“Okay,” I said. “We’ll do it your way.”
“I won’t fail you,” Ghastek said. It sounded like a vow and I didn’t like it.
“Do you still have the body of the creature I sent you?” I asked.
“Yes,” Ghastek said.
“The creatures pose an imminent threat. If you encounter them, I want them followed, and if you can’t follow them, I want them destroyed. My aunt recognized them and called them yeddimur.”
“Understood,” Ghastek said.
“It would mean a lot if you could analyze the body. Luther believes these creatures started out as human, and they may be contagious when alive. It would also be a great help if you could study the body or perhaps just display it somewhere where it may be observed by journeymen.”
“And possibly apprentices?” Rowena asked.
“Yes. Perhaps someone could be overheard using the word ‘yeddimur’ when referring to the creature.”
Ghastek frowned. “Why?”
“Because I want my father to know about it.”
Ghastek thought about it. I could practically see the wheels in his head turning, but he didn’t ask. He preferred to discover things on his own, and I gave him just enough to motivate him to continue digging. My hairy abomination would get top billing now at the People’s dissection party.
I got up. “Do you have a copy of this photo?”
“We have others,” Rowena said.
“Can I take this one?”
“Of course,” she said.
I pocketed the photograph of Avag and took my son from her. Conlan yawned and flopped on my shoulder like a rag doll.
“I need an escort to my house.”
“It would be our pleasure,” Ghastek said.
The phone rang. Ghastek picked it up, listened, and turned to me. “Your husband is on his way to the Casino. He seems to be upset.”
“How do you know?”
“He’s running. There are two Guild vehicles following him, and they’re having difficulty keeping up.”
Curran didn’t want to wait for the mercs. He ran much faster than an average human, but he was a lion, not a wolf. Long-distance running was never his thing. Either something bad had happened, or he’d found out about the fight at Biohazard and somehow tracked me down. The People worked for me now, but we’d been on opposite sides for so long that even though I’d spent a lot of time with them over the past months, every time I walked into the Casino, I snapped into alert mode. I didn’t expect to be attacked, but I wasn’t at ease either. Curran had never warmed up to the People. If he’d found out about what had happened at Biohazard and thought that Conlan and I were injured, he wouldn’t just arrive at the Casino. He would land like a bomb.
I turned to the door, patting Conlan’s back. “Let’s go meet your dad outside before he causes an incident.”
“I’ll never understand what you see in that man,” Ghastek said.
“He loves me,” I told him, and escaped.
CHAPTER
10
I PARKED MYSELF in front of the Shiva fountain. When Curran ran, he took on an odd shape, neither a lion nor a human but a strange beast: compact, powerful, built for speed. Most shapeshifters had two shapes, animal and human. Those with talent could hold a warrior form. I had never met anyone who could turn part of his body into one shape while keeping the rest in another. Except for Curran. He restructured his body for whatever purpose he saw fit.
A sticky warm puddle formed on my shoulder. Conlan drooled in his sleep.
Car horns blared. A man leaped over the vehicles that were stopped at a traffic light. He sailed over them like they were nothing, landed, and kept running, long legs pumping. That couldn’t be . . . Yep, my honey-bunny running in human form.
I waited. He saw me. He didn’t slow down; he just adjusted course.
A hundred yards. Seventy-five. Fifty. Damn, he was fast. He shouldn’t be that fast, not after running for several miles.
Sweat slicked his hairline, darkening his blond hair. His longer blond hair. His hair was at least two inches longer than it had been this morning. Maybe more.
What the hell? The only time his hair grew into a mane was during a flare. We weren’t due for one for another two years.
Twenty-five yards.
It’s hard to look sexy with a drooling child on your shoulder, but I did my best. “Come here often?”
He slowed. For a moment I thought he’d stop, but he moved forward in a slow, sure way, not walking, but stalking, foot over foot. His hair was definitely longer. It framed his hard, handsome face. Gray eyes looked me over, checking for wounds. Our stares connected. A lion looked back at me and my heart sped up. Suddenly I was aware of every inch of distance between us.
He closed that distance, moving with a dangerous, borderline-feral edge. He looked like my husband, was my husband, but there was something alarming in the way he held himself. I turned to keep him in view.
He pounced. It was lightning quick, and if I’d wanted to get away, I wasn’t sure I could’ve matched his speed. I didn’t want to get away. His arms closed around me and he kissed me. The kiss scorched me, so intense it was almost a bite. I gasped into his mouth.
“Okay?” he asked me.
I had been until he kissed me. “Yes.”
“Conlan?”
“Fine. Just tired.”
He squeezed me to him. “What happened?”
“Had a run-in with a sahanu at Biohazard. You’re crushing me.”
He let me go.
“That’s twice in two days. We have to stop meeting like this,” I told him.
“Are you planning on continuing to run into fights?”
“I didn’t run into her. She hunted me down.”
Two Toyota Land Cruisers emerged from traffic and roared their way to the parking lot. Each of those carried eight people. Great. First, he dramatically ran over, then he kissed me like the world was ending in public, and now he’d brought a crew of mercs with him, enough for a small siege. All the navigators piloting vampires on the walls of the Casino had to be loving the show.
“You brought two meat wagons with you? Did you expect to fight an army?”
“They followed me.” He grinned at me, baring his teeth. “What happened to the sahanu?”
“She’s dead. I’m not. The People patched me up. I need to talk to you. And Barabas.”
“Good, because I’m not letting you go anywhere without me.” Gently, he took Conlan off my shoulder.
“Letting?”
“You heard me.”
The doors of the nearest meat wagon opened, and people waved at us.
“Where did you park?” he asked me.
I pointed at our Jeep on the left.
“I’ll get the car,” he said, and took off with Conlan.
Okay.
I trotted to the closest meat wagon. Faces looked at me, some dirty, some blood-spattered. Douglas, Ella, Rodrigo . . . Curran’s elite team. The roar of the enchanted water engine was deafening, so I had to scream.
“What the hell are you all doing here?!”
“We followed him!” Ella yelled.
“So, what, you just pile into cars whenever he gets a thorn up his ass and chase him around the city?”
“We were on the job,” Ramirez told me in his bass voice. “We were finishing up the gig when he said his wife was in trouble and took off.”
“We chased him all the way from Panthersville,” Ella added.
Curiouser and curiouser.
“Thanks for coming!” I told them.
“Where is the fight?” Douglas demanded.
“I already killed everybody,” I said. “You gotta be faster next time.”
They jeered at me, and I jogged to the Jeep. Five minutes later we rolled out of the parking lot.
“How did you know where to find me?”
“Just had a feeling,” he said.
“That’s it? A feeling?”
He nodded.
Odd.
Maybe it was me. Maybe I’d subconsciously called him while fighting. I’d have to ask Erra if that was possible.
“What’s happening with your hair?” I asked.