Mercy Blade

CHAPTER 23 “Rock and Roll, Legs”

Gee was trapped in the spell like a moth in the strands of a spider’s web, his body suspended above the floor, caught in a fighting posture. When we entered, his eyes swiveled our way. That, and breathing, assuming a storm god had to, were the only movements he could make. His swords lay on the bloody rugs, the edges coated with dried gore. But the blades were pointing away from Leo, and Gee’s back was facing the bloody bed. Yet, the stake was on Leo’s side of the hedge. “He was either defending Leo from attack,” I said, “or running away when the hedge came up.” And only Leo could tell us which.

Sabina shook her head slowly, her mantle rustling. “Little Leo, what have you done? Is there enough blood in all the world to heal you now?” Which did not sound good. She looked at Bruiser and addressed her comment to him. “Your master is close to death. When the spell falls, I can give him my blood, but I cannot restore him. He will need much blood. Much.”

I stepped around Gee, observing him from every angle I could, looking for additional weapons; there were none that I could see. But there was a nasty gash on one arm, old and half healed. I had a feeling I might have given him that one when he was sitting outside my house. Because my guns were loaded with silver shot, and silver wouldn’t kill an Anzu, I pulled two steel-edged vamp-killers and set my balance. Waiting.

Bruiser stepped to a wall phone, an old-fashioned one that had a dangly tangled cord. Our cells were useless underground. He dialed two digits, like on an intercom, and said, “Evie, we’re ready down here. Send down ten blood-servants as soon as they’re free of the spell and pronounced healthy. Leo’s badly wounded. Yes.” Phone to his ear, he nodded to Sabina and then looked at me. “Kill Gee if he resists.” Into the phone he said, “Go.” And hung up.

An instant later, everything fell. The hedge fell, the red light vanishing in a burst of white light. Sabina fell forward, toward the bed and Leo. And Gee fell to the floor.

He hit the bloody rugs like a broken marionette, air woofing out of him, ending in a grunt as I landed on him, one knee in his belly, a position I’d landed in a lot lately. He lay there, gasping, my knife at his throat, his eyes on mine. There was no evidence of fight in him. And no weapons that I could see.

“I did not wound my lord,” he gasped. “I tried to protect him from the wolves.” I sniffed carefully, parsing the disparate scents to their distinct origins. Under the reek of Leo’s blood, I smelled Roul, another werewolf, and the were-bitch. And faintly, I scented Rick. He had been here, or someone wearing a lot of his blood had been here.

I chanced a quick look at the bed. Sabina was sitting on the mattress, one hand gently at Leo’s lower back, one at his nape, holding him the way she might a small child. His lips were at her neck, sucking hard, his eyes closed and his face twisted as if with a great effort. It was bizarrely like watching a kid try to suck a thick milkshake through a straw, and I wanted to laugh, until I remembered who was handy to provide him a blood meal if he got well enough and violent enough to take one. My sense of humor was gonna be the death of me one day.

“Let me go to him,” Gee said. “I can heal him.”

“Not until Leo can tell us what happened here,” Bruiser said, his voice tight, his gaze glued to Leo and Sabina. I glanced at the bed, seeing Sabina’s skirts stained red, the white linen fabric wicking up the unclotted blood from the mattress.

Leo pulled from Sabina, his fangs still snapped down, his eyes vamped out. “Crap,” I murmured. Where was the blood-servant cavalry from upstairs?

But Leo said, “Girrard, mon ami,” and let loose a bunch of French I couldn’t begin to follow, not with only my high school Spanish. Too weak to get up, Leo held out his hand.

“Let Gee up,” Bruiser said. “Leo says Gee saved his life, and killed a werewolf to do it.”

I looked at the blood on the floor and bed. Now the quantity made sense. I stood slowly and backed away, but I didn’t put the blades up. Not yet.

Gee seemed to flow to his feet and across the room, to Leo. Sabina stepped back, the holes over her carotid artery closing as the vamp saliva constricted blood vessels and flesh. Though Leo had worked hard to suck her dry, she looked no worse for the wear. I had to wonder, as I always did, who she drank from. She had no scions and no blood-servants. None of the outclan did. But that was a mystery for another day.

Near midnight, all the blood upstairs had been cleaned up, and thanks to the healers and Gee, no one had died. Low level blood-servants and -slaves were hauling rugs and lugging the mattress up the switchback stairs from Leo’s lair, stuffing linens into plastic bags to be burned. Higher level blood-servants were heading down the stairs to return minutes later, wobbly-kneed and drained. And I was watching everyone and everything, Gee at my side. “And once again, you’re at the scene just in time to help avoid major problems,” I murmured to Gee. “Fill me in?”

The Mercy Blade shrugged, a Gaelic-Frenchy shrug, all grace and delicacy. “I was watching the clan home to keep it safe, when the wolves struck the Master of the City. It was just before dawn, and I”—he placed a hand on his chest—“disrupted their plans. My presence and my small magics, trapped in the witch’s hedge of thorns, kept my lord Leo alive until you came.”

I nodded once, distracted, shunted to the sidelines. The sheriff and his were-deputy were sitting in Leo’s office with Jodi Richoux and a governor’s assistant. Yeah, I’d ratted out the deputy. He had known what his buddies had done and couldn’t stay away. He had also taken the call, sent in by Sloan Rosen, to drop by the clan home to check things out. The betting bunch had laid odds the deputy would be fired and arrested, unless he accepted a plea bargain and told us where the wolves were holing up. It didn’t look likely. The events of the night had now coincided with Jodi getting a judge to sign a warrant for Tyler Sullivan’s room at the clan home. Only his room, nothing else. Any Louisiana judge knew not to rile the Master of the City.

Jodi had found the shells and the gun where I’d told her they were and an arrest warrant had been issued for Tyler Sullivan. I didn’t envy whoever told Leo about the snake in his midst.

In the main room of the clan home, vamps loyal to Leo, and blood-servants loyal to their masters, had gathered. Katie was with Leo, giving him a feeding strong enough to finish his healing, and timely enough to guarantee she would be named his heir. The fangheads and walking blood-meals were all talking about it. And I guess it was exciting, if you lived and breathed fanghead politics—not that vamps lived or breathed.

For now, I’d had enough of vamps, weres, witches, ancient Sumerian gods, and even little green guys who liked to swim in fountains. I just wanted Rick, alive and well. I wanted to take him home, to my mountains, where we could be safe. Home to Beast’s hunting territory.

But wishes were a waste of time. I’d broken my lease and had nowhere to live except for New Orleans. For now, I had a cheating boyfriend to find and save. If it wasn’t already too late.

Unfortunately, I had no idea where to start.

Near two a.m., Bruiser found me sitting on the front steps in the shadows of the outside lights, feeding the last crumbs of burger to the barn cats. I was fighting sleep and depression in equal measure, and when he sat down next to me, I didn’t look his way. Silence stretched between us.

I sniffed shallowly, detecting the smell of his blood, fresh and thin, and the scent signature of Leo, the trace chemicals telling me the MOC was out of danger. Low levels of toxic stress compounds meant Leo was fine, and the fact that Bruiser was alive beside me proved that Leo hadn’t crashed and burned, which was a good thing. My job as Rogue Hunter would have meant that I’d have to stake Leo.

“Are you the new primo?” I asked finally. “Or maybe the re-primo?”

Bruiser chuckled tonelessly. “I suppose I am.”

“Good. I need back into vamp HQ to look at the party tapes again. I need to go back to the beginning.”

“Why?”

“Rick is still miss—” I stopped, breathed past the tears that flooded my eyes and constricted my throat. “Everything started with the party. That’s as good a place as any to start looking.”

Bruiser flipped open his cell phone and speed dialed a number. Thirty seconds later, I had total access to everything in vamp HQ, including the rooms I’d never been in. Yeah me! So why should I risk everything by telling Bruiser? I shouldn’t. I stood, taking the steps to Bitsa in the azaleas. I stopped. Stared at the ground, hidden in the dark. I was gonna blow the top off Bruiser’s can of worms. And I just knew it was gonna cost me, eventually. “You know Evangelina put a spell on you, don’t you?”

Bruiser had stood when I did, but more slowly, and halted, half crouched, when I spoke. “Evie . . .” He stepped toward me and changed the question. “How do you know?”

“I can see it. She has a pinkish haze of magics all around her lately. And now so do you. It got to us”—I paused, glad of the dark to cover my blush—“in the shower. Be careful, Bruiser. Something’s going on with Evie.”

I kick-started Bitsa and eased her onto the drive. Only when I got to the street did I pause and helmet up and rearrange my gear. Then, exhausted and heartsore, I gunned the bike and headed back into the city.

“And you discovered this when?” I asked Wrassler.

“Not me. Not us. The cops found it the night after the were-cat died, when they were taking the office apart. Far as we know, till then, only Leo knew it was here. And he didn’t tell.”

Wrassler and I had entered through Leo’s main office doorway, tearing down the crime-scene tape. Yeah, it might make the cops’ jobs harder, but I didn’t really care about that. I cared about stuff no one had told me, that might help me solve the murder and save Rick. Wrassler and I had talked things through until my head was spinning, but it was beginning to come together. The cops had found a second hidden entrance in Leo’s office.

I’d gotten a good look at the first hidden passage. It was like something out of a horror movie, but without the lights or scary music: a stairway spiraling down to a narrow, light-less corridor between rooms to the outer wall. There, a lever opened a passage to the sidewalk, an egress if one was supernat-fast enough. The passageway smelled of were-cat, werewolf, vamp, dead fish, and cops. And Rick’s blood, dried drops marked by crime-scene cones. If I had made nice-nice with Jodi, she might have told me there was blood, and I might have known early on that Rick was in trouble, but I’d been too busy to make better friends with the local cops.

The mixture of scents was confusing—the wolves and cats and vamps all in one hidden place. It seemed everyone knew about the passageway but me.

Now, we stood in front of the newest surprise—Leo’s office’s second hidden entrance. The passage had been found when the cops started taking out rugs and wall hangings splattered with crime-scene blood. It entered the office from behind the fireplace, the passageway eight feet high and twenty inches wide, leading to the next room, which had its own secret entrance—a private elevator. The tiny brass cage had access to hidden passages on every floor of vamp HQ, including the crawl space to the domes above the ballroom where the wolves had waited. The elevator smelled only of dead fish, were-blood, and Rick’s blood. All the blood was old and dry, I guessed lost the night of Safia’s murder. But the fishy smell . . . “I need to see the room the grindylow used,” I said, not letting myself react to the blood smell or what it could mean.

“Okay by me. Little sucker trashed it. And now he’s gone. No one’s seen him in days.”

The room set aside for visiting security was way more than trashed. It was wet, stinking of mold, ripped, and shredded. The grindy had let the tub overflow until the carpet was soaked, had shredded every piece of fabric and drenched the scraps, maybe trying to make himself a grindy den, a wet place like home. Days later, in the damp climate of Louisiana, untouched by anyone due to the visitor’s status, mold had set in.

I knelt and studied the grindy’s claw marks. The edges of the tears were smooth, not ragged, indicating razor sharp claws. I wouldn’t want to fight the little sucker, not even if I had a cannon and way better armor. They were three clawed, like a sloth, the center one longer than the two beside. Just like the wound in Safia’s throat, which was just weird. Why kill her here, not back in Africa?

Because she had been a good little girl until she met Rick?

The grindy’s scent was definitely fishlike, but not any fish Beast had ever encountered. I drew up the bloodhound-memory of smells as I stood over Safia’s body. I remembered fish. I had thought it was her supper. Stupid, to make a determination without evidence.

As far as I could tell, under the fish and mold smell, Rick hadn’t been in the grindylow’s rooms. I pulled the door shut and wandered back to the hidden elevator, hands in my jeans pockets. “Okay, how does this sound?” I said to Wrassler, who filled up the hallway behind me. “Rick infiltrated the Soniat Hotel, undercover, as a busboy or something, during the early, clandestine discussions with Leo and the Vampire Council. Safia met the cop. She was bored. Interested in a pretty boy.”

Wrassler added to my narrative. “Somehow she knows about this passage. The night of the big bash, she arranges to get him inside HQ for some hanky-panky.”

“Hanky-panky.” I quashed my reaction to my words. This was a job. Not my heart breaking. “Okay. He’s in, with her, coming up the passageway. Somehow, Rick is injured,” though not badly, because I hadn’t smelled his blood-scent over Safia’s blood loss. “Tyler goes into the office, where he shouldn’t be, catches them together. Safia is shot by Tyler to frame Leo and Bruiser. Tyler runs. Safia starts to shift. Then the grindy kills the person he was here to protect. Which makes no sense.”

“Unless she’d tried to turn the cop,” Wrassler said.

And the final piece fell into place. Kemnebi had said the grindylows are . . . pets. Most of the time . . . But he’d hesitated when he said pets. As if that description hadn’t been his first choice. Pain gripped my stomach, burning. I said, “It all makes sense, like a woven scarf with all its knots, but only two pieces of string.”

“Girly analogy.”

I stuttered a laugh, surprised, but the laughter cleared my head. “Bite me. String one: Tyler wants revenge on Bruiser and Leo for something—I don’t know what, so don’t ask. He came over in the 1960s to work a frame, maybe something longstanding with the Marchands or the Rochefort clan in France, since he was working security for them. But for whatever reason, he had to abandon his plan. He’s been waiting for a chance to finish it for years. Tyler comes back with the wedding party, starts his plan all over again, shoots Safia to set up Bruiser and Leo as murderers. Tyler runs, changes clothes, reappears in the ballroom in the middle of the fight. We never notice he’s gone.

“String two,” I said, “is all about the grindy. Kemnebi said grindylows ‘are pets. Most of the time. Guardians, occasionally. Less often, the enforcers of were-law.’ But what if they are the enforcers of were-law first, and pets second? And if Safia had bitten someone . . .” Like Rick. I stared hard at the carpet beneath my booted feet. “Say that . . . Safia tried to turn Rick. The grindy followed her to Leo’s office, where she was bringing him in the night of the party. Grindy interrupted a struggle between Tyler, Safia, and Rick. Tyler shoots Safia and runs, Safia tries to change after being shot. And the grindy kills her for breaking were-law. Grindy grabs Rick, who’s bleeding, maybe bitten. Or maybe he has to hurt Rick to subdue him. The grindy takes him through the secret passageway, into the elevator. Stashes him until . . . What? He gets away? The werewolves find him?”

“Still has holes, but if the female weres knew each another, that might cinch up loose ends.”

I must have looked confused because Wrassler said, “If the girls were gossiping behind Kemnebi’s back or something, if they were sharing Rick, in the carnal sense, then there’s the link between the girls that includes Rick.”

I remembered the site at Beast’s hunting grounds, the limb where the black cat had watched the wolves feeding.

“They knew each other,” he said. “And, okay, maybe they were conspiring to bring the wolves into the worldwide were-fold. But maybe they were having sleepovers and eating s’mores. And the wolf-bitch stole Rick from her best cat-gal-pal.”

The thought hurt, but I pushed it away. I could hurt later, after I saved Rick.

Our theory was more a leap of faith than logic, but it made sense. “Let’s go over the security tapes, starting when the were-cats entered the compound. Maybe we’ll spot something.”

Wrassler picked up the house phone, dialed a number, gave instructions and hung up. “Come on, Legs. We got us a movie date.”

Near dawn, Wrassler and I were so stoked on caffeine and stuffed with an early breakfast, we were shaky with the overload. But we had our proof—video of the two were-females meeting in the street outside the hidden door to Leo’s office and going inside together. It was clearly a planned meeting, between two people who were acquainted. “Roll footage number two again.” I watched as the were-bitch let the wolves in, and later footage as Rick was carried out the hidden door, bleeding, over Fire Truck’s shoulder, well after dawn on day two, the were-bitch urging him to speed, her hands on his back, her pack behind her. “If Leo had told us about the passageways we would have found Rick days ago,” I said, hearing my misery. “The wolves had known the talks were taking place, just like the cops had. Seems like I was the only person in the city who didn’t,” I said.

“I didn’t know,” Wrassler said. But somehow that didn’t help. He went on. “The female weres met, maybe at the hotel, liked one another, planned on some serious girl time, maybe, like I said, Safia thought the wolves deserved to be part of the negotiations. We might never know.”

“The wolf-bitch gets in, lets her guys in later—not over the wall like we thought—using the secret passageways to get set up. And it all went to hell in a handbasket,” I said, the words like ashes in my mouth. “Safia died. Rick ended up with the wolf-bitch.” Hurt. Likely bitten by two different were species.

“It’s complicated, but it works, especially if the cop knew the wolves were in town too, and was chatting up both females. If we hadn’t concentrated on the party footage and had expanded the search criteria by twelve hours both ways, we’d a put it together days ago,” he said, sounding disgruntled.

I pulled my phone and dialed Sloan Rosen. When he answered, I said, “One question. Was Rick introduced to the wolf-bitch by Safia? Before he disappeared?” I put emphasis on the last word, to tell him that I was working a hunch.

After a long moment Sloan said, “Yes.” And ended the connection.

I figured that was all I was going to get out of my pals at NOPD. I cursed, short and sweet and swallowed down tears.

“Stacked deck, Legs. No blame to you—Wait. Stop,” he said. “Who’s that? That guy there?” Wrassler froze the feed on the shadowed form of a short man. Familiar, lean, ordinary-looking in every way.

Except I recognized him. Excitement shot through me like lightning. “Well, well, well. It’s Booger, from Booger’s Scoot. I wonder what ol’ Booger knows about the wolves’ den. You watch more footage. See if you can update our timeline of who was where and when. Make sure we’re right in our thinking. Make sure we don’t trip up anywhere. Then make a montage and send a linear timeline and the footage to Jodi Richoux. Tell her it’s with Leo’s compliments.”

“Not yours?”

I shrugged. Jodi had kept me out of the loop, and now Rick might be dead. I hoped she choked on the evidence. I left the building into the gray dawn and powered up Bitsa for a trip back across the river to Booger’s Scoot, hoping Booger could be persuaded to give me some info about Rick.

I motored past the biker bar in the dim light. Reconnoitering. And I discovered the weres. It was too dang easy.

They had come back here to lick their wounds. The were-bitch was up, standing in the fenced area, buck naked, under an outdoor shower, her face to the spray, her body, which I had thought deeply tanned, glistening in the pearly light, proving she was mixed race, that wonderful café au lait shade of so many mixed-race people. Her hair was black, falling below her shoulders, hugging her body like a wet veil. The smell of fresh sweat and recent sex floated to me on the wind, sickness and the reek of old blood and . . . My hands tightened on the handlebars. And I caught the scent of Rick.

He was alive. Fierce joy and fury slammed into me. Caught me up in killing claws. I broke into a hot sweat as adrenaline flooded my system. I could smell him on the woman’s body as she washed away the sweat of the night. Mine, Beast hissed.

The woman turned, water sluicing down her form. And I finally got an unobstructed view of her face. “Magnolia Sweets,” I whispered inside my helmet’s faceplate. Terrance’s mother. Leo’s former prime blood-servant, whose son was sent to the Rochefort clan in the south of France when she disappeared. France, where Tyler Sullivan had come from, as part of the security detail for Amitee Marchand, who had been a blood-servant to the Rochefort clan. Old blood-servant loyalties ran deep. Deep enough to plot long and hard against Leo, and to use whatever people and resources she could find. Like Tyler, who lost his mother, position, power, and clan all in one day.

The last piece fell into place with an almost audible click in my mind. The familiar-looking child captured in the photograph was known to me. Tyler Sullivan was Terrance Sweets. Tyler had been trying to avenge himself and his mother—whom he thought was dead—on Leo and Bruiser for decades. Tyler was behind half of everything; Magnolia, insane from were-taint, and Safia were responsible for the other half. No wonder nothing had made sense. It was a two-pronged attack—or two threads weaving one tapestry, just as I had said.

A man stepped from a tent, out into the early light and looked up at the dawn sky. He wore loose cotton pants, and had a gun holster strapped to his bare chest. “Speak the devil’s name and he appears,” I murmured to myself. “Looks like Tyler and mommy dearest got reunited.”

I wanted to roar in on Bitsa, guns blazing. I wanted to attack and set Rick free, but there were too many of them and not enough of me. They had beaten me here once before, and the sting of failure was still strong. If I wanted to get Rick out, I had to be smarter. A lot smarter.

I puttered on out of sight. Miles later, I came to a stop at a small graveyard, old, full of weathered, bird-stained monuments. Parked Bitsa, setting her kickstand. Forced my mind to feel nothing, think nothing. I drank a liter of water from Bitsa’s saddlebags. Talked myself down from the killing rage. I needed to be cool. Smart. Mine, Beast hissed, digging into my psyche with her retractable claws.

I dialed three numbers: the first was a demand for reimbursement from Leo’s prime blood-servant, enough to pay for backup and for Reach’s services. Demanded, because all this was Leo’s mess, after all. Payment was granted. The second was a call for backup from Derek Lee and his soldiers. It too was granted, now that money was no problem. The third was to Gee.

To his voice mail I said, as formally as I knew how, “Girrard DiMercy, Mercy Blade to Leo Pellissier, the Master of the City of New Orleans. I owe you this for saving my life the day we met. I know who the were-bitch is. I know why you saved her so many years ago. She was bitten by the wolves in the last vamp war, but unlike so many other females, she survived. And the Anzu feel, what? Responsible for the Cursed of Artemis? Some kind of misplaced guilt?

“Whatever it is, Magnolia Sweets, her grown son, and her werewolves have a human police officer held hostage. She’s tried to turn him, with the help of her pack, against were-law, and according to their own law, there can be no mercy shown. I’m going into the compound, at the place where we first fought them, with paramilitary backup.” I closed my eyes and breathed in. The air stung and tore and my eyes ached. “And if I find Rick dead, I’ll kill them all myself.”

The words felt strange on my tongue, coarse and raw, as if they sucked all the life out of me. The metallic tang of vengeance. Unable to say another word, I ended the call. Emptied another liter of water into my body, drinking it down. My tissues soaked it up, as if the rage and shame that were fighting inside me left my soul desiccated. “‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord,’” I whispered, the words familiar from Scripture. “But not this time, God. You had your chance.”

I raised my bottle to the rising sun and poured several drops of water onto the earth. An offering. Turned to the south, poured another few drops. To the west, and then to the north, anointing the earth. Wishing it was blood I offered to the ancient Cherokee ways.

Tears burned my eyes, stinging like nettles. I sobbed once, all that I believed in like old, ashen pain. I drew on Beast’s strength. She sank her claws into me, sharing her calm, her stalking patience. Her pelt was coarse and spiked just under my skin, raised in readiness. Her claws drew blood from my soul.

We hunt, she snarled. The I/we of Beast.

I calmed, her steadiness like a narcotic inside me. “We hunt,” I agreed. I dialed vamp HQ and told Wrassler to wake Kemnebi and tell him what had happened and what we were about to do. If Rick was dead, I wanted vengeance, yeah, but maybe it could also be legal.

Half an hour later I got a call back. IAW had sanctioned a hunt and a bounty for each were-head we brought them, in human or wolf form. Jodi Richoux called to snarl at me about the were-hunt, demanding the cops be given the coordinates. I hung up on her. Which I’m sure pissed her off, as she called back four times before giving up.

And then, while prebattle adrenaline spurted into my bloodstream with every heartbeat, my hands checked the placement of every blade, inspected every firing weapon, made sure my ammo and extra magazines were secured but easy to pull. While I was examining the M4, Gee called me back. I stared at his number on the fancy cell screen. Fingers ice-cold in the morning heat, I picked up. “Gee.”

“Do you understand why I have protected her for all these years?”

“Leo loved her. Leo hated weres. She was bitten in the vamp war. You tried to protect her from the curse, but on the first full moon, she went furry. So she packed up and left. Because of Artemis’ curse, you went with her to be near her when she died. Only Leo’s Maggie didn’t die. She was one of few females who lived, if you can call being permanently in heat and insane living. And, loyalties divided, you stayed close to her.”

“You know of the curse?” His voice was a whisper.

I could almost feel his shock through the cell phone, and smothered my reaction, which was pity, understanding, compassion. There was no room for those emotions in me today. “Sabina told me the story,” I said. “You followed Magnolia back here, only to be drawn into Roul’s plans to be an official part of the weres again, and into Tyler’s revenge. Tell me, you little feathered creep. Did Tyler know about his mother still being alive?”

“No. He did not; not until he met her after the party. The digital footage you saw of him wasn’t some human mating ritual, it was Tyler recognizing his mother. But learning she lived has not helped. He sees what she is, how she lives, and he blames Leo. Her insanity has made it worse for her son, not better. Hatred dies hard.”

“You saved me from the were-taint when I was bitten. Why not Maggie?”

“I tried. By the time she confided in me, it was too late. There was too much contagion. All I could do was minimize the effect. And so she . . . lived. Though Maggie, my Sweet Magnolia, has, in truth, been dead for many years.”

“Are you coming to help kill wolves today? Or to fight against us?”

“Neither. I have returned to Leo. I will tell him the truth. I will make my peace with him, and his blood will grow sweet again, his and his Mithrans’. They will suffer no more, and the Mercy Blade will abide with them once again.

“For me, you will put Magnolia out of her misery, like an injured wolf too damaged to survive. You will be . . . the Mercy Blade for the cursed. And I will be in your debt.”

“Then, when I bring out Rick, I’ll bring him to you.”

“I will do what I can, little goddess.” The call ended. And I was left, sitting on Bitsa in the heat, eyes gritty with fatigue, waiting for backup, to see that the sentence for breaking the most important were-law was carried out, according to their people’s justice system. And to save Rick LaFleur. If I could. I thought of the photos of Rick and the redhead. It was Maggie Sweets, wigged, in a saner moment, seducing Rick. Who may have already been infected and not thinking like himself. Rick, undercover, using his charm to go after the females. I blinked away tears.

Moments later, Derek Lee and his small army of mercenaries braked their panel van. The side panel door slid open and Derek grinned at me from the dark confines. I glanced over their gear and decided they had enough to win the small war I planned. Derek said, “Sit rep.”

The situation report was brief. “Twelve foot chain link fence, only two exits, one on the front and one into the bar. Ten to fifteen werewolves still survive, if my count is right, likely in human form, likely hungover, and likely still asleep, in tents and a small cabin.”

Derek handed me a pad and I sketched the site. “Bounty is ten thousand a head. Literally. PAW wants the heads. Rick LaFleur, an undercover cop, is with them, but may be infected with the were-taint, not thinking like himself. Him, we want alive. No children seen, no pets, no collateral damage permitted.”

“Not good recon, Legs,” Angel’s Tit said.

“If I’d gone in closer, they would have smelled me.”

“There is that,” Vodka Sunrise said. “Noses on wolves gotta be better than bloodhound.”

I wanted to argue that point, but it seemed silly.

Derek handed the sketch to the guys. “Rock and roll, Legs.” The panel slid shut.