Lycan Legacy - Paladin: Tales of Luna White - Werewolf Veronica Singer (children's ebooks online txt) 📖

Mike and Manny were staring up at me. “What?” I said. “It’s only twelve feet. Tie the packs to the line and I’ll pull them up.”

One by one, I pulled the packs up and lowered them gently to the other side of the wall. Silkworm made it easy—she unknotted herself at my mental command to release the packs once they were on the ground.

That task finished, I dropped Silkworm back down the outside wall and slid down, landing silently beside my team. Mike had put on his impervious gloves; Manny had a set of plain leather gloves.

I made a knot to form a belay line at foot level. “Mike, put your foot here and climb. The loop will follow you up and keep you from slipping.”

“I don’t need the loop,” said Mike. “It’s only twelve feet. I could probably jump up and scramble over.”

“The sound suppressor only works when we’re close. The loop will let you get up and over silently.”

Mike nodded and climbed up and over the wall. A quiet thump announced his landing on the other side as I made another loop in Silkworm for Manny.

Manny was squinting through his night-vision goggles at the knot. “What the hell kind of knot only works in one direction? And where did you learn to do that?”

“Free-climbing champion of Wyoming,” I said. “Now get your ass over that wall.”

Manny put one foot in the loop and pulled himself up with a grunt.

Uh-oh. His arm was still weak from months of being immobilized. I put a hand under his butt and pushed, raising him to the top of the wall. He scrambled over and made a louder thump upon landing.

I didn’t bother with the belay loop, just grabbed Silkworm and jerked myself up and over the wall through the gap in the concertina wire.

I held on with one hand and pulled the wire back in place to hide the fact that it was cut here. Not a great disguise, but the longer we went without discovery, the better. Then I dropped to land silently beside my team.

“Good girl,” I whispered to Silkworm while patting her on the head. She retracted and coiled herself up into a neat bundle.

Manny was busy a few feet away, so intent on setting his charges that he had missed my comment.

While Manny worked, Mike and I humped the other pack over to the inner wall. We repeated the sequence to get the pack, then Mike, over the wall.

It was straining my resources to their limits to maintain the infra-red and soundproof shields over Manny at one wall and Mike at the other, but I pushed through the effort. Mason made this stuff look easy.

I was able to ease up on the magic when Manny finished and ran over to the inner wall.

Manny gestured for me to go over the wall first. Had he been embarrassed that I had pushed him over the outer wall? Should I let him take the rear? Could Manny hang by one hand and close the concertina wire? Hell, no.

I shook my head forcefully and whispered, “Manny, get your geriatric ass over that wall. I’ll follow you.”

He shook his head and I glared at him. Something in my eyes must have convinced him—either that or he remembered his chain of command—because he scrambled over the wall quickly.

I repeated my actions to close the wire and dropped to the inside of the compound. Mike and Manny worked quickly to set up the second set of demo charges here.

While they worked, I took a deep breath and probed the night, using senses both magical and wolf. This close, I could scent both Logan and Alisha. They were being kept in separate sections of the building, Logan in some underground facility and Alisha in an upper-story room.

The scent of Logan’s blood and his pain through the link decided me on our first objective. Alisha didn’t seem to be in distress. Logan first.

Mike and Manny stood, their work done. Now that we were inside the well-lighted courtyard, Manny stripped off his night-vision goggles and stashed them. We hoped their Saudi Electricity uniforms would provide a moment’s hesitation in any guards that spied us. A moment was all I would need.

“I’ve got point,” I said. “Follow me closely. I’ll stop at the edge of the sensor’s range.”

Manny opened his mouth to object, but Mike gave him a quick hand sign and he shut up and followed.

A few feet into the compound, I encountered the pentagram shield spell. Placing it closer to the iron-reinforced concrete and the stainless-steel concertina wire would have negated the spell. It pulsed with foreign magic—some kind of instant-stroke curse combined with bad luck.

I stopped and sniffed. The taste of this magic was familiar, reminding me of the genie we had left buried in the desert. The same genie or a close cousin? I couldn’t tell. They weren’t mortal enough to have the markers I used to identify individuals. Maybe if I met a few more…

That thought sent a shiver down my spine. No, I’d be happy never seeing one again.

The powerful curse slid over me, impotent as a bad smell, as I stepped forward. I turned and held a palm up to halt Mike and Manny. From this side, the shape of the curse was clear. With a gesture, I opened a doorway in the perimeter and gestured my team through. As they passed, I touched each man’s shoulder, placing a protective hex on them.

Another pause as I worked the cameras that continuously scanned the inner courtyard. Instead of burning the cameras out, I froze the motors in place when they were faced away from us, creating a blind-spot corridor that reached the house. Any guard looking out a window would see us, but these guards were either sleeping or depending on the automatic defenses and alarms.

“Follow me,” I whispered, “precisely. Don’t take any shortcuts or the cameras and sensors will see you.”

Mike and Manny obediently trailed me on my zig-zag path through