Because then she could cross it with them. Funny, because they seemed to cross so many other lines, and I was shocked she would let it go. Then again, I wasn’t the one who had to have all of this on my shoulders and miles behind on how it all worked.
Not long later and Inez came in with her party, Nora and Matilda hot on her heels and both were fuming. Oh good, they thought this was bullshit as well.
“No more trailers, that’s power you don’t have to spare, given what else is on the agenda, and we can’t risk that was the goal,” Nora declared.
“Open one more of those resorts in Salt Lake,” Matilda agreed. “They’re fixed, but just need to be cleaned and opened up. Nothing more. They weren’t invited and even if they ‘misunderstood’ it was a group gathering, even before it was one, people need to make their own arrangements. So no mints on the pillows, just basics.”
“Fine, yes, fine,” Inez sighed. “I prefer shooting them all, but whatever, we play the game.” She glanced around and found me, worrying her lower lip before making some sort of internal decision. “Get Eddie to help you. He can facilitate a lot. Let me know if there’s anything I need to fix.”
“Eddie?” I checked, thinking I wasn’t getting her message right as I was jumping to conclusions in my frenzied state.
She gave a firm nod, her eyes hard, but dancing with the slightest mischief. “Yes, Eddie. He can give room assignments, and no one would mess with risking his mom’s wrath, even if they’re on bad terms.”
“I’ll see it done,” I quickly said when Nora and Matilda gave us weird looks.
Inez changed the topic and decided a few things before they headed back out.
“Did Inez just tell us to bug the whole hotel and all the guest everything?” Maggie whispered, sounding like she was losing the battle with laughing.
“Yeah, she did so clearly she’s not going to take this lying down. Nice. We gotta find Eddie.”
Because Eddie had the best ears on the ship. That was the “code” for having Eddie handle this. No matter how young, or even us being part feline, that guy could hear anything. It was like his superpower on crack, and it was one of the reasons he’d shot up the ranks, even with his degrees and pedigree, as all kinds of military intelligence sent him recordings to try and pick up what others couldn’t.
And, he’d recently said he missed listening to all the crazy conversations people sent him from wiretaps or bugs. Inez had been fascinated by it and said getting back into that field might be a good idea for him as we weren’t going to be popular.
However, she’d meant the humans in Texas or even Fort Knox, so she’d fixed a lot of equipment he’d found that was top-of-the-line. A lot of bugs too. We teased him that he’d gotten enough to bug a whole major city, but yeah, that was sort of what Fort Knox had become.
Or, bug part of the castle, the trailers, and a whole resort.
We grabbed Eddie, who looked really happy to get out of his current conversation, and brought him to the noble’s tower where he had a room, even if he wasn’t one of Inez’s nobles like lovers. He was on the team and we all knew that.
“Awesome, fuck, that’s awesome,” he agreed, worrying his lower lip. “I need Branko. I think we can take this further.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He ran his hand through his hair and sighed. “You said it earlier that you were safe in the tower because if they go into Inez’s tower, that puts their towers or wings as fair game. However, they just came into her territory and coven without sending word first, which she’s going to shut down in the future, but right now it’s fair game and…”
“You are so much more than a pretty face,” Maggie praised. “Yes, do that. Fuck them. I’ll get Branko. Where are we meeting?”
“I have the equipment in Albuquerque since that’s our staging area, but you need to get to Salt Lake,” he answered.
Things moved fast. Lots of guest vamps who were raiding and staying longer term arrived to help, several taking us to Salt Lake to get things started. The clans there were already doing everything they could to get the resort ready. We grabbed extra linens from the places they already had done, and that got the jump going, doing the laundry there too so we didn’t use all the hot water heaters that were going now.
Eddie arrived and started going over the plan with those in the trusted circle. “I need listening outposts parked all around this hotel. I will link the right bugs to the gear, but we need to separate it out and mark it all as to which princess we’re listening to.” He waited until we nodded, but then paused. “And be careful where you put the bugs. I wouldn’t put it past these people not to steal everything.”
I bit back a snort. More like they thought it owed to them, so it wouldn’t be stealing them. Yeah, that sounded about right.
Still, we were careful. Once an outpost was ready, he linked up the bugs and we plotted out the rooms and who would stay there. Then, we got everything in place, assigned who was handling the listening, and everything else for that group.
And then we did it several more times.
“I also want the younger, small, feline shifters roaming halls and hanging out on trailers,” I ordered. “They will feel shifters all
