“I’m your top shooter,” Raccoon said. “Why not me?” It wasn’t a complaint; it was curious, for information.
“If you’re the best, you cover a one-eighty, first-floor hallway, front and back entrances. First line of defense from street-level incursion.”
Raccoon huffed a dismissive breath and began gathering weapons and ammo. “IfI’m the best,” he muttered.
EJ gave a hard grin and gestured to the wall screen. “Ojos. Protocol Lockdown, except this floor, the stairway, and the roof access. Street-level doors are under Raccoon’s verbal orders. Notify all tenants of potential danger and close all steel shutters. Send all perimeter cams, roof cams, hallway and stairwell cams, upanddown the stairs, to this wall screen. Monitor for movement and energy patterns in all cams, filtering for snow and atmospheric conditions. Interrupt Angie and tell them to arm up for possible demons. Get Villetti in here. If anyone from PsyLED is still in Chattanooga, send them relevant vid and info. Uncle Ricky-Bo would be helpful right about now.”
The system said, “Roger that, EJ,” its voice suddenly as hard as a sergeant at arms.
“I’ll be following all cameras,” Alex said, leaving him in charge of Protocol Lockdown.
“Ofcourseyou will,” EJ said, his tone caustic. “But since you’re here, I want intel. At the end of the war, there were rumors that the Rus witches had created a magic-powered battery that could take energy from air currents, static electricity, solar, even the pull of the moon on Earth.”
“The Rus had production problems, or we’d have lost the war,” Alex said.
EJ wondered if people in special ops and undercover, like Villetti, had contributed to the “production problems,” keeping the weapon off the battlefields. He said, “The Allies never found proof of the tech or the working. Maybe it was all rumors. Or maybe the Rus overcame the production problems and we’re their test case. They’d only need one battery to keep a drone ice-free.”
Alex muttered under his breath, muted his mic, and turned away from the screen.
“Boots,” EJ continued. “Update on the drone.”
“We have visuals. It’s circling the apartment building,” Boots said. “Probably camera recon, staying just far enough away for the snow to make a kill shot difficult. It’s low enough that if we miss, we could have collateral damage.”
Alex said, “Walter. Per the Consort, the queen’s standard should be flying from the roof.”
Walter was moving before Alex finished, the small pop of displaced air the only thing left behind him as he tore up the stairs into his apartment to unlock the chest where the standards were stored.
EJ said, “We’re not flying her standard on the building.”
Walter reached his apartment and banged on the door, staring at the security cam in his hallway. He looked pissed. Grizz, silent, reached around EJ and touched a button, opening Walter’s apartment door.
His voice dry as stone, Alex said, “You can try to stop Walter. I’ll give your mom tissues at the funeral.”
At a dead run Walter raced from the apartment, wrapped in a white sheet to hide his black clothing, like a superhero with fangs.Dead run.If EJ hadn’t been so coldly furious, it would have been funny.
Angie
I smoothed back my loose hair and picked up the null cloak. Villetti was already upstairs. That was where I was supposed to be. But…
I placed the ear-patch over one ear, the auto-pliable ag-plas settling tightly against the cartilage, its tiny input self-inserting into the auditory canal, what my musical brother called theexternal acoustic meatus. I listened to the chatter, voices battle-calm, their verbiage half acronyms and numerals.
The queen’s people were already insideOjos. EJ was pissed. Same ol’ same ol’.
I let it go. Closed my eyes and breathed. There wasn’t time, but…Yeah. But.
I dropped the cloak on the bed beside the staff. Breathed again, slow and easy, lifting my arms up with each inhale and dropping them with each measured exhale. Deliberate. Almost leisurely. Waiting.Feeling. Adrenaline and fear had opened my precog. Maybe it could give me something useful. I let the potential futures settle upon me.
After a full minute, Iknew. Not what. But where and when. And that there was more than one. And that people would die unless…I shifted through the potentialities.
“Yes,” I whispered, finding a potential future I could live with.
I secured the null cloak around me. Slipped my feet into snow booties. Pinched five small pieces of rosemary off one of the plants beside the front window, took some short lengths of cooking twine from a drawer, and quickly tied each rosemary snippet to a small stone lying on the black stone charging battery. The herb from Mama’s twenty-plus-year-old ever-living rosemary, made workings created by the family more powerful. No one knew why.
I turned off the fireplace. Turned off the lights. Tapped my ear-patch.
“I’ll be on my balcony,” I said into comms. “Grizz, aim true.Ojos. Secure my door. Privacy Protocol Blockade.” EJ and I had created only one protocol that was stronger than Privacy Protocol Blockade. I was hoping I didn’t need to initiate that even more effective protocol.
The chatter rose in urgency, everyone calling my name and making demands, asking questions.
