“Yes.”
“Grizz, do you have a shot?” EJ asked over comms.
“Negative. Too much snow. Vamps don’t show on infrared, and low light sucks in these conditions. However, the bot’s engine is overheating. I can read its position on infrared. It’s at a forty-five-degree angle from Angie, about”—Grizz paused, calculating the distance with her scope and gear—“about twenty-five feet up the street at a diagonal from her current twenty. It’s still moving at a dead crawl.”
“Can you see my cloak?” Angie asked, dropping her working for a moment.
“Affirmative,” EJ said, “and if you move further from the building, so can our enemies.”
“I was talking to Villetti.”
“Affirmative,tesoro.”
Angie sighed into her comms mic.
“You’re going to need help, Ange,” EJ said. “You can’t hold your staffandfight vamps, a witch, and whatever that bot is carrying. I’m on my way down.” Spinning from the wall, he sped across the slick roof and into the door to the stairwell.
“Whatever,” she said into her comms. “Villetti, I’m going in under the strongestobfuscationworking I have, and with my AE ear-patches activated.” The ear-patches that let in specific hertz wavelengths, like voices, but dampened explosive frequencies and concussive waves, automatically. “When I get to within ten feet of the bot, I should be in the middle of the road. At that point, I’ll deactivate theobfuscationworking. You’ll have one second to see my cloak and calculate the bot’s position. After that one second, I’ll open the strongestblood hedgeI know how to make and drop flat onto the street. You’ll open fire at the bot.”
“Ten feet?” Villetti demanded. “No! Even ablood hedgewon’t stand up to a demon-zooka.”
Angie didn’t respond for several seconds, and EJ, racing down the stairs, knew she was evaluating the odds of her survival versus the odds of the demon bomb on the bot. He sped into his apartment and grabbed more weapons. Swords, one long, one short, both with silver plating to harm vamps, two semiautomatic handguns already loaded with silver-lead rounds to kill vamps.
When Angie replied, her tone was reluctant. “Understood. Further away places me behind the cars on this side and itdecreases my staff’s ability to draw in demons that are released by the explosion and expelled into the air.”
“The rocket will stop them,cara. They will be frozen in place for several seconds. You will have time to move closer, and the concussive explosion will take down the vamps for long enough for us to take head shots, or EJ to behead them.”
“Okay. Right,” she said, her voice winded from fighting snowdrifts.
EJ burst from the exit door, gave Peg a halfhearted wave, and whistled a note, opening anobfuscationworking. He sped along the narrow snow trail Angie had made.
In front of him, she disappeared behind anobfuscationworking so powerful it didn’t have a sound, or even a visual with hisseeingworking. Either Angie had multiple workings open at once, or she had pulled on her own life force, or on the snowstorm, or she was keeping more secrets. “Son of a witch,” EJ muttered. “What have you created, Ange?”
She laughed in reply, the sound so winded it was more like coughing.
EJ looked into the air currents. His gift wasn’t his sister’s. He didn’t have her ability with raw power. But he could see what was happening with the air and the snow itself. It was fluffing up and billowing out and being compressed all around Angie’s position. Anyone in a building above could see her by the disturbance in the snow-filled wind. “Team. Closehedges,” EJ said. “Look for spotters.”
“Hedgeclosed.” “Closed.” “Roger that,” came over his ear-patch.
Peg said, “I think we have a spotter.”
Grizz said. “Ojos, open 3-D map.”
EJ touched his helmet and saw the map of the area displayed on his face shield. The tiny red dot was the spotter. He angledoff from Angie, plowing his way toward the spotter. A spotter was always a potential shooter.
Two seconds went by and Grizz said, “Good eye, Peg. Confirmed spotter in building B, fourth floor, window on the corner. Possible weapon noted, though window is closed. If a weapon is present, his first shot will likely be off, so he’ll be planning on a two shot.”
“Walter is currently not available to lead or command,” a different voice said over comms. “Evan Junior Everhart-Trueblood, upon the order of the Consort of the Dark Queen, you are in command of the queen’s forces,” the Consort himself said. “Fire as necessary to protect yourselves and the populace. A diplomatic envoy will handle any repercussions.”
“Crap,” Angie said.
EJ grinned.About time.
Raccoon said, “I have a nonlethal flash-bang loaded in a tripod-braced, underbarrel launcher. The window is within my fifty-meter range.”
Grenade launchers were completely illegal off the battlefield. EJ didn’t want to know why the people who were supposedly here for guard duty had so much weaponry on hand. For a moment, he considered what Villetti would say about the illegal weapon when this was all over, but he let that thought slide into the dark of his brain for later consideration.
EJ drew one semiautomatic weapon and an attack flute. Wondered if the dancer would refuse to have dinner with him if he killed her little car.
