Mark Del Franco - Face Off

She glowered. “Really? Or did it look like someone was going for my crotch, and you couldn’t deal with it? Get this through your head, Sinclair. If we’re going to work together, you have to keep your head clear. I am not your damsel in distress.”

He grinned. “You’re wearing a short skirt and fuck-me pumps. That’s damsel wear.”

She jabbed him in the chest. “Try femme fatale, you idiot. I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you have.”

He affected surprise. “You speak French, too?”

She rolled her eyes but allowed herself a smile. For some reason, despite calling him on it, he amused her. They stared down at the unconscious DeWinter.

“Now what do we do?” Sinclair asked.

Laura scanned the interior of the car. DeWinter had fallen facedown. Her glass lay on the floor next to him. “Let’s keep you in as long as possible. I don’t think DeWinter saw me hit him with essence. When he wakes up, tell him something ran in front of the car, and he must have hit his head when you braked. Then tell him I jumped out and ran off.”

Sinclair looked dubious. “You think he’ll believe that?”

She withdrew from the car. “Play dumb and embarrassed. If he shoots you before you get him home, it’ll mean it didn’t work.”

He raised his eyebrows. “That’s reassuring.”

She grinned. “Having second thoughts about the job?”

He let the smile slip back on his face. “Not when I get to see you dressed like that.”

She held out her hand. “I’ll take the data drive back.”

He handed it to her, and she slipped it inside her bra again. She leaned forward and pecked him on the cheek. Turning, she walked toward the nearby highway ramp. “Good luck.”

“What the hell are you doing?” he called out.

She walked backward. “I’m going to the Guildhouse.”

“On foot?”

She shrugged. “It’s a nice night. I’ll see you at the office. I hope.”

He grinned again. “You’re crazy, you know.”

She pointed at the car. “Keep your eyes in the rearview mirror.”

DeWinter wasn’t going to shoot Sinclair. For all his swagger, she doubted he had ever been in a physical fight. It was all show, including the gun. He would wake up embarrassed, probably angry, with a nice headache for his trouble.

She withdrew the glamour essence from the stone around her neck. The wispy blond brownie hair faded to her natural softer hue as Fallon’s image faded. Her red dress felt shorter now that she had resumed her normal appearance. She felt mildly ridiculous walking down a highway ramp dressed so provocatively, but she had been in worse places with less clothing. When she reached the end of the ramp, she smirked as she pulled out her cell phone and hit speed dial, wondering if Sinclair believed she was going to walk all the way to the Guildhouse.

“This is Laura Blackstone. I need a car, please.”

AN HOUR LATER,Sinclair entered Laura’s InterSec office and dropped in a chair. He still wore the suit he used for driving the limo. Laura didn’t visibly react to his presence as she reviewed DeWinter’s files, taking his arrival as a nonevent. “Oh, good. He didn’t shoot you,” she said.

“Nice to see you, too,” he said with a smile.

She leaned back with a chuckle. “I told you it would be fine. What happened?”

He shrugged. “A lot of screaming and swearing. He bought my story. He didn’t seem surprised. Fallon Moor apparently has a reputation for being erratic.”

“Yeah, well, I played into that the last couple of days.”

Sinclair gave her a measured look, one that told her he wanted to know what she meant. She wanted to clarify for him on the one hand that nothing serious happened but on the other hand disliked feeling answerable to him. The pause in conversation lengthened. He didn’t say she was answerable. She realized she wanted to tell him, but that didn’t mean she had to. Things were too new between them to expose every detail of her life. “Let me show you what I’ve found so far,” she said instead.

The tension broke, and he leaned forward as she turned to her computer. She flashed one document after another onto the screen. “More financial data. More anti-fey rhetoric, and these . . .”

“Blueprints?” Sinclair asked.

She tilted her head from side to side as she looked at the screen. “But of what buildings, I can’t tell. I’ve been in most of the major terrorist targets in the city. I’m not recognizing anything here. This one looks like a lab.” She zoomed in on the document.

The page showed a simple building layout. The first floor showed room after room of the same size, plumbing run into all of them for wash stations and complicated tangles of electrical and gas lines. “It looks hardened against the fey,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

Sinclair pointed at the blueprint of the basement—no windows, limited access points, fewer but larger rooms with electronic security systems on the doors. “Look at this section. These rooms are lined with glass and stone. Remind you of anything?”

“Holding cells,” she said.

He leaned back with a satisfied expression. “Yeah, I’ve probably had more experience with those lately than you have.”

She smiled grudgingly. Terryn had been quick to hold Sinclair in a cell when they met. “I’m not going to argue that. I think you’re right. Good call.”

She stared at the blueprints, trying to resolve them into something she recognized. “Could be Quantico or Stafford. I haven’t been everywhere in either place. Look at this part. It looks like a medical facility.”

A large room held an oblong shape that the notes identified as quartz. Smaller round shapes ringed the oblong in a border. “That sort of looks like a healing crèche,” she said.

On the rare occasion when the fey fell ill, essence formed a major component of the healing process. The crèche had been developed, stone beds that could be charged to supplement weakened body signatures as well as deliver targeted healing spells. “It’s a lot bigger than the ones I’ve seen,” said Sinclair.

Puzzled, Laura shook her head. He was right. Most crèches were not much larger than a standard hospital bed. “Maybe I’m wrong. It struck me as one.”

“So, let’s play it out. Why would a crèche be that big?” he asked.

“Maybe for someone gravely ill. The more stone you have, the greater the holding capacity for the essence. Maybe whoever it’s for is suffering from some kind of severe essence depletion and needs a large field to supplement it.”

“There’s room in that thing for a couple of people,” he said.

She gave him a significant look. “Or one very powerful one.”

He pursed his lips. “Draigen? I thought we hadn’t found any firm connection between Legacy and the threats against her.”

“Not yet, but under the circumstances, I’m not ruling it out until Draigen leaves the country.”

“But why a medical facility? She’s not ill,” he said.

She stared at the blueprint. The crèche had several kinds of quartz, not that unusual when treating an injured fey. Different stones had different properties, and sometimes it was necessary to create buffers between them to prevent interference. Suppressing essence was another form of healing, too. That thought sparked an idea. “What if it’s not for healing but modified as a holding cell? We use ward stones all the time in holding cells to prevent someone from using essence to escape.”

“You think they’re planning on kidnapping her instead of killing her?”

Laura rubbed at her eyes. “I don’t know. DeWinter talked about an acquisition, but, as much as I’m worried about it, Draigen’s being the target bothers me, especially after the assassination attempt. She’s so high-profile and secured, you’d have to be a genius or a nut to think you could take her out at this point.”