GJ rushed up the hill as fast as her legs could carry her. Fighting the heat and high humidity of the air, she pushed herself to her limit. She wasn’t getting enough oxygen, but it didn’t matter. She had to get there.
In her ear, Eleri yelled, “Go go go!” But she couldn't see her boss.
Eleri was coming from the other side, and GJ hoped Eleri’s health was holding up. They shouldn't be taxing her this way, but all four had agreed there was no other option.
“I can't see anything. I don't know what they look like.” GJ tried not to breathe the words heavily and to not look like she was talking to herself. Tourists pressed in on each side, spending the day checking out the sights or being lazy in the heat, while GJ was fighting for survival among them. So she was holding the phone to her ear, despite the fact that she had an earpiece, just so she didn't look crazy.
“They're there,” Eleri repeated her worst fears.
“I know.” GJ didn't doubt what Eleri knew.
The two of them had been waiting down an alleyway, away from the tourist locations. It should have allowed them to ambush the assassin as he trailed Donovan and Noah, who’d put themselves out as bait. But, of course, it hadn't happened that way.
She and Eleri had been standing around the corner, waiting for their fellow agents to say they’d caught sight of someone and were leading them back, when Eleri had frozen. As GJ had watched, her senior agent’s chin lifted up as though something in the clouds might tell her an answer. Her hand had reached out, clutching at GJ hard enough to make GJ wish to break the hold. But Eleri only said, “We have to go now. They aren't coming here. They're in danger.”
Though she’d said those words calmly, nothing had been calm since. They’d run out of the alley, unprepared to move their fight. Frantically, they’d managed to hail a cab. They were still too far away. . . only a few blocks, but too far to be useful when their partners were in danger.
It had been a stupid plan, GJ thought now. They’d been counting on an assassin and a handful of Lobomau to make a reasonable decision—to not want a fight in a public place. Apparently, none of their opponents agreed with that idea.
Eleri asked their driver to let her out at one entrance of the Queens Staircase and insisted GJ ride around to the other side. GJ didn't ask questions, but when the car stopped, she jumped out and ran.
Now she was trying to reach the top entrance of the tourist attraction, because Noah and Donovan were inside.
“Noah? Noah!” she said, still holding the phone up as though she might cover her frantic attempts at communication.
In her ear, his voice came back, soft. “We’re surrounded.”
“I know.” She breathed out the relief that they were okay, if only for now. “We're here. I’m at the top of the stairs.”
“Bottom of the stairs,” Eleri chimed in as GJ crested the hill, stepping onto the stone walkway and moving forward. At the last minute, she stopped and peered down the steps.
It was crowded enough that it took her a moment to locate Noah and, by his side, Donovan. They were standing on the landing, plastered against the stone wall. Noah held onto a handful of Donovan’s scruff, though it was unclear whether that was for his sake or for Donovan’s.
“We were pushed,” Noah said. GJ watched his mouth move almost imperceptibly as she heard the words in her earpiece. “He almost sent Donovan down the steps.”
He's here.
It wasn’t just the wolves.
GJ lifted her gaze then. She’d easily found Noah and Donovan in the crowd, but the assassin? She didn’t know what he looked like. She had no description other than “male, fit, between twenty and fifty.” That described almost a third of the people here.
Her eyes darted back and forth, scanning the field for anyone who might be her target. She’d seen the video of him wearing full diving gear, but she'd not encountered him. Eleri, Jason, and Hannah had fought him underwater, but even they couldn’t recall solid identifying characteristics. Neither of the researchers had been able to produce a sketch.
So here she was, attempting to draw out and conquer an enemy none of them could identify.
“Eleri?” GJ asked into the open air, finally pushing the phone down into her back pocket. She needed to leave her hands free, just in case. She had her gun holstered at her waist and tucked under her shirt, but in this crowd, she shouldn’t even reach for it. She couldn't just yell “FBI!” and show her badge here, although she decided she might do it anyway.
“I don't see him yet,” Eleri replied, her voice laced with a note that indicated she was beginning to panic.
Eleri panicking? That almost made GJ lose her own shit. Why was Eleri so keyed up? If Eleri was afraid, GJ should be doubly so. She scanned every face again, hoping against reason to find something.
“Noah?” she barked, drawing attention from a passerby, but she didn’t care.
His voice came across the line. “I felt him push me, but I can't identify him.” From her vantage point at the top, she watched Noah, who stayed plastered to the wall, turning his head as he, too, tried to find the killer.
Crap, GJ swore in her own head, her eyes rapidly scanning the area. Now she was simply looking for anyone with suspicious behavior. But her brain filtered back to the video and mentally, she replayed it. She watched again as he killed Allison. Her memory fantastic for the details of things seen. In her mind, she saw him making the stabbing motions with the knife. She watched again as Allison—underwater and just a few yards away from him—began to bleed.
“He can't just do it!” she stuttered the words into the air in front of her, knowing the others would hear. “It’s not just in his mind. He has to perform some kind of corresponding motion! Look for someone who makes a move at the right time if you take another hit.”
She paused then, and when no one replied, she barked out, “Got it?”
“Looking!” came back to her in Eleri’s voice. Noah’s “Yes” was close behind, and GJ turned her gaze not to faces but to hands, to anyone in motion, anything timed correctly.
When the next motion she saw was Donovan stumbling slightly, her instinct was to watch him and be certain that Noah caught him. Instead, she forced her eyes to the top of the stone wall. A few tourists stood looking over the crowd, but this time, one stood separately, his hand having waved in time to Donovan's sudden bump.
“Got him!” Eleri said just before GJ managed to get the words out.
But then GJ was bumped from behind.
Thinking it was their assassin again, she looked up—but it wasn’t him. Instead, it was a large brown wolf passing by. The one that nudged her out of the way was followed quickly by another, and then another.
There were already Lobomau on the stairs in human form. They already flanked Donovan and Noah on either side. And now they came as wolves.
Holy shit.
Eleri's voice crackled through the earpiece. “They're going to do this in public.”
“Then we have to, too,” GJ replied. They couldn't just let the Lobomau and the assassin kill Noah and Donovan or make an attempt at all four of them. The only option was to fight back. The assassin had already started it, trying to send Donovan down the steps.
GJ’s heartrate kicked up a notch. She watched as the three wolves carefully picked their way down to the landing where Noah and Donovan seemed impossibly pinned. She was about to open her mouth to ask them what they needed but, at the bottom of the steps, a movement caught her eye.
Eleri stumbled backwards and slammed against the wall.
Then—as GJ watched—she disappeared entirely.