Page 79 of Ignited

DB turned on him. “This was a possibility? And you didn’t think to mention it?”

Thanatos didn’t even answer. From somewhere inside his robe, he produced a box with the same markings as Karisma’s.

There were six crystal rods in it, instead of three, and the sphere was larger. “Fuck on a stick,” DB said. “The seventh sphere is a control orb? And of course you have it.”

“Indeed,” Thanatos said. “I’m often accused of keeping the best of everything for myself.”

He raised the sphere, and the rods snapped themselves to it—one end against the sphere, the other sticking straight out. The sphere began to glow.

He was planning on punching through the wards with the controller orb. It seemed to be the only Plan B they had.

DB readied some shielding spells, and said, “This is going to be a cluster fuck.”

He just hoped he could keep everyone from dying.

Boomer couldn’t believe he’d let his team get caught in a stasis spell. Just like the one Thanatos had done on Karisma after the rabbit incident, except triggered by a magical ward he hadn’t seen.

Some fucking commander he was.

They’d been plucked out of the stasis field by Maximilian’s guards, stripped of their gear and weapons, and herded into some kind of massive storage room with a three-inch-thick oak door strong enough to withstand half a dozen wolf shifters—at least, long enough for shit to go really, really bad for everyone.

Because unless he could get them the hell out of here soon, all Maximilian’s guards would be available to take out Gunn’s team, as well as Bro and Karisma.

He couldn’t let them down. Or his bomb crew, who were now stuck in here with him.

But Blake and Chipper were standing in front of him, looking at him with expectant confidence, the other guys right behind them.

“So what’s Plan B?” Blake said.

Chipper added, “Because we know you’ve got one. You always do.”

Yeah. Except Plan B usually involved explosives. And they had nothing. “Give me a sec,” he said.

He tried to think, the air from the ventilation grate right above him blowing down on him, cooling the sweat soaking his clothes and giving him goosebumps.

His wolf was yowling inside him. All it wanted was to tear everything apart until they got to Karisma, protected her, made her safe. Be quiet, he told it. We have to do this the human way.

But what? What was he going to do?

MacGyver it, said a little voice inside him. Work with what’s around you.

He made himself focus, gazing around the room. Unfortunately, there were no handy tools stored there, to take apart the door or jerry-rig something electric. Not even cleaning supplies, many of which, when mixed properly, could be made to go boom and blow open a door.

There was just a pile of furniture in one corner, covered in dust sheets. And shelves full of canned goods and boxes of crackers and shit, and some metal bins on the floor for stuff like root vegetables, or anything that might be damaged by the damp in this musty old pile.

Damaged by damp.

Boomer strode over and started throwing open the three-foot by four-foot bins. Potatoes. Onions and carrots.

And then the mother lode. Flour. Beautiful ten-pound sacks of flour, stacked on top of each other.

He started to grin.

Then he started giving orders. “Empty one of those bins and set it up in front of the door on its side, with the lid back so the open side faces the door.” He gestured to two more of the guys. “Grab me one of those dust sheets, and see if whatever’s under it is sturdy enough to make a blast barrier. If not, take down one of those tall shelves and use that.”

To the last of the team, he said, “Tear this place apart. I need a candle—hell, a ball of string. Any kind of fuse. Plus, anything to make a fire or spark. And please tell me somebody’s still got their Gorilla tape on them?”

They started rigging it up. The bin in front of the door, with a pile of flour dumped on the bottom. The barrier up. The dust sheet Gorilla taped into a tube and attached to that fucking air vent.