Skin Deep

CHAPTER 20

SHE NEARLY COLLIDED with Cress as she came through the door to InterSec. “What the hell is happening?” Laura asked.

They hurried down the corridor. “Three bombs have gone off in the city,” said Cress. “Targets hit are the FBI building and the Guildhouse. A car bomb heading for the White House blew up at the gatehouse.”

At the end of the corridor, they swept into the InterSec situation room. Terryn sat on the long side of a table facing several monitors. Newsfeeds from across the city lit the wall. One monitor showed smoke billowing out of the FBI building. The outside wall of the building was scorched, and several windows were broken, but otherwise the damage looked minimal. The fire trucks on the scene seemed to have everything under control.

“Are you okay?” Terryn said.

Laura nodded. “Scales is dead. I was leaving his office when a bomb went off.”

“The gods were with you,” Cress said softly.

Guildhouse security feeds filled a second series of monitors. A car burned next to a shimmering white wall of essence in the alley behind the building. News channels showed distance shots of the entire building. Behind its large, activated essence barrier, the Guildhouse was undamaged.

Laura placed her handbag on the table and opened it. She pulled out the chunk of metal. “We need to get this analyzed. It’s a piece of metal from the bomb, with some kind of spell on it.”

Cress stepped back and activated her body shield.

“Sorry, I wasn’t thinking,” said Laura.

“It’s fine,” she said. Absorbing essence enabled leanansidhe to survive, but it also exposed them to potential attacks through manipulated essence. With her body shield protecting her, Cress held up the metal fragment. She half closed her eyes as she sniffed at it, her lips and nostrils trembling. “It feels like a shield. I do not sense an active spell but the shadow of some kind of trigger spell.”

Terryn took the metal from her. As his own precaution, he protected his hands with a warding barrier of hard blue light. “The material is hardened with essence. The spell increased its density. We used to do this with projectiles.”

Rocks, Laura thought. Terryn was talking about rocks flung from catapults or something similar. She worked with a man who made connections between a modern bomb and an ancient weapon. His nonchalant references to his age and history disconcerted her at times. He handed the metal piece back to Cress. “Dispatch agents to the crash sites in case there are delayed or untriggered spells in the debris.”

Cress held the metal chunk with a cupped hand as she left the room. “I’ll take this to Forensics for a deep probe.”

Laura stared at the monitors. The bottom row ran incoming updates from local, national, and international news. A screen banner caught her eye. Several street-level news crews were picking up house fires in a residential section of Anacostia. The scene looked more chaotic with civilians present. She pointed. “What’s that?”

Terryn pulled the channel onto a larger monitor. “House fire.”

Laura stared at the screen. A simple three-story was entirely consumed in flames. Secondary fires were burning on the houses next door. “That’s a big house fire. When did it start?”

Terryn checked the computer screen that lit up the tabletop, then raised an eyebrow. “Within minutes of the bombs. Wait a moment…” He tapped the keyboard of his laptop and monitors shifted to an internal computer directory. He opened a document. “I thought so. This is from the SWAT-TEAM files we were able to get before the information flow stopped. Check out the address of one of the informants for the raid.”

Laura read quickly through the form on the screen. “The house in the middle happens to be the home of Gianni’s informant. Scales happened to be the director in charge of an undercover operation investigating the SWAT team. Both targets were softer than the other two. It’s almost pointless to go after the White House or the Guildhouse with small bombs. They were a smoke screen to draw attention away from these two.”

Laura slid into a chair. She let Terryn’s theory sink in. A chill ran over her. “Mariel Tate was a target, too.”

“How so?” Terryn asked. Laura was always impressed that nothing surprised or struck him as bizarre.

“I was early. The meeting was short. I left Scales’s office about when the meeting was originally scheduled. I saw the bomb delivered,” she said.

“That could be a very lucky coincidence,” he said.

Laura shook her head. “I think I triggered it, Terryn. I sensed a strange essence field in the hall. When I went toward Scales to tell him, the bomb blew.”

“No one knew you were there,” he said.

“Scales did. Someone knew his schedule.”

“Did you get anything from him?”

She shook her head. “Scales implied there is a political angle to what was going on at the raid. That’s never a good sign for internal security.”

“Did you get any names?”

“He went secret on me, so I couldn’t get details. He made sure to mention that I should visit the Vault.”

Terryn arched an eyebrow. “We’ve updated Tylo Blume’s dossier since your visit. I’ll look a little deeper into his political connections.”

Laura’s gaze wandered back to the monitors. “Is Foyle’s team at the Anacostia crash site?”

Terryn checked something on his laptop. “They went in with the first responders. They needed a spell senser, and Foyle asked for you. I told him I’d put Janice Crawford on sick leave.”

Laura gathered up her handbag. “I’m going out there. If Sinclair ends up alone with Gianni, that might not be a good thing.”

Terryn pursed his lips. “Are personal feelings clouding your judgment?”

Laura paused at the door. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Terryn gazed at her. “I don’t see a rational basis to trust him. Maybe we need to retire Janice Crawford.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment. It would be a relief to retire Janice. Working one glamour persona was tough enough to balance against her Guild responsibilities-to say nothing of making time for assignments from InterSec. But Janice was her in with the SWAT squad. Mariel Tate would only hear what they wanted her to hear, but in the downtime in the bull pen, Janice was likely to hear a different story. “Not yet, Terryn. We need her. As long as I’m with Sinclair, he’s not acting on his own. If he’s exposed me, now would be the time to find out.”

Terryn returned his attention to the monitors. “I never like to put you in jeopardy, but I have to agree. Be careful.”

“Call Saffin for me and get her away from her desk,” she said. Retracing her steps down the hall, she pulled her essence out of the perfect stone and the Mariel persona slipped off in a sweep of cool static. Beneath the glamour she wore jeans and a T-shirt. With soot in her hair and on her face, she looked a bit mad in her bare feet. The idea amused her. She felt a bit mad.

By the time she reached the public-relations department, Saffin was gone from her desk. Laura hurried into her office and through the closet to her private room. Without pause, she pulled on her regulation SWAT-team boots, the flak jacket and helmet over her jeans and T-shirt. She didn’t want to waste time dressing. Activating the Janice glamour completed the rest of the uniform. When she hit the parking garage, she jumped in the SUV and tore up the exit ramp, with a metal band blasting from the stereo.