Page 25 of Bold Mercy

“No. It had nothing to do with you or what she heard. She knew it wasn’t true. This has been a long time coming. People like her shouldn’t be with people like me.” Finally, he met my stare, and I wasn’t surprised to see that his was blank. “I have to get to work.”

“Me too.” I started to tell him to be careful as he walked me to the door, but that seemed to upset people. “Thanks for taking care of my blade,” I said instead.

“You can trust me, Kait.”

The words were abrupt and unexpected, heavy with seriousness and a feeling of urgency, and I stopped walking to face him. “I know.”

He studied me for a few seconds. “Do you? Do you really trust anybody?”

I swallowed. “When I can.”

He nodded. “Call me if you need me. Be careful out there.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “You too, Detective.”

He didn’t mention the serial killer and I knew he would have if there’d been any new developments, so I didn’t waste time questioning him. He stood on the porch watching me and the four wolves walk back to my car. I was sure he’d like to have questioned me about them, as well, but it was not a night to ask questions.

I stopped when I reached my car, goosebumps rising suddenly on my skin. I lifted my face to the cold, fresh air, closing my eyes as I inhaled. None of the wolves said a word, just stood quiet and ready.

“She’s close,” I told them, finally. I was suddenly glad for the protective vest my contact had sent me. I hadn’t forgotten the troll in the tunnels. The dog-turned-vampire had been right up there with some of the most horrible things I’d ever seen. I hadn’t told another soul about that dog. And now that I’d learned that some of the vampires were able to withstand a waning sun, I had a new item to add to the junk drawer of horror in my mind.

And though I had yet to see her, Avis Vine was in that drawer. Avis Vine, who was standing in the shadows of the night, watching me. I felt her there, the bitch, her and her evil intent. She was on a mission to destroy not only me and those I loved, but the city and the vampires. She was going to die, but in her misery, perhaps she didn’t care. Most vampires feared their waiting afterlife more than anything else in existence.

She had to know I was going to send her to that afterlife.

“Where is she?” Eli murmured. He didn’t search the shadows, didn’t make it obvious that we knew she was there, but it didn’t matter. She was taunting us as surely as if she’d been standing in the middle of the street with a dead human in her arms.

The detective’s street, a quiet residential street to begin with, was completely silent. His neighbors were mostly older professionals, and they took the law seriously—as well as the danger lurking outside their doors. They’d blockaded themselves in their homes, pulled their blinds, and wouldn’t have answered a knock on their door no matter what.

Smart people.

Rick left the porch and headed for his car, surprised that I lingered. “Kait?”

For a few seconds, I was frozen with terror, imagining Avis watching him, licking her lips with eager, greedy hunger, dreaming of making me watch as she tore him to pieces.

“Rick,” I said, my voice hoarse. “Get in your car.”

He pulled his gun immediately and crouched slightly, turning in a half circle to check the area. “Where, Kait?”

Shit. Everyone wanted to know where she was. I didn’t know. She was every-fucking-where. Her scent wafted to me from behind me and down the street, from the hedge at the front of the house across the way, from the roof of the detective’s house.

She’d rushed around, leaving her scent to confuse me, and I could not pinpoint exactly where she now stood.

“Eli, get Rick,” I said, my voice calm even as my heart thumped like an out-of-control drum. And only when the wolves surrounded the detective and brought him into the safety of our circle could I force myself to relax enough to think. “Give me a second,” I said, before anyone could speak.

And there in the eerie quiet of the cold street, I went to get my wolf.