"Sir, the guy who kiled Paulie - the drug lord? - he might be in the crowd."
"Yeah, I'm sure." He stuck the stick back into his utility belt but put a hand on the butt of his service weapon. "Give me the sword, ma'am, or we're going to have some trouble. And there are a lot of uniforms here tonight. You don't want to start something you can't finish."
I glanced back at the crowd. Just as the attorney finished his remarks and the cops stepped up to the podium, the dark-haired man had wedged his way through the crowd to the front of the rope line. Now that he was clear of the crowd, I could see his face.
It was Tate. One of them, anyway.
I looked back and appealed to the cops. "It's definitely him - Seth Tate. Do you see him? He's standing at the front of the crowd. Dark hair?"
The second cop, a little savvier than his friend, frowned and looked over, but the first cop wasn't buying it.
"Al right, I'm taking that weapon, and you're coming with me." He put a hand on the sheath of my sword and puled hard to dislodge it from my belt.
"I'm realy sorry about this," I said, chopping his hand away with a swipe of my arm and whipping out my sword.
Tate picked that moment to act - ripping the rope away and stepping into the gap between the crowd and the cops. He screamed out - that same primordial noise we'd heard in the silo. He wore a trench coat. He whipped it off to reveal a naked torso, and summoned the giant broadsword back into his hands.
And that wasn't al he was carrying.
Tate arched his back and held out his sword. As the horrified crowd looked on, great black wings sprouted from his shoulder blades. The purple-black membranes of his wings were marked by veins and tendons, stretched taut by long, thin bones that ended in needle-sharp claws. His wingspan must have been twenty feet. Twenty terrifying feet. They flapped once, then twice, filing the air with the scents of sulfur and smoke.
A shock of base fear ran through me. It was easy to think of Tate as a storybook creature, but this was no storybook. He was something old and fundamental to the earth, created not to protect men, but to judge them. He would see into your heart of hearts, and if he found you lacking, you had only yourself to blame for your suffering.
My worry wood was so not going to help with this.
The crowd screamed. I was distracted by the sights and sounds before me, and the second cop managed to pul the sword from my hand.
I could have fought him for it, but I realy didn't want to assault a cop if I didn't have to. I opted for pleading instead and held out my hand. "Please, someone has to stop him. I can try, but only with my sword."
Tate probably had no idea I was in the crowd and most certainly didn't care if I was being handled by the cops. Tate was busy fighting a battle of his own. He pushed away a uniformed cop from the crowd who tried to stop him and swiped his sword at one of the released cops. The cop stumbled backward to get away, but the sword caught him on the chin, and he screamed out.
While everyone else ran away from the monster and his weapon, Jonah jumped right into the fray, unsheathing his own sword. Before Tate noticed he was there, Jonah struck out and gashed the thin webbing of one of Tate's wings.
Tate screamed out and turned, his giant wing pivoting through the air and throwing Jonah backward.
"Jonah!" I yeled out, then looked back at the second cop, pleading in my eyes. "Please, for God's sake, give me back my sword."
He looked nervously between me and the drama that was playing out a few dozen feet in front of him. "What the hel is that?"
Cops trained for a lot of things, but likely nothing had prepared this poor guy for what he was seeing.
I picked an easy answer; this wasn't the time for complicated honesty. "He's a monster. He's something that doesn't belong here, but he's going to do a lot of damage until he's gone. I'm a vampire, and I think I can stop him, but I need my sword."
Stil nothing. The guy was stuck in a paralyzing panic, so I broke out the big gun.
"I'm Caroline Merit," I said. "Chuck Merit's granddaughter."
His eyes cleared, understanding blossoming in his expression.
Not for me, most likely, but for my grandfather, who'd walked a beat in Chicago for years before he'd become Seth Tate's Ombudsman.
The officer Tate had nicked on the chin screamed as Tate cut him down with the sword. Other cops in the crowd fired, but their bulets had no effect on him.
So he had magical weapons, giant wings, and a sword, and he was immune to bulets. This was getting better and better.
"I need to go now!" I told the cop.
It took him a second, but he finaly nodded and handed back my sword. "Go! Go!"
I nodded and took it, savoring the bite of leather cording against my palm. I yeled out over the barrage of bulets, "Please try to stop them from firing at me, if you can. It won't kil me, but it wil hurt like a son of a bitch."
The cop nodded back, and I watched his eyes flatten as his instincts took over. He'd be fine.
"Hold your fire!" he yeled out, arms flapping the air to get the others' attention. "Hold your fire!"
The shots trailed off and finaly stopped. The attorneys had abandoned their clients, leaving three of the released cops frozen in fear on the stairs. The fourth lay arms and legs akimbo on the step below them.
I said a silent prayer, gripped my sword, and moved forward.
"Tate!" I caled out when I reached the bottom step.
He stopped and froze, and I suddenly knew how every movie heroine who'd tried to save someone by diverting the monster's attention felt. The obvious problem with that approach? It put the monster's attention squarely on you.
Slowly, Tate turned toward me. His face so handsome but so deadly. His eyes burned like blue fire, fed by zealotry and a power that eclipsed anything else I'd seen before.
It seemed the rest of the city fel quiet to hear him speak. "This isn't your fight, Balerina."
He recognized me - but did that mean he was Tate Part One or Tate Part Two?
I took another step. "You've attacked my city, Tate. That makes it my fight. Walk away and leave them be."
"You think you can take me?"
In the corner of my eye, I saw Jonah nearing Tate again, back on his feet with his sword in hand.
"Whether I can or not is irrelevant. I wil try because you don't have the right to attack these men."
"Justice is not being served," he said.
"That's an issue for humans. It's not your concern."
"And yet here you are," he said, reaching out to grab one of the other three released cops by the neck. The cop screamed and kicked, but Tate was unmoved. He held him in the crook of his arm like the cop was nothing more than a game animal, caught for sport.