Chapter Twenty-Two #3
“Like a fanghead hotel suite,” Angie said, her hands beneath a blanket, leaning forward, studying the floor plan, “hidden in plain sight. Like ours, the first level is for businesses. The upper floors are long-term apartments. The top floor is still used by visiting supernats and paras for short-term rentals. Very exclusive, very expensive.”
Walter said, “Detective Villetti. This is the Dark Queen’s business.
This building and the people herein are under her banner.
Except you. You will not be privy to our plans, as much for your safety as a law enforcement officer in the human world, as ours from law enforcement.
I will not allow you to be compromised. You will wait for us in Angelina’s apartment. ”
Shiloh’s head swiveled to the cop, the way only vampire kind can. “He’s speaking the truth. Go away, little human.”
“Lee,” Angie said softly. “Walter’s right. The battle with demons is over. You now need plausible deniability. You should wait in my apartment.”
Villetti met EJ’s gaze. EJ nodded. The cop threw out a hand in a gesture that said he’d go, but unwillingly. He left the gym.
EJ tapped the camera feed, watching as Villetti descended the stairs and entered Angie’s rooms. Returning to the floor plan, he said, “Grizz. We’ll provide the magic and we’ll need your best close-in shooter.”
“That’s me,” Raccoon said.
EJ nodded. “Small insertion team, Ange, me, Raccoon. Raccoon will be armed with a SIG SAP.”
Grizz opened her mouth to object, but Raccoon leaned in and asked, “And how do you have one of the military’s SAPs?”
Still without looking away from the screen, EJ said, “I don’t.
But you do. No one asked you to return yours when you came home.
They looked too much like toys, and no one had the ammo, so why ask for them back?
” EJ grinned. “That was all in your sleeve in HR. The queen never lets a good weapon go to waste, so she let you keep the SAP. You’re a shooter.
” He flicked his gaze to Raccoon and back to the screen. “I have ammo.”
“Ohhhh. Lil Dude,” Raccoon said.
“Clue me in?” Angie asked.
EJ said, “ARGO-powered SAPs are plastic hand-weapons that can be preloaded with up to seven rounds of amulets. Raccoon will be loaded with three liquid splats of sleepy-time workings and four sleepy-times in wood pellets. He’ll fire the first three at our target, and if she doesn’t go down, that means she’s a vamp, and he’ll fire the next four. ”
His eyes gleaming, the shooter said, “Assuming she’s still in the room and our throats are intact.”
Angie moved closer to EJ and opened the laser pointer. Her hands were white and bloodless, the flesh cracked but not bleeding. Walter had healed them as best he could, but they looked dead.
Shiloh was flicking her eyes from Angie’s hands to Walter. Her gold-plated fangs clicked back inside, against the roof of her mouth. “I offered,” she said. “Cuz said no.”
“Grizz,” Walter said, “please allow Shiloh up. Angelina. You will allow Shiloh to assist with your hands. Now. No arguments.”
“Whatever. It won’t help but she can try.
Raccoon, we’ll enter on the ground floor, here,” Angie directed the laser to a delivery door in the alley between the buildings.
“This is a small boutique restaurant specializing in salads, egg dishes, and fish. It’s called Green Eggs and Fish.
No indoor seating, to-go and delivery only.
EJ can override the alarm, and we can be inside in about thirty seconds.
We’ll need to make sure no tracks appear from our building across the alley, and no melted snow is left on the floor in Green Eggs, so all three of us will need to be prepared to clean up after entrance. ”
Shiloh knelt at Angie’s side and cut her wrist. She began smearing her own blood over Angie’s dead-looking left hand. Angie didn’t so much as glance at her cousin.
Grizz moved close, an eye on the crazy vamp.
Angelina continued, “We’ll be returning to our building the same way Cousin Wacko did, from the roof.”
Shiloh laughed at the nickname, her blood smeared over Angie’s hand.
“Fuuunnn,” Raccoon said, stepping forward, his entire being focusing on the floor plan. He was so entranced, he walked past Shiloh as if she wasn’t a threat.
“The hidden entrance to the stairwell is behind this wall.” EJ redirected the laser. “There’s a lever in the floor molding that moves the refrigerator away from the hidden opening.”
Angie looked down at her hand, cradled in her cousin’s, vampire blood being gently massaged into the damaged flesh. “Hey, Cousin Wacko. Why are you really here, and why are you so enthused about all this?”
EJ watched his sister. She was using her truth sense, skin to skin, blood to blood, for the greatest effect. Walter watched as well, taking in everything. Shiloh would know about Angie’s gift and what she was doing. He thought she might jerk away, but the vamp allowed it.
“There’s still a bounty on Konstantin,” Shiloh said, her eyes not moving from the injured hand. “I’m here to collect.”
“A bounty? From the war?” When Shiloh’s lips stretched into a full grin, Angie asked, “How much?”
Before she answered, Shiloh’s bloody hand shot out and ran over Grizz’s shark tatau. The hard woman growled under her breath, showing teeth in a deliberately aggressive expression. But she didn’t step back.
Shiloh laughed and removed her bloody fingers, leaving behind fingerprints on Grizz’s tat. Grizz stared at them as if wondering if she should lick them for the strength they would give, or wipe them away as dangerous. Shiloh was good at keeping people off balance.
Shiloh said, “It was interest-accruing. As of this morning it was two-point-seven-six and change. Million. Two-point-seven-six million. And I’m going after the bounty.”
“There’s a bounty on my head,” Angie ground out. “Are you here for that too?”
“I’m not that stupid.”
EJ said, “Walter? Please keep our cousin here, in this room. Even if you have to stab her through the heart to do so.”
Shiloh tilted her head, that reptilian stretching of her neck that marked them as other, and that they usually tried to hide from humans. “I’m your best weapon,” she said, sly and wily. “You’re taking Raccoon. Why not me?”
“We’ve never worked with you. You aren’t integrated into a team,” EJ said. “And we’re trying to minimize the amount of the queen’s support we use. We don’t need the queen’s assassin for this.”
Shiloh’s eyes opened wide in mock shock. “Ohhh. You still think you can stay of out the queen’s web. That’s almost cute. You need me, you silly boy.”
“Maybe next time,” Angie said, her tone saying, Not a chance in hell. “Raccoon, EJ,” she said, “let’s gear up.”
Raccoon asked, “If we’re trying to hide what we’re doing, how do we get across the alley without leaving a trail in the snow?”
“The alley-side delivery door is set back into the wall about twelve inches. The way the snow fell, it left that area mostly open and clear. So,” Angie said, “we jump off my balcony, clearing the twelve feet horizontally and vertically. You up for that?”
“Hell, yeah,” Raccoon said, his face eager. “I fuuu—freaking love my job.”