Tia plopped down into one of the chairs. “Actually, that would be a good idea.”
Giving her friend an incredulous look, Deelah said to Genie, “They want us to be fucking babysitters?”
“It’s better than nothing. Think they’ve already proved they can simply crush us like tiny little insects if they wanted to.”
Making them gasp, Tia threw out her hand, encircling the girls in a ring of fire. “Oh, we could do much worse than that.” Taking both hands, she spread that fire upward until the two were in a cage of flames. Allowing it to smolder for no longer than a minute, she let the flames die down as her point was proven, given the looks of terror on both Deelah and Genie’s sweat drenched faces. “But more to the point is that we won’t. We understand how much Jelissa means to you. Take this offer, and let it be enough. Otherwise, we will not hesitate to lock the two of you up until we get back.”
Acquiescing, Deelah looked up to Tia and asked, “Do we at least get to wear one of the kick-ass leather outfits like all y’all?”
“No!”
19
Battle Plans
Reconvening in the war room, Tia, along with Anya, Elyssia, and the squad leaders went over the blueprint of the building they had someone covertly retrieve from the human realm. Their mates were busy choosing which of the other missing young ones’ family members would actually be helpful in a physical fight. They explained to everyone any magick may be completely useless. While they might be able to use it against who she had working for her, because they knew damn well she wasn’t alone, to use it against Seraphina herself would be the same as signing everyone’s death certificate.
“Hey, Lady Bosses, geek patrol just dropped these boxes off.” Butch, the burliest of the guards, plopped the packages down right on top of the schematics they were in the process of looking at. “What’s all this for anyhow? Y’all heard from Boss Man yet?”
“These little goodies are so we can communicate with each other.” Tia pulled one box closer to herself, took out a barely visible earpiece, and began passing the box around. “These little pieces stick right into our ears, and they’re all connected with each other. And, no, we haven’t talked to our dad. He’s still over there helping his new-found mate get some of her things to ‘make her feel more at home here.’ If we had what’s in those other boxes, maybe we could have. They contain some phones that work between realms. As much as everyone hates the human realm, we need to be able to communicate with one another in times like these whenever someone does travel over there. We’ll deal with handing those out later. That’s the first batch anyway. I want every faction in Underlayes to have one; that should keep the tech mages busy for a while, since their minds running idle is a dangerous thing.”
“Couple of those geeks stayed. I left ’em in the sitting room looking like Harry Potter rejects. What you want me to do with ’em?”
“Nothing. Just leave them there for now and keep an eye on them. They’re coming with us. We’re going to pick up one of the cleanup vans and stick them in it with some of their equipment and see if they can get us some eyes on the inside. Jelissa’s friends will be keeping watch over them.”
“Hey,” Elyssa cut in as she was sticking one of the tiny devices into her own ear, “Can’t you do that dream thing your dad used to do to check on you to speak with Jelissa, and see what they’re doing to her? Get whatever info she might have that could make all this easier?”
Anya rolled her eyes at that. “Don’t you think she tried that? Didn’t work. They’ve got something blocking her. Probably something masking her completely otherwise Dad would have picked up on someone of his bloodline being in that realm, especially given the fact he’s in Detroit too.”
“Yeah, well, that’ll change once we get over there. Once he feels the two of us and Darvyn, he’ll know something’s up.” Tia spoke up so the guard knew what she said next was to them as well. “You don’t have to speak into these earpieces to operate them. Remember, we’re going for stealth for as long as possible, so even whispering would give us away since I’m more than sure it isn’t humans she has working for her. Just direct your thoughts to the device and to whom you want to speak with.”
Just as one of the guards opened his mouth, Anya interjected. “Before you ask, no, do not use telepathy. While some of you have that ability, others don’t, and we want everyone in contact with one another. Not only that, no magick is to be used. We have no way of knowing if and or how she could use it against us. We’re already walking in damn near blind; let’s not also walk in stupid. We aren’t giving that bitch anything she can and will use against us. There wasn’t much magick used to power these things up, and to be safe, the tech mages who powered them are staying on this side.”
“Okay, ghouls and gals, let’s rev up and roll out.”
“Elyssia!” Tia and Anya exclaimed at the same time, looking at their baby sister as though she was out of her damn mind. Then Anya turned to Tia. “I thought you were exaggerating about her obsession with Transformers.” Tia shook her head.
Elyssia laughed at her older sisters. “I have been waiting so long to be able to say that. And the look on y’all’s faces is plain priceless.”
Know how Jelissa had been narrating her own part of this story? Well, due to certain circumstances, she won’t be doing that anymore since she doesn’t remember any of the following events. Did she black out, you ask? Something
