Demon Forged

reported in the area was the probable cause. Great, that everyone survived, but she couldn’t quite see what Joe was so worked up about. “Are we surprised it’s not a goose this time?”
    Joe shook his head, turned up the volume. “—witnesses on a ferry are calling it a miracle. ‘It just floated down into the water,’ said one witness. Others are more skeptical, however.”
    They switched to video of a lanky, twenty-something kid with a backpack and an American accent, laughing and shaking his head. “I saw a splash, that’s what I saw. We saw it start to come down, but then the moon went behind a cloud or something. You couldn’t see anything after that. Here—” He held up a digital video camera, showed a dark screen. “My dad paid fifteen hundred bucks for this before I came here, and I’ve got nothing. I should have been taking pictures of the naked blue lady who was strutting around the boat, instead.”
    At the mention of a naked lady, heads turned at the other desks. Joe turned the volume back down.
    The anchorwoman appeared again. “Reports indicate that fifty percent of the cameras on board recorded the same images.” She tried to appear coyly amused. “The other fifty show a nude blue woman—who, at this time, has not yet been identified.”
    “You see, Andy—our guys did that,” Joe said.
    She let the our guys slide without comment. A strange giddiness wouldn’t stop shaking in her belly. Could they really have saved an airplane ?
    The camera panned over the crowd again. Taylor found her finger shooting out, pressing against the screen below the face of a woman wearing a black cloak, the hood thrown back to show her dark hair.
    “That one! I saw her at Polidori’s a couple of nights ago.”
    “I saw her at SI, but she had on this red dress . . .” He trailed off with a whistle and leaned even closer, his tongue almost hanging out. “God, it’s a crime for a woman built like that to cover up her—”
    “You said you were ready, detective.”
    Taylor straightened. The voice was as harmonious as Michael’s, but definitely was not his.
    Taylor turned to Khavi and gestured at the computer. “I guess he’s a little busy?”
    “Yes. I volunteered to come in his place while he got rid of the dragon.”
    A dragon? Speechless, she looked over at Joe, who’d gotten to his feet.
    “You are going to Rael’s house,” Khavi said.
    It wasn’t a question—because, Taylor realized, the woman already knew. “We are unless you can see any reason why we shouldn’t.”
    “No. We must.”
    “Well, let’s head out then.”
    Taylor grabbed her coat, aware that half the bullpen was watching Khavi as if a pint-sized can of gorgeous had suddenly appeared in their midst, and she might start sharing it with all of them.
    They weren’t getting lucky today.
    Joe opened both the stair door and the vehicle’s rear passenger door for Khavi. Taylor rolled her eyes and shook her head as she slid into the driver’s seat.
    “Buckle up,” Taylor told her when Khavi scooted to the middle and leaned forward, her elbows on the back of the front seat. Her braided hair was blocking the image in the rearview mirror.
    “No, thank you. I have seen you arrive at Rael’s house. The vehicle is not damaged, so we do not crash.”
    Taylor counted to ten, reminding herself they were planning to kill a congressman, so seat belts were officially low on the list. When she got to ten, she started the car.
    “So were you there?” Joe turned to ask Khavi. “With the plane and the dragon?”
    “Yes.”
    “How’d you do it? The plane, first.”
    “Michael carried the front, I carried the back, and Mariko supported the middle and made sure it would not break apart. Alice tied the boats together and readied them, and Radha took her clothes off and made humans imagine things.”
    “Yeah, I bet,” Taylor said, giving Joe a pointed look. He raised his left hand, wagged his ringless finger. “And the dragon?”
    “Irena tore its chest open and shoved her spear through its heart.”
    Taylor’s brows rose. “Not Michael?”
    “No. But he has the blood now, and that is what matters.”
    “Why?”
    Khavi didn’t answer. God, she hated this shit.
    The grigori rested her chin on her arms. “I have told him that you will never love him.”
    Told who what? Taylor frowned and glanced at Joe. He shrugged.
    “You lost us, lady,” he said.
    “Michael,” Khavi said with the inflection of someone talking to a