Page 96 of Demon's Bluff
“It is. But if we pick up the right glamours and IDs we need at the gate, we can walk in with an escort. It’s the weekend and the labs will be empty.”
She flipped the visor up with a snap. “If you say so.”
Whatever.And still, a thrill trickled through me as I drove the bland black car into the small visitor lot this side of the gate and parked. I wished that Jenks was with me, not some sullen, ego-ridden, deadly skilled coven member.Why am I doing this again?Oh, yeah. If I went home without her, they would assume I’d killed her. But that was just an excuse; getting her home was the right thing to do, even if it made my life impossible. Besides, I was starting to like her.Damn it, Rachel, you have to stop making friends with your adversaries.
Trent’s gatehouse had the feel of a military installation. The expansive building straddling both sides of the wall had a small kitchen, break room, holding cell, and full communication array. There was even a small meetingroom for news releases. There could be as many as six people manning the gate or as few as two. Seeing as Trent was spending the evening off-site, I was betting the latter, and I sat for a moment in my car and watched the man at the desk through the thick green glass. We’d been noticed, but I knew the procedure. With no appointment, we’d have to do a face-to-face with security, which was why I didn’t bother trying to get a car through the gate.
“Ready?” I tugged my glamoured bag onto my lap. “Try to stay out of my way. I don’t want you damaging your synapses before they finish healing.”
“I’m fine,” she grumbled.
“The guardhouse has layers of complexity,” I tried to explain, but she wasn’t listening. “You do the wrong magic, and you trigger them.”
“I am not your apprentice,” she muttered, and my fake smile became stilted.
“You got that right.” I took a deep breath as I got out and squinted at the low sun. Jenks could have put the cameras pointing at us on a loop, done a quick recon as to how many people were inside and who they were, maybe check the logbook for who was expected today—which was probably no one, seeing as Trent was getting married in a few hours. Someone would eventually check the security footage, but for now we were just two women from the I.S. who had been sent out in error.
A smirk found me as I waved to the man watching us.Not.
The whine of a cicada echoed in the rising warmth of the day, but it was the chortling rattle of a crow that drew my eye to the woods that stretched beyond the wall. My suspicion tightened.Elyse’s familiar, Slick?An entire mile of road ran past the gatehouse to get to the compound, but here it was an old, planned forest that had grown up around and through Kalamack Senior’s technological fence—and if I hadn’t ridden through the grounds with Trent, I never would have known it existed. That was kind of the point.
I stifled a jump at the soft thump of Elyse’s door, and I waited for her in front of the car. “That’s not your crow, is it?” I said, and her attention shifted to the woods.
“No. I still say I should be the I.S. runner and you the intern,” she muttered.
“Not happening.” I pushed off the car, heading for the small door and gatehouse lobby. She was way too casual in her I.S. sweats and ever-after-stained shoes, even if everyone else saw gray flats, black slacks, and the blah black summer sweater her doppelganger had been wearing. My image donor had been wearing something similar, and I was hoping that it was close enough to Trent’s security black that we’d blend in.
“No offense, Elyse,” I said as we found the landscaped walkway. “But your entire attitude screams newbie. And as my intern, you should be happy to get the door for me.”
Grimacing, Elyse took a long step to get ahead and yank the thick glass door open. “Thank God that ugly bag of yours glamoured up.”
I tugged my shoulder bag higher, appreciating the two years of wear it lacked. I’d have to take her word that it looked like the leather satchel my doppelganger had been toting. “It’s not ugly, and I need everything in it.” Head high, I walked in as if I owned the place. I didn’t recognize the man at the desk in his security uniform with a spell pistol on his hip. Oddly enough, his very anonymity gave me a feeling of confidence. Quen wouldn’t keep anyone at the front gate after they’d been taken down—and take him down I would, spell pistol or not.
“Good afternoon.” I stifled a shudder as the door snicked shut and the air-conditioning iced through me. “Is Quen Hansen available?” I knew Trent’s number one security would be busy, either finalizing everything at the Basilica or, more likely, doing whatever best men do before the wedding. Dropping his name would give me some cred, though. I had a fake I.S. ID, but the magnetic code was a strip of foil from a heat-and-serve oatmeal box.
The guard glanced at my spelled bag, suspicion showing when I set it on the high counter between us. His name tag saidMadison, and I fidgeted. “No, ma’am,” he said in a slow drawl. “Perhaps I can help you?”
“Denise Monty,” I said cheerfully, using my dad’s first name as my last again. “We got an anonymous tip about a possible break-in during Kalamack’s wedding, and they sent me out here to give you the heads-up.”
Madison glanced at his computer screen. “A call would have sufficed. ID, please?”
“I did call.” I put the flat of my arms on the top of the counter. “That’s why I’m here. I was asked to come out with our information.”
Madison reached for his keyboard. “When was this? Who did you talk to?”
The second man was still nowhere to be seen. It was taking too long. Elyse had begun to fidget, and smiling, I leaned over the high counter as if to try to see his screen. “Stabils, sweetheart,” I whispered.
“Hey!” Madison’s eyes widened as the curse hit him. I felt a tug on the line as he tried to fight it, and then he was falling, his control gone. “Bob!” he shouted, red-faced as he slid to the desk and then the floor. “Hit the alarm! Hit the alarm!”
Crap on toast, here we go!I vaulted over the counter, cursing Al’s desire to hear his victim’s pleas for mercy; it was his spell I was using. I quickly grabbed the spell pistol from Madison’s hip and shot him with it, sure it would be both effective and legal—and, more importantly, not trigger the gatehouse’s more nebulous security measures.
The man’s eyes rolled up as he became unconscious. Sleepy-time potion, but anything more invited lawsuits.
And then my head snapped up at a scuff. A small man stood at the archway leading deeper into the building. “Hi, Bob.”
Teeth clenched, Bob pulled his splat pistol.
“Captus!”Elyse shouted, and I cringed as a building-wide spell invoked with the feeling of spiders crawling through my aura.Twist it back to the Turn, she can do magic?