“What’s she preparing for?” Felix asked. “What’s her end game?”

“Control of Vancouver’s black market,” Shane answered before Zak could. “Assuming she follows the same pattern as in St. Petersburg, Kiev, and Bucharest, she’ll gain control of the artifact trade first, then expand into smuggling and human trafficking—mythic and not.”

Zak thudded a gloved finger against the tabletop, drawing everyone’s attention. His stare locked on the bounty hunter. “Tomorrow night, Varvara will animate a new batch of golems and send them and her rogues to level another guild. Are you planning to do something about that?”

Shane prodded his glasses up his nose. “Similar to Red Rum, Varvara favors sea travel on her yacht. She only comes to land when necessary. Otherwise, she’s at sea and impossible to find. However, she needs a location to store her golems and hide thirty to forty rogues—and I’ve identified that location.”

Almost everyone at the table leaned forward slightly.

“Over the last three nights, she’s arrived at this secret location at seven p.m. and departed at seven-thirty. I assume the purpose of these visits was to animate the golems for the next attack.”

“I thought golems only last ten minutes,” I muttered to Zak.

He shrugged one shoulder. “If the golems are immobile, they could last a few hours.”

“They transport the golems in a semi-trailer,” Makiko added in a crisp tone. “We saw it on our security cameras. Once Varvara animates the golems, the rogues would need to load them and head to their attack location immediately.”

“Then we strike before that,” the Odin’s Eye leader declared. “If Shane gives us the location, we can have teams in place well before seven tomorrow, and stop her next assault before it starts.”

Shane shook his head. “It isn’t that simple. If even a single enemy is detected, Varvara will flee. She needs to dock and come ashore before any combat teams move in.”

“She can’t be allowed to animate the golems,” Darius countered. “Thirty rogues plus golems is more than we can safely handle, even with our combined forces. We can’t count on help from the other guilds.”

“Then what are we supposed to do?” Aaron slumped back in his chair. “If we attack the rogues first, we miss Varvara. But if we wait for Varvara, we’ll have to fight her, all her rogues, and an unknown number of golems.”

Silence fell over the table, and my heart sank.

“Battling the rogues will be loud and messy.” Zak’s vibrant eyes swept over the gathered mythics. “You can’t engage them before Varvara is ashore, but the golems are a different matter. Until they’re animated, they’re vulnerable. Disabling them would be quick and quiet, and it could be done shortly before Varvara arrives.”

“If we can remove her golems from the equation,” Girard said, his eager smile showing through his beard, “then our combat teams can focus on the rogues and Varvara.”

“The bitch is mine,” Zak growled.

“We will capture Varvara,” Shane cut in, “so she can be tried and convicted for her crimes before all the guilds and families she’s harmed. She’ll be executed without a doubt, but there are more and better mythics than you who deserve to see justice served.”

Zak’s jaw tightened.

“How are golems disabled?” Shane asked him.

“By damaging the animation array inside them.”

“And how does one find and destroy the animation array?”

Zak arched a mocking eyebrow. “You can find them by studying dark Arcana and learning to decipher some of the most complex arrays in sorcery. Destroying them is straightforward, though, as long as you have a tool that can damage steel without making any noise.”

Deep wrinkles settled into Shane’s forehead. “In that case, you will be responsible for disabling the golems, since you have the required knowledge. That will be the extent of your role.”

That arctic, burning hatred simmered in Zak’s eyes as he stared Shane down.

Unflinching, the bounty hunter said, “Cooperate, and I’ll forget I ever heard your name. Refuse, and you become my next tag. And this time, when you’re arrested, I’ll ensure you stay behind bars. There will be no miraculous rescues.”

I shrank guiltily.

“Fine,” Zak snarled. “I’ll handle the golems.”

Shane glanced at Darius. “Such a crucial part of our strategy shouldn’t fall on one person—especially him.”

The guild master nodded. “Aaron, Kai, Ezra? Zak needs a chaperone. Would any of you care to volunteer?”

As the three mages exchanged looks, Zak’s green eyes turned to me. I blinked at him, confused by his attention.

He leaned forward to look around me. “Ezra?”

The aeromage paused thoughtfully, then shrugged. “I’m game.”

It took me a moment to clue in. Zak was requesting Ezra’s help because he was a demon mage, and his inhuman strength would come in handy against huge, heavy golems, even unanimated ones.

Shane turned his attention back to Darius, who nodded.

“Then it’s agreed,” the bounty hunter said. “Bring me a map of North Vancouver.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Sliding my hands across my combat belt, I took stock of my weapons.

Force-amplifying brass knuckles. Enemy-immobilizing fall-spell crystal. Interrogation crystal. Smoke and flashbang alchemy bombs. Paintball gun with an extra magazine of sleep potions. And my trusty Queen of Spades.

I supposed I could include the Carapace of Valdurna in my tally, seeing as I still hadn’t returned it to Zak. The fae artifact was tucked in my front pocket.

Puffing out a breath, I gave myself a final check—black leather jacket, protective long-sleeved shirt, leather pants, heavy boots, hair pulled into a tight French braid, no makeup that could get in my eyes—then marched out of my bedroom.

The floor lamp cast warm light across the living room, and the TV flashed with color as a helicopter whooshed across the screen. Arnold Schwarzenegger hung out of the copter, reaching for a woman in a speeding car that was careening along a bridge. The scene appeared to involve a lot of shouting, but the movie’s volume was too low to hear anything.

Twiggy sat on the sofa, his overly large feet sticking straight off the cushions, and for once, his chartreuse eyes weren’t on the screen. He watched me with a worried crinkle in his waxy green forehead.

“Hoshi?” I called.

The sylph swirled out of nothingness. She undulated over to me, her insectile wings flared wide, and prodded my cheek with her cool nose. A rainbow of colors danced through my mind.

I rubbed her smooth neck. “Ready for this, girl?”

The colors solidified into a cheerful yellow. Affirmative.

“Tori?” Twiggy squeaked uncertainly. “You are going to fight the bad sorcerer woman?”

“Technically, no. That isn’t my job.” I held open the pouch at the back of my belt and Hoshi dove into it, curling into a tight ball. “But Odin’s Eye and the Crow and Hammer combat guys are going to fight her.”

I grabbed a keychain off the coffee table and bounced the keys on my palm, trying to think of anything I might have forgotten. Nerves danced in my gut, but my determination was stronger.

“Tori?”

I glanced down, surprised to find Twiggy standing at my feet.

“The Crystal Druid will protect you?”

No faith in my combat skills, huh? I shook my head. “He and Ezra have their own job to do.”

Twiggy’s face crumpled into a deeper frown. “The Crystal Druid is strong.”

“Yep.”

“Will you be alone?”

“Nope, I’ll be with a team.” I grinned. “Are you worried about me, Twiggy?”

He scrunched his small nose and muttered something too quiet for me to hear.

Laughing, I patted his twig hair. “I should be back by morning. Hold the fort while I’m gone, okay?”

He mumbled something else and glanced at the TV, where Arnie was now shooting holes in a skyscraper with a fighter jet. What’d happened to the helicopter? And why did he have a fighter jet in the middle of a city?

Leaving him to his movie, I trotted up the stairs and locked the door behind me. Why hadn’t I started Twiggy on action flicks sooner? They were so far removed from real life that the impressionable faery hadn’t found any human behaviors to mimic. Maybe I’d introduce him to Westerns next.

Aaron’s SUV, on loan for the mission, was parked in front of my place, and my nerves increased exponentially as I hopped into the driver’s seat. The engine rumbled to life, and I pushed the speed limit as I drove to the guild. I wasn’t late, but my sense of urgency was growing.

I pulled up next to the guild’s door. A black Mercedes idled in front of me, a cloud of exhaust hovering around it in the cold January air.

My heart raced as I walked into the guild. The pub’s tables and chairs had been pushed up against the walls, and in the center of the room, more Crow and Hammer mythics in combat gear than I’d ever seen before milled together, casual but purposeful.

At one end of the room, Aaron and Tabitha waited with their teams of five. They were the ambushers; they, along with two Odin’s Eye teams, would lie in wait for the rogues. Nearby, Kai spoke quietly with Makiko, while eight Japanese men with unreadable faces and all-black clothing stood silently beside them. Their stealth-focused team would flush the rogues out of their building and into Aaron’s and Tabitha’s waiting warriors.

The final and scariest of our main combat teams was composed of three mythics: Darius, Alistair, and Girard. Their one and only goal was Varvara—finding her, fighting her, and taking her down—but they wouldn’t be challenging her alone. They’d be joining forces with the Odin’s Eye guild’s best team.

Before that could happen, a certain pair had an even more important job.