Page 2 of Raven's Instinct
Alan watched her profile as she drove. He knew she had two kids, and her wariness suggested that she had regrets and complications that involved them; they were one of several subjects she skirted carefully around.
“You don’t see that very often,” Alan said cautiously. He wasn’t sure where this was going, or what Juliette’s kids had to do with him or his next job. “But I imagine that’s a part of the changing family landscape these days.”
He himself had been raised by his Russian grandmother in a Native Alaskan village where it was hard enough to keep secrets from the neighbors with her full time care. He couldn’t imagine the challenge an unpredictable shifter toddler would be for working parents, let alone single parents. Once he was old enough to control his powers, he went to live with his parents in Anchorage, and he wasstillmore trouble than not.
He reminded himself to send a birthday card to his mother and have an awkward phone call with her. He wished he could tell his grandmother how much he appreciated the start that she’d given him, but it was too late for that now.
“So, what’s the job?” Alan asked.
“You know as well as I do that every time the administration changes, we end up having to defend our department and the…irregular methods we employ.”
Because shifters were secret, steps that the supernormal agency took to protect them were necessarily classified. It was hard to explain Alan’s exact reasons for deleting surveillance databases that had incriminating evidence of shifters, or the exact mechanism of his infiltration and execution of the plan. “Turned into a raven and flew in through skylight” raised eyebrowsandunwanted attention.
“Yes,” Alan said simply.
“Well, we’re looking at the very real possibility that we lose our legal hold on a few important detainees. One of them is Owen Davis.”
Alan remembered the file on Owen Davis. The man was involved in the kidnapping of Juliette’s two kids, Jackson andDarius, and allegedly worked with Stork Inc. Alan could see why this fell into the personal category.
Anything to do with Stork Inc. gave Alan a sinking feeling. The company was trying to uncover shifter secrets as vehemently as the agency was trying to bury them, and they had clashed on several occasions. Las Vegas had become a hotbed of counterintelligence.
“What exactly is it that you want me to do?” Alan said with a sudden flash of suspicion.
“I want you to work at the day care, but hold onto that thought, because we’re almost to the compound.”
The rugged terrain looked gently hilly at a distance, but up close it was rocky scrabble, broken lava, and random crevices, hazed with ash and sprinkled with a few determined bushes. The Jeep turned off the highway at a sign proclaiming SEQ TECHNICAL and wound down to an unexpected oasis of green, with sudden manicured spots of lawn and sculpted hedges, bright with flowers and shadowed with carefully placed palm trees.
The road, which had been paved but poorly maintained, flattened and smoothed into a beautiful approach, flanked on both sides by steep black rock canyon walls. There was no escape route and no room to turn around if they were driving into a trap.
“You sure you got everything turned off?” Juliette asked, guiding the Jeep boldly down the passage.
“The only way they’d know we were coming is if they’ve got someoneliterallystaring out the window at us. All the feeds are looped. And they have noreasonto be looking for us.” Despite his confident tone, Alan had a stab of doubt. He could fly up and out, if it came down to it, but Juliette wasn’t a shifter at all. If thiswasa trap…
Alan realized that some of his concern wasn’t his own and he dropped a hand to his pocket. The carved moose antler he found there was hot to the touch.
“Stop worrying, Aiden,” he said, touching his earpiece to activate the microphone. “You and Noah have our six, and we’ve got diplomatic backup if necessary.”
Thediplomatic backupwas the exact opposite of its name, and Alan really didn’t want this mission to turn into blazing guns.
“We’ve got this,” he assured Aiden as the token cooled. “Juliette and I are heading in. Have the big bird ready to go in case we come in under pressure.”
“Noah already woke up the pilot and gassed the plane. My code is impeccable. No one will even know you were there.”
Alan trusted Aiden’s skill. He trusted his whole team. “We’re here,” he said.
The compound was a cluster of square white buildings that looked like blocks of fancy cheese in artistically modern shapes. The main building had sparkling fountains and columns, with an open courtyard full of exotic plants. There was white marble everywhere, stark against the black lava flows beyond.
Juliette ignored the grand front entrance and drove the Jeep to the side of the compound. The delivery door at the side of the secondary building was cracked open and waiting. Juliette grabbed a heavy bag from behind her seat—the part of the operation that Alan couldn’t do as a raven—and slung it over her shoulder.
The stark white hallways were a welcome breath of climate-controlled air. It wasn’t swelteringly hot outside at this elevation, but it was dry and the wind outside was sharp with ash. The air inside was weirdly still and smelled clinical. Machinery hummed somewhere nearby.There was no sign of guards.
“Why would you put a server backup in Chile?” Alan asked conversationally as they walked in, pausing at each door. They kept their weapons holstered, following memorized directions down the maze of corridors to the correct server room.
“Taxes, mostly,” Juliette said. “And privacy laws are more lax here.” She found the correct door and they waited until Aiden gave them the okay. The door lock released with a hiss when Juliette waved the keycard at the pad. “Actually, no. The privacy laws are just forsalehere.”
Alan went in first and came face-to-face with their first complication—an unarmed technician who must be working off-schedule.
“Que—?”
