12. Chapter 12
12
“ T his isn’t two separate attacks, one on Archie and another on Kash and his entire operation,” Rebecca explained. “It’s the same attack. Two parts of the same plan. Put them together, and it means something completely different.”
Maxwell and the others stared vacantly at her until she realized she had to spell it all out for them, beginning to end.
With a sigh, she swiped loose strands of hair away from her face. “That’s exactly what this is. I’ve seen it before.”
She didn’t have to tell them that once upon a time, Rebecca herself had been the one responsible for sending this exact kind of message. That had no bearing on what they faced now.
“Okay…” Lerrick scratched his head and looked to the others.
“And what’s the message?” Tig asked.
Rebecca tried to steel herself against all the implications of what she now knew waited for them. Of what all this meant for Shade. And for her.
“The message is they did all this to show they know who we are,” she said. “And who Shade has contracts with. Where we source our supplies. Where we get the fucking food Bor puts on our plates. They know who we network with to fund, feed, and resource the entire task force.
“They staged the attack on Archie, dumped him in his own truck, and left him in the garage at our Headquarters to make it clear they know who we are, and where we are. They know where we all lay our heads at night.”
She looked up at Maxwell, who instantly met her gaze with his silver flashing eyes, and she swallowed. “They want us to know they could attack at any moment, whenever they want, on our home turf or someone else’s. They want us to know nowhere is safe anymore, and that if they wanted to do this again, we’d never see them coming.”
“And the messenger?” Maxwell asked. “Any idea who it might be?”
Rebecca almost laughed. “I have a whole list of ideas. They all fit the profile of someone who would want this.”
He nodded. “Harkennr, then.”
“Maybe. It could’ve been. Though all his methods are tied in one way or another to Xahar’áhsh, and this is definitely not old-world warfare.”
“Maybe he’s testing out a new strategy,” Tig offered.
Maxwell held Rebecca’s gaze even as he answered the question. “No. Harkennr’s not the kind of tiger that changes his stripes.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Lerrick asked.
Tig shrugged.
Rebecca and Maxwell ignored the question.
“Then again,” the shifter added, “Harkennr did seem particularly out of favor with the way things were done back where he came from. He might have decided to buck tradition and go with something like this. And I’d say he has more reason than anyone else to go after our supply chain after what we did to his.”
“If we were talking about anyone else,” Rebecca said, “I’d say you’re right. But he wouldn’t buck tradition that much. Not after he’s already gone through such pains to make everything he does in this world exude some flavor of Xahar’áhsh and his rejected place in it.”
Please don’t ask me how I’m so sure of it, she thought. Not now.
“What about Eduardo?” Lerrick asked.
“Eduardo’s a moron,” Maxwell snapped. “He couldn’t have organized something like this. Not without help. He wouldn’t be the one behind it.”
“What about the shitheads who put Nyx out of commission and snatched up the rest of her team?” Tig asked. “They could’ve done this, right? They already led us on a wild goose chase once before.”
“That’s also a possibility,” Rebecca said, nodding slowly as she mulled it over. “But neither of you were there with us when we found Diego, Burke, and Titus that night. There was warped magitek all over the amusement park. No sign of it here. No sign of anything here. That’s too much of a leap to pin it on the same people. And whoever they were, those assholes had a deadly fondness for theatricality.”
Maxwell snorted through a deadpan glare. “Don’t remind me.”
“What we stumbled into during that rescue mission and this?” She gestured around them. “They’re completely different. That night was all for show, hoping enough chaos and confusion would lead us to blow ourselves to bits so the enemy wouldn’t have to. This is completely different. Understated. Subtle.”
“A whole warehouse crew dead on the floor’s a subtle understatement now, huh?” Lerrick puffed out a sigh and shook his head. “I can’t fucking keep up.”
“I don’t think it’s them either,” Rebecca continued. “But whoever wanted to send this message, they made it feel almost…”
Personal.
That was what she’d almost said before stopping herself at the last second.
Claiming a personal attack inferred this had come from someone they knew better than any of the other groups they’d listed from Shade’s current enemy list.
And that would only open more questions as to who knew Shade well enough to want to make this personal .
Who knew Rebecca well enough.
Only one person came to mind who checked all those boxes. While Rebecca had already written him off as detrimental to Shade’s wellbeing and a threat to the task force’s survival and continued success, not to mention her own, she couldn’t believe he would do something like this.
Rowan Blackmoon had been a part of Shade for weeks. He’d sworn his oath and fought alongside them all several times.
Rebecca had rejected him, yes, and he’d left without a word. But he wouldn’t come back to hurt them like this. Even if she believed he’d changed his tune and was more emissary of the Bloodshadow Court than Rebecca’s best friend.
This wasn’t Rowan.
After a lengthy silence while the small team stood amidst the “clean carnage” inside Kash’s warehouse, Maxwell growled and shook his head. “I don’t know anyone else who could have done this.”
Pulled out of her intense focus of weighing the likelihood of each enemy’s culpability against the next, Rebecca looked sharply up at him with a pained grimace. “There could always be someone else.”
Like Azyyt Ra’al in Chicago, finally zeroing in on their target. Or any number of Bloodshadow enemies who, like Harkennr, had since discovered the Bloodshadow Heir’s presence in the city as well and her new role as Roth-Da’al of a privatized task force.
But Azyyt Ra’al—or any number of other factions drooling over the chance to wage a successful war against the Bloodshadow Court—wouldn’t know the ins and outs of Shade’s dealings in such detail like this. As if they had been or still were a part of Rebecca’s organization. As if they were already on the inside.
Rowan did…
She couldn’t deny that. If he wanted to get back to her for rejecting him, she had to admit he might actually take it this far. He was certainly capable of it.
But she couldn’t say that out loud. Not here on a mission with this small four-man team, and definitely not in front of Maxwell. Not before she had a chance to thoroughly think it over on her own first.
She was ready to call it a night and suggest they head back to Headquarters, since they clearly wouldn’t get their answers here.
But the next horrifying realization hit her with so much force, she felt like she’d been hit in the gut with a bowling ball.
“Hannigan,” she whispered.
He shot her a casual glance, but the second their gazes met, his eyes widened. He stepped closer, dipping his head toward her as if that would make it any easier for her to voice the horror of it.
“Whoever did this hit the warehouse because we were in business with Kash,” she murmured. “But he wasn’t the only person we dealt with. We have connections all over the city. We do business with half a dozen other vendors, just off the top of my head…”
Maxwell’s eyes flashed once with a blinding intensity she hadn’t seen before. A terrifying growl rumbled through him with so much force, she felt it in her own chest.
“Shit.” He whirled away from her and charged toward the stairs. “Move out!”
“Why?” Tig asked. “What’s going—”
“Right the fuck now!”
W ith a shrill screech of tires and the scent of burnt rubber filling the air, the vehicle rocked violently to the left, throwing all three of its passengers sideways in their seats.
The dangerously sharp turn at homicidal speeds lifted both the front and back right wheels off the asphalt for three heart-pounding seconds.
Somehow, Rebecca’s fingers found a painfully tight grip on the “oh-shit” handle above the front passenger window, which was unfortunately all she had to hold on to. “Hannigan!”
Then the right-hand tires bounced back down, jostling everyone in their seats again but no longer fighting gravity and the laws of physics.
“Make the call!” Maxwell roared, yanking the steering wheel hand over hand as the vehicle fishtailed into something resembling a straight line. Then he floored the gas.
“That, right there,” Lerrick blurted from the back seat, “is why I always wear a seatbelt.”
“Dude, shut up,” Tig hissed before yanking on his own seatbelt and shoving it violently into the buckle.
By then, Rebecca already had her phone to her ear, waiting for the line to pick up. It was answered almost immediately.
“Hey, Knox. Everything—”
“Rick! Don’t ask questions. Just do exactly as I tell you. I need a list of everyone Shade interacts with on a regular basis. Names and addresses. Suppliers and contractors. Anyone we use for orders and shipments. I don’t care if we only do business with them for one thing, even if it’s a fucking paperclip. Got it? If we have regular contact with them, they go on the list.”
“Yeah, I can get that to you in, like, five minutes—”
“Don’t bother sending it to me,” she said. “Get that list to Whit and tell him to assemble a team for each location. Every team needs to be on site ten minutes ago! Everywhere except the laundromat. We’re headed there now.”
“Everywhere but Bubble-U. Got it. What do I tell Whit this is for? He’s gonna wanna know what’s going on, because that’s, like…I don’t know. Over a dozen different teams in the field all at once.”
“Because someone just took out the entire crew at Kash’s warehouse before they sent Archie home in the back of his own truck, Rick!” Rebecca shouted. “And now they’re going after everyone else with any business connection to Shade, if they haven’t already. Get it done!”
Only after she ended the call and clenched her phone so tightly in her lap she heard it start to crack over the roar of the vehicle engine barreling down the freeway did she feel a little guilty for snapping at Rick the way she had.
That was more Maxwell’s kind of thing.
If they hadn’t been in such a hurry racing against more business-wide massacres—if they hadn’t been powerless to do anything but hope they got there in time—she would have cracked a joke about accidentally encroaching on the shifter’s territory.
Nothing was funny now.
Including the tense, pulse-pounding race to the closest target location they could think of, all four members of the team speechless while the vehicle hurtled down the road.
For what seemed like an agonizingly long time, the only sound cutting through the constant roar of the engine were Maxwell’s sporadic growls and the whisper of flesh against leather as he clenched and unclenched deadly tight grips with both hands around the steering wheel.
Rebecca couldn’t get out of her own head.
Blue Hells, how had they been so clueless ?
How had she let herself be so blind?
She hadn’t put the pieces together quickly enough, and because of that, there was little to no likelihood of this team or any other reaching those locations before the bastards behind the attacks got there first.
But they had to try.
The startling vibration of an incoming text nearly made her throw her phone through the front windshield before she fumbled to turn on the screen instead and check the message.
It was from Rick—the complete list of all other locations where Shade conducted business for its daily operations.
She glanced at the time. Sure enough, Rick’s estimate had been eerily accurate. She’d ended the call only five minutes ago.
After scrolling through the list, Rebecca recognized a few names, mapping out every location in her mind relative to where she and her team were now.
Then she got to the bottom and hissed. “Shit. Hannigan, you’re taking the next left.”
“No I’m not. The freeway takes us all the way out to—”
“Change of plans! Rick just sent me the list, and you’re taking the next left!”
“Only if you shoot me in the head and take the wheel,” he snarled. “Turning left takes us away from Bubble-U.”
“Forget the laundromat! We’re six minutes away from Bruce Urholder’s place. If you keep driving with a death wish, he’s much closer. Which gives us an actual chance to reach him in time, so take a—Right there! Left! Make the turn!”
Snarling furiously, Maxwell slammed on the brakes and cranked the wheel like he was dumping a venomous snake out of a bucket.
More squealing tires and another violent lurch as the vehicle swerved and banked in an almost complete U-turn. Somehow, it still hit that left turn right on target.
Tig and Lerrick yelped and cursed in the back seat before the vehicle fishtailed out of the drift and put on another burst of speed.
Maxwell didn’t stop snarling after that, but at least Rebecca didn’t have to call his bluff and take more drastic measures just to change course.
As they careened down the side road, drawing closer to their new destination by the second, Rebecca reminded herself that they were already doing everything in their power to mitigate the damage. If they were lucky.
Plus hoping all the other teams got out to all the other locations on Rick’s list in time too.
At this moment, last-minute hope was all they had.
Otherwise, it wouldn’t just be dozens of magicals in Chicago taken out of the picture simultaneously in one fell swoop. Those civilians were just collateral damage to this new enemy picking them off.
If Shade’s teams couldn’t stop the carnage around the city, things would get a whole lot worse for the task force too.
And at that point, even Rebecca would be entirely powerless to stop it.