She smiled around his lips and followed his advice.
One day when this was over, maybe she would . . .
Day.
A new worry hit her with brutal swiftness. If Tristan had teleported to Atlanta, that’s where she and Storm were landing.
It would be . . . afternoon. Right now.
What if the sun blazed overhead?
Still clinging to Storm, Evalle opened her eyes to a glint of brilliant light.
FIFTEEN
Tzader paced the boardroom on the eighteenth floor of Quinn’s building, one of several he owned in downtown Atlanta.
His gut said not to do this, especially to Vladimir Quinn.
Not that Tzader wanted to risk destroyinganyperson’s mind, but Quinn and Evalle were his closest friends.
Next to Brina.
He stopped pacing. How could Brina think he didn’t put her safety first? What was going on with her?
She was his world.
Her idea of searching Conlan O’Meary’s mind had some validity. A slim possibility of gaining information, but enough that Tzader couldn’t refuse in good conscience.
And Quinn was the best they had at navigating a mind.
Quinn’s dry Oxford tone broke into Tzader’s thoughts.I’ll be up in a moment. I took care of Evalle’s job at the morgue on my way here.
Where do they think she is?
On personal leave. She may not like my interfering, but she’s getting my help this time whether she wants it or not.
Leave it to Quinn to pull strings to ensure that Evalle still had her grunt job once she appeased the Tribunal. She put a higher value on independence than an asthmatic put on oxygen.
She’ll appreciate that,Tzader said.
Perhaps.Then Quinn was gone.
The antique clock on the side table dinged softly five times. This late on a Friday afternoon, rush hour traffic heated tempers in any city, but if that sulfur fog descended on the streets of Atlanta this evening the highways would turn into bloody battle zones.
Quinn entered the conference room on a calm stride, but tension lined his forehead. He punched buttons on his smart phone. His cinderblock gray European suit fit his athletic build with a precision only the best tailors could offer. Women seemed to like all that fancy trimming and upper-crust British accent, one of his finer qualities acquiredafterearly years spent in Russian ghettos.
Tzader stopped pacing and glanced at the door. “Where’s Conlan?”
“Our young O’Meary is on his way here. Then he’ll have to be cleared through building security.”
When Tzader quirked an eyebrow in amusement, Quinn chuckled and shrugged. “I must keep up appearances at all my corporate properties.”
Metal detectors couldn’t detect a weapon warded against view, like the two sentient blades hanging from Tzader’s belt. The blades had snarled at the security personnel when Tzader had passed through the scanner, but they were invisible to human eyes and machines when he needed them to be.
Quinn stopped fiddling with his phone and slipped it into a pocket inside his jacket. “I heard about beast attacks on my flight back from D.C. I assume these are Alterants, based upon the lurid descriptions. What’s going on?”
“I just left a meeting at VIPER. There’s a mysterious fog that hovers close to the ground around all these attacks. Has a sulfuric odor and causes everyone it touches to turn aggressive and mean, instant road rage mentality. Bad as that is, this fog appears to be a catalyst for forcing Alterants to shift. We’re up to a hundred and thirty-four that we know about that have shifted in different parts of the country.”
