“Not in my skill set,” Evan Junior said. “I’m not even sure what ingredients might be in it, and some might be arcane fluid workings blended with other fluids or dissolvable crystal workings to make a super working. Dangerous stuff to experiment on and make it fly.”
“Make it fly,” Shiloh murmured as her blood trickled off the table.
EJ grinned. “Make it fly” was their mother’s saying when she was computing the math for a new working.
“Arcane. Eye of newt. The pelt of an albino bat,” Shiloh said, her eyes still rebellious. “Maybe grave wrappings from an Egyptian mummy.”
“The children decide the timeline,” Walter said.
EJ met Angie’s eyes and agreement flashed between them.
“I agree that Gertrude Lothringen should be disabled first,” Angie said, “because she moved in next door. That’s a threat.”
“I concur,” EJ said. Slapping his unicom to the table, hesynced to the wall screen and pulled up the floor plan to the building beside them. To one side were security and electronics schematics, electrical, HVAC, and plumbing. The same building that Shiloh had leaped from when she entered Walter’s door before sunset. She had indeed been scoping out the enemy.
Without shifting his eyes from the screen, EJ said, “I never know when we might need a place to seek cover, or need to remove an enemy who’s targeting us. That time Angie was attacked for the bounty and the office was left covered in green goo proved that. If I’d had a place to put the body, we wouldn’t have had to call Grampa.”
“Or we might need a covert path from place to place, in exigent circumstances,” Angie said. “Which is how we knew where to look first for Shiloh’s entrance.”
Shiloh fake-pouted again. “So, if I tell you there’s a secret stairway up to—”
“The ninth floor, yes. We know,” EJ said. “The building used to be a vamp lair and temporary vamp housing, back in the 1980s.”
“Like a fanghead hotel suite,” Angie said, her hands beneath a blanket, leaning forward, studying the floor plan, “hidden in plain sight. Like ours, the first level is for businesses. The upper floors are long-term apartments. The top floor is still used by visiting supernats and paras for short-term rentals. Very exclusive, very expensive.”
Walter said, “Detective Villetti. This is the Dark Queen’s business. This building and the people herein are under her banner. Except you. You will not be privy to our plans, as much for your safety as a law enforcement officer in the human world, as ours from law enforcement. I will not allow you to be compromised. You will wait for us in Angelina’s apartment.”
Shiloh’s head swiveled to the cop, the way only vampire kind can. “He’s speaking the truth. Go away, little human.”
“Lee,” Angie said softly. “Walter’s right. The battle with demons is over. You now need plausible deniability. You should wait in my apartment.”
Villetti met EJ’s gaze. EJ nodded. The cop threw out a hand in a gesture that said he’d go, but unwillingly. He left the gym.
EJ tapped the camera feed, watching as Villetti descended the stairs and entered Angie’s rooms. Returning to the floor plan, he said, “Grizz. We’ll provide the magic and we’ll need your best close-in shooter.”
“That’s me,” Raccoon said.
EJ nodded. “Small insertion team, Ange, me, Raccoon. Raccoon will be armed with a SIG SAP.”
Grizz opened her mouth to object, but Raccoon leaned in and asked, “And how do you have one of the military’s SAPs?”
Still without looking away from the screen, EJ said, “I don’t. But you do. No one asked you to return yours when you came home. They looked too much like toys, and no one had the ammo, so why ask for them back?” EJ grinned. “That was all in your sleeve in HR. The queen never lets a good weapon go to waste, so she let you keep the SAP. You’re a shooter.” He flicked his gaze to Raccoon and back to the screen. “I have ammo.”
“Ohhhh. Lil Dude,” Raccoon said.
“Clue me in?” Angie asked.
EJ said, “ARGO-powered SAPs are plastic hand-weapons that can be preloaded with up to seven rounds of amulets. Raccoon will be loaded with three liquid splats ofsleepy-timeworkings and foursleepy-timesin wood pellets. He’ll fire the first three at our target, and if she doesn’t go down, that means she’s a vamp, and he’ll fire the next four.”
His eyes gleaming, the shooter said, “Assuming she’s still in the room and our throats are intact.”
Angie moved closer to EJ and opened the laser pointer. Herhands were white and bloodless, the flesh cracked but not bleeding. Walter had healed them as best he could, but they looked dead.
Shiloh was flicking her eyes from Angie’s hands to Walter. Her gold-plated fangs clicked back inside, against the roof of her mouth. “I offered,” she said. “Cuz said no.”
“Grizz,” Walter said, “please allow Shiloh up. Angelina. You will allow Shiloh to assist with your hands. Now. No arguments.”
“Whatever. It won’t help but she can try. Raccoon, we’ll enter on the ground floor, here,” Angie directed the laser to a delivery door in the alley between the buildings. “This is a small boutique restaurant specializing in salads, egg dishes, and fish. It’s called Green Eggs and Fish. No indoor seating, to-go and delivery only. EJ can override the alarm, and we can be inside in about thirty seconds. We’ll need to make sure no tracks appear from our building across the alley, and no melted snow is left on the floor in Green Eggs, so all three of us will need to be prepared to clean up after entrance.”
