I held the paper out. Ryan took it and paused, unsure. “Commander, would you like to . . . ?”
Hugh shook his head.
Why are you here? What are you planning?
Ryan read the paper. “Looks right.”
“The People thank the Pack for their generous gift,” Ghastek said.
“The Pack thanks the People for their continued cooperation.” Good, great, let’s get the hell out of here.
Hugh leaned forward, looked at me, and said in a quiet conversational tone, “Do you ever just get bored at these things and want to punch someone?”
“Punch any of mine, and I’ll break your arm off and beat you to death with it.”
“Kate.” Ghastek’s voice vibrated with a warning. “I don’t think you quite grasp the situation.”
Hugh grinned. “That’s my girl.”
Ghastek blinked.
Jim bared all his teeth in a feral snarl.
“Do the People have any other issues?” I asked.
“Not at this time,” Ghastek said, his gaze fixed on me and Hugh.
“Fantastic. The Pack has no further issues either.”
Hugh cleared his throat.
The doors burst open and four people I’d never seen before hauled in a tarp.
I got the hell out of my chair and backed away. My people backed away with me.
The four dropped the tarp on the table with a thud. The plates and cups went flying. The bloody, ripped-up body of a man splayed out in front of us, his clothes shredded and stained with sticky redness. The thick metallic stench of blood hit me.
The two renders behind me went furry in a whirl of twisting flesh.
The corpse’s stomach had been sliced open, the edges carved with the telltale marks of shapeshifter claws. His intestines bulged out in thick clumps. His face was a bloodstained mess, but I recognized him instantly.
Claire screamed. The journeymen shied back from the table. Everyone said something at once.
“Your people murdered Mulradin Grant,” Hugh said, his voice drowning out the others.
“Let’s not lose our heads,” Ghastek warned.
“Show me proof!” Jim snarled.
“Look at the body.” Hugh pointed to the corpse. “He’s all the proof anyone will need.”
Even the greenest recruit fresh out of the police academy would instantly identify these wounds. The spread of the gashes, the pattern, the size of the gouges, all of it was unmistakable. Mulradin had been murdered by a shapeshifter.
“There is no proof that this was done by a member of the Pack,” I barked. “You employ shapeshifters in your goon squad.”
Claire rocked back and forth. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Ghastek said.
Hugh pointed at him. “You—be quiet. The Pack claims dominion over all shapeshifters in the state. They bear full responsibility.”
“Don’t bring my people into it,” I said. “I’ll make you regret it.”
“I love it when you make threats,” Hugh said.
“You’ll love what follows even more.”
Ghastek kept looking at Hugh, then at me, at Hugh, then at me.
“I can’t wait, baby,” Hugh said.
Only Curran called me baby. He was goading me.
“You killed him!” Claire screamed, her voice shrill. “You killed my husband!”
Hugh stepped to her. His voice turned gentle. “They did. Look. Look at him. Your husband suffered before he died. Don’t you want to do something about it? Don’t you want to make the animals pay?”
Claire’s face went white. She grabbed at the metal bracelet on her arm.
“Stop!” Ghastek’s voice snapped like a whip.
Hugh spun to him. “It’s his will. Let it happen.”
Ghastek took a step back. “It’s our city. I have discretion.”
“Not anymore,” Hugh said, met my eyes, and winked.
You sonovabitch. This was exactly what he wanted: a big ugly public incident from which there was no return. We could come back from killing vampires—they were property. But we were already accused of murder. If we took down any of the People now, with Mulradin’s body on the table and his grieving widow out of her mind, the entire city would turn against us. They didn’t love the People any more than they loved us, but if Atlanta had a chance to be rid of either one, the city would take it. Hugh would have an excuse to declare a war against the Pack and be celebrated for it.
Claire ripped the bracelet off. It pulsed with red, and the ceiling burst.
Six vampires dropped into the room. For a fraction of a moment they froze, three perched on the table, three on the floor, their eyes glowing pools of scarlet hunger. Emaciated, hairless skeletons wrapped in hard ropes of muscle and clothed in rubbery skin, no longer human, no longer sane, and always hungry.
Ryan shot forward, his arms opened wide. The vampire eyes dimmed. His face shook with strain. He was trying to hold them and his hold was slipping.
“Retreat!” I barked.
The shapeshifters on both sides of me streamed to the back door, all except for two renders. A thud announced the door flying off its hinges as someone kicked it free.
Hugh spun around and hammered a punch to Ryan’s jaw. The big man’s eyes rolled back into his skull, his face went slack, and he crashed down.
The vampires shot forward like rabid dogs with snapped chains. One—large, female, and recently turned—lunged at Hugh. Five came sailing through the air at us, their eyes bright ravenous red, free of any navigator’s restraint, their minds like open sores, oozing undeath. Five. Too many.
The People fled through the front door. Ghastek stopped, his face twisted.
I grabbed the five vampires with my mind. It was easy. So shockingly easy. The undead went limp in midleap, falling rather than jumping.
Behind the table one of Hugh’s men stepped forward, fit, his hair a short dark stubble, two guns in his hands, and fired point-blank into the female vampire’s face. The bullets tore into the undead, chewing through the dried flesh.
My renders moved as one. Sage on my right yanked a vampire out of the air, before it could even hit the ground, and twisted its head off with her huge monster hand armed with leopard claws. The werewolf to my left disemboweled the second bloodsucker. I pulled the next pair to them.
The female vampire kept pushing forward, against the stream of gunfire. The man kept firing, his carved profile cold. Bright puffs of red mist shot out of the back of the vampire’s head as bullets tore through the brain and muscle. The top of its skull disintegrated. The undead paused, turned slightly, unsteady on its feet, and I saw the wall through the gaping hole where its brain used to be. The vampire took another halting step and sank down, limp, its limbs twitching.