Michael’s estate consisted of over four acres of manicured lawns and professionally maintained formal gardens with a huge house at its centre built over three sprawling levels. The house was brightly lit; all the windows blazed with cheerful welcoming light. Mist sprinted toward it across lush lawn with super-sized wolves spilling around him, threatening to trip him in their eagerness to be first to reach the fight.

Gunfire.

Single shots rang out, shattering the quiet. It didn’t slow them. It was distant. More shots, this time rapid fire from some kind of assault rifle by the sound. Mist knew what the manthing was through David, but he had no fear of it. It sounded far away, as did the other shots, and he wondered if Farris had found a fight already. Some of his wolves peeled away from the group, having found interesting scents to pursue. More ran into the night howling for blood, and they would find it. The AML humans would not leave the grounds. Not alive.

He reached the house but did not slow his charge. The front door had been broken down, and he entered through it to find bodies sprawled over marble floors illuminated by harsh white light supplied by a magnificent chandelier hanging overhead. He waved his wolves up the twin curving staircases, and they dashed away, howling their excitement.

He inspected the oval shaped lobby looking for a clue where Stephen and the others were. The bodies lying sprawled upon the shiny floor in lakes of blood were no indication. They were both vampires or had been. Their scents gave them away for what they were, as did the form of execution AML had used. Both had been decapitated after being disabled by stakes or bullets. Either they had belonged to Michael’s House or were guests of his.

He crouched to sniff for clues and caught what he was looking for. The human killers had left their spoor. He growled and ran in pursuit, hoping to catch at least one before Stephen and the others killed them all.

Are you so eager to kill?

No, but we must protect what is ours. These AML are like lone wolves gone mad. Worse. They’re like a rogue pack and should be destroyed.

They’re not a pack of any kind. They’re human, but I agree they are mad men.

They must die for our pack to be safe.

Yes, David said sadly. You’re right. Kill them, kill them all and let us go home. I don’t want to think about this anymore. I just wanted to work with Alex and help people. I’m a healer. I don’t want this life of killing. Do what you must and let us go home.

Mist felt David withdraw, pulling away and submerging himself so deeply that he was barely there. It was the first time his bond mate had left him so alone, and he felt the loss keenly. Suddenly the manthings surrounding him felt alien. He knew that only moments before he had understood what these things were called and what they were for, but now they had names and uses that he couldn’t quite grasp. They were like a name on the tip of his tongue that refused to come to him.

He ran through the house following the spoor he had picked out. Every room he entered contained bodies. He didn’t know if they were Michael’s friends or the enemy, but he suspected the former, as most were not human. He wasn’t sure because David was far away and hadn’t explained, but he thought AML were all humans and some of these were shifters. The dead humans among them might be thrill seekers like those who came to the club.

More gunfire had him spinning toward the sound and running that way. Shouts and screams added urgency. Perhaps he could make David less sad by saving them.

He found the source of the screaming in one of the rooms Michael must use for his parties. The humans cowering against the walls and in the corners had other things on their minds than partying. The scent of fresh blood hit him the moment he entered the room and made him hungry. That was his first thought. Hungry. His second was that the humans menacing the guests with guns while two of their friends finished decapitating their non-human victims, were about to die.

He launched himself into the room, already raging in his thoughts. He didn’t care who any of these people were. He didn’t care about Michael’s guests or protecting them. None of them were worthy of protection as far as he was concerned. They had allowed a smaller weaker group to kill some of their number and had not fought back. Cowards, all of them, and more than that; they weren’t pack. That was the most telling mark against them. Not that they were human, but that they weren’t pack. The pack is good. The pack is all. It was a way of life, not something to treat as optional.

He landed behind the two men and ducked as one of them spun in place, trying to use his sword to defend himself. Mist plunged the claws of his right hand into the yelling human’s belly, and ripped out a good handful of his guts. He dropped the mess on the already bloody wooden floor, and punched the other human hard in the face as he tried to bring a gun into play. The first man fell to his knees shrieking, trying to gather up his intestines. Mist ripped out his throat and jumped on his companion.

The scolding hot bullet punched into his belly, leaving a line of fire through his vitals, and he howled his pain. The silver in his guts burned, but the pain was already fading. The bullet had gone straight through him, causing a lot of damage in his back. He was bleeding heavily, but silver was better out than in. He remembered that from before. Silver burned, it hurt, but by far the most dangerous thing about it was the way it poisoned shifters and slowed healing. He didn’t want to change shape, but silver in him would have prevented that too. He was already healing and it didn’t stop him.

He grabbed the man’s gun hand, and crushed it around the weapon, forcing it aside. It went off, and someone screamed. The bullet had hit one of the cowards in the corner. He didn’t care. He was busy ripping his victim’s heart out. He raised it like a trophy before the man’s eyes as they glazed in death.

Mist’s belly rumbled in complaint, and drool filled his mouth at the scent of blood and the intriguing feel of the morsel in his hand. Shifting shape had made him very hungry, but he didn’t eat. David definitely wouldn’t like it. Besides, there were others that needed killing. He let the corpse fall and dropped the heart before he gave in to temptation.

His enemies didn’t wait to be attacked. They scattered. Some fired guns, some ran, one grabbed a hostage and tried to drag the woman away using her as a shield. That angered him the most, and he decided to kill that one first. He grabbed the shouting woman, and wrenched her out of her abductor’s grasp. He threw her behind him to sprawl upon the bloody floor, and then twisted the man’s head around.

He howled his victory, his cries answered in the distance by the pack. He howled again and attacked the remaining AML humans. Guns went off, bullets whizzed by, ricocheted, punched into plastered walls, and flesh. Mist grunted as some of the bullets found him, but he was fast, fast, fast! The wounds did nothing but annoy him. Those in his legs were nothing. The new one in his belly hurt something fierce though. He dug it out with his claws snarling at the pain, and dropped the tiny thing upon the floor. He glared at the one who had fired it, and slaughtered him in the most bloody way imaginable. He literally ripped him limb from limb as retribution.

Mist finished up and looked for more, but it was over. He panted and glared around looking for another challenger, but he found only frightened humans cowering in corners. One looked at him and screamed, making him want to bite her to shut her up. The screams caused all the others to shout and carry on. Stupid human She. If he had wanted to hurt her, why would he have bothered to save her and the rest? The scent of her fear was exciting him, but thoughts of what David would do calmed him a little. His bond mate would be pleased that he had saved these worthless humans. He would not want them hurt.

“Are there more?” he growled, choosing one of the braver seeming humans. An older man with silver in his beard. He wasn’t cowering like the others at least, though he was scared.

“They ran.”

“Which way?”

The human pointed, and Mist dashed away to find another fight, leaving the bodies of his enemies behind to rot. Stephen would need to call Jonas before morning. He would want all this to go away without notice. He wondered how he planned to keep Michael’s guests from talking about it. Would he kill them all and make their bodies disappear too? David would know, but his thoughts were too distant to understand. It didn’t matter what Stephen did with them anyway. None of them were pack or allied with them. They were Michael’s problem.

He ran outside and was in time to see Angel and Flex pursuing three humans as they headed for the dubious safety of the dark. The gardens beyond the huge swimming pool might seem safer than the house, but that was false. There were wolves prowling the grounds, left on guard by Farris. He could feel them out there, waiting to catch anyone attempting to escape. He approved.

Angel went to one knee and triggered a burst from one of her machine guns, sweeping it over the men and cutting them down as they ran. Two fell, sprawling upon the ground and obviously dead before they landed. The third staggered, half-turning to raise a gun. Flex fired first, and Angel fired again, bullets punching into her target throwing him backwards and into the swimming pool. A cloud of blood tainted the water as he floated face down on the surface. Angel reloaded and ran off with Flex guarding her back.

Mist went in search of trouble and another fight.

Chris ducked and fired back. She had no idea where her shot went, but it certainly hadn’t gone where she intended because more rounds came her way. The guy’s weapon chattered and spewed spent brass upon the patio in great profusion. She wasn’t using a stunner and neither was he. Her backup gun had only one use, and that was to kill. It didn’t have a stun setting, and she’d never bothered having it converted to accept a stunner attachment. That was what her service weapon was for, but using that here would make her an idiot. She hoped never to be one. Leaving bodies on the ground killed by a gun traceable to her would definitely call her IQ into question. She had no taste for stunning AML terrorists trying to kill her in any case. She might have been willing before she’d seen what they’d been doing in the house, but not now. No, she had no problem with putting them down like feral dogs.

The fire ended, and she took a quick look over the low wall she had been using for cover. He was reloading. She fired twice the moment she recognised her chance. The first shot was centre of mass, dictated by her training, but she realised her mistake straight away. He was wearing a vest. The hit staggered him but he didn’t go down. She adjusted her aim.

Head shot, and that was all she wrote.

She had no doubt he was dead, but she kept her gun up and aimed as she advanced. There were others like him out here. She had seen Angel chasing some earlier. She kicked the rifle out of the corpse’s hand. Training again, but he was definitely dead. One of the reasons she had chosen the Sharpe’s Defender II was its stopping power. She had long since decided that if she ever had an oh shit moment that required the use of her backup weapon, she wasn’t going to sweat legalities. Better to face a board’s questions than die for want of a weapon worthy of the name.

She peered into the darkness, hoping to see some sign of Angel or one her gang, but although she was sure they were out there—she could hear gunfire and screams—she saw no sign of them. She hesitated, but decided not to venture further from the house. She was only human, and the night contained many who were not; they could see better in the dark. Allied or not, she didn’t trust monsters of any stripe.

She turned back.

She went through the house carefully and methodically. Most of the rooms were empty. Some were pristine while others contained signs of violence and decapitated corpses. How many vamps had died here? A dozen, two dozen? She didn’t know, but it was a lot. She hadn’t known this many were even in the city. She had always assumed that vamps preferred living alone. She was sure she’d heard that somewhere. Shifters were the opposite and lived in packs like the animals they could turn into. Sometimes she thought they weren’t really people at all; they didn’t act like it a lot of the time. Maybe they really were animals, but animals with a little something extra—the ability to turn human.

She shook her head, uncertain where her thoughts were leading her. It wasn’t as if there weren’t precedent for the idea. Dragons weren’t human and never pretended to be, but they could take human form when the need arose just like a shifter... but no, everyone knew shifters were created by infecting a human with a category one disease—lycanthropy.

Dragons were born of dragon, elves were born of elf, humans were born of human, and dwarves were born of dwarf. All of the races were different, but all of them were perfectly natural in their places. Shifters though were other. They were essentially a walking disease, a very dangerous and contagious disease, as were vamps, but vamps at least were less contagious. It took real effort to create a new vampire. Not so with shifters.

She went through all the rooms, but if there were any AML fighters left alive, they had bugged out. The wolves were having fun hunting them down on the estate’s grounds. She grimaced at the thought. None of them would become shifters. The vamps wouldn’t let any survive the night she was sure. If by some miracle one did survive but infected, AML would put him down if he didn’t suicide first. That was AML policy, and its members supposedly swore to die before turning furry. She didn’t much blame them. She couldn’t imagine the horror of becoming one of the monsters and didn’t know how anyone survived the shock of it, but they did or there wouldn’t be so many shifters in LA. It was common knowledge that shifters were crazy bastards, maybe that was why so many survived. The sane ones killed themselves.

Voices. She paused to listen. Allies not enemy she decided and made her way toward the sound.

Finally, she found someone she knew, not that she was exactly pleased to find this particular group. The three vamps had finally turned up. They were standing in the centre of the room discussing things, accompanied only by the dead lying all around them. AML had lost big here, and she wondered just how many soldiers they had lost altogether. Enough to prevent any more atrocities for a while? She could hope, but doubted it. There was a seemingly endless supply of fools to recruit.

She eyed the dead as she made her way toward the huddle, wondering how many drained corpses she would find around the place. She grimaced in disgust at the thought and sighed. She had signed up for this, and that meant the entire package. This sort of thing was what came of stepping outside the law to consort with the monsters. She had known she would likely see some nasty stuff, and had thought she was ready for it, but this slaughter was more like a war zone than any crime scene she had investigated. She stepped over the bodies and around the pools of blood as she approached the vamps. She didn’t want to track blood all over the house, not that anyone else seemed to care. The place was already tracked up. It was a mess. It was a damn good job that forensics would never see this because they would have kittens if called out to a scene so screwed up.

“Where is he then?” Gavin was saying. “This makes no sense. He surely would not have left his guests to face these AML thugs alone. He prided himself on his hospitality. This violation of his House would send him into conniptions!”

Stephen laughed. “You are so right. When he sees the mess... ah here is our missing detective. You are well?”

She nodded and joined the group. “So, where is he?”

“That’s what we are discussing,” Rachelle said. “We seem to have mislaid him.”

“Mislaid, right. What in the nine hells are you trying to pull?”

Rachelle’s eyes flashed silver and she snarled, fangs out.

“Children!” Gavin chided. “None of that. We were discussing how Michael would not leave his guests in peril, and that narrows the possibilities.”

“And those would be?” she said, keeping an eye on those fangs. Rachelle hadn’t put them away yet.

Stephen chose to answer. “He might be dead, or taken, or perhaps he wasn’t present when the attack began. He could be attending to business in the city and not aware of the trouble here.”

Gavin nodded. “Those are the only options that I can see. We will search every room, every square foot of the grounds, but perhaps the easiest way to begin would be questioning Michael’s guests. They should know if he is here somewhere. That at least will furnish a starting point.”

Made sense to her. “Let’s get that started as soon as we can. Tell me you have a way to clean up the mess you’ve made.”

“Oh indeed we do,” Gavin said with a small smile that revealed just a hint of fang. “Lots of practise you understand. You have your link on you?”

Stephen retrieved his own. “I’ll call Jonas and take care of that side of things if you want to take Rachelle and the detective with you to begin the questioning. I’ll join you when I’m done.”

“That was my thought,” Gavin agreed.

Stephen nodded and made his call.

Chris stepped aside to allow Rachelle to lead the way out of the room. She wouldn’t let that psychopathic fang head get behind her, not now. She was too easily riled up, that one. Gavin and Stephen were models of gentlemanly decorum in comparison.

She wondered where the witch was, and doing what. Her imagination provided her with all kinds of nefarious possibilities and she shivered. Who knew what a black magic wielding necromance could find to do in such surroundings? Necromancy was all about death and the dead. Chris didn’t like contemplating what she might be doing to amuse herself here amongst so many corpses.

They found the surviving guests under guard in a large open room obviously used for a party most recently. The party balloons on the ceiling and the buffet tables along the walls crammed with food were a big clue. It looked obscene now, amidst the carnage. She tore her eyes away from the massacre that had taken place. Bodies and pieces of bodies lay upon the blood-coated floor. Some were decapitated. Vamps then, but others had once been human. Someone had taken them apart, something rather. Something with claws and teeth—big claws and teeth. The vampires with her were unfazed by the slaughter. Of course they were. They probably saw the like all the time. They might be responsible for worse things for all she knew.

More and more she was regretting her decision to get involved in this. It was all Baxter’s fault. She scowled. If not for his damn envelope, she wouldn’t have been tempted to start colouring outside the lines. Now she couldn’t stop. She had to see this thing through, but carefully. When it was done she would go back to her life and never step back out of it into this madness.

“You told your friends to hold them?” she asked, eyeing the naked men stationed at the doors and around the room. They had the windows well covered, obviously to prevent anyone getting adventurous. She recognised Ronnie, the only woman among so many men, and naked like them—and what was it with these freaks and walking about in the buff? Ronnie seemed to be the one in charge of the others. “What will you do about them?”

Gavin glanced back. “As you heard. We question them.”

“And then?”

He cocked his head in puzzlement.

Rachelle obviously guessed her meaning and spoke up. “She thinks we plan to kill them.”

“Why would we do that?”

Chris noted he hadn’t protested the possibility of killing everyone; he had only questioned the need. She had no doubt that if he did see a need no one in the room would leave the estate alive.

“You would trust them not to talk about this, the humans too?”

Rachelle expression turned incredulous. “Of course not! None will talk.”

“How can you guarantee that?”

“They won’t remember anything to talk about.”

“Your witch again? Where is she?”

“Around, and no, there’s no need for her talents. Gavin and I will take care of it.”

Chris remembered eyes in her head, watching watching watching, and whispers telling her to remember words that had faded from awareness over time. Vampires had mojo of their own. It wasn’t magic such as the Council or the elves used, though she suspected it was probably related in some way. Her dad had always insisted that everything in nature was connected, but then he would. It was a tenet, one of many, that all shamen lived by and believed in. She did not involve herself in such things, but she believed in vampire and shifter mojo. She had seen some wacky stuff in her time on the streets of LA. The monsters had powers uniquely their own. It worked in her favour this time, because if the vamps could erase this night from memory, no one else needed to die.

She nodded and followed the vamps to begin the questioning.