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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Delphine studied the warehouse two hundred feet away through her night-vision goggles. The heat signatures of the men patrolling the perimeter of the property brightened the 3D display, the nanorobots in her retina enhancing the signal further.

“I count fifteen outside,” she murmured. “Twelve more inside the building.”

“That’s a lot of muscle for a warehouse that’s supposed to be empty,” Cortes said quietly beside her. “Looks like Navarro was right on the money.”

The two of them were crouched in the shadows of a loading dock across the street, the twelve-man-strong Black Devils team spread out in strategic positions around them. Vlad and Tarang were next to an adjacent building.

All of the men were equipped with the nanorobot vests and the enhanced night-vision goggles her mercenary corps used in combat situations. As for Delphine, she wore her bespoke liquid armor suit, the dark material absorbing the ambient moonlight where it clung to her body.

Cortes’s phone vibrated. He checked the screen and frowned.

“It’s Bryony.”

Vlad’s tense voice came through Delphine’s earpiece. “Connect her via speaker.”

Delphine switched Cortes’s call to their comm network.

“Is Vlad with you?” Bryony said sharply when Cortes answered. “I can’t reach him.”

“I’m here,” Vlad said over the connection. “We’re about to storm the place where the sorcerer is hiding.”

Bryony sighed, her relief evident. “Good! Because we just discovered two pieces of crucial information about that curse.”

Tension knotted Delphine’s shoulders.

“What is it?” Vlad asked stiffly.

“The dolls need to be destroyed by fire. And you have to be the one to do it.”

A strained hush followed.

“That could be a problem,” Vlad said curtly. “I’m not exactly in possession of my powers right now.”

“No, you don’t understand.” Urgency underscored Bryony’s voice. “You need to burn the dolls. With regular fire. The act of destruction has to come from you specifically for the curse to be fully undone.”

Delphine’s pulse quickened. She met Cortes’s gaze.

“So, we need to get the dolls to Vlad?” the Colombian stated in a hard voice.

“Yes.” Bryony hesitated. “And you have to hurry. Mrs. Son-Ha got the countdown wrong. The window for breaking the curse is closing faster than she’d estimated.”

Vlad cursed softly in Russian.

Dread churned Delphine’s stomach. “How much time do we have?”

“Four hours. Maybe less.” Bryony paused. “My best guess is sunrise.”

Delphine checked her watch. Two-seventeen a.m. Adrenaline surged through her veins, focusing her mind. “Understood. Anything else?”

“No.” Bryony hesitated. “Good luck.” She ended the call.

Delphine touched her earpiece. “Change of plans. I’m going after the sorcerer and the dolls alone. The rest of you focus on Isaacs and his men.”

“Like hell you are!” Vlad snapped across the comm.

Cortes frowned at her. “That’s a bad idea.” Popo ruffled his feathers uneasily on his shoulder.

“It makes more sense tactically,” she said firmly. “I can move faster on my own.” She transmitted the thermal imaging overlaying her goggles to them and their team. “Those heat signatures are concentrated in two locations: the office block on the east side of the building and what looks like a converted storage area on the west side.”

Cortes’s mouth pressed to a thin line. “The sorcerer will be in the storage area. It’s more isolated.”

“I agree. Which means Isaacs is in the office block.” She met the Colombian’s gaze. “Between you and Vlad, you should go after him. The guy might have some magic tricks up his sleeve.” Delphine switched channels on their comm. “Team Two, what’s your status?”

“In position,” one of the Black Devils replied. “We have eyes on the loading bay on the water.”

“Team Three?”

“North entrance is covered,” another voice confirmed.

She touched her earpiece again, her voice steady. “Vlad? It’s your call.”

There was a short silence.

“Is this our best strategy?” Vlad ground out.

“Yes.”

“I don’t like it.” A frustrated sigh came down the line. “But we’ll do as you say.” The incubus paused. “Del?”

“Yeah?”

“Be careful.”

Heat pooled in her belly at the concern in his voice.

“You too.” She drew her weapon, checked the magazine, and glanced at Cortes. “On five.”

They rose on her countdown and dashed off in opposite directions.

Delphine moved like a ghost to the edge of the property, the layout of the area and the patrolling guards clear through the crisp view of her goggles. She waited until two men passed before silently scaling the fence and slipping behind a stack of shipping containers.

The warehouse loomed ahead, its dark bulk casting deep shadows across the yard. She picked up the sound of waves lapping at the wharf beyond the building.

There was movement on her left.

Delphine dropped and pressed her back against the metal wall of a container as another patrol rounded the corner. The men were oblivious to her presence as they walked past her hiding spot, their low voices carrying clearly in the breeze coming off the water.

“—said the boss wants us ready to move at dawn.”

“Yeah, well, I ain’t looking forward to that boat ride back to Kingston.”

Delphine frowned. Navarro had been right.

Isaacs was leaving in the morning.

The guards disappeared at the far end of the container stack.

She rounded the container, tapped her goggles, and adjusted the 3D perspective of the floor plan and thermal imaging she was picking up through the warehouse walls. The storage area where she suspected Manuel was hiding showed five heat signatures. Four were moving in patrol patterns. The fifth remained stationary in what appeared to be the center of the space.

That has to be him.

Delphine scanned the yard before closing the distance to the warehouse in a low crouch. She reached the side of the building and found what she was looking for—a maintenance access ladder leading to the roof.

She was mapping the quickest route to her target through the warehouse’s ventilation system when gunfire erupted from the front of the building.

“Contact!” Cortes barked over the comm. “East side!”

More shots rang out, from the north this time. Shouts of alarm followed as Isaacs’s men clocked that there were intruders on the premises.

Delphine scaled the ladder swiftly as chaos erupted below. The distraction would give her the window she needed to get to Manuel.

Let’s just hope he stays put and doesn’t bolt.

She reached the roof without being spotted and headed for the ventilation duct. The access panel was screwed on tight. She ripped it out with sheer brute force, her enhanced strength making short work of the bolts securing it.

Delphine slipped down into a tunnel and had crawled some fifty feet when her scalp prickled. She stilled, her nanorobots picking up on something just beyond the limit of their perception. Something strange.

“It’s that damn magic again!” Cortes barked on the comm amid the sound of gunfire. “That sorcerer must be up to something!”

“Delphine?” Vlad asked urgently.

She clenched her jaw and accelerated, her pulse racing. “I’m on it.”

She took a couple of turns, slid down a duct, and reached the high-ceilinged storage area she’d been aiming for.

The ventilation shaft opened in the northwest corner of the room.

Delphine peered through the grating.

The space had been cleared except for a circle of candles on the concrete floor. Manuel Isaacs stood within it, his hands raised as he chanted in a language she didn’t recognize, the flickering light casting eldritch shadows across his weathered face. Four armed men were spaced out amidst the boxes and crates piled haphazardly around the room, weapons at the ready as they protected the sorcerer.

Delphine stilled when she spotted an object tucked in Manuel’s belt. It was a small pouch. One that could easily hold two voodoo dolls.

She loosened the grating silently, her eyes on the guards. Their attention was focused toward the door and the sounds of fighting echoing throughout the building.

Delphine dropped nimbly from the ventilation shaft and rolled across the floor into the cover of a stack of crates. She rose, her movements fluid, a shadow in the night.

The first guard never knew what hit him.

She caught him as he fell and eased his body to the ground, his neck crooked in death.

One down.

The second man turned just as she reached him. Delphine’s knife found his throat before he could raise the alarm, the blade carving through his jugular and his windpipe in a slick motion.

Two.

The remaining guards spotted her when she emerged from the shadows. They opened fire.

Delphine was already moving. She dove, rolled beneath the spray of bullets, and came up inside the nearest man’s guard. Her elbow caught him in the solar plexus and her hand found his weapon as he doubled over.

A bullet smashed into her nanorobot suit as her finger slipped smoothly inside the trigger. The shot crumpled on contact, raising a curse from the man who’d fired at her. She shifted smoothly behind the guard she’d struck in the chest and used his body as a shield just as the fourth man fired again. The guard jerked in her hold as shots peppered him.

She took out the fourth man with a shot to the head.

He fell, dead before he hit the ground.

Three and four.

Manuel’s chanting grew frantic as she stepped into the open area where he stood, his eyes dark with fear and loathing. He flung out a hand toward her.

Nothing happened.

The sorcerer’s eyes widened when she kept advancing.

“Yeah, that won’t work on me,” Delphine said coldly.

She ripped her night-vision goggles from her face and crossed the circle of candles in three long strides. Manuel backpedaled, his limp pronounced as he tried to escape.

Delphine’s fist caught him in the jaw. The sorcerer grunted and collapsed to the floor.

She snatched the pouch from his belt and emptied it.

Fury brought a burn of bile to her throat when two crude cloth dolls fell into her palm, one human-shaped, the other a tiger. She clenched her jaw at the sight of the blood marks staining them and the hair poking through the material.

Something jumped on Delphine’s leg and attempted to bite her.

Teeth cracked as the liquid armor suit blocked the attempt. Manuel’s familiar revealed its presence, the weasel’s eyes full of fear and rage.

Delphine grabbed it and stuffed it inside the pouch.

“I’ve got the dolls,” she said tersely into her comm.

Static crackled in response.

She frowned and tried again. “Vlad? Cortes?!”

White noise filled her earpiece.

The sounds of fighting had grown closer. Delphine slipped her goggles back on and zeroed in on the heat signatures in the warehouse.

They were concentrated in the east block, where Isaacs should be, and in the center of the building.

Tension knotted her shoulders. She needed to get the dolls to Vlad.

A groan made her turn. Manuel was pushing himself to his knees, blood trickling from his split lip.

“You have no idea what you’re dealing with!” he spat.

“Actually, I do.” Delphine took a zip-tie from her utility belt, secured the sorcerer’s hands behind his back, and gagged him before hauling him to his feet. “Let’s go find your nephew.”

She’d just stepped out of the storage room with Manuel when a distant detonation shook the building. Her pulse spiked.

Vlad!