Blood Trinity (Belador #1)(62)
She would have questioned him more, but every instinct she possessed told her to get out of here as quickly as possible. Because if she didn’t, something wicked just might devour her. Not that it would really matter. At the rate she was going, she’d be dead in three days anyway.
Or would she be able to find the miracle that could keep her free and save the world from those who wanted to destroy it?
EIGHTEEN
Monday predawn traffic poured into the parking lots Evalle rode past. She slowed to scan the area around each one.
No trolls working the pay booths. No demons lurking in the shadows.
She kept an eye on three parking garages in downtown Atlanta for Quinn, who probably owned more real estate than some small countries did. If he wanted to consider a nightly ride to keep an eye on his businesses a part-time job, who was she to argue? Especially since Quinn gave her a reduced rent in trade for surveillance.
All missions completed for the evening.
She turned her gixxer toward home.
When are you going home, Evalle? Quinn asked in her mind.
How did he know she wasn’t there yet? Was the man psychic on top of his other gifts?
She glanced up at the sky threatening to unleash sunshine in another ten minutes. I’m a mile from my elevator.
Z and I’ll meet you there.
Not much for chatting, that Quinn.
She cut down Marietta Boulevard and turned on a side road that deposited her below Atlanta’s traffic level. The rutted street her narrow tires bounced over ran along the railroad tracks that once fed into the original Underground Atlanta, where civies came in groups for safety. Today’s Underground Atlanta was a thriving tourist attraction safe enough for the kiddos.
She preferred the spooky early morning darkness down here in Atlanta’s underbelly, where dock workers sweated out an honest living, to the pristine world full of suits … a world full of doctors who … Don’t go there.
Parking in front of the overhead door to her personal elevator, which could carry a full-sized vehicle, she pressed the remote opener clipped to her tank-bag and climbed off.
Footsteps approached, crunching gravel layered over the pavement. She pushed her bike into the dark elevator stall, turning it to where she could face her guests. “How’s tricks, boys?”
“Must you always cut it so close to daylight?” Quinn asked.
She grinned at him. “Gotta make hay when the sun don’t shine and all that. Besides, Sen ran me late.”
“What’d he want now?” Tzader entered last, sounding whipped. Had he rested at all since yesterday?
“He snatched me in for a Tribunal meet—,” she started explaining.
“Without contacting me first?” Anger boiled off Tzader.
Evalle supported the bike against her hip and lifted a hand, hesitating to say much out here. “It wasn’t a suspension hearing that would have required due process.”
No happier than Z, Quinn picked up on her reluctance to expound. “Let’s get inside her apartment where no one can hear us.”
She keyed the remote, shutting the door, and turned her attention to where a panel of six toggle switches was mounted behind bulletproof glass.
Getting inside the elevator would be simple for an intruder.
Breaking the bulletproof glass over the switches would set off alarms in her living quarters down below. But even if someone made it this far, they’d have to know the correct sequence for flipping the toggles. That changed daily, and only the three people inside this elevator car knew those codes.
Tzader and Quinn could flip the toggles kinetically, which one of the two did before she could, because the elevator started moving.
“You got any food down here?” Tzader got downright surly when he was hungry on top of being tired.
She thought about it. “Sure, I got a new recipe for—”
Tzader and Quinn both said, “No.”
“That’s cold. You haven’t tried anything I’ve cooked since that first time.” When the elevator stopped twenty feet belowground, she mentally flipped the toggles in reverse and pushed her bike into the twenty-by-thirty-foot garage area of her private world. She rolled the gixxer onto the hydraulic motorcycle lift she used to service her baby and tightened the wheel chock to lock the bike in place. White upper and lower cabinets lined one side of the room, but she was the only one who could see all that right now.
A string of fluorescent lights overhead flickered on.
Quinn’s doing, since he had no patience for being in the dark.
“I got the door,” Tzader said and the elevator closed behind them.
With one quick glance to ensure everything was as she’d left it, Evalle led the way through a series of unlit tunnels toward her apartment.
The tension in her shoulders eased the closer she got to her home. Quinn would have let her live here rent-free.
No way. She’d sleep in a public bathroom—and had—before she’d owe anyone for something as basic as a place to live. He’d set a fair price, and she earned her way between working at the morgue and receiving pay from the Beladors’ fund as an agent to the coalition.
VIPER negotiated payment arrangements with all their agents except Beladors, who chose not to accept money from the coalition. She guessed Brina and Macha didn’t want to be dependent on VIPER any more than Evalle wanted to be dependent on anyone.