Page 158 of The Wild Charge

A woman, one of the gallery employees, stood halfway up the stairs, pale and shaking. Marshall Hunter stood on the step behind her, one hand around her throat, the other holding a gun to her temple. More guards stood behind him, at the top of the stairs.

Devin stepped up beside him. “Friend of yours?”

“One could even say bosom friend.” To Hunter, he called, “I should have guessed this was you. It smacks of showy desperation.”

The woman squirmed, and Hunter’s grip tightened until she gasped for air.

“Does your boss know you’re off-leash?”

“Does yours?” Hunter shot back. “Your pretty little Shaman’s off trying to negotiate, and here you are skulking around and poking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

“Aw, well. I’m a poker, what can I say?” There were five guards up there – and where the hell was Abe? “If you think a civilian hostage is going to deter me, though, you’re putting too much stock in my humanity.”

Hunter grinned. “Stop trying to pretend that the Lean Dogs aren’t soft as shit. It’s a bad look.”

Fox opened his mouth to respond–

And two of the guards at the top lurched forward, off-balance, and tumbled down, flailing and shouting.

Hunter whipped around. “Shit.” A gunshot echoed sharply against the walls; the woman dropped, boneless, in time for Hunter to press himself against the wall and then dash up the stairs as his men went crashing past.

Fox drew his own gun and gave chase. He had a momentary, clear shot at Hunter’s back – but didn’t take it when he saw Abe grappling with more guards at the top of the stairs.

He leaped the fallen employee and kept going; could hear Devin keeping pace beside him. At the top step, he clipped a guard in the temple with his gun and turned to Abe. “Where are the boys?”

“They went after Cass.” Abe was breathing like a lathered horse; there was blood on his knuckles, and it smeared across his chin as he wiped more blood from his split lip. “Down that hall.”

“Where’d Hunter go?” Fox asked, taking off at a jog.

“Who?”

He didn’t answer. Dread pooled oily and sickening in his belly as he pressed on, around a corner, down the next hall. He passed an open door, lots of young people on the other side of it shouting in alarm. “Bright Spark Clinic” was printed on a piece of paper taped beside the room number.Cass. But Fox had an ugly suspicion it was no use stopping to search for her in that room.

He stepped over bodies, guards in black that had been stabbed, blood like hieroglyphs on the pale concrete. Toly’s handiwork, maybe. Or Reese’s. A trail of dying breadcrumbs that led him, finally, into a wide, airy space flooded with light coming in through a bank of windows. It was a room full of sculptures, funky modern things made of old wire and junkyard trash.

Fox had run into his share of unfolding scenes; had leaped into the middle of chaos. He wasn’t one to panic, to freeze, to hesitate in any way. Abe had ground the art of triage into him since he was a boy: he could pinpoint the most important strike point within seconds of entering a fray.

But the scene playing out now, in this room of twisted metal, played out too fast and shocking for comprehension. By the time he got halfway across the floor, it was over.

Toly was dragging Cassandra across the room, an arm hooked around her waist, gun aimed on the trio fighting in front of a window. Reese was engaging two slim wraiths in black, one on either side, tight and fast strikes, kicks, and dodges. Fox knew right away they were Hunter’s boys – namely because Hunter was striding toward them, his gun still in his hand.

Fox threw out a hand toward Toly. “Hold! Keep her back!”

A stunning blow landed against the side of Reese’s head; he grunted, and swayed – and Hunter shot him right in the chest.

“Goddamn it.”

Fox lunged forward, but the distance was too far. He couldn’t get off a clean shot without hitting Reese – again, oh fuck,again, was he still breathing? Where was he hit? – and by the time he reached them, his hand closed over the empty space where the back of Hunter’s jacket had been. In a shower of breaking glass, Hunter and his boys went out through the window, Reese clutched between them like a lifeless doll.

Fox skidded over glass shards and drew up to the empty sill; stuck his head out to scan the alleyway below.

But they were gone.

Just…gone.

Forty-One

Fox’s heart was trying to choke him, throbbing wild and high in his throat. “Lock it down,” he barked, not caring who responded. “Shut this whole place down.” He couldn’t hear the slap of his feet on the floor as he bolted back toward the staircase, his pulse thumping in his ears. He sprinted back down the stairs, dodging fallen bodies.

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