Page 82 of Obsidian Prince

Liliana shrugged and shook her head at the same time. “My fourth eyes can only see what appears to be. They cannot pierce the surface of things like my third eyes, but the person who looks like Officer West is not acting like Officer West.”

She watched with her fourth eyes as Alexander caught his breath.

Officer West pulled his head back by the hair and asked. “You stole the sword from the red wolf. I already know that. Where did you hide it?”

Alexander flashed teeth in a smile that was more angry than happy. “Aurore’s information is faulty. She’s sent you on a wild goose chase.”

The man laughed. It sounded eerily familiar to Liliana, but it wasn’t Officer West’s laugh. “Do you think your sister is the only one in the world who wants Fraegerthach?”

Liliana frowned at that. If Princess Aurore did not send the man, who did?

Detective Jackson’s brows scrunched, thinking about an entirely different, and far more immediate problem. “If the person with Bennett isn’t West, then where the heck is West?”

Where is the real Officer West?

Liliana’s fourth eyes shifted focus to a vision of the police officer lying unconscious in his underwear somewhere dark with a deep cut in his short hair that bled profusely. His hands and feet were bound. “The one hurting Alexander is definitely not Officer West any more than that thing was Alexander.” She pointed to the pile of sawdust, twigs, and clothes. “Officer West is injured and unconscious somewhere. We must find him soon or he could die.”

John said, “Sergeant, you and the detective, look for the missing cop. I’ll focus on finding the Colonel.”

Giovanni nodded and Detective Jackson stood.

Liliana spoke to Zoe. “Officer West is in the dark, bound, gagged, and hurt, probably somewhere nearby. I saw cinderblock like the walls here, and wooden boxes around him.”

Zoe nodded. She ran out of the room. Detective Jackson went with her. “Lopez, Delgado, you’re with me. Search every shed, room, or hidey hole. We’ve got a man down. Start here, circle and push out.”

John squatted beside Liliana. “You said the Colonel is in a room like this, but with a window, right? With no glass?”

Liliana nodded.

“There’s someone stationed at every window on the first four floors. The next two floors, the windows are bricked over. Only the top floor of the fire tower has open windows. We built a cinder block wall across the stairs last spring to make it harder to get up there for drills. The only way is to drop down from the roof or climb the building.”

Liliana looked at the outside of the building with her fourth eyes. There were ledges here and there where windows had been bricked over, and places where the mortar had crumbled exposing the steel building understructure. When they called this building a fire tower, it looked like they meant that they had set it on fire a few times, and possibly fired small artillery at it. “I can climb this building.”

John looked down at her leg, wrapped in a thick, bloody shirt serving as a bandage. “I can radio a helicopter. Get it here in fifteen minutes.”

Liliana looked again. She flinched as a huge fist impacted Alexander’s temple. His face went slack. He lost consciousness and a big gash streamed blood where a ring on the big man’s finger ripped the skin. With a sharp inhale, she recognized that ring.

“I do not think Alexander has fifteen minutes.”

John extended a hand.

Liliana got to her feet, or rather foot. Gingerly, she tested her weight on the other side. Pain flooded her when she did, making her dizzy, but the leg held. Alexander was bound and unable to fight, in a room with a professional assassin. “I will climb.”

John looped her arm over his shoulder. He put his arm around her waist, supporting half her weight. They stumble ran out of the building and around. He pointed with his free hand. “There are windows on the eighth floor there. Any other information you can give me to narrow it down?”

Liliana focused on Alexander, unconscious in the chair, bloody drool dripping from his slack mouth. She tried to see beyond him. It was always so hard to see beyond something so emotionally charged. The room looked the same, plain gray concrete with an empty window frame casting light on the back and one side of Alexander’s bloody face.

She looked at the sky with her human eyes, considering the slant of the light. “He is in a room on that side of the building.”

John nodded. To Liliana’s surprise, with apologies, he lifted her off her feet with one arm and ran up several flights of stairs until a solid cinderblock wall blocked their path. He went into an empty room on the side of the building she’d indicated. He led her over to a window sealed in with plain brick and mortar, only a few inches thick. Cinderblock wider than her hand outspread made up the rest of the building.

John let go of her. He left Liliana leaning on the wall as his body changed. His nose elongated to something pointy with a dark nose and a lot of teeth. His dark hair was split by a stripe of white that ran down his long nose as tawny fur spilled over his skin. Impressive six-inch claws extended from his fingers. His shoulders bulked well beyond their normal, already sturdy form while his arms became shorter and thicker. Unlike nearly every other shifter she knew, the badger-kin didn’t become any taller. If anything, he shrank slightly, gaining in width and bulk, but losing inches in his legs.

He hunched in tight and clenched his clawed hands, then focused all that compact power, starting at his hips and flowing into a punch into the center of the brick filling the window frame. The mortar cracked and the bricks moved where his fist hit. A spot of red was left behind when he drew his hand back. He struck with the other hand.

“Your hands!” Liliana said.

John shrugged his over three-foot-wide shoulders. “I’ll heal,” he growled.

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