"Oh, right, Boss. In fact, I can take 'em all on myself; you just watch."
'You watch your mouth, girl." But Keller had to fight the grim smile that was tugging at her lips. Winfrith Arlin was Nissa's opposite-a witch and inclined to be emotional. Her odd sense of humor had lightened some black moments.
"Both of you stay alert," Keller said, completely serious now. "You know what's at stake."
"Right, Boss." This time, both voices were subdued.
They did know.
The world.
The girl they were looking for could save the world-or destroy it. Not that she knew that . . . yet Her name was Iliana Harman, and she had grown up as a human child. She didn't realize that she had the blood of witches in her and that she was one of the four Wild Powers destined to fight against the time of darkness that was coming.
She's about to get quite a surprise when we tell her, Keller thought That was assuming that Keller's team got to her before the bad guys did. But they would. They had to. There was a reason they'd been chosen to come here, when every agent of Circle Daybreak inNorth America would have been glad to do this job.
They were the best. It was that simple.
They were an odd team-vampire, witch, and shapeshifter-but they were unbeatable. And Keller was only seventeen, but she already had a reputation for never losing.
And I'm not about to blow that now, she thought. "This is it, kiddies," she said. "No more talking until we ID the girl. Good luck." Their transmissions were scrambled, of course, but there was no point in taking chances. The bad guys were extremely well organized.
Doesn't matter. Well still win, Keller thought, and she paused in her walking long enough really to expand her senses.
It was like stepping into a different world. They were senses that a human couldn't even imagine.
Infrared. She saw body heat. Smell. Humans didn't have any sense of smell, not really. Keller could distinguish Coke from Pepsi from across a room. Touch. As a panther, Keller had exquisitely sensitive hairs all over her body, especially on her face. Even in human form, she could feel things with ten times the intensity of a real human. She could feel her way in total darkness by the air pressure on her skin.
Hearing. She could hear both higher and lower pitches than a human, and she could pinpoint an inpidual cough in a crowd. Sight. She had night vision like-well, like a cat's.