“You’re very good,” Tate remarked, after I managed to blast through a protective circle she created.
“Honestly, I don’t have many offensive moves. My dad was more interested in defense.”
“I guess that makes sense.” She cocked her head. “I’m sorry you lost him. I know how hard it is.”
There seemed to be a story there, but I didn’t want to pry—for my own sake as much as hers. If I had to listen to someone else’s sob story about a deceased loved one, I might not make it through the rest of the day.
A timer went off, indicating the end of the session. Tate turned off the alarm on her phone. “What’s next for you?”
“I think it’s Liam.”
Tate groaned. “Good luck with that. Just focus on the work and you’ll be fine.”
“I think ignoring his mouth is the real work.”
The young witch smiled. “You’re not wrong.” She waved on her way to the elevator. “See you next time.”
I managed to get through my session with Liam without punching him, although there was a swift kick to the shin when my foot accidentally launched into the air and landed there. To his credit, the werevamp took it in stride and said it wasn’t the first time, nor would it be the last.
I ended the day with Leto and he gave me what amounted to a lesson on the history of the werewolf instead of the actual list of movements itemized on the schedule. I had a feeling Abra would disapprove.
“Where will you go now?” Leto asked as we took the elevator to the lobby together.
“Back to my room at Salt,” I said.
“Some of us are going to dinner if you want to join. We’re happy to make room for one more.”
“Thanks, but no thanks. I need my downtime.” In truth, I wasn’t accustomed to roaming through life with a group. Even when my father and I had travelers, I usually ended up with a reasonable amount of alone time. I was more comfortable by myself.
“In that case, enjoy your solitude.” He tipped an imaginary hat. “It isn’t dark yet. You don’t mind heading back on your own, do you?”
“It’s totally fine with me.”
“Well, it isn’t fine with me.” Doran rounded the corner and intercepted us. “I’ll fly you to the rooftop entrance.”
Leto grinned at me. “It’s easier if you don’t object.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s daylight. I’ll be fine.”
“It’s sunset,” Doran corrected me. “Anyway, it’ll be faster.”
“You’re such a dad. Next you’re going to tell me to lock my door and be careful.”
He was right about one thing—the ride back took fewer than three minutes. We landed gracefully on the rooftop just as the sun dipped below the horizon.
“Thanks for the lift.”
The angel offered a small smile. “Lock your door,” he said. “Be careful.”
I saluted him and hurried inside. I took the elevator to the lobby where I had to go in order to access the other elevator bank where my room was located. The building was like a maze, except instead of garden walls there were slot machines to weave through. I blew past the security guard who wasn’t Roth and hit the button for the elevator. I hadn’t spent this much time in elevators in my whole life combined.
“Most guests spend their time inside the casino,” Oren said.
I spun around to greet the vampire. “Hey, buddy. What’s the matter? You miss me?”
“Have you found the information you wanted with regard to your pendant?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I didn’t trust him as far as I could—Well, I could probably throw the reedy vampire pretty far, so that analogy didn’t quite work. “Anyway, how do you know I haven’t been here all day?”
“Security showed you entering via the rooftop.”
“You guys are real perverts here, you know that? Can’t a girl get a little angel action without the whole casino knowing about it?”
Oren lifted one thin and sculpted eyebrow. “I highly doubt that Doran is your type or, in fact, that you are his.”
“I don’t mind older men.” The elevator door opened and I brushed past the vampire.
“Good to know.” He remained on the other side of the threshold.
“Why, Oren. Be still my actually beating heart. Are you flirting with me?” I pressed a hand to my chest and blinked in mock innocence.
“A drink later, perhaps? The bar at the…”
I didn’t let him finish. I hit the ‘close door’ button and smirked as his face disappeared behind a metal wall. For good measure, I waved and blew a quick kiss at the camera in the elevator before I got off on my floor. If Oren decided to be a real stalker and check the footage, at least he’d get a little thrill. I’d intended to order room service and watch television before I fell asleep, but my body had other plans. I didn’t even manage to get a shower before my head hit the pillow and I sank into a sleep deeper than any fairy tale princess.
Chapter Seven
I returned to HQ the next morning and was preparing for my session with Saxon when a yellow Post-It note floated into the room with deliberate aim. It hovered in front of us for a moment and Abra’s voice erupted from the small square of paper. “Would the two of you be so kind as to report to conference room A immediately?”
I reeled back and immediately looked at Saxon, who seemed unconcerned by the interruption. The note dissolved in mid-air.
“Does she always summon you like that?” I asked.
“Only when there’s an emergency mission, which is what I assume this is.”
We vacated the training room and headed to the conference room in mutual silence. So far, Saxon was the only agent I couldn’t get a handle on. Tate was patient as well as a voice of reason. Liam was a smartass. Leto was good-natured and thoughtful. Other than ridiculously hot and the leader of the team, I couldn’t stick one of my labels on the v’angel.
We entered the room and I immediately spotted an unfamiliar face. Despite her petite frame, her earthy scent screamed werewolf. Her straight black hair was cut just below her chin and she wore a cat T-shirt paired with jeans and flip flops.
“Callie Wendell, meet Nita,” Saxon said. “Nita is one of our analysts.”
Nita shook my hand and I noticed she wore a ring on almost every finger. “Welcome aboard, Callie. It’s nice to have someone new for a change.”
I inclined my head to the picture of the cat on her shirt, attacking a tall building in the style of Godzilla. “Cat fan, huh?”
Nita glanced down at the image. “Oh, I have an entire collection of cat T-shirts. It’s kind of my thing.”
Interesting choice for a werewolf.
Abra motioned us forward. She was the only member of the inner circle present at the meeting, along with the younger agents I’d met. “If everyone could take a seat, we can get started,” the older witch said. “This won’t take long and Nita has other tasks to be getting on with.”
I took the empty seat next to Liam, who leaned over and whispered, “Nita’s very efficient. She even alphabetizes her office supplies.”
Nita shot him a dark look before taking her place at the front of the room. The rest of us scrambled for seats around the circular table.
Abra opened a folder in front of her. “As some of you know, we’ve received a lead on a child trafficker right here in Atlantica City. Rex Murphy was spotted earlier today outside a warehouse in Venice Park.”
“That walking piece of trash is right here on our turf?” Liam asked. “I’ll happily deal with him by myself.”
“He wasn’t alone, not that I would ever send you on a solo mission.” I couldn’t decide whether Abra meant that she sought to protect her team or that she thought Liam couldn’t handle the target on his own.
“Any sign of kids?” Tate asked.
“I’m guessing the warehouse isn’t for his overflow of books,” Liam said.
“No children were spotted, but Murphy was seen with a demon that we believe is bein
g used to paralyze the victims and keep them quiet during transport.”
“Is Rex a demon too?” I asked.
“I wish,” Saxon said. “Our job would be easier. Unfortunately he’s human.”
I heard a sharp intake of breath and realized it had come from me. “A human operating illegally here?” Between the vampire families and Pandora’s Pride, that was a ballsy move.
“He has a lot of money and connections,” Tate said.
Leto heaved a weary sigh. “They always do.”
“And this place is rife with abandoned kids,” Leto added. “Gamblers get desperate.”
“And the vampires allow this? I thought they had this city tightly controlled.” My blood pressure began to rise at the thought of an entire warehouse filled with young victims. “Your headquarters is here. How can he get away with this?”
“Calm down, Callie,” Liam said. “It’s not like we don’t do our jobs.”
“Rex isn’t usually our jurisdiction,” Saxon said. “He’s a human trafficking human children. That’s not our concern.”
My jaw unhinged. “How can that not be your concern? They’re children.”
“I didn’t say we don’t care.” Although Saxon’s tone was so neutral, he might as well have been talking about the weather forecast.
“We’re not authorized to get involved in human-on-human crimes,” Tate said. “Frankly, we have bigger supernatural fish to fry and it just so happens that, on this occasion, our fish intersects with this scumbag.”
“Which makes it our lucky day,” Liam said. He clicked the top of his pen in and out.
“So we’re hoping to take out the demon and Rex at the same time?” I asked.
“Your priority is gathering any information you can on where the children are headed,” Abra said. “Rex’s buyer has been on our radar for months and this could be the break we’ve been hoping for.”
“And we’ll liberate the children,” I said, glancing at the faces around the table. Abra’s lack of response made me uneasy so I tried again. “The real priority should be saving the lives of the children, right?”
“The real priority is what I tell you it is,” Abra said. “These won’t be the only children in need of rescue. If we handle this poorly, we risk losing our only solid lead.”
“What are you suggesting?” I asked. “That if we get there and find a warehouse full of kids, we leave them to their fate?”
“They won’t be there by the time we arrive,” Saxon said. “At this point, we’ll be lucky to find any intel at all.”
I laughed. “They were spotted earlier today. How fast can he move dozens of children?” I knew from experience that transporting a group from Point A to Point B was no easy feat, not across a mountain and certainly not when that group was comprised entirely of children.
“Rex doesn’t set up a home and a school for these kids,” Liam said. “He enlists the aid of his supernatural connections to move them as quickly as possible.”
“Why would anyone help a piece of filth like that?”
Liam sniffed. “Why does anyone do anything? Usually money.”
Abra glided back her chair. “I’ll let Nita handle the rest of the details. Saxon, the team is yours.”
He gave a gruff nod and the older witch strode out of the room, probably to go back to her craft room and string a necklace together made from baby teeth. Okay, fine. Abra wasn’t the enemy here, but there was definitely a coldness to her. Maybe it was a necessity for a job like hers.
Nita drew our attention back to her with a flickering image of a rather unattractive demon. To be fair, not many demons would win a beauty contest, but this one’s face screamed not even my mother would love me.
“It’s called a Velvet demon, but don’t let the name fool you. It’s not smooth as silk,” Nita said.
Liam clucked his tongue. “No, because it’s the wrong metaphor. It should be as soft as velvet.”
“That’s a simile, not a metaphor,” I said. “When you compare something with ‘like’ or ‘as,’ it’s a simile. When you state a direct comparison, it’s a metaphor.”
Liam crossed his arms like a petulant child. “I suppose your learned father taught you that as well.”
“We had a lot of time on our hands in the mountains.”
Liam scraped back his chair and put his foot on the edge of the table, where he proceeded to polish his shoe with a cloth. “There are a lot of jokes I could make at your expense right now, but you’re new, so I’ll let the moment pass.”
I became fixated on the brown loafer. “I’m sorry. Why are you polishing your shoes?”
Liam glanced up at me. “What? You dress for the job you want.” He tossed the dirty cloth onto the table.
Tate snatched the cloth off the table with a disapproving grunt and tossed it into the nearby bin.
“And what job is that?” I was genuinely curious which job at Pandora’s Pride involved shiny shoes.
“He’s full of it,” Tate said. “He wants to impress you.”
“Can you even fight in those shoes?” I asked. “Don’t they pinch your toes?”
“You fought the Abaasy in heels,” he shot back.
“No, I didn’t. I took off my shoes before I dove in.”
“She’s right,” Saxon said. “I saw the footage.”
I pushed out my arms. “Did everyone in the organization watch that?”
“Relax, princess,” Liam said. “We weren’t watching because of you. We were studying the Abaasy.”
“Why?”
“Because knowledge is power.” Tate pulled her hair back in a slick ponytail and fastened it with a band. “Those who don’t learn from past mistakes are doomed to repeat them.”
“What if you defeat the demon successfully?” I asked. “What’s there to learn?”
“There’s always something new to learn,” Saxon said. “It’s part of what makes life interesting.”
Liam chuckled. “You and I have very different definitions of interesting, friend.”
“Hey, we can’t all find infinity in a grain of sand.”
“That was one time after a potion overdose,” Liam said heatedly. He took a swing and Saxon ducked, laughing.
“You’re so easy to rile, Liam.” Tate shook her head ruefully. “You should really work on that.”
Nita clapped her hands to summon our attention. “Can I please finish my spiel? I practiced in front of the bathroom mirror and everything.”
Liam made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “Velvet demon, yada yada. We know how to handle one of those.”
Nita threw up her hands in disgust. “Why do I bother? Do me a favor and don’t die, okay?” She stomped out of the conference room.
My stomach felt mildly queasy at the thought of my first assignment, no matter how small. “So how does this work? We charge into the warehouse together?”
“Are you nuts?” Liam asked. “That’s a sure way to get hurt or killed. If Tate’s slinging a spell and Saxon is flying in for a bite at the same time, he’d get hurt in the crossfire.”
I blinked rapidly. “But we’re not attacking, right? We’re gathering information.”
“Haven’t you ever worked as a team before?” Tate asked.
“Of course.”
“Lighting campfires with Daddy isn’t the same as what we’re talking about, love,” Liam said.
I glared at him. “Don’t call me that. We didn’t just light campfires. We’ve been in lots of dangerous situations.”
Liam leveled me with a look. “Name one.”
That was easy. I had more stories than I could count. “This one time there was a feral werewolf pack causing trouble on a ranch. The rancher asked us for help so Dad and I devised a plan to capture them.”
Leto looked up from his boot where he was concealing a dagger. “Capture, not kill?”
“Depends on the situation,” I said. “In that case, we knew there was a more remote area where we could take them, with enough
food that they’d be unlikely to return to the ranch.”
Leto observed me for a quiet moment. “Nice,” he said softly.
“How’d you do it?” Liam asked. “What was the grand plan?”
“Why do I need to prove myself with words when I’m about to prove myself with actions?”
The others made appreciative noises.
“There’s also the monster I took this from, of course.” I touched the chip on my necklace. “He’s dead now.”
“And was that a team effort?” Liam asked.
My hand fell away. “No, that one was all me.” As I remembered how it felt to slide the blade into the demon’s gut, I didn’t feel a speck of remorse.
“You ready, Wendell?” Saxon asked. “We’ll grab you a utility belt and a couple weapons before we head out.”
“Then I guess I’m ready.”
“I’ll drive,” Tate said.
Liam groaned. “I thought it was my turn.”
“It’s never your turn,” Tate said. “You just keep stealing the keys.”
“Do you fly there?” I asked Saxon.
“I stay with the team unless it’s absolutely necessary,” he said.
Liam pumped a fist in the air. “To the van!”
I looked at the others. “Van?”
“What else are we going to drive?” Leto asked. “A bus? There are too many of us for a sleek car.”
“How about a big SUV?” I asked.
“A van is better,” Liam said. “More sinister. An SUV is for moms headed to hot yoga.”
“That’s sexist,” Tate said. “Plenty of non-mothers enjoy hot yoga.”
“But they don’t drive their big SUVs to get to it.” Liam winked.
“You’re exasperating,” Tate said, although she didn’t seem that bothered. She was probably used to him.
After a brief fight over the keys, Tate drove the van and parked a block away from the location. We spilled out of the van and Saxon snapped his fingers for our attention.
“Remember the rules and nobody gets hurt.” The sound of his rumbling voice was oddly appealing, like thunder on a summer evening.
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