Night Shift (Kate Daniels #6.5)(68)

“Add muggers to the list,” Ian said.

“Then that mugger would be getting back fewer fingers than they went in with. Gold’s not all that’s lurking at the bottom of those bags. Flash the photos around to bouncers and bartenders. Five leprechauns on the town will definitely be making use of the bars wherever they go. Thankfully, there’s one thing we know for sure—they’ll be sticking together. Find one, and you’ll find them all.”

“Has the queen been told that they’re missing?” I asked.

“Not until this agency has expended every resource available to us to locate and apprehend them. As our seer, you are our best—and potentially last—resource.”

I caught a glimpse of yet another smirk from Hand Crusher. Someone wanted me to screw up even worse than he already had. Too bad I wasn’t close enough to kick him myself, or I’d have taken a shot.

“We thought the agents assigned to the bodyguard duty would be more than adequate for the task.” Moreau’s eyes narrowed at Hand Crusher. Busted. “We were wrong. We underestimated our charges’ craftiness—as well as our agents’ discipline. I, as well as Madame Sagadraco, am disappointed in how the situation was allowed to deteriorate.” His cold eyes lingered over the first team of agents. “Neither she nor I wish to experience that disappointment again.”

Silence. The scared kind. I joined in. The first team had failed their test. Mine was just beginning.

This was the kind of assignment no corporate newbie wanted to get on their first night on the job. A race against goblin agents of the Unseelie Court while we hit New York’s strip joints, and me with a partner who considered the assignment as glorified babysitting, searching for a pack of horny, shapeshifting leprechauns looking to get lucky.



A group of us took the elevator down to SPI’s parking garage in silence. Moments later, a pair of steel doors slid apart in a whisper of air, opening into one of the city’s many abandoned subway tunnels. In this particular tunnel, the tracks had been removed, and the ground smoothed and paved into a parking garage. Beyond, what looked like a perfectly normal street—except it was more than five stories underground—stretched into the distance; I’d seen it once on my orientation tour of the complex.

A shadow suddenly loomed in—and over—my peripheral vision.

“This is Yasha Kazakov,” Ian said from beside me. “He’ll be our driver and backup.”

I turned in the direction Ian indicated, extended my hand, and froze.

Yasha Kazakov was a werewolf.

At least that was the aura my seer vision showed me.

Though, believe it or not, that wasn’t why I was staring. I’d seen werewolves before; I’d just never seen one carrying a massive .45 in a shoulder rig, and wearing fatigues and a T-shirt that read: “Don’t run, you’ll only die tired.”

And if that wasn’t enough—and it was plenty—he was big, somewhere between six foot seven and Sasquatch. His hair was brown trying real hard to be red. Add the werewolf aura my seer vision showed me, and Yasha Kazakov was well over seven foot tall.

“In a city where there are more supernatural perps than parking spaces, having a reliable drop-off and pick-up guy’s a must-have,” Ian told me. “And there’s no one better at turning a rampaging monster into a hood ornament.”

The Russian stuck out a paw that promptly engulfed mine. “I am Yasha.” His accent was almost as thick as his chest. His grip was human firm, not werewolf crushing. I was glad he’d learned to ease up before he got ahold of me.

“Makenna,” I managed, my voice sounding almost as small as I felt. “Call me Mac.”

The Russian gave a quick nod and a smile, and gave me my hand back with everything intact. “Mac.” He looked at Ian and the smile broadened into a grin on the verge of becoming a laugh. “Which den of sin do we visit first?”

“We’ll assume the leprechauns didn’t go back to the club they vanished from. Regardless, the first team will stake that one out.”

Yasha gave a single, booming laugh. “This time they can watch, yes?”

One of the elven agents gave Ian a wave as he, the second elf agent, and the human female agent who’d given Hand Crusher a hard time, got into one of the sedans.

“Mike, Steve, and Elana will be teaming with us,” Ian told me. “Mike knows our contacts in the clubs and can talk his way into or out of anything. Steve has enough mage skill to convince anyone that anything they saw has a perfectly normal—and non-supernatural—explanation. Comes in handy when things get too strange for civilians.”

“And Elana?” I asked.

“When there are dark alleys that need investigating, she goes in first.”

“Preternatural night vision?”

Ian shook his head. “Just mean.”

“And I am the extractor,” Yasha told me. “There is trouble, I am called.”

I gave a couple of slow nods. “I can see that. Why have an entire extraction team when you really only need one?”



WE took the biggest SUV in SPI’s fleet. With the huge Russian werewolf as our driver, it wasn’t like we had a choice.

Yasha drove the Suburban in silence down the subterranean “street,” and after about half a mile, he flipped open a panel on the dash, pushed a button inside, and a section of wall opened to our right that was just large enough to hold the SUV. Yasha pulled in, stopped, and turned off the engine. The doors closed behind us, and Yasha pressed a second button. Almost immediately, the car began to rise; the only sound the low rumble of some serious hydraulics hidden under us. The elevator stopped with a disconcerting jerk, and a pair of doors in front of us opened, revealing another parking garage.