I climbed down from my perch and rejoined the others. “Looks like it’s smooth sailing, at least until we get to the lawn. Everybody ready?”
Everyone checked their guns a final time, while I palmed one of my knives.
“Let’s do this.”
* * *
We crept through the woods, still on the lookout for any rune traps, trip-wires, or land mines that Madeline and Emery might have planted. But the area was clean, and we reached the edge of the lawn with no problems.
Now it was time to contact Phillip, Roslyn, and Silvio, who were already here.
Madeline had actually invited the three of them to her party. Phillip was a major power player, given the gambling operations on his Delta Queen riverboat, and Roslyn had various dealings with the underworld figures, thanks to all the not-so-legal activities that went on at Northern Aggression. But Silvio’s receiving an invite had surprised everyone. Then again, he’d been Beauregard Benson’s right-hand man for years. Perhaps Madeline would be in the market for a new assistant, after she finally got rid of Jonah. Or maybe she just wanted to rub Silvio’s nose in the fact that I was dead. Either way, he’d merited an invitation as well. So the three of them strolled right in through the front doors with all the other guests, giving me some eyes and ears on the inside.
I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and texted my friends. We’re here.
My phone vibrated a second later with a message from Silvio. Party proceeding as scheduled. Guards sticking to the expected rotations. Go.
I grinned and sent him back one more message. Knock, knock.
“Finn,” I whispered, sliding the phone back into my pocket. “You’re up.”
“With pleasure,” he murmured.
Finn drew his sniper rifle and scope out of his duffel bag, attached a silencer to the end of the barrel, and raised the weapon to his shoulder. Then he waited.
Pfft. Pfft. Pfft.
He dropped the three giants patrolling the lawn in quick succession, putting bullets through their skulls with precise, practiced ease. The giants grunted as they went down, but those were the only sounds that broke the hush of the night. In the distance, classical music trilled through the air, but it was soft and muted, almost like the echoes of a dream rather than something that was actually taking place.
I held up my fist, telling my friends to hold their positions. I waited one minute, then two, then three, the others shifting uneasily behind me all the while, but no one came to check on the dead guards. The rest of the giants were too concerned with what was going on inside the mansion to worry about what might be coming at them from the outside. Perfect.
So we left the trees behind, darted across the lawn, and headed up to the stone patio. We hunkered down behind the furniture, weapons up, still looking and listening, but everything was quiet, and no one was up to no good here but us.
Finn, Xavier, and I split off from the others, darted forward, and rounded the corner of the house. Two more giants stood at the bottom of some steps, and Finn shot both of them before they even realized what was happening. We moved to their position, and I kept watch while Xavier dragged the bodies over behind some bushes that ran along this part of the mansion. The three of us repeated the process over and over, until we had killed the dozen giants who served as the perimeter guards, done a full circuit around the entire mansion, and were back at the patio where we’d started.
I nodded at Bria, who nodded back. She reached into a pocket on the front of her black coveralls and drew out a small glass cutter. Bria eased over to one of the patio doors, crouched down, and cut a hole in the glass big enough for her to slide her hand through. A second after that, the door was unlocked.
She looked at me, and I nodded again. Bria tensed, then cracked the door open. We all waited, holding our proverbial breaths, but no alarms sounded. According to what Silvio had uncovered, the security system had been shut off during the remodeling to keep the alarms from blaring every time a worker opened or closed a door or window. Since the construction had just ended, and folks would be moving through the mansion tonight during the party, I’d been willing to bet that no one had gotten around to turning the system back on. And who would be stupid enough to try to rob Madeline now when she was about to seize control of the underworld? Even if someone did have such a foolish notion, Madeline probably thought that Emery and her giant guards were enough to keep any intruders out.
Well, they were enough to keep most folks out—just not me and my friends.
Bria opened the door wide enough for us to slip inside single file. Once we were all in, she shut the door and drew the white lace curtain to hide the hole in the glass.
“Now what?” she whispered.
“Now we take out all the interior guards,” I whispered back. “Just like we planned. Let’s move.”
According to the information that Silvio had gathered, more guards were roaming through the hallways on the ground floor. Of course they were. Madeline didn’t think that anyone could get past them and get inside the house, much less sneak up to the upper levels. Even if they did, they’d eventually have to deal with the acid elemental herself. And like her mother before her, Madeline was supremely confident in her skills, magic, and reputation to keep people away.
But I was crazier than most folks were—or maybe I just had more of a death wish.
We moved through the first floor of the mansion, hugging the walls, keeping to the shadows, and staying quiet, although the music and laughter grew louder and louder the deeper in we went. We rounded a corner and came across a giant guard who was leaning against the wall, sipping a glass of champagne he’d swiped from somewhere. He glanced in our direction, then his head snapped back as he did a double take.
Pfft.
Finn put a bullet through his skull just like he had all the others. While the rest of us kept watch, Xavier grabbed the giant’s body, picked it up, and stuffed it into a nearby closet. Meanwhile, Sophia dropped to her knees, reached out with her hand, and used her Air elemental magic to quickly disintegrate the blood and other nasty things that had spewed out of the giant’s head wound. In less than a minute, the body was disposed of, and the scene was clean again.
Quick, quiet, effective—just like I’d planned.
We repeated the process, taking out a dozen more guards. The rest of the giants would be serving as waiters in the grand ballroom, where the party was taking place.
When I was certain that we’d eliminated as many of the guards as we could, we all snuck into a large bathroom. Gun in hand, Owen stood by the exit, peering out through the cracked door, while Jo-Jo unzipped the duffel bags we’d brought along for this particular purpose.