While I thought, Anyan patiently waited me out till I’d figured out my major concerns.
“It’s not that I’m scared… Okay, the thought of doing this scares the shit out of me. But above that, what if I fuck it up? And someone dies?”
Anyan nodded, letting me know he was listening.
“If there’s any chance that you could, actually, fuck anything up, I wouldn’t let you do this. From what I’ve been told of the situation, everything should be well in hand. You’d just be along for the ride. But if the situation has changed and the hostages would be at risk if you were involved, then, obviously, the hostages’ lives trump your gaining experience.”
I nodded, but I knew my eyes were still like saucers.
“And I know you’re afraid. I was terrified the first time I took part in real military action. But this is how you learn to overcome the fear. It’s not about being fearless, Jane. It’s about being brave despite your fear. And I know you’re brave already.”
The car had gone quiet, the two deputies driving us had ceased chattering to each other, and Anyan’s voice seemed suddenly overly loud.
He called me brave, I thought, even as I nodded again.
“Thanks. I don’t feel brave.”
“Well, you act it. And that’s what counts.”
I looked ahead just as we turned off the highway. The silence had grown heavy and I knew it was up to me to break it.
“So, um, how will this work?”
Anyan nodded sharply, as if he were putting on his official badass persona, then launched into a detailed explanation. Apparently, the supes did their police work based on the human model, so this was exactly like a human SWAT raid. As I didn’t actually have any clue what that meant, he also filled in the details.
We were currently driving to the command post, which was set up well away from the action, where the overall mission commander; high-ranking officers; intel people; “commo,” or communications, people; and other support personnel planned everything. Just like the lab Conleth had been held in, our target was located in a run-down, abandoned strip mall on the edge of an ugly set of equally abandoned piers, warehouses, and dockyards. The local supes had commandeered an empty office building about a mile away from the lab. Closer to the site of the raid—but still well out of sight—was the tactical command post, where the tactical team, healers, and assault force commander checked in and prepped their kit. We were using another abandoned warehouse about a block away from the strip mall. It was perfect because not only was it well out of sight, it also had its own access road so our forces could loop around and never get anywhere near our target until we wanted to. Finally, there was the FAP, or final assault point, where everyone “stacked up,” ready on their primary breach point. From there, our team would “bring the pain”… and hopefully rescue the hostages held inside the lab.
“I was with you right up until you said, ‘Bring the pain.’ I’ve only ever brought cookies, or the occasional casserole.”
Anyan’s big nose twitched. “Well, for your first time, you can just bring a minor irritant.”
I giggled. “I’m good at the minor irritants.”
“Yes,” was his only response. “You are, at that.”
I was about to snark back at him when I was distracted by the view out the window. We were pulling up to the warehouse that obviously housed our command post. Big black sedans that resembled those driven by Ryu’s deputies in Boston were pulled up outside, as were a few vans, and the huge garage doors of the warehouses were raised to show a bunch of tables covered with maps, papers, laptops, and cell phones. Harried-looking supes milled about everywhere, some dressed in civilian clothes (or just fur and a smile) and some dressed in black SWAT gear.
I watched the chaos unfold as the deputies driving us parked the car. Anyan had made me feel like I could do this, like I could go ahead and bring somebody some pain. But seeing everyone in action, seeing how professional it was, I seriously doubted my own role in all of this.
What the hell am I doing here?
“I’m sorry about last night,” Anyan said, interrupting my self-doubts a second after the deputies had stepped out of the car.
“What?” I blinked at him, caught completely off guard.
“I’m sorry about last night. Sometimes I shift in my sleep. I didn’t mean to, and I’m sorry if it was invasive.”
My face flushed. I’d nearly managed to forget the way we’d woken up. I wanted to tell him that it’d been anything but invasive, that waking up in his arms was a dream come true. But instead I said, “No, it’s fine. Don’t sweat it.”
The very tip of his nose twitched once, hard, and he got out of the car.
Don’t sweat it? I thought, sad that he felt he needed to apologize. Yeah, he doesn’t have to sweat it… I’m the one who’s sweating this nonrelationship.
I sighed as I, too, exited our vehicle, then followed in Anyan’s wake to where the two deputies who’d driven us were waiting to introduce us to their leader.
The chief investigator for Rhode Island—and the overall mission commander for this raid—was a baobhan sith named Isolde. She was a formidable-looking woman, tall and strong with equally harsh features and an obviously iron will. After a perfunctory greeting to me and Anyan, whom she obviously knew well, she briefed us on their plans.
“There’s five women being kept in the lab. It’s small, with only a few people on staff. The kappa didn’t appear to know he was followed, but they aren’t taking any chances. They are preparing to clear out, but they’re taking their time. There don’t seem to be any plans to… dispose of their patients, so we waited for you to arrive. But if there’s any sign of violence, we’re ready to roll.”
I couldn’t begin to guess how they knew so much about what was going on inside the lab, but I’d learned early on in my experience with the supernatural world not to look a gift horse in the mouth. So I just went ahead and asked what I wanted to know.
“Is Iris in there?”
Isolde looked up at me, frowning. “Sorry?”
“Our friend, who was taken. Iris Succubus… is she in that lab?”
The woman shrugged. “I don’t think so, but…” She eyed me with her steely, assessing gaze.
“She cool?” Isolde asked Anyan eventually, her eyes not leaving mine. I looked over toward Anyan to escape their intensity.
Only to find the barghest smiling one of his big smiles that always caught me by surprise. He was always so broody; when he grinned like that he looked absolutely joyous.
And edible, my libido reminded me rather unhelpfully.
“Yeah,” Anyan said. “Jane is definitely cool.”
Without thinking about it, I stuck my tongue out at him before I remembered Isolde was there. I carefully pulled my wayward appendage back in my mouth and turned back to her. She had an eyebrow cocked at Anyan, a look of surprise on her face she wiped away when she realized I was looking at her.
“All right then,” she replied. “Let’s go ask our intel. Come with me.”
Isolde stalked off toward a large van behind us. She opened it to reveal what looked like the inside of a movie SWAT van, with computer equipment lining the walls and captain’s chairs facing the equipment. The central space was empty, but for a small woman who sat cross-legged on the floor, her eyes closed.
“Frida, quick question.”
The woman cracked open an eyelid. “Sure. But make it snappy.”
“Can you describe the civilians?”
“Sure. They’re all female and purebred. Two selkies, a very weak kelpie, a kappa, and a havsrå. I still can’t believe a water-elemental turned against his own like that, by the way. I wouldn’t want to be him if his own kind catch up with him. He’d better pray we get him first. I don’t think anything the Alfar would do to him could be as bad as what he’d get back in the ocean.”
I nodded at Frida’s words, although I was listening to my own thoughts. All water-beings… the kappa that attacked me must be supplying this lab with victims. That said, he was certainly connected to Jarl’s stunt and he’d obviously been sent to Rockabill by someone for some reason, so maybe Iris had been held here for a night or two, or maybe there was some information on other labs where Iris could be held.
And in the meantime, my virtue reminded me with an angry note of censure, there are five females in that lab who need rescue. Let’s not forget what’s at stake here.
I hung my head, ashamed at my focus on Iris although I was, even then, focusing on Iris. I couldn’t help it. I loved that succubus, and I wanted her home, safe.
“Thanks. You can pull back now. We’re about to go in.”
The woman sitting on the floor shut her eyes as I wondered what Isolde meant by “pulling back.” Soon enough, however, my question was answered as I watched another woman just like the one sitting in front of us, only incorporeal and ghostly, float through the top of the van and sink into the solid, breathing Frida. Upon joining her two halves, Frida grew exponentially until there sat in front of us a plump, round-faced woman who was exactly twice the size of the former Frida.
