Page 545 of Shadowblood Souls
Riva claps her hands together. “Then we need to find the board. They’ve got to be running things now.”
I grimace. “I wonder what they think of all the havoc Balthazar’s already wreaking thanks to their experiments?”
“They might not know he’s behind it,” Dominic points out. “He’s been pretending it’s monsters making the attacks, right?He hasn’t been in contact with them for years—they probably have even less information about his current activities than we do.”
Rollick is typing a text into his phone with one hand while the other taps at the keyboard of his laptop. Apparently epic multitasking is among his supernatural skills.
“Your guardians aren’t generally secretive enough about their presence to escape shadowkind notice,” he says. “It helps that they’re so fond of their protective measures, which we can’t help picking up on. And having the name of someone on this board… I may be able to dig up contact information and locations they’re presently working out of within a matter of hours.”
I shift on my feet with a prickle of my own restlessness. “We can’t just call them up or barge in and order them around. Why would they pay attention to anything we say or do? If they know who we are, they’ll never listen to us. And if we don’t tell them, then we’ll only be strangers.”
“Hmm. There are various methods of persuasion, some more subtle than others.” Rollick snaps his fingers and raises his voice at a pitch that makes my eardrums wobble. “Pearl?”
The succubus must have been lurking nearby, because it can’t be more than ten seconds before she pops into being next to his desk. “Yes, boss?” she asks with a typically cheeky grin.
My stance starts to tense again. Our grand plan is going to rely onher? I mean, the succubus has been nice to us and all, but she never seems to take anything all that seriously.
Rollick clearly doesn’t share any of my concerns. “You did a good job getting that lackey of Balthazar’s to cough up the info about the hidden route inside the hill,” he says. “We might have more intensive need of your skills soon.”
Her grin only widens. “Sounds good to me. What’s up?”
Riva steps in. “We’re going to track down the current leaders of the Guardianship—the organization that all the guardians belong to. That Balthazar used to as well. I’m hoping we can use them to come at him from a new angle, one he won’t expect or be ready to defend against.”
“The Guardianship,” Pearl repeats, and her bright eyes go momentarily distant. “You know, that guy of Balthazar’s said something about them when I was working my charms.”
Okay, maybe I sold her abilities short. I stare at her, wishing I could push myself right into the memory like Andreas would be able to. “What? I thought Balthazar had nothing to do with them anymore.”
Pearl dips her head in acknowledgment. “Oh, he doesn’t. It was—” She glances at Riva, and her smile falters for a moment. “I told you before how when I’m seducing someone, they always seem to end up blabbing their big regrets to me afterward. One of this guy’s big failures had to do with the guardians.”
Everyone’s attention is trained on the succubus now. Rollick makes a circular motion with his hand. “Go on.”
Pearl sucks her lower lip under her teeth as she appears to think back. “He was someone in pretty tight with Balthazar. One of his top dudes. But he was worried the big guy would never give him any responsibilities outside of the science-y stuff he was mostly focused on.”
Dominic’s eyebrows rise. “Wait… Did you manage to get your hands onMatteo?”
Pearl blinks at him. “Yeah, that was his name. Is that important?”
A sourness laces my tongue and turns my stomach. Something thumps on one of Rollick’s shelves in the instant before I rein in my power.
That fucking smug prick and his sick “procedures.” It’s his fault almost as much as Balthazar’s that we’re in this mess.
“Matteo was one of the two employees Balthazar seemed to count on the most at the villa,” Riva says quietly. “The other one being Toni. He was in charge of trying to expand our abilities—and he’s probably the one who worked out whatever treatment Balthazar’s using now to produce his new and stronger shadowbloods.”
Pearl wrinkles her nose. “Ugh. He did seem like a creep. We should be looking to take him out of the picture too.”
The corner of Riva’s mouth curls upward just slightly. “I already did.”
Rollick chuckles approvingly. Probably the thing I like most about the demon is the fact that he appreciates my woman’s brutal side as much as I do.
Pearl hesitates and then lets out a bell of a laugh. “Well, that’s taken care of then.”
Dominic clears his throat. “You never told us what he said about the guardians.”
“Oh, right.” The succubus rubs her hands together. “Apparently a couple of years ago, after Balthazar went off on his own apart from this Guardianship, Matteo figured it’d been long enough of his boss playing lone wolf and that they’d make progress faster if they continued collaborating with the guardians at least a little. So he set up a visit with some of the head honchos, thinking Balthazar would be pleased with his initiative.”
I can’t imagine that psycho being “pleased” with anyone’s inspiration other than his own. “Let me guess. He was wrong.”
“Oh, yeah. When Balthazar saw the Guardianship people, he told them off with a bunch of insults and threats… It was so bad Matteo was sure he’d have a hard time coming back even if he changed his mind later.”
