by Martha Carr
He chuckled. “Really, now?”
“Oh, so you do know me.” She slipped into a seat across from him, not caring enough to ask for permission.
“I know of you. You can call me Carver.” The Wood Elf flicked his finger, and a thin whorl of his drink rose from his glass and went into his mouth. He swallowed. “Word on the street is that you’re Brownstone’s woman.”
Huh? Is that the kind of shit they say?
Shay smirked, not wanting to show her surprise. She’d expected the Wood Elf to talk about how she was the famous and secretive tomb raider Aletheia, or, if not that, reveal that he knew about her dark past as a killer. About the last thing she’d ever anticipated was someone in the underworld hearing her name and just putting it together with James.
This means my cover’s intact if even scumbags don’t know who I really am. Nice to know.
Shay chuckled. “Yeah, James and I have fun together sometimes. What about him?”
The elf’s face curled into a sneer. “That’s guy fucking intense. Relentless, but fair.”
“Fair?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “I’m not an idiot. I’ve heard about the people he’s taken out, but they were all assholes who didn’t know when to stop. This city is filled with gangs and syndicates, both Oriceran and human. Brownstone doesn’t fuck with most of them, because they don’t fuck with him. Like I said, relentless but fair. Wouldn’t want to run into him in a dark alley, but I respect his work.”
Shay fished more bills out of her jacket and set them on the table. “Respect it enough that you’ll take this little tip in exchange for some information?”
His gaze flicked between the money and Shay. She could almost smell the greed oozing off him.
Pointed ears and magic, or round ears and no magic. Money makes both worlds go around.
Carver shrugged, a slight smirk returning to his face. “Ask questions. I might have answers. Not guaranteeing shit, though.”
“You familiar with the kids who live in the tunnels? The ones who are good at parkour.”
He rubbed his chin. “Mostly half-breed trash from what I’ve heard. They have magic, but it’s not reliable. They like to run around and steal, but I hear they’ve been lightening up on that lately. Good for them, otherwise they might end up getting killed when they take from the wrong person.”
“Someone roughed them up earlier today.” Shay leaned in, her face darkening. “Stole things from them; artifacts that were theirs.”
“You know what they say. It’s like I heard in a human song the other day—the wheel keeps on turning.” He grinned.
The tomb raider snorted. “I just need to know who it was.”
Carver eyed the money for a long while, running his tongue inside his cheek. “The Demon Generals.”
Shay blinked. “What the fuck? Them again?”
“Again?”
“Don’t worry about it.” She waved a hand. “I just don’t get why some punk street gang is suddenly executing lightning raids for artifacts. Something doesn’t add up.”
“Haven’t you heard? They’re under new management.”
Shay frowned. “New management?”
Carver grinned. “Remember the Nuevo Gulf Cartel?”
Shay’s stomach tightened. “From what I heard, they’re done. Someone raided a big meeting of them, killing all the leaders. They then hunted down the rest. After that, they were in complete chaos, and other criminal groups and law enforcement dismembered them. They don’t exist anymore, not really.”
“Yeah, that’s all true, but it’s not like every last guy in the cartel was killed. Just all the leadership. More than a few talented foot soldiers survived. They couldn’t save their cartel, but they’ve been working for a serious professional criminal organization and have experience. Some of them melted into other cartels, but some of them are taking their chance to be a big man in a smaller group.”
She blew out a breath. “So, some ex-cartel douchebag is trying to turn the Demon Generals into an artifact-smuggling group?”
“Among other things. It’s a guy calling himself Tío.”
“Tío? As in uncle?”
Carver shrugged. “He picked the name, not me. He’s pushing artifacts, weapons, and drugs. High-end distribution, not petty local shit. I think the guy’s being a little too aggressive, but I can’t argue with his results so far. Without the Nuevo in town, there are still a lot of opportunities to expand territory, and some of the newer arrivals, like the 25K, don’t know this city like the Demon Generals do, so with good leadership, they might become a serious threat.”
“Do they have some sort of warehouse where they store artifacts? They’ve just grabbed the shit, so I doubt they’ve had time to move it.”
Carver laughed. “You planning to take on an entire gang?”
“Not if don’t have to, but they stole something from a friend of mine. There’s a reason I’m with Brownstone. We both don’t tolerate people fucking with us or our friends.”
The Wood Elf arched a brow. “I know they have a big deal going down in a couple of days at the ARCO Tower. They’re planning to sell stuff off to the highest bidder. If you want a chance to get your friend’s shit back, that’s your best bet.” He shrugged. “But that’s going to be very heavily guarded. Demon Generals, and I hear the buyer is Russian Mafia.”
Shay blew out a breath and stood. “Good to know.”
“Your funeral if you go. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I have a little planning to do. We need to hit that place tomorrow before everybody and their fucking mother is there.
15
Shay leaned against her Fiat as she waited for Lily to emerge from the tunnel. She’d explained the plan to raid ARCO Tower over the phone the previous night, and the girl seemed more than a little enthusiastic. Bloodthirsty, really.
Not that I can blame her. Those assholes took the last link she has to her dad. They’ll only get what’s coming to them.
The tomb raider frowned as two people emerged from the huge pipe in front of her—Lily and Harry. She pushed away from the car and marched toward them. This was the time for professional ass-kicking, not tunnel rat improv.
Shay looked at them and crossed her arms, waiting for Lily to explain why Harry was with her.
Lily sighed. “Harry wants to come.”
Shay snorted. “No way in hell.”
He frowned. “It’s not just Lily’s stuff that got taken. I’ve got a responsibility to help get it all back. I’m the leader.”
Shay shook her head. “This isn’t going to be a running-around-at-night-trying-to-avoid-some-beat-cops deal. This is going to be a careful infiltration into a guarded tower. If everything goes well, it’ll be easy, but if it goes badly, there’s gonna be a lot of shooting and dying.”
Harry narrowed his eyes. “You don’t think I have what it takes?”
“I don’t know if you have what it takes. Frankly, I don’t give a damn if you do.” Shay shook her head. “I only go on jobs with people I trust with my life.”
Harry nodded toward Lily. “She can vouch for me, and it’s not like you haven’t seen me on my feet in a dangerous situation.”
“That’s not how this works. I don’t know you well enough to know how you’ll react when bullets start flying, or you take a hit. At least with Lily, I know she’s received enough training and learned the right lessons that I won’t have to distract myself keeping an eye on her. This shit is simple. Either you stay, or neither of you goes. I’m going either way, but this isn’t a babysitting job.”
The boy frowned and looked at Lily. “Aren’t you going to say something?”
Lily sighed and averted her gaze. “Maybe she’s right, Harry.”
He blinked. “What? How can you say that?”
“It’s just, I couldn’t forgive myself if something happened to you. I just keep thinking back to Casey and all that blood.”
Harry frowned. “Nothing’s going to happen t
o me.”
Lily took a deep breath. “I’ve already seen some strange and dangerous stuff in my time with Shay. I know she can take care of herself as long as I don’t mess things up, and it doesn’t matter anyway. There’s nothing I could say to convince her to let you come, so either you stay, or I can’t go.” She shrugged.
Shay nodded. “Exactly.”
Harry looked at the women for a moment, a deep frown on his face. “Damn it. This isn’t fair.”
The tomb raider snorted. “Harry, you of all people should know that life isn’t fair.” She nodded toward the car. “Lily, your tactical harness is loaded up and in your seat. Come on, we have some ass to kick and some artifacts to recover.”
Shay and Lily emerged from the entrance to a parking garage across the street from the ARCO Tower. The thirty-three-story office tower pierced the night sky above them. It was a clear night, the stars and moon making it brighter than Shay would have liked for a night operation.
“From what Peyton found out,” Shay explained, “all the artifacts stolen from the tunnels are being stored on the thirtieth floor.” She patted her back to make sure her pack was secure, then checked her junior partner’s.
We might be able to pull this off without having to even shoot anyone.
Shay snorted.
Yeah, right.
Lily frowned. “What?”
“Don’t worry about it, kid. Just me being cynical.”
Lily looked around and frowned. “Still confused about some of the plan. Why didn’t we just enter from the top?”
“It’ll be easier to go up and then go up a little more to escape than the opposite.” Shay blew out a breath. “Which means we’re gonna have to stick to the plan. Floor entry to make our way up to the thirtieth floor to find the artifacts.”
A savage smile appeared on Lily’s face. “As long as I get my father’s artifact back, I don’t care what we have to do.”
“We’ll get it, Lily. Just have to be smart about it. The guards on the lower levels are just rent-a-cops, but once we get to the thirtieth floor, we risk running into gangsters and Mafia. Luckily, there’s only a few there. That’ll make certain things simpler if we have to get rough.” She shot at a glance at the girl. “Seeing anything?”
Lily shook her head. “Nope.”
Shay grinned. “At least you’re not seeing us get shot. Peyton, what’s the camera and alarm situation?”
“I’ve got the camera feed to them looped now,” he reported through her earpiece. “Should have a good hour before anyone notices. All external alarms have been disabled. They’re all alone.”
“Guess it’s showtime.” Shay jogged across the street, Lily close behind. She slowed as she hit the sidewalk in front of the building and tossed Lily her magical lockpick. “Don’t lose that.”
“I won’t. You know this looks totally lame. It’s just a paperclip.”
Shay smirked. “It gets the job done. Now you do the same.”
Lily clenched and unclenched her hands a few times before jogging toward the massive glass entry doors.
The magical lockpick made quick work of the doors. Lily rushed inside and started running around and waving her hands. She shouted at the top of her lungs, although Shay couldn’t hear it through the closed doors. Thankfully, the girl had deactivated her microphone.
Just don’t get caught, kid, and this will be easy.
Lily disappeared from sight and Shay flattened herself against an outside wall, awaiting Peyton’s signal before making her entry. The timing on this might be tighter than she liked, but if the enemy was tipped off too soon, they might realize what they were targeting.
Her heart rate kicked up as the seconds ticked away. She’d still not gotten that used to joint operations with anyone but James, and he wasn’t the kind of man you had to worry about.
Did I just get Lily killed? Those might not be gang members or mobsters, but they do have guns, and they might be trigger-happy. Great reflexes can only do so much to save you from bullets.
“You need to move now,” Peyton’s voice crackled over the comm. “She’s got all the first-floor security guys on the opposite side of the building. They tried to call the police, but I blocked the call.”
Shay burst away from the wall toward the unlocked glass doors. She threw one open and rushed straight toward the elevator. Hiking up thirty flights of stairs and then taking on dozens of enforcers wasn’t a good strategy. It was time for a little laziness with the aid of technology.
She hit the UP button and waited, shifting from foot to foot and looking behind her. Painful seconds later, the elevator dinged, and the doors open. The tomb raider stepped inside and pressed the button for the thirtieth floor.
“How are you doing, Lily?” Shay asked.
No response. Her stomach knotted. She could have just forgotten to turn her mic on.
“Lily? Turn your mic back on.”
“She’s fine,” Peyton reported. “She turned it back on, but there’s something wrong with the transmission. She’s shaken all the guards.”
Shay let out a sigh of relief. “Good.”
“Shit. Something’s wrong.”
“What do you mean, something’s wrong?” Shay gritted her teeth.
“I lost all the camera feeds. I think someone disabled all the cameras from inside the building. That means I don’t get the feed, but neither do they, even with the looping. Don’t worry, we’re still blocking their phone lines and the cell phone frequencies. If they aren’t using this frequency to transmit, they’re not talking to anyone.”
Shay stared at the floor number display as it ticked up. “They might be spooked by the intruder report. What was the last thing you saw?”
“A few gang members with tattoos, and a couple of guys in suits. Just a few of them.”
“No surprise there. Tío?”
“One sec.”
Shay pulled out her gun to give it a quick check and then reached inside to verify that her adamantine knives were in their sheaths. Tonight she anticipated rivers of blood if she ran into anyone.
Demon Generals and Russia Mafia weren’t like the thrill seekers of Hollingsworth. They were ruthless killers, but she’d show them what a real ruthless killer was like.
Huh. Guess it’s a good thing I don’t have any pets after all. Some asshole would probably end up killing my cat, and I’d have to go all James all over them and kill half of LA.
Shay smirked.
“Yeah,” Peyton finally responded. “I ran some quick facial recognition on the previous footage. Ninety-five-percent chance he’s one of the guys in the suits.”
“Good. I don’t like the idea of even a fragment of the Nuevo Gulf Cartel still being around. I’m not gonna go out of my way to find him, but if I run into him, I’ll say hi with a little lead.” Shay glared into the smooth, reflective metal of the closed elevator door.
The elevator abruptly stopped on the twenty-fifth floor.
“What the hell? Why did the elevator stop?”
Peyton sighed. “Looks like they figured it out. I’m keeping the door closed for now, but I can’t do much if they force it open.”
“Any guys near me?”
“Nope, not yet. They’re having to take another elevator.”
Shay grinned. “Looks like it’s time for Plan B. Go ahead and open it.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Five flights of stairs I can handle.”
Peyton chuckled. “I guess this is why I don’t go into the field. Too much running. It’s tiring just listening to you.”
The elevator doors dinged and slid open. Shay ran around the corner and threw open the door to the stairwell.
She stopped for a moment to listen for footsteps or shouting but heard nothing. With a smile, she started taking the stairs two at a time. Shay arrived at the thirtieth floor and peeked through the narrow window. Without active camera coverage, she had no idea where anyone might be, but she’d memorized the layout of the floor a
nd three likely storage rooms where they might be keeping artifacts prior to sale.
Shay removed her 9mm from her holster, then reached into another pouch on her tactical harness and retrieved her magical silencer. After screwing it onto the weapon, she slowly pulled the door open.
She entered the thirtieth floor. No one so far. She hurried down the hallway and took a corner. Two men with skull tattoos stood on either side of a conference room door. Demon Generals.
One of them blinked. “Who the fuck are you?”
Shay whipped up her gun and put a round in his head, then another in his friend’s. They slumped to the ground, their blood splattered against the wall. The magical silencer had made the shots mere hisses.
Poor discipline.
She walked over to the door they had been guarding and waited a few seconds. She gave herself a three-count and kicked open the door.
A long polished wood conference table sat in the center of the room, a perimeter formed by leather chairs. A familiar piece of metal had been placed under a glass dome: Lily’s artifact. Two others, a small brush and a ring, she didn’t recognize but assumed they were from one of the other teens.
“So much for the storage rooms,” Shay mumbled. “I found Lily’s artifact.”
“Lily should be there soon,” Peyton reported. “I spotted her running up the stairwell before I lost cameras. She’s coming in from the opposite side, it looks like.”
“Good. This is being damned easy. Glad we caught these assholes by surprise. I’ll catch up with her.” Shay yanked off the glass domes, then grabbed the three artifacts and stuffed them into pouches in her tactical harness.
Shay stepped out of the conference room, taking a moment to glance down at the dead gang members before jogging toward down the hallway. Voices in Russian drifted from around the corner.
She flattened herself against the wall and crept down the rest of the hallway before a quick peek around the corner. Two men in dark suits sat there chatting and gesticulating wildly, clearly agitated. Large bulges in their jackets outlined their not so-concealed weapons.
Shay spun into the hallway and put both men down before they’d even realized what was happening. She continued toward the second stairwell. The door opened, and Lily stepped through, panting.