"Sheriff Jacobs, your actions tonight border on the criminal." Alonzo stood with perhaps half a dozen of his society members backing him as deputies looked on warily. Harmony tried to move to the side, to skirt the crowd and escape the coming confrontation. Until one of the larger men stepped in front of her, his hand reaching out to grip her arm.
Harmony hissed. A furious feline sound of anger as she bared her teeth and jerked back from him.
"Alonzo, what the hell are you doing here?" Lance grabbed Harmony's arm before it could go for her knife, and pushed her behind him.
"You can't save her." Righteous indignation flushed the reverend's heavy jowls as his pale blue eyes burned with fanaticism. "We saw what she did to that poor man the State Police just brought in. The brutality of her attack was uncalled for." Lance stared back at him coldly. Brutality, his ass.
"If you have a complaint to file, come back in the morning," he snapped. "Until then, get the hell out of my way."
"Do you think you can force these animals on Godfearing people." Alonzo's voice rose, the strident question posed in a sermonizing tone that grated on Lance's nerves. Behind him, he could feel Harmony watching, waiting. The air began to hum with danger then.
"Alonzo, it's too damned late for this," Lance growled as he gripped Harmony's arm and began to move around the crowd. They shifted with him as their voices began to rise in volume.
"Since when do we cater to animals, Sheriff?" one woman's voice rang out. "It's bad enough we have that cousin of yours consorting with those creatures and messing up our town."
He swung his gaze to one of the matrons of the city, a prudish, troublemaking old busybody who protested everything under the sun. He should have known she would be here.
"Take it up with the City Council, Matilda," he snapped. "Not here."
"He's as ensnared by the creature as his cousin is to her own pet," Alonzo cried out.
"Abominations are what they are. It's time to cast them out of this God-fearing town…"
"David, clear this place out!" Lance snarled at the deputies watching in indecision, as he began to push his way through the crowd, tugging Harmony along with him. A second later she was torn from him. Turning, Lance watched in fury as a heavyset male attempted to twist her arm, to force her to cower. Deputies were rushing to the confrontation, but before they could push through the crowd, Harmony turned, twisted and within a breath had the much larger man on his back, her gun lodged beneath his chin.
Lance was thanking God it wasn't the knife.
"You have just assaulted an officer of the law." Her smile was smug, despite the edge of pain in her gaze. "It is with great personal pleasure that I inform you that you are under arrest."
"Get these people out of here," Lance yelled to a deputy as he turned to Alonzo's triumphant expression.
"Your society member just assaulted one of my deputies," he informed him furiously.
"As the leader of this little get-together, maybe I should arrest you while I'm at it." Lance could feel the rage building inside him as he forced himself not to plant his fist in the reverend's gloating, overblown face.
"My lawyer will be here in the morning," Alonzo assured him as the rest of the crowd began to move toward the door. "Don't worry, Sheriff, I'll make certain I do God's work, with or without your help."
"God's work?" Harmony was breathing roughly as she came to her feet, turning her attacker over to the deputies as she rushed for the reverend. "Let me show you—"
"Harmony," Lance snapped, turning on her quickly. "You have reports." She stopped in her tracks, the tone of his voice causing her to hesitate, before her eyes narrowed and her gaze focused over his shoulder.
"Now," he reminded her firmly.
He could see the tension shuddering through her body and knew the pain was beginning to build inside her. Two men in one night that she had been forced to protect herself or others against.
Her lips thinned before the upper curve curled menacingly.
"Reports," she said slowly, her eyes never leaving Alonzo. "Of course, Sheriff. Just let me get on that. I can play later." The muttered threat wasn't lost on him or Alonzo.
"Only animals react in such a way…"
Before Lance could stop himself his fist was bunched in the material of the stiff shirt the reverend wore as he lifted the other man to his tiptoes.
"Get the hell out of my department," he snarled. "And while you're talking to your lawyers, tell them to expect a call from the county prosecutor as well." Lance pushed him toward the door, hating the fury rising inside him. He had fought for calm all his life, fought to find that balance inside himself that Harmony had yet to learn. But there were people, such as Reverend Alonzo, who could disrupt it every time. Alonzo jerked back and straightened his shirt with a huff as his bulbous nose twitched in anger.
"You haven't seen the last of me, Sheriff. It's my duty to make certain these creatures don't infect us all. And I will see my duty through. No matter the obstacles. I have sworn my duty to God—"
"And I'm sure he thinks about as much of it as I do," Lance growled. "Now, get the hell out of here."