She downed the rest of her red wine and scooted the empty glass across the bar. Jono came over after finishing his round of orders to check on their drinks and set about making them new ones. He was in the middle of pouring Patrick a second glass of whiskey and talking with Marek about his schedule at the bar for the next week when Patrick’s phone rang.
He pulled it out of his pocket, blinking down at the long string of numbers on the screen. He accepted the call and pressed the phone to his ear. “Special Agent Collins. Line and location are not secure.”
“Soultakers,” a familiar voice said over a staticky long-distance satphone connection. “I had to learn your dumb ass was fighting fucking soultakers from the goddamn news, Collins?”
Patrick froze, eyes going wide as he recognized the voice. “Oh, shit.”
Captain Gerard Breckenridge, commanding officer of the Hellraisers, snorted derisively over the phone. “Oh, shit, he says.”
“What do you mean,oh, shit?” someone else yelled in the background of the call, sounding an awful lot like Sergeant Keith Pearson, the team’s demolitions specialist. “That’s not a fucking answer.”
“Not much of an answer, but I’ll take an explanation any day now, Collins.”
Patrick winced, aware he had drawn the full attention of the others, with Jono going so far as to pause in pouring his whiskey. Patrick made a desperate gesture at Jono to keep going.
“Mulroney kept you updated,” Patrick said, knowing it wasn’t much of an excuse.
“Only because she had access to your cell phone and could answer my texts for the thirty minutes I managed to wrangle permission to use my personal phone,” Gerard retorted. “Had to get in contact with the Old Man and cash in a favor for that call.”
Patrick’s wince got deeper. Goddamn dragons and their hoards. “You didn’t have to give up a favor for me.”
“I got plenty to spare. Mulroney mentioned you had vampires in the field. Itoldyou never to call—”
“What part of the line isnotsecure did you not hear?” Patrick interrupted.
“Where the hell are you that it’s not secure?”
“In a bar.”
“In a bar” came the flat reply. “Please tell me you aren’t drinking with no one to watch your six after the shit show that just happened.”
“I’m not alone, but it’s a werecreature bar, so watch your goddamn words, sir.”
Gerard made a questioning sound in the back of his throat. “I still don’t hear you denying you took that bastard into the field with you.”
Patrick snatched his glass of whiskey off the counter and swallowed it down in one quick gulp, staring up at the ceiling with a full onoh god, whylook on his face. “I wasn’t the one who called him.”
“I see.” Gerard sighed in aggravation. “I’m going to have words with your director for pulling that asshole in. What the hell was she thinking?”
“I had a team—”
“Like hell are goddamnvampiresa goddamnteam—”
“I didn’t say it was them, I said I had a team. If you’d been available I would’ve called, but you’ve been dark for two damn months already—”
“Who backed you up?” Gerard cut in. “Just tell me it’s someone who knows your heart attack-inducing, near-suicidal habits in the field like I do. Mulroney doesn’t count because she’s just as fucking crazy as you are sometimes.”
“I never gave you a heart attack,” Patrick muttered.
“My stress levels when you were on my team say otherwise. Now answer my question.”
Patrick sighed. “Mulroney handled defense. The rest were civilian werecreatures before SOA agents got on the scene. It was a fucking mess, but it got handled.”
Gerard was silent for long enough Patrick wondered if the connection had broken. Field calls weren’t always reliable. He pulled the phone away from his ear to make sure the call was still live.
Jono eyed him curiously. “All right?”
Patrick nodded before putting the phone back to his ear. “You there?”
