Demon Forged

Only a couple of minutes had passed since the shooting; the guy couldn’t have gotten too far.
    The Guardian reached for the stairwell door. Oh, shit.
    “Wait!” Taylor caught her wrist. “Fingerprints. Maybe.” Okay, probably not a chance in hell that the guy had left prints, but they couldn’t take even that small risk.
    The Guardian looked at the metal fire door as if sizing it up. She turned and gave Taylor the same once-over. “Will you let me take you through?”
    “How?”
    Her stomach wobbled as the Guardian stepped through the door as if the steel were water. The metal warped around her body and solidified again into a flat surface. Taylor’s mouth dropped open. The Guardian’s forearm poked back through, and her fingers curled in a beckoning gesture. Taylor took her hand, a deep breath, and hurtled through the door. Being sucked through a vat of dark JELL-O might have felt weirder, but not by much.
    Taylor half-expected to be in some other realm when she opened her eyes. But on the opposite side of the door, the beige walls of the stairwell were refreshingly normal—and quiet.
    The Guardian cocked her head, listening. “I hear no one on the stairs.”
    “He got off on one of the floors, maybe.” Good. They could search the building room by room. “What’s your name, anyway?”
    “Irena.” She skipped down the stairs, stopped to sniff at the door, then skipped down another flight. She paused on the landing. “Here.”
    Instead of a knob, the door opened with a press-down bar. Taylor drew her weapon and pushed her hip against the end of the bar, sweeping into an empty hall. Tall plants flanked a bank of elevators. The directory at the end of the hall pointed to a suite of law offices on the right, accountants on the left.
    “Which way?”
    Irena headed straight for the elevators.
    “Dammit.” The arrows above the elevators were unlit, and there wasn’t a floor indicator to show where the cars had stopped. “You can search the building super-fast?”
    “Yes. But if I find him, I cannot detain him.”
    That’s right—a Guardian couldn’t prevent someone from exercising free will. That was why she’d asked before flying up here, before pulling Taylor through the door.
    “A description and a location would help.”
    Irena glanced at her, her brow creased. “How will you explain that to your courts?”
    “I’ll say that I saw and followed him.”
    “You would lie?”
    About this? “Yes.”
    To Taylor’s surprise, Irena seemed pleased by the answer. She nodded. “I will search.”
    Irena disappeared, and the rush of wind told Taylor that she hadn’t simply vanished, but run. She must have taken the stairs—and hadn’t even bothered to open the door.
    Taylor looked toward the directory again. Someone in the offices might have ridden in the elevator with this guy—
    “I picked up his scent again in the underground garage,” Irena said beside her, and it took every bit of Taylor’s control not to shriek and jump. “But he wasn’t there. He must have taken a vehicle.”
    Her heart still racing, Taylor nodded. “Security cameras might have caught it.” Fat chance. The guy moved too smoothly. It screamed of a planned hit; he’d have taken steps to avoid identification. And if it hadn’t been a professional, she’d eat her badge.
    If Jorgenson didn’t shove it down her throat first. Shit. Taylor headed back upstairs to secure the scene. From this point forward, she’d go by the book.
    Her phone vibrated at the same time Irena tilted her head. “The police are here,” she said.
    Taylor nodded and answered her phone with, “We lost the shooter, Joe. Found the site, but he took off.”
    Her partner bit off a curse, which told Taylor he wasn’t alone. In the background, an ambulance siren blared. “Julia Stafford didn’t make it. I’m en route to San Francisco General with the congressman and Agent Cordoba of Special Investigations.”
    The other Guardian. Of course.
    “This isn’t going to be ours, Andy,” Joe added in a low voice.
    “I know.” The FBI would take this one—or Special Investigations would. SI had been grabbing every case involving demons and vampires for two years, and covering up the supernatural involvement to make it look human. And even if the feds didn’t take it, the case wouldn’t be Taylor’s. Jorgenson wouldn’t risk it. She’d been skating too close to the edge.
    And doing a damn good job of taking Joe along with her. Jesus,