Mick glanced at the badge in her hand. IED. Merde.
She didn’t look like an assassin. Not their usual sort anyway. That’s who the Council of Races normally sent to deal with humans who’d found out about their world. They never cared about the hows or the whys. It was black and white for the Council, and the bulk of its members valued human life about as much as the lowest form of swamp rat. Mick had little respect for the government of the paranormal world, and less for those sent to do their bidding. He’d spent years working to circumvent their laws through his work with the Underground. He sure as hell wasn’t about to let this piece of work get anywhere near one of his own, no matter what Liza may have seen or figured out.
Suppressing a growl, Mick gestured her down to the pass through at the end of the bar, his brain frantically calculating the best means of damage control. Liza wasn’t on the premises and maybe that was a good thing just now. He’d do his damnedest to get rid of this agent, and then for gods’ sake he had to find Liza and get her the hell out of town. How that was going to work with a bar full of customers, a hurricane bearing down, and without knowing exactly what Liza already knew, he wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t going to let her die.
He didn’t like having the compact little assassin at his back as they made their way down the length of the bar and to his office off the other end. She wouldn’t pull a knife or cast a spell in front of so many witnesses, but feeling her eyes on him made his shoulders twitch, which was an unacceptable show of weakness. Before closeting himself in with her, he caught the eye of his second in command. Jeanette nodded once. She would keep watch and have the rest of his motley Pack at the ready should they be needed. He prayed they wouldn’t be. The memory wipe and damage control for this volume of people would be a real bitch.
There were no decent defensible positions in his office, being that the room was little more than a closet with a desk and file cabinet jammed in cheek by jowl. It wasn’t something that had come up before since he only used it for paperwork, ordering, and the occasional private conversation with members of his staff. As he shut the door behind himself, Mick felt as if the square footage had shrunk by half. The woman eyed the spindly chair on the visitor’s side of the desk and continued to stand. Mick didn’t move around her to his own chair.
Deciding that a good offense was the best defense, he didn’t wait for her to speak. Instead he launched in, dropping the thick accent he slathered on for customers. “Liza Cunningham is not the only human in my employ, Agent . . . ”
“Hayden. Sophie Hayden. And I had noticed that Mr . . . .?”
“Micajah Guidry. My place is entirely on the up and up. I have both human employees and Mirus, and while they fraternize on the premises, no rules have been violated. None of my human employees, including Liza, know anything about the Mirus world. If you’ll allow me to get to my file cabinet, I can show you all the proper paperwork that was filed with the Council regarding my set up. I’ve got the proper permits for hiring humans—”
“I’m sure you do, Mr. Guidry. I’m not interested in your paperwork or permits. I’m interested in Liza.”
He couldn’t stop the wolf from rising up inside him. She threatened one of his Pack. When he spoke, hisvoice was edged with a growl. “Liza’s done nothin’ wrong. She’s broken no laws.” Sophie lifted one wellshaped brow. “Not recently anyway.”
That brought him up short.
“What is your relationship with Liza?” she asked.
“She’s my employee.”
“Your employee. Why is it, then, that I get the sense you’d be happy to rip me apart if I proved to be a threat to her?”
Mick dug deep for patienceand some measure of civility. “She is alone in this city. No family. Few friends. Same as most of my other employees. We make our own family, Agent Hayden. I protect what’s mine.”
She tipped her head, curiosity plainly etched on her face. “You speak of them as Pack.”
“Family is more than blood and race,” he replied.
Something like approval flashed in her eyes. What the hell was going on?
“You can stand down, Mr. Guidry. I’m not here in my professional capacity. And while I came here with every intention of dragging Liza away whether she likes it or not, it isn’t for the reasons you seem to think.” She blew out a long breath and seemed to exhale some of the stiffness with it. “Liza is my sister.”
“Sister?” Mick repeated. “But she’s . . . ”
“Human, yes. We share a mother. She has a propensity for getting into trouble in our world, which, as you are well aware, she isn’t supposed to know about.”
Studying Sophie, he could see some subtle similarities. The similar soft mouth. Same diminutive stature. Maybe the same shape to the face. But the same could be said of many women, and Liza had never mentioned a sister. Was this some kind of trick? Some means of sniffing out his affiliation with the Underground?
“Is Liza in some kinda trouble?” asked Mick, his mind and body shifting to deal with a different kind of threat.
Her cell phone rang and she held up a finger in a just a second motion as she checked the caller ID before shoving it back into her pocket. “Sorry. I was hoping you’d be able to tell me. She hasn’t come in tonight?”
“No. Nobody’s heard from her.”
She leaned back against his desk, crossing her arms. “I’ve been trying to reach her all day, but I figured she was just avoiding my calls. Whenwas the last time you saw her?”
“Last night. Or this mornin’, dependin’ on how you look at it. Several of the girls live within walkin’ distance, so me and a couple of the boys rotate to make sure all our girls get home safe. I walked her home at two,after clean up,” he explained. “I didn’t sense anything that set off my radar. We realized she wasn’t in about an hour and a half ago. Been tryin’ to get her ever since.” Why didn’t I send somebody to check on her sooner? The gnawing sensation in his gut was rising. He had a bad, bad feeling about this.
“Do you remember anybody hassling her at all last night? Watching her? Anybody who shows up regularly and sits in her section?”
Mick sifted through his memories of the last few weeks, but they were hazy, all running together. “I’d have remembered anybody givin’ her grief. I don’t tolerate mistreatment of my people. As for regulars, we’ve got a lot of ’em. We’re a neighborhood place, so we’ve got a lot of the same folks in several times a week. She’s an attractive woman, so a lotta men watch her. But none of’em ever made any kinda pass at her, as far as I know. It’s somethin’ I generally discourage.”
“Is she seeing anybody?”
“Not that I know of. She doesn’t talk about her personal life or family overmuch.”
“At least she followed one rule,” Sophie muttered. She shoved away from the desk and dug in a jacket pocket. "Look, I’ll leave my card. Call if you hear from her. I’m going to check out her apartment.”
“Keep it,” said Mick. “I’m comin’ with you.”
Her eyes met his. “This is not your problem, Mr. Guidry. And in case you hadn’t noticed, you’ve got a full house out there.”
“Mick. And my people can handle it. I told you. I protect what’s mine.”
Liza lived a few blocks from Le Loup Garou, in a second story, walk-up apartment above a bakery about a block off South Carrollton Avenue. The lower level was dark, but, despite the rain, Sophie could still smell a faint scent of fresh baked bread as they climbed the stairs. Her stomach grumbled again, reminding her that she still hadn’t eaten. In her pocket, her cell vibrated. Her handler calling again, no doubt. Well Leif was just going to have to wait for an explanation as to why she’d dumped a personal leave form on his desk before business hours this morning.
All thoughts of food and her handler vanished, as she plowed straight into Mick ’s rigid back. He’d paused a few feet from the top of the stairs, nose lifted. She picked up his low growl, even over the drumming of the rain.
Not pausing to ask why, Sophie pulled her gun and switched off the safety.
Mick moved slowly then, up to the landing, where he laid his ear against the door panel. A few moments later he motioned her back and took aim. The ancient door casing gave way easily under the snap of his kick, the door flying open and banging back into the wall.
Mick was through it in an instant, and Sophie was right behind, gun held braced and at the ready. He skidded to a stop so fast, she almost ran into him again.
“Mon Dieu,” he breathed.
The apartment was ransacked, furniture overturned, pictures and knickknacks broken.
Keep it together. Do your job. Work the scene. Suppressing the nausea of anxiety, Sophie carefully picked her way across the littered floor. She led with the Sig that was loaded with specialized bullets designed to slow down at least half the Mirus population. If anyone else was in the apartment, Mick would probably know it, but protocol was deeply ingrained. He fell into step on the other side of the room, movements soundless.
She peeked into the galley style kitchen, finding nothing but a pile of dishes on a drip rack. “Clear,” she called softly, knowing Mick would be able to hear her.
He skirted the trashed living room and headed for the bedroom, his face set in hard, unforgiving lines. For a long moment, he stared at the knob of the closed door. Listening, maybe, or perhaps steeling himself for whatever was on the other side. A muscle jumped in his jaw as he reached forward to open the door.
Sophie signaled for him to wait. Whispering a brief incantation, she generated an energy shield that would block any spells that might get thrown at them in case someone was inside or had left the room booby trapped. She nodded a go ahead. Mick glanced at her briefly in speculation, then threw open the door.
Sophie went in first, the energy shield moving with her. The bedroom had fared no better than the rest of the apartment. No evidence of anyone present. Sophie dissipated the shield with a wave of her hand. Across the room, the sliding glass door was cracked open, and the sheer curtains flicked in the wind like a restless ghost. The lamp on the bedside table leaned drunkenly against the headboard, propped up only by its dented shade. The light cast strange patterns of shadow on the walls. And in its shuttered glow, she saw the blood on the sheets that trailed off the bed.
Still red.
Liza.
The sea roared in her ears, a thunderous crash of mental noise as she stared at the sheets, at the splotches of life staining them. The building shook, buffeted by the wind. Dimly she was aware of glass breaking, of actual noise. A scream. Then she knew nothing but the shelter of Mick’s body and the sound of his voice murmuring a soothing litany of Cajun French in her ear.
The noise died down again, back to the steady drumming of the rain, louder now than a few minutes ago. She wondered why but couldn’t look because Mick was wrapped around her, a living shield against whatever had blown through the room. The body pressed so close to hers was hard, muscles tense. His voice was still curiously soft in contrast, muttering God knew what in the beautiful language of the Acadians. As she relaxed, so did he, degree by degree. She found her hands were fisted in his shirt and carefully flattened them, fingers stiff and sore. Her head ached.
When she shifted, he stopped speaking and loosened his hold just enough that she could look up at him.
A drop of blood trailed down his cheek likea tear. “You’re bleeding.” Numb, she reached out a hand to wipe it away, then lingered, fingers curved against the angles of his cheek, her heart beating slow and thick in her chest.
“It’s nothin’,” he said. “You okay, ma petite?”
“I . . . Yeah, I think so. What happened?”
Mick unfolded himself, and Sophie heard glass tinkling from his clothes to the floor. He shifted them around so she could see but kept his arm around her waist, which turned out to be a good thing once she saw the damage.
Every window in the apartment had exploded. Inward.
Sophie’s hand curled back into his shirt, and she found herself leaning on him for support. “Oh gods.”
“Was that you, Sophie?” he asked softly.
She wanted to bury her face against his chest in shame. Instead, she nodded.
“The storm responded to your emotions, c’est vrais? Are you part elemental or somethin’?”
“Or something,” she replied. The soft surfaces in the room were shredded. She would have been too if not for— She jerked away from him and circled round to inspect his back. She hissed in horror. Shards of glass accented his flesh like diamonds. “Oh, Mick . . . ” Stopping, she swallowed and tried again for a more professional tone. “I need to get the glass out before your skin heals around it.”
She felt his eyes on her as she went into the bathroom in search of tweezers, and took a minute or two longer than strictly necessary as she struggled to find the professionalism that had deserted her when she walked into the bedroom. No matter what had happened to Liza, she had a job to do, and turning into some weak-willed, wilting female who needed to lean on a man—even a strong, naturally protective one—wasn’t going to get that done.
By the time she came back with a first aid kit, Mick had the remains of his shirt off and was bending over something on the dresser.
“Did you find something?” she asked, swallowing against the sudden dry mouth.
“Her cell phone,” he replied, scrolling through the recent calls.
Sophie peered around him at the screen but didn’t recognize any ofthe numbers. “Know any of those?”
“It’s a mix. Some local, some out of state. A bunch from me and the other girls at work in the last few hours.”
Moving around to get started on his back, she said, "What was the last number dialed?" Plink. Plink. The shards she removed clattered into a small ceramic dish she’d emptied of potpourri in the bathroom.
Mick scrolled to the relevant call and hit dial. The volume was high enough that even Sophie heard the voice on the other end when it answered, “Thanks for calling Donato’s Chicago Style Pizza. We’re closed until the storm is over.” Mick hung up. “It’s a local place. ’Bout half a mile away. The call was made around lunch.”
“Well that was no help.” Reaching an especially deeply embedded shard, Sophie laid a hand against his back,both as leverage and apology. “Try to stay relaxed. This is probably gonna hurt.”
He didn’t make a sound, but his breathing quickened after she eased the glass out. She covered the wound, the only one deep enough to still be bleeding, with a pad of gauze and taped it on. Suppressing the urge to trace his skin again, she efficiently cleaned the already healing cuts on the rest of his back with disinfectant. “There. I don’t think I missed any.”
Mick twitched his shoulders and turned toward her. “I’ll do. The last one will heal up on my next shift.” He started to lift a hand, then stopped and shoved it in his pocket. “You okay?”
She felt an odd flutter in her belly and had to work at keeping her voice steady. “I don’t know. But thank you for protecting me.”
He didn’t say it. Why would he? But she could hear the echo of his words from earlier. I protect what’s mine. What did it take to get added to that list, she wondered.
Unable to hold his gaze or think about what it meant, Sophie stepped back and dropped her eyes to the phone he’d set aside on the dresser. She needed some space. As she stared at the phone, the face lit and the tones of American Woman rang out. She pounced on it, noting the Private Number listing on the caller ID before she pressed Answer.
“I expected you sooner, Sophie.” The voice was mechanical, distorted, but it was hearing her name that chilled Sophie to the bone.
“Who is this?” she demanded.
“For the purposes of this discussion, I’m your employer. I have something you want, and if you do exactly as you’re told, I’ll consider giving her back in one piece.”
Rage and terror ripped through her, competing waves of emotion that rocked her to the core. She gripped the phone, shoving back the tide, grabbing for the mask of professionalism.
“How do I know you’ve reallygot her? I want proof of life.”
There was a thump and a crash, like a chair being kicked over, then a low moan. “Sophie . . . ”
Liza. Sophie’s heart thudded hard. When she heard the kidnapper come back on the line she snarled, “You leave her alone you son of a bitch.”
He laughed, and she felt her temper spike. As the wind began gusting through the broken windows, Mick put a hand on her shoulder and rubbed. The gale died down enough that she could hear again.
“Temper temper, Sophie. That will never do.”
“What do you want?”
“I want you to bring me the Devil’s Eye.”
For a moment,she was too stunned to speak. “You want what?”
“The Devil’s Eye, fool girl. Bring it to me or your sister dies.” The whip of annoyance crackled through the distorter. “You have six hours. I’ll be in touch with the delivery location.”
The sudden silence was swallowed by a clap of thunder. Sophie jolted, then realized Mick was still rubbing her shoulder, soothing.
“Liza’s as good as dead.”
“The hell she is,” Mick snarled. The hand on her shoulder shook her once, hard, breaking through some of the haze. “I don’t give a rat’s ass if the Council doesn’t negotiate for hostages—”
“It’s not that. I can’t do what he wants, Mick. I can’t.” Her voice broke along with something deeper that might have been hope.
His face softened a bit. “What’s the Devil’s Eye, petite?”
Sophie shook her head. “That’s a stratosphereabove your security clearance.”
He just looked at her with flashing yellow eyes.
“It’s bad,” she said, exasperated. “Big, shatter the world and start wars kind of bad. That’s why we hid it.”
“We?” he asked. “So you know where it is?”
Miserable, Sophie nodded.
“Then I’ll help you get it back.”
“It’s not that simple, Mick. What he’s asking, it’s treason. If the Council finds out, they’ll kill me.”
“Then we best make sure they don’t find out.”