Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 57143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
“You know my name. I’m truly flattered. Perhaps we will see more of each other going forward.”
“Perhaps not,” Augustine told him.
Zaden grinned. His body spun, like a piece of paper twisting into a spiral, and the red-headed teenager was back. She gave them a long look and squeaked in a high-pitched voice. “That suit is mid, Augustine. It’s giving beta. Later!”
She sauntered down the hallway toward Sutton’s office.
Augustine sighed and turned toward the elevator. They were out in the parking lot, before Diana said, “I like your suit. It goes with your eyes.”
“Thank you,” he told her.
“Since he was pretending to be a teenage girl, he had to read you. It’s in the job description.”
The murderous demigod smiled, opened the rear passenger door for Lila, and then held the car door open for Diana. “No worries. I’m secure in my rizz.”
She slipped inside and buckled her seat belt. He got behind the wheel and guided the car onto the street.
“Helicopter?” she asked.
He nodded. “It’s a forty-five-minute flight.”
MII had access to a military helicopter. Nice. “From the MII building?”
“Yes.”
She tapped her phone. “Gerardine? I need Akela and Whiskey at MII. Please bring my work clothes and a new pouch.”
“Understood,” Gerardine murmured.
Diana hung up.
Augustine threw her a curious look.
“Backup,” she said. “The hills are wooded, and it will be evening by the time we get there.”
He didn’t respond. Diana settled into her seat and took a long breath. Kayson’s face shimmered, rising from the depths of her memory. Fury bit her with scalding teeth.
A hunt was coming. Finally, a chance to bleed off all the rage, grief, and frustration.
About time.
[ 5 ]
Arow of townhouses sat nestled between the hill in the back and the parking lot, shaded by live oaks. Behind the first hill, other slopes rose, their spines sheathed in more oaks, mountain cedar with hairy bark, pecan, and mesquite. Big, pitted chunks of limestone littered the dry, rugged terrain like natural landmines.
Diana inhaled the evening air. It smelled of cedar, strong and itchy. Ugh. At least it wasn’t the cedar pollen season.
True to form, the MII helicopter was everything Augustine implied it would be. It was fast, safe, and too loud for a conversation. They didn’t speak, so she concentrated on keeping Akela and Whiskey calm and read the files he’d forwarded to her tablet.
Juliana Glass’ real name was Kensley Hicks. She was thirty years old, born in Vernal, Utah, and registered as a lower range Significant illusion mage. Her professional record was a series of positions with various illusion Houses, all of which had eventually cut her loose. For the past six years, she had been self-employed. According to Augustine’s sources, she was a person of interest in two murder investigations and would’ve been arrested in a third one, had the investigation not collapsed due to police misconduct.
Kensley Hicks was a hired killer. Her wet work provided her with a comfortable lifestyle. She owned a mansion in Utah. Six million, paid outright, in a cash deal. Augustine’s team had found pictures online. Diana scrolled through them, looking at an enormous white house with a backdrop of snow-capped mountains. The gallery of images rolled under her fingertips, their captions announcing the blood-soaked luxury. Twelve thousand square feet, a private gym, an indoor pool, spa, movie theater, white picket fences with horses grazing in the pasture… Diana kept thinking of Aleah in the hospital bed, wrapped in a tangle of wires and tubes, and Kayson’s wife, her dark eyes red with tears, hugging Kayson’s body to herself and rocking gently back and forth…
They had landed just before seven behind a warehouse building. A car was already there, waiting for them, a GMC Yukon in a boring anonymous grey. A woman waited by it. She was young, fit, and had a no-nonsense air about her. Augustine approached, she passed the key to him, turned, and walked away.
Augustine held the door open for Akela and Whiskey. She settled the wolves in, noting that the third row of seats had been removed. Instead, a large crate of black plastic occupied all available cargo space, rising just high enough to keep from obstructing the view through the rear window.
Augustine got behind the wheel. The four of them traveled past the massive studio lots and took a side road that carried them behind the sound stages, deeper into the Texas hills, where several enclaves of temporary housing sprouted among the slopes like mushrooms from a mossy forest floor.
They spoke little on the way. She’d sunk into herself, too obsessed with the prospect of the hunt, and he must’ve sensed it because he stayed silent. Now they had parked before the row of townhouses, small two-story units, each with a balcony and identical door, with the siding painted in shades of beige and olive green.
It would be twilight soon.