Page 6 of Spring L.A.W.
Michael shrugged. “It bought us time. He doesn’t know what we are. Just that we’resomething.”
“And he’ll be back,” Rayna said. “He was suspicious before. Now he’s officially on the trail. He knew I recognized him, but I really don’t think he recognized me.”
“That’s because you were cloaked as you followed our outfit around the Middle East.”
“The burka helped when I had to interact.”
Michael laughed. “Yeah, I remember the first time you spoke to me from inside a full-body mitten with a Brooklyn accent.
“Hey, at least I offered you a decent job after separation from the Army.” Rayna smirked.
Daniel dropped onto the nearest couch, popcorn between his knees. “Also, not to up the anxiety level, but what was with the guy across the street?”
Rayna nodded grimly. “He wasn’t normal. Too still. Watching, not scrutinizing. Like he didn’t want us to see him but couldn’t move if we did.”
“Which makes him either very confident,” Michael said, “or very not-human.”
A beat of silence stretched between them. The mansion creaked faintly, as if alive and listening.
Rayna stood and crossed to the nearest wall panel. With a flick of her fingers and a whispered word, the enchanted screenblinked to life, showing a swirling web of magical activity across the tri-state area. Her gaze locked on a red dot pulsing just beyond Brooklyn.
“That’s new,” she muttered.
Daniel came up behind her. “We’ve got movement.”
Michael joined them. “And if the Major wasn’t reason enough to regroup, that is.”
Rayna nodded. “Time to call Joell.”
“Should I get snacks for everyone?” Daniel asked, already heading for the kitchen.
“Get tequila,” Rayna called after him. “And maybe a napping blanket. This is going to be a long night.”
Joell stoodat the head of the table, focused on the wall monitor, earrings swinging like tiny golden nooses. “I don’t care if she’s in Cairo; she can spare fifteen minutes for an emergency debrief.”
Five witches circled the oblong table, while Rayna took a long sip of her iced chai and muttered, “Did you have to use the word ‘emergency’?”
“Yes,” Joell said, already typing furiously on a keyboard that projected holographic glyphs into the air. “Because when a former commanding officer recognizes two members of our organization at a public event and then meets them for an interrogation-like chat in a Brooklyn coffee shop, that qualifies. More importantly, someone watched you leave. Creepy gray trench coat, sunglasses, zero vibe? That screams magical recon.”
Victoria’s image flickered slightly on the oversized monitor, her sleek black braid sharp against the warm lighting of her Montreal condo. “Let me get this straight. Major Adam Payne,the same one who ran recon on Black site Alpha, was in a coffee shop, sipping lavender lattes and poking around for the truth?”
“He didn’t sip anything,” Rayna said, folding her arms. “He barely blinked. Just radiated ‘military suspicion’ like a defensive air freshener.”
Laughter rippled through the room. Magda, also on a remote monitor, raised an eyebrow, idly scratching the ears of a massive wallaby sprawled over her lap. “And you didn’t erase his memory,why?”
Joell, in her command position at the head of the table, leaned back in her chair and gestured at Rayna with her coffee. “Because she said, and I quote, ‘He’s too sharp.’”
Rayna threw up her hands. “Because heis! He sniffed out something weird in under thirty seconds. If we wiped him, he’d know. And he’d come back with a vengeance like some kind of military-grade dreamcatcher.”
Sahara, who had finally joined remotely from Egypt, tilted her head, eyes unreadable. “What exactly did he see?”
“At most, a flash,” Michael said from his post by the window. “Residual magic from the ward around Rayna’s table. It was dissipating by the end of the signing. But if hesawit, orfeltit…”
“Then he’s got the itch,” Joell said grimly. “The kind that ends in classified files and dead-end investigations.”
Daniel nodded. “Or the kind that ends with someone deciding we’re a threat that needs containing.”
Across the table, Brianna, the newest addition to the team, cleared her throat. “Sorry, wait… Did you sayBlack Site Alpha? As in the facility that was ‘erased from public record’ and rumored to house banshee weaponization trials?”
