Fuck me, I’d thought I was in trouble for a minute. I pulled the edge of my shirt down and traced the black snowflake etched into my skin on my chest bone. Demon venom had nearly done me in, the first time my Immunity hadn’t protected me completely. Mind you, I’d been able to keep the world from spiralling into an ice age, so I suppose that was something. But the thought that my Immunity wasn’t up to snuff again . . . I wasn’t sure I liked that. So it was a relief to feel the imprinting fade and slowly slough off.

Letting out a deep, shaky breath, I turned and made my way back to the main room. Pamela and Alex sat where my desk had been. The whole place looked like a typhoon had ripped through, followed by a Giant on a mating quest. Nothing was left untouched, people included.

There were a few officers that had been bitten, and I could see it in their faces, the fear that they would be turned into zombies.

“Oh, get the f**k over it,” I snapped. “You watch too many stupid B-rated movies and you think you understand the supernatural? Fuck. You have to be DEAD to become a zombie.”

I shook my head as I walked through the room. “What a bunch of idiots.” I looked over the different zombies. Male, female, the only thing was there were no kids, just adults. All of them were way far gone, like they’d been zombies for a long time. Maybe the Necromancer was hoarding zombies. I gave a full body shiver at the thought.

On the far side of the room the one who’d grabbed and bitten me was still twitching; they’d do that for hours even with their heads lopped off. Kind of like chickens.

I put a hand on Pamela’s shoulder. “You did good. Are you okay?”

She nodded. “Yes, but . . . I heard the police. They said that these were people once.”

My eyes closed of their own volition as I tried to put this as delicately as possible. She was, after all, a kid still.

“Yeah, once. But not anymore. Whatever made them human fled when they died and then were raised by the Necromancer.”

Her blonde eyebrows dipped in consternation. “You mean it’s okay to kill them?”

“Yup. I’m going to encourage it. It’s good practice.” I was about to do something that any parent organization, foster care system, and every god damn therapist would have been screaming about. I slid my sword from its sheath off my back.

“Here, take this.” I handed it to Pamela, who took it awkwardly, her eyes widening.

“What do I need this for?”

I pulled the other sword, walked over to the closest zombie and did the most basic of slashes, removing its left arm. I lifted my eyes to hers.

“Practice. Go around, cut off all the limbs and heads you can. Before every slash, check to make sure there is no one close to you.”

She caught her lower lip in her teeth and I saw her pull her back straight. One day she would be strong enough to live in this world. If I could keep her alive.

Agent Valley came stomping in about the time that Pamela took off her first limb. With a squeal of excitement, she spun toward me, gore sliding down the blade.

“I got it!”

“Good job, now keep going.”

With a wide smile on her face, she gave me a thumbs up.

“But keep your mouth shut, zombies taste like shit.”

Her lips clamped together, but her eyes sparkled. That was just another difference between humans and supernaturals. We thrived on magic, weapons and blood; it was in our essence.

The FBI agent stood in front of me, and I pointedly ignored him, watching Pamela as she hacked away.

“She’s making a bigger mess than we need,” he said.

“She’s got good natural movement. One day she’ll kick my ass with a sword if she keeps up the practice.”

Agent Valley grabbed my shoulder, his fingers gripping hard, pinching a nerve.

“Is this a game to you? You run off with one of the officers, kidnap a foster kid while you’re at it, and then to top it off, you piss off some Necromancer so badly he sends a small army to wipe us out via our own basement?” He wasn’t yelling; his voice was soft and intense.

I gave him my best bitch eyes. “Let go of my arm before I have Pamela remove it for you.” His hand slowly dropped, and I dusted off my shoulder. “It’s not a game. But until you realize that things can’t be done within the confines of your rules, things will seem out of control and I won’t tell you what’s going on.”

Jaw flexing, that tell-tale vein throbbed along his neck. “You need to catch this bastard. Now.”

“Are you giving me free rein?”

Boy, I couldn’t wait to hear his answer.

He struggled, his facial muscles twitching, hands giving a slight tremor. Finally, he managed to say it. “You have free rein. Take who you need, but make it fast. Interpol isn’t happy with you—”

“Well, there’s a surprise,” I muttered.

“And they want you gone. As in yesterday. They think they have enough information to take this guy down themselves.”

There was a commotion at the door and we stopped talking to stare as Will limped in, aided by his sister.

“Feels a bit like a bad joke,” I said. “A shape shifter and Druid walk into a police station recently molested by zombies.”

Agent Valley snorted. “You forgot the part about the witch child hacking off zombie limbs with a sword.”

I leaned back and laughed. “You have potential, Agent Valley. This is my life. Welcome to it.”

He stepped closer to me, his face serious. “What do you need to make this happen?”

Lips tight, I dropped my chin to my chest, thinking. I had the Druid I would need to block the Necromancer’s exit. I had a witch at my back and two shifters that would go with me, regardless of whether or not they were one hundred percent.

But there was still that niggling piece of doubt in the back of my mind, courtesy of O’Shea. If I’d never worked with him, I never would have started to question the ‘why’ of things. The easy thing to assume was that the Necromancer was a pervert, was using the children’s bodies for things I’d rather not think about. But that didn’t explain the way the house had been set up, as if the kids were well cared for, even in death.

“Where’s Kyle?”

Agent Valley looked over his shoulder. “In the back office, pissing his pants the last time I checked.”

Giving Agent Valley a nod, I strode past him, heading to the office I’d first been interrogated in. Excuse me, introduced to the ‘team.’

I didn’t knock on the door, just walked right in, startling Kyle. He shot out of his seat, his face pale, eyes so wide they looked like he might have been doing drugs if I didn’t know better.

“Are the zombies dead?”

“Yes. Are you done crapping your pants?” I leaned against the table and smiled at him. He blanched even more. Good. He had a long way to go before he got back in my good books. “You need to get on your little computer and pull up some files for me.”

Kyle nodded rapidly. “Yeah, of course. What do you need?”

“Brittany Mariana Tolvay. She’s a kid that died a long time ago. Find out if there are any relatives still living, what happened to her, anything you can. And make it snappy, I don’t have all f**king day.”

He scrambled to the closest computer and within ten seconds his shaking had subsided. I pulled a chair out, sat down, and leaned my head back so I could stare up at the ceiling and let my mind go blank. For just a moment, I wanted to not think about anything.

It didn’t last long.

Kyle pushed his chair back with a screech. “Okay, I’ve got her. She has one living relative, but I’m thinking it must be a mistake. Same name as her mother, right down to the date of birth. Year is wrong, of course.”

I pushed myself to my feet and went over to his computer, staring at the screen.

Kyle continued to talk, his nerves showing in the rapid fire of his words. “Brittany was killed by influenza, so was her father. Mother survived but went missing within weeks of the kid’s death.” He tapped a few keys and a grainy picture came up of a tall woman, hair pulled back in a severe bun, long dark dress that covered her from her ankles to her chin. “This is her mother. Anne Tolvay. But this is the part that gets creepy.” He tapped a few more keys and a color photo, looked like it was a driver’s licence shot, came up. The same woman now in living color. Her hair was yanked into the same severe bun and her eyes stared straight ahead, a blankness to them that I recognized all too well. I’d seen it more than once on Giselle’s face. Shit, were we dealing with a crazy Necromancer?

I tapped the screen and the computer hissed at me, the monitor going fuzzy. I stepped back. “Where’s this picture from?”

Kyle drummed the keys again, fingers flying. “Garden West Home for the Insane.”

That’s what I was worried about. “Can you pull up her files?”

He didn’t say yes or no, just got back to work. I knew from experience it wouldn’t take him long.

The door to the office creaked open; Pamela stuck her head in.

“Rylee, I think you’d better come out here.”

“What now?” I grumbled, striding to the door.

She smiled and giggled, though it was a tad bit nervous. “There’s a Harpy on the roof.”

21

The rooftop was solid, at least; it would take Eve’s weight. The Harpy was, to say the least, bedraggled. She was soaked through, her feathers having lost their luster in what must have been a knockdown, drag out flight across the Atlantic to make it here this fast. Alex bounded, the best he could in his injured state, around her.

“Evie, Evie, Evie!”

Pamela stood back by the door, her eyes wide with awe. I’d asked her to wait for me there and she hadn’t argued. I couldn’t blame her; a Harpy was nothing to take lightly.

“Eve, I told you that you didn’t need to come,” I said, throwing my hands into the air. “The case will be over in a matter of hours. What the hell were you thinking?” I wasn’t doing my best imitation of calm, but I couldn’t help it. The last thing I needed was another lost soul to deal with. The case was difficult enough as it was.