I hissed. “Jack,” I scolded. “Your ex-girlfriend is in the car.” And I was extremely not single.
“Keyword, ex,” Kenzie said in a tight voice, but surely she didn’t expect him to think before he spoke. That wasn’t his way.
I hurried to change the subject. “Did Mack fill you guys in on what’s been going on with Calista?”
“Not really,” Jack offered. “We just got the regular ol’ case file. It doesn’t say much beyond that this siren is a real bitch.”
I wiggled in my seat. “She’s definitely that, but it gets more complicated.”
Kenzie leaned forward in between our seats. Jack was the one with the reputation for bringing difficult perps in at the Agency, but Kenzie could hold her own too. She had to be good at her job for Mack to send her out, especially since she was a human.
Sighing, I filled them in, leaving out only the bits about the teeny-tiny little inconvenient broken gate to the underworld. You know, that thing. I wasn’t ready to deal with the shit show that would inevitably arrive when they found out about it. I was going to try to keep it on the DL for as long as possible.
“That sure is complicated,” Kenzie said when I’d finished. “So if this one triplet, Calista, is loose, and the other is in lockup, where’s the third?”
I flicked a nervous glance at Haru and Reo, whose faces were masks that didn’t reveal a single secret.
“I’m not sure where the third one is,” I said, and that was the truth. We had theories, but no way of verifying that the third siren was still trapped in the underworld like legend said.
“Could the third one be working together with this Calista? Is there any chance that we’ll be heading into a trap of some sort?” Jack asked.
“There’s always that chance in our line of work, Jack, you know that. All we know for sure is that Calista is as mean as they get, she has two sisters out there, and she’s far more powerful than any normal siren. And like I said before, we think she’s gotta be working with a witch.”
He nodded. “That’d make sense with the soul and youth stealing. Witches love that shit.”
Was that a dig at my people? Gran would’ve smacked him upside the head for a comment like that.
“Do you have any idea what witch she’s working with?” Kenzie asked, more diplomatically.
“No. But whoever she is, she knows what she’s doing. Calista has tripled in power since Cass and I first captured her and her sister.”
“All right,” Jack said. “So tell us about this gym we’re heading to.”
“Typical gym from what Molly could tell.”
“And Molly is your purple-haired apprentice?” he asked.
“Hm-hmm. Apparently every single one of the vics were members of the same gym, one of those upscale places with a spa and pool and everything.”
“A pool,” Jack repeated. “That doesn’t bode well.”
“No, it doesn’t, especially not since the last time we tried to apprehend her there was a pool there too, and she used the water from it to trap me in a huge water bubble. I couldn’t breathe. It was bad.”
Jack snapped his head to me. “How bad?” His entire posture screamed protectiveness.
“Really bad,” I said. Jack’s eyes grew stormy and I rushed to continue. “She’s able to control the water to a greater degree than other sirens. She can shape and direct it in huge quantities. Keep sharp while we’re out there.”
Jack pointed up ahead. “Is that the place?”
My gaze swept over the sign. “Yep, that’s the one.”
“Damn,” Kenzie said. “It’s ritzy, huh?”
She could say that again. It looked more like a five-star hotel than a gym.
I followed Tianna’s cherry red Mustang into the parking lot of a medical complex, which was right next to the gym, and took the spot next to hers. The second we hopped out of the car, Tianna started flashing orange magical light at us.
“Whoa!” Jack put up his hands. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
