Chapter 20
“Whatthe fuckwent wrong?” Kynan’s rage was palpable, a furious vibration that lashed at Scotty’s skin.
“It was dark—”
“The vampires took us by surprise—”
“There were traps—”
“Bullshit!”Kynan’s bellow no doubt tested the upper limits of his soundproofed office walls. “It’s always dark, there are always traps, and you never get taken by surprise!”
“Except Mace, just the other day.” Scotty’s attempt to lighten the mood failed miserably, and she withered under Kynan’s scorching glare. She didn’t think she’d ever seen Kynan this angry.
Mace swallowed and became fascinated by one of his ancestor’s symbols on his right hand. Blade stared at the bookcase next to him, but he wasn’t fooling anyone. There was no way he was interested in Orwell, Hemingway, or any of the world history titles.
“So,” Kynan said, punching his fists into the desk and leaning into them, “what the fuck went wrong? How did half a dozen Nosferatu escape with a powerful crystal, and three humans nearly die?”
Very slowly, Blade looked over at him. “I failed to identify myself to the captives, and one screamed. It woke the vamps.”
“Everything happened really fast after that,” Scotty said. “It was a huge cluster. We were separated and couldn’t get together right away.”
“Why were you separated? You’re neverseparated.”
Scotty squirmed. They were separated because Blade and Mace couldn’t stand the sight of each other anymore. No biggie.
“Dare and I agreed that we needed to find the captives quickly and that splitting up was the best option,” Blade explained.
“Yeah, well, Dare thinks you’re all a bunch of squabbling amateurs. Real impressive.” Ky looked between Mace and Scotty. “And what were you doing while Blade was traipsing off on his own? Did you try to stop him?”
“Yeah,” Mace said, and Blade swore.
“You fucking told me to go.”
Mace shot Blade a look of disbelief. “I wasn’t fucking serious.”
“Then don’t say it,” Blade shot back. “And it turned out I was right. I found the humans.” The neener-neener undertone in Blade’s voice made Mace sneer.
Kynan’s denim eyes narrowed, and he straightened, watching them speculatively. The man didn’t miss much. “What’s going on between you guys?”
“Nothing we can’t handle,” Blade said. This time, Kynan swore.
“If you could handle it, we wouldn’t be in this situation, would we?” He shook his head. “Is it safe to say that whatever personal issues you have with each other are responsible for this fucktastrophy?”
Yes.
“Sir,” Scotty said, “this was a tough mission. It wouldn’t have been a breeze even if everything had gone perfectly.”
“That’s fair,” Kynan said, his voice leveling out a little. “But the fact is, people got hurt. We’re already under the WCSG’s microscope, and we can’t afford for our finest elite team to go off the rails, especially when innocent human lives are at stake.”
No, the World Council on Supernatural Governance wouldn’t give DART the benefit of any doubt, not after the incident a couple of months ago that had ended in several dead DART and Aegis personnel. DART’s funding was at stake, and Kynan was having to put out a lot of fires as even minor issues were now coming under extreme scrutiny.
“You guys need to get your shit together,” he continued. “And you need to do it now.” He paced behind the desk for a moment and then turned back to them. “I’m giving you a new assignment.”
They all looked at each other, confused, but at least they were on the same page. They’d just gotten an ass-chewing and were getting rewarded with a new case? Made no sense.
“Starting immediately after this meeting, and then every day for thenext two weeks, you are to report to Ares. You’re going to train on his island from six a.m. to eight p.m. It’ll be like the boot camp you never had and never wanted.”
Okay, now it made sense. The worst kind of sense.
