by Martha Carr
Dead In Plain Sight
I Fear No Evil Book Four
Martha Carr
Michael Anderle
DEAD IN PLAIN SIGHT (this book) is a work of fiction.
All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.
Copyright © 2018 Martha Carr and Michael Anderle
Cover by Andrew Dobell, www.creativeedgestudios.co.uk
Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing
LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
LMBPN Publishing
PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy
Las Vegas, NV 89109
First US edition, July 2018
The Oriceran Universe (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds) are Copyright (c) 2017-18 by Martha Carr and LMBPN Publishing.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Author Notes - Martha Carr
Author Notes - Michael Anderle
Other Revelation of Oriceran Universe Books
Books by Michael Anderle
Connect with The Authors
Dead In Plain Sight Team
Thanks to the JIT Readers
John Ashmore
James Caplan
Mary Morris
Daniel Weigert
Peter Manis
Larry Omans
Paul Westman
Micky Cocker
If we’ve missed anyone, please let us know!
Dedications
From Martha
To everyone who still believes in magic
and all the possibilities that holds.
To all the readers who make this
entire ride so much fun.
And to my son, Louie and so many wonderful friends who remind me all the time of what
really matters and how wonderful
life can be in any given moment.
From Michael
To Family, Friends and
Those Who Love
To Read.
May We All Enjoy Grace
To Live The Life We Are
Called.
1
Shay parked the van on a darkened street a couple of blocks away from the massive wrought-iron fence surrounding their target, an elegant old Victorian mansion.
She sighed and shook her head as she looked over at the young gray elf. It was a hard sell, but Shay eventually relented and let her come on the mission. Somehow Lily had talked Peyton into pitching the idea to Shay, too.
Besides, Shay knew this one was going to be tricky. An extra body along who had some magical abilities could tip the scale.
“Not as cool as your Fiat,” said Lily. Lily slipped out of the car, pulling on the slim backpack that had been resting at her feet.
“Stands out far less, especially at night,” said Shay.
Shay grabbed a pair of binoculars from behind the front seat. Getting spotted wearing AR goggles would be hard to explain.
She snickered. “I’ll just tell everyone we’re practicing for a movie role. Spies who bird watch. At night.”
“This is L.A. They’d not only believe you, they’d want to steal the idea.”
“And ask for a part.” Shay smiled, surprising herself. Missions of any kind required focus, not that Shay wasn’t aware of every nearby movement. But she was actually having fun… Fun without shooting someone. That was new.
She still wondered if her big experiment with having a life could end up being great short term and hazardous for her longevity.
“You remember your part?” Shay crouched down as they got closer to the edge of the small estate. Lily took a similar stance not too far from her.
“Keep an eye on the perimeter.”
“And?”
“Don’t get killed, I remember. That one’s kind of a given.”
“And yet, Peyton forgets it all the time.”
“I heard that.” His voice inside Shay’s head came to life.
Lily let out a snicker as she moved forward, taking her position a few yards ahead near the tall iron fence. The gray elf’s twitch reflexes were going to come in handy on this mission. Her speed at learning small weaponry had been impressive.
“I made it clear. Audio blackout during this op,” whispered Shay.
“Quit baiting me, then.” The sound of a cat yowling and something falling and hitting the floor could be heard through the earpiece. “Oh shit.”
Shay took out the earpiece and slipped it into a small pocket on her jacket. That was too much of a distraction. She could find out later what broke and take it out of Peyton’s share.
Shadows shifted in the sky above the mansion, accompanied by a distant buzz, proof of at least one security drone. A couple of suited men wandered the perimeter. Shay couldn’t be sure how many more might be inside, but the drone’s thermal scans thirty minutes prior suggested at least two interior guards.
“Pretty arrogant, Colonel Grayson,” Shay muttered. “Your cockiness is going to cost you tonight.”
His company, Grayson PMC Services, might claim they were legitimate military contractors, but they worked more as ruthless mercenaries for criminals. They’d made a lot of enemies. People like Shay.
She lowered her binoculars. Or maybe they hadn’t. Maybe the only person they’d ever pissed off enough to go after them was her.
But that was more than enough.
The tomb raider retrieved a small azure crystal orb out of her pocket. Dark bands swirled slowly on the surface. Using her other hand, she pulled a note out of her pocket and snorted at the awful handwriting. The gnome’s scrawl looked like it had been written by a panicked chicken.
“Come on, Tubal-Cain. Can’t you use some magic to improve your handwriting?”
“Let’s do this,” said Lily, anxious to erase the last mission and the Ice Witch from her memory.
The instructions from the gnome reinforced that the artifact should be simple enough to use. She only needed to wrap her hand around the orb, say the control phrase, and hold it tightly. Once she let go, it’d automatically deactivate.
The gnome had made her practice pronouncing the short phrase for fifteen minutes in his shop. Shay didn’t recognize the language—not that she was an expert on spoken Oriceran languages. The fact that the gnome had refused to clarify what it meant didn’t help.
Probably calling to some dark and ancient Oriceran god for h
elp.
One last comment in the instructions caught her eye.
Magic is alive, unlike human technology. Be careful about misusing the artifact. Everything has consequences.
“Consequences, huh?” Shay whispered. She shook her head and slipped on a ski mask and gloves as Lily did the same, hiding her long gray hair. It was time to execute the plan.
Shay pocketed the artifact and kept moving slowly forward. “Misuse” was a nebulous concept, but the night’s mission wasn’t about theft or murder—or at least that wasn’t the plan.
I’m trying to stop more people from dying. That’s not misuse. Sure, I’m the one who’d be killing them, but I’m going out of my way to try to prevent that. In a sense, I’m saving their lives.
Shay smirked at the thought, but her mirth vanished when she remembered why she was there.
Grayson was sniffing too close to Alison for Shay’s comfort. She might have scared them off for a while by killing their men in Virginia, but a direct message to their leader would ensure the girl would be safe.
The tomb raider clung to the shadows between the sparse street lights. The advantage of her target living on a ritzy street was that the local homeowners valued aesthetics more than brightly-lit streets at night.
“For a mercenary, this guy’s kind of a dumbass about security,” whispered Lily.
“It’s always the low-tech that saves people in the end. Remember that.”
Shay brought up an app on her phone, her finger hovering over a button marked ‘Engage’ as she closed on the fence.
Need to time this just right.
She pressed the button and pocketed her phone…and no dramatic shouts followed. The drones didn’t crash. It had gone just as she’d planned.
Lily gave her a thumbs up and Shay watched as Lily easily clambered over the fence in two moves and onto the other side, barely touching the fence.
Shay was going to need a more conventional method that still got the job done.
Shay charged a corner of the fence under the deep shadows of a tall willow tree, her heart rate kicking up. The next few seconds would determine if she could get inside without having to shoot people. The guards were on the opposite side of the house, giving her a few minutes’ window to gain entry without having to use the artifact.
The tomb raider leapt for the fence, vaulting over and landing with a grin. Four moves, not bad. Even better, no alarms.
Peyton’s security program was working perfectly. He’d gotten the idea from Shay after she’d revealed the Warehouse Three Annex and told him how she’d fooled him by showing him false footage. He’d started working on a program to dynamically spoof a variety of security feeds.
It wasn’t the first time he’d seen or used the technique, but his experience with the Annex had convinced him that the concept was more powerful than he’d believed. The male ego was a powerful motivator.
The program might not be much help in some hidden Templar maze beneath an Aldi supermarket in Munich, but it was more than proving its worth now.
Shay moved away from the gate, as Lily gave the signal that all was clear and Shay gave a return signal. Lily gave a nod and moved to the left under the short canopy of the ornamental trees that bordered the property.
Even though the grounds were dark, like any elf, Lily could see the magical energy that told her someone was magical. Very useful.
Shay darted toward the house, keeping her head down as she made for a side door. The door cracked open, dim light spilling out.
The tomb raider yanked the orb out of her pocket and whispered the activation phrase. The artifact warmed in her hand, becoming uncomfortably hot but not burning her skin. She stopped and held her breath.
A guard emerged from the house with a yawn and looked right at her.
Let’s see how good you are, gnome.
The guard didn’t react or give any indication he’d seen Shay. He closed the door, tapped a lock code into its keypad, and walked toward the back of the house.
Shay stared at the guard for a few long moments before looking down at her body. Invisibility was easy to understand, but she was neither invisible nor in some strange alternate plane of existence. She was there and visible, but the guard acted like she wasn’t.
“People’s minds are easy to trick,” the gnome had told her. “Give them any excuse to look away, and they will. This artifact gives them that excuse. Metal toys don’t have minds to trick, so it does nothing for them. You’ll have to take care of that sort of thing yourself.”
The tomb raider shook her head and walked to the keypad. She tapped in the code Peyton had hacked the house security system for earlier, and when the door clicked open she hurried inside the darkened home.
Shay kept her grip on the artifact as she sauntered with a grin down the hall and up the stairs. A turn brought her to the master bedroom. The door creaked opened, and she stepped inside and closed it.
The mercenary leader slept peacefully on his back, his weathered face speaking to years of hard living. Shay rolled her eyes at the decades-younger voluptuous blonde who slept next to him.
The tomb raider-turned-home invader slipped the artifact back in her pocket before pulling one of her adamantine knives out its sheath.
Colonel Grayson’s eyes snapped open when she touched the blade to his throat.
Shay lifted a finger to her mouth and shushed him. “Quiet.”
The man’s face tightened in anger and defiance. “I won’t beg. If you’re going to do it, then do it.” He kept his voice low, as if he didn’t want to wake his trophy wife before his execution.
Shay wasn’t sure if she was impressed or annoyed.
“Nah,” she whispered.
He blinked. “Excuse me?”
“If this were about killing you, you’d already be dead, and I have wouldn’t have bothered with all this bullshit sneaking around. This is about sending a message that will result in less trouble for a young woman.”
“Okay, what message? And what girl?” He still sounded too comfortable to suit Shay.
Shay leaned forward and kept the knife at the man’s throat. “It’s come to my attention that two of your men were poking around in Virginia, looking for a girl. You’re gonna stay the fuck away from that girl, as are your men.”
“Are you the one who butchered my men?”
She let a chuckle escape. “I’m just a person who has an interest in making sure that girl lives a happy life without mercenaries fucking with her.”
The wife stirred in her sleep. If she woke up and started screaming, things might get unpleasant for everyone involved.
Just stay asleep. Your only crime was marrying a dick.
Colonel Grayson’s jaw tightened. That’s better, thought Shay.
“Who the fuck are you, really?” he asked. “A bodyguard? Part of some sort of protection agency? Who the fuck is that girl that she has that kind of protection?”
“You don’t need to know that.”
He snorted. “My people looked into that girl. We know she’s linked to Brownstone, but we found nothing about any sort of security firm.”
Shay shook her head. The asshole was going to keep the strongman front, even though she had a knife to his throat.
“Let’s just say I’m a guardian angel in black, Colonel Grayson. One who gained access to your bedroom despite all your security and guards,” Shay added as she removed her knife.
The man jerked up, and Shay snapped her arm forward again. He froze in place when the tip of her blade pricked his throat and drew a single drop of blood.
Shay tsked. “You are hopelessly outclassed, asshole. You that eager to die? I’m trying not to kill anyone, but I’m not married to the idea.”
Grayson gritted his teeth and didn’t respond.
“Shouldn’t have done that. Might have woken up wifey-poo over there.” Shay glanced over at his wife. “What? You have…twenty years on her? Thirty years? Or did you find a bunch of money for beautification ma
gic?”
Shay heard the sound of guards moving across the lawn outside and knew her time was drawing short. No need to test Lily’s skills too much on her first day back in the field.
Shay pressed the tip of the blade. “The only reason I’m not slitting your throat right now is the small, small chance that it’d lead to some unfortunate police investigation or some shit like that. This is your final warning, though. Next time you die.” She grinned. “And don’t think your big plan to hire a few magical mercs and overpay for some shitty magical artifact is gonna help you. They wouldn’t be the first magic users I’ve killed. Or the second. Or the third.”
Shay took a step back, her gaze still locked on the man.
Grayson glared at her. “How do you know about that? Only my top-level men know about that.”
“I’ll let you stew on that and figure it out yourself.”
“Fuck, you’re in my personal files.”
“Something like that.” Shay gave him a little mocking salute. Peyton’s ability to break in to any files and Lily’s talent at seeing magical trails and following them were proving to be very valuable assets to her operations.
“Have a good evening, Colonel. Sleep well, for now.”
She made her way back the same way she came in and found Lily at the rendezvous point, sweaty and smiling from ear to ear.