and if he found you lacking, you had only yourself to blame for your suffering.
My worry wood was so not going to help with this.
The crowd screamed. I was distracted by the sights and sounds before me, and the second cop managed to pull the sword from my hand.
I could have fought him for it, but I really didn’t want to assault a cop if I didn’t have to. I opted for pleading instead and held out my hand. “Please, someone has to stop him. I can try, but only with my sword.”
Tate probably had no idea I was in the crowd and most certainly didn’t care if I was being handled by the cops. Tate was busy fighting a battle of his own. He pushed away a uniformed cop from the crowd who tried to stop him and swiped his sword at one of the released cops. The cop stumbled backward to get away, but the sword caught him on the chin, and he screamed out.
While everyone else ran away from the monster and his weapon, Jonah jumped right into the fray, unsheathing his own sword. Before Tate noticed he was there, Jonah struck out and gashed the thin webbing of one of Tate’s wings.
Tate screamed out and turned, his giant wing pivoting through the air and throwing Jonah backward.
“Jonah!” I yelled out, then looked back at the second cop, pleading in my eyes. “Please, for God’s sake, give me back my sword.”
He looked nervously between me and the drama that was playing out a few dozen feet in front of him. “What the hell is that?”
Cops trained for a lot of things, but likely nothing had prepared this poor guy for what he was seeing.
I picked an easy answer; this wasn’t the time for complicated honesty. “He’s a monster. He’s something that doesn’t belong here, but he’s going to do a lot of damage until he’s gone. I’m a vampire, and I think I can stop him, but I need my sword.”
Still nothing. The guy was stuck in a paralyzing panic, so I broke out the big gun.
“I’m Caroline Merit,” I said. “Chuck Merit’s granddaughter.”
His eyes cleared, understanding blossoming in his expression. Not for me, most likely, but for my grandfather, who’d walked a beat in Chicago for years before he’d become Seth Tate’s Ombudsman.
The officer Tate had nicked on the chin screamed as Tate cut him down with the sword. Other cops in the crowd fired, but their bullets had no effect on him.
So he had magical weapons, giant wings, and a sword, and he was immune to bullets. This was getting better and better.
“I need to go now!” I told the cop.
It took him a second, but he finally nodded and handed back my sword. “Go! Go!”
I nodded and took it, savoring the bite of leather cording against my palm. I yelled out over the barrage of bullets, “Please try to stop them from firing at me, if you can. It won’t kill me, but it will hurt like a son of a bitch.”
The cop nodded back, and I watched his eyes flatten as his instincts took over. He’d be fine.
“Hold your fire!” he yelled out, arms flapping the air to get the others’ attention. “Hold your fire!”
The shots trailed off and finally stopped. The attorneys had abandoned their clients, leaving three of the released cops frozen in fear on the stairs. The fourth lay arms and legs akimbo on the step below them.
I said a silent prayer, gripped my sword, and moved forward.
“Tate!” I called out when I reached the bottom step.
He stopped and froze, and I suddenly knew how every movie heroine who’d tried to save someone by diverting the monster’s attention felt. The obvious problem with that approach? It put the monster’s attention squarely on you.
Slowly, Tate turned toward me. His face so handsome but so deadly. His eyes burned like blue fire, fed by zealotry and a power that eclipsed anything else I’d seen before.
It seemed the rest of the city fell quiet to hear him speak. “This isn’t your fight, Ballerina.”
He recognized me—but did that mean he was Tate Part One or Tate Part Two?
I took another step. “You’ve attacked my city, Tate. That makes it my fight. Walk away and leave them be.”
“You think you can take me?”
In the corner of my eye, I saw Jonah nearing Tate again, back on his feet with his sword in hand.
“Whether I can or not is irrelevant. I will try because you don’t