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“Very well,” I tell them. “We’ll go in and talk, provided you don’t harm our agent anymore than you already have.”
I have to sound collected and professional.
But what I say mentally, to all of our forces, is be ready to attack. The signal phrase is ‘comply’.
I am relieved, at least, that Quinn isn’t anywhere in the middle of this, and that she is safe from danger. She has a full shift today, and from what she told me, with the sporting event today, she has probably been very busy.
The gunmen get behind each of us, holding a rifle loaded with a silver bullet to our backs as they lead us in. Even Ren is led in by a gunman, and as he struggles to move, barely limping, the gunman beats him with the butt of his rifle, urging him forward.
He is losing a lot of blood, and if he isn’t treated soon, he may collapse here and never awaken.
“Changed your operations a bit, haven’t you?” I prod him, as I follow in his wake. With every word, I feel the gunman's grip shake. He doesn’t expect me to speak unless I’m given the explicit ‘okay’ by Alistair.
But Alistair doesn’t seem concerned.
“Whatever do you mean?” He asks me playfully.
I shake my head. He isn’t really pretending to be innocent in all of this, is he?
“I mean werewolves and vampires aren’t your typical targets. It’s humans you’re after, right?”
He laughs.
“Trying to pin the unfortunate, gruesome murders on us, are you?” He asks. “Moonlight Sentinels are a legitimate organization. And you’ll find we do not take kindly to unfair accusations.”
“So you threaten us and shoot one of our own?” I ask, looking at all of the product shipments surrounding us.
There are mundane looking boxes all around us, conveyor belts still operating with nobody to man the lines. There’s a well-maintained forklift in the back, and the shipping dock has seen recent use, as the path remains cleared.
“Strictly self-defense, I assure you,” Alistair chuckles. There’s an unnatural gravely quality to his voice, as though he’s spent years ingesting tainted blood. “And what I’m telling you is not so much a threat as a warning.”
“Self-defense?” I cannot help but laugh. The claim is absurd, but he clings to it as though it is the unabashed truth.
“Absolutely,” he says. His tone is still cavalier, without a hint of tension to it. “You trespassed on our territory with weapons, ready to attack us. It isn’t a good look, storming onto somebody’s territory without higher approval or so much as a warrant.”
He knows that neither of us are leaders of PEACE, but he doesn’t understand how we conduct operations. This is concerning.
“Only,” I growl, looking at Ren to see if he’s conscious. He looks up at me, and I can see that he’s preparing to muster one last exertion, as he clutches his wound, trying to curb the bleeding at least minimally. “It’s not exactly your territory, is it?”
They made one mistake. In assigning each of us a gunman, prodding us in the back and trying to intimidate us with their weapons, they failed to account for the fact that they are easily killed with a simple stake.
And we have no shortage of wooden stakes among us.
“Whatever do you mean?” Alistair asks again, this time a hint of uneasiness creeping into his voice.
“I mean that this warehouse was condemned decades ago,” I say simply. “If you want to continue operations, you’re more than welcome to. But you will have to comply with federal and local regulations.”
That was the code word.
Before they can so much as process what happened, our members are drawing stakes, maneuvering around their captors, and stabbing the Moonlight Sentinel members from the rear.
The rage on Alistair’s face becomes real and immediate. He bares his fangs at me, eyes enlarged and wide, blood pooling into them as they shift from ivory white to blood moon red.
“Give it up, Alistair,” I hiss at him. “We’ve got enough evidence on you to put you away for a thousand lifetimes.”
“Cocky, aren’t we?”
I wonder why, with all of my men surrounding him, he still thinks he can get away.
