Val’s amulet hummed against her chest, although she sensed little magic in the air. The threats on this street were far more physical. Lone humans with the hollow cheeks and twitchy eyes of addicts strode past. A gaggle of young kids, several primary school-aged, crossed the street purposefully at a red light.
Val spotted the unmistakable silhouette of a handgun in one’s waistband. A truck braked sharply at the light and honked as the kids crossed. The smallest one flipped the driver off.
“This place gives me the creeps, Gennie,” Val muttered.
The light turned green, and Val turned right onto a narrow street between rows of grim warehouses. Many had boarded-up windows or broken panes like black eyes. Profane graffiti in simple colors splashed the bare bricks. Despite the setting sun and warm evening light, the place felt drained of all color. Dismal.
Her target was at the end of the block. Val turned into an abandoned parking lot several buildings away and slipped Genevieve between a pair of rusting, forgotten dumpsters.
The Mustang revved her engine softly in protest.
“Sorry, Gennie. You’re too conspicuous.” Val exited the car. “I mean, turning heads is your thing, right?”
Genevieve flashed her headlights, preening.
“Wait here,” Val ordered. “And don’t do anything magical.”
Genevieve’s quiet honk sounded obedient. Val patted the roof fondly, then strode across the parking lot. She checked the dagger on her hip and the disc on her arm, shook the adrenaline from her arms, and ran a hand through her hair.
Okay, Val. It’s go time.
Val didn’t leave the parking lot the way she’d entered. She hopped the chain-link fence by pulling herself over the top with an easy jerk of her arms and landed quietly in a narrow alley behind the buildings, if Google Maps was anything to go by. She kept to a crouch, head below the grimy windows, and quickly moved down the alley.
Warehouse 759 was on the corner. Val approached it silently, aware of the sounds within. Clangs, thuds, and low voices came from within the warehouse. Its windows were painted black.
According to BrewCorp’s records, they owned two elegant breweries and a random warehouse in an abandoned area of Brownsville. Thank you, Liam.
Val crept to the nearest window. They’d failed to paint the panes’ corners, so clear glass showed at the edges. Val risked a glance, then dropped back to the wall, heart thudding.
Nothing happened. No one had seen her.
Slowly, Val leaned forward and peered through the clear glass. No luck. She heard heavy thuds like people throwing large items onto the back of a truck and masculine voices, but she could see only a few stacks of pallets, all covered with black tarps.
What’s under those tarps? Val wondered.
She ducked beneath the window and kept moving, her steps soundless in her well-worn boots. The following window was entirely black…but the frame was iron.
Val grinned and pressed her fingertips to it. Let me see in, Val asked the window. Please be quiet.
The amulet heated, and the iron responded. With a tiny creak, the frame bent open an inch, which was enough for Val to peer through.
The truck was inside the warehouse, and the loading bay doors were closed. BrewCorp’s logo adorned the truck’s sides. A small door on Val’s left was propped open with a brick, and a burly guy smoked in the doorway. She recognized him from the fight at the Anvil Brewery. He was the one who’d lit the Molotov cocktail.
“There you are,” Val whispered. “Asshole.” Her heart rate sped up, and she fished her phone from her pocket to snap pictures. Maybe they would provide evidence that BrewCorp was in bed with organized crime, considering that a gang enforcer was guarding their warehouse.
That was only the beginning of the buffet of guilt Val saw inside. A dozen guys wandered around the warehouse. Two who wore overalls with BrewCorp logos hovered at the room’s edges, looking uncomfortable. The others had that can’t-touch-this swagger of gangsters as they prowled around, lifting tarps to peer at the pallets beneath.
Go on, Val silently urged them. Pick up a tarp facing me. Let me see what you’re hiding here.
A heavily tattooed guy near Val lifted the corner of a tarp. Val and the gangster both frowned.
“Hey, Smith,” he barked, almost making Val jump. “What is this shit?”
The pallets were stocked with beer cans wrapped in plastic.
One of the guys in overalls edged nearer. “That’s, uh, that’s the wrong pallet, Damien.”
Damien’s lip curled in disgust. “Get your shit together, man. Our clients over the border won’t be happy if we send them beer.”
What’s under the other tarps? Val wondered. What are you smuggling out of this country?
She thought she knew, and she grinned. Liam’s plan had worked perfectly so far. It was just as they had suspected: BrewCorp used this warehouse as a hub for the gang’s illegal operations.
All she had to do was prove it. Should she abandon the plan and storm the warehouse? Val shook her head. That wouldn’t help. The cops needed paper evidence, and given Mr. Molotov Cocktail’s penchant for improvised incendiary devices, Val had to make sure the paperwork stayed safe.
She turned her attention to the office at the back of the warehouse, near the door where Mr. Molotov was smoking. Plexiglass panels shielded the office from the rest of the space. The scratched, grimy panels made it hard to see inside, but Val spotted an office chair, a computer monitor, and piles of paper.
That’ll do. That’s what we’re after.
She sank below the window and considered the warehouse’s layout, quickly running through her breaching plan in her head. Mr. Molotov made her job easy by leaving the front door open, but who knew how well-armed those guys were? Val hadn’t seen any guns, but she was sure they at least had pistols.
Good thing she’d come prepared. She flicked her wrist, formed the shield, and raised her arm so it shrank to an armband again.
Get in there. Take them down. Get the evidence, Val told herself.
She scanned the alley for guards, and her body tensed. Had she seen a shadow move behind a heap of rubble a few yards away?
Val slipped into a crouch, hand hovering near her dagger. Shit. If the presence she sensed in the alley alerted the others, they could destroy the evidence before she could steal it. She had to move quickly.
