Kim Harrison - The Witch with No Name

“Edden,” I called, and the man’s ears went red. “Edden!” I called louder, and his shoulders hunched. I debated sliding down and hobbling over, but Trent gestured for me to stay, needing to turn sideways to slip through the crowd to reach him.

“This sucks,” Jenks complained from my shoulder, and I waved at Edden when he looked at me after Trent shook his hand. The officers he was talking to broke up, and the short, graying, and overworked FIB captain reluctantly came over, hands in his pockets.

“Edden, did you see Ivy and Nina?” I asked even before he got close.

Edden glanced at the big glass doors, clearly worried. “I saw them into the ambulance myself,” he said, then sent his gaze over my bleeding leg, Jenks sitting on my shoulder, and then Trent. “Al said you were going to try and stop Landon.” He pulled himself straighter, looking over the crowd. “Paramedic! I’ve got a non-life-threatening GSW!”

“Gee, thanks,” I said, trying to smile. Al, eh? Interesting . . .

“The slug is still in her leg.” Trent hovered close to keep people from knocking into me. “Can you get her to emergency or should I take her home?”

Edden scratched his shoulder, his expression creased in worry. “It will take an hour to get an ambulance out here. How fast is your copter?”

“An hour!” I exclaimed, and Jenks’s wings clattered when Edden took my chin and peered at me.

“You aren’t dying,” he said distantly, evaluating my pain by the look in my eyes. “The roads are clogged.” He let go of my chin and straightened. “This is worse than last time.”

An unusually small woman with a Red Cross tackle box was trying to push her way through the taller people. I heard a grunt and the man blocking her way jumped. “Oh, I’m sorry!” She beamed up at him, worming her way closer and shoving people to make a space around me. “My God, you would think they were afraid to go outside,” she muttered, eyeing me for signs of shock. “Why are there so many Weres here?”

“They cleared the hotel out for me,” I said, and Edden started edging backward and beckoning someone closer. She was poking at my leg, so I looked away, trying not to pass out. If I passed out, I’d never make it to the next fight, and there was going to be another. The vampires’ souls were gone. I’d felt them being pulled back to the ever-after, trapped in a universe that would soon shrink to nothing and die. Cormel was going to be pissed.

I looked past Trent—now on the phone with a finger in his open ear—to the night-gloomed street. Traffic was stopped, and the flashes of red and blue lights on the buildings were ominous. “I can’t believe you hired Al,” I said to get my mind off my leg, and Edden’s entire demeanor shifted to a pleased wickedness. “Seriously? Where is he, anyway?”

“Chasing down Landon.” Edden almost swaggered, so pleased was he. “He’s the one who called us in. We got here before the I.S. Ah, if it’s any consolation, Cormel agrees that the elves were trying to kill the undead.”

“No, that doesn’t help,” I said sourly, then jerked, pain stabbing me. “Ow?”

The paramedic looked at Edden, not me. “It’s still in there.”

“I know it’s still in there!” I exclaimed, and Trent smiled as he put a hand over his phone.

“Edden, the surface demons are gone, correct?” he asked, and Edden nodded.

“You need to get that leg looked at,” Edden said.

“I am,” I said snarkily, gesturing at the woman wrapping a temporary bandage around my leg so it wasn’t so awful looking.

“I mean,” Edden said, leaning in close, “by someone who can do something about it.”

I smiled hopefully at the paramedic, and she shook her head.

“No. This goes to emergency. I don’t have the forms to file for taking out a bullet.”

Trent snapped his phone closed. He looked pleased with himself and I swear I felt a tingle as his hand touched my shoulder. “My med copter is coming. I’ll take care of Rachel. Where did they take Ivy?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Can you find out?” Jenks piped up, and Edden’s “I have things to do” expression softened at the worry in the pixy’s voice.

“I’ll ask.” Edden gave my other shoulder a squeeze. He headed out into the mess, shouting a request to get a name and contact number from the Weres and get them out of here. I thought it sweet that Trent was going to take me to the same facility where Ivy and Nina were. Or maybe he knew I’d never stay at the hospital unless I could hobble down the hallway to make sure Ivy was okay.

The paramedic pushed some pills into my hand and curled my fingers over them. “Pain amulets aren’t working. Find some water and take these. You have four hours to get that bullet removed and sutured, or they’re going to make it heal open and ugly. Got it?”

“Got it,” I whispered as she snapped her tackle box closed and went to tend to someone’s crushed finger. I opened my hand and looked at the little packet of pills. I suppose it was better than nothing, and I took the glass of water Trent had reached over the bar for.

“Thanks,” I said, words garbled as I juggled the pills around on my tongue. “You know there are a lot of people who need a medical copter more than me.” God, they tasted awful, and I swallowed them down and made a face.

“I’m sure there are,” Trent said as he kissed my forehead.

“Tink loves a duck,” Jenks complained. “You’re not going to sift your dust together right here, are you? Take me over to Edden. He’s warm.”

Edden was stuck in the middle of the floor, and I didn’t like the way he kept looking back at me or the shade of red his neck was turning. The Weres were beginning to leave, and Jenks’s wings tickled my neck as we both realized that every single one of them was running in the same direction the instant they hit the pavement. “What is going on?” I asked.

Jenks sifted a thin, frustrated dust and Trent fidgeted, his expression wary as we watched three more Weres run down the street. “Ah . . . I’ll be right back,” he said when Jenks began making a weird whine, Trent jiggling on his feet before lurching into motion and striding to Edden. The floor was clearing out—and it made me even more nervous than the crowded one.

“I don’t care if it’s the devil himself they got pinned down, you get your ass over there now and stop it!” Edden was shouting.

Jenks’s wings clattered, the barest hint of silver slipping down my front. “You just going to sit here?”

My leg was bandaged, and I held it as I moved it off the stool, teeth clenched as I tried not to use my leg muscles at all. My stomach lurched, and I almost lost those lame pills. I hesitated, the bar hard under my hand as I planned my way over, noting every handrail, every chair.

“Come on, Rache!” Jenks urged. “They’re almost done!”

I painfully hobbled forward, every step hurting. Trent caught sight of me, his expression shifting to annoyance, and he slid an arm around my back to hold me up as I made the last few steps to lean on the decorative side table. “What’s up?” I asked.

Clearly upset, Edden pointed at five more men, and they trooped out. Six more released Weres jostled around them and ran up the street in the same direction.

“Rachel, I’m sorry,” the captain said. “Get up to the roof and wait for Trent’s copter. I have to go. There’s a mob at Fountain Square, and without magic, we can’t stop it.”

“That’s like half a block from here,” Jenks said, and my eyes flicked to the door and the new night beyond.

“Which is why you are going to go to the roof until Trent can get you out.”

Get me out? Suspicious, I put a hand on Edden’s arm and stopped him cold. “Why?”