damned good to sink teeth and claws into the bastard and make him pay for hurting Bailey.
The scents in the area were less confusing than before, but still were overlaid with the scent of cop. Jamal stood behind him, giving Logan access to the scene as a favor.
Even though hours had passed, Bailey’s blood still stained the sidewalk. His fear still hung in the air. And they weren’t any closer to finding the incubus than they had been.
Logan had told Bailey’s dad they were doing everything in their power to stop the incubus. They weren’t, though. They had another powerful tool left. He looked over his shoulder at Dasan, who stood quietly at his back. “Make the call.”
Dasan nodded and stepped away.
“Who are you bringing in?” Jamal asked. “I don’t want—”
Logan snarled and pushed to his feet. “I could give a flying fuck what you want right now, Detective. I’m going to hunt this son of a bitch down and gut him.”
“Easy, Alpha.”
The words were accompanied by the whoosh of magic. A flaming portal appeared behind Jamal. The fae spun around as he reached for his gun.
Solomon, the alpha of the hellhounds, stood with a stranger Logan hadn’t met before. He carried what looked like a staff covered in runes. Of the two, Logan honestly wasn’t sure who was scarier, which was saying something. Hellhounds were the champions of their realm, the protectors who served through the power of one of the Goddesses. No one crossed the hellhounds and lived to tell the tale.
Logan hoped that ferocity would serve them well. They’d done everything they could do to try to find this thing. It was working with a set of powers Logan didn’t understand, though. Hopefully, Solomon and his pack would have better luck.
The stranger didn’t speak. He moved around the scene, taking it in with the same careful attention Logan and his team did. Logan didn’t question his presence and instead turned his attention to Solomon.
“I need him stopped.”
“He’s not revealing himself to his victims?” Solomon asked.
Logan shook his head. “Bailey… Bailey doesn’t know about us.”
“You haven’t informed your mate?” Solomon frowned and glanced down at the bloody pavement before looking back at Logan.
Logan’s breath hitched.
His wolf howled.
“No.”
“No magic here,” the stranger said.
“We don’t think he had time to place the runes,” Dasan said softly. “At the other locations, he had time to plan. To hunt. This appears to be a crime of opportunity.”
Logan growled again. “He went after Bailey.”
“Yes,” Dasan agreed. “But he wouldn’t have known Bailey would be on his own. He didn’t prepare like he did before.”
So either he’d been stalking Bailey, or…
“He came to the cabaret.”
Jamal’s eyes flared, and Solomon eyed the detective curiously. The fae lowered his head respectfully, but Solomon wasn’t one to give out his trust easily. He barely trusted Logan, even though he approved of the level of support Logan and his team provided.
“Why are you here?” Solomon asked.
“I’m a detective,” Jamal explained. “I’m assigned to this case.”
Solomon took another step forward, directly into the detective’s space. “You work for the humans?”
“I do.”
Solomon growled but turned away from Jamal and back to Logan. “I’ll see what I can do. I have a few other resources, but we are stretched very thin at the moment.”
“I know,” Logan said. “We’re no closer to hunting this thing down than we were at the beginning. We need help.”
It clawed at him that he’d let Bailey get hurt. He wanted to hunt, to run this thing down with his pack and make it pay. He’d sat with Bailey until he’d woken up, then while the detective questioned him. He had to give Jamal credit. He’d been a pro, getting a few new pieces of information out of Bailey.
Gotcha.
The word echoed through Logan’s brain. This fucker had taunted Bailey with the word. Logan would make him pay for that too.
“No magic here,” the stranger said. He opened a purple portal and walked through it without another word.
Solomon nodded and gave Logan another hard stare. “Keep control of yourself and your pack. Get back to your mate. I’ll see if there’s anything we can do on my end, but if this thing isn’t revealing itself as part of its attack, it’ll make things harder.”
Logan was pretty sure the incubus had figured that part out. It seemed to thrive in the gray areas. It knew them. He narrowed his gaze and focused on that.
This thing had outsmarted them so far, but Logan would find it. No matter what it