Dusk Avenger (Flirting with Monsters #3) - Eva Chase Page 0,92

this man will be a simple matter, even knowing his location.”

I shot a fond smile at the incubus, who was back behind the wheel. “We need Ruse to get a hold of one of the head honcho’s current security people. That should be our ticket in.”

The Financial District was a forest of skyscrapers, concrete faces and gleaming windows towering so high they looked as if they really might touch the clouds. Ruse cruised by the condo building our contact had indicated. I definitely wasn’t scaling that slick face from the outside. But that didn’t matter when we could charm ourselves an inside man—or woman. We’d gotten this far, hadn’t we?

“Every blame you lay,” I sang as we rounded the corner, “every sprite you slay, we’ll be watching you.”

Antic shuddered as if she thought I was anticipating some slaying going on tonight. “Don’t worry,” I said. “If it looks like anyone’s getting slain, we’ll do a lot more than watch.”

“I’d like to slay them,” she muttered. “Big bullies.”

We parked several blocks from the building with a mind to how thoroughly the Company tended to guard their more prominent members. After setting the RV to look like a tour bus that had every business parking downtown, Ruse, Thorn, and Snap went to scope out the big boss’s place, the three of them insisting that Flint stay back with me in case we had to deal with Company attackers after all.

I paced the narrow hall, trying not to fidget and carefully avoiding looking directly into the wingéd’s eyes. Antic bounced between twisting my discarded shirts into ridiculous poses and chattering with Gloam, who’d shed his despondency with the sinking of the sun.

My trio returned with matching pensive expressions.

“We could only go so far up,” Thorn reported. “The highest floor had silver and iron panels built into the walls and floor—possibly the ceiling too.”

Snap nodded. “We couldn’t check it very closely, because the floor underneath was totally vacant. Very bright lights all across the ceiling, making sure there were no shadows for us to travel through, and cameras watching for intruders. I didn’t pick up any useful impressions from the areas we could reach.”

“The main elevator doesn’t go up to the penthouse,” Ruse added. “The only access we could identify was through a secondary elevator on that shiny sub-penthouse floor. There aren’t any guards there, although that may cause more problems than it solves. We don’t know who’s working ‘internal’ security with him. From what our recent friend told us, the external folks don’t know much about getting to this guy.”

I exhaled slowly. “All right. Then we wait, and we watch. Unless this guy’s got all his security living with him twenty-four seven, someone’s got to come out of there eventually. We see who it is, track them until we can get to them alone, and prep them for Ruse’s charm like we did the others. We’ve made it this far. No rushing, or it could all fall apart.”

Thorn and Snap left again, Thorn to keep watch over the brightly-lit buffer floor and Snap to test the public areas of the building for any impressions that could point us in the right direction. I touched base with Klaus, who had nothing further to report.

“If you want me getting in on anything other than information-gathering, just let me know what I can do,” he said.

I grimaced at the ceiling. After everything we’d been through with the Fund, I was uneasy even with him knowing we were in San Francisco. I wasn’t sure I wanted to tip him off to our exact location. What if he had his own change of heart?

“We’re covered for now,” I said. “The best thing you can do is keep an eye on the local Fund and let us know if they seem to be on the lookout for us.”

Night fell with no sightings of the head honcho’s inside men. Finally, I curled up on my bed to get some sleep. I wasn’t going to be much use to my companions if I was zombified with exhaustion by the time they needed me.

It was Thorn who woke me, but not in the way I’d have liked one of my lovers to come to my bed in the wee hours of the morning. He cleared his throat, and that yanked me out of sleep with a jolt through my nerves. When I looked up at him, it was still dark, only a little artificial light filtering through the small window to catch