The job fit Adam better than his combat boots, and those boots fit him pretty good. He loved keeping order, protecting the vulnerable, kicking butt and cracking skulls as required. The only duty he didn’t like was apprehending rogue Talents. Sorcerers were trained at least, and demons who went dark side were generally predictable. Talents were the wild cards in an already dangerous deck.
Their power was raw, depending not on spells but on how much energy they could channel. That amount could be a trickle or a mother-effing hell of a lot.
The previous year, a Level Seven Talent who’d gotten stoned on faerie-laced angel dust had taken down the six-lane Washington Street Bridge. Just popped it off its piers and let it drop in the North River. If the bridge’s gargoyles hadn’t swooped in to save what cars they could, the loss of life would have been astronomical. Adam still had nightmares about talking the tripping Talent into surrendering. If tonight’s incident ran along similar lines, he might need a vacation.
Along with the rest of his team, Adam clutched the leather sway-strap above his head. Nate was driving the black response van because no one else dared claim the wheel from the ponytailed Latino. They all wore body armor and helmets, plus an assortment of protective charms. Their rifles leaned against the long side benches between their knees. The guns could fire a range of ammo, both conventional and spelled. Rick, who had a knack for effective prayer, was quietly calling on the precinct’s personal guardian angel. Sometimes this worked and sometimes it didn’t, but even the atheists among them figured better safe than sorry.
“God,” Tony said, tapping the back of his head against the van’s rattling wall.
“I hope this isn’t another thing like the bridge.”
“Amen,” Carmine agreed. The stocky were was the oldest member of their squad, the only one who was married, and - yes - another of Adam’s cousins.
Before he could smile, Adam’s earpiece beeped.
“You’re four blocks out,” Dana said. “The gargoyle is reporting another series of power flares. Still nothing higher than a Four.” That was good news. Unless, of course, the Talent was warming up.
“Okay, people,” Adam said. “Watch your tempers once we get inside. Be safe but no killing unless you have no choice.”
He didn’t warn them against hesitating. Given their inbred hair-trigger werewolf nature, hesitating wasn’t an issue.
* * *
Policing Resurrection couldn’t be about stamping out Evil. It had to be about making sure Good didn’t get swallowed.
The reminder braced him as he and his team ran soundlessly from the van onto the buckled and trash-strewn asphalt of the parking lot. His scalp prickled half a second before a soft gold light flared around the edges of the boarded-up back windows.
Adam had answered previous calls to this location. The rear section of the tire store was where vehicles had been cranked up on lifts for servicing. Fortunately, there was plenty of cover for slipping in. Unfortunately, lots of flammables were inside. Adam took the anti-burn charm that hung around his neck and whispered a word to it. That precaution seen to, he hand-signaled Rick and Tony to split off and block escape from the front exit.
This left Adam, Carmine and Nate to ghost in the back.
The flimsy combination lock on the door to the service bay had been snapped
- probably magically. Adam and his two detectives ducked under the low opening.
Inside, the scent and feel of magic was much stronger, the air thicker and hotter than it should have been in autumn. A male voice moaned in pain farther in, standing Adam’s hair on end. Without needing to be told, Nate peeled off to the right. Adam and Carmine took the left.
Scattered heaps of tires allowed them to creep up on their goal without being seen. One bare bulb dangled from a wire, lighting the far end of the garage. In the dim circle beneath it, the Talent had her moaning victim tied to a plastic chair.
The sight of her stopped Adam in his tracks. Christ, she was little. Five foot nothing and probably a hundred and small change. She looked to be in her twenties and wore the kind of clothes street kids did. Ripped up black jeans.
Ancient T-shirts that didn’t fit. Her oversized Yankees jacket had its sleeves torn out and was decorated with unidentifiable small objects. Her hair was a shade of platinum not found in nature, standing in white spikes around her head. A swirling red pattern was dyed it, as if her coiffure were her personal art project.
What really got him though, what had his breath catching in his throat, was the clean-cut innocence of her face. Outfit and hair aside, she looked like a tiny Iowa farm girl.
It made his chest hurt to look at her. The part of him that needed to protect others wanted to protect her.
Knowing better than to trust in appearances, Adam shook the inclination off.
He tapped the speaker fixed into his vest with the signal for everyone to hold. The victim was still alive. They could afford to take a minute to discover what they were up against.
As they watched, the girl lifted her right hand. Pale blue fire outlined her curled fingers. Her already bloodied victim shrank back within his ropes. He was some kind of elf-human mixblood with long gray hair. He was a lot bigger than the Talent, but that didn’t mean their fight had been fair. Despite the elfblood, he didn’t give off much of a magic vibe. A near-null was Adam’s guess. His run-in with the Talent had left damage. He looked bad: both eyes swollen, bruises, shallow cuts bleeding all over. Though he seemed familiar, as injured as he was, he was hard to identify. Even his smell was distorted by blood and fear.
“I can do this all night,” the Talent said in a voice that was way too sweet for a torturer. “Or you can tell me where to find the Eunuch.” Carmine and Adam came alert at that. This was a name they knew too damn well.
“Lady,” said her bloodied victim. “I have no idea who you mean.” The girl closed her glowing hand gently. The man she was interrogating arched so violently he and the plastic chair fell over. He screamed as blood sprayed from a brand new cut on his chest. Carmine started forward, but Adam gripped his shoulder.
“Wait,” he murmured. “That cut was shallow. He’s not in immediate danger.” Carmine shook his head but obeyed. When the man stopped writhing, the girl drew a deep slow breath. With no more effort than gesturing upward with one finger, she set man and chair upright. Despite the situation’s danger, something inside Adam let out an admiring
whoa
.
“Clearly,” she said, “you think you ought to be more afraid of your boss than me.”
“Lady,” panted the injured man, “
everyone’s
more afraid of him.” The girl’s lips curved in a smile that had Carmine shivering beside him.
Admittedly, the expression was a little scary. For no good reason Adam could think of, it made his cock twitch in his jockstrap.
The Talent spoke silkily. “I’m glad we’ve established you know who I’m looking for.”
Adam expected her to cut him again. Instead, discovering her victim did know the Eunuch inspired her to up the ante on her torture. The blue fire she’d called to her hand now began gleaming around her feet. She was drawing energy from the earth - and no piddling amount either. Her glowing hand contracted into a fist, and her victim’s face went chalky. Adam was pretty sure she was telekinetically squeezing his beating heart. Unless she was really good at medical manipulation, she was going to kill him.
“
Go
,” he said sharply into his vest microphone.
Even in human form, werewolves weren’t slowpokes. What went down next was textbook perfect. Adam and his men were on the Talent so fast she didn’t have a chance to shift her attack to them. Nate got her nose squashed down on the oil-stained floor, then snapped electrum plated cuffs snug around her wrists. The cuffs were charmed so she couldn’t break them, no matter how powerful she was.
The Talent struggled, then cried out as Nate yanked her roughly onto her feet.
He dropped a depowering charm around her neck for good measure.
Immediately, the energy-charged air settled back to normal. The girl gaped at the enchanted medal, then straight up at Adam. Adam’s heart stuttered in his chest.
Her eyes were a breathtaking corn-fed blue, her lashes a thick dark brown. The twitch she’d sent through his cock morphed into a throb. Carmine shot him a look of surprise. Adam fought an embarrassed flush. The smell of his arousal must have gotten strong enough to seep through his clothes.
“’bout time you showed up,” the girl’s victim huffed. “This bitch needs to be locked up.”
Carmine flipped up his face shield and turned to consider him. The man flinched back, obviously wishing he’d refrained from complaining.
“Aren’t you Donnie West?” Carmine asked. “’Cause I know we’ve got a handful of outstandings on your drug dealing ass.”
“Uh,” said Donnie, abruptly recognizable under his bruises.
“That’s what I thought,” said Carmine, and let out his belly laugh.
Through all of this, the Talent’s eyes moved from one of them to the other, taking in their gear and their guns and getting wider by the second. When Rick and Tony caught up to them from the front, Tony’s upper canines had run out and his amber eyes were glowing. The girl sucked in a breath like this shocked her, though a partial change when younger wolves got excited wasn’t uncommon.
“What the -” she said before having to swallow. “What the hell kind of cops are you?”
Still holding her from behind, Nate’s slash of a mouth slanted up in a devilish grin. “Well, what do you know,” he drawled. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves an Accidental Tourist.
An excerpt from THE ASSASSINS’ LOVER
available in ebook and print
In the alternate Victorian earth the Yama live in, secrets are tantamount. This supposedly demonic race doesn't believe in letting out emotions - much less in giving their hearts away.
Assassin-guards Ciran and Hattori were bred to live by that code, until Hattori's too-moral twin is imprisoned, and Ciran falls in love with the grieving man. Though Hattori can’t claim to be in love, he’s never trusted anyone like he trusts Ciran. Both have illegally altered genes that heighten sexual needs, making those needs a challenge for anyone else to satisfy. Theirs would be a match made in heaven, if only Hattori’s heart could stretch that extra inch toward Ciran.
Katsu Shinobi isn’t your typical demon princess. As tender-hearted as she is lovely, she seems an unlikely match for either of these dangerous assassins - at least until they receive orders to kill her. None of them can forget the erotic interlude they once shared ... or give up the chance to build a lasting future, together.
Chapter 1: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PRINCESS
Today was Katsu Shinobi’s thirtieth natal day. She’d heard such milestones upset Human females. They were considered “on the shelf” once they hit the third decade mark. Given that her race could expect to live centuries, at thirty Yama were scarcely adults. Consequently, it was not the weight of the years she’d experienced that lay heavily on Kat, it was the years she had left to go.
Her natal day was the one day she and her father always spent together.
They’d share a pot of Imperial White at her dead mother’s favorite teahouse, then reminisce with pleasant stories over platters of savories.
Because that was not to be this year, Kat closed her rim-to-rim silver eyes and tipped her lovely face to the morning sun. She reminded herself she had reasons to be thankful. She might be exiled, but she was safe and her enemies far from her. The Human world, so encroaching in other places, had made few inroads here. Ever since the Humans discovered a hidden Yamish city forty years before, Kat’s people had put up with being called demons. She supposed it natural her race would seem infernal to the more primitive Humans; they’d barely invented electric power, after all. Also natural was the fascination the other race’s emotions held for her kind. Human energy affected Yama like a drug - something sensible people avoided. This province where Kat had been banished lay far from the peninsula that connected Yamish lands to those of Humans. The area was less novelty-loving than the capital. As a result, it remained culturally unconfused.
Perhaps just as important, spring had reached Ningzha. The sky was a bird’s egg blue, and the scent of cherry blossoms lent a kiss of sweetness to the soft air.
The lush walled garden in which she sat was an ode to nature and the landscaper’s art. Dragonflies flitted from bloom to bloom, their colors as carefully selected by the master gardener as a princess’s party gown.
“Cousin Kat!” cried the very voices she’d been hoping to avoid today. “Why are you hiding all the way out here?”
Quashing her dismay, Kat turned on the rustic bench to greet her three female relatives. The girls were fifteen, seventeen and twenty, all blessed with the ruler-straight blue-black hair that was the Yamish ideal. Their ankle-length silk robes -
only two layers in this nice weather - boasted the latest fashionable hues: lemon, lime and orange, as it happened. All her cousins were pretty; Yamish genetics rarely left room for ugliness. They were not, however, as elegant as their youth led them to believe. Jules, for one, should have eschewed anything to do with yellow, no matter how popular it was that season.
“Good morning, cousins,” Kat said calmly. Her overgown was a less fashionable but flattering bronze, the color suiting both her milk-and-roses skin and the antique brass undernotes in her black hair. Satisfied with her appearance if not her prospects, she smoothed the silk neatly down her thighs.