Wolfe stared around at the carnage. Three cars, twelve bodies, and Liam was shot. Not to mention the lady in the van, which had stopped right near the front door to the Hellmouth Institute. But she wasn’t moving, just clutching the steering wheel, so Wolfe headed toward Liam.

Cereboo and Malviere fell in beside him again as he moved. Cereboo was torn up from the fighting, so Wolfe unsummoned and resummoned his pup.

As Wolfe reached his friend, he saw the damage wasn’t too bad. Liam had rolled over, and Wolfe could see that the leg wound wasn’t spurting. That meant no artery had been hit and Liam would live.

Which was how Wolfe defined “damage that wasn’t too bad,” after twenty years as a mob enforcer and slightly over two years as a vigilante.

As if on cue, Liam muttered, “I’m okay, and I’ll be totally fine once Shel gets off work.”

Wolfe chuckled and nodded. Shel having cards that can heal people probably also has a lot to do with my cavalier attitude toward non-life-threatening wounds. She’s brought me back from serious injury on quite a few occasions. And speaking of…

Wolfe dialed Shel at her private number. She was at work as a new rookie in the Noimoire police department. Her phone rang three times, then went to answering machine.

Wolfe sighed. This didn’t seem like the kinda thing you should leave on an answering machine, but… “Hey Shel, it’s Wol—William. I just got attacked by three cars worth of thugs. I’m alive, they’re dead. But Liam was shot. It’ll hold till you get back. Rhett is on his way, but I think things are about to get interesting again. Love you, see you tonight.”

Even after two years, it felt weird to him to tell someone he loved them, but he liked it.

“Can you walk?” Wolfe asked Liam.

Liam held his hand up, and Wolfe pulled him to his feet. Liam took a halting step, grimacing as he did. “Hurts, but I can move.”

“Cover me then. I’m almost positive whomever is in the van is not a threat, but just in case…”

Liam nodded, and touched one of the cards floating in front of him. A tier one Angry Hellhound appeared next to him, and he limped into formation with everyone behind Wolfe.

I’ve got an entourage, Wolfe thought with a half laugh, glancing at everyone.

“A mighty pack indeed,” Malviere said in her otherworldly voice, as if reading his mind.

Wolfe walked up to van. He saw the woman inside was staring at him as he approached, meeting his eyes in the side mirror.

But her white-knuckled grip never left the steering wheel as Wolfe approached.

When he was nearly there, the lady whispered, “I’m not here to attack you. Please don’t kill me, Wolfe.”

Wolfe almost laughed at the most ridiculously obvious declaration before his brain ground to halt. She knows who I really am.

Ironically, her knowledge made him more wary, and Wolfe regretted that he was out of magazines for his Edge. But with his mantle on and Malviere out, he was still ridiculously dangerous. Not that he wasn’t always dangerous—but especially so now.

Wolfe reached the window and stared inside. The woman in the driver’s seat appeared older at first glance, with dark rings around her eyes and the first sign of wrinkles around their edges. But a second look, at her vibrant brown hair, youthful skin, and lack of any hang in her flesh, placed her in her late twenties. Wolfe was almost positive his first impression was because she had suffered terribly, or been in fear a long time.

The way she gripped the wheel confirmed it, and did the thick black hoodie and sweatpants she wore, that concealed most of her from gazing eyes.

She was breathing oddly, long deep breaths, a slow hold, then letting it go.

On her opposite side, a brain in a glass case, carried by a small, white wheeled frame, was buckled into the passenger seat. A card appeared over it. She’s a deckbearer.

“Um, hello?” Wolfe said.

“I need your help,” the woman whispered after a moment, still only staring at the side mirror rather than directly at Wolfe. “I can make it worth your while.”

“You’re sounding crazier than a soup sandwich,” Wolfe said. “Or at least way ahead of where this conversation ought to be. Start at the beginning. Who are you?”

“I’m Fern. Fern Wachowski. But that’s not important. What’s important is that Adam is gone for”—she glanced at the dashboard—“Six days, twenty-one hours, and thirty-two minutes more. That’s how long before he comes back and kills us both.”

Wolfe frowned. “Not helping the whole soup sandwich thing.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Fern took a deep breath, then whispered, “The seat beneath me, the wheel I’m gripping, the air conditioning.”

Wolfe was getting impatient, but gave her a moment. While Fern breathed and talked to herself, he glanced back at the scene of carnage. I hope no one had heard the commotion and called the Noimoire police. I think there’s a decent chance, since the lot has a lot of distance from everyone else. But gunshots are loud, and we fired off a ton of bullets in that fight.

Fern finished whatever breathing exercise she was doing and finally looked at Wolfe directly.

“I’m involuntarily working for Adam Delacruz,” she said. “You don’t know him, but he’s Caine Delacruz’s father.”

Wolfe remembered Caine, the man that had worked for Worldwide Decurion—the organization that had been trafficking criminals for organs and other nefarious purposes. Caine had been killed by Damian, technically, but only because Wolfe had been trying to kill them regardless.

“I keep tabs on the remaining three crime families for him. Adam works with them. He plans to assassinate you a few weeks after he gets back because you killed his son, with the help of said families.”

Fern slowly and deliberately released the wheel with one hand. She reached inside her hoodie pocket and pulled a USB drive out, handing it over to Wolfe. “Everything I know about all their operations, which is a lot, is on that drive. It’s yours.”

Wolfe fingered the drive. “Why?”

“You can’t be working for Adam, since you killed his son. But I know you’ve been quietly looking into the crime families, who I want dead as well—because they support Adam, and for personal reasons as well.”

That all sounds like personal reasons, but I don’t need to know. “So… you want me to take this information and kill a ton of people?”

Fern returned her hand to the wheel and stared ahead again, then recited in a monotonous voice, “I investigated you after you killed Caine. I know you’re keeping a growing list of everything you can about the crime families on your computer—including lists of who has certain cards. I know most of your information is through Rachel Lyons, your girlfriend, who's working for the Noimoire police department, since it matches the files in the police databases, mostly. I know about the Gate to the Underworld set. I think you aim to finish the other crime families off. I want that as well. This will help.”

Wolfe raised his eyebrows at the recitation. Alright, I guess I’m going back to storing information the old way—on paper. I had no idea someone was, or could, look at my personal computer. I wonder which idiot in my household downloaded what that let Fern look into things.

"What do you want in return?” Wolfe asked.

She turned her head back again, staring at Wolfe with haunted eyes. “It’s yours. But I would want you to protect me from Adam, if you will. He’s coming for you, one way or another. But I’ll still be safer with your protection than without, when he sends people after me in turn.”

“He’s going to send people after you?”

Fern nodded.

Wolfe motioned to the Hellmouth Institute. “And you want to live in a gigantic demonic building?”

“If I never see another symbol of Gabriel, I’ll be happier.”

Wolfe glanced at the symbol on the side of the van. He was almost positive it was a Divine symbol, but he didn’t know which archangel it referenced. Not Gabriel, I guess. Huh.

Wolfe turned his attention back to Fern. “Alright, well, you can stay here for now. I don’t know that’s its perfectly safe, but it’s something.”

Fern turned the van off, slowly removed her seat belt, and stepped from the van. Wolfe took a few steps back to give her room as she exited. Something told him she wouldn’t appreciate large people near her.

Fern glanced up at him once she had exited. She took a deep breath and whispered, “You can do this, Fern. Anger is better than fear.”

Wolfe raised an eyebrow, then glanced over at Liam, who rolled his eyes then shrugged. Wolfe silently chuckled to himself. Yeah, that’s how I feel about this chick as well.

Fern took another deep breath and then looked up at Wolfe. “I can do something else for you, as well. I’m going to pull my deck, okay? I’m not attacking you.”

“Sure,” Wolfe responded.

Fern went through the motions of touching her chest over her heart and then pushing her hand out, fingers splayed.

Two cards with purple light, and another glimmering with gray light, appeared.

Golem and Psychic. That’s an odd combination.

“Wrong cards,” Fern said.

“You should see my alpha trying to pull his mantle,” Malviere murmured.

Fern didn’t respond or acknowledge Malviere at all, just staring at the cards in front of her for a full minute, the time before you could switch into a new hand. Then she swiped the cards sideways. The three cards seemed to move sideways into nothing, and three more came from nothing to rest floating in front of her. Two were gray, and one purple.

She reached out and touched the purple card, and light flashed around her.

Fern’s appearance changed. She now had long red hair, a freckled face, and green eyes, all on a roughly twenty-one-year-old body.

Wolfe blinked as he stared at a near-perfect copy of Shel, the love of his life.

“I can change your appearance with my cards. It only works on any given deckbearer once per day, like healing cards, and my length of play for my cards is only five minutes… but, for a tiny bit at least, we can disguise you.”

Her appearance briefly shimmered, and Wolfe was looking at Fern again. Liam whistled. “That’s useful. The gods put very few cards in that can affect the world outside the Great Game, you know.”

“A lot more this season,” Fern replied, her voice stronger than it had been. “But… when it’s time to hunt, you can catch them unawares. For a bit, at least.”

She reached back inside her hoodie pocket and glanced at her phone. “You’ve got six days, twenty-one hours, and twenty-seven minutes before Adam gets back. You have to clear the Noimoire underworld before then.”

It was Wolfe’s turn to whistle. “You don’t think small, do you?”

“It has to be this way,” Fern said.

Wolfe frowned. “I’m not sure I should launch a war of murder against the gangs… I’ve been giving thought to trying to get them all arrested, instead. Doing it the”—he held up air quotes—“right way.”

Fern started to tremble. “You can’t, Wolfe. Even if you had time, Adam’s connections will keep them on the street. And you don’t have time. You won’t live if they all go on the offensive at once, and neither will Rachel. They’re going to do it soon, right after Adam gets back, like I just said. You have to finish them, now.”

“You’re sure?” Wolfe asked. “I thought I covered my tracks fairly well…”

Ferns breathing and speech were both speeding up. “Look at the evidence I gave you! It’s all there. If you wait for them to hit you, it’ll be too late. Then, once they’ve killed you, Adam will have me back. I’ll never escape again. My choices will be death or servitude forever, if he doesn’t just torture me to death for my betrayal.”

She paused her talk, almost choking as she hyperventilated. “You have to, hit them, first. Now. For, both our, sakes. Please.”