“We’re going to go straight there.”

“How?”

I smiled. “Eve will take us.”

Her face paled. “You mean the Harpy? I don’t think that’s safe.”

“I’m sorry, did you think this was a picnic? Did you think that going after a mad Necromancer was going to be safe?” I laughed at her. “I can see why Daniels is taking over your coven or whatever the hell a bunch of Druids is called. You’re a f**king sissy.”

Will looked to me, and then to his sister. “Deanna, you knew what was going to be asked of you.”

“You’d side with her?” His sister glared at him.

“You sided with my Destruction against me.”

Deanna paled. Ooh, that was a shot to the gut.

I stood up, shouldering the crossbow, and checking all the sheath straps on my body. Everything was secure. Pointedly, I ignored Deanna and her outrage, her fervently whispered words to Will. Did I need the Druid? Yes, one hundred percent. But if she was going to question how we were doing things, she wouldn’t be a help; she’d just be a serious liability. Not exactly what I wanted, but it wouldn’t be the first time someone who was supposed to help me backed out at the last second. Of course, that made me think about Milly, which made me think about the fact that she’d ensnared O’Shea. Which only served to blacken my mood further.

“Are you coming with me or not?” I asked.

Deanna shook her head. “I’ll not come with you, no.” I glared at her and she held up her hand. “I said I’d help you and I will. I’ll go with William.”

Not exactly what I was hoping for, but better than a poke in the eye with a fork.

Pamela put her hands on her h*ps and glared at the Druid. “You know what, I’m glad you aren’t going. You just showed me what you Druids are really like. Even if you tried to take me to your stupid Druids, I wouldn’t go. You’re a coward.”

My eyebrows shot into my hairline. The witch was a spitfire, I’d give her that.

With a flounce in her step, she moved to my side. “I’ll come with you.”

I put a hand on her shoulder. “Okay, let’s go. Will?” His eyes met mine and I held his gaze. “Make it snappy.”

“You got it.”

Alex whimpered. “Alex wants to go with Rylee and Evie and Pamie.” His tail thumped weakly on the floor and he put his front paws together, begging. “Please.”

I crouched down, lifted up one of his floppy ears, and did a stage whisper into it, making sure Will heard me. “You need to keep an eye on the kitty and the Druid for me. Okay? Make sure they don’t do anything wrong.”

Before I let go of his ear, he was nodding, and then he wrinkled his lips up over his teeth in a ridiculous grin that made my heart squeeze. Gods, what would I do without Alex? What a horrible, boring, stale life I would lead.

Pamela and I headed out first to the police station. For once, the seemingly incessant rain had eased. Perfect for flying out in. Well, maybe not perfect, but better than being pelted with fat rain hundreds of feet in the air.

We nodded at the two officers who stepped in behind to follow us; I felt their footsteps stutter when Will, Deanna and Alex came out of the suite and headed toward the car.

Decisions, decisions.

I draped an arm across Pamela’s shoulders. “When we get to the police station, your job is to pin anyone who tries to stop us to the wall. Just hold them there. Can you do that?”

She smiled. “Yes. And now I can tie off the spell so I don’t have to be in the room to hold them.”

This kid was way beyond what I expected in talent. Giselle and her predictions; who knew that even in her madness she was trying to help?

“When did you have time to practice?”

“When I was sitting in the tree. I started pinning the bugs up so they wouldn’t crawl on me.”

Laughing, we walked into the police station. The looks we got from the officers ranged from outright disgust—I suppose a child hacking off zombie limbs would do that—to fear, to curiosity, right down to anger.

Of course, the anger was coming from one Dr. Daniels limping toward us. “There she is! She attacked me and sent me to the hospital with a sword wound! I have the hospital paperwork to prove it. I am taking the child away from her right—”

Dr. Daniels was picked up and slammed against the far wall. Pamela glowered at her. “I’m staying with Rylee.”

Then, of course, everything sort of hit the fan. Officers rushed to help the doctor; officers rushed us. Pamela did an admirable job pinning up people. Like flies on sticky tape they hung anywhere from three feet to seven feet up the wall. Some she hung upside down, sideways and diagonal.

Agent Valley came out of the main office, spluttering with rage. But it was the twinkle in his eyes and the quirk to his lips that told me I’d once again been played. I figured it out in the heartbeat before Pamela picked him up and pinned him to the ceiling.

He wanted me to do this, wanted me to break the rules. That way it wasn’t on the FBI’s shoulders if it went wrong.

The greasy little manipulator!

Well, we’d just see how smart everyone thought he was.

“Agent Valley, thank you for clearing the path for us. As always, it’s a pleasure doing business with the FBI. But next time, my fees will be double.”

His whole body spasmed against the ceiling and when he opened his mouth, Pamela gagged him.

“How did you know?” I asked as we sauntered through the building to the stairwell leading up to the roof.

“I thought he was going to say something mean to you again. And I didn’t want him to.”

Her words were an eerie echo of Alex. The two of them both wanted to protect me, and all I wanted was to make sure they were safe. A dark premonition trickled along my senses, making my gut twist. There would come a day when their loyalty would get them killed. Before that happened, I would have to send them on their way.

We ran up the stairs, but I was lost in my thoughts. I knew why Jack was alone. There was so much danger involved with being a Tracker. And for some stupid reason we inspired loyalty in those we were supposed to be protecting.

Bursting out the top door onto the roof, I heard shouting below.

“The spell must have worn off.” Pamela frowned. “I’m sorry, I thought it would last longer.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I looked around for something to jam the door with. Eve could be tricky to wake up and if her head jammed under her wing was any indication, she was deep in sleep. Which meant I needed a little more time. The roof was littered with garbage pipe, leftovers from some renovation or another. I grabbed the closest piece that was about four feet long and jammed it under the door handle, burying the end in the loose gravel of the roof.

“Eve,” I shouted from where I was. “I need you to wake up. We’ve got problems!”

The Harpy grumbled in her sleep and lifted her head. “Rylee?”

“Yeah, we’ve got—”

The door thumped from the other side, the weight of a few officers behind it.

“You awake enough to take me and Pamela for a fly about?”

Eve ruffled her wings. She’d only gotten a few hours sleep and I knew I was asking a lot of her. Now I was glad she’d come, though I had been less than grateful when she’d first landed.

With a beak-clacking yawn, she nodded. “Yes, I can take you two.”

I pushed Pamela ahead of me and we ran to Eve’s side. We skidded to a stop and I was in the middle of boosting Pamela up when the door banged open. Agent Valley was at the front of the pack.

“ADAMSON!”

I gave him a wave, and then blew him a kiss. “You got it, boss. I’m on the case, just like you said!”

Leaping up behind Pamela, I wrapped my arms around her and buried my hands in Eve’s feathers. The Harpy launched straight up, her powerful wings sweeping out around us in a gust of wind and dust. When I looked down, the rooftop crawled with people. Denning had finally shown up, though he’d been MIA since before the zombie attack. By the looks of things as we banked to the south, Denning and Valley were arguing. At least, Valley took a swing at Denning just before we lost them from sight.

“Just head south, Eve. And stay high enough that we can’t be seen from the ground.”

“Not a problem,” she said.

Pamela shivered and I tightened my arms around her. Though in some ways she reminded me of Berget, in others she was completely opposite. Her coloring, of course, her age was close to what Berget would be now, and her loyalty. But Berget had never had a feisty bone in her; in that, Pamela was so different. I had to believe that whoever had taken Berget had treated her well, because I doubted she would have survived otherwise. Pamela, on the other hand, would survive with or without me. She was, in some ways, more like me than I’d thought at first.

Already, she was growing and changing, her acceptance of this new world she’d been introduced to as natural as if she’d been born to it. A blessing and curse all rolled into a tidy little package, one that she would have her entire life, however long that would end up being.

I Tracked the kids and sat bolt upright. Fuck, the Necromancer had moved them! I felt the pull as strongly as before, a tether that circled around and pulled me in the opposite direction of where we were headed.

“Eve, swing around. The kids have been moved.”

Pamela sucked in a breath. “How will Alex and Deanna and Will find us?”

I grit my teeth as Eve banked hard to the left, her body slicing through the skim of clouds around us.

“They won’t.”

23

Milly had him standing with his nose pressed into the corner of her hotel room, like he was some ill-behaved child. He could hear and smell, but that was it. The witch’s perfume was overwhelming, the scent of roses so heavy it felt like he was suffocating in it.

The vampire was back, which was what had precipitated O’Shea’s current position.

“I’m telling you, I have complete control over him,” Milly snapped.