"What?" Icy cold settled in Dania's stomach. I must have misheard, or misunderstood… or something!

  "We're already at the hospital, Dani," Rhett's voice explained. "We're about to raid the place. I followed the lead from the arena and traced it back to a brand-new startup called Noimore Urban Renewal. NUR incorporated shortly after the new year and began buying up property in the worst sections of town…including the old hospital. They designated the building as the site of their corporate headquarters and filed plans to renovate the whole thing…and guess who the majority shareholder of NUR is?"

  "Hiro Landaine," Dania whispered.

  "Hiro Landaine," Rhett confirmed. "Turns out he suborned an arena employee into sending him screenshots of the eligible contender roster. My contact in arena security told me about it the other night. I had just made the connection to NUR and the hospital when I get a frantic call from Jake saying you've been abducted from a car accident on the way home from the arena. He told me you were following Knight. That was a stupid thing to do, Dani."

  "What fucking choice did I have?" she hissed into the phone. "You weren't going to share information on your lead, so how else was I supposed to keep Jake and Amari and everyone safe?"

  "Not by following the enemy! And of course I wasn't going to share information. This is an active investigation! I'm a police officer, Dani! It's my job to protect you, so you don't find yourself locked up in an abandoned psychiatric hospital at the mercy of men like Clayton Knight and Hiro Landaine!"

  "Just Landaine," she said, her voice clipped. "Knight's no longer a factor."

  Long silence, broken only by the sound of Rhett's breathing.

  "Fuck all, Dani," he murmured. "Really? I don't know how I'm going to—just… stay where you are, all right? My guys are coming in hot. Stay put until Jake and I find you and then you two can escape to the Night Haven. I'll figure out how to avoid having the DA charge you with murder later."

  "Do not bring Jake in here," Dania said. "That's exactly what Landaine wants."

  "I'll be with him the entire time, Dani. He's the best way to get you out of there. I promise he'll be safe."

  "Like Berto was safe?"

  "Berto didn't follow my instructions! Sound fucking familiar?" Rhett's frustration roared through every word. "Gods above and below, what's it going to take for you to just trust me? I'm trying to help you!"

  "If anything happens to Jake, I will find you and I will end you, Rhett."

  "Godsdamnit, Dani—"

  "Jake, take me off speaker."

  Dania heard a muffled rustling, and then Jake's voice came through, sounding closer. "It's just me."

  "Listen to me. Take Amari and go back to the Haven. Let the cops do their jobs."

  "Not without you."

  "Jake, this place is a fucking trap set exactly for you. Landaine wants your Haven card badly enough to kill you to get it. I was fucking bait to draw you in. You can't give him what he wants."

  "I'm not going to," Jake said. "I'll be careful. I'll stick with Rhett and Amari the whole time. I'll use the shadows. But you taught me that we do anything for family, right? Well, you're the only family I have left, Dani. I'm not fucking leaving without you."

  Tears filled Dania's eyes. "Please, Jake," she whispered. Through the phone line, she heard a sudden cacophony of sirens start.

  "We're here, Dani. I'm coming to get you. Just like you would for me. I love you."

  The line went dead.

  Rage and fear tangled together inside Dani's chest. She clenched her teeth, squeezing her eyes shut as she fought not to scream in frustration.

  No time to fall apart. Jake is walking into a trap. You've got to spring it, somehow. You've got to get to Landaine before he gets to Jake!

  Dania squared her shoulders and opened her eyes. Then she turned to look at Hush, who had remained beside her on the bunk during the entire call.

  "I have to go find Hiro Landaine," she said, surprising herself with the calm, even tone of her words. "He's going to try and take the Night Haven card. I believe he'll kill Jake for it. I can't let that happen, Hush. Will you help me?"

  "Wee arrre a team," he said. "Wherrreverrr you arre, I willl go therrre forrr youuu."

  Dania nodded and scooted to the edge of the bunk in order to stand up. "Good," she said. "Then let's go."

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  Knight's key unlocked the bolt on the door, and Dania eased it open, blinking in the flickering light of one strobing, fluorescent tube that clung to life about halfway down the hall. Both the right and the left appeared empty, with only the shadow of a utilitarian staircase at the far end to her right. Slowly, Dania eased herself out of the cell, holding the door long enough to let Hush flit out as well, and then she headed toward the stairs.

  Inside the stairwell, a metal door with a push-bar stood under a darkened "Exit" sign. Had Dania been looking to escape, that would have been exactly what she wanted. Unfortunately for her, Rhett and Jake had taken that option off the table, so instead she pointed up and looked at Hush, who blinked once. Dania decided that meant he agreed with taking the stairs, and so she stepped carefully on the first rubber-edged riser and began to climb. When she arrived at the next floor, she listened at the door before pulling it slowly open and peering around.

  Instead of the flickering horror-movie aesthetic of what she now realized was the basement of the building, the ground floor looked newly remodeled. Smelled like it, too, with the slightly dusty scent of new drywall mingling with the faint tang of fresh paint in the air.

  "Jamison!" someone shouted at the far end of the hallway, where it appeared to open up into a larger room…the hospital entrance, perhaps? "The fucking cops are here! Grab those weapons and take them out the back! Stash em in the van! Take the damn stairs! I've gotta go report to the boss!"

  Dania slid back into the stairwell and climbed up to the next landing, pulling her deck as she did so. Hush glided from his spot next to her to a shadowy corner beside the stairwell door as they waited.

  Scimitar Cat, Adventuresome Paleontologist, Fossil Bloom, and Expedition Charter. Not my lucky night, she thought, gritting her teeth. She touched the Scimitar Cat, which bounded to life and crouched next to her, waiting.

  Jamison turned out to be a gangly young man with a thin, scraggly mustache and greasy hair. He had two overfull duffel bags, one hanging precariously from each bony shoulder.

  Shit, Dania realized. I don't know this kid. He could just be a flunky or whatever. I can't just kill him. Next to her, the Scimitar Cat shifted restlessly, as if fighting against Dania's mental lock holding it in place. Stay still, Dania told it firmly. If he comes up here you can attack him, but if he goes downstairs to the exit we're gonna let him go. The cops will pick him up outside or not.

  It may not have been Dania's lucky night, but it was definitely Jamison's. He clattered down the stairs as fast as his skinny legs would take him. Judging by the sound of things, he skidded the last two steps and hit the push bar all in one motion just as someone outside yelled "Noimoire police! Put your hands in the air!"

  The exit door slammed, cutting off the drama of Jamison's aborted escape. Dania exhaled and cycled her cards, since a minute had passed. This time, her mantle came up, along with Megafauna, a Dire Wolf Tracker, and her Giant Ground Sloth.

  She dismissed her Scimitar Cat back to the deck in favor of the Dire Wolf Tracker, which took two of her Beast power, but had the ability to track another deckbearer. As the tawny light spiraled to the riser next to her and resolved into the hulking form of the wolf, she pictured Landaine as she'd last seen him, his eyes alight with fanaticism. The Dire Wolf Tracker tilted its head at her for a moment, and then straightened and gave a soft "yip". It then turned and bounded up the stairs to the door at the top of the floor.

  "It hassss the ssscent of sssomeone," Hush said as he glided up alongside Dania.

  "I just hope it's Landaine," Dania said. "I've gotta find him before he finds Jake."

  The distant pops of gunfire filtered through the closed door, along with a muffled yell that Dania couldn't understand. With a deep breath, she pushed the bar down and eased the door open. The minute it had space to do so, her Dire Wolf Tracker slid between Dania and the doorframe and took off down the hallway at a lope.

  "Shit!" Dania touched her mantle and let the fur flow over her as she pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped through.

  "Get downstairs!" someone shouted, drawing Dania's attention. A woman wearing a skirt suit, with green skin and serpents coiling in her hair, bent down and took her high heels off, and then started running toward Dania. "The card cops are here! Boss says all deckbearers to the lobby to hold them off!"

  "Be right there!" Dania called back as another pop pop pop of gunfire reverberated through the building. "Just gotta get my gun!"

  The green-skinned woman gave her a scathing look, but didn't stop. She flipped her wrist as she passed Dania and headed into the stairwell, and Dania could see the three green-edged cards that floated in front of her chest fade, to be replaced by three more.

  Dania continued down the hall the way her Dire Wolf had gone, following a tugging sensation in her chest that pulled her along down the hall toward the sounds of gunfire and a screaming, growling card melee apparently taking place at the old hospital entrance. As she approached the hallway, Dania could see that this second floor had a railed gallery that overlooked the entry area and the battle going on there.

  Remodeling equipment—stacks of flooring, wainscoting panels, paint buckets, and folded ladders—littered the hallway and the exit to the gallery, and Dania found herself ducking behind them every now and again to avoid detection as more people hustled toward the stairs to face the card cops that continued to push in through the doors.

  "Nyx'ss Chosssen isss herrre," Hush whispered in her ear as they crouched behind a pair of sawhorses at the hallway exit. "I ssseee him belllow."

  "Can you get to him?"

  "Not easssillly," Hush said. "He is ssssurrrrounded by policccee. Machairi issss with hiiim."

  "What about—"

  "Ah! There you are, my boy!"

  Landaine's voice rang out above the din, coming from somewhere along the gallery, sending a jolt of icy fear spearing through Dania's chest.

  "I've been waiting for you!" Landaine called out. "I believe you have something to give me."

  "I'm not giving you anything!" Jake shouted back. "I'm here to get Dani!"

  "Ah, I'm afraid Ms. Ellis won't be with us any longer." Landaine's voice held a false note of sympathy. "She refused to give me what I wanted. Don't make the same mistake, my boy."

  "I'm not your boy!" Jake screamed. "And I swear by all the gods above and below, I will kill you if you hurt her!" Dania gritted her teeth at the anguish in his voice, but it was enough to get her moving. She nodded at Hush and they eased out into the hallway, staying low and clinging to the shadows of the various construction debris that lined the railing.

  "Hiro Landaine!" That was Rhett's voice. "You're under arrest for—"

  "I am to be a god! I am not subject to your laws!" Landaine screamed then. Dania risked a glance over to see him standing in the center of the gallery, leaning precariously out over the edge. "Deckbearers!" he called, raising his hand to touch his chest. "Kill them! Kill them all and take their cards!"

  Deckbearer Hiro Landaine has drawn his deck.

  The world around them erupted in madness.

  Books 1 and 2 are now available in KU, and Please check it out and tell him I sent you!

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