“And?”
“Don’t get killed, I remember. That one’s kind of a given.”
“And yet, Peyton forgets it all the time.”
“I heard that.” His voice inside Shay’s head came to life.
Lily let out a snicker as she moved forward, taking her position a few yards ahead near the tall iron fence. The gray elf’s twitch reflexes were going to come in handy on this mission. Her speed at learning small weaponry had been impressive.
“I made it clear. Audio blackout during this op,” whispered Shay.
“Quit baiting me, then.” The sound of a cat yowling and something falling and hitting the floor could be heard through the earpiece. “Oh shit.”
Shay took out the earpiece and slipped it into a small pocket on her jacket. That was too much of a distraction. She could find out later what broke and take it out of Peyton’s share.
Shadows shifted in the sky above the mansion, accompanied by a distant buzz, proof of at least one security drone. A couple of suited men wandered the perimeter. Shay couldn’t be sure how many more might be inside, but the drone’s thermal scans thirty minutes prior suggested at least two interior guards.
“Pretty arrogant, Colonel Grayson,” Shay muttered. “Your cockiness is going to cost you tonight.”
His company, Grayson PMC Services, might claim they were legitimate military contractors, but they worked more as ruthless mercenaries for criminals. They’d made a lot of enemies. People like Shay.
She lowered her binoculars. Or maybe they hadn’t. Maybe the only person they’d ever pissed off enough to go after them was her.
But that was more than enough.
The tomb raider retrieved a small azure crystal orb out of her pocket. Dark bands swirled slowly on the surface. Using her other hand, she pulled a note out of her pocket and snorted at the awful handwriting. The gnome’s scrawl looked like it had been written by a panicked chicken.
“Come on, Tubal-Cain. Can’t you use some magic to improve your handwriting?”
“Let’s do this,” said Lily, anxious to erase the last mission and the Ice Witch from her memory.
The instructions from the gnome reinforced that the artifact should be simple enough to use. She only needed to wrap her hand around the orb, say the control phrase, and hold it tightly. Once she let go, it’d automatically deactivate.
The gnome had made her practice pronouncing the short phrase for fifteen minutes in his shop. Shay didn’t recognize the language—not that she was an expert on spoken Oriceran languages. The fact that the gnome had refused to clarify what it meant didn’t help.
Probably calling to some dark and ancient Oriceran god for help.
One last comment in the instructions caught her eye.
Magic is alive, unlike human technology. Be careful about misusing the artifact. Everything has consequences.
“Consequences, huh?” Shay whispered. She shook her head and slipped on a ski mask and gloves as Lily did the same, hiding her long gray hair. It was time to execute the plan.
Shay pocketed the artifact and kept moving slowly forward. “Misuse” was a nebulous concept, but the night’s mission wasn’t about theft or murder—or at least that wasn’t the plan.
I’m trying to stop more people from dying. That’s not misuse. Sure, I’m the one who’d be killing them, but I’m going out of my way to try to prevent that. In a sense, I’m saving their lives.
Shay smirked at the thought, but her mirth vanished when she remembered why she was there.
Grayson was sniffing too close to Alison for Shay’s comfort. She might have scared them off for a while by killing their men in Virginia, but a direct message to their leader would ensure the girl would be safe.
The tomb raider clung to the shadows between the sparse street lights. The advantage of her target living on a ritzy street was that the local homeowners valued aesthetics more than brightly-lit streets at night.
“For a mercenary, this guy’s kind of a dumbass about security,” whispered Lily.
“It’s always the low-tech that saves people in the end. Remember that.”
Shay brought up an app on her phone, her finger hovering over a button marked ‘Engage’ as she closed on the fence.
Need to time this just right.
She pressed the button and pocketed her phone…and no dramatic shouts followed. The drones didn’t crash. It had gone just as she’d planned.
Lily gave her a thumbs up and Shay watched as Lily easily clambered over the fence in two moves and onto the other side, barely touching the fence.
Shay was going to need a more conventional method that still got the job done.
Shay charged a corner of the fence under the deep shadows of a tall willow tree, her heart rate kicking up. The next few seconds would determine if she could get inside without having to shoot people. The guards were on the opposite side of the house, giving her a few minutes’ window to gain entry without having to use the artifact.
The tomb raider leapt for the fence, vaulting over and landing with a grin. Four moves, not bad. Even better, no alarms.
Peyton’s security program was working perfectly. He’d gotten the idea from Shay after she’d revealed the Warehouse Three Annex and told him how she’d fooled him by showing him false footage. He’d started working on a program to dynamically spoof a variety of security feeds.
It wasn’t the first time he’d seen or used the technique, but his experience with the Annex had convinced him that the concept was more powerful than he’d believed. The male ego was a powerful motivator.
The program might not be much help in some hidden Templar maze beneath an Aldi supermarket in Munich, but it was more than proving its worth now.
Shay moved away from the gate, as Lily gave the signal that all was clear and Shay gave a return signal. Lily gave a nod and moved to the left under the short canopy of the ornamental trees that bordered the property.
Even though the grounds were dark, like any elf, Lily could see the magical energy that told her someone was magical. Very useful.
Shay darted toward
