But his instinct was to refuse. It wouldn’t be fair to the other detectives, for one thing. There would also be gossip and attention over his swift rise, and Jesse hated both of those things. Not to mention the whole thing reeked of corruption. There was a line, he told himself, and they’d already gotten him to edge over it more than once. Now they were trying to force him over the line again.

And the worst part was that he sort of wanted to go willingly. That was what was really bothering him, Jesse realized. He felt guilty because he wanted to say yes.

For his entire life, Jesse had always been happy to pay his dues, but now there was a part of him that was bored with hit-and-runs. He knew that there was excitement to be had in the Old World at any given time, and the opportunity to do some real good. For the first time in his career, he was tempted to take the easy way out.

He hated that about himself . . . but he couldn’t just turn it off, either. The chance to investigate Old World crimes on the books, with department resources, was appealing as hell. Maybe if he’d been able to investigate Olivia Powell within the LAPD, things could have turned out differently. Scarlett might not have had to shoot Olivia just to save him from doing it.

Besides, if he had Dashiell backing him, Jesse could have a word with the werewolves who’d threatened Scarlett. But taking a deal from Dashiell just felt . . . wrong. Then again, so did letting people kill each other in the Old World and doing nothing.

Jesse’s thoughts went back and forth like this for a while, while Beatrice and Dashiell waited patiently and Will began to look restless, his knee jiggling up and down again.

Finally Jesse took a deep breath. You’re overthinking it, he told himself suddenly. They needed him, and Scarlett needed him, and someone had to stop a werewolf who was probably going to kill again. That was what he had signed on for, wasn’t it? Stopping killers? He looked back at the three of them, forgetting not to meet their eyes. “I’ll work the case,” he said at last.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jesse saw Beatrice smiling widely, but in front of him Dashiell just gave a curt nod. “Good. One other thing.”

He closed the gap between himself and Jesse in an instant. Jesse tried to wrench his gaze away, but it was too late. Suddenly, a massive force like water from a fire hose slapped into Jesse, knocking his chair neatly backward and pinning Jesse and the chair to the floor. The pressure wasn’t crushing him, but Jesse couldn’t breathe, as though a thousand gallons of gelatin were flattening him. Panic and instinct screamed alarm bells in his body, but Jesse could only watch as Dashiell stood over him, hands casually in his pockets, and said, “Do not forget your place. You have spent too much time around the girl, and not nearly enough time being afraid.” He bent over a little and added conversationally, “I could make you do anything I wanted right now, bestow any humiliation or degradation. And you would beg me for it.”

He paused, a cold, inhuman intensity on his face. Even through his panic, the expression shocked Jesse. No one would mistake Dashiell for a regular man, not in this moment.

“Instead, though,” Dashiell continued, his voice perfectly conversational, “I am simply flexing a muscle. You will not challenge me again.”

He nodded to himself and turned away. As the eye contact broke, so did the magic, and Jesse rolled to one side, gasping for air, legs instinctively curling around his stomach. He used the motion to roll to his hands and knees, and when he looked up, Beatrice and Dashiell were gone and Will was standing next to him.

“What . . . the hell . . . was that,” Jesse wheezed.

Will crouched down next to him, elbows resting casually on his knees. “That was getting pressed by a cardinal vampire,” he said sympathetically.

“I thought . . . But that was physical,” Jesse sputtered.

Will tilted his head. “Mmm . . . yes and no. He told your mind to force your body backwards, and then to believe you couldn’t breathe or move. He pressed you; he just didn’t have to talk to do it.”

“That is scary as shit.”

“Yup.” Will held out a hand, and Jesse took it, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet.

“Suddenly I really miss Scarlett,” Jesse noted.

“Well,” the werewolf said, with exaggerated patience, “go get her then.”

Chapter 9

Dr. Noring insisted I take some more pain pills, and by the time she’d finished fiddling with my knee, I wasn’t exactly inclined to argue. The pills made me sleepy, though, so I decided to haul myself upstairs and go to bed for real.

It was the best sleep I’d had since first waking up with the knee injury. I was pretty sure the pills were the only thing keeping me from dreaming about the dead girl I’d destroyed, and I was pathetically grateful for it.

I was awakened hours later by an excessively cheerful vampire bouncing on the foot of my bed. “Ow,” I complained sleepily. “You’re trampling my bad knee.”

“No, I’m no-ot,” Molly sang. I opened my eyes. The clock beside me read 5:15, just after sunset. Geez. Apparently I’d been tired.

Molly was grinning like she’d just pulled off a heist. She wore her most pedestrian pajamas: a simple organic T-shirt and light flannel pants that I privately thought had been tailored. “You look happy,” I observed. “Kick some werewolf ass, did we?”

“Damn right,” Molly said smugly, in a weird foreign accent that I recognized. A couple of days earlier I’d talked her into watching Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey with me. “Man those guys can heal like nobody’s business,” she added in her normal voice. “Faster than us, even.”