residence. "Try again."
"Okay, fine. How about I slit her throat? Like that any better? Tony'd prefer her alive, but I'm betting even a corpse would get me outta the doghouse."
"If you harm her, I swear it will take you days to die, and you will beg for death before it comes." Louis-César sounded utterly convincing, but killing Jimmy, however slowly, wasn't going to bring me back to life.
"He's got a point, Jimmy. The only thing keeping you alive right now is Cassie. If you kill her, we'll deal with you before Tony gets the chance."
"So, what? I let her go, then you kill me anyway? I don't think so."
"You should recall that there are many ways to die," Louis-César put in, and I could have kicked him.
"How many times do I have to tell you to shut the hell up?" I heard the edge of panic in my voice and forced myself to calm down. If I lost it now, no way were Pretty Boy and Rambo going to talk Us out of this. Especially since Pritkin seemed to have disappeared, off chasing wererats probably.
"We will talk when this is done," Louis-César said quietly. "I do not know what is wrong with you…"
"Exactly. You don't. You really, really don't."
I smiled at Jimmy, but it only seemed to unnerve him. I figured out why a second later when I nicked my lip on a fang. Tomas' were fully extended, but I didn't know how to retract them. Great, bargaining for my life with a lisp—exactly my luck. "Okay, how about this, Jimmy? You give us Cassie, and we give you a head start. Say, two hours? I'll even promise to distract the vamps over there long enough for you to make a run for it. They're Tony's boys, aren't they? They'll stand there and watch us kill you, or finish the job if you get past us. But we can keep them busy and off your back for a while. Now, that's fair, isn't it?"
Jimmy licked his muzzle with a long, pale tongue, and his little rat ears twitched. "You'd say anything to get her back, then kill me or let them do it. Besides, if I don't take her to Tony, I'm dead anyway."
I sneered. "Since when do weres take orders from vamps? I can't believe you toadied to him all these years!"
Jimmy squealed; I guess I hit a nerve. "There's a new order coming, vampire, and a lotta things are about to change. You may be taking orders from us soon!"
I backpedaled. I wanted to hit his pride, not goad him into doing something stupid. "Maybe, but it won't do you much good if you don't live to see it, right? You don't know me, so you won't take my word. But what about Cassie's? How about if she promises to guarantee our good behavior?" Jimmy looked torn, like he really wanted to believe me, and I knew why. The bullet wound in his arm didn't look too bad, but the injury to his torso was another thing. The long white strip of fur down his front had a widening red stain, and his breath sounded labored and a little bubbly. Ten to one I'd hit a lung, and even a shape-shifter was going to have trouble healing that.
"Come on, Jimmy. It's the best offer you're going to get."
"Tell your muscle to back off if you want a deal, or she dies." He spat on the ground at my feet to underline the threat, and there was blood in it. Jimmy was running out of time and, as soon as he figured that out, so was I. His whiskers twitched, and I realized with surprise that I could actually smell his fear. It was a tangible thing, to the point that I felt like I could roll it around on my tongue like wine.
It was musky with a sweet undertaste, although the latter might have been from his blood. Now that I had noticed the heightened senses of this new body, they were proving very distracting.
I suddenly understood that Louis-César was not angry; he was furious: a simmering, peppery scent radiated off him in waves, and I had the feeling that as much of it was directed at me—or rather at Tomas—as at Jimmy. It was mixed up with the myriad scents suddenly hammering me from all around: the faint, far-off whiff of the sewers running beneath the earth, diesel fumes and cigarette butts from the parking lot and