City of Crows Books 1-3 Box Set

by Clara Coulson

  The Wolf rep drops the pretense of cordiality, that dangerous yellow glint flickering in his eyes. “I’m not trying to offend you, Kinsey, you personally or DSI. The simple fact is that this situation here”—he gestures to the carnage around us—“demands open and immediate communication between all the groups involved. And yet, the ICM clammed up the instant our liaison to the High Court asked the first goddamn question about the attack. The Lycanthrope Republic will not stand for that behavior, not from them, and certainly not from you.”

  My left hand sinks toward my gun, but I don’t draw it. I’m getting pissed off vibes from Wallace, big time, but they don’t seem to be directed at me. His hardline glare is distant, like he’s imagining someone who’s slighted him several times in the past, someone deserving of scorn or derision. My flight or fight response is screaming at me to run in terror, far, far away from the angry werewolf who could rip my throat out with his teeth. But at the same time, my gut feeling says that he’s at least being partially honest with me. The ICM has refused to share intel with the Lycanthrope Republic about the destruction of the Wellington Center, and Wallace, as a Representative of the Congress, is seeking the truth about the deaths of his fellow Wolves, who died under his watch in his jurisdiction.

  He has every right to be pissed off, like I was when I first found the burned-out wards this morning and realized magic had killed innocent people in my city—again.

  So I decide to play his game.

  “Okay, Wallace.” I raise my hands in a placating manner. “I understand where you’re coming from. You got something you want to ask me? Shoot.”

  Wallace looks momentarily surprised that I caved, then shakes his head. “A word of warning: I will be very frank with you, and I expect your response to be the same.”

  “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  “Good.” He gazes up at the hazy sky for a long moment, before he says, in a steady, rock-solid, sub-zero, chill-inducing tone, “Do you have in your possession physical evidence or intelligence that suggests agents of the ICM, acting in accordance with Council law, or acting outside the Council’s authority, were responsible for the attack on the convention center that killed four members of the United Lycanthrope Republic?”

  The resulting silence is so thick you could cut it with a knife.

  “W-What?” I stammer out. “You think the ICM blew up the convention center?”

  “That is not what I said,” Wallace growls. “You know what I said. And I expect you to answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the question.”

  The image of the blackened wards on the steel support beam cycles in and out of my head. A practitioner definitely laid them, but was it an ICM practitioner, clean or rogue, or was it someone else? An unaffiliated sorcerer? An inhuman practitioner? I don’t know—no one does. Our investigation started earlier today. We haven’t had the chance to unravel the web of mysteries yet. But all the walls feel like they’re closing in around us, around me, very fast.

  If I answer yes, based on conjecture about recent ICM rogue activity, what will Wallace do? Report to the Congress that ICM practitioners murdered four members of the Wolf community? And what will the Congress do with that information? Cut off diplomatic channels with the ICM? Declare war? Something worse I can’t even fathom?

  But if I answer no, based on my current lack of information, and it turns out the ICM, or the rogues, like Marcus, were behind the attack…

  Wallace didn’t give me a maybe option. But I’ll have to take it anyway. The risks beneath any other answer are simply too great.

  The Wolf takes a single step toward me, reading into my hesitation. “Something on your mind, Kinsey?”

  I roll the words around my tongue before I reply, “I do not have, in my possession, physical evidence or other intelligence that proves agents of the ICM, acting in accordance with Council law, or acting outside the Council’s authority, were responsible for the attack on the convention center.”

  “Proves?” Wallace says. “What about suggests?”

  “DSI has one piece of evidence, one, that implies magic was involved in the attack. The source of this magic has yet to be determined.”

  “But it could have been the ICM, or their rogues?”

  “And it could have been somebody else. Vampires, for example.”

  Wallace suddenly staggers back as if I pushed him, and the aggressive tension in his stance melts away. “Oh, I see. So you really don’t know.”

  “Don’t know what?” My suspicion meter dings loudly. “What do you know that I don’t? Something about vampires?”

  “Uh, well, it was nice chatting with you, Kinsey. But I have somewhere to be.” He starts to walk away from me.

  “Hey! What happened to ‘open and immediate communication’? You hypocrite! You don’t get to…” I reach out to grab his arm, but he’s too quick to catch. He dives off to the side, and by the time he lands, he’s already covered in fur and sporting four huge paws that swiftly carry him away into the night. I’m left standing there with my arm outstretched, looking like a fool, as Wallace lopes through the grass, crosses the street fifty yards away, and vanishes into an alley.

  Note to self: The next time you see that bastard, punch him in the face.

  And to think I tried to be nice to him last time we met.

  I swear, someday I’m going to—

  Footsteps coming up behind me.

  I whip out my gun and spin sharply on my toes, only to see Naomi Sing racing out of the haze toward me. She slows when she catches sight of me, beaten and bruised but still standing, and comes to a stop a few feet away, doubling over to catch her breath. “Kinsey,” she heaves out between gasps, “good god! You have to stop scaring me like that. I thought for sure you were dead this time.”

  “Sorry, Captain. I got a little, uh, carried away?”

  She throws me a critical look. “Not funny.”

  I flash her a weary grin. “Come on, it was a little funny.”

  Naomi frowns, but the disapproval cracks at the edges. “How on earth does your team deal with you, Kinsey?”

  “You know, I’m not sure they do.”

  Her gaze jumps to the dismembered zombie behind me, and she recoils in disgust. “What the hell happened there?”

  “Oh, that?” I look off to where Vincent Wallace disappeared. “That’s a really interesting story. I’ll tell you all about it on the way back to our teams.”

  Her skepticism is palpable, but she nods anyway. “I look forward to hearing it. I think. Anyway…” She pats a slim strap on her thigh, which holds a case with her smartphone in it. “During one of the interims in the fighting, I managed to snap a couple pictures of our hostiles. Hopefully, an analyst, or maybe an archivist, can identify these creatures and we can figure out their role in the attack on the convention center.” She sighs. “If there are any available agents, of course.”

  “Well, I can think of at least one.” Although Cooper is probably busy with the security tapes, and we really do need to pin down the mole before he strikes again.

  A series of unanswered text messages come to mind.

  “Or maybe we could use an outside resource,” I add.

  “Outside resource?”

  “Yeah. Can you send those pictures to my phone? I’ll forward them to someone who’s helped us on past DSI cases.”

  “Who?” She tugs her phone out of its case. “I can send them on directly.”

  “Well, this person’s involvement in our cases has been confidential. I don’t want to reveal their identity without permission from Captain Riker, in case he thinks it’s a bad idea to let more people in on the secret. No offense.”

  She considers my response, clearly apprehensive, but she lets it slide. “Okay, I’ll send them to you now.” She taps quickly on her phone screen, and my own phone buzzes a moment later. “And when we regroup, I’ll ask Captain Riker about this mysterious third-party resource.”

  “You do that.”

  “I wi
ll.”

  I motion over her shoulder, at the disaster zone that might still be crawling with zombie monsters eager to slash us to death. “So, how about we take the long way around?”

  Naomi’s shoulders droop, and she groans softly. “Kinsey, that is the most sensible thing you’ve said all night.”

  Chapter Ten

  Over the next hour and a half, I get yelled at four times. First by Ella, for losing my mask and breathing in harmful substances all the way back to the north perimeter. Second by Riker, for sort of letting Naomi in on the fact we practically have a spy inside the ICM and forcing him to tell her the entire story. Third by the EMT who yanks my nose back into alignment, due to the fact that I whine the whole time like a colicky baby until the last piece of tape is firmly stuck to my face. And fourth by myself, for letting Vincent Wallace so easily slip out of my grasp.

  “Don’t worry about it, Cal,” Ella says from the driver’s seat of the SUV on our way back to the office. She eyes me through the rearview mirror. “Whatever Wallace, and the werewolves at large, are hiding about their involvement in the convention center attack, we’ll wring it out of them.”

  “I’ll make an official inquiry with the Congress first,” Riker grumbles. He’s got the front passenger seat reclined so far that the headrest is only a few inches from my face. “That’ll put them on edge and push them into speeding up whatever plot they’ve got rolling in Aurora. And the faster they run, the more likely it is they’ll make mistakes. And we’ll be on their asses the moment they make one. Or better yet, we can put Naomi’s team to task on them while we continue focusing on the practitioners who took down the convention center.”

  “Think her team’s still up for it after tonight?” Desmond asks, picking at a small white bandage on his chin. “Joe Adelman will be in the hospital overnight; he lost a lot of blood. And Jake Adelman is distraught due to his brother’s condition. Newman and Li, along with Sing, suffered only minor cuts and bruises, but they’re exhausted from all the fighting—”

  “We all are,” Amy cuts in. “That’s not an excuse to stop working.” She drops her feet on the console between the front seats and shuts her eyes, mimicking a nap even though she keeps talking. “Don’t forget we rerouted Ramirez and Delarosa to watch the west wing for more ‘zombie’ activity, despite the fact they spent the last hour digging people out of a collapsed hallway. All their agents are bone tired, but we forced them to keep working anyway until Nakamura returns to the convention center in the morning with the next rotation. Sing and her team shouldn’t be expected to push themselves any less. In fact, we should expect more. They’re an elite team, like us. And we aren’t clocking out anytime soon, are we?”

  Ella stifles a yawn. “I hate to say it, but you’re right, Amy. Working with the two-day deadline from that riddle, we’re not going to have much downtime. No one is, DSI or otherwise, until the entire expanse of the convention center has been thoroughly combed for survivors. So, yeah, I guess Naomi’s team will have to suck it up and keep working, as soon as Joe is discharged from the hospital.”

  “Well, we do need some sleep,” Riker says. “Bollinger was on point with that.”

  “We’ll have to take his suggestion and sleep in shifts.” Desmond shrugs. “We’ll send one or two people home at a time for, say, six-hour breaks, while the rest keep working.”

  Riker inhales deeply, and though I can’t see his face, I know he’s trying to think up another solution. But he falls short. “That’s all we can do, I suppose. We’ll start the first sleep shift after we run through decon and update the case files with our experiences fighting these levitating zombies.”

  “And book Cal’s evidence into the lockup.” Ella looks at me expectantly. “You’re sure that’s what they were after, right? The pen?”

  “Yep.” I tug the pen from the interior pocket of my coat. “One of the zombies had the pen in its boot—that’s where I found it—and the last one I fought tried to recover it.”

  Amy snatches the pen from me. “So what is it? A charmed object?”

  Desmond snatches the pen from her. “I think that’s a given. The better question is: who does the pen belong to?”

  “Did belong to.” Riker glances over his shoulder at the gleaming gold pen. “If that pen was in the west wing, its owner almost certainly perished in the explosion.”

  “I’ll run it past Cooper when I have a chance. Maybe he can glean something from it.” I reach past Amy and recover the pen. “Until then, let’s make sure it stays in the lockup. We don’t want anybody getting chased across the city by those damn zombies because they have this thing in their possession.”

  “Definitely not,” Ella says. “But hopefully the zombies will stay clear of the disaster zone now that the pen is no longer there, so the rescue teams can safely resume operations.”

  My phone buzzes on my belt. I pluck it out of its clip and glance at the screen.

  “That Erica?” Riker asks.

  “Sure is.” I unlock the screen, open my message app, and click on Erica’s latest text. I’m a little miffed that she didn’t respond to any of my personal texts earlier today, but almost immediately replied after I contacted her about business.

  “What’d she say?” Ella taps her fingers on the steering wheel as she waits for a stoplight to change. “Can she identify the zombie creatures?”

  “Actually, she only wrote one line.” I read the text three times, like more words will magically appear. They don’t. “Meet me at the diner at 2:00 AM.”

  “That’s it?” Amy huffs. “Can’t she give us info over the phone?”

  “I guess not.” I shove the phone back onto my belt. “Hope you guys burned through all that Mexican food. Looks like we’ll be eating again at two.”

  Amy’s nose scrunches up. “Is it the same diner we met at last year? When did that become our official secret meeting place?”

  Desmond snorts. “I believe we have Calvin to thank for that.”

  “Don’t you mean blame?” Riker mutters.

  The whole SUV has a quiet laugh. Except me.

  I stick my tongue out at them. “Hey, they have good food.”

  “Sure, Cal,” Ella says. “Sure.”

  After we return to the office, we all shower (again), toss our uniforms in the wash (again), dress in the musty-smelling sets of street clothes we keep in our lockers, drop the fountain pen off at the evidence lockup, stop by Archives to check on Cooper and inform him we didn’t die in the field—Cooper is, as expected, hard at work on the security tapes—and, finally, hop in a new SUV that isn’t covered in convention center dust. (The one we were driving has to be decontaminated. Again.)

  By the time we’re pulling out of the garage, it’s already half past one. We drive up to the Mom and Pop diner right on time, and Ella parks the SUV in a street-side space.

  As we file out of the vehicle, onto the sidewalk, I peer through one of the diner’s windows and spy Erica in the same booth we all crammed ourselves into last time. Her long, dark hair is undone and hangs over her shoulders, pooling on the tabletop, as she stares into the steaming cup of coffee between her hands. She’s hunched over, motionless, as if she’s thinking intently about a difficult subject. Her face is obscured by her hair, but I can tell her jaw is set hard, her lips stuck in a cold scowl.

  It’s not often I see Erica in such a bad mood.

  But then, I haven’t seen much of her lately, so for all I know, she’s been angry as hell since the night she killed Marcus on Primrose Avenue.

  As Ella is locking up the SUV, Riker is working out a kink in his bad leg, and Amy and Desmond are murmuring to each other, I subtly back away from my team and enter the diner first. Erica perks up at the sound of the bells on the door jingling, and I feel her attention on me as I draw near even though she doesn’t turn her head. Back rigid, shoulders stiff, she makes no sudden movements, like she’s waiting to see if I’m going to lash out at her, like she’s cycling through possible counterattacks.


  Her behavior seems almost paranoid, which is another trait I don’t associate with Erica Milburn.

  I don’t know what’s happened to her in the time we’ve been apart, but life apparently hasn’t treated her well in the wake of Marcus’ betrayal.

  Slipping into the booth, I situate myself across from her and interlace my hands on the table, in plain sight. Try to indicate I’m not a threat. Try to dispel whatever black cloud is hanging over Erica’s head.

  At first, she doesn’t respond to me at all. She keeps her gaze focused on her coffee, her hands locked around the ceramic cup, her knuckles nearly white. Then the door jingles again, the rest of my team enters the diner, and Erica suddenly swats that cloud away as hard as she can, sits up straight, releases her death grip on the coffee cup, and plasters on a strained smile.

  “Been a while, hot Crow,” she says. Her voice is weaker, softer, less confident than I remember. “I see you’ve been up to your usual tricks, getting the crap beaten out of yourself.”

  I ignore the dull ache in my ass and reply, “Yeah, well, some of us are always on call.”

  She winces but doesn’t respond to the jab.

  Once everyone is seated, Riker takes over the conversation. “So, Erica, have you had a chance to look over the images Cal sent you earlier? Do you have any information on these creatures?”

  “They’re called wraiths,” she says. “And they’re exceptionally illegal under ICM law.”

  “Exceptionally illegal?” Amy asks. “That makes it sound like—”

  Desmond nudges Amy and nods toward an oncoming waitress. To my complete lack of surprise, it’s the same waitress who served us last time. The woman remembers us, I can tell, but she has the sense not to ask any questions that don’t relate to food. Despite the fact that most of us aren’t too hungry, we all humor the lady and place light orders, and the waitress walks away with a full page in her notebook, content to serve us none the wiser to our covert activities in a public place.