She gestured to her outfit, which as always was white from neck to toe: an ivory blouse and wide-leg dress pants over strappy sandals with a reserved twinkle of gold at the buckles. Even with the explosion of dark curls that burst at the back of her head from the tight braids along the rest of her scalp, she did exude a certain elegance that I doubted I’d ever pull off. Being raised by a shadowkind left a person a little feral in ways it was difficult to shake.
“I’ll give you that,” I said. “Let’s see what comes out of the, um, meeting tonight, and I’ll let you know where we need you.”
She gave me a questioning look at that statement, but I held up my hands in a gesture for mercy. I wasn’t shutting Vivi out this time around, but I sure as sugar wasn’t dragging her off to a direct ambush of the murderous and potentially psychotic sword-star crew. Especially when she still saw this as an adventure, even if she realized it was a dangerous one now.
I had to get going to prepare for that ambush. As we left the café, I gave Vivi a tight hug, as if I could absorb her cheer into me to bolster me through the battle ahead. We said our “Ditto”s, and I headed for the spot where the quartet was meant to pick me up, singing a little song to inspire myself. “We’ll touch and surround, I’m on the hunt this af-ter-noon.”
Omen eyed me as I got into the back seat of the station wagon as if checking me over for mortal cootie contamination. I was mature enough at that particular moment not to stick my tongue out at him in return. The other three were sticking to the shadows as they often did in the car, but I took a little comfort in knowing I wasn’t actually alone with the dude.
“Vivi’s going to be chill,” I told him. “She won’t stick her nose in unless I ask her to—and I’ll only ask her with something really specific that none of us can do.”
Bossypants let out a grunt that seemed to say he couldn’t imagine there being any task fitting that criteria and switched the car into drive. I drew in another sniff of that odd smell that clung to the vehicle’s interior. Dry, smoky, a little savory, with that trace of minerals… Maybe he crisped chicken wings on a tray of scorching crystals in his spare time? It could be some weird shadowkind hobby no one had bothered to tell me about.
Ruse’s charmed hacker had dug up the details of the hand-off we were heading to. It was supposedly taking place an hour after sunset in the parking lot of a mini-golf course. Not your typical spot for illicit exchanges of creatures the average mortal didn’t even believe existed, but when we slunk over after leaving Betsy a short distance away, I could see why they’d picked it.
The course with its candy-bright painted fixtures—a windmill here, a castle there—surrounded the parking lot on two sides and was big enough that no one farther afield would have been able to see what was happening in the lot. A dingy warehouse offered a windowless brick wall on the third side, so no witnesses there. At the road, someone had conveniently left a dumpster full of construction rubble where it blocked most of the view of the span of asphalt, and the nearest streetlamps had burnt out. By a total coincidence, no doubt.
We’d arrived just as the sun was setting. The shadows of the miniature structures stretched twice as long as the actual fixtures across the patches of green. Ruse slipped through the shadows to unlock the gate so I could follow them in.
“Your only job is to hang back until we have our prize,” Omen ordered me. He pointed to the roof of the hut that held the ticket sales booth and equipment. “Thorn will boost you up there. Stay out of view and watch the transaction. I only want to hear or see you if you spot something from up there that the rest of us need to know. Once we’ve trapped one of their number, then you can jump in to remove protective wards as necessary.”
“And to open the cage to let their shadowkind prisoner out,” Snap piped up.
“Yes, that too,” Omen muttered as if annoyed at the reminder that I would be useful in more than one way. He fixed his stare on me. “Got it?”
“Aye, aye, captain,” I said dryly. I suspected he’d have tried to lock me in the car instead of letting me tag along at all if he’d thought there was any chance that car could hold me for more than a minute. But even he couldn’t deny the value of my immunity to the materials that deflected shadowkind powers.
Just in case I found a good use for it, I picked up one of the mini-golf clubs and swung it experimentally through the air. A little light, but it had decent heft to it. For good measure, I stuffed several of the small but incredibly dense golf balls into the pouches on my belt.
I’d decked myself out in full cat-burglar gear for this operation. If I didn’t move or speak, I’d be nothing but a shadow on the rooftop, even my red hair hidden under the black knit cap. Thank flaming eels the evening was already starting to cool off, or I’d have been a puddle of sweat in a matter of seconds.
Thorn gave me a boost to the edge of the roof, and I scrambled across it to duck down behind one of the fake gables. Peeking over the protruding section, I could make out the edge of the golf course and all of the parking lot.
The shadowkind quartet had discussed their plans in more depth while I’d been chatting with Vivi. As I settled into my position, they vanished into the shadows. From what I’d gathered, they were going to station themselves in a rough circle around the parking lot. The idea was to watch the hand-off long enough to determine the sword-star crew’s usual procedures, and then—unless the squad appeared too well-equipped—charge in, free the shadowkind the collector was selling to them, and snatch one of the sword-star employees for later questioning.
I shifted my position on the clay tiles a few times, my back getting stiff and my shoulder achy from my hunched posture. Every time a car rumbled by through the deepening evening dark, I froze. Finally, a black van that looked like the sort of vehicle used to transport large livestock pulled into the lot. It parked in the far corner where the golf course rubbed up against the warehouse.
Only one figure stepped out—the collector, I assumed. At first glance, he could have passed for an evil-genius supervillain from the type of comic books I was guessing our hacker had read too many of. The dome of his bald, bulbous head shone in the faint light from the far-off streetlamps, and he wore a gray suit with its square collar buttoned right up to his chin. I half expected him to produce a monocle from his chest pocket.
Then I noticed the sheen of perspiration that caught even more of the light than the pale skin of his scalp. The dude might have supervillain fashion aspirations, but super-confident he was not.
It took another ten minutes before a second vehicle growled into the lot: a white delivery truck with a bakery logo painted on the side. A fake business, or another front like the discount toy store the sword-star crew had run some of their operations out of? I made a mental note of the name in case it was the latter.
Five figures emerged from the truck. They wore the silver-and-iron helmets and plated vests that we’d seen before. All shadowkind found one if not both of those metals repellent, but they couldn’t block Thorn’s physical strength or whatever concrete tricks Omen had dreamed up.
One of the figures appeared to have a whip, probably one of those glowing laser-y ones, at his hip, but they weren’t holding any weapons. It looked like they didn’t anticipate dealing with any hostile parties in this transaction.