Page 45 of Sweetwater and the Witch

He hesitated. “You do know how to fire a flamer, right?”

“How hard can it be?” She gave him a flashy smile. “It’s like a camera, right? You just point and shoot.”

“Ravenna—”

“Yes, of course I know how to use a flamer. Once upon a time I was a profiler on an FBPI task force, remember? Collins, the guy in charge, made me go through basic weapons and self-defense training. Also, I’ve got Harriet. Stop fretting. I think I’ve already proven I can take care of myself.”

She was right. He was letting emotion get in the way of logic.

“I’ll be right back,” he said.

He raced down the hallway to the hole-in-the-wall. The vault door stood open. He crossed the basement and took out his phone as he went up the stairs. He rezzed Gabriel Jones’s private number.

“This is Jones. What’s wrong?”

“That favor we talked about?”

“You’re calling it in already?”

“Afraid so.”

He explained what he needed, hung up, and went outside to grab the roll of duct tape from the trunk of the Slider. He was heading back into the cottage when he got another ping on his watch. Spooner was leaving the Shadow Zone.

Ravenna was waiting, flamer at the ready, when he returned to the rotunda. Harriet was on the floor playing with a pen.

“She found it in the pocket of one of the hit men,” Ravenna explained. “It’s from a club called the Night Dive.”

“Interesting,” Ethan said. He set about using the duct tape to secure the unconscious men. “That constitutes a lead. With luck, Jones can run it down.”

“Jones? The local Guild boss?”

“Right.” Ethan got to his feet. “He’s sending a couple of his men to collect these two and keep them under wraps at Guild headquarters. I don’t have time to question them. Don’t know exactly what questions to ask, anyway. I’m just the tech guy.”

Ravenna looked uneasy. “What are you planning to do?”

“You and I are going to disappear for a while. We’ll use the tunnels to get to the Shadow Zone.”

“Why?”

“Because Spooner spent some time there tonight. He’s on his way back to his hotel now, but I want to see if I can figure out what he was doing or who he saw while he was on that side of town.”

“You’re planning to walk to the Shadow Zone through the tunnels? That is going to be a long hike.”

“My sled is parked under my house. We’ll use it. But first you’re going to have to leave all of your tuned amber here.”

She was properly horrified. He was asking her to violate the number one rule of safety in the Underworld.

“Are you serious?” she asked.

“These two were tracking it, Ravenna. We have to assume Spooner knows where you are right now. That is not good. We need to buy some time. There’s a strong possibility that if you ditch your amber down here, he will assume, at least for a while, that his hit team was successful. Don’t worry, I’ll give you some of my amber.”

Grim understanding shadowed her eyes. “You said yours was locked.”

“It is. You won’t be able to navigate with it, but I can use it to locate you.”

“Better than nothing.” She brightened. “Besides, I’ve got Harriet. In a worst-case scenario she would lead me back to the surface.”

Harriet chortled at the sound of her name and waved her new pen.

---