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CHAPTER12
West had asked to be attached to the group where Caro would work, Group Six. He’d wanted to assess her abilities in real time.
Plus, he had a nagging voice in the back of his head. His instinct said she was true. Maybe too good to be true. She showed up around the time Jenkins began his power moves. As the gangster played as ruthlessly as any demon, the nagging possibility she’d been planted to infiltrate the group remained. Few free vampires existed, after all.
Sarafina, one of his group commanders, began her brief. Group Six would blow the single side door on the north and work their way until they rendezvoused inside with Groups Four and Five, each of whom would take one of the entrances on the south. Group One would take the west side, which included the main entrance of GJ Giant, Ltd.’s warehouse. The surveillance had been taken under the guise of a city code enforcement surprise inspection on the other business and determined there wasn’t a way to access from Jenkins’s side.
Since the operation would exterminate Jenkins’s blood abuse operation, they’d leave nothing to chance and nothing behind. All equipment would be eradicated, all victims relocated. No trace of the purpose behind Jenkins’s business would remain for the non-paranormal world to find. Group Two, mostly made of Clan Magic members, would coordinate victim rescue, triage, and transport.
Though they knew the building’s internal dimensions, the possibilities of what could exist in GJ Giant’s portion of the building had few limitations, hence the large show of force. Like West, Jenkins had every type of paranormal working for him—from mages, to telekinetics, to elves, to shifters. As a fae, Jenkins could’ve created a vortex to another location or even a pocket dimension, though Jenkins would need somewhere around ten of the smaller, costly, illegal spaces considering the amount of blood supposedly coming from this farm. The NAC and the fae queen didn’t stand for creating dimensions or vortexes without permission. Either action, especially if he’d created more than a couple of PDs, would surely garner her attention, even if NAC overlooked the activity.
Yet, according to West’s lone fae intel source in Lanorinia, stability eluded Athena’s throne, and she had to fend off periodic uprisings from the unseelie faction of the realm. Despite one of her close advisors being human, she would see Jenkins’s meddling in Clan Sanguis affairs as lower on her priority list right now. Add the way Clan Sanguis preferred to keep their problems in-house, and Kriann wouldn’t be calling Queen Athena or NAC Security unless the situation grew dire.
West wiped the entire scenario from his mind. Thousands of possibilities existed. Best he not prejudice himself by forming expectations. Preformed ideas would only slow down his reaction time. Anything and everything could happen. Work with the team as a unit, and they’d be fine.
He snuck a glance at Caro, who narrowed her gaze on Griffith Jenkins’s photo shown in immense closeup. By their set, a subtle tension covered her shoulders. Nerves or preparation for what would probably be a tough battle?
Stop. No room existed for distractions. And she provided a helluva distraction for him.
Once the brief ended, he concentrated on their discussions of building entry stack. Miren first, Charl, Caro, with West last. After she breached the door, Hayden would fall in line and watch their six. With the details established, the sorcerer drifted from the team to pick up charms and potions from the supply section’s table.
Twenty minutes remained until the teams would deploy. Caro placed her pack on a nearby table and unzipped the front panel, which swung to the side. With a slight furrow on her brow, she appeared to examine the neat rows of supplies which had been tucked into mesh pockets or secured into place. She selected four magazines, all loaded, presumably with spelled bullets. Where would she put them? The carriers on her waist were filled with four more, and they’d clink around in the thigh pockets of her tactical pants.
She secured them with elasticized keepers to the bottom of the bag where she’d be able to easily reach them with either hand.
Ingenious. “Where’d you get your pack?”
Caro’s gaze whipped up to his, her eyes round as if she’d just remembered he existed.
“That’s what I asked her,” Charl said. The elf set his radio on the table and fit the earpiece in place. “You should see what she’s got in the main compartment.”
By the time West returned his gaze to her, she’d almost finished tucking a surprised expression behind a nonchalant mask. “I designed it myself.”
“Well, let’s see.”
She pulled on two zippers and laid open the pack like a book. Her sniper rifle, broken down and carefully stowed. One box of .308 ammunition.
“One box of ammo?” He asked with an arched brow.
“If we need more than twenty kills, then we’re so far up shit creek, we’ve hit the waste treatment plant.”
Her snarky response earned a snort from Miren. “Thereisa sense of humor under there.”
“Still trying to see where I’m going to fit in here.” Caro busied herself with the radio.
“I think you’ll fit in well,” West said. She certainly hadn’t disappointed yet. “You want to put the hurt on the biters who can’t behave. We do too. Simple as that.”
She stilled her fingers and stared at the radio as if the device was a lifeline to the Earth.
“What else do you have in the pack?” West studied the dimensions. “There’s room in the back for more, right?”
Slowly, she moved her hand toward the back of her pack. By her hesitation, he thought she might deny his request. Interesting how the zipper had been cunningly made into a seam and made zero noise. She carefully separated the sides and flipped the middle section like a page of a book.
His mouth dried, while Miren’s indrawn breath seemed to suck the air from the room.
She carried the components for a bomb in the pack.
Before Ryn could demand to know why she’d bring bricks of plastic explosive, three detonators, batteries, and timing devices, she held up her hand, palm out, direct to him. Her teammates all remained silent since the reveal, perhaps waiting for their boss’s reaction.
