“Hell yeah.”
His delight at mayhem and destruction was a bit unsettling, but I nodded anyway. “Whatever. After I reach the second floor, count to ten, then fire. If you can find openings, start left to right. I’ll enter the far right room. Oh. There’s a headset in the SUV too.”
“Copy. Hey, cute dragon, Puff.” With an expression of wicked delight, Derek merged into the shadows toward Eli’s SUV. Guys and stuff that goes bang I’d never understand, but the reason for that might be as much physiological as anything else. I was also gonna be stuck with a new name. Puff the Magic Dragon, courtesy of the T-shirt. Great. Just freaking great. But not my biggest problem.
As plans went, mine wasn’t much of one. Mostly it was distract, make a lotta noise, some bright lights. Evan and Molly outside, one in front, one in back, with their magical woo-woo stuff. Bruiser and me inside, with Leo close behind.
And then I heard the muffled scream. I caught a whiff of something. I was smelling blood on the night wind. I opened my mouth and drew air in over tongue and the roof of my mouth. Eli’s blood. I could hear his pained breath, and soft, female laughter. Eli was hurt. Eli was dying. Someone was torturing him. And that someone was enjoying the process.
CHAPTER 23
Hey, Bitch! You Want Some of This?
“Come on, Derek,” I said, hearing Eli’s ragged breath on the night air. Derek had used some of Eli’s fancy equipment to tell me that the Ranger was in a second-floor room, with a human and a vamp. Even without electronics, I knew which window the sounds were coming through. I could smell the blood and hear the pained breath of my partner. I could tell he was gagged. I could smell his pain and fear. “Come on, damn it!” I snarled.
Over the headgear, which the Kid had routed into all of our cells, I heard the others checking in. Big Evan was ready. The girls in the tree were ready. Molly and her niece were ready. Only Derek was left.
“In position,” Derek said over my earpiece. “But you’ll have to open the shutters or doors. I’ve been all around the site and there is no, repeat, no, access on ground floor without use of explosive ordnance.”
“No bombs. No explosives,” I said.
“Copy. But you ain’t no fun, Legs.”
I knew he was trying to lighten the tension, maybe as part of some battlefield routine, and for the sake of my team, I forced a tight smile onto my face and countered his gibe. “Not the first time I’ve been told that.”
“We can talk about your love life later. Focus, woman. We got a man to rescue.”
I smiled for real then, stretching my arm. It was not a hundred percent. But at least I still had an arm. There was that. “On ten, Evan. Count down.”
Evan, his voice tight, started counting up from one. Irritating man.
Casually, Bruiser said, “I can toss you up.”
I measured the distance from ground to second floor. I thought about having to use my strong arm to catch myself if I jumped, which would mean holding my weapons with my injured arm. “You think you can toss me up so I can just step onto the railing and drop to the porch floor?”
“Piece a cake, doll face.” Which sounded like something out of the ’twenties or ’thirties. The nineteen twenties or thirties.
“Ten,” Evan said.
“Gogogogogogo,” I said.
Big Evan began to play a haunting melody, the flute notes low and sonorous. Air magic flowed toward the house from the golf course. Molly’s dark magic began to flow through the air from the second floor’s unfinished porch across the street from our objective. Leo, though he practically flew ahead of us, moved at a speed that humans—and witches with spells aimed against vamps—could follow. He stopped in the middle of the yard, his body going from a slow vamp-jog to a dead stop. He drew his long sword, propped it over his shoulder, and grinned at me. His fangs were down. Leo was having fun. The smell of blood and fear on the air was probably making him happy.
Our boots nearly silent on the fresh-cut grass, Bruiser raced in front of me. Dropped to one knee, his hands up high to grab mine. I raced up his body, my feet landing on knee, hip, and his shoulder, my body bent, taking his hands as he leaped to his feet. I leaped with him.