Edged Blade (22 page)

Justin winked at me. “Told you it was good.”

“No. Not
good
.
Dangerous
.” I reached out and shoved his bottle away, too. “What did they do, coat the glasses with candy crack?”

“Hell, Kit.” He looked both exasperated and amused. “I’m not Tate. I’m not Doyle. I don’t need an intervention.”

“Another few drinks of that and
I
might need an intervention.”

Justin started to laugh, but it faded as he caught sight of the look on my face. A raised, furious voice from the bar had me glancing away from his face for a moment before I looked back.

“I’m serious.” I went to reach for the bottle. My fingers brushed the neck as a scuffle broke out up front.

In the span of time it took me to pick that bottle up, the scuffle went from an awful fight and in what seemed like mere heartbeats, a body flew across the air and smashed onto the table in front of us.

Or rather, the table where we
had
been.

My body had taken over and I’d driven my feet into the floor, shoving back. The empty booth behind us, the table, all of them had toppled and we were now roughly five feet back from where we had been.

And I was still holding Justin’s Redkin.

The only reason I even noticed
that
was because of the way the shifter on the table seemed to focus on it.

The look was almost comical.

Really.

Cocking my head, I shifted the bottle to the left and his gaze swung to the left. I brought it back and his gaze followed—then he stopped, his attention cutting upward to my face.

The whole interaction lasted seconds.

But it had been seconds too long.

“Justin?” I murmured softly.

“Yeah.”

There were times when it was just poetry to work with somebody who knew you like yesterday. Today was one of those days. I passed the drink to Justin and moved to block him, drawing the blade at my hip.

I readied myself to hear something from the bartender but to my surprise, he was leaning against the surface, arms across, a smug smile twisting his lips. Wonder what had
him
so happy.

The blast of magic warmed my back as the shapeshifter sank lower. Another pulse of energy rippled into the air.

“Out of my way, little girl.”

Inky black rolled across the gaze of the creature in front of me, followed by a wash of black that flowed under the man’s face as he paced closer to him.

I swung my blade between us, warming up my wrist as I kept my body between the wererat and Justin.

“Now why would I want to do that?” I asked him.

“So I don’t fuck you up?” he offered.

“Hmmm.” I pondered that. “Decisions.”

He lunged, leading up with upper body and I waited until the last moment to twist away. My blade slide across his soft belly, parting flesh like butter and his howl went from enraged to pained as the silver hit his system. I chanced a look out of the corner of my eye and saw that Justin had produced a vial from somewhere and some of the contents of the brew were now inside it. In the next blink, that vial was tucked away in his vest.

The hair on the back of my neck prickled and I swung my head around just in time to see the rat lurch in my direction once more. When he struck out, it was with one meaty, huge,
human
fist. By the time it connected with the space where I had been, it was furred and deformed and clawed.

Too many shifters were used to fighting with nothing more than their strength. Pair them up with somebody who actually knew how to fight—and who knew how to compensate for their greater strength—and they were stumped. The punch threw him off balance and I moved in, brought the butt of my sword down on the back of his head with all my strength. Something cracked and he groaned, swayed.

Without waiting a blink, I took his legs out from under him and he crashed into the ground. I used the blade to skewer him, pinning him to the floor like an ugly, giant, overgrown bug.

The fur that had been bleeding across his form froze at the insult of silver striking his system. He whined in pain. “Hurts like a bitch, I bet,” I said cheerfully. He thrashed and then stilled as the movement sent fresh bursts of pain spinning through him. Placing one booted foot high on his spine, I pressed down. “You might want to be still.”

He lapsed into motionlessness as I looked up, skimming the room with a hard stare.

The server was cowering near the bar.

That despair seemed to ooze from her pores.

Andrulis’ shadow fell across mine and a moment later, Justin joined him. “Justin, I think we’ll have to have a talk with this gentleman,” I said.

“I figured that.” He came up next to me and I held still as he pulled something out of his pocket.

I recognized it a moment later—cuffs, designed specifically for creatures like the one beneath me. Titanium and silver, reinforced by magic—with a surprise inside.

I leaned a little harder on the blade buried inside the trembling rat. “Boy, you picked a bad, bad day to go slipping people some funny shit in their drinks. My friend is a mean one.”

He tensed, but he couldn’t do anything with the sword that skewered him. The silver effectively weakened him to the point that he couldn’t twist free without ripping through bone or flesh. Plenty of shifters could do that, but he wasn’t high-level enough. When Justin knelt down, the rat started to whimper again, loud, sniveling noises that were almost embarrassing.

Andrulis must have thought so, too. He thumped his staff loudly on the floor next to the rat and said, “Shit! You sound like a little boy hiding from the monster in the closet. Grow some balls.”

I bit back a laugh and stepped back, watching as Justin closed the cuffs. I braced myself and couldn’t stop the wince as the spell inside them also activated.

Silver punched through the rat’s wrists, coming out of the cuffs, thin spears of it that immobilized him and made sure he didn’t attempt to rip free. If he did, he’d shred his flesh. At the same time, thin strands snaked up his arms, twisting around his upper body, all but mummifying him.

The cuffs were Justin’s, made much thicker than typically needed to be and the outer layers were held together by magic. His magic. Once they were clapped into place, the magic was activated and the end result wasn’t much different than a straitjacket made of silver.

While Justin finished dealing with him, I evaluated the current situation.

Fear choked the air.

Two servers gathered near the bar, all but clinging to each other, while the others stood in various positions watching with expressions that ranged from amusement to bewilderment to boredom. Those, I wrote off. If they knew what was going on, they’d be scared. So I focused on the ones reeking of fear.

One of the servers actually
flinched
when I looked at her.

I pretended not to notice and continued to study the rest of the room.

Somebody slunk close to the side door. He probably thought he was subtle with it, but there was nothing subtle about the antsy way he shifted from one foot to the other, or the way he beat out a nervous rhythm on his legs, his hands impromptu drumsticks.

Andrulis glanced casually toward the door then back at me.

My gut remained silent, so I thought,
What the hell
. I gave him a slight nod.

There was one other.

He sat at the bar, back to us, like he was completely unaware of everything going on. He was so aware, however, I would be surprised if he hadn’t taken notice of my bra size. He had dense black hair with a thick stripe of white running through, just slightly off center.

When I took one step forward, he lunged for the front door.

Everything happened at once.

Drummer Boy raced toward one door while Stripe took the other.

I flung a dagger, watched as it buried itself in the door just an inch past the man’s shoulder. He paused for a split second and I used that second to palm another dagger. As he neared the door, I threw again—a larger dagger, practically a small sword. It went through his upper shoulder and he screamed as it pinned him awkwardly to the wall. I strode toward him as he jerked against it.

I didn’t worry about him dislodging it.

He wasn’t human, but he wasn’t shifter or vampire, either. That made him less of a threat. Offshoots were rarely as powerful as the other breeds of crazy that populated our world.

“You.” Lifting my blade, I pressed the tip of it to his throat. His struggles stopped. “Why were you running?”

His response was to spit at me.

I saw it coming and dodged to the side in time—barely.

That was so damn nasty. Why did people do that?

I pressed harder with the blade. “Try it again, and I’m going to ventilate your throat,” I warned him.

“You can’t touch me,” he said, panting. “You got no idea who I work for. I’m untouchable.”

“Oh, really?” I dragged my blade across his throat and watched as blood welled. The crimson streak of it made me smile. “I just touched you…you want to run home and tell Mommy?”

“Maybe we should,” Justin suggested as he joined me. The silver on his sleeves was sparking bright and hard. “I gotta admit, I
really
want to know who his mommy is, Kit. Think she’ll let us join them for dinner?”

“You find out who I work for and you just might
be
dinner.”

Justin’s smile was vicious and bright. “Oh, perfect.”

He struck out.

The magic hit, hard and fast.

The man sagged.

I had to catch him before he tore the hell out of his muscles, pinned to the wall like a macabre butterfly the way he was.

“What t’ fuck’s goin’…”

The voice came from the door and I whipped my head around to see who it was, although the way the words abruptly went silent, I had a bad, bad feeling.

Saul Tremble was an average man. Almost uncommonly average, if such a thing were possible. He had hair of a dirty, dishwater blond and eyes of indiscriminate hazel-brown. His face was neither round nor square and his jawline wasn’t soft enough to look weak, but it didn’t have the kind of firm edge that would make him stand out.

He stood a good five foot ten, if I had to hazard a guess, and I pegged him to weigh about 180. He wasn’t overweight, nor was he uncommonly skinny—or fit.

The
only
thing about him that stood out to me was the fact that
nothing
stood out.

Oh, and the fact that he practically
exuded
panic.

When he caught sight of Justin, a light flared in the back of his eyes. A game smile curved his lips, though, and I watched as he lifted a hand in greeting. “Greaves, man. What are you doing down here in hell? I didn’t think the Abyss was your speed.”

Justin bared his teeth in a mockery of a smile as he turned to face the man we’d come here to find.

So maybe he’d found us, but I was still going to call it a successful night.

I caught the hilt of my blade and managed to yank it one-handed from the wall while I continued to brace Stripe. Once the blade was free, I let the son-of-a-bitch go. He hit the ground with a muffled thud. A bloody streak decorated the wall where he’d stood.

“Looks like you had a run-in with Dally.” Saul smiled. It was a little more confident than the last one. Since Justin hadn’t killed him yet, I guess he felt more secure.

That just proved what an idiot he was. Justin wouldn’t kill until he had what he needed.

“He’s a sad little dickwad,” Saul said, still talking, his voice too laidback and easy to call it jabbering—but he wasn’t waiting for a response and his gaze didn’t linger in any one spot, either. “Likes to rough up the girls.” He shot me a look. “He get too rough with you, honey?”

For a second, the words didn’t process. Then I had to fight not to pick my jaw up. Did he mean—

“I need information,” Justin cut in, his voice iced.

“Yeah, yeah.” Saul looked around, eyes bouncing over the two servers who still hovered near the bar. They wouldn’t look at him and I saw a muscle pulse in his jaw, watched his eyes flicker before his gaze slid back to us. “Sure. I tell you what, we’ll just grab us a booth—”

“Can’t be here. Confidential.” Justin’s hands hung loose at his sides.

Saul nodded. “I’ll just go get dressed then.”

He turned.

Justin moved to follow.

I could hear how Saul had picked up his pace, his bare feet slapping on the wooden floor. Justin disappeared through the door. Then he swore and I could hear him all but running.

I rushed for the door and then stopped.

Justin partially blocked my view, but I shifted a little more, just enough to see around his lean body and what I saw made my brows go up.

Saul lay sprawled on the ground, head turned toward me, a dazed look on his face. There was a woman standing over him and I looked at her long and hard, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.

“Marcia.”

She cocked her head, not saying a single word.

I glanced to the side and saw the bartender, a man who was almost ridiculously pretty, standing there. “Please tell me you didn’t injure him too grievously, love.”

“No.” She nudged him with her foot, her nose wrinkling. “He still breathes.” After a moment, she added, “And he’ll be able to talk. For a while at least.”

She looked at me, then, and the green-gold of her eyes flashed to wolf-green.

“That should have been more useful.”

We watched as the black van pulled away, driven by Marcia. John was in the back with Tremble—apparently, his partner had too much of a temper to be trusted around the skin trader. They’d taken him out through the back, although it seemed a wasted effort. Absolutely nobody in the Abyss would pay any attention to anything that didn’t involve their own neck.

“Think Dair hired them?” I asked softly.

“No idea.” He hesitated for a moment and then said, “Probably. Or at least he knows they’re here. I’ve heard of them. They play by the rules so they wouldn’t have been digging around in the MacDonald’s backyard without his authorization.”