for thinking ill of the gun—which was even more stupid.
I listened at the stairwell, trying to pick out sounds of someone sneaking up. I heard something, but it came from behind me, inside the room where I’d planted the camera.
I stifled a curse. Knoxx had somehow circled around and come in the window of the executive office. My first instinct was to run toward him, but I pressed that down and instead eased open the door to the stairwell and slipped through.
Not a moment too soon. As I watched through the cracked stairwell door, the door into the executive office inched open and a figure emerged into the light of the hanging fruit in the receptionist’s entryway. Knoxx. Slender, with buzzed hair and about forty earrings. He wore a mobile on his shoulder and carried a sleek-looking Beretta compact in two hands. He checked his corners, then inched into the room.
“Whoever it was,” he whispered, “they were in here.”
I couldn’t hear the reply; he had in an earpiece.
“You’re such an idiot, Newton,” he said, kneeling to inspect the lamp I’d knocked over. “It’s probably just some kids looking for food that nobody else has touched.”
I frowned, surprised that a High Epic let a man like this talk to her that way. He must be more powerful than I’d assumed.
Knoxx stood and moved toward the stairwell. Again a noise echoed up from down below, and the man hesitated. “I heard something,” he said, moving forward less carefully. “From the stairwell, far below. They’re running, it seems.… Yes …” He reached the door to the stairwell. “Okay, I’ll check it out. We—”
I kicked the door open into his face.
Knoxx’s voice cut off midsentence. I jumped into the room and buried my fist into his stomach, making him drop his gun. I carried Megan’s handgun in my off hand, and brought it down, hoping to smack it against the back of Knoxx’s head.
He managed to throw himself to the side and I missed, but I immediately lunged and grabbed him around the neck. Abraham had taught me a few grappling moves. If I could choke him, make him pass out …
Knoxx vanished.
Right. Transformation powers.
Idiot, I thought as the pigeon fluttered away from me. Fortunately, they weren’t the most agile of birds. While the pigeon tried to get its bearings, I ran for the door that led to the executive office—the one with the window. I slammed that door, trapping the pigeon in our smaller chamber.
It fled down into the stairwell.
“David?” Megan asked in my ear.
“He got away from me,” I said. “But he dropped his gun, and I kept him from getting out of the building. He’s in the stairwell somewhere.”
“Be careful,” she said, tense.
“I will be,” I said, peeking into the stairwell. I couldn’t be certain he was unarmed—lots of men carried two guns, and it seemed any clothing and weapons he had on him vanished when he transformed, reappearing when he became a human again. That was pretty standard for shifters of moderate power.
I thought I heard a flutter of wings, and decided to follow it down the stairs. Unfortunately, this meant I could be running into a trap like the very one I’d just set for him.
“Do you see anything?” I asked.
“Watching …,” Megan said. “Yes! The floor below the top floor has shadows moving in the fruit lights. He’s making a run for it. Want me to send him ducking?”
“Yes please,” I said, pressing my back to the concrete wall.
I heard a few shots over the line. A suppressor, even a modern one, didn’t completely eliminate the sound of gunfire—but they worked marvels nonetheless. Any spark from her shots would be hidden, which was important at night like this, and the gunfire didn’t sound much like gunfire. More like metallic clicks.
There was a cracking of glass from the room nearby. Megan wasn’t trying to hit the Epic; her shots just needed to make him more worried about her than he was about me. I thought I heard a man curse in the next room.
“Going in,” I said. I leaped off a tree trunk and pulled open the swinging door, then ducked down in a crouch, searching for my mark. I heard heavy breathing, but could see nothing. It was a big room, a kind of large office space with broken cubicles and old computers. As I crept forward I passed a few of those cubicles that had been capped by canvas, making little dwellings filled with discarded pots and