by Melody Raven
The same brother who was missing? No wonder the cops didn’t want to help her. “Not that. I’m allergic.”
Gabbie snorted.
I was annoyed but I also got it. All these crazy mystic things to learn about, and allergies are still a problem.
“It freaks me out. I tried a small amount when I was a kid and I almost died. I’ve always had this fear that someone would slip it in a drink or something.”
“Is it like a roofie?”
“No. But people are stupid, and I’ve been to plenty of parties that get out of hand. Besides, usually people like getting a hit. It could be a friend trying to do me a favor.”
Gabbie scrunched her face. “Maybe you should think about getting new friends.”
Couldn’t argue with that. Couldn’t argue with that at all.
10
“We’re looking for a guy named Dodge,” I told Carter as soon as I shut the door to his office.
Carter didn’t look up from his laptop where he was typing out something. My guess was that he was sending an email to Melanie and telling her more rules he wanted to make for the division. Carter was the type who was only happy when there were a lot more rules in place.
Finally he finished what he was doing and deigned to grace me with his attention. “When the door is shut, you need to knock.”
“If you knew I was knocking, you’d never let me in.”
“That’s because I’m smart. Now who the hell is Dodge?”
“Dodge appears to be the leader of the Vopura at the Carlton.” I frowned. “Or the leader of the Vopura who hang out at the club down the street from the Carlton. Either way, it’s a good lead. I want to take point on following it up.”
Carter immediately tensed, and I knew I was in trouble when he shut his laptop completely as he stared me down. “Are you sure about that?”
I hated that look. I hated being second-guessed. “Who else are you going to send? Flora?”
“You’re not a fighter, Sonia.”
“I’m scrappy. I’m industrious. I’m smart. I can handle myself.”
“I put in a request for Melanie to send us someone else for the team. Some more muscle.”
“You’re not going to need more muscle once I have my powers.”
“We don’t know how long it will take you to get a handle on them. It could be yea—”
“It’s not going to be years! Would you just admit that the reason you don’t want me to be on point is because you don’t want to work with me?”
He was quiet for a moment and I wondered whether he was going to try to deny it at all. “You need to cut me a break here. I’ve had a tough year.”
Something in me snapped. “You’re not the only one who’s been through shit this year. I’m not here to give you a break. I’m here to help you whether you want help or not. Now, will you please let me take point on the Dodge investigation?”
“Your arrogance is going to get you killed.”
“My arrogance has kept me alive. I like mentoring Gabbie. I think she’s great. I like getting paid to spend my day at the bar. But none of that is why I’m here. I’m the one who found out Dodge’s name, and I think that I’ve earned a spot on the team that brings him in.”
Carter leaned over and grabbed a random piece of paper on his desk before scribbling something down on it and handing it over.
It was a man’s name and some random numbers. “What’s this?”
“Port Kim is the best trainer on staff here. The gym is on level five. That’s his office number. I’m going to call right now and see if he’s free to take you on for a session.”
I blinked in shock. “You’re going to let me take point on this?”
“I’m going to take point and you’re coming with me. But not before you get at least one training session with Port. I’m not sending a complete newb up against a gang of hungry Vopura.”
“I, um…. Thanks. This is awesome.”
He frowned, looking decidedly less excited than me. “It’s awesome if you don’t die. And if I don’t die.”
11
I didn’t know whether training with Port had made me feel more or less prepared for this. I felt like I knew more, for sure. But I also knew more about how much I sucked at fighting.
To be fair, the big, burly Port was built like a truck. How was I supposed to contend with that?
But, at the same time, how was I supposed to contend with some supernaturally strong and supernaturally fast creature? But he’d given me some good advice about using their momentum to my advantage and working smarter instead of harder. Most of it was stuff I knew already, but it was always good to get reminders.
However, the best part of the day was that I finally got weapons! I was still bitter that I even needed anything to protect myself. Though, even when I could use magic, I’d rather get out of a dangerous situation than actually fight.
Now that I was actively going after the baddies, things like guns became much more important. I’d been outfitted with an equipment belt, a Taser, silver mace, and a Glock. What I thought would be a quick training session had turned into an all-day thing because I had to be tested at the gun range before I could be issued the weapon.
Honestly, I was surprised it only took that long to get the weapon issued. There must have been paperwork in the works before today. So Melanie and Carter had always planned to give me a weapon. Which made me happy, because I didn’t want to be a burden or liability. But it also had me thinking that it could be a long-term thing.
Did they really think I’d be cut off from my powers for that long? I kept telling Gabbie to practice to get stronger with her abilities, but I didn’t have that luxury. If I tried practicing, I could end up blowing out the side of a building. The fact that no one had died in that bank was a genuine miracle.
And I really didn’t want someone innocent to die because I couldn’t control myself. But in all of this chaos, I’d never really considered that I’d never be able to use my powers again. I’d already lost so much….
“Are you ready for this?”
I twisted around and tried to make sure none of my emotions were showing. Carter didn’t need to get any hidden peeks into my psyche. “I’m downright perky.”
Carter walked past me and entered a code into his desk. Before I could even ask what was so important it was kept under that kind of protection, he pulled out a few boxes of bullets and three extra magazines for his gun. He loaded the bullets with a practiced hand. Even the last few bullets that could be a bitch to get in.
I took a deep swallow and steeled myself. This was serious. All the other missions for the DMD had been fun and games compared to what we were doing tonight.
“Are we going to have a support team?” I asked as Carter moved on to filling the second clip.
“Just us.”
I sucked in a breath. That was insane. But hell, insane was my specialty.
“We want to prove our worth, and if we can’t even bring in one Vopura, what good are we? We have to remember that we’re going to be going into a place with twelve suspected Vopura based off the info that Nico and Flora could gather. There could be more. If we’re going up against that many, we’re not getting anywhere. We’re going to work this as an extraction. Get in, get Dodge, and get out.”
“Extraction? As in, take him alive?”
“I’m sure he has some good intel. We’ll hand him over to the Dark Night Team.”
“What the hell is the Dark Night Team? It sounds like a bad cosplay troupe.”
The corner of his mouth hooked up at that. Had I almost made the Boy Scout laugh? Score for me.
“They’ve been handling the Vopura mess. Dangerous Magic Division was designed to handle the more fringe cases. We’re not vampire slayers. This is just our audition. If we do a good job, it will go a long way to helping our relationship with Dark Night.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Have something to say? It’s not like you to hold back.”
His brows furrowed. “I never realized how idealistic you were.”
“I’m not saying it’s realistic. But real life annoys me.”
“Then I guess we’ve finally found something we agree on.” He finished loading his last magazine and clipped them to his belt. For someone who wanted to go in quickly and quietly, he sure as hell was armoring up.
Better to be armed to the teeth than sorry, I supposed.
“If you want to back out, you can. I won’t think any less of you.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from cursing at him immediately. “It would be hard for you to think less of me when you already think I’m a piece of shit.”
His jaw tightened and I really wondered whether he was going to have the balls to lie to my face and deny it. “You don’t know what I think of you.”
“You haven’t been subtle,” I reminded him. “You want me in jail.”
“You’re a criminal. That’s where criminals go.”
“Do you honestly think putting me behind bars would be better than me being here? Using all the tricks of the trade that I’ve spent years perfecting to help your kind instead of hurt?”
“I think you can be of great help. If you choose to be. But if you change your mind, decide this is too much work, or decide you’re done with us, you can do a hell of a lot more harm.”
“Then shouldn’t you be nicer to me?”
“I’m not kissing your ass. You want to work here, you deal with me.”
“I deal with a worse version than everyone else here.”
“Yeah, well, if anyone can take it, it’s you. Now, do you want to keep whining about what an ass I am, or do you want to make your first arrest?”
Arrest of a Vopura. The first little tendril of fear snaked through me, but I pushed it down. Not only did the Dangerous Magic Division have to prove themselves with this one, but so did I. And this might be our only shot.
12
Okay, I was nervous. I was no stranger to doing stupid stuff. I’d put my life on the line more times than I could count.
What was it about this that was bothering me so much more than the other times I’d put my life on the line? Was it because if I failed, people could die? Was it because I had nameless innocent people depending on me?
Or was it because I didn’t want Carter to think I was a scared little bitch?
Pride was definitely one of my vices.
“What’s the plan?” Carter put the car in park outside the building.
My heart beat like a bass drum in my mind, and I was supposed to strategize? “Well… we know what apartment he’s in.” I looked up at the Carlton. He was on level twelve. Not an easy journey up the stairs. And it was still daylight now, which gave us some advantage. But if we knocked on the door of that apartment, we’d be standing in a shadowed hallway.
“Maybe we could tase him right as he opens the door. That way, we’d get him before he makes a fuss and alerts his friends.”
“You’re making a lot of assumptions that we can catch him quickly,” pointed out Carter.
I had a feeling he already had a plan in place and was just testing me. “We could go in through the window. We wouldn’t be able to zap him immediately, but we’d be letting all the sunlight in. Since the apartment is facing west, the setting sun will be right there.”
“And how are you going to keep him from running out into the hallway?”
Mother— “I can’t. Are you happy? This isn’t a two-person job. A Vopura is just too dangerous. I don’t have my powers, and you still haven’t told me what the hell you are. So please, since I know you already have the answer, what’s the plan?”
I expected Carter to laugh or smile at my failure, but instead he just nodded. “You’re right.”
“I’m what?”
“You’re right. This isn’t a two-person job.”
I shook my head, and the annoyance combined with the adrenaline and fear already swirling in me made me nauseous. “This was some stupid test, wasn’t it?”
“Just wanted to see how stupid you are when trying to get my approval. Look out your window.”
I glanced out and saw Nico leaning against the outside wall of the Carlton. “You son of a bitch,” I muttered to Carter, Nico, and myself.
“It’s a three-man job. We’re going in through the window, and Nico will be in the hallway to catch him if he runs.”
“Isn’t Nico afraid to be stuck in the building?”
“Nico’s a walking Taser,” Carter reminded me. “He’ll be fine. All we have to do is flood the space with light and funnel Dodge to the exit. As soon as we have Dodge in our hands, Nico will exit down the fire escape with us.”
“How are we going to get Dodge down?”
“We’ll let gravity do the work.”
I flinched at that. Twelve stories was a long fall. Survivable for a Vopura. But painful. “How sure are we that he’s one of the bad ones?”
“We have probable cause.”
“That’s not enough to throw someone off a roof.”
“We’re not here to give him due process of the law. If I thought we could knock on the door and bring him in for questioning, I’d do it. But we can’t play this game by our rules. We have to be as fair as we can be while staying alive. Do you have a problem with that?”
I didn’t have a problem with staying alive. But for the first time, I had serious questions about how good the good guys were.
I was impressed Nico had been able to get away from the siren with enough energy to even keep walking, let alone go Vopura hunting. But he seemed like the type who could give a siren a run for her money.
Carter pushed open the driver’s side door. “Let’s get started. We have a long way to go up that fire escape.”
He wasn’t wrong about that. And not only did every flight up have my legs screaming at me, but it also gave me more time for my nerves to kick into overdrive. I made up for this discomfort by complaining loudly and often to Carter, as though annoying him would take away my pain.
“I just don’t get it,” I muttered between loud gasps. “I work out. I’m active. But if you ask my legs, they’d tell you I’ve been using a wheelchair the past twenty years.” Or other gems, like asking whether we were there yet every other floor.
To Carter’s credit, he quietly put up with me for ten floors before he turned and shut me up with a glance. With Vopura hearing, Dodge might know we were on our way up even if I wasn’t a chatty Cathy the whole time. But there was no reason to make it any easier for him to detect us.
But when I was quiet, there was nothing for me to focus on but my fears. I stared down at my hands as I continued to climb. There was so much power floating around in my veins. Even now I could feel it trying to get out. It wasn’t a burning need. It wasn’t demanding. But it was there. Buzzing just under the surface.
And I had absolutely no idea how to control it. What would I do if Dodge came running at me? Would I be able to keep my cool? Or would I cause another natural disaster, this time twelve stories above the earth?
Would I even be able to survive that?
But then I couldn’t fall any deeper into my fears because we were almost there. Carter held up a hand. He’d apparently been keeping track of how many flights we’d gone up. So had I. But it still was good to know that we were in agreement.
Carter motioned me forward, and I inched next to him as quietly as possible. The metal staircase was by no means built for two people to share a stair, and we were scrunched into one very small space.
“One of us is going to shoot into the glass and the other is going to go in. Everything is going to happen very fast from here on out. What role do you want?”
> Shoot the glass! my mind screamed. But that wouldn’t be taking point. That would be playing backup. I fought against my instincts. I had said I wanted to go point, and I wanted to go point.
Fuck fear. I didn’t waddle. I walked. “I’ll go in,” I said, my voice sounding more confident than I actually felt.
Carter looked me over as though silently asking me whether I was sure. And I was happy he didn’t vocally ask me because for once in my life, I wasn’t sure I could lie well enough to pull it off.
“I’d take out your weapon now. What do you feel most comfortable with?”
My options were gun, mace, and Taser. But the only one that would actually put a Vopura on the ground was the specially formulated bullets in my Glock. They would inject the Vopura with liquid silver. Word on the street was that they’d put the Vopura or vampire in a comatose state of pain for at least a few hours.
And considering I didn’t know of any drugs that would work on a Vopura, silver bullets would have to do.
But Carter was going to have his gun out and ready because that was what we were using to break the glass, and he was for sure a better shot than me. I was going to be in close combat, most likely. And I didn’t want to spray mace right in front of me. Even though the main compound in the mace was silver, there was still enough spicy stuff that would affect me too.
So I made sure my gun was accessible, but I pulled out the Taser. Despite myself, I found myself looking to Carter to see whether he approved. He’d done far more hand-to-hand combat than I had.
But he didn’t seem to approve or disapprove. Maybe this wasn’t a test. Maybe there was no right or wrong answer. This was just life.
Damn it. That was my nerves kicking in again. “I’m ready. Let’s get this over with.”
Dodge had better be there. I wasn’t going through all this build-up just to wander into some empty apartment. Because if this apartment was empty, that meant we might have to go through the whole thing again.
