told you before,” said Ostler. “They are ancient creatures we don’t even begin to understand—”
“They are not vampires!” Scott hissed. “They’re not ghosts or goblins or whatever other lies you keep insisting on telling me. I have eighteen good men, with families at home, and if you can’t stop this charade long enough to tell them the truth—”
“Don’t send them,” said Ostler. “If you refuse to believe anything else I say, at least listen to this: anyone you send in there will die, and you will not blame me for being anything less than clear about that.”
Boy Dog howled from my car, lost and primal.
“You’re not a part of this community,” said Scott. “You can waltz around here and watch our people get killed and kidnapped and then you can leave, but we have a responsibility here. We have to get up every morning and tell our neighbors we’re doing everything we can to protect them, and if that means going in there, then that’s what we do. It’s eighteen on four, with no sign of heavy weapons on any of the suspects. We have to take this chance.”
“Send them in,” I said.
“He doesn’t have the authority to give you that permission,” said Ostler quickly.
“And she doesn’t have the authority to stop you,” I said. “You go, you do your thing, but you remember what she told you.”
The detective’s voice dropped, and he spoke through clenched teeth. “What is this?”
“It’s a war,” I said. “It’s been in the shadows for centuries—for millennia maybe—but if you’re determined to start the first real battle, we can’t stop you.”
Scott looked back and forth among the three of us, then stormed off with a snarl. “Bunch of freaks.”
“What are you doing?” Ostler demanded.
“Communicating,” I said bitterly. “The Hunter wants a corpse, and the police are determined to die. It’s a win-win.”