Possessed humans were one thing. Possessed werecreatures were a different headache altogether. The thing was, he didn’t know if the demons were working with Caitlin or against her, and that made him hesitate. He could afford to reveal himself as a mage to keep everyone safe, but he didn’t want to reveal he was a soulbreaker on top of that. It was never a good idea to show his entire hand on a mission that was nowhere close to wrapping up.
Then again, if Takoma could take care of the threat without his intercession, that might be the best option. Except Spencer sort of forgot how vampires preferred thekill first, don’t bother with questionscourse of action over the rational choice of deescalate and capture.
“Don’t—” Spencer called out right before Takoma blurred toward the nearest werecreature and punched his fist straight through their rib cage. A flash of negative light erupted around the body of the werecreature as the demon fled the flesh that had housed it. “Could younot?”
Takoma ignored him, turning his attention to the remaining possessed werecreature, whose eyes weren’t the traditional bright amber of someone belonging to a god pack on this continent. They were pitch-black from the demon riding their soul, so Spencer couldn’t be sure they weren’t part of the god pack. They were huge though, with lips peeled back over long, bloodied fangs, glass still scattered in their fur from the rush through the doors. Spencer wanted answers, and he wasn’t getting any if Takoma broke another rib cage. Except he wasn’t fast enough, and Takoma didn’t have a merciful bone in his body.
Werecreatures were fast, but not as fast as vampires. Takoma closed the distance between himself and the remaining demon-possessed werecreature with a speed Spencer couldn’t track. It was a scramble, one Spencer knew better than to get in the middle of. Takoma’s fellow vampire had no compunctions about joining the fight.
The vampire who had tailed Takoma for the entire night blurred past Spencer to slam into the werecreature and send them skidding across the floor. The werecreature’s claws dug gouges in the floor as they fought for traction, snapping their teeth at the vampires.
Before Spencer could conjure up a mageglobe, three gunshots rang out. The werecreature jerked, staggering forward on suddenly shaky legs. Thunder broke in Spencer’s ears again as the second demon fled in a flash of negative light, leaving the vessel behind before the last breath was taken. He watched as the werecreature desperately tried to shift around the bullet holes in their body, all breaking bone and mangled muscles, a twisted melting of flesh that started out as one form and ended in another.
It wasn’t enough to save them.
Pale limbs, blonde hair, three bullet holes in their body—kidney, stomach, lungs. The wounds hadn’t healed in the shift, spilling blood all over the floor and the broken glass shards scattered everywhere. She choked on it, incapable of breathing, fingers skittering weakly beneath her and leaving smears of red in their wake. It only took seconds for her to stop moving altogether.
Few weapons could stop a werecreature in their tracks. Aconite and silver in any form were the favored tools used against them. Spencer would bet Fatima’s next bone treat the woman had been shot with silver bullets.
The man who stepped through the broken doors of the museum was dressed like one of the security guards Spencer had seen on his way in. The coldness in his eyes and the way he looked at the woman on the ground—like she wasn’t even human to him—had Spencer moving without a second thought. He closed the distance between himself and the vampires, aware of the security guard’s eyes that followed his movement. Spencer was just glad the gun didn’t follow.
Takoma didn’t look at him, but the way Takoma fisted his hand in the back of Spencer’s shirt when he got within arm’s reach was certainly hard to miss. Spencer let it happen, watching as the security guard went to stand over the body of the werecreature he’d shot. The fourth bullet to the head was complete overkill.
“Hey,” Spencer snapped. “Desecration of a body is a crime.”
“Making sure a monster is dead isn’t,” the security guard replied coolly.
A quick vision check showed he wasn’t possessed by a demon, just pure, unadulterated hatred. Which didn’t make it better. Spencer wanted to order him away from the body, but he wasn’t standing in the ticketing area in the capacity as an SOA special agent; he was there under the guise of a server. He knew that wasn’t going to hold up against questioning by the police that were probably only moments away from arriving, judging by the escalating sounds of sirens in the streets beyond.
“Perimeter is secure,” someone said behind them.
Spencer looked back to see another security guard, human as the first, speaking into a radio. He couldn’t see any of the guests, most of them probably having fled for deeper galleries. Hedidsee Caitlin, flanked by the dark-haired sorceress and the two people he knew were possessed by demons, standing behind the second security guard. She looked furious rather than scared.
“Is it dead?” she snapped.
“Yes, ma’am,” the first security guard said.
Her angry gaze moved from the bodies on the floor to where Spencer stood with Takoma and the other vampire. A pinched expression that he couldn’t read settled on her face as she swept forward, security detail glued to her side. “Takoma.”
“Witch,” Takoma drawled, clearly knowing her true rank and not worried about pissing her off in the slightest. Spencer despaired of getting out of this mess without more blood being spilled.
“Was this your doing?”
Takoma raised his hand to lick the blood off the back of his knuckles. “You must think highly of me to believe I control the werecreatures in this city.”
“You pretend to control everything else.”
Takoma shrugged, tightening his grip on Spencer’s shirt to the point the fabric pulled over his shoulders, drawing tighter across his chest. “There’s no pretending when it comes to what I own and what I control.”
Caitlin pinned Spencer with a contemplative look. “Did you try to slip a human servant into my gala tonight?”
Well, that was better than being caught out as a federal agent and a mage—for now, at least. Spencer smiled winningly at her and ran with the opening. “Just scouting the facility to make sure there weren’t any threats before my master arrived.”
Takoma tugged him impossibly closer as the wordmasterleft Spencer’s lips. “I don’t leave anything to chance.”
With that said, Takoma let go of Spencer’s shirt, only to wrap his arm around Spencer’s waist in a vaguely familiar way. “No, wait—”
Too late. Spencer found himself being carried along out of the museum by way of preternatural strength at a speed that turned the streetlights into smears across his vision. His feet never touched the ground, much like they hadn’t two years ago when Takoma had kept him out of the line of fire while Spencer did his best to put the dead to rest. He’d thought he’d forgotten the swooping sensation in his gut that came from being hauled around by the master vampire.
