Once Bitten

I rubbed the small of my back. My skin was still smooth, but I swore I could now feel the judge's coiled mark slithering along my flesh. Warning of my diminishing time. Hurrying my steps.

We were six blocks past the bar when I ground to a halt, my head tilting back. “Bobby, quick, it's a trail.” Faint, but a trail.

Bobby stopped and breathed deeply. His nostrils flared several time before he gave me a puzzled look. “I don't—"

He couldn't pick it up, and I was already losing it.

"Please, try again. The rogue's never been to Firth, so it's not like a normal shifter scent, but there is still animal musk to it. Try, you can find it."

He paced in circles, tilting his head back and searching. Every heartbeat that passed I grew more frantic, I barely noticed as Bobby became less frantic.

"I've got it.” He took off at a run.

I'd lost the scent completely, so I had to trust Bobby had truly found it. We cut through side streets, running the opposite direction we'd been headed. The tenements faded to larger but equally rundown high-rise apartments. As we burst from a side street, Bobby grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me back into the shadow of a nearby building.

"Damn,” he whispered.

"What?"

"Hunter."

I tilted my head back. Any Firth scent should have been a hunter, but I recognized this one. “Not a hunter. The clanless. Ignore him. Focus on the rogue's scent."

Bobby nodded, but as he led Nathanial and I out of the shadows, his pace was more cautious than before. I tried not to think about what we were up against if the clanless and the rogue were allied in some way.

"Hurry,” I urged him.

Bobby shot a frown at me, and then paused and backtracked a couple yards. He glanced at the building beside us. He circled the front of it again before stopping at the base of the building's stoop. “This is it."

I jogged up the three cement steps and pulled the door open with a small feeling of triumph.

Green light flashed behind me. “You have failed, Kita of Firth."

Chapter 22

I whirled around. The judge stood in his perfectly tailored suit at the bottom of the steps. Somehow he still appeared to look down at me despite the fact I was standing several feet above him. A brilliant flash of green and his three demons appeared behind him. They slid toward me with outstretched talons.

"The night isn't over yet!"

"You have had your two nights. Now receive your judgment with dignity."

Nathanial stepped in front of me. “We are very close. If you kill her now, you will not learn everything we have found, and you will not stop the rogue from killing more innocent people. Surely you do not want more blood on your hands?"

The judge made a sign, and the demons stopped gliding forward. Smart vampire. According to Gil, the judge was trying to clean up his karma. Killing innocents wouldn't help him much. I held my breath while he deliberated. His face betrayed nothing of his thoughts, but finally he nodded.

"If you are indeed so close, I'll grant you a little extra time.” He looked at me like I was a bug to be squashed at his leisure. “You have fifteen more minutes, and then no pleading in the world will save you."

"It took you three months to find me, and you're giving me two nights and fifteen minutes to track down a deranged rogue?"

Nathanial sent me a look that clearly told me to shut up.

The judge smiled, flashing perfectly straight teeth. “Would you like to continue wasting time? Or bring me the rogue? Your choice, of course."

My heart jumped to my throat. Turning, I flung open the door.

"These two I will keep,” the judge said. I flipped around in time to see him make a grabbing motion into the air. Nathanial and Bobby jerked backward as if tied to invisible strings. “Insurance that you will try your hardest. Time is ticking."

"You want me to take on a rogue alone?"

"You can come down here and join them, if you are giving up."

"Kita, go,” Bobby yelled.

I hesitated less than a second, then ran inside the building.

I didn't have much of a plan, or really any plan. I needed Bobby. The building was huge. How was I supposed to find the rogue without Bobby's nose? No time to worry. Worrying would only get in the way.

I stopped in the center of the lobby and breathed deeply. I caught a hint of the rogue's scent. Katie might live on this floor, but even if she didn't they would have had to pass through the lobby to get upstairs.

I flung open the door to the stairwell but it didn't hold the rogue's scent. Okay, the first floor then. Time to start knocking on doors. I was trying to decide which was the most likely door when the elevator chimed. A young couple walked into the lobby and headed out the front exit without glancing my way.

Cautiously I crept over and hit the ‘up’ button. The double doors slid open again and all but poured the rogue's scent on me. I stepped inside. Okay, so he took the elevator up, but to which floor? I hit the second floor button and the doors slid shut, trapping me inside. My stomach flipped as the elevator lurched into motion. The overhead light flickered erratically. The judge won't get the chance to kill me if the elevator does it first. I didn't wait for the door to completely open, but slid out as soon as I could see the hall between them. The second floor didn't have a trace of the rogue's scent. I ran to the stairs and dashed up, skipping every other step.

I checked each floor as I went. The building didn't have a thirteenth floor, but skipped right to the fourteenth. As soon as I walked into the hall on that floor, I caught the rogue's scent. Okay, now which door? I was two-thirds down the hall, and ready to pull out my hair, when I caught the sound of whimpering.

I stopped and pressed my ear to the wall.

Definitely whimpering. It could be an abused dog, but it was the best clue I had.

Now what?

I stared at the door. I could break it down, but I'd still need an invitation to enter. Damn.

I raised my fist to knock, and the stairwell door banged open. The scent of wolf, of hunter, permeated the hall. No, not hunter—the clanless. I whirled around.

He stopped when he saw me, his nose flaring. He didn't tip his imaginary hat this time. “You again,” he whispered, pulling a silver chain out of his pocket.

Crap. I really need some gloves and one of those things.

The clanless had the advantage of range with the chain. I dropped my weight evenly between my legs, but held back. I couldn't afford the noise of a fight—it would attract the attention of the rogue, and I couldn't take on both the clanless and the rogue.

The clanless had no reason to be here. He hadn't tagged the rogue, I had. Had they teamed up at some point? Or, was this a territory dispute? Was that why he'd attacked me in the alley?

"I'm hunting the rogue. Are you with him?” I kept my voice quiet, hoping the city-shifter inside the apartment wouldn't hear.

The clanless's jaw clenched. “There are no female hunters.” His eyes flickered toward the door and then back to me. “The thing behind that door is an abomination. My prey. You too, if you're helping him."

I didn't have time for this. Sidling cautiously along the wall, I moved further from the apartment so the rogue was less likely to hear me. I kept my voice low, but heat still bled into my words, burning my throat as I whispered. “You're no hunter, either. I found you skulking around one of the rogue's haunts, and now I find you here. With him. I have as much reason to distrust you. More. You are clanless."

"That I am.” He titled his head as if I could have missed his scars. “But I'd never side with a rogue or tolerate the trouble he brings. I don't like my territory overrun with hunters. As for you, you would have me believe we share a common goal? I found you first a cat who had been in close-enough proximity of the rogue for his scent to be on you. Then I found you a wolf in one of the rogue's haunts. Now I find you not a shifter at all, here, where he is within reach. How could I believe you are hunting him?"

I had to admit, when put that way, I sounded pretty damn suspicious. Didn't make me trust him any more, though. If we walked into that apartment together and he turned out to be working with the rogue, I'd be sorely outnumbered. But neither could I stand in the hall all night playing this game of words. I told the truth.

"I have about eight more minutes to find and capture the rogue, or the mage I'm hunting for will kill me. I'll make you a deal. Come back in fifteen minutes. If the rogue is still around, he's all yours."

He stared at me, his mouth stretching into a lopsided frown. “Three nights ago I'd have thought you were pulling my tail, but since then I've been over-powered by a non-shifter, held at bay by purple light, and met a shifter whose beast changes and disappears. Perhaps your mage exists.” He backed up.

I waited, ready for him to charge. To betray his retreat as fake. He didn't.

He backed all the way to the stairwell, never taking his eyes off me. Once he reached the door, he nudged it open with his foot, and, stepping half inside, pantomimed tipping a hat at me. “You have your fifteen minutes, little Dyre enigma. I'll finish the job if you don't."

I waited until I heard his footsteps take him down at least one flight of stairs, and then I ran back to the rogue's door. The clanless might have given me fifteen minutes, but I only had about seven left before the judge called time.

I pounded on the door.

It took an eternity before I heard footsteps moving in the apartment. What would I say when it opened? I needed to get the rogue downstairs without causing any kind of disturbance a human would notice. I could tell him my car broke down, but why would I have come to the fourteenth floor? The footsteps drew nearer. There was no logical reason I would walk up to this floor and ask him to leave the building with me. The doorknob turned, hinges creaked.

"Sorry, was the TV too loud...” said the man I recognized from Candice's memory. His face made her terror rush through me again, and I flinched. He looked surprised when his brown eyes landed on me. Then he smirked. His hand shot out, snatched a lock of my hair. “I wondered when I'd get your attention. Should I call you mom?"