The doorman at the ground level of Dumont Tower touched his earpiece, his leather-clad index finger delicate against the metal. His coat looked as it did every afternoon, as if he'd removed it from a sea of unwrinkled tissue for just this one day. He wore his top hat perfectly straight; his face exhibited a kind of blank confidence that never let on that the archaic accessory might be slightly bizarre in the context of the 22nd century.

Across the street, from his perch on a mailbox fused shut back when postal service ended, Tajo Maddox mused that it hadn't seemed bizarre for some time now.

Even the humans understood that with immortality came tradition. The styles, philosophies, and behaviors of earlier centuries infused the latest incarnation of Los Angeles, blending modern and old-fashioned in a pastiche that made the place unlike any other. That made it Crimson City. And as the humans lost ground to the vampires and werewolves and found themselves in jeopardy from the mechs and demons they themselves had helped empower, the present borrowed an ever-increasing number of elements from the past.

One thing hadn't changed in some time: The richest and most powerful group in Crimson City was still the Dumont vampires, one of the pureblood clans collectively referred to as primaries. They'd had centuries to perfect their operations and it showed. From the doorman at the bottom to whatever the hell went on in the penthouse war rooms at the top of the luxury skyscrapers.

Tajo's own team had not enjoyed the luxury of time. The Rogues were new players in Crimson City. Glancing down at teammates Hayden Wilks, Bridget Hathaway, and Jillian Cooper sprawled along a concrete riser beside him, he had to marvel at how far they'd already come. Especially for a bunch of mercenaries and freelancers used to working alone.

They hadn't even organized into an actual team until recently. It wasn't easy surviving rogue in Crimson City. You had no backup, no clan or family to run to for an army of help. People assumed the worst of you. That you had no sense of honor, no sense of mercy. People who wouldn't dream of killing a primary seemed perfectly able to justify killing a rogue. What really talked in this town, what they really needed was one thing: power.

So a bunch of the rogues teamed up. The idea of thumbing their noses at the rigidity and insularity of the purebred clans by forming a mixed species superpower appealed to the rebel in all of them. They even chipped in and bought an underground club to turn into a headquarters. They dubbed it The Rogue's Club, and just like that the city was put on notice. Except not everyone noticed. Yet.

Tajo jumped off the mailbox and sat down next to Hayden. They cased the area in mutual silence, waiting, wondering, wary. Without turning away from her surveillance, Bridget stuck her hand out; Hayden took a last puff and gently laid his cigarette in the vee of her fingers.

Jill leaned back as Bridget took a drag, coughing and waving away the smoke even as she darted nervous eyes to the dove cooing on the overhang above her head.

Yeah, a solid bunch. A good team. In time, they'd be great. In time, they'd be ranked right up there on the Crimson City power scale alongside the Dumont vampire primaries, the Maddox werewolf primaries from whom he'd long ago exiled himself, and most certainly the humans who'd once seemed so indestructible.

"Time?" Hayden asked.

"About three minutes since you last asked. Maybe you could ask Jill to get you a watch for your birthday," Tajo muttered.

Hayden turned back to Tajo. "I'm holding out for something more personal," he said, with a cocky tip of his head to the side.

Tajo followed the gesture to Jill sitting by Bridget on the end. She fiddled with her field glasses, then pointed them up the façade of Dumont Tower for the umpteenth time. Two seconds later, she lowered them and looked down, a wounded expression darkening her face. Jill was supposed to be thinking about the rogue job, but it was obvious it was her doomed bond with Marius Dumont that made her search the Tower so intently.

Tajo kept his mouth shut this time, wishing he hadn't joked about it in the first place. Hayden had been circling Jill since she joined the Rogues. So far, his interest seemed to be as much about revenge against the Dumonts as it was about the girl herself.

Tajo's gaze shifted to Bridget. They'd tried out a thing, had some fun together, and decided they were better suited as friends with the occasional benefit. Tajo still admired her and her bad-ass fearlessness, but like Hayden, the girl had something truly dark inside of her; he wasn't always sure her allegiance to The Rogues would hold. Especially since she'd once worked inside the human species' headquarters.

Just then, Bridget leaned forward and looked both ways down the street. "Anyone else starting to think no-show?"

"Too convenient an excuse. We just set this thing up a day ago."

"Do you hear escort sirens?" Hayden asked, cocking his head to the side.

Jill and Bridget were human; they wouldn't be able to hear anything from too far away.

Tajo frowned. "I hear 'em. Jill, did you check the press slate before we left?"

The former newspaper reporter still made full use of her old contacts. She pulled folded paper from the pocket of her hoodie and scanned the document. "If there's anything going on with the Dumonts this morning, they aren't advertising it." She looked down the street. "Now, I can hear them. And see them."

Four heads swiveled as the cadence and sounds of every day street activity abruptly changed. Tajo's watch clicked loudly in the gap. The hour turned and a chorus of horns blared out in four-part harmony.

Several blocks away, a caravan turned the corner and started toward Dumont Tower. The Rogues watched slack-jawed as a set of guards jumped from security runners fused to the chassis of a white limousine to block regular traffic and push back pedestrians on all sides.

The caravan inched toward them, first a set of black, smokey-glassed cars, then a choreographed mass of white horses, red plumes, and shiny, brass horns. The white limousine came next, the runners still carrying a set of guards on one side. And then the bookend, a second set of black cars.

The guards continued to hold the traffic; the pedestrians strained forward to get a better look.

Tajo narrowed his eyes, trying to get a read on the miniature flags fluttering from each side mirror on the limousine. "Jill, can I borrow your field glasses?"

Jill pulled the set from her neck and passed them down. Tajo focused in on the flags, whistling low as he made out their provenance. "New York, New York."

"Really? Is it someone for the Power Summit?" Bridget tried to grab the glasses, but Tajo darted out of the way, shifting the sights over to get a peek at the limousine's side window, cracked a third of the way down.

"Zoom?" he asked.

"The long thingy bit on the right," Jill said. "It's a new model."

Tajo zoomed in. A slice of blonde hair fluttered out the small window opening and a row of delicate fingers curled over the glass, one sporting a delicate gold royal crest. "No kidding!"

"What?" Bridget asked. This time Tajo let her take the glasses.

"East Coast werewolf royalty is what. The Dumonts must be serious about this werewolf alliance."

"That's not exactly news," Jill said bitingly. "Except I thought the lucky girl was already living at Dumont Towers."

"There were three princesses born to New York's werewolf House Royale if my memory serves me right."

"Three werewolf brides for three vampire brothers," Bridget said. "Almost poetic if it didn't smack so badly of cheap mail-order bride."

"Something tells me she doesn't come cheap," Tajo said. "She's probably worth a lot in political currency."

Jill took the glasses from Bridget. "All three pairs plan to marry? It just doesn't seem..."

Tajo guessed she wanted to say "fair." Instead she said, "necessary." "There's no question matching all three of them would make an bulletproof alliance stretching coast to coast."

Hayden folded his arms across his chest, one of his fangs curling over his lower lip as the fanfare continued forward. "East Coast style. Nice. Can't say I've ever seen the Crimson City dogs show up the Dumonts like that."

Tajo nodded, his gaze fixed on the limousine door where the crest of House Royale shone fresh and bright. Seeing it there was something of a shock, the way it trumpeted the superiority of the pureblood werewolf in a kind of splashy, overdone way Keeli Maddox's primary clan would likely have eschewed.

Though Tajo hadn't allied himself with Keeli's clan for years now, he felt a strange pride at seeing a werewolf crest displayed so blatantly in the streets of Crimson City. Note to the Dumonts and everybody else, it seemed to say: wealth and power are not the domain of only the primary vampires.

Werewolves and vampires were naturally distrustful of one another. It was why the alliance between the primaries of the two species always seemed so fragile. And so susceptible to external pressures like rogue interference.

Across the street, the doorman leaned forward to watch the caravan move forward easily in the empty, blocked off street.

"This does beg the question," Tajo said, looking up at Dumont Tower. "Pureblood werewolf primaries enroute to an engagement party with pureblood vampire primaries...so what the hell are a bunch of mutts like us doing in the mix? Our rendezvous point is less than five yards away from kiss-kiss-will-you-marry-me and we happen to get a no-show on our job. Anyone else smell a setup?"

Hayden nodded. "Not my favorite smell," he growled, his bared fangs sparkling under the white light of the moon.

"Who's our contact?" Bridget asked.

"Humans. Needed a solid mercenary team to handle some quick business but wanted to meet the team first."

"Anyone I know?" she pressed.

"I got the gig through a middleman. A human middleman I'm going to have to beat the crap out of next time I hit Bosco's," Tajo sighed. "I should have known the money was too good to be true. Sorry guys."

"No biggie." Bridget picked up her messenger bag and strapped it across her chest. "It happens. And we have to take some of the chances. God knows our team needs the funding. So I guess we're outta here?"

"Yeah." Tajo whistled and rotated two fingers in the air. "Round it up. We're out of here."

Everybody except Jill stood up. "I want to see her," she blurted out." "No you don't," Hayden said, pulling on her shoulder. "Come on."

"I'll catch up with you at the clubhouse," she said, her shoulders squaring.

Tajo sent Bridget a pleading look and she squatted down next to Jill. "Marius' fiancé is already up there, Jill. This is just one of her sisters." She dropped her voice and added, "Don't torture yourself."

Jill's cheeks suddenly burned red. She mumbled an apology and began gathering up her equipment.

In the street, the first set of black cars passed them by, then the horses, and finally the limousine pulled up at the tower entrance. To Tajo's surprise, a trio of vampire security men, moved around the mounting chaos and headed directly toward the Rogues. Tajo looked in the direction of the main camera mounted by the front door of Dumont Tower and waved.

"We're leaving," he mouthed.

The vampires pulled their weapons and changed course to help secure the perimeter of the area while support personnel moved in to receive the royal guest. Bridget let out a breath. "I thought they were coming at us."

"Ready," Jill said.

But Tajo didn't move. Frozen in place, he watched a small, blonde female stepped out of the white limousine, almost fairylike with her wispy, delicate looks. Two bodyguards closed in on either side. The doorman spoke into his microphone then bowed deeply to the werewolf princess as she looked around curiously. Her handlers tried to hustle her inside, but she flung their hands away, pointing at an adwriter hovering low. Maybe they didn't use them in the New York City skies yet.

They were pulling at her now, their fingertips barely grazing her elbows, trying to move her without really touching her. And she just wasn't having it, her head swiveling from left to right as she took in the sights and sounds around her. Tajo smiled just watching her.

And that was when he smelled it. That was when the scent of imminent danger separated itself from the dark fog of unrest normally laying thick over the city. Trouble was, the smell of the tools of war had become so pervasive in Crimson City that it was often hard to distinguish remnants of a prior event from those yet to make their mark.

"Tajo?" Bridget asked.

The smile disappeared from Tajo's face as the heady scent of danger clogged his nostrils. Beside him, Hayden flinched.

"Don't hurt her," Tajo murmured to no one in particular, his eyes fixed on the princess' lovely face. Unaware, unafraid, her eyes wide with excitement.

The dove above Jill's head cooed softly.

And the Dumont Tower lobby exploded in a storm of fire and glass.