"But do not doubt," she continued, in that same soft but deadly tone, "I will take out Rhoan, Riley, and even Quinn if you do not find me those keys."
"I'm doing my best."
Her expression was amused, but the specter of death shimmered in the depths of her eyes. "Your best is not enough, dear Risa. Try harder."
And with that, she hung up. I swore and raised the phone to throw it at the nearest wall, only to have it plucked from my hands by Azriel.
"Taking your anger out on defenseless electronics is a waste of money and electronics," he commented. "May I suggest this instead?"
He offered me a melted glob of metal – all that remained of one of the dining room chairs – and I couldn't help laughing. As he'd no doubt intended. "Thanks, but it won't shatter and therefore won't ease the frustration in quite the same way."
"Ah. Shame." He placed both the phone and the globule on the glass table.
"Yeah." I sighed. "How the hell am I ever going to get free of her, Azriel?"
"I do not know," he said. "But we can always hope she personally threatens you. At that point, she is dead."
"And you don't think she'll have found some way to counteract your presence?" After all, he had become a Mijai after coming to Earth to track down – and kill – the person responsible for the murder of several reapers, one of whom had been his friend.
"Possibly —"
"Then we don't attack her," I cut in. "Not unless we have an army behind us."
"Harry Stanford has opened that possibility."
Harry Stanford was the manager of a nightclub known as Hallowed Ground, and an archrival of Hunter's. He was plotting to bring her down – for the good of the council, or so he claimed – and he'd already tried to enlist my help. I'd refused. It wasn't as if I needed to get any more involved in vampire politics than I already was.
"No, he hasn't, because he wants me to confront Hunter without his intervention. There was never any mention of a goddamn army." I sighed. "I'm going for a shower."