Page 62 of The Incubus and the Bodyguard

She was mapping the quickest route to her target through the warehouse’s ventilation system when gunfire erupted from the front of the building.

“Contact!” Cortes barked over the comm. “East side!”

More shots rang out, from the north this time. Shouts of alarm followed as Isaacs’s men clocked that there were intruders on the premises.

Delphine scaled the ladder swiftly as chaos erupted below. The distraction would give her the window she needed to get to Manuel.

Let’s just hope he stays put and doesn’t bolt.

She reached the roof without being spotted and headed for the ventilation duct. The access panel was screwed on tight. She ripped it out with sheer brute force, her enhanced strength making short work of the bolts securing it.

Delphine slipped down into a tunnel and had crawled some fifty feet when her scalp prickled. She stilled, her nanorobots picking up on something just beyond the limit of their perception. Something strange.

“It’s that damn magic again!” Cortes barked on the comm amid the sound of gunfire. “That sorcerer must be up to something!”

“Delphine?” Vlad asked urgently.

She clenched her jaw and accelerated, her pulse racing. “I’m on it.”

She took a couple of turns, slid down a duct, and reached the high-ceilinged storage area she’d been aiming for.

The ventilation shaft opened in the northwest corner of the room.

Delphine peered through the grating.

The space had been cleared except for a circle of candles on the concrete floor. Manuel Isaacs stood within it, his hands raised as he chanted in a language she didn’t recognize, the flickering light casting eldritch shadows across his weathered face. Four armed men were spaced out amidst the boxes and crates piled haphazardly around the room, weapons at the ready as they protected the sorcerer.

Delphine stilled when she spotted an object tucked in Manuel’s belt. It was a small pouch. One that could easily hold two voodoo dolls.

She loosened the grating silently, her eyes on the guards. Their attention was focused toward the door and the sounds of fighting echoing throughout the building.

Delphine dropped nimbly from the ventilation shaft and rolled across the floor into the cover of a stack of crates. She rose, her movements fluid, a shadow in the night.

The first guard never knew what hit him.

She caught him as he fell and eased his body to the ground, his neck crooked in death.

One down.

The second man turned just as she reached him. Delphine’s knife found his throat before he could raise the alarm, the blade carving through his jugular and his windpipe in a slick motion.

Two.

The remaining guards spotted her when she emerged from the shadows. They opened fire.

Delphine was already moving. She dove, rolled beneath the spray of bullets, and came up inside the nearest man’s guard. Her elbow caught him in the solar plexus and her hand found his weapon as he doubled over.

A bullet smashed into her nanorobot suit as her finger slipped smoothly inside the trigger. The shot crumpled on contact, raising a curse from the man who’d fired at her. She shifted smoothly behind the guard she’d struck in the chest and used his body as a shield just as the fourth man fired again. The guard jerked in her hold as shots peppered him.

She took out the fourth man with a shot to the head.

He fell, dead before he hit the ground.

Three and four.

Manuel’s chanting grew frantic as she stepped into the open area where he stood, his eyes dark with fear and loathing. He flung out a hand toward her.

Nothing happened.

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