Wallace turns on the last computer monitor and reviews the body cam feeds to make sure they’re functional. Satisfied, he gives us a thumbs-up, plucks a headset from the tabletop, and says into the mic, “All right, everyone. Entering phase one of Operation Iron Board.”
“Iron Board?” I mutter.
“It’s an inside joke about Delos.” Wallace grins. “A very dirty joke.”
Chapter Seventeen
Huddling on a grassy knoll across the street from your workplace, while plotting with the woman you used to sleep with about how to best break in, is a very strange feeling. Erica and I discuss the exact path we’ll take around the side of the building to the parking garage, and how we’re going to ambush the guards who are probably watching the camera monitor attached to the security desk like a pair of agitated hawks. Clearly, the continued use of Erica’s veil is in order, which is fine because we’re still under it now, so anyone who passes us can only see grass rustling in the breeze. But we need a better plan than just “walk in and jump the turnstiles.” Namely because it’ll be almost impossible for us to jump them simultaneously without disrupting something outside the veil and giving ourselves away.
“Easiest thing to do,” she says quietly, “is knock them out.” She rummages around in her pocket and produces a handful of change. “I can charm these with a simple sleep spell. When we get in range of the guards, I’ll throw them and discharge the spell. Guards should be out in under a second, too quick to even let off a shot or sound an alarm.”
“Sounds good to me.” I adjust my elbows in the damp soil and turn the burner phone in my hand around and around. We texted Wallace a couple minutes ago to confirm that we’d arrived at the DSI office; turns out the veil spell disrupts the clarity of the camera feed, so Wallace could only see grainy footage of our trip here. All the Wolf teams should be attacking their designated disruption zones any second now, and shortly thereafter, the DSI teams patrolling the nearby streets and the ones inside the building will roll out to restore the peace.
“There’s not much I can do about the agents manning the main security office though,” Erica points out. “So if they’re watching the live feed of the garage entrance, the best I can do is knock out the cameras and hope they come down to investigate instead of immediately pulling an alarm.”
“That won’t matter,” I reply, glancing at the dark phone screen. “After we subdue the guards, we’ll head straight up the staircase next to the main elevator, to the fifth floor, and storm the CDC room, formerly that task room you’ve been in before. Navarro will be in the room, or very close to it, given his role in coordinating our efforts with the CDC. All we have to do is grab him, drag him off, show him Delos’ grimoire, and then hand over the counter-curse formula you worked out. He’s a smart guy. He’ll recognize Delos’ scheme for what it is once we lay it all out for him.” My grip on the phone tightens. “Plus, he told us we needed the curse creator’s notes, and I got them as instructed.”
“That you did.” She lightly punches my shoulder. “What do we do after we pass him the counter-curse though? Hide?”
“I know the layout of the building, so yes, we’ll run and hide while Navarro gathers the minor practitioners we need. When he’s ready, he’ll join us with his team, and together, you all will cast the counter-curse while I guard whatever room we’re in. You said it wouldn’t take but a few minutes to cast the spell, right?”
“Five minutes,” she says, “maybe ten, if some of the practitioners aren’t up to par. But no more than that. The construction of the curse, and its counter, is actually pretty simple. It’s just very hard to discern a spell’s exact construction without knowing how the practitioner approached it—that’s why grimoires are so important. So you don’t forget how you built a successful spell and inadvertently mess it up during a repeat performance.”
“I imagine mistakes like that have cost many practitioners their lives.”
“Oh,” she huffs out, “you have no idea. The history of magic is a horrifying topic.”
“Well, I’d love to h—”
The phone vibrates, and I turn it right side up to view the message. Wallace states that all the attacks have just commenced, and the nearest DSI teams are already moving to engage. Before I even finish reading the short text, I hear the squeal of tires, and I turn my head to watch two black SUVs tear down the street, DSI teams rerouting from their original patrol areas to assist in threat management farther away from the office. Not five minutes after that, vehicles start pouring out of the garage, pairs of them branching out in different directions to tackle the Wolf attacks at the far edges of the city.
Briefly, I sit up and scan the skyline. Scattered pillars of smoke are rising in the distance.
When all goes quiet around the garage, Erica nudges me, and we descend the shallow hill leading down to the building. We skirt along the outer wall until we reach the main garage entrance, duck under the striped boom gate, and tiptoe across the damp concrete floor toward the door. No one can hear our footsteps outside the veil, but it’s still unnerving to hear yourself making loud noises in the middle of a structure with strong acoustics when you’re trying your hardest not to be noticed.
The trip from the grassy knoll to the glass entry doors takes us six minutes max, and then we arrive at problem number two: the guards. Just like last time, there are two armed agents loitering beyond the turnstiles, both of them facing the doorway. Erica jangles the coins in her hand and whispers a long string of words, her breath ghosting across the tarnished alloys, carrying a faint wisp of her green aura along with it. When the coins are properly charmed, she clutches them tightly and gestures for us to continue inside.
“First, I’m going to fry the security cams. Next, I’m going to let go of you”—she tugs my wrist, which she’s been holding since we left the warehouse—“and you’re going to suddenly pop into existence. While the guards are busy gawking at your magical appearance, I’ll toss the coins, the spell will go off as soon as they come into contact with the oblivious agents, and then it’s night-night time. And we’ll be clear.”
“Just make sure you throw the coins before I get shot.”
“Oh, ye of little faith,” she says. “When have my reflexes ever been slow?”
I want to toss a comeback at her, but I can’t think of a good one, so I just pout.
Giggling, she tugs me onward, and we come within range of the door. Since Erica has no free hands, I grab the handle. Erica then mutters another spell, and the security camera above the door, along with one in the hall, short out in a shower of sparks. The instant they’re down, I lug the door open, we slip inside—the guards are eying the fried cameras, too startled to notice the mysteriously moving door—and trudge right up to the turnstiles. Erica steps as far away from me as she can, then counts backward from three. On one, she lets me go, and the veils slips away.
“Hey, fellas,” I say to the guards.
They wheel around to face me, faces white as sheets.
One of them stammers out, “K-Kinsey?”
That’s the only word they manage, because a rain of small change appears in midair to pelt them like rocks thrown at fools, and the sleep spell discharges into them with a subtle green flash, and down they go like two sacks of flour, out cold.
Well, I marvel, that was easy.
But of course, the moment after I think that, everything goes to hell.
The glass doors behind me shatter outward, as if caught by a sonic boom, and I spin around as an arctic chill creeps into the entryway. Standing in the garage thirty feet away, grim as a firing squad, are Robert Delos and his gang of Methuselah rogues. The black guy and the two other practitioners who were nearly crushed by Erica’s attack yesterday are among them, all three bruised and bandaged but still standing. There are five others as well, including the witch who went downstairs to check on Delos and three people I recognize from the list of potential MG rogues my team was working through. The last member of the group,
another witch, is a complete unknown.
Nine practitioners total. Nine witches and wizards who look angry and sadistic enough to burn me alive, and who will probably do exactly that in the next few minutes.
Oh. We’re fucked.
Erica whips off her veil and spins around to face Delos, fury in her eyes. “Well, well, the taskmaster himself shows up to do the dirty work. What a surprise. I figured you sent your brain-dead minions to do everything for you, Robert.”
Delos is unsteady on his feet. There’s a slight wobble as he shifts his stance to puff his chest out at Erica. “Don’t insult me, you petulant child. I’ve fought and won more battles than you ever will, especially considering you’re going to die today.” His words are slurred around the consonants, and as I observe his darting gaze, unable to focus on one place for more than a couple seconds, the glassy sheen of his eyes glints under the harsh overhead lights of the garage. The damage he inadvertently dealt himself when he invaded my mind hasn’t been fully healed. Delos is upright and walking, but he’s not even close to a hundred percent.
I turn to relay this information to Erica, looking Delos straight on as I speak. “Don’t let him fool you. He’s weak. Blasted his own brain to bits. It’s the others you need to worry about. That’s why he brought so much backup.”
Delos spits out, “Don’t flatter yourself, little boy. You didn’t pull a trick on me, a Psychopomp did. You got lucky. Very lucky. And it won’t happen again.”
To throw him off balance, I randomly change the subject. “How’d you know we were here? Were you watching the place?”
“Of course.” He rolls his shoulders back and tries to feign that same stone-like conceit he wore in the cellblock under his office. “I knew you’d make a play to cast the counter-curse, and that the only viable source of extra power were the DSI charlatans who like to play practitioner. We’ve been in place since last night, waiting for you to arrive. And now you’re here, and no guards are watching, and no alarms have sounded. So it’s the perfect time to take you out and claim we stopped the awful terrorists in their tracks and saved the day.”
“Not going to happen,” Erica says firmly. Her aura streams outward from her soul, engulfing the entire entryway in an earthy green glow strong enough for the regular human eye to discern. “This is where you end, right here, right now. You’re going to lose this fight, you’re going to lose your chance at war, and your name will go down in magic history with filthy fucking traitor written beside it for all to see.”
“Oh?” Delos chuckles. “And who’s going to kill me? You, Milburn? You might be a tricky witch, evading my mind probe through a clever spell or two, but there’s no way you can defeat nine of your peers, much less nine superiors.”
Erica laughs back. “Superiors? Those schmucks?” She gestures to the line of practitioners standing just behind Delos. “They can’t beat me any more than Marcus’ old buddies. You know, the ones I crushed on Primrose Avenue?”
“That was you?” Delos grimaces. “Well, no matter. The odds are not in your favor here, and regardless of how much of an uppity bitch you may be, you will not be leaving this garage in one piece. Or two, or three, or five. You’ll be smeared across the dirty floor, if I have anything to say about it.”
Erica, completely undaunted, bares her teeth at Delos. “You want to make a bet of it? You win, you get your war. I win, you all go to hell.” One of her hands slips behind her back and starts making obvious gestures where Delos and his lackeys can’t see them. She emphatically points at the hallway, demanding that I go. That I run away and leave her here to fight nine practitioners by herself, one of which is Iron Delos the mind breaker, whom Erica was so scared of four months ago that she wiped her own memory to save herself from him. And yet, now, in the face of certain death, she shows no fear at all.
Because the city is at risk, I know. Because innocent people are at risk. Hundreds. Thousands. Maybe even millions, if Delos starts this war with the vampires.
Erica the witch is willing to sacrifice herself to save Aurora, because it’s her home, just like it’s mine. There’s so much I want to say to her in this moment, as my mind is tearing me in two different directions, between the impulse to stay on the battlefield and defend my friend, and the need to go upstairs, find Navarro, and hand off the counter-curse. He can deploy it without Erica—he just needs more minor practitioners to help with the casting—but even so, I don’t want to leave her here. I don’t want to leave her here to protect me, to face the consequences of actions that involve me, just like Cooper did days ago, a decision that almost certainly got him jailed. I don’t want to leave her here to suffer. I don’t want to leave her here to die.
But I have to.
Because the lives of Aurora’s many citizens outweigh the life of a single witch.
I clamp down on the anguish ripping through my gut like a frigid knife. Then I tense my muscles and signal to Erica, the same way she signaled to me, that I am ready to run and leave her behind to fight to the death all alone. Erica doesn’t even flinch at my decision. Of course she doesn’t. She knew what I’d do—and she trusted me to do it. If she thought I’d chicken out, she would’ve just thrown me down the hall with her magic.
As it is, I turn on my heels, jump the turnstiles, and catch the grimoire with Erica’s notes tucked inside after she throws it my way. I land on the other side in a crouch, spring up, and take off toward the stairwell. Behind me, the first spells fly toward the entryway, but Erica blocks them with a powerful shield that doesn’t warp, even under the immense barrage of the black man’s ice spell combined with a brutal force burst from another practitioner. When I haul the stairwell door open, I make the mistake of looking back one last time.
Erica Milburn, peering over her shoulder, wearing a smile of both fatal acceptance and determination, winks at me and says, “See you around, hot Crow.”
Chapter Eighteen
Up the stairs I go, running all the way, skipping two steps at a time, until I hit the fifth-floor landing and nearly collapse against the wall. Breathing heavy, chest burning, head spinning, dread creeping through my veins, I wrench open the door and stumble into the hall, gun raised. Far below me, in the garage, the battle of a lifetime commences, shaking the entire office, foundation to roof, a deep rumble of warning beneath my shoes. I look down at the scuffed tile floor, praying that Erica can hang on, but I’m not naïve enough to believe she’ll win. Not with such bad odds. Not with Delos waiting in the wings to zap her mind the second she falters.
I gasp out a string of curses and leave the stairwell behind, door clanging shut behind me. There’s no one in the hall—not to my normal sight, or my magic sense—so I shuffle along, my shoes padding quietly, checking every intersection for agents in ambush formation. No one emerges, guns blazing or beggar rings charged, so I set my sights on the task room door thirty feet away, unguarded.
All my hairs on end. My ears alert. My eyes darting every which way. My trigger finger jittery. Because if Delos knew we were coming, if he was watching us advance on the building, then surely, surely, surely he must’ve notified his mole.
And I know damn well the mole isn’t someone who was ordered to stay home for their safety. Delos is too good a plotter to make such a rudimentary error when planning a grand scheme. Someone in this building is a danger to me, a danger to the deployment of the counter-curse, and the exposure of Delos as a fraud and a traitor. But I don’t know who it is.
Fifteen feet to the door, my back to the wall, I pause for a moment and listen. Listen hard. Listen for even the barest whisper. I hear nothing. Which is what tells me something isn’t quite right with this situation. Not only because the mole allowed me to reach the fifth floor unhindered, but because if the task room is the CDC command center, then it should be bustling with activity, with scientists, doctors, and administrative types running around like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to stymie the curse’s spread. They should be making a ton of noise. I should be ab
le to hear them through the door.
But I don’t hear anything at all.
Maybe they moved the command center somewhere else?
Again, I check the hall but see no one or anything out of the ordinary. My gaze drifts up to the security cameras bolted to the ceiling at regular intervals, which are live on this floor, and which should’ve alerted the security agents to my presence the second I arrived. Yet no alarms have sounded, as if the feeds are unmanned, and they should never be unmanned in a crisis of this magnitude. The word trap shrieks through my brain, over and over and over, but I don’t know where the CDC people—and Navarro—are, so I have to at least check the task room for a clue.
Inhaling sharply, I gather my courage, cross the gap to the task room, tighten my grip on the gun, and…I kick the door open.
Everyone inside the task room is dead.
The walls are painted crimson, red spattered on the ceiling. Two dozen bodies litter the blood-soaked floor. Every single person was shot to death, some bodies riddled with holes, chests and abdomens eviscerated, while others were killed execution style, a bullet to the head. Brain matter is smeared across the task room table, staining scattered stacks of printed reports and maps of Aurora and other detritus from the CDC operations. The computers set up on the table, a puzzle of laptops and tablets, sport busted plastic and ruined screens where they were struck by rounds during the fray.
In the corner of the room, crumpled atop a heap of other bodies, lies Navarro. His glasses sit skewed on his nose, both lenses cracked. His eyes, glazed over, stare idly at the floor. His white coat is soaked in his own blood, and the blood of others, and the nine holes in his torso are still weeping more.
Doom Sayer (City of Crows Book 4) Page 18