“If you don’t, she’ll be dead anyway, trust me.”
“If he goes for her neck? With what?”
“His teeth.” The sniper starts to turn toward me, but I slap him on the shoulder. “This is it. He’s pulling her behind the Dumpster.”
The sniper aims.
“Take it.”
He tightens his grip on the stock. The vampire presses the screaming woman against the wall.
“Take it!”
The vamp leans into her neck. The woman unleashes all her panic, kicking and flailing wildly, forcing the vamp away just as the sniper rifle jumps with a bang. The shot misses, throwing sparks with a ricochet off the Dumpster. Abandoning the woman, the vamp streaks up the alley toward us.
“Again!” I order. “Take the shot!”
The sniper’s head shakes. “Too fast. Damn, he’s fast!” He fires again, missing by a mile.
“Shit, move!” I command, throwing one leg over the railing.
“What the hell are you doing? That’s a thirty-foot drop!”
No time to think about that. Taking a half second to calculate speed, angle, and trajectory, I pounce from the railing. The plunge sends my stomach flying up into my lungs. The alley rushes up at me as the dark shape of the vampire closes in. I land with one foot on each of his shoulders, a perfect tackle. With an explosion of painful thumps, we crash to the wet pavement, tumbling and slapping against each other. My back slams into the wall of the opposite apartment building.
Several areas of my body scream in protest, raising alarms of injury, but I’ve got to push through that. The vamp is on hands and knees, crawling away. I throw myself on top of him. After pinning his arms, I raise a fist, wielding the thin metal cylinder.
“No!” he screams.
Flicking my thumb, I extend the razor-sharp splinter of ash wood from the cylinder. We call them toothpicks, because that’s about how big they are. Plunging the splinter into his shoulder, I twist, breaking it off under his skin. He howls in pain, kicking at the ground, rolling left and right. Without hitting a major artery, a toothpick is not enough to kill him, but it’ll sure take the bite out of him for a while.
Gripping him by the lapels, I jerk his agonized face close to mine. His eyes roll with fear. Mine dance with triumph. “Bloodsucker, I am the hurricane.”
Dropping him, I leap to my feet with a giddy grin, looking around frantically. “Did anybody hear that? Did you hear what I just said? So badass! Bam! Just came right out!”
But there’s no response from onlookers. They simply gape at me from their balconies. “Shit,” I grumble, and I drag his ass away.
Two enormous silhouettes stand guard in front of the Agency door. As I march toward them with the woozy vamp in a headlock, the giants are wise enough to step aside. With necks the size of tree trunks, they’ve got to be trolls, but that wouldn’t stop me from verbally thrashing them if they tried to keep me out. Instead of snuggling a warm body in bed, I’m soaking wet, covered in grime from the alley, and bleeding from a cut over my eye. Anyone so much as looks at me sideways, I’m gonna lose it.
Using the vamp’s head as a battering ram, I barge through the door. It’s loud and chaotic inside. FUA agents work the phones. More trolls help wrangle a combative vampire woman with mascara running down her cheeks. Several fey enforcers brandish swords over a group of vamps slumped against a wall. Like mine, these vamps are sullen and groggy. A few of them tremble uncontrollably, like junkies run dry. I toss my vamp in with the others.
Nick Gorgeous cuts through the office with his best ball-swinging strut. “Hell, yeah, that’s what I’m talking about, Davies.” He gives an approving shove to my shoulder. “That’s the last of ’em. Now we lock this down tight.”
Ho, boy. Nick’s playing nice with me? High stress has finally cracked him. Either that, or he’s giddy with relief, which could only mean one thing. “Nora’s okay, then?”
Falling into a chair, he crosses his boots over the corner of a desk and pushes his cowboy hat back on his head. “What do you think? Henry’s out of the picture for good, the fey treat her like royalty, and right this very second she’s snug in bed with at least three men. I’d say Nora’s never been better. You, on the other hand”—he seems to notice my appearance for the first time—“look like a Dumpster fire.”
Summoning every ounce of restraint, I stab him only with a flat look, instead of my razor claws. I have to wonder if he can literally see the steam coming out of my ears.
I slide a glance at Ren, peeking out from behind his computer monitor. He winces. Gives a little wave of the fingers.
I glare at my office nemesis, Darla, who—I freaking shit you not—opens a desk drawer, pulls out a tub of popcorn, and begins stuffing her smug, grinning mouth as she watches us.
Swallowing the first dozen offensive retorts that jump to mind, I release a calming breath and say, “I see we’ve got plenty of extra security tonight. Trolls and fey enforcers—heavy hitters. Since A) neither of those groups is allowed to work directly for the Agency, and B) we couldn’t afford them even if they were, I assume they’re also here because of Nora Jacobs?”
Nick beams. “You assume right. Word got out that Nora was in trouble, and here they came a-runnin’, no questions asked, out of the pure goodness of their hearts.” Raising a pointer finger, his smile fades and his eyes narrow in thought. Whatever he’s about to preach, it apparently requires his wise mentor face. “That’s what loyalty buys you.”
My claws extend. Heat flashes through my face. The sounds of munching popcorn intensifies. “I am loyal to the underworld. King Paul was practicing illegal necromancy when I busted him.”
“But you didn’t know that until after. You’d already made your choice.”
“To stop a serial killer!”
“Hey, did I fire you? Everything turned out okay in the end. I’m just saying, you’re damn lucky it did.”
“Well, I don’t feel lucky. I feel like the black sheep just for doing my job. Brenner was going—”
“Don’t!” Now Nick raises both pointer fingers. Darla scoots her chair forward, munching loudly. “Don’t you dare say that name. I don’t ever want to hear that name again. I got you in one ear with ‘Brenner found this and Brenner found that.’ I got Oliver Harrington in the other ear with ‘Brenner knows this and Brenner knows that.’ And I got Agent Hillerman with her entire foot”—he makes an uppercut punch to the air—“all the way up my ass with ‘Brenner is this and Brenner is that.’”
“He is what? What the hell did Hillerman say about him?”
He ignores the question. “Do you know what kind of shit hit the fan after Nora found out what Brenner dug up?”
“Don’t give me that. Nora found out from Henry. Brenner had nothing to do with it.”
“I was this close to losing her.”
“Ha! Losing her? Maybe I’m not caught up on the latest tally, Nick, but last I checked, you don’t have, and never will have, any notches on Nora’s bedpost.”
“No, she didn’t!” Darla squeaks through a mouthful.