is not the time for political lectures. If you let Irving live, he won’t show you the same mercy.”
When she hesitated, Rhys said, “What would Karl do?”
There was no question. He would eliminate the threat as he had with Gilchrist and that would be the right decision for him. But Karl would be the first to say she wasn’t him and she shouldn’t try to be.
“I don’t have time to wait for you to figure it out, Hope. Protect your safety and Karl’s, or protect your council job. You decide.”
He gave final instructions and left.
STEP ONE: CASE THE JOINT for civilians. Rhys didn’t use those exact words. For a mercenary, he was severely lacking in the requisite badassitude. . . though the ache in Hope’s ribs insisted that his bite was worse than his bark. If her own attitude seemed a little lacking in gravity, that was deliberate. It kept her thoughts from straying into territory that would reduce her from Cabal-fighting commando to quivering ditherer.
She couldn’t think about Robyn, about Karl, about Irving Nast and what she’d do if she found him. Rhys made the choice sound so simple. End a lethal threat or keep her job, as if her council work was a part-time gig at McDonald’s. But Hope’s life and her council work were intertwined. It fed her chaos hunger in a way her conscience could live with. And if, in the last year, as that hunger grew, her council work had been steadily less effective? She couldn’t consider that now.
Hope prayed she didn’t find Irving Nast. If she did, she prayed Karl would be there to help her make the right choice.
RHYS SAID HE’D REPORTED COLM’S DEATH with an anonymous call to 911, so his son wouldn’t be lying on the ground until employees tripped over him tomorrow morning. Any police presence, though, was gone before they arrived.
The parking lot was empty, which suggested the building was, too. Hardly ironclad proof, but they wouldn’t have time to check. They needed to get in position and wait for the Cabal team, which would do a more thorough sweep. That’s when they’d take them down, as they split up to search.
Hope managed to quickly skim one floor before a low strum of chaos told her the Cabal team had entered the building. She hurried to find a hiding place. As she passed a clinic waiting room, footsteps sounded in the hall, the brisk click-click of feminine footwear. Definitely not the SWAT team.
She backed into the room quickly. Too quickly. Her foot caught a chair leg, the metal yowling across the hard floor. She went still, gun raised. The footsteps continued, pace unchecked. She glanced over her shoulder. She was in a small room with four chairs and a door. She backed to the door and turned the knob. Locked.
A woman passed the door, heading the other way, her back to Hope. Carrying an armload of file folders, obviously putting in Sunday overtime, she was dressed in T-shirt, jeans and heels, her short hair spiked, loop earrings swaying as her head bopped to the beat from her earphones.
Her steps slowed and squeaked as she turned into a room. Another squeak, this time a chair. The whoosh of files dropping onto a desk. A third squeak, the chair being pulled in.
Hope eased from the corner, moving silently. She could still only see the woman’s back now through an office door as she shuffled folders into piles.
Hope could hear her music, the distorted boom-screech-wail of heavy metal cranked full-blast. They could have a firefight in the hall and Hope doubted she’d notice. While it was tempting to leave it at that, it wasn’t safe. Not for them, and not for the woman.
She positioned herself with the tranquilizer gun aimed at the woman’s shoulder. Then she stopped. What made her so sure this was loaded with tranquilizers?
Rhys had asked where her paranoia came from. Maybe some of it was demon, some Karl, but most came from that loftiest of teachers: experience.
The deceptions and lies of society life were superficial, like saying “Oh, don’t you look gorgeous. You’re just the belle of the ball and I’m so happy for you,” when what you really mean is “That dress makes you look like a cheap whore and if you ever show me up at my own party again, I will carve out your liver with a spoon and serve it as pâté.” Of course, in the society world, no one’s liver was in any