Once Patrick had removed the collar in the subway, Wade had started healing from his immediate physical injuries the same way a werecreature would. Except that was no werecreature sitting in the other room. Wade’s status didn’t seem to matter to Jono, who was treating the teenager like his responsibility.
Jono had ransacked the vending machine for all his wallet was worth when they’d arrived at the PCB. The pile of empty wrappers from his haul lay in the center of the interview table, Wade having eaten his way through every last one. The three soda cans Jono had bought him were empty, crunched down to little aluminum balls by Wade. Currently, Jono was standing guard outside the door to Interview Room 1 in a set of purloined hospital scrubs.
They’d taken Sage with them to the hospital in the back of a different ambulance because the bus had been large enough to accommodate her bulk. She’d shifted back to human form in the emergency room department’s werecreature unit under Jono’s watchful eye, been given scrubs by a nurse since the change had shredded her dress at the club, and left the premises the second Emma had arrived to whisk her home. Patrick had signed off on her leaving without being interviewed because it was his case and he knew where to find her.
“I called SOA Director Setsuna Abuku to give her an update while at the hospital,” Patrick said, though he hadn’t mentioned Wade’s status to her. “We aren’t telling the press anything. I need time to work out a way to serve an arrest warrant on Tremaine. The SOA has its in-house lawyers working on that front right now.”
“You went into the Crimson Diamond without a search warrant to begin with.”
“I went with my CI.”
“That doesn’t make this situationbetter.”
Casale was right. It didn’t. But that was the least of Patrick’s problems at the moment. “The Manhattan Night Court is trafficking independent werecreatures for death fights as entertainment. Their club members get to bet big money on who wins and who dies.”
“Yeah? That’sinadmissiblenow, Collins.”
“We have Wade.”
“The kid won’t talk. He hasn’t even asked for a lawyer yet.”
“He’s eighteen years old. Legally an adult. We can question him.”
“Thekid,” Casale stressed, “isn’t fucking talking. Clammed up on you and every detective I’ve sent in there.”
“Haven’t tried Jono yet.”
“You just said he wasn’t a werecreature, so what good will it be to send in a god pack alpha?”
“What good indeed?” a new voice asked.
Recognition belatedly burned through Patrick’s magic, making the hair on the back of his neck stand up, as if he’d been shocked by a live wire.
Patrick was getting real fucking tired of gods creeping up on him.
He turned around, hand straying toward his dagger rather than his gun. The god standing in the doorway to the observation room was around Patrick’s height, but stockier, his skin a medium brown that came naturally and not from baking in the sun trying to get a tan. He wore khaki cargo pants and a navy blue polo shirt underneath an unzipped black windbreaker with the image of a gold badge screened over the left side of his chest.
His real badge hung from a chain around his neck, glinting in the fluorescent light. The chain was tangled with a leather strip used as a choker to carry a string of miniature conch shells. A gun was holstered on his hip, and Patrick spotted a knife tucked into the man’s left combat boot. Short black hair was slicked away from his face, and his brown eyes seemed to look right through Patrick straight down to his tainted soul.
The immortal had the same look as the god back at the Crimson Diamond who had crashed the party worse than Lucien. The similarities made Patrick want another goddamn exit out of the room. These immortals were not familiar to himat all.
“And you are?” Casale asked with all the suspicion of a cop who didn’t want to cede any more jurisdiction.
The immortal stepped inside, flashing a quick smile that showed off even white teeth. “DEA Special Agent Juan Delgado. I’m part of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force.”
“That’s a mouthful, and not in the good way,” Patrick said, trying to move closer to Casale without making what he was doing obvious.
“I’m working on the shine case the OCDETF has against Tremaine. I got word some hotshot federal agent might have ruined about two years’ worth of hard work for us.”
“Yeah, that’d be me. What of it?”
Juan—it was like calling oneself Mr. Smith with that name—stared him down for a long moment before smiling in that polite way federal agents did that was just plain mean. Patrick would know; he’d flashed that same smile plenty of times before.
“This is the DEA’s case.”
Patrick jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the two-way glass window separating them from Wade. “Kid says otherwise.”
Tapping on the window had them all turning around to find Wade standing right there instead of sitting at the table. His wavy brown hair was in desperate need of a cut, and it flopped across his forehead, making him look even younger than he was. Wary brown eyes in a too-thin face easily tracked their positions through the two-way window.
