“What’s a 1062?” She never could remember the codes.
“Rogue shifter,” Thomas and Jeremiah answered in unison.
She arched her brows at Thomas, wondering just how he came to possess that bit of knowledge. “Set up a perimeter around the area. Keep it wide and tight. Call in the locals if you have to. I don’t want to risk losing him again and I don’t want anyone going in there with guns blazing either. I’m the primary. Please advise them not to shoot the vampire either.” She hung up the phone and turned in her seat to study Thomas.
“What?” he asked when she just continued to look at him.
“Would you care to tell me how you know Agency code?”
He slid to a stop alongside a curb just outside the borders of the End. “I am a very old vampire, Joya. I know a great many things.” He climbed out of the car and stood beside it with the door open.
“That didn’t answer my question,” she grumbled. With a sigh, she followed him into the darkness.
She reached in the back, pulled out her bag and dropped it on the trunk. He scowled, but she ignored him and unzipped the bag. “What do you want?”
He reached under the driver’s seat and came up with a gun identical to hers. It wasn’t a coincidence. Thomas taught her to shoot and bought her her first gun. It was still the one she was most comfortable with. He also dropped something around his neck. Something that looked very much like a badge. She studied it more closely. Correction...something that looked exactly like a badge. A star with eight points, to be exact. He was a Warden of the High Order. The blood drained from her face. “Are you kidding me?”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. “No, Joya. I have been with the Order for a very long time. It will cause fewer problems for you if I am here in a somewhat official capacity, will it not?”
She nodded but was still stunned. The Wardens traced their origins back to Stonehenge. An intimate group whose purpose had always been to keep the Altered from discovery. After the Rending, that purpose had shifted to more closely mirror the Agency’s purpose without the government involvement. Freelancers with connections all over the globe, they worked with all branches of law enforcement and government, both human and Altered. Among the Altered, the Wardens were the ultimate authority though the humans still thought it was the Agency. And if it came down to a public dispute, the Agency did supersede the Order’s authority. Later, when no humans were watching, the Wardens would impose the Order’s justice.
Leave it to her vampire to be a Warden. Shaking her head, she turned back to her bag. She pulled out one clip of blessed ammo and one clip of silver ammo for each of them. After a moment’s hesitation, she handed his over. No matter the reasoning behind it, she was still outfitting them to hunt one of her friends. Sometimes she really hated her job.
She cleared her throat. “Don’t bother with the silver unless I tell you it’s not Nathaniel. He’s immune.”
Thomas’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline. “A werewolf immune to silver? How does that happen?”
She smiled. “Cursed.”
He paused for a moment. “You know the most interesting people.”
She slid her sword onto her back, adjusting it until it rested comfortably. After a quick check that she had everything, she zipped up the bag and tossed it back into the car.
“Where should we begin?”
She glanced around and drew her gun. No matter how skilled the person with the sword, a gun was still more intimidating to most people. “I don’t hear any screaming. I suppose that’s a good sign. Start walking. The person that called it in will find us, or we’ll find the shifter.”
Her gift brought searing pain with it this time. She ignored it and moved quickly down the street, Thomas right behind her. When they neared a cross street, she pressed against the corner of a building and leaned over to see around the edge. Halfway down the block a large hairy figure with no signature was leaning over something in the street. The distinctive sound of rending flesh had her swallowing the bile that burned its way up her throat.
Pulling her head back, she leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. Her gift had served its purpose so she shut it down. Taking a deep breath, she gathered her courage. She could do this. She had to do this.
“What is it?” Thomas said next to her ear.
She opened her eyes. “Chewing. You hear it?”
He nodded once, his face grim.
She stepped out, raising her gun to point at the dark figure before her. “Walker. Stop what you’re doing and put your hands up.”
Nathaniel froze. Slowly he turned his torso to face her. His growl reverberated through the night making the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. Blood saturated the fur on his muzzle and chest and dripped in steady drops to the pavement below. Tissue clung to the teeth he bared as he snarled. There was nothing of her friend in the creature before her. She only hoped there was a little of him left inside.
The demon reached down, grasped something in its claws and lifted it. Though it was difficult to tell, she thought it was a length of intestine. The demon lifted it and shoved it into his mouth. His eyes never left hers as he started to chew.
“Okay. That’s just gross.”
The demon snapped its jaws at her and growled again. Thomas fired two shots from her left and hit Nathaniel in the chest. He rose to his full height. Arching his back, he howled in rage. He spun and jumped over the body. A couple of buildings down, he leaped up a fire escape before disappearing onto the roof. There was no way they were going to catch him. But she had to try.
“Damn it.” She slammed her gun back into the holster. She took off after her prey, keeping the spot where she’d last seen him in her sights. Just before they reached the fire escape, a figure stepped into view. It was gone just as quickly. It was probably the other demon, but if it was he’d found a new host. Just what she needed. She fired up her gift and stumbled a step when the pain tore through her brain.
Thomas caught her arm to steady her but she shook him off and went up the fire escape. The impact of her feet on the metal rang through the night air like a siren announcing her presence. The vibration of each step ran up her body and into her head, intensifying the pain. She was panting by the time they reached the top.
Thomas shoved her sideways before she even had a chance to get her bearings. If he’d been half a second slower, the headache wouldn’t have been a problem anymore. Bullets connected with the short brick wall behind them. He wrapped himself around her, protecting her. She strained to see around him, to get a glimpse of their assailant.
The shooting stopped, presumably so the gunman could reload. Thomas pulled her to her feet and hauled her behind a large air conditioning unit that offered more coverage. As they went, her eyes snagged on a patch of purple-blue smudged with black in the night. It couldn’t be. Thomas released her to ready his weapon and she scrambled out into the open.
Yes. There it was. She shut down her gift. In the half-second it took her eyes to adjust to the darkness again, he raised the gun. Raoul hesitated as their eyes met. It was the face she’d seen a million times in her nightmares. Only now, the entire right side was missing, melted off. When had that happened? And how?
“Juliana,” Thomas hissed and tugged her back against his side. He shook her. “Juliana! What is wrong with you? What is it?”
She shook her head. Here was her chance to finally get the man she’d been hunting for seven years and she was frozen like a fairy in a troll pod. She shoved down the fear that clawed at her insides looking for purchase. Pulling her gun out, she rolled to the side prepared to fire. He was gone.