9. Chapter 9
Chapter nine
LUCA
It was a bad time to be distracted. I let out a curse as Ollie dragged me out of the swarm of locusts with an iron grip on my arm.
She shot me a look that said ‘Pay attention, idiot!’ but then her expression morphed into a grimace and her fingers dug into my elbow like she was trying break my arm.
“What’s wrong?” I whispered.
She’d assigned everyone code names for the mission, but since I’d barely been paying attention, I couldn’t remember a single one and I was pretty sure everyone else was just making shit up as we went. Luckily I didn’t need to call for anyone because Jet and Ash were never far from her side.
The pain reflected in her violet eyes cleared a moment later and she forced a smile, though it took another minute for her to release my arm. “That was weird. Sorry, just a cramp.”
The male body she was in wasn’t a glamour, it was one of the doubles Elliot created for her. I guess it made sense that she could still feel pain while connected to this body, but her real body was back at the tavern with Sage and the others. I shot a quick text to Sage checking on things at the tavern and Ollie elbowed me in the ribs.
“Get your head in the game,” she scolded.
Sage responded almost immediately that everything was fine, but I needed to be careful. Which meant he’d seen my blunder on video.
I tucked the phone away. “Yeah, got it.”
Cold winds whipped around us as the sky lit up with lightning. The windows had already been blocked by the bugs I’d accidentally walked into and unlike last time, I could hear the hunters starting to panic inside the building. We couldn’t mess this up again.
Alwin was the first to approach the building with his mini bow and arrow at the ready. I moved in on the other side with the modified paintball gun Ollie provided. Both weapons were non-lethal and armed with stasis potions instead of paint or actual arrows.
I cleared the bugs from a small section of the window, ignoring the ones that landed on me instead. Across the room, I could see Alwin had cleared away a small space as well and using another potion we melted away a small section of the glass. Since the wards had already been burned away, there was nothing notifying them of the immediate danger and Alwin and I easily picked out the men we needed to take out of the game before the others broke in.
The first clear shot hit one of my former coworkers and froze them on their feet. My eyes landed on Chief Barron and I took a little satisfaction when the potion hit his back dead center. Our biggest obstacle was the crowd of hunters milling about, but Alwin shot with insane accuracy and I was always a pretty good shot myself. Between the two of us, it only took a few minutes to hit all of the cops and several others I didn’t recognize that looked potentially important. It was better to be overly cautious than miss someone whose disappearance would cause trouble later.
One of the younger hunters backed into a frozen cop and they both fell to the ground. The kid scrambled to his knees, finally noticing that the other man wasn’t moving.
“Clint? Snap out of it, man, we’re in trouble here!”
I took a few more shots just to clear out some of the trouble and Alwin seemed to have used the rest of his potions as well because the second I gave the signal, the crack of the new secondary ward on the door breaking filled the room and the others rushed in. There was nothing left but what looked to be a bunch of panicking lackeys and the others subdued them easily, despite the spells they’d snagged to fight back.
Alwin and I joined the others, snagging the last few stasis spells from Ollie to search the building with. We came to a back room and the sound of two men hiding inside touched my ears. I signaled to Alwin and he gave a sharp nod, switching to his second glamour before nocking two modified arrows at once. Gesturing in the direction he needed to shoot, I turned the handle, easily snapping the lock, and pulled the door open just enough for Alwin to aim.
Both targets were hit and it was an impressive shot considering he barely got a glimpse of his targets before releasing the arrows. It was a good thing too because the district attorney candidate stood there frozen next to a second man I didn’t recognize.
“Why hide here where they’d be trapped?” Alwin questioned.
“We had them surrounded. They were trapped no matter where they went.”
“Graves is not here, neither is the judge. This man is the only politician in the group. Who is the other?”
A text came through from Sage a second later.
“According to Sage he’s a current member of the city council that we didn’t know had any connections to the hunters.”
Alwin’s eyes went to the camera embedded in my vest and he dipped his chin in thanks before turning to examine the room again.
“Think there’s anything here worth taking?” I asked.
“Unlike last time, the place wasn’t ransacked by the hunters. We should be cautious. The plan will be more effective if they can’t confirm that we were here, even if they’re suspicious. If they got a look at me before I shot them, they would only have seen one of their own.”
“True, but we can take a look.”
Alwin nodded and we quickly ran through the room, finding very little and almost nothing of use. Their phones were locked with passcodes and their wallets held nothing special. They were clearly being more careful after last time.
What would we have found out if Holt hadn’t tipped them off before we could act? We were lucky they were even using the same building, but staggering their meetings made it difficult to organize in an instant when they finally did meet, especially with the lodge so far from Eastbend. Had we arrived any later we would have missed them entirely.
There was no way they’d continue to use this place after we were bold enough to use the same plan that had already failed once. The longer it took for us to deal with them, the more difficult it would be.
“There is nothing of use,” Alwin concluded. “I believe they are no longer storing information here.”
“That’s a safe bet,” I agreed. “Let’s get these two out of here.”
Alwin hauled the councilman into his arms, showing no strain at all as he carried him into the main room. I grabbed the other guy and followed him out to the vans. The men were loaded up carefully.
“Don’t leave any evidence,” Ollie said through a strained voice. “Make it look like they wrapped things up themselves. Fold the tables, toss any trash.” She let out a heavy breath. “Did we break anything?”
“The windows,” I reminded her. “And I snapped a door lock, but the handle is in one piece.”
“And the wards,” Mad added.
“Not worried about the door lock,” she panted. “Mad, can you build a similar ward quickly?”
“It won’t be the same. It was built to keep out non-humans and I can make one like it, but anyone with magic will be able to tell it’s different.”
“They’re human. As long as they can tell there’s an active ward it should work.”
“Got it. Uh, are you okay?”
“All good, just overexerted myself a little.” Mad gave her a skeptical look but left to do as she asked. Ollie turned to me. “I have a spell to repair the glass, can you handle that?”
I deactivated my communication spell before scooping Ollie into my arms and walking out the door. Her body double had no blood and wasn’t tempting in the least so I easily carried her out toward her mates.
“What the hell are you doing?” she protested through clenched teeth.
“Tell me the truth right now,” I demanded.
“It’s fine. It’s still early.”
“Are you nuts? Call Elliot.”
“No, we’re not done yet. As soon as we’re done at the hotel I’ll tell him. Shit, you’re wearing a camera,” she grumbled, pulling out her phone.
“What are you doing now?”
“Threatening the others to keep their mouths shut. Just give me a little more time. Put me down.”
I sighed and set her on her feet. “Go sit in the van now. We can handle the rest of this.”
She handed me the spell to fix broken glass and actually did as I asked for the first time ever. She must really not be feeling well.
Within minutes the room was emptied and cleaned, the glass was fixed, the doors were locked and the hunters were separated into vans. I climbed into the one going to the hotel and changed my glamour to Chief Barron. Alwin climbed into another van heading for the gate to Faerie and the rest of the group split up.
The stasis spell had hours before it would wear off, but we didn’t have nearly that long to make this work.