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Laura glanced wistfully at her Mercedes SL and jumped into Janice Crawford’s Honda SUV. She exited the underground garage and cut across the National Mall to pick up the highway. Out on the bridge, the lights across the river came into view. Everything looks attractive at night in D.C., she thought. Even Anacostia.
    She parked the SUV a block from the apartment complex. Car and pedestrian access had been restricted, which didn’t endear the police to the troubled neighborhood. Laura looped her SWAT-team badge around her neck. At the nearest barricade, a police officer asked for photo ID, too, but she didn’t hassle him for hassling her.
    Crime-scene vehicles littered the street. Two ambulance vans sat on the worn lawn of the building where the drug lab had operated. Medical examiners surprised Laura as they brought out a body on a gurney. Twelve hours later, and they were still finding bodies? She lifted her badge for the officer at the door. People walked the hallway inside, the same hallway the entry unit had stormed. It looked nothing like she remembered. Of course, now it wasn’t dark and smoke-filled. Bullet holes scarred the walls, white chalk circles around them. She avoided talking to anyone but moved deeper into the building.
    She paused to examine the long hall. Crime-scene markers scattered across the floor like restaurant reservation tents. She passed the makeshift sweatshop, making her way around spent shell casings. On the left, her eyes trailed over the holes Sanchez had blown through the wall. Blood splat tered the wall on her right. A long smear marked where someone had slid to the floor. She felt grim satisfaction that Sanchez had hit his final targets.
    The adjoining walls had been hacked through a string of apartments to create one long hallway. The farther she went, the more bullet holes riddled the walls, more than elsewhere in the building. Another archway revealed a large room, not as big as the sweatshop, but still a sizable workspace. A lone investigator squatted a few feet from the arch, sweeping his flashlight beam across the floor. He shifted his gaze to her, then back to the floor. “This room isn’t processed.”
    She nodded. “Just looking.”
    The blackened front wall showed evidence of the explosion she had heard during the raid. Three tall, evenly spaced windows were blown out. Lab equipment trailed in disarray across the floor. Broken glass containers the vague shape of beakers and vials showed the soot stains of burning, whether from chemical processing or the explosion, Laura couldn’t tell. Water from putting out the resulting fire saturated everything.
    In the next room, a jumble of tables was shoved against a wall. Computers and cabling tangled within the pile and onto the floor. She paused. The room had a distinct lack of shell casings and bullet holes. It was the geographic center of the building, yet she saw no evidence of the fighting.
    Opening her essence-sensing ability, she picked up several immediate hits, which was not unexpected near a door. What was unexpected was that the door had been warded, spell-blocked in some way. She pushed her awareness against it, studying the mode of warding. Door wards took many forms—sound or sight barriers, security shields that allowed certain people in or kept specific people out. They could be hardened to a substantial degree. Someone with enough ability could even create a barrier in the small area of the door that would slow a bullet almost to a stop. Not a brownie. They weren’t strong enough. An Inverni fairy would be, though.
    Laura sensed nothing dangerous and stepped through, the invisible ward sliding over her with the sensation of flowing water. At minimum, then, the ward was not an access barrier, but likely a sound deterrent. Once she was fully past the ward, essence flashed across her vision. The room had been a hub of activity, more so than the drug lab. Multiple species signatures in green, yellow, and pale white