All this time playing secret agent, and now that you’re actually doing something illegal, you get scared.
As I wiped away evidence of a crime, all I could think about was what would happen to my family if I was caught. The shame, the embarrassment, the humiliation, but most of all the “why didn’t we do more to help” bewilderment and grief.
What would I say? No, no, you got it all wrong. See, I thought I was helping supernaturals with this interracial council, but really I was working for this sorcerer corporation, and then this werewolf…
I loved my family way too much to inflict that explanation on them.
“It’s clean,” Marsten murmured behind my head. When I tried to give the tile one last rub, he caught my hand. “It’s clean, Hope.”
“Out damned spot,” I said, trying to smile.
“There’s no blood on your hands.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” I said softly.
I thought of all the cases I’d solved, the “criminal” supernaturals I’d turned in. I could see that one witch, so terrified she couldn’t cast a spell, begging me—begging me—not to hand her over, swearing it wasn’t the council who wanted her but a Cabal.
“Hope?” Marsten grasped my shoulder, his grip hard enough to push back the memory.
“Sorry,” I murmured. “Just … ghosts.”
“Whatever you did, you thought you were helping supernaturals.”
“Doesn’t matter, does it? It’s actions that count, not intentions. Ignorance isn’t an excuse. That’s what my ethics prof always said. Ignorance isn’t—”
I chomped down on my lip hard enough to draw blood and then pushed myself to my feet. “So what’s next? Resume the plan and find a place to hide?”
He nodded. “We’ll try that.”
That didn’t sound very optimistic, but considering our luck so far, I can’t say I blamed him.
TEN
We discussed options and settled on hiding out in one of the less “sexy” exhibits—those displaying artifacts unlikely to interest a bored partygoer conducting his own off-limits tour. The ceramics or textiles galleries seemed like the safest bets.
Both required going up the back stairs and passing the party, but we’d take the back hall around it. Seeing two people die had convinced me this wasn’t the time to worry about my abandoned date.
We hurried into the hall skirting the gala and then veered left. We jogged through the looming skeletons of the dinosaur exhibit, and were crossing to the Graeco-Roman wing when I picked up the twang of a supernatural vibe.
I told Marsten. He listened for footsteps and then inhaled for scents.
“Tristan and the other guard,” he said. “Coming right where we’re headed. Is there another—?”
He stopped and answered his question by looking at the open doors down the hall. A quartet of men lounged in the doorway, ties and jackets off. Beyond them stood more gaggles of partygoers.
“We could go back,” I said.
“Too late,” he said, and steered me toward the party.
“We’ll cut straight across to the main exit,” I said as we moved. “From there, the first left will take us to ceramics.”
We squeezed past the drunken quartet, who were ill-inclined to move out of our way. Once inside, I motioned to the door across the room.
From there, we could slip into the ceramics exhibit. We were passing the buffet table when I caught sight of Douglas, still talking to the Bairds. Douglas saw me and then looked beside him. Figures. Here I was, worrying that he’d been worrying, and he probably hadn’t even noticed I’d been gone. Douglas only lifted his brows in polite question. When I gestured to the buffet table, he smiled, nodded, and turned back to the Bairds.
“Don’t mind me,” I muttered. “I’m just passing through, killers in hot pursuit. No, no, it’s okay. You just go back to networking. I’m fine.”
Beside me, Marsten chuckled. “Your mother knows how to pick them, doesn’t she?”
As I rolled my eyes, Marsten’s gaze shot to the door we’d come through, and I saw Tristan and the other guard brush past the drunken quartet. Douglas lifted a finger and motioned me over. Probably wanted me to grab him something from the buffet.
When I hesitated, Marsten tugged the back of my dress and nearly yanked me off my feet. I backpedaled as fast as I could to keep from tripping, as Marsten dragged me into a large group of people and out of Douglas’s sight. I spouted apologies to the partygoers whose circle we’d invaded—and whose toes we were crushing as we scrambled to get to the other door.
When I glanced back, Tristan’s guard was striding around the back of the buffet table, moving as fast as he dared without calling attention to himself.
Marsten gave me a shove, none too gently, toward the door. I hurried out it and turned left, toward the ceramics exhibit.
When I rounded the first corner, Marsten caught up and pushed something at me. A tuxedo jacket. Not his, which we’d discarded back in the lab, but presumably one he grabbed from a chair in the gala.
“Take it,” he said when I made no move to do so. “Put it on.”
I almost said, “But I’m not cold,” an automatic response that, under the circumstances, would have made me look like an idiot. Instead, I settled for an equally idiotic “Huh?” stare.
“Your dress,” he said.
My …? Oh, shit. My canary yellow dress. When I’d bought it, I pictured myself as a glowing beacon in the black night. Now, I had my wish. I might as well be wearing a flashing neon sign.
Marsten steered me around the next corner.
“The ceramics are the other—” I began.
“I know. We’re circling back. He won’t expect that. Now put this on.”
I took the jacket as we jogged into a room of Grecian urns. It fell past my short skirt, and could have wrapped around me twice. The sleeves hung past my fingertips.
“A bit big,” I whispered.
“No, you’re just a bit small. Now move—”
He grabbed my arm and stopped me from moving. I caught the distant sound of footsteps—running footsteps, growing steadily louder. Marsten pushed me into a gap between two stelae, and squeezed in with me.
When only one set of footfalls entered the room, Marsten’s eyes narrowed, and his fingers flexed against my sides. As he tracked the steps, his face went taut.
What had Tristan said about a cornered werewolf? Looking up at Marsten’s face, I knew he’d been right, not because a cornered werewolf panics and lashes out, but because no predator willingly accepts the position of prey.
When Marsten’s lips moved to my ear, I knew what he was going to say.
“Wait here.”
One look at Marsten’s expression and my protest dried up. He was right. Things had changed since he’d halfheartedly tried to keep me from following him into danger. Two men had died, and I’d learned this wasn’t some movie jewel-heist caper, where the most I stood to lose was my dignity.
I nodded and let him slip off into the darkness alone.
The footsteps had stopped, as if our pursuer had paused. Was it Tristan or his guard? I trusted Marsten’s nose could tell. It would make a difference, facing a sorcerer versus a half-demon.
With the other man standing still, the room had gone silent, but Marsten managed to move without breaking that silence. I could see his white shirt gliding—
His white shirt? I should have offered him the jacket.
I eased forward enough to glance out. About fifteen feet away, beside a gilt statue of Athena, stood the guard we’d knocked out and handcuffed. He faced the other side of the room, with his back to Marsten.