“Whatever you want to call it, we can’t leave her with them,” Clarion said. “But Tough, you need to stop and think for a second. You can’t fire a thermo round into a basement and expect anything mortal to survive. The fallen angels will heal. Your girlfriend won’t.”
He was right. I’d be scraping what was left of Desty off the walls. The pit of my stomach ached and the muscles in my arms and legs jittered. I didn’t know what to do. Fuck, I didn’t know what to do.
My fist tightened around the shaft of the TBG. If I wanted to save Desty, I needed Clarion and Lonely on my side. I couldn’t get her out by myself.
Lonely, tell him I saw the sword. Rian has it. I also saw about twenty more vehicles parked out front—two of them helicopters—and a bunch of fallen angels I didn’t recognize. I swallowed. I had to stop there before I lost my shit all over again thinking about those sick assholes laughing and talking while Desty cried.
Lonely relayed everything to Clarion.
The coyote considered it. “He’s gathering the legions.”
What if I went in and got Desty? Grab her and get out, then somebody outside lights up the Dark Mansion with the TBG. The angels might heal, but it’ll take them at least a few minutes to go from meat paste back to—
“They’ll stake you before you get through the door, tarnished one,” Lonely said.
My eyes landed on a box of shotgun shells marked AP-INCEN.
Maybe not. If I can get in, will you guys back me up?
Lonely laid out the gist of what I’d said for Clarion.
“Tough, how can you not see what a terrible idea this is?” Scout asked. “We need to forget about that coward tourist whore and focus on training the humans so we can go after the Sword of Judgment. We can’t risk the last battle on a doomed rescue mission.”
“Too late,” Lonely said, shifting his shoulders like he was shaking out his wings. “They know the tarnished one was there. If they haven’t already sent the Tracker after him, they will.”
“We need to press what’s left of our element of surprise before it’s gone,” Clarion said. “Right now the fallen angels think they’re just dealing with Tough. Even if they know about the humans organizing, they probably assume it’s just a few angry kids. They won’t expect those kids to be armed and accompanied by primals. It’s not a great plan, but if Tough does manage to get in alone, they’ll concentrate on stopping him. They won’t look for anyone else.”
Lonely twisted one of his lip rings with his split tongue. “Tough goes in, then two separate waves of ground troops, one aerial squad, then an exit round to give ourselves time to run.”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” Clarion said, nodding. “Maybe Tough can get the girl out, maybe somebody can get their hands on the sword.”
“Maybes are better than nothing,” Lonely said.
Scout’s fists clenched and unclenched. She took a long breath and let it out before she opened her mouth.
“I won’t force any of my people to go in,” she said. “I’ll ask for volunteers.”
That was as close to an agreement as I would probably get from Scout, but I wasn’t too worried. Thanks to her stupid freedom propaganda, everybody in Scout’s army was a volunteer.
We headed downstairs. Lonely nodded at the crows hanging around his drafting desk. Some had stayed in human form, others were in their true form. They all crawked and flapped and nod-pecked at each other.
Clarion went straight to his packs. Any coyote who wasn’t already on four legs shifted, and crowded in shoulder-to-shoulder around Clarion. There were so many of them that it took almost a whole minute of biting, growling, and moving around for the coyotes to get into an order they could all agree on.
I headed for Dodge and Willow. If anybody would back me up, it would be them. Scout obviously wasn’t in any hurry to give her army the news because she tagged along behind me.
Dodge nodded when he saw me. “What’s up?”
I gestured at Scout so she would tell him. She cocked her body like she was about to throw some stupid teenager fit, then said, “He wants to attack the Dark Mansion tonight.”
“Tonight?” Dodge asked. “I thought we were going to have some time to train first.”
“That tourist girl,” Scout said. “Kathan’s familiar’s sister—”
“Desty,” Willow said.
Scout kept on talking like she hadn’t heard. “Tough thinks Kathan’s hurting her and he wants us all to go running in to save her, even though she chose her side and it damn sure wasn’t with us.”
“If Kathan’s hurting her, then Tough’s right,” Will said. “We’ve got to do something. What’s the plan?”
“No offense,” Scout said in that voice that means all the offense, “But do you even know which way to point a gun?”
Willow smiled. She reached behind her back, lifted up the hem of her baby-t and pulled out a big honking .45 with mother-of-pearl grips and a laser sight. She popped the mag, stuck it in her pocket, pulled back the slide, ejected the round from the chamber, and caught the thing midair.
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Will said.
Scout’s jaw hit the floor, but she covered that up fast with a scowl. That might’ve been the first time I’d felt like smiling for real over the last few days.
“Where’d you get that?” someone behind me asked. I looked over my shoulder. It was Drake.
And almost every other human in the building.
“It used to be my dad’s.” Will’s ears went red, but she didn’t quit grinning. “One of the foot soldiers snuck up on me and Owen when we were practicing with it
