Wolfe was a having a bit of Déjà vu as he stared out the window at the warehouse on the river front in Noimoire. Between the people he had dropped to feed the river crabs, and the time he and Rhett had almost died themselves here, Wolfe would have been happier to never return.

  But that wasn’t the main reason he was having Déjà vu. The main reason was Fern sitting in the back of his truck, helping him to prepare for another “hit” type of mission.

  Wolfe had called her to ask where Adam kept the good stuff. An hour later, she had called back with a location. But she hadn’t stopped there. Instead, she had asked him to get an entirely different drone than the ones Wolfe had gotten earlier. It was a mini-drone that still had a camera but couldn’t be heard over ambient city noises when it was over a hundred feet away, apparently.

  She had made a few modifications to it, then asked Wolfe to get multiple silencers, which he had stopped by Miriam for, and various head-sets and blue tooth communicators and some odds and ends. Wolfe had gotten them as well, and Fern had modified those next. Something to do with frequencies that Wolfe hadn’t 100% understood, although he got the basic idea she was trying to keep anyone from listening in.

  Wolfe stared back at Fern. She was hunched over, breathing in the weird way she did to lower anxiety. But Wolfe couldn’t help but think how dangerous she really was, despite the least threatening exterior he had ever seen. Barely twelve hours after he had called her, she was sitting in the back of his truck with two laptops and a drone controller around her. One laptop was running some kind of hacking program, and the other was monitoring a newly mounted, highly complex camara on the mini-drone. And she was flying the thing despite her odd breathing.

  Wolfe adjusted a blue-tooth communicator in his ear, that matched the headset that Fern wore. He felt more like a deadly soldier, and less like a warrior or thug, than he had ever felt.

  I have a guy in the chair, Wolfe thought, bemused. A badass guy in the chair even if she looks like she’d lose to a stiff breeze or stray bad thought.

  “There are three guards,” Fern said, her voice monotonous from where she was hunched in the back, surrounded by her computers. Almost like she was a computer herself. “They’re operating independently, so you can murder one without another nearby to hear or see. Two are walking the exterior of the complex, and if you hit one the other will find it about ten minutes later. But one is on the railing walkway around the top, and might see anything.”

  “What kind of warehouse has a walkway around the top?” Wolfe asked exasperatedly.

  “Apparently the kind where high-level villains store illegal weaponry,” Shel said, smiling at him slightly.

  Fern ignored the byplay. “If you walk up the river side, there is a bush you could hide behind until the perfect moment. I already gave you the preferred pattern for the attack—Wolfe up close, Shel with the AR-15 from the bushes.”

  Shel nodded, but she was biting her lower lip.

  “And you have the laptop?” Fern asked.

  Wolfe patted the device laying against his side.

  “You should go,” Fern whispered. “I’ll be with you so long as you’re outside, and will warn you on anyone incoming once you’re inside.”

  “You think this’ll work?” Shel asked Fern.

  “Probably,” Fern responded. “And if it does, it’ll give you at least improvement in oyur chances against Nathan, and ultimately Adam. But things can always go wrong.”

  Her voice dropped even lower, and Wolfe could barely hear it. “We all know that things can go wrong. We know it intimately. But that can happen whether we try or not.”

  Wolfe nodded and stepped from his truck into the cool night air of Noimoire, carrying the laptop. Shel followed him out, carrying the AR-15, now with a tripod stand and a silencer.

  The two of them left the road they were on, heading over the lawn of the warehouse they were at and to the river’s edge.

  Wolfe’s earpiece crackled to life. “No one should have a visual on you, move now.”

  Wolfe motioned to Shel and started running down the tiny riverfront, a few feet above the river itself. Soon, he saw the bush they had identified. He ran up to it and crouched down behind it, and Shel landed next to him a couple seconds later.

  “Okay, just sit tight for a moment. You can probably pull Malviere out as well, but do it fast and put the deck away again—the glowing cards might give you away through the bush once they show up.”

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  Wolfe nodded, touched his chest with splayed hand, and then pushed it forward. He immediately hit Malviere, who swirled into existence laying down next to him. Wolfe dismissed his deck.

  “We’re hunting, alpha?” Malviere asked.

  Wolfe nodded and pointed up ahead, toward the corner of the building, where a bored-looking man, a bit overweight, was walking around in an obvious perimeter. He had a gun holstered at his side, but nothing else.

  Wolfe knew the guy working the top had a semi-automatic rifle, however.

  “Alright, set up,” Wolfe said. He got ready to run himself.

  Shel started to set up the tripod, but her hands were shaking slightly. Wolfe watched as she managed to get it set up and took aim at railing where the upper guard would come around the side.

  Her eyes were watering, and a single tear slid down her face.

  “Shel?” Wolfe asked, thrown back on his metaphorical heels as he squatted on his physical ones, staring at his fiancée.

  She wiped her face. “I’m okay, Wolfe. It needs to happen. Just do what you have to so.”

  Wolfe stared at her for a moment. “You don’t want to kill him?”

  Shel shrugged. “I hate hurting people. In defense of you, or others, I’ve done it, sure. But I’ve never just shot someone like this before, okay? It’s a new experience.”

  “He’s a bad man,” Wolfe replied in a whisper. “I mean, this isn’t a random security guard. This is one of Adam’s people—I mean, he’s carrying an illegal weapon, he has to know he’s not on the side of right at some level.”

  Shel shrugged, then replied at the same volumn, her voice monotone. “I said I’ll handle it.”

  Wolfe was torn as he watched. He tried thinking back to their time together. Shel had never been the one to pull the trigger in any situation close to this. She had lured the head of the Cobras back, and she had fought with them in a warehouse, but she had never just killed someone.

  Wolfe sighed. He felt like he was being an idiot, but he also knew he didn’t want his fiancée to experience this. It was his job to shield her from whatever tiny darkness was left—or, even if it wasn’t his job, it was what he wanted to do.

  He reached down and picked up the rifle, then whispered, “I’ll handle this.”

  Shel started to sit up, but Wolfe put his hand out and shook his head no. “Shh. Wait till people are gone.”

  Shel subsided, and the guards completed their track, giving them a brief moment.

  “I can handle it,” Shel repeated.

  Wolfe shook his head. “I’m sure you can, but you’ve never assassinated anyone. This feels like a huge step we probably shouldn’t have you take, for multiple reasons, now that I think about it. No matter the plan Fern had. Let me handle this part—you be here to keep me alive.”

  Hope I don’t regret this, but I do think this part is well within my usual capability, even if there is a certain irony to abandoning the plan and relying on raw skill.

  Before she could argue, Wolfe hurled himself around the bush, running for the wall of the warehouse they were aiming for. As he did, he pulled his deck, praying to Cerberus for luck for once.

  And he got it. His mantle was available in his first draw, and he slapped it, a feral glee filling him.

  The red light settled around him and he picked up speed, feeling the power of his cad coursing through him. He ran to the wall and leaned back against it.

  “That was idiotic,” Fern’s voice came through the com. “But your white knighting aside, the guard will be there in ten seconds, give or take a second or two.”

  He took breaths as quietly as he could for the remaining few seconds, and as soon as the guard stepped around the corner, Wolfe punched him in the head so hard that the thug’s head caved in. Wolfe grabbed him before he fell, his movements supernaturally quick. He lay him against the inner wall.

  Fern’s voice crackled to life. “You’ve got five minutes before the second ground guard reaches the spot. Around the corner, about twenty feet along the wall, is a ladder you can reach to get to the top. Upper guard is going to pass it in about twenty seconds, along the railing directly above you. If he looks down, he’ll spot you. If he doesn’t, you can probably go around the corner and climb the ladder a mere twenty seconds after that without him hearing. If you’re careful.”

  Wolfe nodded, even though Fern couldn’t see him—or not enough to see him nod, she could probably see him through her eye in the sky. Then he counted the time to himself, staring up at the railing surrounding the upper level of the warehouse. The soft metallic clink of the guard walking across it came around the corner, and Wolfe silently pointed his STI Edge up, holding his breath as the guard walked.

  Every nerve was on fire—this had been what the AR-15 had been for, to silence this guard before he could see what Wolfe had done. Wolfe didn’t breath as the footsteps went past him, the guards gait slow and steady.

  After a moment, when the guard was barely past him, Wolfe stepped around the corner, then exhaled.

  Thirty seconds later, he ran at the wall, leapt up, and grabbed the ladder. A boost of power from Malviere gave him extra impetus, and he pulled himself up, his new phenomenal combat power translating somewhat to raw strength. The pulled himself up and over the railing in a move that would normally have required one of the upper percentage points of human physiques, but that he could manage with his mantle.

  Then he willed Malviere gone. After a moment, her red and brown lights swirled into his deck. Wolfe re-pulled the deck and re-summoned her.

  “Alright, just lean around the corner and finish that man for me. As quiet as you can. I don’t want to chase him over metal railing.”

  Malviere nodded and leaned around the side.

  Wolfe held his gun, ready to go around the side if things didn’t work.

  Malviere threw her shadow at the target. A ghost dog formed as it raced where Wolfe couldn’t see it.

  But a notification popped up, telling him that the target was dead.

  Wolfe breathed easily.

  Then he leaned over the side of the railing and waited. A moment later, he pulled his trigger once, the silenced shot turning the last guards head into mist thanks to the extra power of Wolfe’s mantle. Fair fights are for suckers.

  “Alright, all three guards are down,” Wolfe said. “Shel, care to bring me the computer, and we can head in?”

  He leapt off the railing, enjoying his power as he landed on the ground outside the warehouse.

  I wonder what they’ll have for me?

  Shadow Card Guardian!