time. They both confirmed identification of the same type of installation. But while they’d questioned the battlefield experience of whoever had approved the design, they’d hadn’t considered magic, and had no Kerry to sniff it out, in any case.
“We should take these out now, while they’re still inactive. By the time our vamps arrive, Sakal could have activated them, and it’ll be too late.”
“Any way of accessing what we’re dealing with?” Brian asked. “Are these things even worth the effort, much the less the risk we’ll be taking by trying to neutralize them?”
Kerry shook her head. “I can’t say. This is beyond me. It could be anything.”
“The presence of guards says something about its importance to Sakal. We know that much. Anything important to him should be important to us.”
“If we do this, how will we do it? What’s the best way to blow up magic, without getting blown up along with it?”
“Just that, I’d think,” Layla said, though she didn’t know for sure. “Blow the fuckers to kingdom come, disrupt the spell or whatever, right?” She looked again to Kerry for an answer.
Her response was another shrug. “We’re well outside my expertise here. I do know that spells can be disrupted by changing their physical elements, which would seem to apply here, but . . . ” She shook her head. “I can’t say for sure.”
“Brian?” Layla asked. As much as she believed her assessment was right, it had to be unanimous. There were too many unknowns to permit one person’s judgment to carry the day.
“I don’t like it,” he said. “But I like leaving it there even less. I say we go.”
“I say what the bloody fuck are we doing here?” River grouched. “But yeah, we go.”
Layla checked with Kerry, who added a simple, “Agreed.”
“All right. We go in, and we get out. Rendezvous at our entry point. We wait no more than twenty, that’s two oh mikes. If either team doesn’t show by then, the other gets out and reports. Agreed?”
They agreed one at a time, until Layla said, “Let’s blow some shit up. Out.” She disconnected, adjusted her volume, and turned to Kerry.
Putting their heads together, the two women calculated their explosives supply and quickly decided on a plan. Ideally, all four dumps would blow at once, or at least within a minute or two of each other. But they couldn’t guarantee that, didn’t have the communications or the gear to time something that precisely. The best they could do was time their own two sites to blow more-or-less simultaneously, and hope the guys took roughly the same amount of time to set and blow theirs.
For Layla and Kerry, that meant splitting up and hitting one site each, which was far from ideal, but neither was carrying any timers, mainly because they didn’t carry anything that could be triggered by one. The only explosives they carried were grenades, and the sites were too far apart to hit one, then run to the other without breaking cover and giving themselves away.
“All right,” Layla said before they crept out of hiding again. “We stay together as long as these trees last, then split apart to reach each of our targets. I’ve got four grenades. You?”
Kerry agreed, holding up four fingers.
“Good. We toss three, arm and toss one, then get the hell out. Rendezvous at this point,” she said, pointing her finger downward to indicate the spot where they were currently hunched down.
Kerry held up ten fingers, but Layla grimaced. Ten minutes could be an eternity on the battlefield. And once the first grenades went off, that’s exactly what the estate would become. She held up seven fingers in a compromise. Kerry shrugged, but nodded her agreement.
They adjusted the heavy packs on their backs, made sure everything that needed to be reachable, was, and the rest was secure, then bumped fists and started down.
The first part of the descent was uneventful. The trees provided excellent cover and she and Kerry both wore clothes that had been selected to blend in to the expected terrain. When they reached the split point, they bumped fists once more and set off in separate directions, Kerry to the site they were just above, while Layla continued through the tree cover to the previous quadrant, which she calculated would take her five minutes more than it would take Kerry to reach hers.
She moved as quickly as she dared, climbing a few feet higher into the trees, so she could cross the horizontal