Diana Rowland - Fury of the Demon

“Endowed?” I offered, hiding my amusement at his discomfort.

“Yeah. Curvy.” He winced. “Sorry.”

“It’s cool.” I grinned. “In fact it’s perfect. Now I have a place to hide my weapons.”

Plans and preparations for the infiltration and raid on the plantation could have easily turned into pure chaos and been doomed to failure from the start, but Bryce took firm charge with an uncompromising hand. Even Mzatal deferred to his judgment, to my surprise and relief. Within two hours of leaving the Nature Center, and with the help of Paul, Ryan, and Zack, we had maps and satellite imagery, a communication system, and all sorts of other gear that I never would have thought we’d need but suddenly realized that yes, we most certainly did.

And, most of all, we had a plan. Sonny and I: infiltrate and get me to the server room for the dongle-thing. Paul: take down comms and security. Mzatal: strip the wards and burn through the fence. Sonny and Bryce: Rescue Angela Palatino and get her through the fence and off the property. Zack and Ryan: watch our backs. Everyone: Do whatever is needed to Acquire Idris.

At about seven p.m. Zack arrived at the house bearing a wig, dress, shoes, and appropriate padding for my role as Amaryllis. I immediately fell in love with the dress, and silently promised myself that after all of this was over I’d have it tailored to fit my normal not-as-curvy figure. Alluring without being slutty, it had a gathered bodice and a side-slit skirt—both of which would allow me plenty of freedom of movement. Most importantly, it came with a sheer and clinging black lace top that slipped over the dress and covered every inch of the sigil scars without reducing the allure level one bit. I didn’t even mind that the sleeves of the lace top were a bit too small. Muscles , I thought with a grin. I gots ’em.

It took me damn near a half an hour to get the dress and my pseudo-curves adjusted properly to accommodate and hide my little Keltec .32 in a slim thigh holster, but I eventually achieved concealment, along with a voluptuous look I doubted I’d ever be able to achieve by natural means. That accomplished, Paul, Zack, and Eilahn continued to load me up with other necessary equipment. My watch doubled as a GPS tracker, I had a backup tracker shoved somewhere around my right boob, and beneath the left was Paul’s dongle. And yes, I giggled every time I thought about Paul’s dongle. Finally, Eilahn and Zack double-teamed me to get the wig and makeup just right, then stepped back so I could see the result in the full-length mirror on the back of my bedroom door.

“Wow,” I said. Then said it again. “Wow.”

I didn’t look anything like me. The woman in the mirror was sweet and curvy and harmless, with an almost-shy smile on rosebud lips, and honey-blond hair that somehow gave her grey eyes an interesting hazel tinge.

“Kara,” Eilahn said, eyes on me. I jerked my gaze away from the reflection and stepped away so I couldn’t see it anymore.

“Yes.” I’m Kara. It was a reflection. Black dress and lace sleeves, wig and shoes and all. The woman in the mirror wore a ring with a cracked stone—

I shook my head sharply. No, Kara wore that ring. I wore that ring. I looked down at it on my hand. Amaryllis would never wear a ring like this. Too bold, too unique. But Kara would. Cracked stone and all, because the ring and the stone and the crack held a meaning that couldn’t possibly be conveyed in mere words.

I looked back up at them. “I’m ready.”

Eilahn exchanged a quick glance with Zack, then returned her attention to me. “No, you are not,” she said firmly, gripped my upper arm, and walked me to the back of the house.

“What the hell?” I asked, baffled.

Mzatal stepped onto the porch as Eilahn escorted me through the back door. “The containment,” she stated, which was apparently all the information Mzatal required.

“Oh,” I said, voice small. Shit. I hadn’t even realized.

“Zharkat,” he murmured as he lifted a hand to my cheek. I felt the conflict within him, felt him waver in his willingness to risk me for the sake of Idris.

“Boss.” I squared my shoulders and shoved aside the gnawing worry. “It’s my choice to go do this. Idris is my family.” Whether by blood or not, the truth of it remained. “I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t even try. You can reinforce the containment, right?”

He exhaled. “I can.” His thumb stroked across my cheek. “And now I have.”

I smiled, took his hand and laid a kiss in his palm. “Then we’re all good. As soon as we have Idris, we’ll take our asses back to the demon realm, and you and Elofir can fix this shit right up.”

“So we shall.” He kissed me, eyes remaining warm on mine for a moment more. Finally, he gave a nod to Eilahn, then turned and strode to the mini-nexus, hands clasped behind his back.

I returned to my bedroom with Eilahn and allowed her to fuss over my wig and makeup one more time, and after a few minutes she nodded, satisfied. “It is time to depart,” she said and took my hands. “Is there aught else you require?”

I gave her a reassuring smile. “Can’t think of a thing.”

“I will never be far from you,” she stated with such fierce loyalty that I felt tears come to my eyes. “Dahn!” She pulled her hands from mine and snatched a tissue from a box on the dresser to dab at my eyes. “You will smear your cosmetics if you weep!” She wore such a look of asperity on her face that I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Okay, okay! I won’t mess up the makeup.”

Eilahn finished dabbing, stepped back and eyed me critically before giving me a satisfied nod. “Kara Gillian, you will indeed kick all the ass.”

“Damn straight,” I said fervently. “I was taught by the best.”

This is not ass-kicking. This is hell.

“Who the hell knew telecommunications analysts could be so rowdy?” I muttered as I narrowly dodged a slosh of wine from the giggling woman beside me. I edged away from her, turned down yet another slurred offer that I assumed was sexual in nature, and finally found a place to put my back against the wall. I’d been “mingling” in the crowded bar area for the past thirty minutes while I waited for everyone to get into position, and had fended off more passes in that time than I’d received in my entire life. I was damn near ready to trace an aversion ward on my ass.

“It’s considered one of the most boring jobs to have, Kara,” Paul told me in an amused voice through the tiny receiver tucked into my ear. “Can you blame them for letting loose when they have the chance?”

“Yeah, well, the guy whose hand ‘let loose’ up my skirt is sporting some cracked metatarsals now,” I said. My stomp reaction had been swift and instinctive, and I’d slipped away through the press of the crowd while the assailant whined in pain. He probably never even realized the sweet blond thing had a bite. Okay, maybe there was a little ass-kicking.

Luckily I didn’t have to worry about breaking character until I got outside. Nobody in here would ever think I was pretending to be Amaryllis Castlebrook—if any of them even knew her in the first place. To them I was simply another partying teleco-whatever on the first night of what was probably a deathly dull training seminar.

“Serves the jerk right, Kara,” Paul said, then added, “It’s the dress. Even I think you look smokin’ hot. And you look really good with blond hair.”

I hid a grin and pretended to take a sip of my drink. Paul was right—the dress rocked, even if I did have to pad the curves a bit. “Maybe I’ll try blond highlights once all this is done,” I said, carefully avoiding eye contact with anyone and everyone, since I’d learned it was interpreted as an invitation to come annoy me. “I’m ready to ditch the wig, though. It itches. And I think one of the bobby pins has worked its way through my skull.”