I jogged back, looking for a fire escape or wall they might have scaled. When I heard a piercing cry, my gaze swung up. Blue’s falcon circled an area up ahead, and I ran toward it. She perched on the rooftop of a building right above a pile of crates. The crates teetered as I climbed them and scaled the wall. Blue took off down a corridor, and I followed her into a small courtyard. Christian was doing his best at sword fighting two men. He had blood on his neck and hands from wounds that I hoped were healing. If you bled a Vampire too much, they healed slower. After prying a sword from the hand of a decapitated body, I jumped into the fray.
“You’re in for it now, fellas,” Christian said with menace. “My partner is the finest swordsman in the land. She toys with her victims before removing their limbs.”
I clenched my teeth. Christian knew full well that I was terrible with a sword. I’d sparred on occasion with Niko while Christian watched on, making sarcastic remarks.
One thing I had mastered was some of the fancy twirling that made itlooklike I knew what I was doing. I used that time to survey the scene. Tall buildings boxed us in, and with only one exit in the courtyard, I had to make sure no one escaped. The two Asian men both had short hair and similar statures but looked nothing alike. That ruled out siblings, who sometimes worked in pairs. Both wore gloves, and I wondered if one of them might be our target. Or maybe Li Han was the dead guy on the ground.
In any case, no prisoners.
When the two men flashed around us, Christian and I stood back-to-back.
“What took you so long?” he asked.
I swiped my blade and lucked out, striking one of the men in the arm. “The pole from hell.”
“Poles are better than slides,” he said with a grunt, lunging at his adversary. “Remember the one that took us into the bowels of Cognito?”
The men had developed a nonverbal strategy where they would briefly flash in a circle around us before striking. Eventually they caught on that I couldn’t use a sword, and one of them lunged, the blade slicing my left arm before I pivoted away.
I flashed around him to strike. He dove to the ground, rolled, and then bounced to his feet. In the process, the sword had fallen out of his hand just a few feet from his grasp. I swiftly grabbed it and flung it far out of reach. Looking between everyone and then at my weapon, he fled down the corridor.
I rushed to help Christian and got behind the Mage. When I lunged to pierce my blade through his back, he spun out of my reach and kept fighting Christian.
“Don’t let him get away!” Christian bellowed. “He might be the one.”
Christian was a capable fighter but not the best swordsman. Though he had the strength of thirty men, this Mage was fast and eager to fight to the death.
“Don’t waste your energy here,” Christian demanded. “That’s what he’s trying to do—wear you down. Go after the other one.”
I threw the sword at Christian’s feet. “Don’t you die on me, or I’ll kill you.”
CHAPTER15
After Blue and Niko headed out to hunt the second oligarch, the waiting game began. Shepherd prepared himself just in case they needed him to help dispose of the bodies or clean up a scene. With his phone in his back pocket, he walked with Gem to check on Raven’s father. The poor guy was holed up in her room, banned from moving around the mansion freely. While it was no way to treat a guest, there wasn’t much they could do about it.
When he knocked and no one answered, Shepherd pushed open the door and they entered. Crush was snoring like a chainsaw, blankets piled over him in the bed. While Shepherd set a bottle of mild painkillers on the bedside table, Gem tiptoed over to the dog, which was sprawled out on the rug in front of the fire.
“Do you think he needs to go out?” Gem whispered loudly, kneeling on the floor and rubbing Harley’s ears.
Shepherd walked over and checked the plastic tarp he had taped up over the windows to keep the heat in. “Why don’t you ask him?”
Gem furrowed her brow. “How do you ask a dog?” Then she bent forward and looked in Harley’s eyes. “Do you have to go wee-wee?”
Harley groaned before rolling over and putting his paw over his eyes.
“Christian let him out before they left,” Shepherd informed her. “Come on before we wake him.”
Gem giggled. “I don’t think a tornado siren could wake him with a snore like that. And I thought Claude was bad!” Gem placed a big kiss on Harley’s head. “Can we get a pet?”
Shepherd chuckled as they cruised into the hall. “I don’t think that would fly with Blue or Viktor. You know how Shifters feel about pets.”
Gem tied the belt on her blue kimono. “Maybe Hunter would like one.”
“Are you using my kid to get a pet?”
Gem lifted her chin, giving an unapologetic look. “Maybe I’d like to cuddle with something.”
“There’s always Claude.”
