the smoldering shells of looted storefronts and residences that had been smashed open during the worst of the attacks. Huge pools of blood soaked the snow-filled neighborhood yards and empty sidewalks.
The city was a ghost town. No one risked being out, except for Tavia and the grim-faced emergency workers patrolling the shambled streets, or the medical examiner's office personnel who soberly covered and collected the many dead.
Tavia hurried to her destination, head down, eyes stinging from the barrage of so much ugliness and destruction. She went across town, back to the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department, the same police station where she'd been just a week earlier. It seemed as though a decade had passed since she'd been summoned to identify the unnamed shooter from Senator Clarence's holiday party. Her world couldn't have rotated any farther on its axis than it had in the handful of days that followed.
Reality had shifted, and now that same alleged madman was the person she loved more than any other. The one she didn't want to live without. And she was determined to reunite with him, once she did her part to destroy their shared enemy.
"Miss Fairchild - Tavia?" Detective Avery's voice carried across the bustling station a moment after she'd entered. She glanced up and saw him hurrying toward her, his middle-age face drawn and haggard. He looked her over with obvious concern. "My God, are you all right?"
She was, but the bruises and lacerations on her face and body would have indicated otherwise. Which had been the entire point, after all. In addition to her assortment of self- inflicted injuries, her jeans and long-sleeved black sweater were torn and ragged. Her grimy leather flats were soaked with blood, the latter effect coming courtesy of her trek into the station. "Come with me. I'll find someone to look after your wounds," the kind detective said, obviously taking her silence for shock. He led her deeper into the station, through the throngs of anxious officers coming in and out of the place in a collective daze.
"At least you're alive. Thank God for that," he went on, taking her over to an empty chair in a vacant office. His hands were shaking as he lifted the receiver of the black desk phone and dialed a number. He swore and slammed the thing back into its cradle. "Busy signal. Lines could be down. The whole damn city is falling apart out there. I can't even comprehend what's going on these past several hours. I mean, none of this can really be happening ..."
Tavia felt sorry for the horror of what this man and the rest of his kind were suffering. But she had no words of sympathy to offer. Nothing was adequate anyway. Her mind focused wholly on her purpose in being at the station, she scanned the dozens of faces passing through.
She found one she was looking for: Cold, dead eyes met her narrowed gaze across the sea of churning bodies.
The Minion knew her on sight, recognized what she was.
"I'll be right back," Tavia murmured to the detective. "I need a drink of water."
Avery didn't protest or get up to follow her, already pulled in another direction as a uniformed officer swept in to relay more grim news from the trenches. Tavia beelined it for the Minion, breezing her way past the humans until she was standing right in front of Dragos's mind slave. "I need to see your Master."
His mouth twisted. "I don't take orders from anyone but him."
"I've just come from the Order's compound," she pressed. "I think Dragos will be very interested to hear what I have to tell him."
The Minion in uniform stared for a long moment, considering. "Follow me."
She went with him, out a back door and into the parking lot. The Minion dialed a number, let it ring once, then disconnected. A second later, the cell phone chirped with an incoming call. Tavia could barely contain her contempt as Dragos's voice came over the line, demanding to know why he was being disturbed. The Minion informed him that Tavia was there, then received clipped instructions to search her for weapons.
He pocketed the phone with Dragos still on the line and started patting her down. He found the titanium blade right away, pulled it from behind her with a smug sneer and shoved it beneath the leather belt of his cop's uniform. His hands were rough on her, skimming both legs and thighs before climbing up her torso. He lingered a