Key words, to let us know the girl was Eloise. Eliose started at his voice. She went stiff at the end of her leash.
“Ellie? We’re all good. We’ll be home in a short bit,” Sawyer said.
The rider took one step to Sawyer and held out his hand.
Mina said over comms. “Three guards down. Damn cats are squirting all over the bikes.”
I permitted myself a satisfied grin. Even if the riders got back to the bikes, they’d be riding in cat piss.
“Ellie? It’s daddy.”
“Daddy?” Her voice quavered. She knew it wasn’t Anse. But she didn’t give anything away.
Sawyer pulled the comms from his jacket. “Give her to me.”
The rider shrugged and shoved Eloise at him. Sawyer caught her and pushed her behind himself against the wall. The rider punched a button on the comms and lit it up. He turned to the side, facing the windows, adjusting the electronics with taps of his fingers. He had to be the comms specialist of the group. And he had to have EntNu comms experience. Jolene was monitoring from inside the comms, part of her. Tracking his movements. With any luck tracking the signal to their main base.
He said, “Call sign Darwin calling home base. Darwin to homebase.”
There was a fain click, and a voice said, “Dar—”
Jolene shut him down, saying into my ear, “Got it.”
“Homebase come in,” Darwin said. “Homebase.”
“Go,” I whispered.
A shot came through the window.
I dropped from the rafter.
The man with the comms tilted, his head swinging away from the window, knees buckling, from being dead. He started to fall. It was almost slow motion, a sweep of his blood across the dim lighting. The comms device rising in the air as it slid from his fingers.
I fell through the blood spray as the driver spun toward the movement. I landed on the driver’s shoulder as he caught the device in clumsy fingers. I rolled in the air, taking him down with me. Just before we hit the floor. I kicked his face. Blood splattered high. But the guy wasn’t down for the count.
Sawyer shot the third man with a blaster, the beam invisible. He had fired the instant the rifle had taken out the first guy. It had been going long enough that his target flushed red, crumpled, and died as his organs boiled.
The fourth man, or in this case, woman, opened her mouth in surprise. Confusion flowed across her face before it showed a hint of pain. Mina took her out. Mina, standing motionless as though she hadn’t thrown the blade, the hilt sticking out of the woman’s back as she dropped to the floor.
The man beneath me fired three shots. Dove for the door. I held up a hand to stop Jacopo from taking him down. The driver raced from the church with Jolene’s comms.
In less than five seconds it was all over. Except it wasn’t.
We waited. One bike roared to life. Spun off toward the fuel depot, engine wailing.
“I got full control of the communication part of me. All y’all done good,” Jolene said.
“The explosives didn’t blow,” Mina said.
“Six riders and one truck are en route from the fuel depot,” Jolene said, “toward Anse’s part of town.”
Which we had left unprotected except by the sergeants.
“The man with my comms is joining up with them,” Jolene said.
I took a deep breath, glad I’d worn armor or my ribs would have taken damage from the man’s shoulder and breathing would have been difficult. I said, “Cupcake, take your team and follow.”
“Roger that,” Cupcake said. Her mic muted as she started giving orders.
