volhvs, and I kept them from killing him. They won't talk to me or anyone associated with me." I paused to make sure I had their attention. "Volhvs throw around heavy-duty magic. Once we start asking questions, they will be on us like white on rice. We need a security protocol in place."
I looked at Derek. Start earning your keep, boy wonder.
He pushed away from the edge of the desk. "From this point on, we're on high alert. We leave together, we arrive together. This office is a small fortress." Derek pointed at the door and looked at Ascanio. "While in the office, that door stays locked. The back door is reinforced with a metal grate. That door stays locked and barred at all times as well. We do not open the doors unless we know the person on the other side and they smell right. If you have to leave, let someone know where you're going and when you will be back, unless it's an emergency."
The phone rang. I picked it up.
"Kate?" Ksenia's voice said. "Evdokia says meet her at John White Park. I'd run, not walk, if I were you."
"Thanks." I hung up. "I have an audience with the witches."
"We pide and conquer." Andrea rose. "Derek, you and I need to dig into de Harven's background. His house, his neighbors, history, everything we can get."
"What about me?" Ascanio asked.
"You hold the fort," I told him.
"But ..."
"This is the point where you say, `Yes, Alpha,' " Derek said.
Ascanio shot him a look that was pure murder. "Yes, Alpha."
This wasn't going to end well, I just knew it.
Chapter 9
IN ANOTHER LIFETIME, JOHN WHITE PARK HAD housed a golf course flanked by a nice middle-class neighborhood of brick houses and arbitrarily curving streets. The houses still survived, but the park had gone to hell some time ago. Dense underbrush flanked the crumbling asphalt road, and past it tall ashes and poplars reached their way to the sky, vying for space with mast-straight pines.
The pre-Shift maps put the park at around forty acres. The recent Pack map, which was the envy of every law enforcement official in the area and of which I was now a proud owner due to being the "Consort," put it closer to ninety. The trees had eaten a chunk of the subpision south of Beecher Street and chomped their way through Greenwood Cemetery.
Ninety acres of dense woods was a lot of ground to cover.
I turned the corner. A large duck sat in the middle of the street. To the left of the duck, a deep ditch took up half of the road. No way through.
The magic was up and my Jeep made enough noise to give a thunder god a complex. You'd think the stupid bird would move. I honked the horn. The duck stared at me, ruffling its brown feathers.
Honk-honk. Hoooonk!
Nothing.
"Move, you silly bird."
The duck remained unimpressed. I should get out more. This mated life made me too soft. I couldn't even scare a duck off the road.
I got out of the Jeep and walked over to the duck. "Scoot!"
The bird gave me an evil stare.
I nudged her gently with my boot. The duck rose and flopped on my foot. The bill pinched my jeans and the bird tried to pull me to the left. One of us was nuts and it wasn't me.
"This isn't funny."
The bird turned left and let out a single loud quack.
"What is it? Did Timmy fall down a well?"
"Quack!" I took a few steps forward and saw a narrow gap in the wall of green. A path, ping deep into the park. I peered at the forest. It didn't give off an "I'll kill you with my trees" vibe the way Sibley did, but it didn't look welcoming either.
The underbrush was too dense for a duck flight. Hard terrain to cross on foot, especially if you have to waddle.
"How am I supposed to follow you in there, you demented bird? You can't fly through that wood. Unless you're planning on dropping ten pounds ..."
The duck shivered. Feathers crawled, sinking back into flesh, folding on themselves. My stomach lurched. Dense fuzz sprouted as the duck's body flowed, reshaping itself. The blob that used to be duck stretched one last time and snapped into a small brown bunny.
I closed my mouth with a click.
The bunny swiped some nonexistent dust from his nose with both paws and hopped down the path.
I went back to the Jeep, shut off the engine, and chased the duck-rabbit