“And you’re a…delegate?”

  “I’m a bit young, don’t you think?” I said as I tested the cuffs.

  “No, not really,” he murmured. “So you’re a…”

  “Contract agent.”

  His brows shot up. “Agent? I hope you don’t really expect me to believe that.”

  Figures. He might not be physically fighting back but he sure as hell was going to use what—despite his superhuman strength—was obviously his weapon of choice. I took my scarf from my purse.

  He continued, “Perhaps that story works with others, but I’m afraid whoever you’re working for has underestimated my knowledge of the interracial council. They don’t employ—”

  I lifted the scarf.

  He looked at it. “I’m already cuffed, and I can assure you, I don’t need to be bound in any other way.”

  “Oh, I think you do.”

  I jammed it into his mouth. His eyes widened. He looked at me, eyes narrowing. Then, with a noise almost like a snarl, he turned his gaze away, and let me tie the scarf.

  “Wait here,” I said. “I’m going to make a call.”

  5

  One last check to make sure my quarry was secure, then another check—this one outside the door—and I slipped into the hall. I didn’t dare go far, not when I wasn’t sure of his powers.

  He wasn’t a vampire. The Samson routine with the metal bars had disapproved that theory. Contrary to some legends, vampires didn’t have superhuman strength. My guess was that he belonged to the most complex of races—my own. I couldn’t recall a half-demon type with his particular skill set, but we were a varied lot, with plenty of rare and poorly documented types, like my own.

  One thing I did know. This meeting had been no accident, and I kicked myself for not realizing that the moment Tristan offered me tickets to the gala. Granted, he did that kind of thing often—the perks that came with this job were phenomenal, and I sometimes felt guilty accepting them. I’d told Tristan and, through him, the council, that I didn’t need any extras to boost my job satisfaction. But he assured me they were all freebies, like these gala tickets, a gift from a grateful supernatural that would go to waste if I didn’t use them. Still, this was the second time Tristan had sent me someplace and I’d “stumbled” onto a supernatural crime in progress.

  They were testing me. The council wanted to see how good my chaos nose worked, and I guess I couldn’t fault them for that, but when I made that call, I couldn’t help snapping at Tristan.

  “Okay, okay,” he said, laughing. “No more tests. Can you blame us, Hope? You’re an Expisco half-demon! We’re like kids with a new toy, dying to see what it can do. And you outdid yourself, as always. Karl Marsten, caught by a half-demon rookie agent.”

  “So the council’s been after this guy for a while?”

  “They have, which is why I should remind you that you shouldn’t take down targets on your own. That’s why we provide backup. You’re too valuable.”

  “It wasn’t much of a risk. Superhuman strength or not, he didn’t even try to fight.” I paused. “Those handcuffs will hold him, won’t they? You said they’re specially made to hold anything supernatural.”

  A moment’s hesitation. “You cuffed him?”

  “So they won’t hold? Well, he’s still in that room anyway. The door’s closed and—”

  “He can’t break the cuffs, Hope. That’s not the problem. I thought you knew—didn’t you—you usually know what they are.”

  “Sometimes. This time, I didn’t get a vision—”

  Oh yes, I had. Standing in line at the buffet, with him behind me, a vision of forest and fur and fangs and blood.

  “He’s a werewolf,” I said.

  “And a very dangerous one. You need to subdue him—”

  “Should I? If he’s dangerous, don’t you want me to wait—”

  “No time. As charming as Marsten seems, he’s a werewolf, the most brutal and unpredictable kind of supernatural, and now he’s cornered, which makes him ten times as dangerous. If he knows it’s the council who captured him, he’ll do anything to get away—kill anyone in his path.”

  I swallowed. “Okay, so how do I subdue a werewolf?”

  “Disable him. Knock him unconscious. Shoot him if you have to. You don’t need silver bullets—”

  “I know.”

  “Don’t kill him, just—”

  “Disable him. Got it.”

  I was already hanging up as Tristan promised me a backup team was on the way.

  I made it as far as the door, one hand on the knob, the other on my gun, still hidden in my purse. I turned the handle and—

  “You there!”

  I dropped the gun into my purse and wheeled as a white-haired security guard strode toward me.

  “What are you doing in that room?” he said.

  Room? Oh, this room, the one I was clutching for dear life. I let go of the knob and stepped away. Inside, a broom clattered to the floor. The guard turned toward the door, his eyes narrowing.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Guess I jostled it too hard. This isn’t the coatroom, is—?”

  Something clanged against a metal bucket. Then a clacking, like nails against linoleum. Oh God. He’d changed into a wolf. Of course he’d changed into a wolf. What else would a cornered werewolf do?

  The guard reached for the handle. In that split second, I saw him pulling open the door, and a wolf leaping at his throat—

  I grabbed the knob and held it. “It’s jammed, see?” I made a show of jangling it. “That noise, that’s what I heard, that’s why I was trying to open it. But it’s jammed.”

  “Probably locked.”

  “Er, no, I don’t think—”

  “The janitor has the keys—”

  “Oh, actually, then, I bet you’re right,” I said quickly. “It’s probably locked. Why don’t you go find the janitor. I’ll wait here.”

  The guard started to leave, then paused, and turned. “First, let me try the door. It might just be jammed—”

  I backed into the door so fast my head cracked against it. The guard reached to steady me.

  “Heels,” I mumbled. “I’m always tripping in them.”

  I stepped forward, and let my knee give way. The guard grabbed my arm as I grimaced.

  “My ankle. I think I twisted it.”

  “We should get you to—”

  “Please,” I said through my teeth, still grimacing. “I’ll wait here.”

  “All right, just let me try the door first—”

  As he turned toward the door again, I had no idea what to do, short of falling to my knees and howling in agony. He reached for the handle. Okay, one pratfall coming up—

  Before the guard touched the knob, it turned. The door opened. A figure stepped out. Karl Marsten, fully dressed.

  “Well, that was embarrassing,” he said with a self-deprecating half-smile. “I could’ve sworn this was the bathroom, and then the door jammed. Thank you. You saved me from the even more serious embarrassment of having to call for help.”

  He shook the security guard’s hand. Then he turned to me, and with a murmured thank you, a tip of his head, and a smile, he strolled off down the hall. I took a step after him.

  “Miss? Do you want me to call a doctor?”

  “Doctor? Oh, right. My ankle. No, my…date…he’s a doctor. I’ll just—”

  I looked up and down the hall. The guard pointed toward the party, in the opposite direction of the one Marsten had taken. Damn. I managed a weak smile and a thank you, and headed back to the gala, tossing in the occasional limp for good measure.

  When I reached the party, Douglas was still with the Bairds. I tried making a beeline for the other door, to go after Marsten, but Douglas hailed me. I headed over.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I was just…there’s an old friend over there. You stay with the Bairds. I’ll just go talk—”

  “Friend?” He perked up. “What company does he work for?”

  “She’s a musician. Classical. With the symphony.”

  His face fell. “Ah, well, you go on then.” He nodded toward the Bairds. “I’m fine here.”

  I’ll bet you are, I thought as I hurried away. And, by the way, my stomach’s fine, too. Thanks for asking.

  When I reached the corner where I’d last seen Marsten, he was gone. I switched on my mental radar to find him before he escaped with the jewelry. Yes, according to Tristan, I had far bigger things to worry about than stolen goods but…maybe I’m being naïve, but Marsten hadn’t acted like a cornered wild beast. I couldn’t imagine him ripping through innocent partygoers in a frenzied dash to the exit, especially not when I wasn’t picking up any chaos signals to suggest such a thing.

  Tristan could be quite a mother hen. As he’d said, I was valuable. Expisco half-demons were rare, and one willing to work on the side of the white hats was rarer still. So I understood when Tristan did things like this, not letting me in on a takedown, keeping me sequestered from other agents, or overreacting with someone like Marsten. But understanding isn’t accepting. I knew my limitations, which were many, and I was careful. Yet I had lost Karl Marsten, and damned if I was going to sit on my butt and wait for the backup team to find him again.

  So I practiced my developing bounty hunter skills. I cleared my mind and pulled up the images I’d seen at the buffet table: forest, running, fur, fangs. As I did, I tried, with debatable success, not to chastise myself too much for failing to recognize the meaning of the vision from the start.

  I knew little about werewolves. Like vampires, they were rare, and kept to themselves. Unlike vampires, they also policed themselves, meaning the council had no reason to deal with them. I knew only one half-demon who’d ever even met a werewolf…and she wasn’t all that sure that’s what it had been. So I had an excuse for not leaping to “he’s a werewolf!” conclusions. But, again, I didn’t accept excuses.

  After about a minute of mental scanning, I picked up Marsten’s frequency. It was faint and flat—meaning he wasn’t causing any trouble. Not yet.

  I focused on the signal and followed. Down two dark halls, skirting past the gala, down another hall—the same one I started in when I’d first left the party. I reached the fork again. Marsten’s trail went left, in the direction of that chaos residual I’d been tracking when his theft had diverted me. He was heading for the back exit.

  Still concentrating on his trail, I went down the next corridor, turned the corner—and was smacked by a wave of chaos.

  Marsten. Shit! He was—

  No, a deeper, calmer part of me replied. It’s not him. It’s here. Something happened here. Something recent.

  I’d been hit by two chaos waves, both originating in this area. They had to be connected.

  I pushed aside the werewolf images, and focused on this new signal. The voice came again, that gruff voice telling someone he shouldn’t be back here. The plea. Then the scream.

  When the wave hit me this time, I only rocked on my heels. Half the strength of the slap I’d felt in the main room earlier, even though I was at the apparent locus of the trouble. I filed this away as a lesson in separating residuals from current chaos, then closed my eyes and pivoted, trying to find the exact location—

  There, around that next corner. I hurried to it, then walked into a wall of darkness. I braced myself as the visions flashed past.

  Metal glinted. A blade winked in a flashlight beam. The flashlight clattered to the floor. A plea. No! Please—! The blade sheered down. Hands flew up. Blood sprayed.

  I froze the vision there as I panted, my heart racing. I struggled to hold that last thought…and wondered why I was holding it.

  Blood sprayed.

  Blood.

  I fumbled in my purse for my keys, took them out, and turned on my penlight. I waved the weak beam over the walls. There. Blood droplets, invisible in the near-darkness.

  6

  Were the blood drops still wet? I almost reached up to one before snatching my hand back. Look, don’t touch, stupid. Standing on my tiptoes, I moved the light closer to the specks. They glistened. Still wet, but drying.

  I swung the beam to the floor and found faint smears of blood that would go undetected until they turned on the lights in the morning…or noticed they were one security guard short.

  So where was…? Follow the trail.

  I stopped at a door a few yards away. Tissue over my hand, I turned the knob.

  I half-expected a body to fall out on top of me. Too many horror movies, I guess.

  The door opened into an office. I shone my flashlight around. Nothing.

  As the door closed behind me, I grabbed it and twisted the knob, to make sure it wouldn’t lock me inside. Reassured, I eased the door shut, and moved toward the center of the room.

  As I walked, I picked up a twinge of trouble. Yes, this had to be the right place. So where was the…?

  A booted toe protruded from behind the desk. I hurried to it. The desk faced the wall, with a wide gap for computer cord access behind it, and that’s where the killer had stuffed the body. One end of the desk was against the adjoining wall and the other against a metal filing cabinet, so I had to crawl onto the desk to peer behind it.

  I shone the flashlight beam into the gap, and bit back a yelp.

  I resisted the urge to pull away. With something like this, I was sure the council would expect a report, so I had to get a good look.

  A man lay faceup in the gap. His eyes stared at me, wide with that last minute of “I don’t believe this is happening” horror. His security uniform shirt was a mess of gaping holes, the edges torn, shredded, unlike anything a knife would do. The flesh beneath the holes looked…mangled. Chewed. It looked as if he’d been—

  A hand clamped over my mouth.

  “Found something you were missing?” a voice hissed.

  I kicked backward. My foot connected, but a second arm clamped around my neck, and yanked me off the desk. It spun me around, and I found myself looking into a pair of blue eyes so cold and hard that my heart leaped into my throat. Karl Marsten.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t smell the body when I walked by?” His voice was as cold and hard as his eyes, all traces of smooth charm gone. “You would have been wiser to let me leave through the front door.”

  I pulled back my fist and plowed it toward his gut. He caught my hand easily and squeezed. Tears of pain sprang to my eyes. Oh God, you stupid, stupid—

  He brought his face down to mine, and the thought dried up.

  “I’m going to let go,” he said, his voice calm. “If you scream, I will crush your fingers. Do you understand?”

  I blinked back tears and nodded. He took his hand from my mouth and released the other one just enough to stop the throbbing pain, but still gripped it so tightly that I didn’t dare even try to wiggle my fingers.

  “I will only ask you this once,” he said. “Who do you work for?”

  “The—I told you—the—”

  “Interracial council,” he interrupted. “Is that so? Then tell me, which delegate of the council hired you?”

  “I was approached by a representative—”

  “Which delegate?”

  “He’s not a delegate. He works for them.”

  He exhaled, as if in frustration. “All right, then. Which delegates have you met?”

  “None. I only work through my contact—”

  He cut me off with a humorless laugh. “Oh, they have you well trained, don’t they? I’m sure this story has worked well for you in the past, but it falls a little flat when dealing with someone who actually knows the interracial council, knows most of the delegates, and knows, beyond any doubt, that they do not have employees or recruits or ‘agents’—”

  A noise from the hall. Voices. Marsten half-turned, his attention diverted just long enough for me to ram my spiked heel into his shin and wrench my hand free.

  He grabbed for me. I kicked and lashed out at the same time, my nails clawing his face. He fell back. I ran for the door, threw it open, and raced into the hall.

  A split-second decision: run toward the voices or away from them? Running to them might have been safer, but I couldn’t—wouldn’t—endanger others. I’d already underestimated Marsten once.

  I tore down the halls. Marsten’s soles squeaked behind me as he wheeled out of the office. That reminded me that he was in flat dress shoes…and I was in heels—with no hope of outrunning him.

  I grabbed the first doorknob I came to. Locked.

  I dove for the one across the hall. As my fingers closed around it, I saw Marsten running toward me. The handle turned. The door opened. I darted through, and slammed it.

  Even as I turned the lock, I knew I might as well not have bothered. It was a flimsy household privacy lock, one that could be snapped by any strong man, let alone a werewolf.

  I reached for my purse but it wasn’t on my shoulder. It must have fallen when Marsten yanked me off the desk. No purse…no gun.

  Marsten’s footsteps had slowed to a walk. Of course they had; he didn’t need to hurry. I’d trapped myself in an office with no second door, no windows, no way to escape.

  Blockade the door.

  The council backup team was on the way. If I could slow Marsten down long enough to call Tristan—

  The footsteps stopped inside the door. The handle turned.

  Someone laughed—the sound close by—and the handle stopped turning. A drunken giggle. A voice, growing closer.

  I grabbed the sides of the metal filing cabinet. It didn’t budge. The printer stand? Like that would slow down a werewolf.

  “Oh,” someone said near the door. “Didn’t see you there.”

  “Unless you’re staff, this hall is off limits,” Marsten said.

  “Oh, right, we were just—”

  “Lost,” the woman giggled.

  “Then I suggest you turn around, go back to the end of the hall, and follow the sounds of the party. You can’t miss it.”

  I looked around for something to block the door, but anything big enough was too heavy for me to move. Outside, the man was telling Marsten to mind his own business, but his companion was already moving away, and calling to him to do the same. No time to phone Tristan. I needed—