They reached the elevators in silence and stayed quiet all the way out to the unmarked police car. They’d left the vehicle in the no-parking zone and had a red-cherry light on the top of the car to warn away anyone who might think they’d earned a ticket.
Symes helped Nora into the backseat and even made sure she didn’t clock her skull on the low door. She wasn’t wearing cuffs. There had been no arrest.
Nora closed her eyes, still nervous. Indigo opened them again, calmer and prepared.
Symes drove and Mayhew looked back from the passenger seat. “So how did you miss the news? Were you out of the country?”
“I don’t watch the news much. I’m too busy following leads and writing articles.”
Mayhew stared at her, that damned smug smile still on her face, as if she were the only one in the car who understood the joke going down. “Investigative reporter, isn’t it? You should see the scene of the crime. It was grisly. Lots of corpses. Lots of blood. One minor marked and cut and murdered with a bunch of rich folks who were maybe out of their league.”
“You still haven’t said who’s trying to link me to the crime scene?”
“I guess you’ll find out at the station. We have pictures as well as witness statements.”
Symes was driving, yes, but Nora could see his eyes in the rearview, and he was looking at his partner and frowning. “What are you doing, Ange?”
“Don’t worry about it, Hugh. This is what we’re here for.”
“We’re here to bring in a suspect for questioning.”
“Who’s the lead detective here, Hugh?”
“You are. Don’t mean I like it when you act weird. If you really thought she was dangerous, she’d be in cuffs.”
“It’s all good, Hugh. Shut up and drive,” Mayhew said with an edge to her voice. A warning. As she talked, she opened the glove compartment and stuck her hand in carefully, fishing.
Still wearing Nora’s face, Indigo tensed. Something was wrong. Seriously wrong.
“Handcuffs wouldn’t hold her. Isn’t that right, Ms. Hesper? Or do you prefer your other name?”
“Ange, what the hell?”
“I said I’ve got this, Hugh!” Mayhew’s smile was still there, but the redhead was glaring past her little smirk. “Everything’s as right as rain, and we’re all just going along for the ride.”
“Ange, seriously.”
The dagger in Mayhew’s hand bore a hilt made of wings and a circle, a symbol that Indigo knew all too well. Indigo slid across the broad backseat as Mayhew lunged for her, trying to stab her.
The dagger cut through the cheap vinyl cushion.
Indigo cursed under her breath.
“Stay still, bitch!” The detective pulled back and released her seat belt, turning her body to try again, ready to lunge into the backseat if she needed.
“Ange, what the fuck?” Symes reached for his pistol as he slammed the brakes and shook all three of them in their seats. Mayhew slid and fell into the footwell, but the dagger was still in her hand.
“I told you to stay out of this, Hugh!” Mayhew shrieked, and lunged.
Before Symes could finish pulling his sidearm, the ritual dagger rammed through his sternum. His foot came off the brake and jabbed at the accelerator. Symes gasped and coughed, and Indigo could hear the wheeze coming from his chest. His lung instead of his heart. That was a good thing.
“You’ve seen enough dark shit, Hugh,” Mayhew said. “You should’ve played along.”
Symes glanced at the dagger lodged in his chest, at his partner’s hand on its hilt, and his wide-eyed shock turned to fury. He jerked the steering wheel to the left, right at a retaining wall. Mayhew screamed and aimed her dagger at her partner a second time.
Enough.
The darkness exploded from Indigo, consuming the interior of the car. Through the shadows, she saw Symes fall back against the driver’s-side door as Mayhew plunged the dagger down again. The way he’d fallen, the blade would open him from sternum to crotch.
Somewhere in the back of Indigo’s head, Damastes chuckled deep and low.
She flexed and the darkness flexed with her. At her command, the shadows hauled Symes into the backseat, even as she slipped forward. Indigo had jumped continents. Moving to the front seat of a careening car was easy as opening a door. Tendrils of blackness grasped the steering wheel and hauled it to the right. Mayhew grunted as she was shoved sideways in her seat, her aim thrown off. The dagger stabbed the headrest next to Indigo’s shoulder.
Indigo drove her feet into the detective’s face as more darkness pushed the passenger’s-side door open.
They were moving perhaps thirty miles an hour. Mayhew sailed from the open door and crashed into the asphalt, bouncing and rolling, the dagger clutched tightly in her hand. The bitch had a death grip on her weapon.
The brakes locked as Indigo pushed a column of darkness against the pedal. The car shuddered and stopped. She flowed out of the car, a cloak of shadow wrapping around her, hiding herself in a writhing mass of darkness.
Mayhew stood up, bloodied and crazed, her face skinned and her knuckles on the hand holding the dagger bleeding. A bakery van careened around her and tried to recover, but wound up rolling. The driver’s-side window was open, and even without focusing on the man, Indigo could see his head cave in as it was pinned between van and asphalt.
Brakes screamed, and cars behind Mayhew and the squad car veered madly to avoid the situation, but only a few of them succeeded. A blue Prius swerved between the detective and the car as Indigo slid into the road. A car behind the police cruiser tapped the edge of the right rear panel as it came to a halt.
There was no time. There was no thought.
Mayhew charged past the Prius as it slipped by and came for Indigo, the dagger held close to her side. Mayhew knew how to use a knife. She knew how to fight. That mystical dagger was trouble. Indigo could nearly feel the arcane power coming from it, and she would have bet everything she had on its ability to carve her darkness away.
Mayhew’s face exploded.
The detective was almost in striking distance when everything above her left eye bulged backward and then sprayed away from her in a cloud of red hair and bone and blood.
Nora nearly screamed.
Indigo spun around and saw Symes holding his service pistol in the shooting stance he had likely practiced for years. His face was as pale as ever, and his mouth was pulled down in a rictus of agony, but he held his place as his partner flopped dead on the road amid the chaos.
Then he coughed blood and tried to holster his weapon. He missed and the pistol hit the ground. He was bleeding badly. The entire front of his dress shirt was black with blood, and his pants looked wet.
No time. None.
Without asking, without consciously worrying about her decision, Indigo moved to Symes and her cloak swarmed over him, burying him in the depths of midnight.
The effect on Symes was immediate: He went stiff and whimpered.
“I know it’s scary. I know it’s cold. But I am here, Symes. I’m going to protect you from the shadows. We need to get you to the hospital now, and there’s no other way you live through this.”