Cute little Tina was asleep on one of the hard wooden benches in a nest of clothes and bags. 
The twins were on a bench nearby, huddled together whispering to each other. One was talking emphatically with his hands while the other was silently curled in on himself, chewing on his fingernails. 
Noah was pacing like he’d had way too much caffeine and then drunk some more. He had his phone in his hands and seemed to be calling someone over and over again. With each turn of his hyper route, he was muttering to himself.
“Come on Kari, pick up. Pick up. This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.” 
Jiro was the only one that seemed to be a calm island standing in a turbulent sea. But then he always had this weird serene air about him. Even when he’s holding a cleaver to someones throat.
He nodded at me as I approached.
“Angie.”
I nodded back.
“Okay, so I’m guessing someone has brought you up to speed?”
Jiro nodded very slowly, his eyes never leaving mine.
“They have.”
Jiro always had a kind of blank face, but there was something about him that was oddly cold.
“I just want to make sure that I understand something first.”
I could feel my eyebrows bunch up in confusion. He doesn’t understand something? What part of Kari is gone did he miss?
“Okay, shoot.”
Jiro’s face suddenly got tight.
“I prefer blades.”
Umm, what?
Jiro squared his shoulders, and turned to face me, tilted his head in a way that I instantly recognized as Jiro’s guarded look. It’s the attitude he puts on when he thinks he needs to intimidate some one.
“So, you left Kari alone and injured? Am I understanding that right?”
I clenched my jaw.
Crap.
“Noah was the one that injured Kari, not me.”
Jiro nodded, his lips pressed together. 
“Yes, and I’ll discuss that with him. Now I’m talking to you. Am I understanding the situation right?”
I rolled my eyes.
“Yes, Jiro, I left Kari in the middle of a police station for like a couple minutes.”
Jiro nodded.
“Weren’t you the one that told us that we had to go everywhere in pairs?”
“I was just repeating what the officers told me.”
“Weren’t you the one that said that we had to keep each other in sight, no matter where we went, even the toilet?”
“I know Jiro, I might have –“
With each statement, Jiro’s voice was getting deeper, colder, until he was almost growling at me.
“Weren’t you the one who was trained for years on how to ‘Protect and Serve’? But that protection and service doesn’t extend to people like my niece, does it?”
I held up my hands in a defensive stance. Jiro’s face was getting red and he was getting into my personal space.
“Jiro, it was just –“
And then Jiro cut me off. He didn’t explode, he didn’t burst out shouting, or fuming or anything.
But some how, in his quiet thundering voice, he managed to control so much more rage then any outburst would ever have. . . . I don’t even know what language he was speaking. It was low and threatening 
Italian? 
Wait, no there was definitely some Japanese or some other Asian language in there.
His hot breath puffed against my face, his nose nearly touching mine, his dark eyes bloodshot. It didn’t take a translation spell to figure out that Jiro was pissed, and probably cussing a lot too.
The voice of a too young officer asked from just off my shoulder.
“Is everything alright here?”
I dared flick my eyes away from Jiro for only half a second.
The young guy looked like he was fresh out of the academy. His shoulders were up by his ears and he already had a pre-scrawled magic circle page in his hand.
Looking back at Jiro’s rage filled eyes, I gave a minimal nod. He was still close enough for his fiery breath to be blasting my face, but he was completely silent now. 
“Yeah, everything’s alright here.”
Jiro spun away to go sit down on the bench next to the still sleeping Tina. I decided to just stand where I was. 
You know, secure this little piece of flooring for a while.
Mostly because if I moved someone might see my knees wobbling.
Over a year ago, Jiro had already told me if I did anything to endanger Kari’s life, he would kill me. And it wouldn’t be pretty. Zombie spell or no.
Since then I’ve done some background checks on the people I’ve been stuck with. What little I could find out about Jiro, that wasn’t locked behind the Fed’s confidentiality of witnesses laws, wasn’t good. 
He was definitely part of the west coast Italian organized crime syndicate. There were plenty of rumors that he was high up in the “Cleaning Department” aka assassins. And from the way he handles blades, I wouldn’t doubt it.
I don’t think that death vow was an empty threat.
I was still standing there, pretending I wasn’t shaking, when I felt it. 
Like a prickly chill ran over my skin. Everyone else in our zombie hoard jerked their heads up, looking in the same direction too. Even Tina blinked awake. 
Shit, Kari is using her magic. 
Another wave of frozen pin pricks raced over my flesh again.
Yeah, she’s using necromancy big time.
I don’t know how we always knew when Kari was using a lot of her magic, but we usually did. When she raised Noah, I totally knew something was up. That’s how I got suspicious on the day she rescued Jiro. She was throwing around some serious magic, and then the news said there was a swarm attack downtown. And where did it feel like her magic was coming from? Downtown. 
Yeah, that crap about finding Jiro in a park? I didn’t believe that garbage for a second.
Wait, we can track it.
Oh shit we can track her magic!
I lunged after and grabbed the arm of a uniformed officer that was passing by and pointed in the direction of Kari’s magic.
“Kari’s in that direction.”
She blinked at me shocked.
“W-what?”
I gave her a good shake to get her brain functioning.
“Kari Volka: Missing person believed to be in imminent danger, is in that direction!”
Jiro was on his feet hurrying back over to me. The twins, Tina, and Noah was close behind. Our little hoard all started talking a mile a minute, everyone trying to help, but in the process overwhelming the officer so nothing was getting done.
Okay, time to get our shit in a row. I started belting out orders in rapid fire.
“Officer, inform Detective Marion that we have a potential location of Kari Volka. Jiro, grab Kari’s coat and get ready to go. You’re with me. Twins, stay with Tina and Noah.”
Noah looked less than pleased.
“I’m going too.”
I gave my head one sharp shake.
“No. You’re not. This situation will be complex enough as it is. We don’t know what kind of situation Kari is in right now. We’re only taking necessary people. I have experience tracking people via magic, and Jiro is Kari’s next of kin.”
Noah’s eyes went wide.
“N-Next of kin!”
I didn’t like thinking this way anymore than he did, but we had to deal with reality.
“Even if Kari isn’t,”
I flicked my eyes down to Tina, and selected my words carefully.
“Even if she’s not gone, she might not be in any shape to make decisions for herself. We have to be prepared for that.”
And then Marion was marching towards us double time.
“You said you might have a location on Kari? Did she contact you?”
I winced.
“Uh, sorta. She’s using her magic, and we can point you in the right direction to her location.”
I knew this wasn’t the easy to find map coordinates Marion was hoping for, but it was the best we had.
My cousin nodded once.
“Right, it’s better than nothing. Let’s get moving.”