Shiloh knelt at Angie’s side and cut her wrist. She began smearing her own blood over Angie’s dead-looking left hand. Angie didn’t so much as glance at her cousin.
Grizz moved close, an eye on the crazy vamp.
Angelina continued, “We’ll be returning to our building the same way Cousin Wacko did, from the roof.”
Shiloh laughed at the nickname, her blood smeared over Angie’s hand.
“Fuuunnn,” Raccoon said, stepping forward, his entire being focusing on the floor plan. He was so entranced, he walked past Shiloh as if she wasn’t a threat.
“The hidden entrance to the stairwell is behind this wall.” EJ redirected the laser. “There’s a lever in the floor molding that moves the refrigerator away from the hidden opening.”
Angie looked down at her hand, cradled in her cousin’s, vampire blood being gently massaged into the damaged flesh. “Hey, Cousin Wacko. Why are you really here, and why are you so enthused about all this?”
EJ watched his sister. She was using hertruth sense, skin to skin, blood to blood, for the greatest effect. Walter watched as well, taking in everything. Shiloh would know about Angie’s gift and what she was doing. He thought she might jerk away, but the vamp allowed it.
“There’s still a bounty on Konstantin,” Shiloh said, her eyes not moving from the injured hand. “I’m here to collect.”
“Abounty? From thewar?” When Shiloh’s lips stretched into a full grin, Angie asked, “How much?”
Before she answered, Shiloh’s bloody hand shot out and ran over Grizz’s shark tatau. The hard woman growled under her breath, showing teeth in a deliberately aggressive expression. But she didn’t step back.
Shiloh laughed and removed her bloody fingers, leaving behind fingerprints on Grizz’s tat. Grizz stared at them as if wondering if she should lick them for the strength they would give, or wipe them away as dangerous. Shiloh was good at keeping people off balance.
Shiloh said, “It was interest-accruing. As of this morning it was two-point-seven-six and change. Million. Two-point-seven-sixmillion. And I’m going after the bounty.”
“There’s a bounty on my head,” Angie ground out. “Are you here for that too?”
“I’m not that stupid.”
EJ said, “Walter? Please keep our cousin here, in this room. Even if you have to stab her through the heart to do so.”
Shiloh tilted her head, that reptilian stretching of her neck that marked them asother, and that they usually tried to hidefrom humans. “I’m your best weapon,” she said, sly and wily. “You’re taking Raccoon. Why not me?”
“We’ve never worked with you. You aren’t integrated into a team,” EJ said. “And we’re trying to minimize the amount of the queen’s support we use. We don’t need the queen’s assassin for this.”
Shiloh’s eyes opened wide in mock shock. “Ohhh. You still think you can stay of out the queen’s web. That’s almost cute. You need me, you silly boy.”
“Maybe next time,” Angie said, her tone saying,Not a chance in hell. “Raccoon, EJ,” she said, “let’s gear up.”
Raccoon asked, “If we’re trying to hide what we’re doing, how do we get across the alley without leaving a trail in the snow?”
“The alley-side delivery door is set back into the wall about twelve inches. The way the snow fell, it left that area mostly open and clear. So,” Angie said, “we jump off my balcony, clearing the twelve feet horizontally and vertically. You up for that?”
“Hell, yeah,” Raccoon said, his face eager. “I fuuu—freaking love my job.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Angie
I was fully armored, this time in the queen’s armor, because if we had to kill someone, it needed to be under the queen’s flag, not my own self-recognizance. Aunt Jane—or rather, thequeen—wanted Gertrude disabled, not eliminated. But things happened fast in fights. No one could predict what would occur in a battle, especially against a para who, according to the latest security reports, “stole some serious mojo amulets from a marine base. And some serious armament.”
If Gertrude Lothringen, the witch hunter who had tortured Nyoka in World War Two, died, I didn’t want her people coming after us. No supernat lived in a vacuum. The queen’s banner—and the five-million-dollar reverse bounty on my head—dissuaded all but the most zealous from trying to kill me, but it took only one who cared less about survival than vengeance.
Thequeenowed me no intel or help. Aunt Jane seemed to be working around all the political realities of our intertwined relationships to give me the freedom I craved, despite both potential political repercussions and my personal danger.
By our bid for independence, EJ and I had put everyone—the queen, my family and coven, Walter, us, and now the securityunit—in jeopardy. The queen had been trying to protect our safety, our independence, all our people, and still keep peace and a royal balance of power.
Freedom—EJ’s and mine—was a danger to everyone.
