By three thirty p.m. we had Margot, Rick LaFleur, and T. Laine in-house, all on their days off. We were all talking on cells and landlines, sometimes simultaneously, while messaging agencies all over the world and searching databases. Outside, sleet began to fall. It was Sunday and I was ready for my day to end so I could leave work. I had to pick up Mud and we had a Christmas tree to decorate. And school tomorrow.
An hour later, we had found nothing. It was frustrating.
Overhead speakers announced the arrival of Lieutenant Colonel Rettell. The military liaison was on-site. Occam and I headed to the conference room. The rest of the unit were already in place and waiting, the sunset hidden by heavy cloud cover and the dark of night upon us.
It was nearly dusk. Vampire time.
* * *
While we all watched on camera, Rick trotted downstairs to let Rettell in the outer door.
In the glare of sunset it was hard to tell much, but the woman looked muscular, her spine straight as a board. She had long hair pulled back in a severe bun, and she was dressed in a uniform beneath a military coat, with a satchel over one shoulder.
On camera, Rick opened the door. Even in the wavering dull light, we saw him go totally still.
Margot stood up from her seat, her expression fierce.
“Racer?” FireWind said.
“He’s trying not to shift. The woman—”
FireWind shoved away from his chair. Dove down the hallway. Slammed open the door, where the new stop-device held it. By the time he was halfway down the hall, Margot had leaped over the table, catlike, graceful, one foot landing in the center to propel her after him. Occam followed, his fingers shaped like claws. I reached for my weapon. Stopped when T. Laine held up a hand. Silent, we watched the screen.
Rick was holding the doorframe with both hands, his hands fully clawed and covered with black fur, like the black wereleopard of his cat form.
Aya ducked under his arm, too fast for a human, skinwalker-fast, and stood in front of Rick, facing him, his body poised to fight.
The woman had already backed away, hands up in a gesture of peace.
Growls echoed up the stairway to us. Rick’s growls. Bass, rumbling vibrations shook the roots of my hands and deeper, juddering the hard rooty place in my belly. My hair moved as leaves grew in, tightly curled, so many my scalp ached.
“Lieutenant,” FireWind said. His voice was soft but carried up the stairs, soothing, steady. “What are you?”
“Sorry,” she said, nearly as calm as FireWind. “I thought you knew. Asiatic cheetah. Turned in Afghanistan in ’06.”
“Your sleeve shows you were active duty,” Aya said, his tone still carrying that mesmerizing quality that was oddly, vaguely vampire-like in its power and intensity, “but makes no mention of your being a were-creature. We didn’t bother to look deeper.”
Rettell laughed. “Your bad. Tell Diamond Drill to pick up her game.”
I shot my eyes to JoJo in the corner with Tandy. She cursed under her breath, fingers flying on the keyboard.
“How did she know what we call you?” I asked. Diamond Drill was a nickname, in-house only, so far as I knew.
“No idea,” Jo said. “Unless the military can get into Clementine. I’ve shut her down, and will do a deep dive for anything that isn’t supposed to be there.”
That meant JoJo thought someone had drilled into hersystem and planted code that would send them anything Clementine recorded. But why would Rettell lead us to look? Because she had to know we’d pick up on that clue.
“You’ll find something,” I said. “But you need to look even deeper.”
Jo raised her head and her fingers stopped tapping. “Decoy. Maybe more than one.”
“She expected us to find it on the next deep diagnostic,” Tandy said, “so she gave it to us, hoping we’d miss a buried one.”
“Or two,” I said. “Or three.”
“Dayum, girl,” Jo said. “You think sneaky.”
I looked at the screens to see the small group moving up the stairs as if violence hadn’t nearly happened. I spoke fast. “But why would the military want to hack into us?”
