They’re getting antsy. Guns are coming out, Sinclair sent. Laura relayed his message to the surrounding agents.
The police officer returned from his car, this time with his partner strolling along the passenger side of the truck. He handed the papers to the driver. “Can you step out of the car, please?”
“Is there something wrong, officer?” the driver asked.
“This is a random roadside sobriety check. It’ll only take a minute.”
Laura tensed as the driver didn’t move. She knew the agents posing as the police officers and knew they were ready for anything. The driver’s door opened. The officer on the opposite of the truck pointed his hand at the cab. “Close your door and stay in the car.”
Laura couldn’t see the other side of the truck, but by the lack of any further talk or action, she assumed the passenger had started to open the door, then complied with the order to close it. The driver stepped out and was put through the standard field tests. He touched his nose without any problem.
“Follow me, sir,” the officer said as he led him to the back of the truck. They moved far enough away that Laura couldn’t hear them. The officer had the driver walk the painted line marking the breakdown lane.
When the driver finished, the officer moved closer to the truck again. “What’s in the back?” he asked.
“Tools,” said the driver.
“Let’s open ’er up,” said the officer.
The driver hesitated. “Can you do that?”
“Do what, sir?”
“Search my truck without a warrant?”
The officer cocked his head. “Who said anything about a search? Are you saying I should get a warrant?”
The driver shrugged. “I’m just asking.”
“So, are you going to open it up?” the officer said.
The driver shook his head. “Not without a warrant, I ain’t.”
The officer grasped the handle. “Well, you go ahead and find yourself a warrant while I take a look inside.”
The driver took a step forward. “Hey!”
Another officer pulled his gun and pointed it at him. “Get back and keep your hands out.”
The driver froze as the first officer turned the handle. Before he had the chance to open the door, someone inside kicked it. Gunfire erupted, and the driver fell to the ground as the two officers dropped back to the sides of the truck. More gunfire sounded from the passenger side.
Two men jumped out of the van, their AK-47s sparking yellow flashes as they fired into the open air. Sinclair appeared behind them, his height making him easy to recognize. While the first two men swept the ground with more gunfire, Sinclair leaned away from the van, firing into the distant empty road. InterSec agents swept out from the tree line, bolts of essence springing like white lightning from their hands.
Laura primed her own essence and ran toward the truck. She fired at the back of the closest man, and he fell over. The second man stepped between her and Sinclair. Sinclair trained his weapon on her.
Head shot, she sent.
Sinclair fired. She reacted to the flash, snapping her head back and throwing her body onto the pavement. As she landed, she rolled to a still position, facing the van. She watched Sinclair grab his companion by the back of his vest and pull him away. As they ran for the tree line, Sinclair fired another barrage as they disappeared into the shadows of the trees, forcing the InterSec agents to back off.
Laura waited until the sound of gunshots moved into the distance. She stood, brushing off debris. Although she had been far enough away from the propellant gases from Sinclair’s blanks, the odor of gunpowder had settled on her. She joined two of her fellow agents by the prone body of the driver. A druid she didn’t know looked up, unimpressed. “The idiots killed one of their own, Tate. It doesn’t look like this bunch is going to be tough to handle.”
Her lip curled down in annoyance as she stared at the body. “What’s the status of the guy in the passenger seat?”
“Dead,” someone called out.
Laura sighed as she crouched by the guy she had shot. He was alive, but unconscious. She wouldn’t know if his brain was scrambled until he woke up. With no ability to shield themselves, humans didn’t take essence shots well.
You doing okay? she sent to Sinclair.
Almost clear. Get the air cover to move west. They’re too close, he replied.
She did as he asked, then watched the essence-fire flashing in the distance shift away. She stood out of the way at the rear of the truck as the team brought lights in closer. The heavy-duty crates inside the truck appeared innocuous. Someone flipped one open. She snorted in mild despair. Rocket launchers. Legacy must have changed or added to the weapon manifest at the last minute because Sinclair had reported the shipment would be guns and ammunition.
From the far side of the van, EMTs pushed a gurney with the sheet-draped body of the front-seat passenger. Another group wheeled up to the driver’s body. Two dead. One foolishly had stood in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the other stupidly had fired a gun that gave licensed law enforcement the right to return fire. She wondered whose lives were being saved by confiscating the weapons. She wondered if two dead—even two of the bad guys—justified their mission. She wondered if their goal would be achieved with blood on their hands. For a moment, she wondered what the goal was but pushed the thought aside. That wasn’t her job.
“I’m heading in,” she said. The nearby agents would handle the cleanup. That was their job. As she approached her car, she noticed a few bullet holes in the front fender. She hadn’t realized she had been close to being shot. She slid back into the driver’s seat and switched the classical music to something heavier—industrial rock filled with crashes and static and angst. It felt more appropriate under the circumstances.
You okay? she sent to Sinclair.
It’s all good, he said. The reply was soft and slow, which meant he was a fair distance away.
See you when you can, she sent. He didn’t respond, probably saving energy. All the sendings he had done tonight were going to give him a headache by morning.
The lights of the checkpoint vanished into the darkness behind her. She let the weight of the evening slip away and released the tension of the operation. Another day, another success. Two dead, but they weren’t her dead, and they weren’t InterSec.
It’s all good, she thought. The thought settled heavily in her mind.
CHAPTER 2
ORRIN AP RHYS stared out the large round office window, his wings undulating in the subtle current from the air-conditioning. The purple- and red-veined wing layers glanced off each other with gentle nudges, faint flickers of white shimmering in the bright light of the office. In the near distance beyond him, the top of the Washington Monument pierced the bright blue sky. The ornate trim around the window framed the view like a photograph. “How can a leanansidhe be in my Guildhouse and I not know about it?”
Laura straightened in her chair at the Guildmaster’s change in conversation. She had been thinking about the dawn mission, mulling whether the deaths could have been prevented. The public-relations implications of Rhys’s latest projects slipped from her thoughts as she remembered the van driver falling from shots fired by his accomplices. The mention of the leanansidhe brought her focus back to the conversation.
She avoided looking at Resha Dunne, who sat beside her in front of the Guildmaster’s long ebony desk. Resha was the Guild board director who represented solitaries, small groups and individual fey—like a leanansidhe—who didn’t fit into the major fey species categories. The leanansidhe survived by absorbing essence from living beings. People died when that happened.