Page 99 of Dukes Are Forever
"I'll consider it."
"There's a slight problem with your theory," Ava interrupted. "This isn't the sort of thing that could be done in a short amount of time. And you have two hundred metaljackets in the tower. It would have been noticed. I don't think the metaljackets could have been tampered with."
"So back to the drawing board," Gemma grumbled.
Malloryn stared at the thin lines on the paper. "We can't afford to dismiss the fact it might have been done. Jack, I'll need you to work out how to detect if a metaljacket's been altered."
"You could just clear them out of the tower," Gemma suggested.
"And have Balfour know we're onto him?" Malloryn arched a brow. "I want to lure him out, Gem. Not make him scuttle back into hiding. Or use another weapon against us that we won't see coming."
"But what is he planning?" she asked.
"An attack on the tower."
Gemma rolled her eyes. "Very droll, Your Grace."
"Before you head upstairs for the meeting, Your Grace, may I show you the latest batch of designs?" Jack asked.
"Ooh." Gemma clapped her hands together. "New weapons? You shouldn't have, Jack. You do know the way to a girl's heart."
"Youare not getting your hands on anything. You ruined my blast shield. That thing took me months to create."
"I only tested it," Gemma replied. "It's not my fault the design was flawed."
The scarred inventor limped toward a rack on the wall. "I've been experimenting with several new bullets, using the same design as the Firebolts." He tossed Malloryn a bullet. "Full of colloidal silver. Burns a blue blood, burns the hell out of adhampir."
"A Firebolt will tear a hole in an enemy," Malloryn pointed out.
"Then you had best make sure your aim is exceptionally good if you're surrounded by friends," Jack replied smoothly. "This way you won't kill anyone, but you'll incapacitate them." He grabbed a smooth orb made of brass. "Ava helped me with this design. It's a recreation of a Doeppler Orb, used by a group of humanists several years ago to release a toxic gas that could drive blue bloods mad. Ava's managed to create a means to transfuse the Black Vein serum into a gaseous state when the Doeppler Orb is activated."
"I managed to distil it into a perfume bottle too," Ava said brightly. "One spray and it's in the air."
"I can't see any potential problems with that at all." An injection of Black Vein was toxic to blue bloods,dhampir,and vampires, and deadly within minutes. "Except for the fact none of us can use it."
"That's why it's not for you," Ava chided. "I made it for your wife. A little 'Welcome to COR' gift."
It hadn't escaped his notice everyone was going out of his or her way to include Adele.
He didn't quite know what to think about that.
"And for anyone else," Jack said, tossing Malloryn a breathing mask. "This will do in a pinch."
* * *
"We managedto get some vital information out of Corvus," Malloryn said, as the rest of COR gathered around the dining room table.
Jack and Ava had spent all morning searching the room from top to bottom, and finally managed to find the listening device Balfour's agent must have set inside. He'd told them not to destroy it, just in case he wanted to send Balfour on a wild goose chase.
"We've confirmed Corvus, Devoncourt, and Sir George Hamilton are the three leading members of the Rising Sons, though Dido is the one who controls them."
He watched Adele's face as he mentioned her father's name. Though she paled, she didn't protest.
"Corvus admitted there's some scheme with the metaljackets that Balfour is hatching, though Sir George was handling it and Corvus didn't seem to know many of the details. He's mostly in charge of recruiting, since he owns the club and is the perfect lure for the disenfranchised. Devoncourt's in control of munitions."
"So they have explosives," Gemma mused. "But we need to get to Devoncourt to find them."
"Or Sir George to work out what this scheme involves," Jack murmured.
