“Think you scare us?” Grey sneered, as his fangs carved new homes in his gums. “Fancy coat, fancy title. You’re just another fucking wetmouth to us.”
“It’s silver!” Took forced the warning out through his raw throat as Grey cocked his finger back.
The blast cut through where Madoc stood, just as his body came apart like tattered smoke. Someone in the crowd was stupid enough to cheer. It was strangled to death in his throat as the smoke dragged itself back together, and Madoc stepped out of the dark wherever he went in front of Grey. He grabbed the end of the shotgun in one hand and punched it back into Grey’s face.
“Fight it is,” Madoc purred.
He spun and fired a shot into the gut of one of the human Hounds as the man lunged at him, stake clenched in one hand. The blast tumbled the man back in midair and threw him into the crowd behind him. By the time they recovered, Madoc had stepped away again.
“Not what you had planned?” Took asked Gabriel as the big wolf snarled in frustration and watched Madoc take the bar apart.
Sharp yellow eyes cut down and narrowed with a flash of mixed rage and humor. With Gabriel, everything was mixed with rage.
“See?” Gabriel chewed the word between his fangs as he bent down to grab Took’s foot. His claws punched through the heel of Took’s boot as he dragged him away from the door. “You always thought you were so bright, boy, but you forget other people are too. This—give or take a few dead whelps—is exactly what I had planned. Or did you think I couldn’t smell that killer’s stink on you?”
He winked a yellow eye as he dropped Took by the door. “And eat something, boy. You look like hell.”
Chapter Eighteen
THEY HADN’Tmade Madoc a cardinal because of his pretty face or let him live after the Accord was signed because they had a choice. He was dangerous, well trained, and he liked to kill. Death had been with him all his life, and he’d gotten good at introducing it to others. And once he let the smoke out of his cage, hewasdeath—or the closest thing anyone who didn’t sidestep the world to see what lived in the dark would get to it.
Blood dripped from his hands as he let the smoke drag him through the shadows. On the other side, in the gray lands, it had gotten crowded. Birds strung together of bones, with tattered rags of wings, hopped and croaked as they mobbed him. He batted them aside easily enough, but they drew blood with their sharp beaks and dirty talons. Even Madoc could smell how sweet his blood stank here, like black perfume on the still air. It would draw worse than the scavengers.
There were always worse things to draw here.
Madoc snatched one of the creatures off his back and crushed it in his fist. His blood caught at him like hooks, bruised dark and tender under the skin like rot, and he had to lean in to stop it from pulling him away. It was always like walking into the wind here, but now it felt like a hurricane. Madoc dropped the bird to the ground. It squawked at him in offense, started to peck its bones back into shape, and then headed over to the silver-and-gray wolf that snarled over the barrel of a reloaded shotgun. Drool hung in thick strings from his lips, the black flews caught half-wrinkled as they peeled back.
He had surprisingly pretty blue eyes—a shame he wouldn’t for much longer. Madoc pressed his gun against the creased patch of skin between those pretty eyes and let himself snap back to the solid world. His bones ached under his skin, the shadows worked down into the marrow, but it was done.
The wolf’s eyes filled with shock, but before Madoc could pull the trigger, a big, heavy, furred hand closed around his wrist and yanked.
Werewolves were fast, but not that fast, Madoc registered. He tucked the question away for later as he drew the heavy dagger on his thigh and laid the edge to the big wolf’s neck. They stared at each other, caught in a moment of mutual hurt, if not destruction.
“I’ll be harder to kill than you think,” the wolf said. He sounded almost human, the words crisp as he wrapped the flat ribbon of its tongue around them. “And you ain’t here for me anyhow, right?”
Madoc didn’t look at Took. He’d finally muzzled the injured rage at the discovery that Took thought he would ever have hurt him. It was still there, caught in his chest like rocks, but he’d netted the damn thing until… later, when he could be angry without ruin. Then he tracked Took here, the heady smell of his blood mixed in with the skunk and meat stench of the werewolves. Madoc didn’t know if he wanted to rage at the idiot, kiss him better, or some combination of the two. Whatever he decided, he didn’t intend for it to have an audience.
“I’m not the dog warden,” Madoc said. “But mangy curs who attack a VINE agent need to be put down. That’s just for the public good.”
The big wolf snarled at the insult but controlled itself. That was more impressive than the speech.
“You aren’t my business either,” the wolf said. “So tell you what… we both just walk out of here? No hard feelings. No broken bones.”
The silver-and-black wolf snarled as it stepped forward, the shotgun raised to butt against Madoc’s temple.
“He killed our fucking people, Gabe,” he snarled. “Put him down now, while we have the chance. We’ll be fucking legends.”
Gabe. Gabriel. The hand on the collar of his Hounds. That explained a lot—not everything, but a lot. This wasn’t just some werewolves who’d gotten cocky because vampires either avoided The Salt or were locked under it. Madoc smiled thinly.
“Gabriel and his Hounds,” he said. “I know someone who’s been looking for you.”
It was hard to read the expression on a dog’s face, but the urbane chuckle that rolled out of that massive barrel chest sounded amused. Hunt something long enough and it becomes a game, and Kit had been on the old werewolf’s trail for a long, long time. Since before he joined the Biters.
“I’ve heard that,” Gabriel said. “But your wolf’s head isn’t here to slide the silver home, is he? So it’s your choice, cardinal. We’ll kill each other one day, but it doesn’t have to be tonight.”
“If you think you can win, why offer?”
Gabriel grinned, a wet gape of red mouth and white fangs. “I might win, but you’ll hurt me. I’m too busy to be laid up, and I’d end up with a dead second-in-command after he tried to kill me. You?”
