They rejected the kitchen, the main-level bedrooms, a game room, and took it down to a spacious parlor with windows looking out over gardens and out to sea or an office and library combination with an elaborate antique desk, more dark, heavy wood, lots of rich Italian leather.

“What’s your instinct?” Bran looked at Riley and Sawyer. “Which strikes you?”

“He’d like lording that view over his underlings,” Riley began. “And he might use the parlor deal, or the big terrace down here for a meet. But . . .”

“Office—that desk.” Sawyer nodded at her. “It’s command center. It’s ‘I’m in fucking charge here.’ That’s Malmon.”

“Do both.” Doyle scanned the office. “You’ve given us a clear sense of him, haven’t you? He’s not doing serious work above this level—not having his soldiers come into what he’d think of as more personal areas. Rooftop terrace, the pool, the setup? It’s an ass-kicker, but main level, that’s business.”

“Two down here, one in the bedroom. I should’ve made more bugs.”

“Whatever we might get is something we wouldn’t have had,” Bran pointed out.

“Okay. Agreed? And done,” Sawyer said when he got nods. “Bookcase is handy behind the desk. They will sweep.”

“I’ll take care of that,” Bran assured him.

After studying the shelves, Sawyer picked up a small silver box, opened it. “Pretty much tailor-made.”

As Sawyer slipped the device inside, Bran held a hand over it. For a moment it glowed clear, cold blue.

“A kind of shield,” Bran explained.

They repeated the process in the parlor, in the bedroom they believed Malmon would claim.

“I want to test it. I need one of you at each location. I’m going to shift back to our villa. Y’all give me, we’ll say three minutes, then I need whoever’s in the office to say something, a couple of sentences. Give it ten seconds, then same thing from the parlor, another ten, bedroom. If it works, I’ll be back right after. If it doesn’t, give me about two minutes for adjustments, go through the round again.”

It took two rounds before he was satisfied. Careful to leave everything as they found it, Sawyer traveled them back to the villa.

“You look a little beat-up,” Riley observed.

“No, just used up some. A lot of traveling in a short span. It takes it out of you.”

“I’ll make you a snack.”

He started to brush off Annika’s offer, thought better of it. “You know, that’d be great. I’m a little low on juice.”

As Annika hurried to the kitchen, with Sasha behind her to supervise, Sawyer sat under the pergola. “Now we wait.”

“I’ll keep trying to find out where he’s housing his troops. If I get a hit, we might be able to screw something up for him. In fact, I’ll—”

Riley broke off when Annika ran out. “Sasha says they’re coming. From the sky. They’re coming.”

“Weapons,” Doyle snapped out.

Training paid off. In less than two minutes they stood together, fully armed, in the grove.

“Make them come to us,” Riley ordered. “Make them maneuver. You up for this, Dead-Eye?”

“Count on it,” Sawyer replied, a gun in each hand.

They winged down from the sky, not the mutant batlike creatures from Corfu, but hundreds upon hundreds of the strange, vicious birds they’d dealt with on the boat.

Smaller, faster, more agile but no less lethal, they poured into the grove.

Sasha’s bolt went through three at once, which burst into ash.

Sawyer fired, two-handed, while blades cleaved. Their wings, he discovered as one sliced through leaves, barely missed his throat, were as deadly as talon and beak.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Annika flip back, delivering two fierce kicks as her bracelets shot two more. And the wing that sliced through the sole of her shoe.

“Watch the wings!” he shouted. “They’re like razors.”

Dropping into a crouch, he fired right, left, then checked his timing. If he waited for a group he could, as Sasha did, take out multiples with one shot. One caught him as it fell, the keen wing grazing his shoulder before it went to ash. To avoid the next, he dropped, rolled, and took out a dozen more before he had to reload.

To his right, Bran blasted out streams to cover him. He caught sight of Riley falling flat on her back to avoid a low swoop, and Doyle’s sword cutting through so she rolled away from falling ash, firing as she did.

He smelled the ash, the stink of it, and blood. The others’, his own, as a trio he aimed for split apart. He took out the high two, but the one who went low caught him with talons at the ankle.

Mindful of his hands, he used the butt of his gun to smash at it, then put a bullet through it as it lay fluttering on the ground.

Then Annika lifted her arms, spun, spun, spun, bracelets flashing until ash fell like rain.

For a moment, the grove echoed with power, and with silence.

In a defiant gesture, Riley kicked at a pile of ash, then swiped at the blood trickling down her temple.

“Now I want a snack.”

Turning, Annika hugged her. “I’ll make you one.”

When he noticed her limping, Sawyer grabbed Annika around the waist. “Did they get your feet?”