“Nothing much,” I drawled, plastering a pleasant smile on my face. “I just need to run over to Northern Aggression. Roslyn has a rat problem that she needs some help with.”

The dwarf frowned. “Rats? Roslyn never has—” She stopped, her black eyes narrowing. “Oh. Rats.”

“Yeah. Rats. Care to help me find the poison for them?”

She nodded, pulled open one of the oven doors, and slid a tray of sourdough buns inside to bake. I headed through the swinging doors and into the back.

Since the restaurant was packed, all of the waitstaff were out front, seeing to the customers, so there was no one around to watch me toss the newspaper aside, march over to one of the freezers, and drag a black duffel bag out from behind it. I straightened up, put the bag on a nearby table, unzipped the top, and did a quick inventory of all the items inside. Money, fake IDs, tins of Jo-Jo’s healing ointment, anonymous black clothes, and enough guns, ammo, and knives to start a small war. Satisfied, I zipped the bag back up and slung it over my shoulder.

The doors opened behind me, and Sophia appeared. Her gaze locked onto the bag in my hand. She knew exactly what was inside, because she had a similar bag, one with a grinning figure of Death holding a scythe printed on the side, hidden behind another freezer.

“Problem?” she rasped.

“Someone’s decided to use Roslyn as leverage,” I replied, and told her about Roslyn’s call.

“Go with?” Sophia asked when I finished.

I shook my head. “Thanks, but no. I’ll call Finn and Owen on the way over there. Bria too.”

I went back over to the doors and looked through the round glass in the top at Catalina, who was passing out plates of food to a table full of customers. I turned back to Sophia.

“Stay here and keep an eye on Catalina for me. Okay?”

She nodded. “I’ll call Jo-Jo too.”

I knew what she really meant. That she’d let Jo-Jo know what was going on in case I needed the dwarven Air elemental to heal Roslyn or myself.

“Thanks. Roslyn sounded okay on the phone, but I have no idea if she’ll stay that way.”

Sophia nodded again, then reached out and took hold of my arm, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Be careful.”

I grinned back at her. “Always.”

Sophia went back out front to watch over Catalina in case Benson sent some of his vamps to the Pork Pit in search of her. Bria probably hadn’t told anyone Catalina’s name yet, but knowing that Sophia would look after the waitress let me focus on what I had to do now: get to Roslyn.

So I palmed a knife, opened the back door, and stepped out into the alley behind the restaurant, my head swiveling left and right, looking for anyone hunkered down beside one of the Dumpsters, leaning against the walls, or even stationed at either end of the corridor. If the person holding Roslyn hostage was smart, he or she would have someone watching the restaurant to tell them when I left so they could get ready for my arrival at Northern Aggression.

But the alley was empty.

No lurkers, no watchers, no assailants of any sort haunted the area, and the only sound was the skitter-skitter of a crumpled-up white paper bag bearing the Pork Pit’s pig logo that was being pushed across the cracked asphalt by the steady breeze. Well, just because no one was waiting in the alley didn’t mean that there weren’t watchers around somewhere.

Still being cautious, I walked to the end of the alley and fell into the flow of foot traffic on the sidewalk. I kept to the side streets as much as possible, quickly making my way over to my car, which I’d parked four blocks from the Pork Pit.

No one was following me, but I rounded the corner just in time to see someone snap a photo of my car, lean his ass against the hood, and start texting on his phone. No doubt, he was sharing the vehicle’s location with his boss. So whoever had Roslyn had had his or her men stake out my car instead of the restaurant. Smart. Just not smart enough.

Apparently, Roslyn’s captors had believed my lie about not being able to leave right away. Otherwise, the guy would have been skulking in one of the nearby alleys, instead of being out in the open right next to my car. Still, even if he wasn’t expecting me for a while, it was sloppy of him to be so brazen, and I planned to use his carelessness to my advantage.

I glanced behind me, but this was a narrow street, with only a few cars parked on one side, and most of the storefronts were boarded up. I was the only one on this particular block, besides the guy at my car. Good.

I hoisted my duffel bag a little higher on my shoulder and started whistling a soft, cheery tune that Sophia had taught me. The guy looked up from his phone. He started to go back to his text, but his brain finally kicked into gear, and he recognized me. He froze, his thumbs jamming into his phone’s keypad and making it beep at him.

Instead of going over and confronting him, I gave the watcher a pleasant smile and walked right on by my car, as though the vehicle weren’t mine at all. I kept my steps slow and steady, as though I were in no particular hurry. After several seconds, shoes slapped on the sidewalk behind me. A glance at my reflection in the dirty windows of a defunct Italian restaurant confirmed that the watcher was scurrying after me, his phone dangling from his hand.

I grinned.

My casual walk continued until I reached the end of the block. As soon as I stepped around the corner, I dropped my duffel bag and pressed myself up against the side of the building, scanning the area. The block off to my left was deserted, and an alcove was set into the wall two feet past my right elbow, leading to a battered metal door, although whatever business had been behind it was long closed. To my right, at the far end of this block, a bum wearing layers of tattered rags dug through a plastic bag of garbage someone had tossed onto the sidewalk, searching for tin cans to add to the load already in his shopping cart.

Normally, I would have kept going until I could lure my watcher into a completely deserted area, but the bum was focused on his recycling, and I wanted to get to Roslyn as quickly as possible.

Besides, I was good at killing people quietly.

So I stood against the building, knife in my hand, tuning out the usual humming and honking of cars and horns on the neighboring streets, and concentrating on the smack-smack-smack of the watcher’s footsteps. He was a minute out and closing fast. I counted off the seconds in my head. Sixty . . . forty-five . . . thirty . . . twenty . . . ten . . .

The guy careened around the corner, his phone still in his hand, desperately trying to catch up with me before I disappeared completely. I grabbed the back of his suit jacket, spun him around, shoved him through the alcove, and slammed him into the door.

Crunch.

The sound of his nose breaking against the door was even louder than his hurried footsteps had been. The guy yelped and whirled around, blood dribbling down his face and murder in his eyes.

“Don’t be an idiot,” I warned.

Too late. He dropped his phone, his right hand darting toward the gun clipped to his belt, but I didn’t give him the chance to use it. I surged forward, clamped my hand over his mouth, and cut his throat with the knife still in my other hand. He died with a choking, bloody gurgle.

The guy pitched forward onto me, but my clothes were dark enough to hide the worst of the bloodstains. I lowered him to the ground and propped him up against the battered door, with his legs sticking out of the alcove and his feet falling away from each other on the sidewalk, as though he were a drunk sleeping off a bender.

Tink-tink-tink.

My head snapped to the left at the sounds, but it was just the bum still picking through the garbage. Even as my attacker bled out, the bum hooted with glee, apparently having found the mother lode. He started tossing can after can into his shopping cart like a basketball player swishing free throws. Dude had some game.

I waited a few seconds, but the bum kept adding to his aluminum haul. He was either too preoccupied by his search to notice me, or he was smart enough to pretend that I hadn’t just murdered a man a hundred feet away from him. Didn’t much matter to me which one.

Since the bum was seemingly fascinated with his discovery, I focused my attention back on the dead watcher. I didn’t recognize his face, but a pair of fangs gleamed in his mouth, which was frozen open in surprise at the brutal bit of death I’d just dealt him.

The man could have worked for anyone, but I couldn’t help but think of Benson and his army of vamps. Could Benson be behind Roslyn’s call? If so, I hoped that he was one of the three folks waiting for me at Northern Aggression. It was about time we had a face-to-face chat.

I started to get up, retrieve my bag from the sidewalk, and be on my way, when something let out a soft beep.

I went back down on one knee, keeping clear of the growing pool of blood forming around the vamp’s body, and fished his phone out from underneath his leg. A message from an unknown caller lit up the screen.

Has she left yet?

I sent whoever was on the other end a text.

No. Still watching for her.

I waited a few more seconds, but apparently, the person on the other end was content to wait for the vamp to respond when he spotted me leaving. I slipped the device into the back pocket of my jeans, then pulled out my own phone and sent a text to Sophia.

Watcher in doorway on Dalton Street. Leave as is, or dispose of at your leisure. Your choice. G.

A few seconds later, Sophia hit me back with a smiley face:

I grinned, put my phone away, and grabbed my duffel bag. I also took a moment to fish the dead guy’s wallet out of his suit jacket and swipe the cash inside before wiping off my prints and leaving the empty leather on the pavement beside his body so it would look like just another robbery gone wrong. Then I got to my feet and headed toward the bum, who was sorting through the cans in his shopping cart.

He finally looked up when my shadow fell over him. His eyes narrowed, and he grabbed the handle of his cart, holding on tight with both hands, lest I try to wrest it away from him. But all I did was toss the crumpled bills I’d taken off the dead watcher on top of the sticky mound of cans.

“For helping to keep the streets clean,” I said.

The bum gave me a suspicious look, but he snatched the money off the aluminum and tucked it into one of his pockets.

I winked at him, then turned and headed back toward my car, whistling all the while.

•

No one else was lurking at or around my vehicle, and no one had planted any bombs on it, so I was able to slide inside and zoom away without any more problems or delays.

While I drove, I pulled out my phone and called Bria, to let her know what was going on. But instead of picking up, my call went straight to her voice mail. Hi, you’ve reached Detective Bria Coolidge with the Ashland Police Department . . .

I growled in frustration, but I didn’t leave her a message. The way things had gone between us last night, she was probably screening my calls, so I doubted that she’d listen to any voice mail I left her right now.

I tried Xavier next, since Roslyn was his main squeeze, but he didn’t answer either. He was probably busy working with Bria on the best way to use Catalina’s testimony against Benson. I dialed Owen too but struck out for a third time. Then I remembered that he had some big business meeting planned for this afternoon, so he was probably tied up with that.

But there was one person I called who actually picked up his phone.

“You have reached the always awesome, ever charming, and obscenely handsome Finnegan Lane,” he chirped in my ear. “How may I be of service to you today?”

“Where are you?”

“Work. At the bank. Why?” His voice sharpened with every word.

I filled him in on Roslyn’s call and her request for me to come over to Northern Aggression to pick up my nonexistent bottles of gin. Finn was silent for a moment, then let loose with a string of curses.

“You want me to come help you?” he said. “I can grab my guns out of the safety-deposit boxes in the vault and be right over.”

“No. Roslyn said that there were only three of them. I should be able to handle that. See if you can track down Bria and Xavier. I’ve called them both, but their phones go straight to voice mail.”

“I’ll round them up and bring them over to the club as soon as possible,” he promised. “Watch your back.”

“You know I will.”

I hung up and tossed my phone into the passenger’s seat.

I drove fast and reached Northern Aggression in record time. I’d told Roslyn that I wouldn’t be here for at least an hour, but I had no intention of sticking to that timeline. The element of surprise could help me rescue my friend, and I intended to exploit it to the fullest.

But instead of zooming into Northern Aggression’s main lot and screeching to a stop in front of the entrance, I parked my car two streets over in an alley where no one would notice it. I glanced at my duffel bag on the passenger seat, debating whether I wanted to dig a gun, some ammo, and a silencer out of the dark depths. But I decided not to, since I was carrying my usual arsenal of five silverstone knives—one up either sleeve, one tucked in the small of my back, and one in the side of either boot. My knives were my best weapons, especially in a situation like this that called for quick, quiet action. So I grabbed my phone, got out of the car, and tucked the device into my pocket. I also checked the dead vamp’s phone, but there were no more messages, so I slid it back into my pocket as well and headed for the club.

I leapfrogged from one alley and side street to the next, until I ended up crouching behind a weeping willow at the far end of the parking lot in front of the club. I peered through the swaying screen of long green tendrils.

From the outside, Northern Aggression looked like an office building, plain and featureless, except for the sign mounted over the entrance—a heart with an arrow through it. Roslyn’s rune for her club. Since it was midafternoon, the neon sign was dark, but when the crowds came out tonight, it would glow a bright red, then orange, then yellow, as though the pierced heart were a living, beating thing, pulsing in agony from the wound it had received.