Crimson Death Read Free Page B

firms, because their rule was that you had to be a lycanthrope for at least two years before you could apply. Some companies insisted on four years, and not all countries would allow lycanthropes across their borders. The former SEALs had less than a year of turning furry. When the time was over they might decide to go to the other firms, because the money was better, for some assignments a lot better, but the money here wasn’t bad and the level of life-threatening danger was much lower. Either way, they had good jobs with benefits for them and their families while they were deciding what to do next with a set of skills that was impressive as hell but of limited use in the civilian sector. So far their biggest complaint, and only from Custer and one other, was that there hadn’t been enough excitement on the job.
    Micah and I started down the hallway hand in hand. It meant oneof us had to compromise a gun hand, but since we didn’t expect to be attacked in our own inner sanctum, I figured we were safe. I even let him have my gun hand, even though I had better scores on the range. Custer said, “I’m not sure how this works, but we’re on duty here to protect everyone in the room behind us, including the two of you.”
    â€œI’ll go with them. You stay on the door,” Milligan said.
    Custer eased back to his post beside the door without an argument. You could always tell who outranked whom in the newly ex-military, because of moments like that. We’d only had one person at a time from a unit before this, never most of a group that had worked together for years and then lost their careers in the same fight. They were still very much together as a unit. In fact, Claudia, who was in charge of our guards overall but especially here at the Circus, had talked to me about whether we wanted to separate them for work. They needed to learn to work with the rest of our people and not just with each other, but so far it hadn’t been an issue that anyone had complained about.
    I honestly didn’t think we needed a bodyguard here in the underground of the Circus, but I’d learned not to try to argue with some of the guards about where their duty lay. It just made me tired and didn’t gain me much. I could have played the “I’m your boss” card, but I was also one of their protectees, so it was a gray area. If I was their boss, then I could tell them to take a flying leap and they had to listen, but if something happened and I got hurt on their watch . . . Like I said, it was a gray area, so Milligan trailed us toward the computer room. Though Jean-Claude had totally embraced the new technology, he didn’t like everyone living on their phones and electronic devices instead of actually looking at and talking with the people around them, so he’d limited everything but smartphones to the one room. I happened to know that the other reason he’d done it was that some of the older vampires were a little intimidated by all the new tech. Besides, having to bring the wires and cables down this far through the rock hadn’t been easy, and keeping the computers in one place helped make it just a little bit easier.
    Milligan hurried forward and opened the door to the computer room for us. Micah and I both let him. The room was dim, lit only by the banks of computer screens that were still cycling through the images on their screens. Some had finally gone black and still for the night. We moved into the room and Milligan started to come in with us, but I said, “Sorry, Milligan, but I’m going to have to look at police evidence.”
    â€œI have to make sure the room is clear,” he said.
    Again, I could have argued with him, but I let him do his job, though again, I was pretty sure the two of us could take care of anything that might be lurking in the computer room down here. It wasn’t that big a room and there was only one area that was