Living with the Dead

FINN



THAT SPRINT ALONG THE MOTEL had burned off Finn’s anger, and when he saw Robyn clutching the gun, the first thing he noticed was not the black hole of a barrel, but those slender hands trembling. Robyn struggled to hold her expression immobile, eyes narrowed, in a desperate attempt to hide her terror. It was a look Finn knew well. He’d seen it on too many people at the other end of a gun, fighting to show that they weren’t scared, that they would pull that trigger, and that made them ten times more dangerous than the most hardened gangbanger. Because at the smallest move, the slightest sound, they fire before their brain could interfere.

“You don’t want to do this,” he said.

Robyn’s laugh wobbled as much as her hands. “Are you going to remind me of the penalty for shooting an officer of the law, Detective? I bet that comes in handy, doesn’t it? Your boss sends you after someone like me, and if I stand up to you, you just play the cop card, make me think twice about defending myself.”

“My boss?”

“The people you work for.”

“I work for the city of—”

“Cut the crap, Detective Findlay. Hope already figured out your game.”

“Hope?”

“Ah, so now you’re going to pretend you never met her.”

“If you mean your friend, Hope Adams—”

“That’s the only Hope both of us know. Only you didn’t know her as well as you thought. You overlooked that magic power detector of hers.”

“Magic power?” He remembered interviewing Adams, remembered being afraid she’d somehow pick up on his secret.

“Are you going to parrot everything I say? I bet that’s what they teach you at double-agent school, huh? In case of exposure, whatever your interrogator says, repeat it back?”

“Double-agent—” He stopped himself. “I don’t know what—”

“—I’m talking about. Lesson two: deny everything. Now you’ll tell me that Hope’s wrong, you don’t have supernatural powers.”

He felt his jaws part. He wouldn’t go so far as to say it dropped, but it definitely opened.

“Better yet, gape at me like I’ve lost my mind.”

He shut his mouth.

“Over the last few days,” she continued, “I have had very good cause to question my sanity, but if I know one thing right now, it’s that I’m not crazy and nothing you can say is going to convince me otherwise. Now, are you going to tell me you don’t have supernatural powers?”

He should deny it. He’d been raised to do that until he was married, and then only to tell his wife, warning her the same way he would if his genes carried a disorder.

But Robyn Peltier would see his lie. She’d condemn him for it worse than she’d ever condemn him for the truth. Considering she was a fugitive currently holding a gun on him, her opinion shouldn’t matter. But it did. And he knew if he was going to solve this case, and find not only justice but truth, his answer—and her opinion—would be critical.

“No,” he said.

“So you are going to deny it.”

“I mean no, I’m not going to deny it.”

She took a second to recover, loosening and regripping the gun.

“Can you put that down?” he asked.

“Right now, this gun is the only thing guaranteeing me the truth.”

“No.” He met her gaze. “It isn’t.”

She faltered again, her fingers peeling off and finding new holds. Then, slowly, she lowered it to her side.

“You have them, don’t you?” she said.

“Who?”

“Hope and Karl.”

“I don’t have any—”

“Your employer does, then.”

“My employer—” Finn exhaled, air whistling through his teeth. “Okay, let’s back up. Who do you think I work for?”

“The man in the photograph. The one Portia sent to me, that started this whole thing.”

“You mean Irving Nast?” He took out his badge. “This didn’t come from a cereal box, Robyn. You can call in the number right now and check. I’m a real detective.”

“Of course you are. That’s the beauty of it. They get you on the LAPD and anytime a crime involves you people—”

“You people?”

She flushed, as if caught making a racial slur. “Your . . . your sort. People with . . . supernatural powers. Werewolves, demons, clairvoyants, whoever works for the Nasts. If they get into trouble—or cause it—you swoop in and clean up, keep your world a secret.”

There was, Finn reflected, a bizarre logic to that . . . once you got past the part about werewolves and demons employed by a nefarious organization posing as a Fortune 500 corporation, which, he admitted, was rather a large roadblock.

“Irving Nast . . . ?” was all he could say.

Robyn crossed her arms, gun dangling from her fingers, fixing him with a sharp look of disapproval. They’d finally gotten past the parroting and denials, and now he was backsliding.

“If I’m working for Irving Nast, why was I at his office a few hours ago?”

Her disapproval slid into disgust. Obviously if he was working for Irving Nast, he’d have reason to meet with him.

“I went to question him on this case,” he said. “Instead I met Sean Nast. Does that ring a bell?”

“Should it?”

“Ask Hope. She met him an hour ago—right after I left the Nast offices. You think that’s a coincidence?”

She uncrossed her arms.

“Hope did meet with someone, right?” he prodded.

“Yes, a contact.”

“Who was Sean Nast, the guy I met, who stonewalled me, shooed me out of his office, then raced off to meet your friend. So I would suggest I’m not the one working for the Nasts.”

Robyn shook her head, her arms falling to her sides now. “Not Hope. Sean Nast is her contact in that organization. You talked to him, so he called her . . .”

“And I followed her from that meeting to this motel. All of which should mean I don’t work for Irving Nast.”

It wasn’t a bulletproof argument and her look told him so, but she did ease back, thinking.

“You do have some supernatural power, though, right?”

“If you call it that.”

“Hope said you’re a necromancer.”

That was the second time this week he’d heard that word. He didn’t like the way it made him feel—uneasy and unbalanced. Like being the star in every school play, coming to L.A. and finding yourself one of a thousand actors who’d starred in every school play.

“I have no idea what a necromancer is . . .” Robyn continued.

It took a moment to notice her watching him expectantly.

“It means . . . ghosts,” he said. “I see ghosts, communicate with them.”

He braced himself for her eyes to light up, for her to say, “You can talk to the dead? My husband passed away six months ago. Can you . . . ?” He’d promised Damon he wouldn’t tell her, not yet. But if she gave him that look, if those green eyes lit with hope, if she asked . . .

But it didn’t register. Maybe because he’d said “ghosts” not “the dead.” Maybe because, right now, Damon was miles from her mind.

“You talk to ghosts,” she said, nodding as if assimilating. “Okay, that I can live with. It’s a lot easier to believe than some of the others.”

“Others?”

“The—” She stopped, studying him. “You really don’t work for the Nasts, do you?”

He shook his head.

“You know nothing about the Nasts, do you?”

He shook his head.

“But you do know you’re a necromancer.”

“If that’s what it’s called, I guess so. I just know that seeing ghosts runs in my family.”

“But the rest of it . . . ? Clairvoyants? Demons? Werewolves?”

“Uh, no.”

“Oh, boy.”

As silence settled over them, a figure flickered to Finn’s right, by the side fence. An arm appeared. Then a leg in midstride. Finally a faint figure shimmered, heading his way. A few paces later, Damon popped into full view.

“Oh, so now you can see me. About time. I’ve been—” Damon turned the corner and saw Robyn, and his face—

Finn looked away, feeling like he had when he’d come home from college early one weekend to walk in on Rick proposing to his girlfriend, his face raw with longing and hope. Finn had known she’d turn him down, and that had made it all the more painful to see, knowing the moment couldn’t end in anything except disappointment, as this one would for Damon.

As Finn pretended to look for the ambulance, he scratched the back of his neck, not because it itched, but just to have something to do. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Damon approach Robyn, slowly, warily, as if expecting her to disappear.

Whatever powers had kept Damon from being near his wife had evidently lifted that ban. Maybe because Finn still needed Damon’s help to solve this case, and now he needed Robyn’s, too. Or maybe just because it was time to let him see her again.

“Uh, Finn? Why is my wife holding a gun?”

Finn turned. Robyn looked confused, as if she was trying to figure out why he’d turned away.

Damon stood beside her, so close his arm was through her. His brows arched as he gestured to the weapon.

“Bobby . . . pulled a gun on you?”

Finn searched for an excuse. Then Damon smiled, like a man seeing his wife pull a martial-arts move he never realized she knew, proud of her ability to defend herself . . . and touched with sadness that she had to.

Damon leaned into Robyn. “A brave new world, huh, baby?”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Finn muttered.

“Detective?” Robyn followed his gaze to her side. “Is there . . . a ghost?”

Damon pulled back sharply and shot him a look, reminding Finn that he’d promised not to tell Robyn about him. Damon was right—this was no time to tell her. That would come later. After they got through this and she was safe. For now, Damon would just have to be Finn’s anonymous spirit helper.

“She figured out that I see ghosts.” He gave Damon a meaningful look. “That’s it.”

“Detective?” Robyn said.

“Yes, it’s a . . . ghost. Can you give us—me—a moment?”

Finn backed to the corner. He was about to turn away, then remembered the last time he’d left Robyn alone.

“It’s okay,” Damon said. “I’m watching her.”

Which he was. Couldn’t take his eyes off her, even as he explained to Finn what had happened, how he’d followed Hope to the motel room, then been blocked at the sidewalk and known Robyn must be inside. He went back only to find Finn’s ghost radar on the fritz again. He’d been hammering away at Finn for a while before the motel room door opened, and Hope and a man came out.

“Karl Marsten?” Finn kept his voice low, so Robyn wouldn’t overhear.

“No, a red-haired guy in some team jacket.”

“I saw him.”

Damon told Finn that Adams had been in rough shape. Finn presumed it was from the gas, but he hadn’t mentioned that part to Damon, who was already eyeing Robyn like a mother hen with a bedraggled chick. Damon said the man seemed to take Adams against her will, but she’d escaped. He’d been about to run through the side fence, taking a shortcut to follow them. Then he’d seen a van around the back, Karl Marsten in the rear of it.

“He left Adams?”

“Not willingly. He was out cold, being loaded in by two guys dressed like SWAT, and I thought you must have called it in. But they’d cut out the bathroom window and taken him through there, so no one would see, which doesn’t sound like the LAPD to me.”

“They weren’t.”

“So we have private citizens in riot gear, kidnapping a guy through a motel room window, and strong-arming a woman out the front door . . . in broad daylight? This case is getting stranger by the minute.”

Again, Damon didn’t know the half of it, and if Finn stopped to think about it all, he’d get mired in the morass of his confusion.

“Where’s Adams now?” he asked.

“Over there.” Damon pointed to the back fence. “She kicked the crap out of the guy. I know Aikido is supposed to be good self-defense, but man, that was something else. Bobby definitely has to start taking those lessons with her. Way better than a gun.”

“So Adams is okay?”

“I think so. When they were going at it, I came back to find you, couldn’t, went back and they were done brawling. They seemed to be negotiating.” He paused, gaze still fixed on Robyn, and rubbed his thumb over his chin. “I guess I should go check on her. Hope, that is.”

Finn tried to think of some way to agree without sounding heartless. They both knew that once Damon left, he might not get this close to Robyn again.

“I’ll go.” Damon wrenched his gaze away. As he did, he leaned for a better look at the front lot. “An ambulance just pulled in. Is that for Bobby? Is she okay?”

“Just thought I should get her checked. Should be a squad car, too. I’ll send that over to help Adams.”

Damon hesitated. “Might want to hold off. She’s okay and . . .” He rubbed his chin again before looking at Finn. “What I heard at the sandwich shop? Hope and that Nast guy? It was . . .”

“Strange?”

“Yeah. What did Bobby—?”

“Go keep an eye on Adams.”

Whatever was going on here, he had a feeling that if the police descended on the situation too quickly, answers would dissipate like smoke signals. As Damon loped off to the fence, Finn collected Robyn and headed around front.





HOPE





A block away, Rhys had parked a nondescript car with local plates. In the car, he efficiently tended Hope’s wounds, then managed to pick up the Cabal tail while looking like he was trying to avoid it. Independent operative, hired gun, mercenary . . . whatever Rhys called himself, he was adept at it, which was good because as a clairvoyant, he sucked.

Hope gave him props for admitting it. In the supernatural world, the strength of your powers is like intelligence level for humans. Everyone lets on they have it in spades, if only as untapped potential. Saying your powers are weak is as tough as admitting you’re not too bright.

When he tried to check on Karl, he couldn’t pick up anything, which suggested Karl was still unconscious. He did get a brief flash of Robyn. She seemed to be sitting on the tailgate of an ambulance. There was a man with her. From the description, it was Detective Findlay.

After talking to Sean, Hope was sure Findlay had nothing to do with the Cabal. The fact that he’d waltzed through their office doors meant he was either one hell of a ballsy necromancer or he didn’t know what the Nast Corporation was. But she hadn’t had a chance to tell Robyn that. If she was with the paramedics, though, she must have realized that whatever Findlay was, she was safe for now.

For now, Robyn did seem safe, and Hope had to leave it at that, because after a brief snapshot of Robyn, Rhys’s mental camera screen went blank. Not so much a substandard model, then, as a battery hog, needing plenty of downtime between shots.

They were being tracked by two vehicles—a black car and a van, which were taking turns in the tailing position. Rhys wasn’t fooled.

“Are you sure Karl is in that van?” Hope asked.

“Positive.”

“But if you can’t see him . . .”

“He is. Relax, Hope.”

“I’m being sensible, not sensitive. There’s no shortage of vehicles at a Cabal. Why not exchange that van for another, take Karl back and get him locked up before he wakes?”

“Because they’re waiting for him to wake up. Irving isn’t particularly bright, but he is resourceful. If I take off on foot and his guys lose me, he has a werewolf.”

“For tracking.”

“Presumably the original plan was to take you as a hostage and force Karl to help.”

“But now you have me, and that works just as well, as motivations go.”

A moment of silence, then, “Check out the van behind us. Can you tell me what he’s doing wrong?”

One might think a mercenary would jealously guard his knowledge, but Rhys spent the next ten minutes teaching her how to spot, lose and be a tail. In part, Hope was sure it was a distraction from thoughts of his son, but she also got the sense he liked to teach. So she shut up and absorbed.

Or she did until, in the distance, she saw the big-box bookstore from earlier.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Back to those medical offices where Colm— Where you were earlier.”

It was a moment before she managed a cautious, “Why?”

“I need a quiet place to take care of the Cabal team.”

“By taking care of them, you mean . . .”

“I have tranquilizer guns in the trunk.”

She hoped her sigh of relief wasn’t too loud.

He went on. “The problem with stopping to do that is that I need an empty place where, logically, I might go before heading to the kumpania. Irving will be wondering why I grabbed you. Going here will answer his question.”

Hope was about to ask how. Then the vision replayed—the boy running off the edge, twisting, his face— She shivered, the chaos pleasure cut short by a cold snake of dread slinking up her spine.

“Revenge,” she whispered.

He didn’t seem to catch the chill in her voice. “Right. If they haven’t already woken Karl, they will when I take you inside. He’ll tell them why we’re here, and the team will rush in. Your death isn’t in their best interests. They’ll try to rescue you, while letting me escape so they can continue the hunt.”

The car slowed to take a corner, heading into the complex behind the big-box store. Her gaze straight ahead, Hope waited until the car decelerated, then grabbed the door with one hand, and her seat belt with the other. The door flew open, her seat belt whirring as she threw herself against—

Rhys’s arm slammed into Hope’s chest, catching her square in the solar plexus, forcing her back in her seat, gasping and sputtering as the brakes squealed. Rhys lunged across her to yank the door shut while the car shot up on the curb and bounced down again.

As the car hit a full stop, Hope jerked against his arm, coughing, eyes watering, like she’d been hit with a fresh dose of tear gas. He made a sound, one that sounded suspiciously like . . .

He was laughing.

Hope gasped, mouth opening and closing, nothing going in or out.

“Shallow breaths.” He withdrew his arm. “It’ll come back. And, no, I’m not going to apologize for hitting you that hard. Never go easy on allies if you have to take them down. Especially allies. You’re already fighting the urge not to hurt them. Counteract that and hit them with everything you’ve got.”

She stared as he talked, calmly twisted in his seat, hand on the wheel, lecturing her as if they were still cruising along, talking about how to tail a car. When her fingers edged toward the door, he pressed the electronic lock.

“I know what you’re thinking, Hope. I said I’m going to make the Cabal believe I want revenge for Colm’s death, and you’re wondering if that’s exactly what I want, that I’m saying it to throw you off track. I don’t think I have a single operative who would see that far ahead, and I’ve trained them to always be on the lookout for a trick. I’m impressed.”

She kept staring.

“First-rate survival instincts.” He leaned toward her. “Does that come from having demon blood? Or a professional thief boyfriend?”

She said nothing.

“Either way, I’m impressed. You can never be too paranoid, Hope. That’s what I meant about coming down as hard on allies as on enemies. It doesn’t matter whether you work for the council, a Cabal or on your own. Never trust that your allies won’t turn on you, and never presume your enemies can’t be turned to help you.”

He checked the rearview mirror. “Good. They’ve seen us. It’ll be obvious something happened, maybe you tried to escape, which will support the story.”

He cranked the wheel away from the curb, then accelerated. “It is a story, Hope. Yes, I want revenge against the person responsible for my son’s death, but that person isn’t you. You tried to stop it. In your place, I would have done the same. So it’s not you I’m after.”

“Adele.”

He slowed near the medical center, checking for police before turning into the lot. “Neala—his mother—tried to warn me about Adele. I’ve been gone since Colm was two. I stayed away. That was the deal.” Silence as he circled the lot. “But Neala kept in touch, let me know how he was doing. Then, last year, she called me in a fury. She’d caught Adele and Colm making out.”

“How old is Adele?”

“Exactly Neala’s point. You get it. I didn’t. Maybe as a guy all I could think was that, at his age, I’d have been in heaven if a nineteen-year-old came on to me. Like Neala, I suppose you see the problem. It’s fine for a fourteen-year-old to fantasize, but for a young woman to reciprocate . . .”

“Something’s wrong.”

“Which is what Neala said. I knew it wasn’t normal, but the kumpania is very insular. Adele wouldn’t have a lot of options for a sexual outlet. Maybe she was immature for nineteen. Maybe Colm was mature for fourteen. I made excuses and chalked up Neala’s reaction to a mother’s jealousy.” He paused a moment, then jackrabbited into a spot, slamming on the brakes hard enough to smack her forward, ribs aching.

“Stay put,” he said as he opened the door. “We need to make a good show of this, in case they’re already watching.”





ROBYN



Robyn sat on the ambulance tailgate as the paramedic checked her eyes. He hadn’t looked at her shoulder. He didn’t know he needed to.

Robyn had made a deal with Detective Findlay. If he was going to find Adele, he needed her help, and he wasn’t getting it by dumping her in a hospital room. So she wouldn’t mention the shoulder and he’d pretend not to know about it.

He hadn’t liked that, his blue-green eyes cranking up the frosty blue, his square jaw getting squarer. But she was right and, as she pointed out, it was her safety, therefore her decision. He hadn’t liked that either, his look saying that, as a murder suspect, she didn’t have that right, but he was too polite to say so.

He reminded her of the cops they used to send to her school, parading them as proof that Officer Friendly really was friendly. Robyn wasn’t so sure friendly was the word she’d use to describe Detective Findlay. Just . . . courteous, which was more than she deserved, after pulling a gun on him and ranting about werewolves and demons.

As Robyn looked around, Detective Findlay ambled back to her. No, ambled wasn’t the right word either. It implied aimlessness, and Detective Findlay carried a decisive air that forbade anything that vague. But he took his time, like a grizzly bear fixed on a target, in no particular rush but broaching no deviations to his path either, presuming all smaller beasts would get out of his path.

One of the officers did scamper into his path to intercept him. It was a young officer, barely twenty, with an eager smile, big eyes, big feet and a tendency to stumble over them. The detective didn’t seem to notice the officer until he was a hairbreadth from smacking into him.

Lost in thought? Or busy listening to his ghost? He had the same distant look Hope got, the one Robyn now knew meant she was seeing a vision. When he saw the young officer, he snapped out of it with that same blinking jolt of surprise.

What was it like to see ghosts? What did they look like? What did they say?

The ghost Detective Findlay had been communicating with seemed to be some kind of spirit guide, helping him by scouting for Hope and Karl. Did Detective Findlay only see that one spirit helper? Or a world of ghosts? If it was ghosts, did that prove life after death? Did that mean Damon was still out there, somewhere, and if he was, could Detective Findlay—

Robyn banished the thought. Hope and Karl were missing. Adele Morrissey was still at large. Making contact with her dead husband sat at the bottom of Robyn’s priority list. It had to.

Detective Findlay spoke to the officer, then continued on to Robyn. “You okay?”

The paramedic answered for her, in far more detail than needed, the detective’s patient nods belied by his fingertips tapping against his leg.

“If she’s okay, I need to get her back to the station.”

“Sure,” the paramedic said. “We could—”

“I’ll take her in my car.” He looked at Robyn. “Ms. Peltier?”

That was all he said, his broad face impassive. No meaningful look passed between them, but those tapping fingers told her something was up. He hadn’t been so eager to get her into custody until now.

Robyn slid from the tailgate. Detective Findlay dismissed the paramedics, gave final instructions to the officers, who were canvassing the motel guests and staff, then led Robyn to his car.

“We have a fix on Hope,” he said as he fastened his seat belt. “She’s with the guy from your motel room. Ball cap and sports jacket.”

“Rhys. Is she okay?”

“Seems so. She’s going with him willingly, as far as . . . my source can tell. We’ll follow.”





HOPE





When Rhys came around to Hope’s door, holding a gun, she put on a very convincing show of resistance. And he taught her another lesson in not giving the ally any quarter, wrenching her arm to the breaking point again and forcing her inside the building, where he pointed out that the gun was filled with tranquilizer darts, and he had a second one for her.

He could have told her this in the car, but she guessed that booster shot of true panic hadn’t hurt the act.

“Aim for their legs,” he said as they huddled in the stairwell. “Presume they’re wearing body armor. I doubt Irving will come in, but he might follow if his men are slow getting back out. If you see him, tranq him. Then use this.”

He handed her what looked like a key chain tape measure. When she stared at it, he grabbed the ring and pulled out a fine wire.

“Have you ever garroted anyone?”

She moved her stare to his face.

“I take that as a no.”

“You said—” She looked down at her tranquilizer gun.

“That’s for the team. We have to kill Irving.” His tone made Hope feel like a naive journalism student, shocked at hearing she might have to do something underhanded to get a good story.

“If Irving lives, he’ll come after us. All of us.” He enunciated as if she wasn’t quite as smart as he’d thought. “He wanted Adele—and the glory of her recruitment—for himself. His team is just following orders. He won’t have trusted anyone with details. So if he dies, so does the project . . . and his revenge against those who screwed it up.”

“But the council— A Nast— Unless my life is in immediate danger—”

“—the council doesn’t condone murder. Laudable and just . . . and one reason why the council is not, and never can be, as effective a body as the supernatural world needs. But now is not the time for political lectures. If you let Irving live, he won’t show you the same mercy.”

When she hesitated, Rhys said, “What would Karl do?”

There was no question. He would eliminate the threat as he had with Gilchrist and that would be the right decision for him. But Karl would be the first to say she wasn’t him and she shouldn’t try to be.

“I don’t have time to wait for you to figure it out, Hope. Protect your safety and Karl’s, or protect your council job. You decide.”

He gave final instructions and left.



STEP ONE: CASE THE JOINT for civilians. Rhys didn’t use those exact words. For a mercenary, he was severely lacking in the requisite badassitude. . . though the ache in Hope’s ribs insisted that his bite was worse than his bark. If her own attitude seemed a little lacking in gravity, that was deliberate. It kept her thoughts from straying into territory that would reduce her from Cabal-fighting commando to quivering ditherer.

She couldn’t think about Robyn, about Karl, about Irving Nast and what she’d do if she found him. Rhys made the choice sound so simple. End a lethal threat or keep her job, as if her council work was a part-time gig at McDonald’s. But Hope’s life and her council work were intertwined. It fed her chaos hunger in a way her conscience could live with. And if, in the last year, as that hunger grew, her council work had been steadily less effective? She couldn’t consider that now.

Hope prayed she didn’t find Irving Nast. If she did, she prayed Karl would be there to help her make the right choice.



RHYS SAID HE’D REPORTED COLM’S DEATH with an anonymous call to 911, so his son wouldn’t be lying on the ground until employees tripped over him tomorrow morning. Any police presence, though, was gone before they arrived.

The parking lot was empty, which suggested the building was, too. Hardly ironclad proof, but they wouldn’t have time to check. They needed to get in position and wait for the Cabal team, which would do a more thorough sweep. That’s when they’d take them down, as they split up to search.

Hope managed to quickly skim one floor before a low strum of chaos told her the Cabal team had entered the building. She hurried to find a hiding place. As she passed a clinic waiting room, footsteps sounded in the hall, the brisk click-click of feminine footwear. Definitely not the SWAT team.

She backed into the room quickly. Too quickly. Her foot caught a chair leg, the metal yowling across the hard floor. She went still, gun raised. The footsteps continued, pace unchecked. She glanced over her shoulder. She was in a small room with four chairs and a door. She backed to the door and turned the knob. Locked.

A woman passed the door, heading the other way, her back to Hope. Carrying an armload of file folders, obviously putting in Sunday overtime, she was dressed in T-shirt, jeans and heels, her short hair spiked, loop earrings swaying as her head bopped to the beat from her earphones.

Her steps slowed and squeaked as she turned into a room. Another squeak, this time a chair. The whoosh of files dropping onto a desk. A third squeak, the chair being pulled in.

Hope eased from the corner, moving silently. She could still only see the woman’s back now through an office door as she shuffled folders into piles.

Hope could hear her music, the distorted boom-screech-wail of heavy metal cranked full-blast. They could have a firefight in the hall and Hope doubted she’d notice. While it was tempting to leave it at that, it wasn’t safe. Not for them, and not for the woman.

She positioned herself with the tranquilizer gun aimed at the woman’s shoulder. Then she stopped. What made her so sure this was loaded with tranquilizers?

Rhys had asked where her paranoia came from. Maybe some of it was demon, some Karl, but most came from that loftiest of teachers: experience.

The deceptions and lies of society life were superficial, like saying “Oh, don’t you look gorgeous. You’re just the belle of the ball and I’m so happy for you,” when what you really mean is “That dress makes you look like a cheap whore and if you ever show me up at my own party again, I will carve out your liver with a spoon and serve it as pâté.” Of course, in the society world, no one’s liver was in any actual danger. In the supernatural world? Don’t bet against it.

Hope had been lied to and deceived and betrayed, then lied to and deceived and betrayed again. And no matter how strongly she believed in the innate goodness of mankind, eventually she’d noticed the “kick me” sticker on her butt, ripped it off and vowed never to let anyone replace it.

She might have tipped into paranoia, having leapt to wrong conclusions about Detective Findlay and Rhys. And she could be wrong questioning what was in this gun. But she wasn’t shooting a bystander until she was sure. Rhys knew how sensitive the council was about killing. Why not hand her poison darts and say it was only a tranquilizer? She’d shoot, she’d move on and she’d never be the wiser.

Choices. Everyone had to make them. Some were uglier than others.

When she heard footsteps in the hall—heavy-booted ones—she saw her solution. She retreated into the waiting room, measured the distance between her and those footfalls. When they drew close, she counted to three, swung out and fired.

Hope got off two shots—the first a guess, the second aimed. Both hit the guy in the legs. He looked at her, blinking stupidly, then crashed to the floor.

The chair in the office squeaked. Hope flung herself against the wall and listened. Another squeak. Just her luck to drop the guy at a break between songs.

“Hello?”

No heel clicking accompanied the cautious greeting, and Hope pictured the woman standing beside her desk. She eased along the wall and dropped beside the Cabal guy. One hand checked his pulse while the other trained her gun on the office doorway.

A tentative click. Then another.

The man’s pulse beat, thready, as if that second tranquilizer dart had been overkill. He’d be down for a while, but he’d recover.

“Hello?”

Three clicks. A shadow darkened the office doorway. The woman’s hand appeared on the door. The shadow of her head moved forward, to peek.

“Hey!” Hope called.

Startled, the woman jumped back, her hands flying up, arms appearing. Hope’s dart hit the back of her wrist. Hope dove through the nearest door before the woman saw her. A few seconds passed, then the boom of her body hitting the floor.

Hope was stepping out when the tramp of boots sent her scurrying back. Muted voices came from the stairwell.

Then, “He’ll take her to the roof.”

Karl’s voice, slurred like he was drunk . . . not that she’d ever seen Karl drunk. The relief of hearing his voice lasted two seconds before she saw the advance guard sprawled across the hall, and heard those steps tramping closer to the landing.

She ran to the woman. A quick pulse check, then she pushed her back into the office and closed the door. She grabbed one of the guard’s legs and heaved. His gun skidded across the floor. She froze. The footsteps continued, that same unhurried tramp.

She barely managed to drag the guard six inches before those footfalls thankfully passed the landing and continued up. She snatched his gun, put it in the office, then hauled the guard inside.

She was back in the hall—her own gun in hand—when footsteps pattered down the stairs.

“Take him up. I’ll grab Rogers.”

Irving Nast. Her breath stopped in her throat.

“Sir?” one of the team said.

Call him back. Tell him you’ll get Rogers. Please, please—

“He was scouting the third floor,” the man continued.

Irving thanked him and his footsteps continued. Hope shot into the office with the unconscious team member. The stairwell door creaked open before she had time to close hers. Her heel thumped the guard’s arm. She carefully stepped over it and retreated into the shadows.

It was useless, of course. Nast was hunting for this missing guard. He’d see the body through the open doorway. He’d turn on the light and then . . .

Then what?

Did she have a choice?

Her heart battered her ribs, keeping double time with Irving’s brisk, purposeful strides.

She gripped the tranq gun. A hair tickled her cheek, caught in an air current. It tickled back and forth, back and forth, making every inch of skin creep, every muscle tense, like a guitar tuner, cranking her nerves tighter and tighter.

Irving Nast’s shadow passed the open door first. He strode past, eyes straight ahead, confident that his employee would come to him.

Hope watched him, her gaze fixed on his shoulder blade, gun trained on his upper arm. A perfect shot. Just pull the trigger.

She wasn’t ready. Let him get past, while she took a moment to catch her breath, make a decision, yank that damn tickling hair out—

She fired.

Unprepared for the recoil, Hope was knocked back and, for a second, she thought she’d been shot. It was only as Nast faltered that she realized she’d pulled the trigger.

As he fell, she shuddered so hard she nearly dropped the gun. It wasn’t chaos bliss but relief, so sweet it felt as good as chaos.

In pulling the trigger, she’d set her course. She’d shot him so now she had to follow through, had to kill him, as if in “accidentally” pulling that trigger, she’d absolved herself of responsibility for the rest. She had to go with the choice that she’d wanted to pick: their safety over the council.

To protect herself and Karl, Irving Nast had to die. That wasn’t the demon talking. It was her, because all this talk of her and the demon was an artificial distinction that she knew in her heart was bullshit. There was no Hope and the demon. There was just Hope, and she wanted the threat of Irving Nast eliminated.

Then, as she pulled out the garrote wire, the zip of it slicing through the silence, she realized what she was about to do.

Rhys blamed the council for her reluctance to kill Irving, which proved that he understood Expisco demons as superficially as he did werewolves. It had nothing to do with laws. It was more than conscience, too.

Hope knew that taking a life was wrong. She felt that more deeply than Karl ever could. If she’d asked him why, when they needed to kill, he did it for them, he’d use that as an excuse: because he didn’t mind and she did. The truth, as they both knew, was that the taking of a life was the one experience she’d denied the demon. Death was the demon’s purest joy. A high like no other. If she took that life, would she find a new high? If so, could she live with that?

Enjoying death didn’t have Hope wandering palliative care wards or racing to accident scenes. Her addiction was fed by serendipity—she took sustenance where she found it and never sought it out.

And yet . . .

Here was where Hope’s drive to find her limits ended. Here she looked down from the precipice and saw the rest of her life consumed by a blaze of temptation and self-loathing.

She crouched beside Irving, garrote wire stretched between her hands. She knew she had to do it. Whatever the cost. Kill or be killed.

She pressed the wire against his throat. His skin whitened along it. She imagined that furrow filling with blood. Would he wake up at the last second, his windpipe severed, life-blood pumping out, gasping for breath, seeing her sitting there, patiently waiting for him to die?

Her bile rose. She swallowed it, burning down to her gut, adding to the roiling pit.

She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t. Not like this. Why a garrote? Why not a gun or a syringe of poison?

Was that what she wanted? A clean, quiet way to murder someone?

No, if she had to kill, it should be like this, messy and raw and undeniable.

She pushed down on the wire. A single spot of blood welled, then seeped along the wire.

Make it quick. If it’s quick he won’t wake—

Yes! If he didn’t wake up, there wouldn’t be any chaos.

Hope picked up the gun, ready to give Irving a second shot of the tranquilizer. Make sure he was out cold and then—

Her gorge rose again, bringing a fresh surge of bile. Sweat stung her eye; she swiped it back with a trembling hand.

She couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t. Had to. Had to. Had to.

A crash from the stairwell sent Hope jetting to her feet. A thump, then another, the rapid bump-bump-bump of a body tumbling down stairs. A shout answered by a roar.

Another crash. Another bump-bump-bump. A vision flash came. Karl had turned on his captors, sending them flying into the stairwell walls and tumbling down. Hope grabbed the gun and the wire, the thread zipping back into its case as she flew down the hall.

She could say she was going to his aid, but she knew she wasn’t. She was running, running as fast as she could. Running from Irving Nast to Karl, from the problem to the solution. Every pound of her feet drove a dagger of shame into her heart. But she kept running.



HOPE CLAMORED OVER THE BODY of one guard, then the second. The first was unconscious. The second? She didn’t pause to check.

The air throbbed with residual chaos. Every pump pushed the shame of her cowardice deeper into memory, gone but not forgotten.

As she climbed to the roof, that chaos throb was like the faintest

beat of a distant heart, that pulse coming stronger with every step, chaos reeling her in.

“Where is she?” Karl snarled.

“Put him down!” someone yelled.

“Oh, I intend to.”

Hope threw open the door. Karl stood at the roof edge, one hand around Rhys’s throat, holding him over the side. Two armed SWAT team members had their guns trained on Karl.

Rhys hung there, unmoving. He was fully conscious, just staying very, very still.

“Karl? I’m okay.”

He turned. The Cabal team still shouted orders. But he ignored them. His gaze traveled up and down Hope, assessing, as if, should she be injured, he might not rethink his threat to drop Rhys.

The Cabal men—like good soldiers—gave her only the briefest glance, checking for weapons, then dismissing her. When they looked away she mouthed and pantomimed a message, telling Karl she’d come with Rhys, that he wasn’t planning to harm her.

He turned away before she was certain he got the message.

“So your plan failed, did it?” he growled at Rhys. “Hope was smarter than you gave her credit for. Outwitted you and escaped. Don’t expect me to give you another shot at her. That’s not how I handle threats.”

Rhys’s eyes saucered, a choked “wait!” burbling up as Hope flew forward, shouting for Karl to stop. He spun . . . and threw Rhys at the nearest guard as he lunged at the other.

Rhys hit the first guard, bowling him down in a shower of gravel and dust. Karl knocked the second one flying. Hope ran for Rhys’s gun, dropped near the door. She made sure it was loaded with darts, then shot both the Cabal men. It wasn’t as easy as it sounded, but she managed . . . after missing once and lodging a second dart in Karl’s pant cuff.

Afterward, as she held a torn scrap of Cabal SWAT uniform to Karl’s newly re-split lip, she said, “Next time you plan a fake out, warn me.”

“If I did, your reaction wouldn’t be nearly as authentic.”

Rhys returned from dragging the second guard behind the rooftop shed. “I’d appreciate a warning, too, though I’ll settle for not being used as a missile.”

Karl shrugged, committing to no such promise.



KARL AND RHYS HAULED UP THE MEN on the stairs—both unconscious and given a second shot to be sure they stayed that way. Then Hope told them about the woman and the guard on the third floor, and said, “Irving came down looking for the guard.”

“And?” Rhys prompted.

“I tranquilized him.”

“And?”

Karl’s head whipping around. “What’d he ask you to do?”

Hope touched his arm. “I didn’t. Rhys says Irving will come back after us, and he’s right, but that’s when I heard you, so I left him.”

“Good. You two check for more guards. I’ll look after Irving.”

“I-I can. I should.”

“No, you shouldn’t. And you’re not going to.”

He strode off to take care of it for her . . . as always.