“We’re all coming in the morning, Ant Jane. My angel is callin’ me, telling me there’s danger when we land. You have to protect us or we’re gonna die bad.” The connection ended.
That electric terror thrashed me again, as if I was being struck with a whip made of lightning. I was up and running before I even realized it. Naked. Gasping. Stopped at the door. The cell in my fist made a soft squeak where I held it too tight.
“Jane,” Bruiser said, gentle, kind, as he eased out of bed and up to me. “There’s nothing to do right now. You need sleep.”
I stopped, a low growl of frustration stuck in my throat.
I had nowhere to go. Nothing I could do in this moment would fix things.
Except trying to see time, trying to timewalk. And if Angie and Soul and the other arcenciels were timewalking, I’d just muddy the waters and die trying. I cursed inside my own brain as Beast growled.
The I/we of Beast will save kits,she thought.
Dang skippy,I thought back.
“Back to bed. You need your rest,” Bruiser said.
I crawled back into bed, into his arms, snuggling in close, knowing he was right about needing rest, but knowing I’d never get back to sleep. Fortunately, Beast shoved me under, deep into dreamless dark.
My last awareness was of knowing we were all, right now, safe.
***
I was armoring up, human-shaped, hungry, alone in my bedroom in my own freebie house. The sounds of straps slapping and armor bumping were loud in the silent room. I had gotten a few hours of sleep and felt clearer-headed but still a little sleep deprived.
The tiny door latch was engaged to keep Quint away, not that the latch would keep her out if she decided to break down the door. It was more along the line of a request for privacy. I could smell her frustration on the airas the heat came on and the scents in the house moved through the vents. She was ticked off that she had missed all the excitement of the previous day, and she hadn’t bothered trying to hide her irritation.
I was the only nonhuman awake in the house.
Koun and my vamps were all asleep.
I had no witches on the payroll.
Eli was going to be discharged from the hospital in a few hours, to be driven home by one of the Vodka Boys, and he hadn’t been informed about Angie’s warning for fear he’d try to divert the SUV to the airport to help us. Alex and I were afraid he would succeed in getting himself killed for real this time, since he could barely walk.
Instead of Eli’s steady hand running this op, it would be Bruiser. My Consort was perfectly capable of running an op, and he’d taken part in any number of training exercises with the teams over the years, something I never even thought about. But... before, on ops, we’d had Eli. And Derek. And right now, the one going into danger was my love, my Consort, Bruiser. My heart did a funny leap that actually hurt.
I smoothed my hair down and separated it into three parts. Breathing. Letting the spiritual act of braiding my own hair calm me, even as I tied it off and coiled the plait into a queue for fighting. I had to stay calm. If I let things upset me, I’d alert Eli, and he had to be kept calm in the hospital. If he knew an op was about to begin he’d be ticked off that he’d not been included.
Bruiser had left while I was dead asleep for HQ to begin coordinating with Alex on comms and the human teams Tango and Delta on the ground, along with the Everharts and their own magic as the flying steel vehicle descended and landed and they got to safety. Or that was the plan.
And there was the human half of team Koppa and me, a skinwalker with uncertain control over her shape.
Alex would be coordinating everything, a long-distance human electronics whiz—one I still thought of as a kid—and any toys he could bring to bear. No vamps due to daylight. Just us humans against any attackers, the enemies allunknowns with unknown strengths, armament, and weaponry. But I was pretty sure they would include myTsalagiclanswomen, witches, and humans.
I had talked to Molly and her sisters on the flight—without mentioning Angie—explaining that I had intel that suggested they could be attacked as they landed or as they debarked the plane. They had plans to protect themselves, knew what to do as the Learjet landed. They had magical defenses ready to counter missiles, rockets, small arms fire, lasers, magic that might affect the jet’s many working parts, death magic bombs, flocks of birds an enemy might startle into their path, and, for all I knew, defenses against balloons, clowns, and circus animals. They had other magical defenses ready for their debarkation, but that was also the most likely moment for an attack: the minutes it would take them to climb down the steps, cross the tarmac on foot, and drive to safety.
At this moment, Yellowrock One’s flight plan still listed Lakefront Airport as the destination. Just minutes before the plane landed, the pilot would be alerted and the flight plan would be changed from our usual landing site to Greater St. Tammany Regional Airport, a tiny place we had never used. While the unfamiliarity would make it hard to secure, and the length of the runway was not ideal, it would also throw off any attackers.
One team, led by Bruiser, was already on site at Greater St. Tammany Regional, checking out the area, hoping (and it was a hope, not a likely reality) to set up drones that would fly low, far away from the landing area, sweeping the trees in the distance, the roads nearby, and all other access points.Ifthe airport personnel and FCC regs allowed drone use. Despite ongoing discussions, no drones had yet been allowed. That meant humans on foot, moving slowly, employing other, less-effective scouting equipment, would be solely responsible for gathering intel and securing the grounds.
I buckled the Benelli to me, the waist strap snug though still looser than when I was in half-form. If I shifted unexpectedly, the shotgun would hang on my half-form’s smaller waist, bumping my hips, and thearmor would be tight across the shoulders until I adjusted, but everything was designed for expandable areas. I added a single thigh rig for the new H&K and adjusted it a bit higher than usual because my half-form’s hips were wider than my human shape and might hurt in any unexpected shift.
I swung a double shoulder rig into place for nine-mils, and added two gobags of color-coded magazines that hung on my hips, nine-mil ammo in one ammo bag and .45 ammo in a much smaller bag. I might clank when I walked, which made me smile. As usual, some mags were marked in silver in case I had to aim at paras; the others were standard for humans we needed to kill. Defensive use only.
We also had rubber bullets, rounds Eli called rubber baton rounds, that could be fired from either standard firearms or dedicated riot guns, which Eli kept stored under the stairs, which Koun, Quint, and some of the others knew. The baton rounds were intended as a non-lethal alternative to standard metal rounds, but placed wrong they could maim, blind, and, though only rarely, kill.
I might have to shoot humans. Which I hated. Humans could have been rolled and forced to fight us, attacking without the ability to measure intent and purpose. I straightened the rigs. Tightened them on my thighs.
