Ned put a finger over his mouth and shook his head.
“Not funny, Ned,” Caleb said, glaring.
/> The vampire said, “I brought half a dozen of my folk with me, along with Antony and Marid. Ought to help, don’t you think? I thought you’d be pleased.”
“Tell me you didn’t bring Emma,” I said in a sudden panic.
He had the grace to look startled. “Good God no, she’s just a child.”
He hadn’t put her in harm’s way yet, he wouldn’t start. The relief I felt at the news was painful.
“Anyone ever tell you you have a flair for the dramatic?” I said.
“Ha,” he answered flatly.
We moved on, and I wondered how much more of this exacting progress we had to make. Patience … if you waited long enough, still as a pond, the deer would come to you. For the fifth or sixth time, we paused at a corner to scout the lay of the land. The scouts returned to confer with Caleb. Jill said she thought Tyler was being kept in a building at the very end of the street. Ned, who remained like a statue, agreed with her. We still hadn’t met any guards or opposition, which was starting to make us all nervous. It was only a matter of time.
We should have expected it when a shot fired with an echoing crack.
“Aw, Jesus!” Michael stumbled and fell, clutching his shoulder. We pressed the wall.
He moaned around grit teeth. “Caleb, it’s silver, oh God—”
“Michael.” Caleb pulled his lieutenant into shelter with the rest of us. Jill and the second scout, Warrick, huddled together. A second shot fired, but no one cried out, so it must have missed.
“Silver bullets,” Ben hissed, and got in front of me, pushing me into a doorway. And Cormac got in front of him.
Wolf thrashed, beating herself against the bars of her cage, and I had to swallow her back, taking deep breaths to pull her inside. She wanted to run, to flee—it was the only response to such a deadly enemy. Get as far away from the silver as possible.
But we couldn’t do that. I huddled with Ben and tried to hang on to myself.
Michael let out an even more pain-racked groan and curled into a fetal pose. Caleb held tight to him, cradling him. He couldn’t do anything else. A very long time seemed to pass until Michael’s shivering stopped, until he was gone. Caleb, Warrick, and Jill all had hands on him, touching him, for his comfort and theirs, sending him on his way.
Ben found my hand and squeezed tightly. My other hand found Cormac’s arm. He stood before us both, a shield. He had a chance of surviving being shot with a silver bullet.
Only Ned seemed unconcerned, unaffected by the scene. He gazed out, and up. “I believe I see him. If you’ll excuse me.”
And he was gone. Just gone, like shadows vanish when the lights turn off. The scream came a scant moment later. I shivered.
We waited; I caught the touch of chill air the moment before he reappeared.
“There are four more of them watching the small warehouse on the next block. They’re human. Some brand of mercenary I should think. The warehouse is filled with heartbeats.”
Not vampires, then. “Whose mercenaries?” I whispered.
“I didn’t ask,” Ned said. “I thought we were in a hurry.”
“We are,” Caleb said, voice low, gravelly. “I’ll kill them all.”
“Leave them to us,” Ned said and paced away. I saw his retreat this time, or thought I did, until he disappeared into the next set of shadows.
Caleb’s expression was sour. I touched his shoulder, which was tense, hard as steel.
“They can stand up to silver bullets,” I said to Caleb. “Our job is finding Tyler.”
We should have been in forest, with familiar, earthy smells, trees blocking out the sky, the trails of our prey fresh as spring. Caleb said he’d show us where he and his wolves ran on full moon nights. After we got through all this, I’d take him up on the offer. It would feel like a vacation.
Carefully, cautiously, ducking around corners, constantly scanning our surroundings, we moved onward. I kept waiting for the sound of gunfire, knowing it would still startle me when it came, no matter how ready I thought I was to hear it.