“Nooo, lass,” drawled MacGregor, eyeing Magnus cagily. “He wouldn’a want to cover up those peepers. Come in bloody handy, I should think, havin’ death rays shootin’ out your skull.”

Magnus tensed. “How did you—”

“I make it my business to know, lad,” MacGregor said softly. He glanced at Lu with sharp interest, his gaze roving over her in a familiar, baldly calculating way. “Tisn’t anything I don’t know about either of you, in fact.”

“Watch yourself!” Magnus hissed, going from tense to furious at whip-crack speed. He lurched forward with his hands clenched, veins standing out in his neck, lips peeled back over his teeth like an animal’s, and Lu thought for one horrified moment he might kill the man right where he sat.

MacGregor had the good sense to look stunned. A flicker of fear crossed his face. Then he laughed, a hearty, booming noise that had Lourdes dissolving into an apoplectic yapping fit.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” he gasped, wiping his eyes. “You nearly had me shittin’ myself like the dog! I haven’t had a scare like that in years! Bloody fantastic!”

Lu gently curled her fingers around Magnus’s arm, drawing him back against the seat. He relented, but kept MacGregor the focus of his unblinking, ferocious stare, until MacGregor apologized profusely for giving offense, and sounded as if he really meant it.

“You’ll have to forgive my manners, son. It’s been a long, long time since I met a man gettin’ his feathers ruffled over the honor of a lady. Usually he’s only gettin’ his feathers ruffled over the price!”

“Ew,” said Lu, distinctly loud. “And totally not what I want to hear. Can we please talk about how we’re going to get into the city without getting stopped?”

MacGregor looked at her. “Darlin’ . . . what makes you think we’re not gettin’ stopped?”

The car slowed to a crawl. Lu looked out the tinted windows, and, with dawning horror, realized what MacGregor meant.

Just ahead loomed the main gate of New Vienna, lit harshly with floodlights, flanked with a double row of armed Peace Guards. One of them stood in front of the gate with his hand held out, watching the car as it slowed to a stop. Then, with rifle at the ready, he walked slowly around to the driver’s side door, examining the vehicle with suspicious, alert eyes.

“Oh shit,” breathed Lu, going white. “They’re going to search the car!”

Across from her, Gregor MacGregor merely smiled.

THIRTY

Magnus pinned MacGregor with a murderous stare. “You fucking turncoat! You brought us right to them!”

“Oh ye of little faith,” said MacGregor with a disappointed little tsk. “Hold your water, lad, and let MacGregor work his magic!”

Lu was breathless watching this interaction, trying desperately to check the sudden throb of heat in the palms of her hands.

The soldier tapped on the window. A threat in the form of a nasty growl rumbled through Magnus’s chest, but MacGregor lifted a finger to his lips, shaking his head. He pushed a button on the door, and the window slid down several inches. The soldier and he eyed one another wordlessly as Lourdes shivered and whined in MacGregor’s lap, then MacGregor fished into his shirt pocket and withdrew a small metal card, engraved with numbers.

He held it out. The soldier took it. Nods were exchanged. The soldier stepped back, without ever once glancing deeper into the shadowed car interior. The window slid up.

The soldier waved the car forward, and they were off.

“There,” said MacGregor with obvious satisfaction that no one had been killed, or any other havoc had been wrought. “Dinna tell you? Magic!”

“Oh Jesus,” said Lu on a shaky exhalation.

“Well, me dear departed mother thought so, but I think it’s a little too formal among friends. You can jes’ keep right on callin’ me MacGregor,” he quipped, seemingly pleased with the drama of the situation. His accent was getting murkier, sliding in and out of Scottish, veering toward Irish, and Lu wondered how much of it was for show. Like the rest of him.

“You bribed him with water credits.” She’d recognized the metal card.

MacGregor nodded. “He’s got a dishy new girlfriend and they like to take long, hot showers.” He grinned, winking at Magnus. “Can’t say I blame him; you should see the chebs on her, lad.”

Throughout all of this, Magnus hadn’t uncoiled from his aggressive posture, nor had his look of murderous intent left his face. “No more surprises,” he said, his voice low in his throat. “Are we understood?”

MacGregor tensed, wincing. Knowing what was happening, Lu rested her hand on Magnus’s arm. Softly, she said his name, and Magnus released him. MacGregor’s face cleared. He drew in a breath, blinking, and raised a shaking hand to his head.

Magnus sat back against the leather seat, nostrils flared. He glanced over at her, intense and glowering. I want to kill him for scaring you.

And I want to kiss you for being so overprotective. Now stop it.

His lips twitched. I’m not going to stop it if it makes you want to kiss me.

She pressed the smile from her mouth, reached for his hand, and twisted her fingers through his. I always want to kiss you.

Magnus’s eyes heated, sparking a little burst of fireworks in her belly. His fingers curved tighter over hers. He thought a single word, but it was enough to ignite another round of fireworks.

Later.

She nodded, thrilled by his bare look of desire and the promise that had just been made. Their look held, deepened, the air between them crackled. Her heartbeat skittered and a flush crept across her cheeks.

Gregor MacGregor cleared his throat. Loudly. Lu and Magnus looked at him.

“If you’ll be pardonin’ me for interruptin’, lovebirds,” he drawled, “but we’re not out of the woods just yet.”

“What do you mean?” said Magnus, stiffening.

“I mean,” MacGregor answered, tilting his head to gaze out the window, and up, “that there’s more than three bears on the lookout for our Goldilocks in this city.”

Lu and Magnus followed his gaze. There in the distance atop St. Stephen’s Cathedral, slowly rotating in brilliant yellow neon that illuminated the soaring Romanesque towers and mosaic roof, was the megascreen. Lu’s picture was still plastered on it for all to see.

ABERRANT ALERT, it screamed. Wanted for murder. Armed and Extremely Dangerous.

“So keep frosty,” Lu sighed, watching herself turn.

“Exactly,” said MacGregor.

“Got it.” Lu chewed her lip a moment, debating. Then she asked, “Gregor . . . I want to show you something, to see if you recognize it. Something we’re looking for, that we need to find quickly. And you seem like a man who might know how to find . . . hidden things.”

MacGregor lifted one ginger brow. “That I am, that I am. You have a picture of this thing?”

“Um, yes. Sort of.”

His other brow climbed.

“Okay.” Lu sat forward on the seat. “Here’s the thing: The picture is in my head. I can send it to you, but I just want to make sure you’re ready. You know,” she glanced at Magnus, “since we’ve agreed on no more surprises.”

MacGregor made a sound of interest. On his lap, Lourdes had begun to writhe in terror in response to Lu’s movement. She scowled at the dog, and its beady black eyes went wide.

“All right. Here goes.”

She reached out with her mind, feeling carefully, trying not to do anything too abrupt. She came up against a solid resistance, but pushed past it easily, like a knife cutting through butter.