Shay scrubbed a hand over her face. “Look, I might not have exactly trained at Tomb Raider Academy before I did my first job, but I had over a decade of experience with…related skills. This isn’t a job you can take lightly.”
“I know, I know.” Lily groaned and laid back on the cot. “I just figured that between my divination and my reflexes, it’d be easy. Kind of like in Switzerland—just grab and run. That was the plan, anyway.”
“Okay, let’s take a step back. I need to know a few details for context.” Shay took a deep breath. “What did you try to take? What did you tomb raid? And how did it end up involving the triad?”
Lily sat back up. “We hear a lot of things on the street, and I heard that some scumbags had this artifact, some magic incense that makes people happy. They’d looted some old guy’s house after he died. It’s not even supposed to be a big deal, just something worth a couple thousand.”
“Some old guy just happened to have magic happy incense? That sounds mighty convenient.”
“He wasn’t just ‘some old guy.’ He was a big deal in the local Chinese community. A Taoist alchemist.”
“Oh, that makes more sense.”
Lily nodded. “I figured taking an artifact from a thief wouldn’t be a big deal, you know? I didn’t want to get anyone else involved, so I found out where the thief was staying and broke into his hotel room to grab the artifact. But I timed it wrong, and he spotted me. I got away with the incense, but now they are looking for me.”
“Where’s the incense now?”
Lily closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I don’t know. I lost it when I was getting away. It fell, and it wasn’t like I had time to search the area with gangsters looking for me.”
Shay sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. “Look, I’m not gonna lie and say I’ve never grabbed an artifact from someone living, but I usually do it only if I have a good reason. That’s the difference between being a tomb raider and a basic thief. If you steal from dead people, they don’t come after you.” She shrugged. “Well, they don’t come after you as much, anyway, and they tend to be less mobile. But if you go after the living, it guarantees someone’s going to be out there and pissed. They’ll be looking for you, and hoping to put a bullet in you.”
“Yeah, I know. I know. I screwed up. I get that, which is why I’m here.” Lily shrugged.
“That also still doesn’t answer the question of why you thought it’d be smart to take something from someone affiliated with a triad. Risk-reward is another big part of the tomb raider calculations.”
Lily took a deep breath. “I…didn’t check into him enough. I’d heard he was a bad guy and figured I didn’t have a lot of time, so I made the move without getting all the details. After he spotted me and I found out he was with the 25K Group, I came here.”
Shay held up a finger. “You don’t go into the field on a mission without good info. Hell, I demonstrated that shit to you in Switzerland. There’s a lot more to tomb raiding than outrunning someone. Good information can be the difference between a paycheck and being dead.”
Lily averted her eyes and sighed.
Shay shook her head. “Okay. I’m gonna have Peyton do some research on the local 25K Group presence. The good news is that the 25K Group’s got almost no one in Los Angeles right now, from what I know. They’ve been poking around because of the power vacuum left by the disappearance of the Harriken and the Nuevo Gulf Cartel, so we’re talking a small number of triad members in LA. If we get really lucky this wasn’t an official triad job, and they might not have even called it in. That means we’re talking a small number of people we have to deal with.”
“And if they did call it in?”
Shay placed a hand on Lily’s shoulder. “We’ll figure this out, Lily. Sure, you fucked up, but we all have at one point. I’m not gonna let some triad fucks get you. I promise you that, as long as you promise me you won’t try this shit again until I tell you that you’re ready.”
Lily nodded. “I promise.”
The tomb raider nodded. This was half her fault. She’d obviously not done enough to make sure Lily understood the fundamentals and risks of tomb raiding.
I hope this doesn’t end with me having to kill hundreds of triad members. Of course, that might make for a fun date with James.
Shay couldn’t help but snicker.
Chapter Eight
A few hours later, Shay sighed as Lily cartwheeled around the warehouse, occasionally jumping off the wall and tucking into rolls. Sometimes it seemed like the girl had more nervous energy than she knew what to do with. Maybe it had something to do with her ability to see the future and her reflexes.
I don’t think I’d be all that calm if I were getting visions of the future a lot.
Or maybe it was just the way she dealt with effectively being forced into witness protection in the very non-swanky Warehouse Two.
Peyton’s initial dives into the local 25K Group suggested they hadn’t called for any reinforcements from San Francisco. They didn’t even have a great description of Lily other than “an elf girl with gray hair and gray eyes.”
Then again, it wasn’t like Los Angeles was crawling with Gray Elves. A few questions to the right people might point the triad at her friends, and triad gangsters were a whole different level of threat than Demon Generals.
A loud foghorn blasted from Peyton’s computer.
Shay spun toward the office, her hand reflexively going to her gun. She sucked in a breath and dropped her hand before rushing toward the office. Lily somersaulted a few more times before
