Chapter 16
WE'RE AN ELITE TEAM WITH CLEARANCE LEVELS THAT EXCEED YOURS.
And just like that, the warmth drained from the room. The cozy space seemed to contract, the walls closing in despite their soft paint colors and tasteful art.
"How do they seem?" I asked, straightening my spine, squaring my shoulders.
Grayson's expression hardened. "Arrogant. Impatient. Not thrilled about being summoned by—" He cut himself off.
"By the half-breed demon freak with scrambled brains, who is the least qualified being on the planet for this shit?" I finished for him, my voice deliberately light. "Shocking."
His jaw tightened. "That's not what I—"
"I know." I waved off his concern, even as my stomach clenched. "Send them in. Let's get this over with."
Grayson hesitated, his eyes searching mine. "You don't have to do this alone, you know."
"I'm not alone." I met his gaze steadily. "You'll be here. And Kearan." I glanced toward the quiet figure working at the command console, his back to us. "Right, Kearan?"
Kearan didn't turn, but his shoulders shifted, acknowledging my words.
"Send them in," I grumbled to Grayson, my voice steady now. My stomach wasn't. It twisted and knotted, but I shoved the feeling down, locked it away with all the other inconvenient emotions that had no place in this moment.
Grayson nodded once, then moved to the door. I watched him go, grateful for the few seconds alone to compose myself. When the door opened again, I was ready… spine straight, expression neutral, hands relaxed on the arms of the chair. The picture of confidence I absolutely did not feel.
Supernatural Team 5 walked in like they owned the damn place.
Five of them—three men, two women—each one radiating power and barely concealed disdain.
They moved with predatory grace, spreading out instinctively to take strategic positions around the room.
Not one of them bowed. Not one of them smiled. A couple didn't even make eye contact.
Good. At least they weren't pretending to respect me.
"Please sit." I gestured to the arranged seating, my voice calm and cool. Professional.
They exchanged glances… subtle, quick, loaded with meaning… before settling into chairs and couches with practiced ease. Their bodies looked relaxed, but I saw the tension humming beneath the surface. Coiled energy. Readiness.
"I appreciate you making time for this meeting," I continued, the words formal and deliberate.
One of them—tall, with shoulders like a linebacker and a jawline that could cut glass—snorted. Not loudly. Just enough to make his opinion clear. Richard.
I kept my expression pleasant, even as my fingers twitched with the urge to slap that smug look off his face. "I understand you just returned from a mission in Denver. Successful, I'm told."
"Read the report." The words came from a woman on my left, her voice clipped and cold. She wore her blonde hair pulled back so tightly it looked painful, her face all sharp angles and rigid control. I tried to recall her name, but Grayson pushed it to me mentally. Natalie.
"I did." I smiled, letting a hint of teeth show. "I found it... incomplete."
That got their attention. Spines straightened. Eyes narrowed. The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.
Grayson stood beside me, quiet but present, our psychic bond a steady pulse behind my ribs. I felt him reaching out, brushing against the edges of their minds, searching for anomalies. For darkness. For possession.
Kearan hung back near the console, his fingers moving steadily over a tablet. Logging reactions. Body language. Every micro-expression that might give them away, even if I couldn't identify these people later when their faces blurred and shifted in my memory.
"We're an elite team with clearance levels that exceed yours," another spoke, this one leaning forward with a confidence that bordered on arrogance.
Darren or Jake. Dark hair fell across his forehead, curling slightly at the ends.
They both had dark hair, unlike Richard.
I focused on that detail, trying to lock it in place.
"Our reports contain exactly what's relevant. "
Darren.
Thank you.
So Darren was on the left with the navy shirt, while Jake sat on the right with the cameo shirt. There wasn't much more to distinguish them right now. Neither of them wore glasses. No visible birthmarks. Hopefully, their voices were different.
"And I'm the half-demon liaison tasked with identifying potential infiltration appointed by Zandia herself," I countered smoothly. "So humor me."
The room went still. No one moved. No one spoke. Then, almost imperceptibly, they shifted. Recalibrated. Reassessed.
Good. They were listening now.
The questions started simple… background information I already knew, details about their last mission, internal debriefs. They answered like soldiers trained for this. Polished. Precise. Cold. Full of practiced bullshit.
But it was too perfect. I didn't trust perfect.
"Tell me about the artifact you recovered." I kept my tone conversational, even as I watched their reactions with laser focus. Not that I knew a thing about it, but they didn't need to know that.
The leader, a man with salt-and-pepper hair and eyes that had seen too much, responded without hesitation.
Richard… I had to remember who was who. "Black orb, approximately six inches in diameter.
Obsidian exterior with an internal crystalline structure.
Believed to be of demonic origin, possibly a power amplifier or storage device. "
Textbook perfect. Word for word from the report.
"And who handled it directly?"
Five pairs of eyes slid toward a woman at the far end of the group. She sat with perfect posture, her dark skin glowing in the warm light, her expression carefully neutral. "I did. With proper containment protocols."
Question her. Make her doubt it.
I nodded, making a show of considering her words. "Interesting. Because according to the energy readings, the artifact was activated before containment."
It was a lie. A trap. There were no such readings. Or at least not that I knew of. Apparently, they weren't the only ones spewing bullshit today.
Her expression didn't change, but something flickered in her eyes. Alarm? Anger? "That's impossible. The artifact was dormant."
One of the men gave me a smile that didn't reach his eyes. Green shirt. Which one was that again? Not Richard.
Jake.
"Perhaps your equipment is faulty. Happens with demon tech sometimes."
"According to section 47-B of the Artifact Recovery Procedures, all activation states must be logged separately from energy readings." Another corrected me on a protocol that didn't exist according to the psychic push from Grayson.
Subtle. Petty. Deliberate. They didn't like being questioned. They really didn't like that it was me asking. Good thing Trux wasn't in here. Having the team Alpha deferring to me… Somehow I innately knew that wouldn't go well.
I felt Grayson's presence in my mind, a gentle pressure at the base of my skull. Something's off. Keep pushing.
I leaned forward, lacing my fingers together. "Tell me again how the mission in Denver ended. Your after-action report left out a few things."
The leader's eyes narrowed fractionally. "Did it?"
"Mmm." I held his gaze, refusing to look away first. Grayson sent me details that I relayed out loud.
Damn, this was a handy little power. "The part where you lost contact with base for seventeen minutes.
The part where the artifact pulsed twice before going dormant.
The part where one of your team reported hearing voices after handling the containment case. "
None of that was in any report. None of it might have happened at all. But if there was a compromised operative in this room—if one of them was carrying a demonic hitchhiker—they'd react. Grayson followed up with.
And react they did.
The blonde woman's pupils dilated slightly. The dark-haired man's jaw muscle twitched. The leader remained perfectly still… too still, like he was forcing himself not to move.
But it was the woman who had handled the artifact who gave the most telling response. For just a split second, her mask slipped. Her lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile, her eyes gleaming with a knowledge that didn't belong there.
Then it was gone, replaced by professional composure.
"I don't recall any of those details," she said, her voice steady. "Perhaps you've confused our mission with another team's report."
I smiled, all teeth and no warmth. "Perhaps. Memory can be such a tricky thing, can't it? So easy to lose track of little details. To forget what's real and what isn't."
I saw the challenge register in her eyes. The subtle narrowing, the flash of something ancient and cold. For a heartbeat, we weren't two operatives discussing a mission. We were two predators sizing each other up, deciding who would strike first.
"If there's nothing else," the leader said, breaking the moment, "we have debriefings scheduled with actual Division leadership."
The dismissal was deliberate. Calculated to sting.
Kearan let out a deep growl from the corner.
I didn't take the bait. Instead, I leaned back in my chair, projecting a confidence I didn't entirely feel. "Just one more thing." I paused, watching their faces carefully. "The ring. The one that went missing from the Denver site. Has anyone seen it?"
None of them moved. None of them spoke. But I felt it… a ripple of tension, a collective holding of breath.
"What ring?" the leader finally asked, his voice perfectly neutral.
I smiled again, slow and deliberate. "That's what I thought. Thank you for your time, everyone. We'll be in touch."
They didn't like that. Didn't like the dismissal or the implied threat. But they stood anyway, movements stiff and coordinated, like puppets on tangled strings.
As they approached the door, I caught the woman's eye, the one who had handled the artifact, the one whose smile had slipped. She held my gaze for a beat too long, her eyes glittering with something that made my skin crawl.