I opened the door and stepped into the hallway. The elevator stood open, the same Asian man waiting inside with the same serious expression.
A few moments later, the elevator released me into the lobby. No sign of the receptionist.
I crossed the floor. My heart was beating too fast. I reached the doors.
Please be open.
The door swung open under the pressure of my hand and I walked back into the sunshine.
Chapter 7
I was on Katy Freeway, driving home, when I noticed a tail. It would have been harder to spot it if they weren’t driving two IAG Guardian light-armored personnel carriers. The Guardian was a favorite among the Houses that had to transport their private armies, and Grandma Frida had worked on about a million of them.
The Guardian resembled an SUV that had been kidnapped by a paramilitary organization and force-fed steroids. Armored enough to withstand multiple hits from high-power rifles and light machine guns, the Guardian came equipped with off-road capabilities and could be customized to mount light and heavy machine guns. The goons chasing me had opted for a toned-down “city profile” without all of the scary protruding barrels. They religiously changed lanes when I did, and when I slowed to fifty-five miles an hour, which would cause any sensible Texan to blow by me, they hung back and waited.
Benedict De Lacy didn’t like losing his decanter.
Nobody except family knew where I would be today. The two vehicles weren’t behind me when I’d left Diatheke, so they must’ve bugged the Element while I was inside.
When the sniper shot the elephant, he or she had given Benedict a sign that I had backup. Diatheke wasn’t what it seemed, and Benedict probably hated any kind of spotlight. If the sniper and I were on the same team and I failed to exit the building, there would be consequences. Benedict had decided on a wiser course of action—let me leave and hit me en route with a team that couldn’t be traced to his firm.
Two Guardians, maximum carrying capacity of ten people each. I didn’t know who rode inside, but they would likely be good at killing.
We had ten soldiers, of which only six were currently on duty. Considering the recent examples of their battle readiness, twenty professional killers would tear through them like they were tissue paper and move on to the warehouse. Bern hadn’t checked in, so he and Runa were still out. Arabella had planned on leaving to talk with Halle’s friends in person, so right now the warehouse sheltered Ragnar and Matilda with only Grandma, Mom, and Leon.
If I called Abarca right now and told him that I was being followed by two armored personnel carriers, would he even believe me?
I couldn’t go home.
I had to defend my family. I had to kill the strike team. That’s what Heads of Houses did.
Suddenly everything was clear. I felt cold and calm, oddly flat, as if all the emotion drained out of me and only my mind remained.
I couldn’t fight twenty people at once. They would simply shoot me before I had a chance to open my mouth. My power worked best when my targets could both see and hear me. Benedict wasn’t an idiot and he’d watched me work on Celia, so it was highly possible the people riding in the Guardians wore ear protection.
Given a couple of days to prepare, I could open this car window and sing the crews of the Guardians and everyone else within hearing range into blindly doing my bidding. At this distance and with my song amplified by magic, no earplugs would save them from my voice. However, once I did that, I’d have an adoring mob on my hands and no way to escape it. The longer they remained beguiled, the stronger my magic affected them. Eventually they would rip me to pieces. The two times I had used my magic to its full extent, my sisters had evacuated me right after I was done.
No, this called for a subtle approach. I needed a place to hide, somewhere secluded and out of the way, where they would be forced to fan out and search for me and I could stagger them.
Where could I find that in the middle of the city?
In the rearview mirror, the two Guardians stayed about three car lengths back. The heavy traffic didn’t permit much maneuvering, but an opportunistic sporty-looking Subaru wove in and out between cars, trying to squeeze a few extra feet here and