swore again as the wind swirled around me, freezing my skin and buffeting my body. The windowsills in this old building might have been deeper than usual, but that didn't mean they were any less precarious. I teetered for several seconds, trying to gain balance. Trying to ignore the old fears that rose in a rush every time I looked at the drop below me. Such fears were totally ridiculous, because my seagull shape now meant drops of any length no longer had the power to hurt me, but I guess some fears were just too ingrained to be easily erased.
I checked the window for wires and sensors, but couldn't see any, so I dug my fingernails under the sill and lifted it upward. Cass had been right about the locks - this one basically fell apart as the window slid open. I slipped inside, dropping to the floor softly, my senses alert for anything and anyone.
The first thing I spotted was the camera in the far corner, but it was pointed at the other wall and wasn't moving. Temporarily cutting the power had worked - at least in this case. I just had to hope they didn't have backups on the other systems.
The air was stale and smelled faintly of urine - but whether it was human or animal in origin, I couldn't say. Although the little pellets littering the floor suggested at least one possum had taken up residence. I wondered how they'd gotten in without triggering the security system. Obviously, the little buggers were smarter than me. The room itself held little else but empty shelving units that were thick with dust and webs. I shut the window -
just in case the power came back on at the wrong time - then padded forward, avoiding loose-looking floorboards and possum poop as much as possible.
Once at the door, I wrapped my fingers around the handle but didn't immediately open it. Instead, I switched my vision to infrared. A quick sweep of the rooms beyond the door revealed life in a room near the front of the building. That had to be the blond shifter - and given he was supposed to be a bird of some kind, it was worth the risk of stepping out. The wolf might have smelled me, but birds generally didn't have great olfactory senses. And these rooms, like the ones below, weren't very bright, which meant the shadows lay thick in the corners. With any luck, I could hide in those shadows.
I twisted the handle and opened the door, but just as I did, the shifter moved, his body heat showing him stepping through the doorway. I froze, half in and half out of the room, hoping the shadows were enough to conceal me.
He glanced my way, then stopped, and his sense of alertness increased twofold. He drew his gun and pressed a button on his lapel.
"Greg, we have an open door on one of the storerooms. I'm going to check it out."
Meaning he hadn't spotted me yet, but if I didn't do something real quick, he would. The shadows weren't strong enough to hold up under any sort of close scrutiny. Not when it was daylight, anyway.
But rather than step back, I hit him telepathically, slipping into his mind as silently and as efficiently as any vampire. I wrapped ghostly fingers around his control centers, stopping his movements and washing any awareness that something was wrong from his mind.
Then, knowing I didn't have much time before his partner started getting suspicious, I rummaged quickly through his thoughts. His name was James Cutter, and both he and the wolf worked for the Melbourne division of an organization known as Revanche. Cutter didn't know who owned or ran the organization, but the man they reported to was one Dillion Pavane. I searched for more information, but he didn't really have much. There were no offices located in Melbourne, as far as this man knew. They always met in bars, and never the same bars. He was paid in cash - another rarity in this day and age. He was also sick of the courier duties - which involved checking the various phones situated throughout the suburbs - and eager to make his first kill.
Meaning whoever was behind this organization didn't trust anybody.
I grabbed my phone and quickly typed in all the locations of the other phones, then placed the image of a closed door and a conviction that nothing was out of place other