“And the big dogs are taking on some serious shit.” Rhynehart licked his lips and finally met the blue troll’s gaze. “All right. If we’re planning and you already have all this, any suggestions for where to start?”
Persh’al grinned. “Tons. You have no idea.”
“Then let’s hear it.”
The troll interlaced his fingers and stretched them out, cracking all his knuckles at once. “We’ll start with putting some of your guys on the inside. I’d go with the ogre and Eyepatch over there. They look like they don’t put up with bullshit.”
Bhandi turned toward them from the other side of the warehouse and raised an eyebrow. “And we do?”
“More than them? Yeah.”
Payton turned her good eye on the blue troll and sneered. “The name’s Payton, dickwad.”
Persh’al raised both hands. “Okay.”
“You want to give them shifts at security, or what?” Rhynehart asked.
“Fuck security. I can take care of that, no problem. What we need is someone right here. I can reprogram your access cards, which you won’t have a problem handing over, right?”
The agent blinked. “Sure.”
“Cool. That’ll get you as far as this last checkpoint right here, right in front of what I call The Hatch.”
“Huh. We call it the dunk tank.”
Persh’al snorted. “Leave it to the FRoE to bring a carnival vibe into a max-security magical prison.”
“Naw, I think you guys do a pretty good job of that yourself.”
They stared at each other, and Rhynehart finally smiled.
“Whatever, man. We put the ogre and Payton right here, ‘cause this door can only be opened from the inside. Locking mechanism’s not in the system. It’s manual.”
“Sure.” Rhynehart studied the schematics of Chateau D’rahl and picked at his lower lip. “Then what?”
As they went over the plans, Cheyenne stepped back, pulled out one of the folding metal chairs from beneath the table, and sat. Look at everybody, playing nice.
“I swear to the fucking deathflame, asshole,” Lumil shouted, “if you don’t shut the hell up and let me finish my story, I’ll have one of these nightstalkers port you into our fucking dungeons. Capeesh?”
Corian pulled up a chair beside Maleshi and sat, shaking his head.
Laughing, Tate stepped away from the goblin and raised both hands. “You drive a hard bargain, greenskin.”
“And you look like you let a fell-damn Asher draw those tattoos all over you in Sharpie. Shut the hell up.”
The tattooed troll frowned. “What’s an Asher?”
Byrd snickered and lifted both hands, tossing his fingers out to mime an explosion. “They scatter. A lot.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Maybe you’ll find out if you quit wasting my time asking stupid fucking questions.”
Cheyenne folded her arms in the chair. Okay. Almost playing nice. That’s close enough.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
After Rhynehart and Persh’al had finished hashing out their plan for breaking into Chateau D’rahl to break Venga out, the FRoE agent’s temporary ease around the illegally crossed magicals—as far as the FRoE was concerned—faded. He grimaced at the computer and stepped away. “All right. I need a day.”
“What the hell for?” Persh’al asked with a chuckle.
“To get everything together. My agents need the right kind of gear to make this possible. I need to get you access badges. Can’t believe I said that. And if I find any kinks, we have a day to work them out.”
“Fair enough.”
“Dude, this is insane.” Bhandi snorted a laugh and thumped Tate on the shoulder. “You ever think this was in your future when you signed up for this shit?”
“Not part of the job description.” The tattooed troll shrugged. “So no. Not really.”
“I fucking love it!”
“So, who’s getting us out of here?” Rhynehart asked.
Maleshi stood from her chair and quickly opened a portal onto the gravel drive in front of the Summerlin estate. “Your chariot awaits, assholes.”
“You.” Yurik pointed at her, then dropped his hand when she raised an eyebrow. “You’re funny.”
Maleshi followed him with glowing silver eyes and a predatory smile. “Okay.”
“So, we walk through this thing again?” Bhandi pointed at the portal. “Man, somebody’s gotta show us how to do this on our own. That’d make ops a hell of a lot easier.”
Byrd and Lumil cracked up, practically falling over each other, then shoving apart again.
Bhandi gave them a clearly unamused grimace of a smile. “Yeah, these guys? Not so funny.”
“Good fucking luck with that!” Lumil howled. “You hear that, Corian? The FRoE could use some fell-damn portals!”
“About fucking time!” Byrd staggered backward and nearly fell over, he was laughing so hard.
“Psychos.” Yurik shook his head. “Every last one of you.”
L’zar opened the door to his private office-turned-bedroom in the back of the warehouse. “Oh, I wouldn’t go that far.”
The FRoE agents spun to look at him. The mad-drow grin spreading across his face made Tate take a step back toward the portal. Jamal grunted.
“I suppose there are various levels of psychosis,” L’zar said. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
Bhandi scoffed and turned to Rhynehart. “This asshole’s not coming with us, is he?”
“Unfortunately, yeah.”
“Fuck.”
“Hurry along now,” L’zar crooned. “Go prepare.”
Rhynehart flipped the drow thief the middle finger before stalking through the portal. His five agents followed closely behind.
“See ya on the other side, Goth drow,” Bhandi called, tossing a hand in the air.
“Yep.” Cheyenne stuck her hands in her pockets and nodded back.
Maleshi’s portal remained open long enough for everyone to watch the FRoE agents pile into the last SUV in front of the house before Yurik drove them slowly out of view. Then the portal closed with a soft pop, and the general raised an eyebrow at Cheyenne. “Goth drow, huh?”
“I guess it has a ring to it, yeah.” The halfling shrugged. “Hey, if it makes them feel more comfortable about this whole situation, why not?”
“Their comfort isn’t our priority,” Corian snarled.
“Yeah, but it makes all this a hell of a lot easier.” Cheyenne glanced from the nightstalkers to L’zar. “So, what now?”
“Now we wait.” Corian eyed L’zar as the drow thief spun slowly and headed into his box of a room. The door clicked shut behind him. “We’re leaving a lot to chance by putting the next move
