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Riva aims a soft smile at me that’s worse than Griffin’s reassurances. “We’re not doing anything yet. I’m only saying we should talk about the possibilities. They’re… a potential resource, like Rollick always puts it. Maybe we could use them like they wanted to use us.”
Dominic nods. “Balthazar definitely wouldn’t suspect that any contact he gets from them has anything to do with us. He knows that we hate them and that they’d never work with us as allies.”
“Exactly.” Riva smiles brighter at him. “If we can manipulate them into passing on information or influencing his actions, they might be able to create the opening we need without him or them having a clue that’s what’s going on.”
When she puts it like that, I can understand why she’s excited about the possibility. It’s not like we’ve gotten very far against our psychopathic former captor so far.
Hehas all the resources, all the plans in place, and we’re playing catch up. Drawing in the guardians to our benefit could give us a leg up.
Even if imagining reaching out to them in any way makes me want to smash every piece of furniture in Rollick’s elegant mansion.
I heave a sigh, expelling more tension with the breath. “Okay. I know we’ve got to consider every possible plan that could give us an advantage. But I don’t think the shadowkind are going to like it either. The guardians wanted to exterminate them just as much as Balthazar does, even if they weren’t as ballsy about it.”
Riva shrugs. “I guess we’ll have to see what they say, then.”
* * *
If I was hoping that Rollick would see things my way and quash the plan before it even got off the ground, I know I’ve lost the second a startled but awed laugh spills from his lips.
He leans back in the leather chair at the desk in his mansion’s home office, pulling his phone from his pocket. “Of course you’d figure there’s a way to make use of even your other enemies. I’d love it if these guardians of yours could lend us a hand against their own interests. Seems fitting.”
Zian, who caught up with the rest of us as we searched the demon out, frowns pensively. “Are your shadowkind friends going to be okay with it? A lot of them already seem kind of unsure about working just withus.”
Riva has brightened at Rollick’s approval in a way I can’t help appreciating. I’m not in love with her plan, but nothing could shake my love for her.
She bounces on her feet with pent-up energy. It can’t have been easy for her spending so much time putting together plans rather than springing into action.
“We wouldn’t really be working with them,” she says. “We’ve just got to find a way to get them acting on our behalf without realizing it.”
Rollick flashes her a smile. “Exactly. But first we need to locate the people who’ll decide on those actions. You said the man who brought you to that island is, ah, no longer in the picture, correct? He was the last of the other founders in this Guardianship?”
Andreas nods slowly. “He was theoretically at the top of the ladder when he had us running missions for him—but the guardians had other levels of authority. There was a guy who came to visit him… Richmond, that was his name. He talked about a board that I assume he was on, who had the power to take control over the organization if they decided Clancy was screwing things up.”
Riva claps her hands together. “Then we need to find the board. They’ve got to be running things now.”
I grimace. “I wonder what they think of all the havoc Balthazar’s already wreaking thanks to their experiments?”
“They might not know he’s behind it,” Dominic points out. “He’s been pretending it’s monsters making the attacks, right? He hasn’t been in contact with them for years—they probably have even less information about his current activities than we do.”
Rollick is typing a text into his phone with one hand while the other taps at the keyboard of his laptop. Apparently epic multitasking is among his supernatural skills.
“Your guardians aren’t generally secretive enough about their presence to escape shadowkind notice,” he says. “It helps that they’re so fond of their protective measures, which we can’t help picking up on. And having the name of someone on this board… I may be able to dig up contact information and locations they’re presently working out of within a matter of hours.”
I shift on my feet with a prickle of my own restlessness. “We can’t just call them up or barge in and order them around. Why would they pay attention to anything we say or do? If they know who we are, they’ll never listen to us. And if we don’t tell them, then we’ll only be strangers.”
“Hmm. There are various methods of persuasion, some more subtle than others.” Rollick snaps his fingers and raises his voice at a pitch that makes my eardrums wobble. “Pearl?”
The succubus must have been lurking nearby, because it can’t be more than ten seconds before she pops into being next to his desk. “Yes, boss?” she asks with a typically cheeky grin.
My stance starts to tense again. Our grand plan is going to rely onher? I mean, the succubus has been nice to us and all, but she never seems to take anything all that seriously.
Rollick clearly doesn’t share any of my concerns. “You did a good job getting that lackey of Balthazar’s to cough up the info about the hidden route inside the hill,” he says. “We might have more intensive need of your skills soon.”
Her grin only widens. “Sounds good to me. What’s up?”
Riva steps in. “We’re going to track down the current leaders of the Guardianship—the organization that all the guardians belong to. That Balthazar used to as well. I’m hoping we can use them to come at him from a new angle, one he won’t expect or be ready to defend against.”
“The Guardianship,” Pearl repeats, and her bright eyes go momentarily distant. “You know, that guy of Balthazar’s said something about them when I was working my charms.”
