Page 47 of Mending Mayhem
He started to respond, so I held up a hand to stop him. Miraculously, he obeyed, though I didn’t miss his smirk.
“B: Even if they are all human, I can’t stop a bullet, and if I die, you get vanquished. You have to remember that.”
He lifted one shoulder dismissively. “I would never let that happen.”
“C and D: I’m not your fire witch, and however we decide to handle this, we will be working as a team. We are a team. No more solo side quests.”
Ash nodded her appreciation.
“And F?—”
“You’re on E,” Shade, ever the helpful one, chimed in.
“E is for everyone. F: There won’t be anything simple about this. In addition to the armed guards, the building will have cameras and an alarm system to notify the police if anything goes awry. As much as Higgins is a thorn in my side, he protects us from the law here. He can’t do that there.”
“So we’re screwed.” Shade lifted his hands and dropped them in his lap.
Ash took the bowl to the sink and dumped the water. “Not necessarily. We could find out when the auction is and go there to bid on it.”
“That’s a possibility.” I paced the length of the living room. “Miles, do you know the name of the auction house? Can you look it up?”
“Yeah.” He swallowed hard, sadness tightening his eyes. “Ginger and I spent a weekend in a hotel nearby. We’d hoped to sit in on an auction, but nothing was planned for when we were there.”
Shade’s brow crumpled. “I’m sorry.”
Mile’s face twitched before his expression turned neutral. “It’s alright. Let me grab my laptop. Can I use your wifi?”
“Of course.”
He rose from the table and took his computer to the living room, setting it on the coffee table before sinking onto the sofa. I recited the password, and after he connected, he pulled up the auction house website.
“I’ll have to make an account to see the items up for bid.” His fingers flew across the keys.
I sat next to him. “Use a fake name. We don’t need anything traced back to us if we have to steal it.”
He gave me the side eye. “I work in IT.”
“Right.” I raised my hands in surrender and let him do his thing.
Mayhem sat in the chair adjacent to my spot on the couch. I could feel his gaze on my face as Miles created a fake account for Boyd Anderson from Houston, Texas. He even used “BigOil” as the email address.
I laughed. “Why do I get the feeling you’ve done this before?”
Miles cleared his throat. “I’m in.”
“You claim to be light witches, yet you are firmly grounded in the gray.” Mayhem still watched me.
“It’s okay when it’s for the greater good.” I didn’t dare look at him, lest he derail my thoughts all over again.
“The auction is scheduled for tomorrow evening. In person only.” Miles clicked the event and opened the page of items that would be up for grabs.
“How long is the drive to New York?” I asked.
Ash typed on her phone. “About four and a half hours without traffic.”
“We can manage that.” I watched as he scrolled through the items, many of them artifacts we’d seen when we scried. He found the amulet in the list between an eighteenth-century vampire-hunting kit and a gem-encrusted swan figurine and clicked the entry.
“‘A genuine nineteen-carat Burma ruby attached to a twenty-inch gold chain of twenty-four karats. Circa 100AD.’ I wonder where they got that information?” I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees.