Strange Brew by Charlaine Harris, Patricia Briggs, Jim Butcher, Karen Chance, P. N. Elrod, Rachel Caine, Faith Hunter, Caitlin Kittredge, Jenna Maclane, Jennifer van Dyck, Christian Rummel, Gayle Hendrix, Dina Pearlman, Marc Vietor, Therese Plummer, Karen Chapman Page A

“I’ll help you understand what you need to do. How do you feel?”
    “Holly, my sweet, I’m annoyed you’re not listening to how I feel.” He frowned, and I was right, he could look menacing. “Which shouldn’t be true, I think. No corpse revives so quickly as to be annoyed over such minor things.” Andrew should know. He’d been a better witch than I ever could be.
    “You’re no ordinary person,” I said. My heart was pounding, my palms were sweating, but I sounded as cool and soothing as any clinical practitioner. “Are you in any pain?”
    “No.”
    “None at all?”
    “Miss Holly, I’ve been in your shoes.” His gaze moved to focus on them for a second, smiling. “Never ones so dainty, maybe. But there’s no need to treat me like an invalid. I’ll let you know when I start feeling it.”
    I stared at him. He stared back, challenge in those bright blue eyes. He was an average-looking guy in a lot of ways—pleasant features, except for that sharp, aggressive chin; sandy brown hair that had grown into a style that seemed both modern and antique—shaggy, certainly. He had a sharp ridge and twist to his nose, as if he’d broken it early in life.
    I tried to get my mind back to business. “If you start feeling anxious or drifting, tell me. I don’t know what the police need you for, or how long it will take, but you need to have a dose—”
    “Each hour, yes, Miss Holly. I’m the one who wrote up the damn rules. Police, you say?” That seemed to give him pause for thought. “Why us, again?” Us, not just him. Andrew assumed instantly that we were a team.
    I didn’t want to be a team. It had hurt so much the last time around, I couldn’t imagine how bad it would be this time, when I knew him. When I cared.
    I opted for neutral topics. “Detective Prieto is waiting to brief us.”
    Detective Prieto entered the room, and both of us turned to look at him. “Mr. Toland,” he said, and nodded stiffly. “I won’t say thanks, since I know you didn’t really have a choice in coming… here.” Nice way to avoid the whole death/life conundrum. “But I’m giving you a choice for the job. If you don’t want to do it, we’ll end this right now.”
    Andrew had lost his smile. His eyes were narrowed, hard-focused. That was how he looked when he fought, I thought. And yes, he could be intimidating.
    “It’s no small matter if you picked me,” he said. “I slept a hundred and thirty-some-odd years before Miss Holly here brought me back the first time, and I’ll allow as how that job was worth the trouble. I expect this one’s just as raw.”
    “Yes,” Prieto said. Now that he was face-to-face with the soul he was about to send into torment, possibly horrible death, he seemed deeply uncomfortable. “I need you to help us save lives.”
    “Didn’t expect you brought me back for a pony ride, mister. Fine. I’ll do it.”
    “Andrew,” I said quietly. “Hear him out before you agree to anything.”
    “Don’t need to. Like I said, I wouldn’t be back here if it wasn’t bad.”
    “All right,” Prieto said. “We have a credible terrorist threat against a protected group of individuals here in Austin. Four are already missing, and we’ve got intel about the next one to be abducted. We think these people are being killed, but we haven’t found remains yet.”
    Andrew studied him for a moment in silence, then said, “I understood little of that, ‘cept you have four missing and some dead. I ain’t equipped to solve your crimes, so I don’t think that’s what you need me for, is it?”
    “We need you to protect one of the people on the list of potential victims.”
    “Wait a minute!” I blurted, horrified. The resurrected—even disposables—weren’t bodyguards; they were weapons. Point them at a clearly defined objective, and let them go achieve it, no matter what the damage. Disposables didn’t have a self-preservation instinct, so they were perfect for sending in on suicide