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Lace was already on her feet, the duffel bag containing the first severed head sagging on the floor. She sparked a cigarette, her softly angled gray eyes roaming his face. “There’s blood on your cheek.”

“There’s blood on your cigarette.”

Lace examined the cigarette pinched between her manicured fingers, blood soaking through the cylinder.

She merely shrugged and took a long drag.

“Gross.” Max put his glove back on and finished cutting the vampire’s head off. He would’ve been finished with this a whole lot faster if they’d had the option of smuggling bigger knives into this shithole. But the bouncers at the door had insisted on patting everyone down, and there were limits to what could be hidden with spells—even when someone like Tanner Atlas was the mind behind the magic.

When he was done, Max shoved the head into the duffel bag beside the other one—the evidence he would deliver to the rabbit messenger who’d come to them seeking business for a client. A client Max would be willing to bet was an officer of the law, likely someone who was at their wit’s end trying to find peace for the family members of the victims.

“Who texted you?” Lace asked.

“Darien.” Now that business was done, he peeled off his gloves and stood, the floor beneath his boots tacky with blood. “He said we’re having a team meeting at the house in an hour.”

“What for?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Shit.” She blew out a long stream of smoke that made his eyes instantly water. Cigars, he loved. Cigarettes? Hated with a capital H. “I bet you it has something to do with Randal.”

“Can we not be pessimistic right from the get-go?” He plucked the cigarette out of her fingers, threw it to the floor, and stamped it flat under his boot, blood splashing his pants.

“I wasn’t done,” she objected.

“I am.” He gestured with a large hand to the freezer door. “Ladies first. I need a shower.”

Upstairs, Club Ethereal was packed and noisy as hell. Sweaty bodies were crammed together like sardines, drinking and shouting and dancing, lost in an alcohol-soaked haze. Naked women and men gyrated on metal poles and hoops that hung from a low ceiling. The place was dusty and airless, and it reeked of vomit and booze and…and kerosene. He hadn’t been able to pinpoint the smell right away, but now…

On the small stage, not far from where he was walking, were fire performers. Men and women dancing with fiery hoops and batons they waved through the smoky air. Cheers rippled through the building, spurring the performers to give them more. Max walked faster, bumping into bodies as he moved, his stomach and head spinning at the same pace. Behind him, Lace was trying to say something, but his ears weren’t working. He had to get out of here.

Why did there need to be fire performers here? Now? While he was here? A perfect example of wrong place, wrong time.

The crowd screamed with excitement as one of the dancers breathed a stream of fire into the air above the stage.

Max flinched. He rocked back into the crowd, breathing hard. He slammed into a witch, who spilled her drink down the front of her dress.

“Hey!” the woman protested.

Max mumbled an apology and kept walking, away from the flames, steering his clumsy body toward the door. Sweat was beading on his skin, and suddenly he couldn’t remember how to breathe, how to move his feet at a pace faster than a shuffle. The sound of a girl screaming filled his head, and he tasted smoke at the back of his throat, could feel ash coating his skin, the powdery residue jammed up under his nails.

He had to get out of here. Where in Ignis was the damn exit? His eyes wheeled, looking but not seeing amid the panic—

There. The exit sign glowed like a beacon, close but still too far.

He walked faster, sweat running in steady tracks down his cheeks, making his hair cling to his forehead.

They were nearing the doors when he heard a commotion behind him. Swallowing bile, he forced himself to stop and turn around…

A man was blocking Lace’s path, his broad back facing Max. He was speaking to her in a voice that was too low for Max to hear from this distance. But as he listened, he was able to pick up on a few words between thumps of music, between the waves of panic gripping his mind and heart in a fist.

He recognized that husky voice immediately, and even if he hadn’t, the tattoo of a Hellhound marking the golden-brown skin below the man’s ear would’ve clued him into who he was. A full-blooded hellseher, he was eternally stuck in his late thirties. He had a full head of gray-flecked black hair and a groomed beard, the natural hue of his eyes so dark it was almost as black as when he used the Sight.

Max’s fingers curled tightly around the strap of the duffel bag as he waited. As he prepared to act, should Lace need the help. He wasn’t sure how useful he would be in his current state, but he had to try. He was Maximus Reacher, for shit’s sake. Years and countless therapy sessions had passed since that night. Years. He had to get a grip.

“Get out of my way.” Lace spoke through clenched teeth. She tried to move past the Hellhound, only to be fenced in again by his stocky form, partially obscuring her from Max’s view. “I said get out of my way!”

When Lionel Savage of the Hunting Grounds still wouldn’t budge, Lace’s eyes flicked to Max.