“Can he get around it?”
“No, but he might be able to get through it.”
“How,” Tango demanded.
“Technomagic,” Derek said. “His specialty. But he needs a magical source and—no, it’s not charged. What? Um, no.” Derek huffed and looked down at Caliv. “Because he’d fry your brain.”
“Derek,” Tango snapped.
Derek looked up at him. “Sorry, Caliv was explaining what he needed.”
“Whatever it is, give it to him.”
“You. He wants to use you as a battery. Says you absorbed some magic back at the compound.”
“I did.” Tango thrust out his arm. “Tell me what to do.”
Derek frowned, but nodded. “Hand on his shoulder. Let him pull it from you. Don’t force it or you’ll fry his brain. And mine,” Derek muttered under his breath.
“Call Ajax,” Caliv mumbled.
“Who,” Kenny asked.
“Ivanov,” Dell answered as he snatched the phone and hit dial. “Signal won’t go through.”
“Got it,” Derek uttered. “Not me, but him. Okay, Caliv’s bringing it up on screen now and… there.” Twenty different windows popped up on screen with video feeds. “You have visual.”
“What am I looking at?” Tango asked.
“Keep your hand on Caliv,” Derek warned. “He’s pulling the magic from you and using it to link to the electrical units around Kenny and Maddie’s phone which has a special link with the plane and Ajax’s that… something, whatever… is geek-a-fied and can establish a connection while he’s in the air. What? Seriously? She cell towered the phone? I want one of those.”
“Derek,” Tango snapped. “Focus.”
Derek shook his head. “Right. Caliv used Maddie’s phone to hunt down Ajax’s. Then he activated the phone’s camera. Ajax keeps his phone on his belt. That’s his there.” Derek pointed to a window in the lower left corner of the screen. “Caliv then strung a line from Ajax’s phone to all the others around him. He’s hunting for Archangel’s right now.”
“Good job.” Tango squeezed Caliv’s shoulder and scanned the different video feeds. “Come on, come on,” he muttered. “Where are you, Michael?”
“I don’t like this,” Sinjun muttered to her.
“Neither do I.”
“Too much ground to cover.”
“And no one stopped us.”
“Shit.” Sinjun grabbed her hand and spun her around in front of him. “Look at me. No, don’t look over your shoulder.”
“What is it?”
“Rutger Dillon.”
“My father? What’s he doing?”
“Walking and talking with your brother.”
“Zed is here?”
“No, the other one. Something’s not right.” Sinjun paused, then muttered a string of curses.
“What? What is it?”
Sinjun moved her until her back was against the wall. Then practically covered her entire body, camouflaged them with his powers of light manipulation, and got down in her face. “You need to leave. Now.”
“But we haven’t found Andrei or the jammer.”
“Forget the jammer. I’ll handle Andrei. You need to go.” Sinjun pulled back and glanced down the hallway. “This place used to be a hotel. Hotels have hidey holes. Find one and get in it.”
“I’m not hiding.”
“Yes, you are.”
“But—”
Sinjun’s attention snapped back to her. “You ever fight a vampire, Maddie? How about a pack of rabid shifters? Or a demon on steroids? Shit’s about to get ugly and you need to get to someplace safe and wait for your mate.”
“But—”
“No buts. Andrei’s past is about to come barreling up his ass and if I don’t get in there now, he won’t make it.”
“Dammit, Michael, turn around,” Tango mumbled. “Show me what you see.”
“On it,” Derek said. “Screens… thirty-seven, forty-three.”
Tango leaned forward over Caliv to get a better look at the screens and… “Holy shit.”
“What,” Kenny demanded. “What do you see?”
“Dell! Get there now!” Tango ordered. “I don’t give a shit what you have to do or who you have to kill to do it. Get. There. Now!”
“Tango,” Kenny yelled. “What is it?”
“He’s alive. Son of a fucking bitch. The bastard is… not dead.”
“Who,” Kenny yelled.
Derek exhaled a deep breath and answered in a calm, cold voice. “Tolstoy Ivanov.”
The plane lurched and shook violently, then dropped.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“How exactly am I supposed to get out of here, Sinjun,” Maddie demanded in a harsh whisper. “This place is crawling with goons and it’s not like I have a room key that’ll get me tucked away into a hidey hole to await the cavalry.”
Sinjun reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. “With this.” He opened it and pulled out a credit card.
“That won’t help. I need a—”
Sinjun shoved the card into her hand. “It’s not a credit card. It’s a master keycard that’ll get you into any room in this hotel. Just shove it into the slot, put your thumb on the chip and press. When the light turns green, you’re in.”
“I don’t even want to know why you have something as cool as that,” Maddie said as she clutched the card in her hand.
Sinjun glanced over his shoulder. “Everyone’s heading for the second floor ballroom.” He looked back at her. “You go the opposite way. Steer clear of the cameras and—”
“Cameras are wireless. Whatever frequency jammer my father has installed would be blocking those.”
“Good. Then find a room—first room you come to—and get in.”
“What if there’s someone in it?”
“There won’t be.”
“But what if?”
Sinjun held out his fist, then opened it palm up and flexed his fingers. A symbol showed on his palm. He flexed his fingers again and with each flick the symbol changed. “Can you handle a gun?”
“Of course, I can, but we don’t have one.”
His hand stilled. “We do now.” He tapped his wrist with his other hand and a revolver magically appeared. “I don’t use this one often, but it’s good. Don’t worry about counting bullets, it automatically reloads.”
“How,” Maddie asked as she took the gun and studied it.
“Later. If anyone gets in your way, shoot first, ask questions later.”
“But—”
“You stay safe. No risks. No stupid moves. Hunker down and wait. I’ll find you when this is over. Remember. Nothing stupid.”
“But—” Maddie looked up and stopped. Sinjun was gone. She sighed and tucked the gun under her shirt into her waistband. “I never do anything stupid. It’s always you men who do stupid things that I have to clean up,” she muttered under her breath.
Which was why she had no intention of sneaking into a hotel room to wait it out and instead was going to find a maintenance closet, some tools, then sneak out an exit and head to the cute little bungalow she’d spotted when they’d first arrived. The one that had no windows, but did have shutters and there was only one reason hotel designers made cute little buildings with no windows and shutters on an exclusive island resort style hotel like this.
To hide modern eye sores.
Like an electrical transformer and the perfect place to hook up a super powerful frequency jammer.
Decision made, Maddie checked to make sure the coast was clear, then headed out.
The plane dropped and everything not bolted down or strapped in went up. Including Tango, Derek, Caliv, Zed’s soldiers in the back and everything in their immediate vicinity.
“Dammit, Rafe,” Derek yelled. “Stop!”
“I can’t reach him,” Caliv cried.
Derek scrambled to find something to hold on to. “Because he’s blocking!”
Tango had heard en
ough. Whatever shit was going on in Rafe’s telekinetic mind was fucking with the plane’s ability to fly and Tango’s ability to get to Maddie before she did something stupider than she’d already done. Assessment made, Tango reacted, took command, and let his god slayer back out. “Enough!”
Blue white light shot out in ribbons from his body then zipped through the cabin straight into the cockpit and slammed into the back of the pilot’s seat.
Rafe screamed. Derek screamed. Zed’s men screamed. Caliv shrieked like a little girl. . And Zed remained silent, unconscious, and strapped onto the couch.
Almost as soon as it started, the cabin went silent and the plane leveled out.
Tango hit the ground standing on both boots with clenched fists at his sides. “We don’t have time for this shit! Caliv, get your ass back on that computer and that feed up! Rafe, get this plane moving in the right direction! Derek—”
“Keep Rafe focused and the plane from dropping into the ocean. Got it.”
“No,” Tango snapped. “Get out of Rafe’s head and into Caliv’s and make him focus on getting the connection back up. I want Maddie on that screen when I get back.”
“Where are you going?”
Tango didn’t respond, but brushed past Derek and headed for the cockpit.
“Sorry,” Rafe mumbled as soon as Tango was within earshot.
Tango stepped in and closed the cockpit door behind him symbolically shutting out the hot mess of emotional baggage swirling in the main cabin. “How fast can this bird go?”
“Faster if I could get my shit together and access my abilities.”
“Consider it done.” Tango placed a hand on Rafe’s head, then closed his eyes and willed the swirling mess he felt rather than saw around Rafe to calm and focus.
Rafe sucked in a surprised breath. “What the…?”
Tango snatched back his hand and opened his eyes. “You know what to do.”
“How did you…,” Rafe sputtered.
How? By doing shit that he hated and that Michael Sinclair knew he could do and why the fuck did everyone keep asking him why?
Because you’re an emotional hot mess, covered in shit fairy shrapnel with a suppressed god slayer that’s two clicks from busting out of its unbreakable cage.
Sonofa… it was true. God. Dammit. It was true. Frustrated and angry at himself for slipping, Tango turned and yanked open the cockpit door. “I did it by being an idiot who mated a woman with a too stupid to live wish that is on that goddamn island—without me—doing something stupider than fuck that damn well guarantees she will get her ass more than spanked when I get my hands on her.”
“Hooah,” Rafe concurred.
Angsty rhetorical diatribe spat out, Tango felt loads better.
Not really, but he was a master at lying to himself and compartmentalizing shit that sucked, so he rolled with it and left Rafe with a final warning. “What I did won’t last long.” Hell at this rate, nothing would last long. Especially not if one more shit fairy bomb dropped on his head then sprinkled more pixie shrapnel on his fragile state of mind. “Keep it together or next time I take over. Permanently. ”
“Copy that. Thanks and… fifteen minutes to touch down.”
Maddie gripped the handle to the duffel full of tools she’d liberated from a handyman’s cart and darted from one large leafed bush to another. At each stop she paused long enough to check her surroundings then scurried along and zig zagged her way across the secluded walkway to the little building.
So far, so good. Only a little farther and then she’d be there. Then she’d break into the building, use the tools in the bag to destroy the jammer, and presto—communications would be back up.
Of course, it wouldn’t help her. The team yes, but not her. Because she didn’t have her phone on her, having left it with Kenny. But it’d help Andrei and Sinjun and that’s what mattered.
As long as Van got the message. Or Dell. But definitely Van. Who was probably having a cow right now because she wasn’t sitting on the plane with Kenny sipping Mimosas and staying safe. Yep, he’d definitely be mad. Beyond mad. But he’d have to get over it. And deal with it. Because she wasn’t a sidelines sitting kind of woman.
Nope, instead, she was a woman on a mission without a well thought out escape route after pulling the plug on the jammer. Other than high tailing it out of there afterwards because once the bad guys figured out the jammer was offline, they’d come looking and….
No doubt about it. She really should have thought this through better.
Oh well, nothing to do but wing it and pray for the—Crap! People. No, not people. Men. Goons. Big goony men with weapons and… crap! Hide!
Maddie panicked and dropped down behind a bush. The duffel hit the soil and the tools inside clanked together. She winced and prayed the goons didn’t hear.
“What was that,” a deep voice demanded.
“What? I didn’t hear anything.”
Ohmigod, ohmigod! Maddie cupped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide, and tried not to hyperventilate. That was Colby Jack’s voice. Ohmigod. Her father was here and, yes, she knew he was supposed to be here, but ohmigod… not where she was! Eyes glued on the danger, Maddie prayed in her mind, Move along. This is not the scientist you’re looking for.
“I heard something.” The voice stopped. “It came from the shack. Go check it out.”
Colby Jack laughed. “I don’t take orders from you, witch.”
“You do if you want Ivanov’s abilities transferred to you.”
Colby Jack muttered a string of vile curses. “Nev, go and—dammit, where is that boy?”
Tango left Rafe and entered the plane’s main cabin.
Derek looked up then pretended he’d read Tango’s mind and started delivering an immediate status update. “Caliv’s ready to reconnect. Needs you as his battery and then he’s back in. Zed’s IV popped out. Chris—tall one, blonde, beard—is a medic. He’s on it. No change in Zed’s brain activity. Still think he’s snoozing his way to vamp land. Rafe okay?”
Tango digested the download and latched onto the important. He laid a hand on Caliv’s shoulder and immediately felt energy being sucked from him. “He’ll live.”
“I can’t hear him,” Derek complained.
Tango’s eyes went to the screen as the videos slowly started popping back up. “You’ll cope.”
Kenny’s face appeared on the screen. “Tango! Thank God! What happened?”
“Turbulence,” Tango answered. “Any change?”
“None. You want me to—”
“Archangel’s there,” Derek shouted and pointed to a window. “Maddie’s not with him. Good.”
Tango’s attention jerked to the window and he narrowed his eyes. “Her ass better be hiding and waiting for me like he told her.”
“Caliv says give him a second and… he’s in. Access to the hotel camera surveillance system is coming up.”
Tango squeezed Caliv’s shoulder. “Good man. Scan for Maddie. Confirm she’s safe.”
“Won’t be able to if she’s in a room,” Derek warned.
“Then scroll back through the feed and see which room. I need to know which part of that place not to hit hard when we get there.”
“Gotcha.” Caliv broke his silence and sucked a huge surge of energy from Tango.
“On screen,” Tango ordered. Video opened showing Maddie in covert mode and failing miserably to look inconspicuous as she broke into a—
“What is that room?” Tango asked.
“Maintenance closet,” Derek answered.
“Fast forward and confirm she stayed in there,” Tango said.
There was a pause followed by Derek muttering, “Shit. Agreed. She didn’t. Do it.”
Video lightning sped through time then stopped at the present.
“What the… she’s outside.” Tango stared at the screen and his mate crouched down behind a bush. “What the fuck are you doing, Maddie?”
“Heading to that building.” Derek
tapped the screen and a little shack at the edge of the resort property. “Put it up.” Another window popped up showing the inside of the little bungalow. “Yep, I see it. She’s attempting to take out the frequency jammer.”
“No shit, but she was told to get her ass in a hidey hole and… what the…?” Tango trailed off as five men entered on screen right. “Whole area on screen. Now!”
Suddenly screenshots of every possible angle on the exterior of the hotel and around Maddie’s location covered the screen.
“Shit,” Kenny blurted out. “They’re heading right toward her!”
“Get her out of there,” Tango shouted.
“I can’t,” Derek shouted back. “Not without breaking Caliv’s connection and… dammit, Caliv, I can’t do that without taking over your mind and even if I could I can’t because Maddie isn’t fully human! Hell no, she’s not. Yes, I’m sure! Because I can’t read her. That’s why!”
No, Derek couldn’t read her, because she was wearing a ring that blocked telepaths from getting in her mind and given everything tucked up in her dense forest of gray matter, Tango shouldn’t be hating like hell she still had it on. He needed options. And quick. “Zoom in on the group headed her way.”
Caliv did.
“Nev? Holy shit,” Kenny exclaimed. “That’s Nev with Dad.”
“Colby Jack isn’t your father,” Tango muttered on reflex. “Derek, can you focus on Nev and mind monkey him to get Maddie out of there?”
“Again. Not without Caliv and not with Nev being part other, like Maddie. Can’t you connect to her? You’ve linked up to Rafe and Caliv, why not you directly to her?”
“Because,” Tango ground out. “Frequency jammers block all communication channels including the one that I use to download to her and… what the hell is Nev doing?”
Nev, trailing behind the group he was with, broke off from them and left the path. Something had caught his attention and… Maddie. He’d spotted Maddie lurking in the bushes and… that’s right, Nev. Do the right thing. Nice and easy. Don’t startle her. Get your sister and get her out of there. Do it now. No, don’t draw attention to yourself. Yes, pull your gun and—
Devil's Tango (Running with the Devil Book 1) Page 31