I asked, "Do you know where the rage was coming from?"
"It was like a dark voice in my head," Alex said.
The guard blinked orange eyes at us, running fingers through his short orange-red hair. "I feel like I'm missing something."
I looked at Alex. "I know there are real vampires that feed on emotion. I've met one that fed on fear and could also cause it to rise in people just by thinking at them."
"Handy to be able to make your own food," Alex said.
I nodded.
"You think this was a vampire?" Ethan asked.
"I know that the weretiger who ran out of here was one of the people that we're hunting. That speed, that level of weapons work, it was them."
"You mean George was a spy," the new guard said.
"First, what's your name, and second, how long has George been here?"
He smiled. "I'm Ben, and a couple of months."
I thought about that. "They put him in here almost as soon as she woke up."
"What?" Ben asked.
I shook my head. "Just thinking out loud." They'd put a spy in here as soon as the Mother of All Darkness woke.
"They put him here near me," Alex said. "They knew eventually you'd come visiting."
"His paperwork checked out," Ben said.
"Some of these guys have been master spies for a thousand years or more," I said. "They're good at what they do."
"He cut through us as if we were human," Ben said.
"Did I hit him with the last shot?" I asked.
Ben frowned; I think he was trying to replay the fight in his head. "He had blood on his T-shirt, here." He touched the left side of the chest, shoulder area. "Was it Ethan's blood?"
"I never touched him," Ethan said.
"Then, yes, you shot him."
I grinned and felt that it was a fierce baring of teeth. "Please tell me all your guns are loaded with silver shot," I said.
"Of course," Ben said. "Silver will kill a human or a shapeshifter; lead only stops humans."
"Then he's hurt," Alex said. "Silver makes even the strongest of us have to heal human-slow."
"You were faster than he planned for," Ethan said. "He said so. Most of the guards would have missed that last shot. You did it with an unfamiliar gun, against someone faster than anyone I've ever seen." Ethan gave me an admiring look that wasn't about sex, but about that guy moment when they realize you are not just another pretty face, but maybe, just maybe you can be cute, petite, and one of the guys all at the same time.
"I'll call Ted and let him know that the bad guys are trying to find me."
"Why did he say that he hadn't come to hurt you?" Ethan said.
"I think he hoped I wouldn't shoot him."
Ethan gave me a look. "He could have been lying."
"Yeah, but the other one last night that cut up the marshal said the same thing. They want me alive."
"Why?" Ethan asked.
I shook my head. I didn't know Ethan well enough to answer that question, but I knew now that the Mother of All Darkness wanted me alive. There was only one reason she wanted me that way: so she could take over my body and make it hers. George had said he wasn't here to hurt me. He was lying. He wanted to kidnap me and feed me to the Dark Mother of them all. So she could use my body to live again. Not hurting me? Yeah, right. George was a lying bag of shit.
Chapter Sixteen
THE WERETIGERS' DOCTORS and medics descended on the hallway not long after that. They took the more critically injured and left the dead to be carried away. Both the wounded and the dead were carried farther into the underground where they had their hospital area. We had one in the underground back home in St. Louis, too. They patched up the knife wound on Ethan's arm. It was shallow and long; if the knife hadn't been silver-edged he'd have healed it already. Edward reported the disaster of the tracking dogs after he heard my report about the Harlequin spy. The dog had been as useless as we'd said, but he was more concerned about what had happened to me than about the case.
Alex went with most of the guards to report to his mother, the queen. They left two on the door of the room where we'd managed to wreck half the machinery that handled ventilation to their underground lair. A repair person was coming to look at it later. Business was being handled once the wounded and the dead were tended to, because no matter how much blood is spilled, you still need your air circulation to work. The mundane aspects of life keep needing attention no matter what else is happening. If you live through the disaster you still need to get groceries, do laundry. That's one of the hardest things to understand when you first get involved in violence. That once it's over the world goes on, and you have to go along with it.
Edward was adamant about talking to Ethan and me in private. Once the door was closed, he let Ethan see just how unhappy he was with him. He was up in Ethan's face. "I thought you were supposed to be good at your job."
"I am," Ethan said, and that first trickling heat began to fill the room. He'd been patient, but no one's patience is limitless, not even Ethan's, apparently.
"Edward, this wasn't his fault. This wasn't anyone's fault."
Edward turned on me, hands in fists, eyes paled to that cold color of blue like a winter sky. I'd never seen him upset like this; he was usually one of the most controlled people I knew.
"I trusted your safety to him, Anita. I left you in his hands, literally." He was up in my face now, and the height difference made him loom a little over me. He was one of those men who weren't that tall, but could really loom when they wanted to, and he wanted to. "The only reason you're not dead is that he had orders to take you alive, Anita."