Shadow of Doubt - Hailey Edwards Page 0,27
floors, I set Bonnie down and braced my hands on my knees. “You weigh a lot more than twenty-five pounds. What are you, fifty?”
She spun a tight circle and gave me a face full of her fluffy butt.
“Yeah, yeah,” I groused. “That was rude of me.”
I punched in my code and entered HQ before the overwhelming urge to smile set a bad precedent. I already had a misbehaving shadow who expected artisanal chocolate in exchange for not indulging his murderous whims. I refused to stuff jerky in my pockets for dog training too.
A quick glance at Bishop’s command center, which I preferred to call the bridge, as in his equipment was so advanced he could pilot a starship from here, told me I hadn’t missed the meeting.
The wall in front of me was painted an unrelieved black, and the two rows of monitors anchored there blended in when not in use. The upper row held four monitors, each about thirty-four inches, and they were blank. The lower row mirrored the one above it, but those were always on and flashing surveillance mooched off city cameras as well as our own private mounts. That or cartoons. Depended on if business was slow.
Bishop strolled in from the kitchen cupping a steaming mug that perfumed the air with its bright copper fragrance.
Since I wasn’t a practicing necromancer, I hadn’t built up much of a tolerance for blood. The way it smelled, the way it looked, the way it felt running through my fingers. I gotta admit, I wasn’t a big fan, but I was getting used to it. Mostly because Ambrose was a fan. That didn’t mean it was any less weird to watch someone walk around sipping it like the café mocha I forgot to brew on my way out the door.
Ugh.
No wonder I was so crabby tonight.
“You’re late.” Bishop licked his lips with a smacking noise when he caught me staring at his blood mustache. “We’ve been waiting.”
“An hour. Half that was spent talking to the POA. You saw me.” I gestured to the live feeds. “You have a billion cameras mounted across the city, and you watch my every move like I’m the star of your favorite television series.” I indicated the blank monitors. “No one is waiting. They’re probably running late, as usual, just like me.”
As much as I would like to claim I set a sterling example for the team by showing up on time to every meeting, I would be lying through my teeth. Between the circuitous route I took to get here, and never knowing where here was, I ran late as often as everyone else.
Gathering this many people, with lives and jobs outside the OPA, and on short notice, was plain hard. We were lucky when two-thirds of us showed and blessed when we had a full house.
On his way past, he caught sight of Bonnie and almost dropped his mug. “That is not a corgi.”
“No, it’s an Andulian liver worm from the planet Balfonz that I stuffed into a fur suit I bought off eBay. Using its newfound powers of adorableness, it will infiltrate our society. Soon we will all call it master.”
“Can you stop being a geek for five seconds and tell me what the actual hell you’re doing with that gwyllgi on a leash? I hope you asked her permission first. Otherwise, it was nice knowing you. She’ll kill you when she gets free.” He swept his gaze over her again. “Unless… Is the leash spelled?”
“It’s not spelled.” I dropped it. “It’s not even real.”
To illustrate my point, Bonnie vanished the leash and the collar.
“Can I pet her?” He squatted in front of Bonnie, a smile on his face. “She’s so much cuter pocket-sized. I just want to—”
Between one blink and the next, my corgi morphed, becoming a slavering beast ready to devour the arm he extended toward her.
Guess she didn’t like guys getting handsy with her in any form.
“Fuck.” He toppled back like a turtle stuck on its shell. “Damn it.”
The POA trusted Bishop with no caveats, and that meant I did too, whether I wanted to or not.
“We’re investigating the mutilation of nine people, and no one has considered this might have done it?”
A warning growl revved up Bonnie’s throat, and she took a menacing step closer to Bishop.
“Remember what we talked about?” I tugged on a handful of her fur. “The whole wearing-glamour-in-public thing? You need to stay, dare I say it, incorgnito. You’re also going to have to