Page 5 of A Touch of Treachery (Section 47 #3)

I frowned. Elsa had been allowed to keep the ring as part of the deal she’d made to secretly feed information on her clients to Section 47, and the Nutcracker Ruby was safely locked away in the depths of Tannenbaum Castle.

If the thieves had a manifest of the locker’s contents, then they knew the ring wasn’t here.

So what were they after? The only other thing Charlotte and I had found at the castle that was truly valuable had been . . .

The Redburn explosive.

Henrika Hyde had created dozens of nasty weapons over the years.

Poisons that targeted specific individuals and bloodlines, chemicals that would freeze people’s lungs seconds after being inhaled, even drugs that would give regular people short-lived paramortal powers and melt their insides at the same time.

But Redburn was perhaps the deadliest, most powerful formula Henrika had ever concocted, and it was designed to kill even the strongest paramortal.

Something I had discovered the hard way on the Blacksea mission.

My chest tightened, my heart squeezed, and my gut twisted with a sickening wrench.

The dim underground corridor vanished, replaced by a bright, sunny beach on an island off the coast of Australia.

I blinked, and suddenly, I was standing in the sand, feeling the loose grit shift under my boots.

In the distance, one bomb after another blew up in slow motion, each explosion a little closer, louder, and more violent than the last.

Fire, heat, force, and fury rolled toward me in an unstoppable red-orange wave.

Dimly, I could hear Graham Walker, my best friend and fellow Section cleaner, yelling at me to run, get back, get down.

I flinched as Graham crashed into me, driving my body deep down into the sand and shielding me as best he could.

The powerful explosions blasted over us both, the intense, burning heat searing off one layer of my skin after another and scorching all the way down into my bones—

Beep.

The codebreaker finished its work, shattering my memory. The beach vanished, and the corridor snapped back into focus, although cold sweat beaded on my forehead, and my heart pounded in my too-tight chest.

A light on the keypad turned green, and the locker door opened. Woody unhooked the codebreaker and handed it to Arnold, who slid it back into the flap on his briefcase.

Bonnie grinned. “Well, that was easier than expected.”

“I told you it would work,” Woody crowed. “Now, let’s get what we came for, while Bryce takes care of the primary objective.”

Primary objective? If breaking into this locker was merely a side mission, then what was the thieves’ most important purpose? Stealing the Grunglass Necklace from Charlotte? Or something else?

The three thieves entered the locker. They left the door open behind them, and clangs, clanks, and bangs sounded as they searched through the contents.

“Charlotte?” I whispered. “Charlotte?”

Still no answer, only static. Whatever the thieves were after, it was up to me to stop them. Then I could find Charlotte, and we could figure out what was really going on.

I waited a few more seconds, giving the thieves enough time to wade deep into the locker, then eased around the corner, tiptoed over to the open door, and peered inside.

A long metal table stood in the center of the storage space, and metal shelves lined all three walls. The thieves were in the very back, pulling out one plastic bin after another, tearing off the lids, and rifling through the contents.

“Where is it?” Bonnie muttered.

“Keep looking,” Arnold replied. “Maybe the Section 47 evidence techs didn’t realize what the vials were and labeled them wrong.”

Vials? Once again, that sandy beach loomed up in my mind, blotting out everything else.

I swiped the cold sweat off my forehead with a shaking hand.

Anger erupted in my chest, and I seized onto the red-hot emotion, letting it ground me in the here and now.

The phantom beach melted away, replaced by the storage locker.

After I’d killed some of the mercenaries at Tannenbaum Castle, I’d found several vials of bloodred liquid among the mercs’ supplies. In addition to stealing the Nutcracker Ruby, Henrika had wanted to blow Elsa Eisen to smithereens, along with her ancestral castle.

I drew in a breath, and the remembered stench of the Redburn explosive flooded my nose—sweet, sticky honey mixed with rotten eggs. My nostrils flared in disgust, and more anger erupted in my chest.

Given my own horrific experience with the explosive, I’d swiped the vials from the castle, and Charlotte and I had agreed to hide them from everyone.

The Redburn formula was simply too dangerous to entrust to anyone, especially the Section 47 leaders, who would try to reverse engineer the formula.

If they succeeded, then more people would suffer the same agonizing fate as Graham.

I couldn’t let that happen. Not again. Not to anyone. Not even an enemy.

I tightened my grip on the mop in my hand and stepped into the locker. I’d deal with the thieves, then find Charlotte.

Squeak.

My damp boot squelched against the floor. The thieves whirled around. For a heartbeat, we all stood there staring at each other. Then Woody cursed, as did Bonnie and Arnold.

I sprinted forward and twirled the mop around in my hand, holding it out in front of me like a spear. Arnold, the fake businessman, was the closest, and I jabbed the blunt tip of the mop into his stomach. He let out a muffled cry and staggered back, gasping for air.

I spun toward Woody, but the fake waiter chopped the mop out of my hand, then rammed his shoulder into my chest. The thief was definitely an enduro, strong and fast, and the hard blow sent me stumbling back out through the open door.

Woody growled, sprinted forward, and dug his hands into the front of my coveralls. Then he churned his legs, drove me all the way across the corridor, and slammed me into the opposite wall.

Pain exploded in my back, even as an answering surge of power spiked through my body.

As a galvanist, I had the ability to control and manipulate all the energy around me, even if that energy was a physical blow to my own body.

I snarled, grabbed onto that painful spike of power, and drove my fist into the thief’s jaw.

Woody let out a brief, muffled snort. His dark eyes rolled up into the back of his head, and he dropped to the floor unconscious.

“Bloody Section spies,” Bonnie spat out.

The female thief stepped out of the storage locker and yanked a gun out of her pocket.

I was too far away to tackle her, so I plucked the silver pocket watch out of the front flap of my coveralls.

I gripped the watch in my hand, then lunged toward her and snapped the long, attached chain forward like a whip.

The chain slapped against Bonnie’s hand, and the razor-sharp edge sliced a deep gash across her fingers. She yelped and lowered her gun, giving me enough time to cross the distance between us and knock the weapon out of her hand.

The gun hit the floor and skidded back into the locker. Bonnie scrambled after the weapon. I followed her, slammed my hand into her back, and used the resulting momentum, along with her own forward motion, to ram her body into the closest shelf.

Bonnie’s head banged into a metal corner with a loud, meaty thwack , and she too dropped to the floor. Blood gushed out of the ugly cut on her head, and I couldn’t tell if she was unconscious or dead. I didn’t much care either way, so long as she stayed down.

Arnold, the thief I’d attacked with the mop, was still wheezing, but he scooped up Bonnie’s gun and aimed it at me. I lashed out with the watch chain again. The silver links wrapped around his wrist and tore into his skin, making him yelp.

I tightened my grip on the watch and yanked it back, along with the attached chain. The sharp motion jerked Arnold off-balance and sent him staggering in my direction. I drew my arm back, then stepped forward and slammed my fist into his face.

Crack!

Arnold’s nose broke, and he slumped to the floor.

I stood there, breathing hard, but none of the thieves stirred. I bent down, unwrapped the silver chain from around Arnold’s wrist, and slid the watch back into the front flap on my coveralls. Then I moved from one thief to another, searching them, but they only had burner phones in their pockets.

I pressed Woody’s thumb onto his phone, unlocking it, since he had seemed to be the leader. The thieves might have been blocking Section comms, but his device had a signal, so I quickly keyed in a number and sent a text.

Code name brIEFCASE. Mission compromised. Three thieves subdued on Vault level. More hostiles might be in the building. D.

A few seconds later, the phone chimed with a message. Understood. Strike team will move in. G.

G was Gia Chan, my immediate supervisor and the head of the Section cleaners in the D.C. station.

Charlotte and I hadn’t wanted to scare off the thieves by having a bunch of undercover Section agents camped out in the lobby, so we’d entered the Vault building by ourselves.

Gia was stationed nearby, monitoring the lobby’s security feed in case we needed backup, although the thieves had most likely disrupted the cameras, just like they had done with Charlotte’s and my comms.

I scanned Woody’s texts, but the phone only contained generic messages like In position and Waiting . But the surprising thing was that Woody was reporting to someone else, which meant he wasn’t the leader after all.

Frustrated, I shoved the burner phone into my pocket, then grabbed Woody’s ankles and dragged him into the storage locker with Arnold and Bonnie. I shut the door behind me, and the keypad light flicked to red. That should hold the unconscious thieves until more Section agents arrived.

In my pocket, Woody’s phone buzzed with a new text. Primary objective almost complete. Grab what you can and meet me at the rendezvous point.

Once again, the vague message didn’t tell me who had sent it or where they were. Whoever was in charge was smart, and so far, they had been one step ahead of Charlotte and me.

Now, let’s get what we came for, while Bryce takes care of the primary objective , Woody’s voice whispered through my mind. I hadn’t paid much attention to his words at the time, but now they were all I could think about.

Bryce . . . Bryce . . . Bryce . . .

The name echoed in my mind like a hated song I couldn’t ignore, no matter how hard I tried. I knew a Bryce, although I hadn’t seen or heard from him in years. He couldn’t be the leader of this crew . . . could he?

My gut twisted with a sinking sense of certainty. Knocking out enemy comms, sending cryptic messages, playing a shell game with mission personnel and objectives. Those moves were all straight out of Bryce’s playbook.

I sprinted away from the locker and raced back toward the emergency stairs. I didn’t know what Bryce was doing here, but I had to find Charlotte and warn her that the mission had gone sideways—and that we were dealing with an unexpected and extremely dangerous enemy.