Those questions could be dealt with later. For now—“If I’m in charge, then let’s investigate,” I said at last, trying not to read too much into Gunner’s show of trust. Yet again, I waved my hands toward the still-open door leading into the hallway...and yet again no one bothered to so much as shuffle their feet in the indicated direction.

  “Sure thing, bossette,” Nosy—aka Crow—answered. “Just tell us who’s gonna stay here to take care of the kid and the rest of us will be on our way.”

  As I glanced at three waiting faces, I realized this must have been yet another order meted out by their absent leader. And while I would have scoffed at Gunner’s over-protectiveness yesterday, in light of Jackal’s recent comments I found myself both relieved and ready to accept.

  “Allen can stay,” I decided, figuring the smartest werewolf was also the one least likely to lose track of Kira if she got it into her head to play hide and seek with her bodyguard. Then, turning to my sister, I laid down the law. “You’ve got enough homework to keep you busy all day,” I informed her. “I want to see you parked on the sofa when I get home.”

  Kira glanced at me, raised an eyebrow, then turned the full force of her charm upon her designated keeper. “Wanna learn a magic trick?” she asked Allen, tilting her head down until she was peering up from between dark lashes. “I’m excellent at making things disappear.”

  I turned to the door to hide my smile. Allen would be lucky if he made it out of this babysitting session with wallet and dignity intact.

  Chapter 20

  I didn’t remember what day it was until hours later. Friday. The last work day of the week, when fights began early and crowds at the Arena doubled in size. I couldn’t afford to miss the match this evening, not when the whole point of Wednesday’s loss had been setting up a resounding Friday win.

  Which gave me a limited window in which to discharge the duties of my new day job then get rid of Tank and Crow. Unfortunately, neither task looked like it was going to be easy to accomplish in haste.

  “Well that was a waste of time,” I groused once we’d finished nosing around the crime-scene site a second time and had returned to cruising down random city streets. Given the lack of information found at the now-cleaned-up underpass, I was beginning to think Gunner had hoped I’d spend the day spinning my wheels with the sole purpose of taking the heat off his own spur-of-the-moment trip.

  And I would have been glad to oblige if I’d thought Ransom was the culprit. Unfortunately, that conclusion seemed dramatically premature. From the little bit I’d seen of the Atwood pack leader, Ransom was hotheaded and not a terribly good fighter...but none of that added up to a serial killer using Ebay-purchased heirlooms to somehow magic humans to death. I mean—what was the point? And did Ransom really possess the gumption to figure out a puzzle that continued to elude my own grasp?

  Not likely. Which meant there was an actual miscreant on the loose in my city. And from the way Tank and Crow peered at me like puppy dogs expecting their master to pull a bag of treats out of her pocket, it was up to me to guide the exploration onto the proper path.

  “I think we should take a look at the original body,” I decided aloud, feeling my way through potential alternative avenues of investigation. After all, what better way to track down the twisted personality we were seeking than to assess his initial foray into life taking? Maybe there was a magical signature on his body that the werewolves had missed....

  Unfortunately, my supposed backup turned into minders as soon as I spat out an actual game plan. “No can do,” Crow said tersely, swinging into a fast-food drive-through. Then, completely changing the subject from what we were meant to be discussing: “Anybody else want a snack?”

  Tank looked up from his cell phone long enough to shoot off a list of items that amounted to half a cow plus an extra-large potato field. Crow ordered all of the above plus enough sugar to rot out his teeth. And I tacked on a grilled chicken sandwich, hold the mayonnaise, plus a large ice water on the side.

  “What?” I demanded once we were parked and eating. Or, rather, once I was eating. The guys just stared at me from beneath their mountains of food as if I’d grown an extra arm.

  “You don’t have to pretend to be human around us, chica,” Tank told me after a moment. He patted me on the head as if I was the puppy...which made it hard not to snap at his patronizing hand.

  “Here, have some of my fries,” Crow added, holding out the cardboard carton...then pulling it back before I had time to so much as shake my head. “Or...Tank can go back in and get you your own fries maybe. Boss won’t be happy if you faint from lack of food.”

  I scrunched my eyes shut, astonished at how drastically the reality of werewolves differed from my expectations. Here I’d spent decades shivering at werewolf shadows only to find that the sole threat from their presence was death by frustration...or perhaps exploding when I followed their lead and ate way too much.

  “I have food,” I growled once I finally trusted myself enough to speak. Then, remembering what I’d asked before Crow sidetracked me, I pressed my earlier point. “We can’t go see the body? Or you won’t take me there?”

  “Can’t,” Tank answered.

  “Won’t,” Crow added.

  Both males spoke with their mouths full, and I had to avert my eyes before I was willing to take a bite of my own lunch. “Explain,” I ordered after chewing and swallowing. Single words sometimes worked with Kira. Perhaps similar simplicity would do the trick while attempting to whip my unlikely assistants into shape.

  Sure enough, the males seemed willing enough to expand upon their earlier answers when pinned down. “We disposed of it,” Tank elaborated. “Weighed it down and sunk it in the middle of the river. Can’t have pesky bodies floating around for the human cops to find.”

  “Plus, the boss said to keep you safe,” Crow added once his partner had finished. “First murder was two weeks ago. That corpse has moved on from dead to wrigglin’, if you know what I mean.”

  I did know what he meant. And suddenly the grainy texture of the reconstituted chicken meat in front of me looked far too much like maggots for my peace of mind.

  Closing the paper wrapper back up around the rest of my sandwich, I did my best to hold onto my temper. “So what are we allowed to do today?”

  “Investigate,” Crow answered.

  “Drive around and look for shit,” Tank suggested.

  The pair had somehow managed to scarf down 99% of their lunch while I was nibbling through a quarter of my own small meal. Now, Crow pulled back onto the road, one last double bacon cheeseburger in his hand...well, until he shoved the entire thing into his mouth that is. “Where to, bossette?” the long-haired shifter asked around chunks of beef and pork.

  As if I was the one actually in charge of this disaster. And as if we weren’t wasting precious hours when I had better things to do...like preparing for a very lucrative fight.

  “Turn right,” I decided. “Then left at the stoplight....”

  In short order, I’d found what I was looking for. A thoroughfare so packed that parking was unlikely within a ten-block radius. Even slowing down here would risk the driver’s life...or at least the structural integrity of his wheels.

  Which is when I opened my door and leapt from the moving vehicle, ignoring the shouts of distress behind me and the blaring of nearby horns. Sprinting for an alley, I barely caught Tank’s recriminations before I shook the pesky babysitters off my tail.

  “Chica! The boss won’t like this!” the burly shifter howled.

  But “the boss” was far too engrossed in determining whether his brother was a murderer to worry about me at the moment. So I slipped behind the awning of a bustling street cafe, ran down a set up steps, sprang over a wall, and was soon back within my comfort zone—entirely on my own.

  Chapter 21

  “She who chases two rabbits catches neither.”

  “And she who talks to the voices in her head gets locked up,” I muttered back to my mother’s ghost as I wound my way through the unsavory streets of the Warren on the way to my ultimate goal. I’d tugged on as many investigative threads as possible without straying far from my path over the last couple of hours. And, no, I hadn’t come up with any blinding flashes of insight in the process. But it was better than trying to do the same work while dragging around two gruffly overprotective werewolves. Plus, I still held out hope that some of the seeds I’d planted might bear fruit...after the upcoming fight.

  Now I paused in a shadowy alcove just outside the Arena, hasty fingers running through tangled hair while my magical senses performed the more important preparation—materializing my sword within the sheathe along my spine. The match was due to begin in a matter of minutes, and I didn’t need a Japanese proverb to know I’d better get my head into the game before dashing through that door.

  So, pushing away Mama’s memory, I closed my eyes and focused on Dad’s voice instead. My father had fought in the Arena as long as I could remember, and he’d passed along many of his tricks to me. The most important, he’d always asserted, was preparation. “Before you start fighting,” he’d always told me, “remember to center on your breath.”

  Closing my eyes now, I obeyed the oft-repeated admonition. Sucked in a deep lungful of air through my nose then gently relaxed the carbon dioxide away between loosely parted teeth. Whoever Ma Scrubbs had chosen as today’s opponent would be more bark than bite. As long as I ignored their bluster, chances were good that I’d win...and pay the rest of Kira’s tuition in the process.

  “Darkness lies one inch in front of your nose.”

  My eyelids burst open at Mama’s shrill interjection, breath coming faster as I peered around the dim alley in search of potential danger. Her words had seemed so ominous at first blush...but now that I thought about it, I was pretty sure that proverb was merely telling me to expect the unexpected. Perhaps this was Ghost Mama’s attempt to help out?

  Whatever the reason, I wasn’t quite in the zone when I slipped in the back entrance of the Arena moments later. Sure, my sword was in my hand and my muscles were loose and ready. But the roar of the crowd made me wince as I left the shadows behind and walked out under the blinding floodlights.

  Meanwhile, the words of the announcer didn’t help matters either. “Please welcome Wednesday’s competitors back to the Arena! Ladies and gentleman, introducing Mai Fairchild and Ransom Atwood!”

  IT WASN’T RANSOM, THOUGH, who appeared on the other side of the small cage as my eyes adjusted to the over-illumination. Instead, resembling his brother enough to make the false identity work from a distance, Gunner greeted me with a grin that did odd things to my stomach. Then, taking advantage of my unconscious lean in his general direction, my opponent opened the fight with a forward lunge transitioning into a slashing stroke of the sword clasped in one long-fingered fist.

  In response, I dropped to the ground and somersaulted past him, rolling upwards even as the alpha spun to trace my path. I told myself it was just Mama’s unhelpful words of encouragement that made Gunner’s reappearance hit me like a punch to the gut the moment I set eyes upon him. But his verbal greeting both deepened my reaction and illuminated my lie.

  “I was worried,” the big, scary alpha told me, a subtle tightening around his eyes suggesting he was actually telling the truth even though his sword continued to parry mine stroke for stroke. “Crow and Tank called two hours ago. Said you’d slipped your leash. The whole pack’s been tearing the city apart ever since. I figured you could take care of yourself. But...”—he feinted then struck at my knees, a blow I easily blocked—“...I’m glad to see your face.”

  “Aw, you missed me,” I countered, finding it easy to keep my words light when my feet felt as if they were walking on rainbows. Taking advantage of the emotion-fueled energy, in fact, I transitioned into one of Dad’s favorite combo moves then. Bing, bang, boom. Feint, parry, attack. Gunner must have had more experience with swordsmanship than I’d expected or he would have ended up with a game-ending scratch right then.

  Instead, the male proved his prowess by nearly catching me on the rebound, swiping low a second time and forcing me to leap to evade his sword. “I did miss you,” he agreed, not even out of breath as he offered a stab that could easily have pierced my stomach lining. “And I’m glad to be back. Not least because we have a mystery to solve.”

  I inhaled as I twisted sideways, windmilling my arms then using the change in balance to launch my own attack. “I could have told you Ransom’s feet weren’t that little,” I puffed, finally losing a bit of my composure as Gunner’s blade caught mine and nearly ripped said object out of my grasp.

  The scrape of metal against metal provoked a cheer from bystanders I’d nearly forgotten, widening my tunnel vision at last. The crowd members were standing on their seats now, pounding fists against the cage that locked me and Gunner in. Calls of “Ransom” and “Mai” rang out across the Arena in equal measure, and I wasted half a second hoping Ma Scrubbs was right and fewer watchers had bet in my favor this time around.

  Because I was going to win. Never mind what a smirking Gunner thought as a flick of his wrist ripped my sword away to send it flying toward the chain link behind my back. My opponent might be bigger and stronger. But I needed the cash far more than he did...and I’d never promised to fight fair.

  So even as the sword left my fingers, I sucked as hard as I could against the retreating magic, feeling icy tentacles sliding into the darkness up my sleeve. The shell of my former weapon clanged dully against the cage wall even as I formed a slightly smaller rapier in the same sheathe the original sword had occupied five minutes earlier.

  “Never bet against a Fairchild,” I told Gunner. At the same time, I reached behind my back to grab the replacement blade even as I danced forward to swipe the tiniest pinprick of a line above my opponent’s brow.

  If he’d seen the move coming, he could have dodged or even parried. But Gunner had thought I was out of weapons. So he stood like a rock, the widening of his eyes nearly as satisfying as the adulation of the crowd.

  Unlike Gunner, I knew how to play to my audience. So I turned, bowed, turned again. And I would have bowed yet another time had I not caught a glimpse of an unexpectedly familiar face pressing up against the chain-link door.

  “She’s gone,” Allen mouthed, face as white as mine was suddenly growing. The accountant didn’t need to elaborate for me to realize he referred to the girl I’d left in his charge several hours earlier.

  Someone had snatched Kira right out from under my nose.

  Chapter 22

  “Mai, wait!”

  I ignored both Gunner’s command and the rational knowledge that my sister might have just slipped her leash the same way I’d done a few hours earlier. Because I trusted my gut, and my gut told me Kira wouldn’t risk throwing off my game on fight night just because she felt cooped up in our apartment with a werewolf babysitter.

  No, if Allen was unable to find my sister, that meant someone had taken the child against her will.

  So, delaying only long enough to swipe my now-hollow sword off the ground, I sprinted out of the cage and toward the nearest exit. Behind me, I could hear the alpha debriefing his underling. And while Allen’s quiet words were swallowed up by the noise of the crowd, I didn’t need to hear answers to Gunner’s increasingly frantic “Where?” and “Who?” and “How do you know?” to send me in the right direction.

  Jackal had threatened my sister yesterday and now Kira had disappeared. I knew precisely where to look to get her back.

  Getting there, however, was another matter entirely. Hard elbows and heavy feet pummeled my extremities as I forced my way through a sea of human bodies that seemed uninterested in parting to let me through. And for once, I regretted being smaller than average. Because one glance over my shoulder proved that Gunner was having no problem keeping pace, the werewolf’s bulk preventing the tide of humanity from sucking him under the way it threatened to do me. Too bad he wasn’t willing to act as a battering ram to help me achieve my destination in a timely manner.

  In fact, Gunner was not only failing to help, he was actively working against me. Or so it seemed seconds later when raised hairs on the back of my neck proved that the alpha had closed the gap between us just as a hand on my shoulder swung me around to face back in the direction from which I’d come.

  “Mai, I know you’re worried. But you can’t run off half-cocked before we figure out what’s happening....”

  Werewolf platitudes. I bared my teeth, wondering if the surprise of fangs piercing flesh would be enough to remove the restraining hand so I could continue on my way....

  Then a human larger even than Gunner was looming over me. The newcomer’s bulk pushed the alpha backwards before the latter even realized what was happening, at which point a wad of folded bills slipped from the human’s fingers into my own beneath the eddies of the crowd.

  “She doesn’t need to talk to me?” I asked the doorman, surprised that Ma Scrubbs was resisting her usual impulse to haggle me down from our agreed-upon percentage. Tonight, though, the sheets of doubled-over paper were an inch thick. And, for once, I had more important matters at hand than pinching pennies and counting every bill.

  So I accepted the doorman’s silence as implicit agreement then turned and sped through the open tunnel he’d left behind him as he pushed his way through the crowd to reach my side. Breaking out into the alley at last, I breathed in one huge gulp of much-needed oxygen. And, finally, I turned to face the alpha who I still hadn’t managed to shake off my tail.

  Which, apparently, was a good thing. Because no matter how I poked at the issue, one fox shifter against a couple dozen werewolves wasn’t good odds for freeing my sister. So I closed my eyes, sighed, and accepted the inevitable.