“Watch,” I said. “This is the footage at four times normal.” I played the video again.
“Stop. Back up and run it again.”
Running eight-times speed for the first time, a glint of bluish-greenish light and anoutlineof…something appeared.
“Son of a bitch.” Grizz turned her head to me, her close-cropped hair looking darker in the dim lights. The shark tat seemed to slither as she made two fists. “It moves. It has light. We had an infiltrator.”
“That was my impression,” I said. “I know it isn’t likely, but could it be an arcenciel?”
Grizz shook her head in uncertainty, studying the glint. “The rift to the dragons’ world is guarded and monitored by human eyes and electronic means, twenty-four/seven. We need Alex to work his electronic whiz stuff on it with those programs he developed for the military. He can try it on different cams, different angles. If there’s someone there, they’re hidden under an untraceable, nearly perfectobfuscationworking.”
I added to the thought. “One we don’t have any way to track or ID because the working is so different. Which made me think about arcenciels. Also note—Ivyanna Holmes, our subject, our dead client’s possibly kidnapped friend, spends a lot of time near that corner, supposedly talking on her unicom.”
“Send me the ID number and file name. I’ll get with Peg, and we’ll see who Holmes called, if she actually called anyone and wasn’t talking to the infiltrator who had the event under surveillance.”
I sent the requested info to Grizz’s unicom. “Let me know when you find out where and how they got in,” I said, “and anything Peg puts together on the energy signature. I’ll need that to work up an amulet to react to thatsuper-duper obfuscationenergy pattern.”
Because even with my ability to see raw magic, I hadn’t seen the spy at the soirée. This was something new.
“On it,” Grizz said. She headed for the door and stopped midway, tapping her ear. “Your boyfriend is here with dinner.”
“What?” I said. “Ah, dang it, I forgot.Villetti.” It was evening and my dinner date was here.
EJ
He crawled out of an ice bath and into a cool shower, which felt hot on his chilled skin. The bruises left over from taking on multiple sparring partners were nearly gone, healed by his amulets. Raccoon had left a ring of violet around his rib cage. Boots had nearly broken his knee—and would have, had she not pulled the kick—with a sideways sweep he hadn’t expected. Peg had nearly broken his jaw with a kick from his cyborg leg.
EJ worked his jaw back and forth and did slow squats in the hot-feeling water to loosen up. The door to the shower stall, which he had not locked, cracked open. EJ tensed. Through the crack, Grizz said, “Update in five. We got something.” The door closed.
A little over three minutes later, EJ was dried, dressed, and moving without apparent pain. He carried an armless sidechair from the long table to the sitting area in front of the wall screen, spun it around, and straddled it, one arm across the chair back, his chin on his arm to stretch his back muscles. Others took seats on the long couches or brought in folding chairs.
Walter walked in and stood in the corner behind them all. EJ watched as some of the team evaluated the vampire’s position uneasily, but since he could be seen in the wall of vamp-friendly mirrors, they mostly decided he wasn’t a threat at their backs. Though EJ noticed that Peg adjusted his chair’s position to see the vampire from the corner of his eye.
That was amusing, as Walter could move faster than any of them. If he wanted to kill them all, he would succeed, even without weapons. And there was a wall of weapons within easy reach.
There was food on the low table—what the security team called snacks and were in reality a full meal of mini tacos,chiles en nogadastuffed with picadillo, bite-sized quesadillas with sour cream, salsa, and diced veggies to the side, tinytorta ahogadasstuffed with pulled pork, and corn chips with two more salsas on the side. Colas were in an ice chest. EJ took a small plate and loaded up, before saying, “Where’s Ange?”
Grizz said, “Boots. Raccoon. We’re on your unicoms. You copy?”
“Copy,” each of them said.
From outside, at the front of the building, Raccoon added, “All’s quiet on the blizzard front.”
“Roof may fall in from the snow,” Boots said, “but the skies are quiet up here.”
Funny how the guards didn’t need ice baths, even at their ages.
Grizz said to EJ, “Angie’s entertaining her law enforcement boyfriend. But she found this.” The unit leader took center stageand gestured to the wall screen. “The rest of us missed it entirely.” She tapped her ear and asked, “You there, Alex?”
“We’re here,” Alex said, his vid-pic in the corner. He didn’t say who “we” were.
To the right of his face, a thumbnail of Lincoln Shaddock appeared. That was bad. Shaddock was known to be overly protective of those he claimed as his own.
Grizz said, “Go ahead, Peg.”
Peg, who had been IT in one of many wars, was the unit’s IT guy, and had access to data banks in a lot of places EJ didn’t, like some military sites, some chat rooms of former boots-on-the-ground humans, and even the queen’s. A tiny, real-time, thumbprint pic of Peg—ID’d with his real name, Mike Meadows—appeared on the lower-right corner of the wall screen.
Over the speakers, Peg said, “Alex. Greetings, Master of the City of Knoxville.”
