Shadow Thief - Eva Chase Page 0,103
into her radio and then hustled off to help her colleagues. We were down to one between us and the entrance—but just distracting him momentarily wouldn’t do the trick. If we wanted enough time to not just get into the building but get Omen and the other shadowkind prisoners out, we needed as many of our foes as possible caught up in a wild goose chase.
Thorn hadn’t forgotten that part of the plan. A few seconds later, he charged over to join me, a dazed but thankfully not smashed figure dangling from his hands by the ankles so he didn’t need to touch the helmet or vest that would have burned him.
Without a word, he dropped the man on the ground in front of me. Before the guy could regain his equilibrium, I yanked off the tight helmet and jerked at the snaps on his vest, gritting my teeth as the ache in my shoulder grew teeth. The protections hadn’t been able to neutralize the warrior’s physical strength, but none of my allies’ supernatural powers would have any effect until we’d gotten rid of them.
The vest’s clasps parted to reveal a faded Guns ‘N Roses T-shirt. “Et tu, Brute?” I muttered.
As I tossed the vest aside, Ruse materialized out of the shadows. The guard took a swing at me, shoving himself more upright with a wobble, and Thorn clapped his hand over the guy’s mouth the second it opened to yell. Before he needed to intervene any more than that, the incubus started speaking, staring deep into the man’s widening eyes.
“Nice to meet you,” he said in his cajoling tone. “Tell me, won’t you, how many more guards are inside the building?”
The man’s pupils had dilated. Thorn loosened his grip to allow him room to speak. “I— You—” he stammered.
Ruse knelt in front of him. The power rang through his voice so distinctly it tickled my ears even though it wasn’t directed at me. “We’re going to be very good friends. It couldn’t hurt anything for you to tell me.”
The guard’s posture started to relax. “There are two people monitoring the security cams. Another patrolling the halls. Not that we’ve ever needed all this manpower on the site… before…”
Ruse made a swift gesture to recapture the man’s attention and peered at him even more intently. “Before now. Indeed. Quite the catastrophe that’s happening out here. Imagine how upset your employers will be if they find out you all let these intruders get away. They’re trying to break down the walls so anyone might wander in and see your secret base.”
“No. We can’t let that happen.”
“Exactly. You know what you need to do? Put in a call on that radio of yours, get everyone you can out here. You can hear the invaders—they’re all along the wall—you’ll need to keep moving to catch up with them. Don’t back down and keep everyone on their trail until you’ve nabbed them.”
The guard nodded with a slow bob of his head. Then his gaze whipped away, his body stiffening all over again. He scrambled to his feet. “You’re right—I hear them bashing at the wall right over there. Shit.”
He raised his radio as he dashed off toward the outskirts of the site, hollering for every guard at the facility to join him immediately between pants for breath that only played up the urgency.
Ruse flashed me a grin. “And now…”
The last guard at the door hesitated and then hurried over. One, two, and then a third burst through the doorway to join the defense. Bingo!
Thorn hurtled across the stretch of packed dirt to slam the camera poised over the door into the concrete wall it was mounted on. I sprinted after him. Snap darted from the shadows to meet me by the entrance. With a flick of his tongue through the air over the electronic lock, he smiled and tapped in the code he’d gleaned. The bolt slid over, and I yanked the door open.
As the warrior sprinted back to the shadows to continue diverting the guards outside, Snap, Ruse, and I ducked into the building. We found ourselves in an entry room with lime-green walls and an antiseptic prickle in the air.
Ruse pointed to another doorway at the opposite end. “The stairs are down that hall.”
We were hustling along it when a woman in a lab coat emerged, blinking, from one of the workrooms. She didn’t have a chance to do more than gasp before I’d spotted the silver and iron badge pinned to