Ruby Fever (Hidden Legacy, #6)(76)

Alessandro shook his head. “No. I watched him grill the steak. He almost dropped the meat twice. He is hiding it, but those arcane vines he pulled off the car poisoned the hell out of him. Dr. Patel pumped him full of antivenom and you know what that does to the body.”

“And Runa is still half asleep.”

Alessandro nodded. “Arabella is the only one operating at full power.”

We fought and we won, but everyone was hurt and tired. We’d paid a toll. We would likely pay another before this was over.

“It’s you and me,” I said. “It will have to be enough.”

“It always has,” he agreed.





Chapter 13




“Walther Q5 Match SF.” I lifted the gun from its spot and showed it to Alessandro seated across from me on the bench. “Blue trigger. 9 mm. 17 rounds.”

“Walther Q5, blue trigger, 17 rounds,” Alessandro repeated.

The cabin trembled as our vehicle rolled over some pothole in the road. Scarab 17, one of the latest in Grandma Frida’s line of armored personnel carriers, didn’t provide the smoothest ride but it would roll over a mine like it was nothing. The inside of it resembled the Bus: two long benches attached to the walls with a weapon console between them, which I was currently mining.

I slid the Walther back into its spot and picked up the next gun. “Duncan Arms Little Brother, red trigger, 9 mm, 17 rounds.”

“DA Little Brother, red trigger, 9 mm, 17 rounds.”

“Maximum Defense PDX.” I lifted the light machine gun out. “Tan finish, 7.62x39 mm, 21 rounds.”

“Excuse me,” Julian said from his spot to the left of me. “Why are you doing this?”

“It shaves off time from the manifestation,” I told him. “It will help him summon weapons faster.”

It also helped when the specs of the firearm were said out loud. For some reason, Alessandro retained it better, and by now we had gotten the system down to an art.

Bladed weapons didn’t require a review. They were simpler. When Alessandro needed a blade, he called up something narrow and fast or something heavy and wide and the exact length or weight of the blade didn’t really matter. But the firearms were more complicated, so we assessed them to make sure he could replicate them fast. Once Alessandro summoned something, he couldn’t summon it again for at least twenty-four hours, so selecting the right guns required a balance between too many options and not enough versatility.

“Got it,” Alessandro said. “Next.”

“Mossberg JM 940, 12 GA, 10 rounds.”

Technically it was 9 rounds but when Alessandro summoned guns, they popped into his hands with a round in the chamber already. The beautiful thing about this shotgun was its speed. In the right hands, it fired almost as fast as a semiautomatic rifle.

“Winchester 1895.” I didn’t need to go through the specs. He knew the rifle.

Julian blinked. “It’s an antique.”

“Newer isn’t always better,” Alessandro said.

“What does it even fire?”

“.30–40 Krag,” I told him. “Next, Duncan Arms, Big Brother.”

I tapped the section of the console and it slid straight up, displaying the machine gun. It weighed eighteen pounds and I didn’t feel like taking it out.

“338 Norma Magnum, maximum range 2,300 meters, 700 rounds per minute.”

Arabella had christened it the Six Thousand Dollar Gun. Linus gave it to us for free, but the ammunition it ate cost $8.50 per round. It cost us about six grand to fire it for a full minute.

Julian stared at the machine gun as if it were a striking cobra. “Is this necessary?”

“We won’t know until we get there,” Alessandro said.

“This is my family.” Julian clenched his fists.

And this was exactly why I never took clients with us. Unfortunately, Julian had insisted. If we didn’t take him with us, he would follow us in his car. I could compel him to stay if I disclosed that I was the Acting Warden, but I didn’t trust him enough. Right now, we were just FBI consultants riding to the rescue.

“ETA five minutes,” Brittney called out from the front passenger seat.

Brittney was one of our private guards and the only aegis we managed to get on our payroll. The aegis mages were hideously expensive and very selective about who they worked with. Brittney was a Notable, meaning the magic shield she projected would stop an average handgun and absorb quite a bit of rifle fire, but a sniper bullet would go straight through it.

I glanced at the screen embedded in the hull above Alessandro’s head. It showed the feed from external cameras. We were driving through an estate neighborhood, a weird hybrid of rural living and suburbia. Huge houses sprawled on two-to three-acre lots, set way back from the road and protected by walls and gates. An affluent neighborhood. Their biggest battles were likely with their HOA and herds of marauding deer.

“This has to be a big misunderstanding,” Julian said, and I couldn’t tell if he was trying to convince us or himself. “I can’t imagine Kaylee would hurt her grandparents. It’s just not in that child’s nature.”

Human nature was a tricky thing. Five years ago, all I’d wanted to do was to scurry unnoticed through life, never causing conflicts, never getting into fights. Never drawing attention to myself. Yet here we were.