Sanchez said, “Try not to shoot any of us by accident, Anita.” He said my first name with only the syllables it’s supposed to have.
“If I shoot you, Sanchez, it won’t be by accident.”
The other men made noises of either encouragement or disparagement. Then the second order came down, and there was no more time for teasing. I’d been told how Hooper wanted me to enter behind him, because I was the only one of the four marshals who didn’t have official tactical training. I did what I was told. I put my left hand on the back of Hooper’s vest so that as he moved, I’d move. I kept my other hand on the MP5 on its tactical sling so that it wouldn’t accidentally point at anyone, and away we went.
39
THE LAST TIME I’d been with SWAT, we’d come through the door with flash-bang grenades and a green light to shoot everything inside the condo but the victim we were trying to save. This time, we knocked.
Sergeant Hooper called out from behind the shield guy, who turned out to be Hitch, who was almost as broad through the shoulders as I was tall. “Vegas Police, search warramt. Open the door!” He had a nice loud voice, a drill sergeant voice. Even being prepared, it made me jump a little. He repeated it twice more.
Victor’s energy poured across the heat from behind us, well behind us. Since he wasn’t close enough to yell, he’d compromised by sending his energy ahead of him. In some ways it was better than his voice. People might imitate a voice, but no one could imitate that roll of power. In some ways it was not better than his voice. His voice wouldn’t have pressed against my throat, like a hand that wanted inside. I had to up my metaphysical shields to get the energy to back off enough for me not to almost taste it. It was like pushing against some huge weight, to move his power away from me. I’d never felt any lycanthrope with this kind of power.
Gregory Minns would feel all that energy coming from his clan’s “king,” and if he was a good guy, he’d open the door. If he was a bad guy, he’d run, or he’d fight.
I tightened my grip on Hooper’s vest and fought to keep my pulse even. I could feel the adrenaline coming off the other men, and my own tension; so much could go wrong. Victor’s power just made it worse for me. If I hadn’t fought it off, maybe it would have been soothing, but I couldn’t afford to embrace it. The tigers inside me liked it too much. I got a glimpse behind my eyes of them putting their heads up and roaring in that coughing, harsh sound that tigers do. My body vibrated with it, and all I could do was fight to keep my pulse even and my breathing slow, because until I lost control of my body, my beasts could not hurt me. Much.
I really wished that Victor had been allowed to talk through the door.
Sanchez said, “What the hell is that? Is it the tiger inside?”
“Quiet,” Hooper said.
Sanchez could feel Victor’s energy and maybe my tigers. I’d have to remember that he could feel the energy. It might change what I did when we got inside.
Hooper yelled again, “Minns, open up!”
I felt energy moving in the house, almost like one of those infrared pictures, except it was a feeling, not a visual. I almost said, He’s at the door, but all I knew for certain was that it was a weretiger. It didn’t have to be Minns. I was debating on whether I should say that I could “feel” a tiger on the other side of the door when the weretiger called out.
A man’s voice called from behind the door. “I’m opening the door now. Don’t shoot me, okay?” The door started to open, but the SWAT never gave him a chance to finish the gesture. They poured in, and I poured with them, dragged along by my hand on Hooper.
There was a lot of yelling. “Hands on your head! Get on your knees!” Minns did what he was told and was in a circle of weapons and officers. He looked calm enough. Calmer, frankly, than he should have been at the center of that circle. The calm bothered me.
His hair was actually pale blond, not white. I caught glimpses of his eyes through the legs and bodies of the officers. The eyes were that pale, perfect tiger blue, and he seemed to have no other goal than to look at me. I didn’t like that either.
The white tigress did, though. She paced closer to my surface. I kept controlling my breathing, counting my pulse down, but I could feel Minns’s power. Again, like Victor it was more, different, somehow. Something about the dominants of this clan gave them more… crunchy goodness, as if I should have been able to eat the power, and it would have been something with texture and caramel in the middle. Something you had to chew and swallow hard to get down, but it would be sweet, and you’d want another bite.