Page 103 of The Evening Wolves

Air hissed through the Mustang’s vents.

“See?” North asked.

“North,” Shaw whispered.

John-Henry’s face was tight, but when he met Emery’s gaze, he shook his head.

“You’re staying outside,” Emery said. “End of discussion.”

“Fuck that,” North said, and in the last moment before the call disconnected, his engine roared.

A moment later, the black car shot past them like a dark star.

“God fucking damn it! John!”

John dropped his foot on the accelerator, and the Mustang sprang forward.

As Emery placed another call to Shaw—which rang and rang without being answered—John said in a tight voice, “It’s interesting that we suddenly have two stab vests because I seem to recall you only purchased one for Astraea.”

Fortunately, by that point, Emery was prepared. “I bought another when I hired Nico.”

“Good thinking. Then you won’t mind taking off that jacket when we get to the hotel so I can take a look at it.”

“We don’t have time—”

“We do have time, actually. We’re dealing with a sadist who loves a close-up kill, Ree. If he’s got a gun, we’ll take cover and hold him down until the police get there. I’m not worried about him having a gun. I’m worried about that fucking sickle. I’m worried about that giant knife.”

“I’m fairly sure it’s a kama.”

A beat passed. “What?”

“The weapon everyone keeps calling a sickle. I’m fairly sure, based on North’s description of how he used it, it’s a kama.”

John opened his mouth. And then he scowled. “Don’t do that. I want to see your vest when—is that the U-Haul?”

Ahead of them, the Laclede rose out of a large parking lot. Security lights smeared white along the building’s steel cladding. Parked to one side of the lot was the U-Haul Emery had seen outside GLAM. The passenger van was nowhere in sight. What did that mean? Had Emery’s first call, the one that the Metropolitan Police had seemed to take seriously—had it tipped off Koby and Vermilya? Had they already moved the kids somewhere else? Emery hadn’t considered that possibility. In his panic, calling the police had seemed like the first and best option.

“Breathe, love,” John-Henry said. “The U-Haul is still here. Colt is still here.”

We don’t know that, Emery wanted to say. But he fought the words down and tried to empty his mind, to fall into that reserve of cold and distance, where he was always at his best.

North and Shaw were already pulling into the lot—driving too fast, drawing attention to themselves, swerving across an aisle of spaces before they came to a stop parked across two stalls. For a moment, Emery thought maybe something was wrong—North had hurt himself, or he was experiencing some kind of emergency. Before he could try calling again, though, movement at the U-Haul drew his eye. A shadow moved inside the cab of the truck—a guard or sentry, his interest obviously drawn by North’s erratic driving.

“Jesus Christ,” John said as though speaking to himself. He slowed the Mustang as they approached the lot. “Are they actually that good, or do they just bumble into luck like this?”

Emery thought he’d been rendered speechless, but he heard himself say, “I honestly have no idea.”

North got out of the car first. He’d ditched his jacket and wore nothing but a t-shirt in spite of the cold. In one hand, he held a bottle, and as he stumbled free of the car—his foot seeming to catch on something—he let out a drunken whoop.

Shaw emerged next, patting the air and saying something that must have been meant to be calming. Whatever it was, it didn’t work because North whooped again. And then he lurched toward the U-Haul, fishing at his fly. To take a piss in the snow was the message. Shaw trotted after him, pulling on his arm and cajoling, which North ignored. They made their way across the asphalt like that as first John and Emery and then, behind them, the rest of the guys in Auggie’s Audi, entered the lot. When North and Shaw reached the U-Haul, North leaned heavily against the front of the truck—he must have made the stagger real because the truck shifted on its suspension. He was still working on his fly.

The driver’s door of the U-Haul opened, and a man in a heavy coat and a beanie dropped out of the cab.

A sentry, Emery thought with a kind of disconnected fury. Why didn’t I think of a sentry? What else didn’t I think of?

The man barked something at North and Shaw as he came around the front of the truck. North turned, the movement fumbling and slow—the way a surprised drunk might move—and liquid arced out from his body. Emery’s first thought was that North had somehow managed to make the act completely real and that he was now pissing on the guard. The guard must have thought the same thing because he stumbled back, his outraged shouts carrying even over the sound of the Mustang.

Then Emery saw the bottle in North’s hand, and Shaw launched into a blur of movement. Emery wasn’t exactly sure what Shaw did—it was so fast, and it was over so quickly. Whatever it was, though, the guard dropped and didn’t move again. Shaw stood over him, considering him. And then he humped the air.

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