Page 35 of A Brighter Yellow
“I guess we should call Liam and tell him he missed one,” said Ochre.
“We’re not calling Liam,” snapped Anna grumpily. “We can handle this ourselves.”
Ochre tried not to feel smug that now they were awe. He also didn’t see any need to call Liam. He didn’t particularly care for the idea of letting Scarlet butt in on his adventure, and he also didn’t like the idea that maybe Anna had been into Liam. He knew it shouldn’t bother him, but he felt more jealous of Anna’s attention after one night together than any girl he’d ever dated previously.
“OK, so this Brett guy owns the property,” said Ochre. “We know Elliot’s going out there. Who else are we going to run into? Because I’m pretty sure Anna can kick both their asses at the same time without breaking a sweat.”
Anna gave a half-laugh. “That’s funny because it’s true.”
“Well, unfortunately,” said Sue, “this morning when I did drone reconnaissance, I counted fifteen motorcycles and five individuals.”
“You have a drone?” asked Anna, perking up. “I keep trying to convince my father to use drones for some of the herd counts, but he insists on doing it the old-fashioned way. Like I want to spend my time counting sheep.”
“You keep sheep?” asked Ochre.
“We are aware of the irony,” said Anna, giving him a stringent glare. “We do not need it pointed out.”
“I said nothing,” said Ochre.
“I can feel you thinking it,” said Anna primly.
He’d figured that their psychic connection was going to have drawbacks at some point, but he hadn’t thought it would arrive so soon or involve sheep.
Ochre tried to keep the smile off his face. Anna gave him side-eye, but he thought she was also trying not to laugh. “Anyway, um, do we have any maps of the property?” he asked.
“Nothing for the inside,” said Steve, who was looking sad. Ochre thought he’d realized that Anna wasn’t available. “But Sue has put together a pretty good panoramic shot of the outside.”
Sue turned the monitor on her screen, and they all stared at the overhead map of the property. The majority of the structure must be underground because from the aerial shot it looked like a hill with some doors in it. The road that Elliot had entered ended in a wide gravel parking area with some sort of pre-fab storage shed that looked dinky comparatively and was probably a guard shack. The doors were huge, big enough to drive a tank into, but there was a smaller entry just off to the side that seemed more in human scale. There were multiple cars and motorcycles parked out front. Ochre could see that getting in the front door was going to be a problem.
“I think if you can do it, that the best bet to get in is over here.” Sue pointed to a dark spot on the side of the mounded hillock. There was no road leading up to it, just what looked like a foot path. “It’s a side entrance. I gave it a few fly-bys. There were a couple of guys hanging out, but only about half the time.”
“What do you want to do?” asked Steve.
“We don’t have any evidence that the cops will accept,” said Ochre. “And I think what’s in there will be something that cops aren’t equipped to deal with anyway.”
“We’ll take care of it ourselves,” said Anna, firmly.
“I can put together a team,” said Steve. “I have guys. Guys that served in Afghanistan.”
Ochre considered it.
“And we’ve all seen… things,” Steve added. “Things that we can’t quite explain.” Ochre nodded. He got what Steve was saying, but he wasn’t ready to start giving Steve the explanations for those things. Moving into the Supernatural world frequently came with a price for humans. They paid in lost friendships and safety. He saw that Steve was trying to say that he was ready for that, but Ochre wasn’t sure he wanted to have the Supernatural talk just yet.
“I think,” said Anna, and Ochre waited for her to reject Steve’s idea. “I think we’re going to need you to help us get out. But I think Ochre and I should go in by ourselves.” Ochre liked that idea. It respected Steve and his talents, but it wasn’t putting him on the front lines just yet.
“I want to go in the side door,” said Ochre. “And out the same way if we can, but it might not work out that way.”
Steve nodded. “We can be the extraction team. What kind of gear do you need?”
“I think we’ll need walkie-talkies to keep in touch with you,” said Ochre. “But we, um, we’re not gun people. We use other things.”
Anna cleared her throat and glanced nervously at Ochre. “I do want some dynamite, though,” she said.
“Uh,” said Ochre. At this point he couldn’t say he was surprised, but he still wasn’t sure it was a good idea.
“If it really is a warlock temple,” said Anna, “I’m going to burn that place to the ground, and I’m going to come out in a fucking hurry. They’re evil. One of their temple founding rites is a ritualized gang rape, by the way. You know, in case you’re wondering if they’re reallythatbad. Doesn’t have to be dynamite,” she added. “Just anything that goes boom. But I’ve used dynamite before.”
“OK,” said Steve, without blinking. “I’ll make some calls. We’ll get you set up.”
