“Jessica,” Jace said quietly.
I took my eyes off the road for a second so I could look at him. Even in the moonlight he looked pale, and his fingers were grasping the door handle. “What is it?”
“We’ve passed the barrier.”
Shit. I put my foot on the brake, but gradually, so I wouldn’t have to worry about the rest of the vehicles in the caravan piling up on us. “How far back?”
“Just a hundred feet or so.”
If he was feeling it, then so must the rest of the djinn. I wouldn’t have to worry about anyone asking why I was turning the truck around and backtracking down the road. I drove slowly, glancing at Jace from time to time, and after less than a minute, he winced and raised a hand.
“Here.”
I pulled off the asphalt and into the shelter provided by a group of juniper trees, bent and gnarled by the wind. One by one, the other vehicles did the same, finding their own cover. It wasn’t perfect, but you’d have to be looking pretty hard to find us.
And if we were really lucky, no one would even know we were there.
Everyone got out of their respective trucks and SUVs. One of the vehicles we’d brought with us was a bright yellow Jeep Wrangler — not exactly the same as the Hummer the Los Alamos people used, but at night, if someone wasn’t paying close attention, it might pass. We didn’t have that much of a choice, since Jace insisted on coming along, and I knew there was no way he could hike a mile-plus uphill while under the influence of the devices operating here in town. No, we’d drive in as close as we could, then ditch the Jeep once we got close to the main part of the campus.
Assuming, of course, that Odekirk kept his own personal laboratory there, and not out in one of these far-flung buildings, far from any prying eyes.
Everyone gathered close by, some of the Chosen shivering in the brisk wind that was blowing down out of the north. The djinn seemed remarkably recovered, now that they were away from any of the boxes. They stood tall and strong, apparently not bothered at all by the twenty-degree temperatures. Well, good. Jace had been right when he’d said they’d bounce back quickly, since they hadn’t been influenced by the devices for nearly as long as he had.
“Okay,” I said. “You all lie low as best you can. If someone comes along…well, take care of them if you must, but be quiet about it. This is all about not attracting attention, so if someone passes by and doesn’t notice you, let them go. The last thing we want is a guard not checking in and then the alarm being raised unless there’s absolutely nothing else you can do.”
I could tell that wasn’t a very popular statement. Despite their apparent agreement back in Taos that this trip was not about revenge, I could tell that some of the djinn — and their Chosen — were just itching to take a piece out of the Los Alamos group. But we had to do everything we could to avoid notice. If someone drove by but didn’t see the vehicles more or less hidden here in this forsaken little thicket, then our people would have to let them go.
So I stood there, arms crossed, staring at them all with what I hoped was a close approximation of the flat, dark-eyed stare my father used to level at the low-lifes he dealt with as a cop, and eventually they all looked away. Zahrias had put me in charge, and it seemed the djinn and their partners were willing to follow my lead.
For now, anyway.
Dani stepped forward, Evony a few feet behind him. The last person in the strike team was a young man named Ethan, and he slipped into place behind Evony. He’d worked as a bodyguard in the time before, and had the muscles to prove it. Maybe it would have made more sense to have them ride with us all along, but I got the distinct impression that Evony hadn’t wanted to spend any more time in my company than was strictly necessary, which was why they’d driven in the SUV directly behind us on the way here. Now, though, there were no alternatives. It would be the five of us in that Jeep. I had to hope that was enough.
“Ready?” I asked, more a formality than anything else. They really didn’t have the option to back out this late in the game.
And they didn’t. Both Evony and Dani nodded, then followed Jace and me over to the Jeep. Standing by it were a djinn woman I didn’t know and a man who appeared to be pushing the limit of what the djinn deemed acceptable as a partner — I couldn’t guess his exact age, but he didn’t appear to be in the twenty-five-and-under crowd. Even in the moonlight, there were visible laugh lines around his eyes, but he was still movie-star handsome despite that, with black hair and a good, strong nose.
The unknown man handed me the keys. “Take good care of her. She got me all the way from Roswell to Taos.”
“I will,” I promised, and I meant it. He seemed attached to the Jeep, and I couldn’t really blame him. I was still mourning the loss of my father’s Cherokee. The only thing that reassured me at all was that the Los Alamos people were too respectful of good wheels to have done anything terrible to it. Most likely they’d turned it over to someone else in the community for their private use.
I turned toward Jace and Dani and Evony and Ethan, all of whom waited a few feet away, watching me expectantly. “Let’s go.”
None of them protested…not that I’d expected them to. I got in the driver’s seat, Jace beside me, and Evony and Dani and Ethan climbed into the rear. The controls were laid out a little differently than in the Cherokee I was used to, but not so much that I thought I’d have any trouble piloting the unfamiliar vehicle.
We all buckled ourselves in, and I raised a hand toward the assembled group as we pulled away. That was more bravado than anything else; I was scared shitless. Scared that we’d be caught. Scared that I might actually have to use the Beretta 9mm strapped to my hip. And, most of all, scared that I wouldn’t be able to track down Miles Odekirk and would end up driving around in circles before returning to the waiting group of djinn and Chosen with my tail between my legs.
Jace shifted in his seat so he was more or less facing me. “You have a plan?”
I knew that he spoke aloud so Dani and Evony and Ethan wouldn’t feel left out. “Sort of. While it’s possible that Odekirk’s lab is in one of these outbuildings, I think it makes more sense that he’d be somewhere toward the center of the facility. Every other place we met up was near there, not out here in the middle of nowhere. Say what you want about the guy, but he was efficient. He didn’t seem like the type to be driving half a mile just to go from one lab to another.”
“That does make sense,” Dani agreed. He was sitting on the edge of his seat, apparently ignoring the safety belt. Even though we were now back in the zone of influence of Miles’s devices, Dani didn’t seem particularly affected. I remembered then how he’d volunteered to be one of Lindsay’s “guinea pigs” during her tests with our own stolen box. It seemed plausible enough to me that he’d built up his own tolerance, even if it wasn’t quite as strong as Jace’s. “Which building do you think he’ll most likely be in?”
I bit my lip. Definitely not the warehouse where Jace and Natila had been waterboarded, and where Natila had met her death. Neither did I think it was the building where the two djinn had been held captive for a brief period. No, my gut was telling me that Miles Odekirk had set up his private lab in the same place where we’d first met, where he’d drilled me about my presence in Los Alamos, attempting to discover whether I’d had an ulterior motive. Of course I did, although he hadn’t found that out for several more weeks. Still, I thought that, busy as he was, he wouldn’t have wanted to waste any more time on me than was strictly necessary, and so he’d interrogated me in the same building as the one where he did all his work.
All right, maybe that was stretching things a bit. But I didn’t have any real leads to go on, and, more importantly, I did remember where that building was located, since I’d driven there myself, albeit accompanied by one of Captain Margolis’ goons. It seemed the best place to start, and, if we were lucky, anyone hanging around the labs would think, in the moonlit darkness, that the yellow SUV going by was just the Hummer.
Well, unless we were spotted by the people driving the actual Hummer.
Coming in from this angle felt strange. I certainly couldn’t claim to know the lab campus all that well, but I did recall how the building where Miles Odekirk had first interrogated me was built in the shape of an “X,” and was four stories high. There couldn’t be that many structures here with that exact same height and layout, could there?
The answer turned out to be “no.” We followed the service road, and after about a half-mile of twists and turns, I saw it, shining there in the moonlight. Even though it was more than three stories tall, the building still looked squat and brooding. Or maybe that was just my mind embellishing what might be going on inside it.
Well, at this hour, I wasn’t sure if that would be much of anything, especially now that the resident mad scientist didn’t have any djinn to experiment on. I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Eight forty-five, if the readout was to be trusted. Far past normal working hours, but I had a feeling that Miles Odekirk didn’t put in what you’d call your standard nine-to-five.
At least there was no one around that I could see. I drove slowly, circling the parking lot, and spotted a lone vehicle, the same Subaru Forester that I’d seen when I came here the first time. That must be Odekirk’s car, although I’d never actually seen him driving it. But that was the only vehicle in the lot, and I let out the smallest breath of relief. It didn’t seem as if anyone else was around. Possibly a patrol did pass this way every once in awhile. For now, though, the lot was deserted, except for the Forester.
“That’s Odekirk’s car,” Evony said then. “That piece of shit Subaru.”
“How do you know for sure?” I replied, irritated that she hadn’t mentioned it before now.
“He brought his car in once to get the brake pads changed.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
A shrug. “You didn’t ask.”
If she was deliberately trying to piss me off, she was doing a good job. I told myself to let it go, then pulled up next to the building, in the shadows cast by the intersecting wing. If someone got close enough, of course they would see the Jeep, but it wouldn’t be immediately obvious to the casual driver making a loop on the service road.
“Okay,” I said quietly, although I doubted there was much chance of anyone overhearing me. “When Odekirk interrogated me — ”
“He questioned you?” Jace cut in, sounding strained.
That particular convo was something I’d never discussed with him, mostly because I hadn’t thought it all that worthy of mention. As far as I could tell, nothing much had come of it. “Sort of. It really wasn’t a big deal. He asked me some questions, but it didn’t get nasty, if that’s what you’re wondering about.”
“It had better not,” Jace responded, a hint of a growl in his tone.
“It didn’t,” I repeated. I was all for giving the devil his due, but I’d survived that interview unscathed, and I wanted Jace to know that. My reply seemed to be enough to satisfy him, because he nodded. Something about the tight set of his mouth didn’t bode well for Dr. Odekirk, though, if he put up too much resistance.
“And you can take it up with him later,” Evony remarked, her tone dry. Leather creaked as she moved in her seat. “Right now, the most important thing is locating the asshole, right?”
“Right,” Jace said.
“Anyway,” I went on, “when Odekirk interrogated me, it was in this wing of the building.” I pointed through the windshield, in case anyone had any problems identifying which wing I was talking about. “That was just a standard conference room, but I figure it’s probably the best place to start.”
“You really think he’d be here at this time of night, and not at home?” Ethan asked.
“Hard to say,” I admitted. “But I did get the impression that he was the sort of person who lived for his work, if you know what I mean.”
“He has — or had — a house closer to the center of town,” Evony added. “But he didn’t spend much time there.”
I swiveled my head to stare at her in the back seat. “Where’d you hear that?”
“From Shawn, when I was working in the motor pool.”
My irritation flared higher. Part of me wanted to snap at her for withholding what could be vital information, but we really didn’t have time for that. “Fine. So I’m guessing we have a better-than-average chance that he might be working in this building somewhere. Or I could be be completely off-base, and he could have his actual labs somewhere back down the side of the hill. But we’re here now, so we might as well investigate. We’ll just start with the most likely scenario and work outward from there.”
“Got it,” said Ethan, opening the rear door so he could extricate his oversized frame from the back seat. I couldn’t really blame him; it had to have been pretty cramped with the three of them back there.
Evony and Dani followed suit, so I got out as well, Jace only a second or two behind me. The wind caught me as soon as I exited the vehicle. Down in that sheltered copse where the rest of the Chosen and djinn waited for us, the night hadn’t felt so cold, but up here the wind had a definite bite, even if it wasn’t quite as cold as the night I’d approached this building to rescue Jace.
What a boondoggle that had been. I had to hope that history wouldn’t repeat itself tonight.
The first time I’d come here, the exterior door had been unlocked. But that had been in full daylight. I couldn’t expect the same thing now.
Even so, I experienced a stab of disappointment as Ethan put his hand on the door handle and attempted to push it. “Locked,” he said briefly.
A mile down the hill, that wouldn’t have been a problem, as either Jace or Dani could have made short work of that lock. Here, though, they were mostly around to lend moral support. Or rather, Jace refused to leave my side, and Dani had been expressly tasked by Lauren to watch out for Evony…so here we were.
But there was Ethan.
Without hesitating, he pulled a pistol from where he had it jammed into the waistband of his pants, then shot at the door handle. It fell onto the ground, leaving a smoking hole behind.
“Someone could have heard that,” Evony said severely.
Ethan only shrugged. “Did you have a better idea?”
Of course she didn’t, so she settled for sending him a scathing look before pushing the door inward. With her free hand, she pulled out her own pistol. “Let’s go,” she said in a whispered hiss.
I thought the whisper was sort of unnecessary, considering that Ethan had already shot up the door. But we did need to get moving. I left my pistol in its holster, since I figured Evony and Ethan were doing a decent enough job of providing armed cover. Anyway, while there were guards stationed at this facility, there had never seemed to be more than a few at any given time, except when I’d been caught trying to break Jace out of here.
The place definitely seemed deserted enough tonight. You’d have thought that gunshot would have been enough to bring people running, but we didn’t see anyone else as we moved down the corridor, working in tandem to open the doors and make sure that Miles Odekirk wasn’t hiding in any of the chambers we passed. Just our good luck that this building didn’t have the keypad locks that had been installed in the one where Jace was held captive. That would have stopped us in our tracks. All these doors had regular locks, though, and all of them stood open — mostly because they didn’t seem to be hiding anything more sinister than abandoned offices and a couple of storage rooms filled with obsolete computers and banged-up furniture.
Nothing on the ground floor, though, after we’d finished our search, so we located the stairwell and headed upstairs. Our footsteps clanged on the metal stairs, and I winced. Maybe no one was around, but I still couldn’t help thinking that we were making ourselves awfully conspicuous. But what did I expect? We were a bunch of civilians…even our djinn. It wasn’t as if we were all trained Navy SEALs or something.
“Where d
o you think all the guards are?” I whispered to Jace.
He lifted his shoulders. I didn’t like the tight set of his mouth, which told me he was using sheer will to keep going, despite the draining effect of the devices protecting Los Alamos. Not for the first time, I wished I could have come up with some argument that would have convinced him to stay in Taos, but he wouldn’t have heard of it. After our nearly month-long separation, he wasn’t about to let me out of his sight.
However, his voice sounded smooth and controlled enough as he replied, “I don’t know where they might be. It’s possible that once they had no more djinn to guard, they saw no need for regular patrols here. After all, what would they be looking for? Our only desire was to escape, to get back safely to Taos.”
That made some sense — if you were dealing with a rational person. But Richard Margolis was far from rational when it came to djinn. He wouldn’t see our escape for what it was: a flight to freedom. No, he’d suspect us of leaving so we could regroup, and then come back and mount another assault.
Which, come to think of it, was pretty much exactly what we were doing.
I shook my head. “I think it’s probably more likely that he just doesn’t have enough people to get any kind of decent coverage when it comes to guard duty. Which is still a good thing, don’t get me wrong. It’s only — ”
My words broke off there, as Ethan opened the door that led into the main corridor of the second floor, and I saw exactly where those missing guards were.
Right in front of us.
I froze, and so did Evony. But Ethan had some kind of experience with this sort of thing — what, I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know — and had his pistol out and was firing before the two guys with the bad luck to draw guard duty this evening had a chance to even pull out their own guns. They dropped, silent and unmoving, and I found myself raising my hand to my mouth to prevent myself from making anything except a muffled whimper.
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