“In a minute. Let’s take care of this first,” I begged.
Charlie appeared thoroughly depressed, but I said through our bond,You’re not making me do this. We don’t have a choice right now.
Charlie’s shoulders slumped. “Fine, hurry up. You guys better have something good.”
“Oh, believe me,” Danny started. “It’s more than good. It’s closer than we’ve ever gotten.”
My body screamed in protest. All I wanted to do was go back to my room and go to bed, yet I couldn’t, because we had a job to do. I remembered the sunken eyes of the old man on the throne and recoiled. I told myself if I didn’t want to become the Warden’s prisoner, I needed to keep going so I could avoid that fate.
I was so tired. Not just today— tired of doing this, tired of living this way. I wasn’t sure if this war would ever be over, but I supposed it only would be when I decided to stop trying. That would never happen, so we had to carry on.
When we got to the training arena, Eddie, Marcus, and Kallie were waiting for us, along with Ivy and Chancey. Danny leaned against a wall. I rolled to the center of the room, where a largewhiteboard had been rolled out. On the whiteboard were the faces of all the head mobsters in Salvatore Bianchi’s mob that knew something about the vampire key, and all the knowledge we’d acquired about them since.
“Prince, princess, glad to see you here. The Elvish Associates have found a valuable piece of intel,” Eddie began.
“What is it?” Charlie asked.
“We’ve discovered a rare chance to learn more about the vampire key, one we’re not going to get again,” Eddie started. “Usually, Salvatore sends his top underbosses all around the world to do his dirty work on separate jobs. Next week, he’s concentrating all of them in New York, inside a hotel he owns.”
“All of them?” I raised my eyebrow. “That seems risky. If someone blows the place up, all his cronies are dead. Why would he take such a risk?”
“It is our belief this is something of a yearly summit for the vampire mob,” Eddie said. “Salvatore calls all his top people in, and they have meetings about the expansion of the mob’s projects and endeavors around the supernatural community. All of the men who know something about the vampire key are going to be there.”
Kallie laughed. “What do you know? Even the mob has work conventions.”
“This is our chance, then,” Charlie muttered. “We can’t risk tracking these people down one by one and interrogating them. Once we try, Salvatore will find out, and he’ll bring all his mobsters back into the safety of his base. We have to get everything we can from these people all at once, at the same time.”
“That sounds impossible. How are we supposed to manage that?” Danny asked.
“We’ll have to don disguises and infiltrate the meeting,” Eddie announced. “Marcus has a powerful potion to disguise ourteam that he made with his uncle, which worked well for us in Vegas. It will withstand any magical wards or alarms.”
“I doubt it’s enough,” Danny said skeptically. “Salvatore’s got top security in these places, and even with our people, I don’t think we’re going to be able to get inside.”
Kallie crossed her arms in front of the whiteboard. “Well, we have to. We know that each of these mobsters has a piece of information related to the vampire key, and to put the puzzle together, we need to get that info from each of them. They’re not going to tell us, which means we need to be able to read their minds. Marcus can do it. He’s been training for this very moment.”
Ivy stepped forward. “Mind reading can work, but Danny’s right. We canmaybeget one or two people past my father, but Marcus is going to need more back-up than that. If we’re all in disguises, my father will know something’s up. We can’t fool him. I have a better idea. My father wants to get his hands on me, and he wants the rest of you in his grasp. So we should give him what he’s asking for.”
“I’m not following,” I said. This already sounded like a risk.
“This convention is happening, and my father will have all his cronies in one place. We can’t pass up this opportunity,” Ivy insisted. “I’m going to reach out to my father and tell him I want back in the mob.”
“Ivy, no,” I demanded. “Don’t sell yourself like this for us.”
“Listen for a sec,” Ivy persisted. “I’ll convince my dad that we need him. I’ll stroke his ego and tell him exactly what he wants to hear, that the Warden’s too strong and we can’t take him on by ourselves. I’ll pose an alliance between the Bianchi gang and the Majestica family against The Mission. Joining the Elvish crime family and the vampiric mob together into a union is going to be an offer my dad won’t be able to refuse. Everyone knows that this war is going to be determined by demigods. If it wasn’t, theWarden wouldn’t be busting his ass to try and capture you. If Salvatore wants to win, he needs to get his hands on some of his own, and you guys are the only candidates still alive that haven't joined The Mission.”
“Is Salvatore going to buy that you’re handing us over to him?” Charlie asked skeptically. “He’s going to suspect it’s a trap.”
“It doesn’t matter if he does,” Ivy replied. “My dad is going to be cautious, but by the time he figures out we’ve fooled him, we’ll be out of there. I’ll tell him we want in, and to sweeten the deal, we’ll put on a circus.”
“Like, an act, or an actual circus?” Marcus questioned. “I don’t see how this is going to help us.”
“A real one,” Ivy said. “We’ll offer to show off your demigod powers in a grand show, for all his vampires to see. My dad is interested in seeing what you guys can do. Plus, being immortal gets boring, and the vampires who’ve lived for centuries are always looking for a way to shake things up. A supernatural circus is something different and interesting. It’ll be a big draw. Even if they suspect something, one night of amusement to them is worth the risk. And these guys are cocky. They’re not going to think they’ll be attacked at a circus, and if they do, they’ll be certain they can handle it.”
“So we put on a circus. Then what?” Charlie asked.
“We use Marcus to get the information we need,” Ivy said, smacking their hand into their fist. “While we’re putting on a distraction, Marcus can use teleinsight to read the minds of the mobsters who have information on the vampire key, and piece the puzzle together.”
“Is Marcus skilled enough to pull that off?” Chancey asked. “He just started learning teleinsight.”
