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Charlie sketched a surprisingly elegant bow. “Your wish is our command, milady Fury. We’ll call up an earthquake—a very minor earthquake—before we start on the walls. That’ll be your cue to stir up a shit storm.”

“Excellent.” I stepped back,’ withdrew my cell phone from my pocket, and noted the time. “All right.

We’ll let you guys get most of the way through the dirt and rock before we approach with the

‘prisoners.’ Let us know when you think you’re about a half hour away from the walls, and we’ll head out.”

Charlie nodded, folded up the blueprint, and shoved it into his back pocket. The other Giants fell into step behind him as he headed to the nearby hillside. I watched for a moment, skin tingling as the five of them spread out, leaned against the grass-covered mound, and called on the magic that was the purview of their kind. They stretched their arms out, clasping hands, and channeled that magic into the dirt before them. The evening air began to hum, setting my teeth on edge, as the Giants commanded the very earth to move out of their way—and it did, melting away like ice, rearranging itself to extend the hill farther out-ward while creating a tunnel the width of the five Giants joined together.

“Jeez, that’s freaky,” Trinity murmured in my ear.

I spun to face her, concern for her well-being in the upcoming battle warring with pride that she’d chosen to stand beside us and fight. I wouldn’t give voice to that concern, not after the heart-to-heart we’d had. She deserved better than that. “You know, you really should come up with a few more adjectives,

‘cause that one’s more tired than your love life.”

Trinity looked disgusted. “Look at you. Finally get laid again and suddenly
my
love life’s tired?” She ducked my halfhearted punch, hen expression abruptly sobering. “You be careful in there,
chica.
I don’t want to have to come and bail your ass out of trouble again.”

Emotion swelled in my throat. I had to fight to swallow it down. “I’ll take as much care as I ever do.”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Listen, I’ve got something I want you to have.”

Her brows rose in suspicion. “This isn’t one of those ‘I think I’m going to die so I want to give you something to remember me by’ moments, is it?”

Her words cut way too close for comfort, so I forced a smirk. “Yeah, because I always go into fights planning to lose’ She snickered while I reached under my leather vest and drew out the hybrid wep that had saved ‘my life only the day before. Her eyes were immediately drawn to my hands and grew round when I caressed the sleek stainless steel slide.

“Oooh, pretty shiny!” Pure lust radiated from her body, and she held out her hand imperiously. I slipped the wep into her hand, watching as she stroked it far more enthusiastically than I had. “Go ahead and make my day’ she drawled. “Tell me there’s more to this gun than meets the eye?”

Laughter bubbled from my lips, inspired by her childlike glee as she examined the weapon this way and that. “Damned right there’s more to that than meets the eye. Which means I never gave it to you, you never used it, and you can’t take it home with you.” She pretended to pout. “This Sig has been modified so it only uses magical ammo created from its ,own energy reserves. Shoot a target once and it will stun them for a couple of hours. Shoot them twice, and they won’t be waking up. Even.”

“Oh. My. God. Why aren’t these standard police issue?”

I grinned. “One, because they’re not entirely legal. Two, because they’re hellaciously expensive.

Three, because only arcanes can recharge the wep’s magical reserves.” I tapped the Sig’s barrel. “This one’s at full strength, so you should get at least three hundred nonlethal shots off. But remember, every lethal shot uses up the same energy as two nonlethal, so if you shoot a target twice, it’s as if you shot it three times.”

She crinkled up her nose and shuddered. “That’s too much like doing math. No wonder they don’t hand these puppies out on the force.” Her fingers trailed along the rosewood grip. “Still, not having to worry about reloading will freaking rock.”

-

“No doubt. The nifty bonus feature of this little baby is the magically improved aim. Focus on your target completely when you’re aiming, and you’re pretty much guaranteed to hit it. Just make sure you know for sure whether you want the target to stay down or not before you get all trigger happy.”

A frown creased her face. “Wait. I can’t take this. What are you going to use?”

I rolled my eyes, refusing to hold my hand out when she tried to return the gun. “I can’t take that with me. No way the merc I’ll be impersonating could afford one of those, and I very seriously doubt the gate guards are going to let us take weapons in with us. That’s why I want you to have it.”
Besides,
I added mentally,
you’re the only mortal on our side, and you’ll damned well need that more than I will.

She looked torn. “Well, only if you’re sure you don’t need it. .

“I’m sure. Just don’t get too attached, Trin. I
will
want it back?’ She made an ugly face. I leaned forward and gave her a sudden, fierce hug. She’d suspect something was up if I’ told hen good-bye, so I settled for, “Keep an eye on Scott for me, okay?”

“Sure thing, Riss. See you soon.”

I wasn’t 100 percent sure she actually would, so I merely nodded before walking away. Time to do all I could to make sure I
wouldn’t
have to make the ultimate sacrifice. I’d go down fighting, if nothing else.

The Fury in me would make sure of that.

Calaeno seemed preoccupied when I approached. Sense and several other Harpies were deep in discussion with Mac, Ellie, and Mom, so I took advantage of that fact to pull Calaeno off a little ways.

“What’s wrong?”

The Harpy Queen pursed her lips and motioned toward her sisters. “Notice anything odd?”

I glanced over, smiling slightly at the animation in my

mother’s face as she described the firepower we could expect to come up against, and then forced myself to focus. Hmm. Mac and Ellie stood to each side of Mom, listening as raptly as the Harpies. All twelve of them fidgeted with nervous energy, expressions showing a whirlwind of emotions as their kind was so wont to do.

And—

My body tensed. “One of them’s missing.”

Calaeno’s breath exploded forcefully. “Indeed.”

I couldn’t hold back a gasp when I realized which one.“Penelope?”

Her voice let out a single, clipped syllable. “Yes.”

The significance of that was not lost on me. She’d been with her sister Harpies after they’d finished their scouting expedition and directed us to this secluded side of the immense hill housing the underground compound. That she wasn’t now could only mean one of two things. Either she’d met with some sort of foul play—or she’d turned traitor. In which case, they might very well know we were coming.

Maybe she’d slipped off to meet with Ekaterina.

That thought had Rage stirring, but I fought it back and considered the situation as logically as possible.

“We can’t postpone this any longer, or it
will
come to war.”

She nodded. Once, I would have assumed the Queen of the Harpies would welcome the chance to spread dissension and strife throughout the world. But I was starting to realize Calaeno wasn’t the typical Harpy, and she wanted more for them than the simple surrender to their base emotions that was the typical status quo. For that, I admired her.

“We’ll just have to keep our eyes peeled. If they don’t buy our ruse, we’ll have to fight our way inside and keep them occupied long enough for the Giants to breach the walls.”

“Agreed.”

We joined the others, not participating in the discussion of favored fighting tactics, just doing our best to exude the confidence that would bolster the courage of those around us. Even if victory no longer seemed quite so certain...

MOM AND I TROOPED ALONG BEHIND MAC AND
Elliana, wearing the guise of half-Giant mercs Scott knew were currently out of the country and had the reputation for taking any job for the night price. Unfortunately, they

were also male. I
hated
wearing male forms. Besides the obvious fact that the equipment was completely different from my own, there were a dozen things to remember when impersonating a male. Men walked differently than women, talked differently than women, hell, they even
breathed
differently.

I shifted Calaeno from one shoulder to the other, trying to be as gentle as I could, but her huffy grunt indicated I hadn’t been too successful. Resisting the urge to pat her on the ass took an awful lot of willpower.

Two guards, not surprisingly armed with automatic weapons, peeled away from four others and stopped us twenty feet short of the reinforced steel doors that separated the underground bunker from the outside world. I did my best to act like the big, tough, slightly slow mere I was supposed to be, keeping a blank, disinterested expression on my face. His face.

“Macgregor.” The false surname by which the mad scientists knew Mac. “Heard you took out that Fury that had everyone up in arms?’

Mac gave a cold smile that seemed completely unlike him. I shivered at the menace in his eyes. “You heard right. Though it really pissed off hen friends and family.”

The guard chuckled and then nodded at us. “So what’s all this?”

Mac turned slightly and did what I hadn’t—smacked Calaeno square on the ass. Her body tensed but she stayed silent. I bit back a grin as he drawled, “We tracked down and captured the little Harpy who managed to escape from the old HQ. And we got a nice bonus, too. The Harpy Queen.”

The second guard widened his eyes and took a step back, fear pouring from him like a physical scent.

Mac shot him a contemptuous look. “Don’t wet your pants. They’re both drugged, bound with magical rope, and being held by half Giants. ‘They’re no threat to anyone. Had a bitch of a time tracking this place down. Neither of my handlers answered my calls, and this was
not
on the list of evacuation sites.”

The first guard shoved the other with his elbow, turning back toward the door. “A lot of shit went down. People fired, arcanes with their panties in a bunch, and a battle royale for the upper hand. Right now, some arcane bitch none of us even know seems to have the upper hand.” I had
my
money on a certain fox-faced Fury. “Pretty much all of us mortals left are strictly low-level. Anyway, we’ll buzz you inside. They’ll check your clearance and confirm the identity of your prisoners.”

Mac frowned slightly. “Have they changed protocol again?”

The guard shrugged. “Yeah. Happened when we evacuated the first base.” He turned narrowed eyes on Mac. “But you shouldn’t have anything to worry about, right, Macgregor?”

“Less than you do, seeing as how my clearance is higher than yours.”

That put a grin on the guard’s face. He said something to the other guards, who stepped aside. One of them swiped a key card through a sensor, another pressed his finger atop a scanner, a third man typed something into a laptop, and the first guard spoke into a microphone hooked up to the same computer.

The steel doors swished open, leading straight into what looked like a freight elevator.

Mom and I exchanged glances. Jeez, they really
had
beefed up security. Good thing we hadn’t decided on a frontal assault.

The first guard waved us into the elevator, waited for us to pile inside, and then sent the car plunging downward. My shoulder began to ache. Sheesh, Calaeno weighed a ton. I turned to Mac. “Did they—”

“Shut up?’ He glared at me, nodding surreptitiously

upward. “I told you, as long as you do what you’re told and keep your lips zipped, you’ll get your money.”

Which meant they had the elevator under surveillance. Not exactly a huge surprise, but I should have picked up on that myself. I called myself various nasty names, trying to distract myself from the fact that we were descending farther and farther into the earth. I’d never been a huge fan of spending extended periods underground, but lately I seemed to be tripping over a cave, tunnel, or subterranean military base every time I turned around.

The elevator car jerked to a stop and the doors slid open. I tensed, but when nobody ran toward us with guns blazing, I figured that was a good sign. Mac led the way off I he elevator, down a narrow hall, and through the only available doorway, where more guards checked Mac’s security badge, fingerprints, and voice identification, then double-checked that Serise was indeed the Harpy who had escaped during the evacuation. We were loaded onto another elevator along with an escort of six guards and deposited, at last, on the main floor of the compound. Good thing, too, because it was the floor where the Giants were supposed to tunnel to.

I held my breath and sent magical senses questing outward. The forced evacuation along with the mortal and arcane conspirators battling for the upper hand meant they hadn’t had time to block off the surrounding reservoirs of magical energy. The exhilarating rush spelling untapped pools of magic nearby had my indrawn breath exploding out in an excited rush.
Jackpot!

The best part was, since their new “secret” laboratory was underground, accessing the earthbound reservoirs would be far easier than usual.
So far, so good...

The corridor leading away from the second elevator was much wider and better lit than the previous one. Dozens of doors lined each side of the hallway. Uniformed guards, mortals in lab coats, and even the occasional Sidhe (the brainwashed ones) bustled to and fro, barely giving the six of us a second glance. A digital clock on one of the walls caught my eye, and I frowned. Almost an hour had passed since we left the others behind, and Charlie had estimated it would take them no more than forty-five minutes to breach the walls. A dozen horrible scenarios flashed through my mind, from the Giants accidentally burying themselves beneath a ton of rock, to Penelope turning traitor and leading a troop of soldiers to murder everyone still outside.

My concentration slipped, and I nearly lost control over my assumed form. Color flooded my cheeks. I hadn’t blown my cover in years. The stakes were
way
too high for me to regress to adolescent angst for even a second.