Skin Deep (2 page)

Laura overheard enough of Captain Foyle’s radio conversation to know they were close to the mission target. Foyle rose from his seat as the van slowed and stopped. “Arrived.”

The tactical team stood, guns ready, black helmet visors down. They hopped out on silent-soled shoes, adjusting gas masks into place as they moved into formation. Foyle grabbed Laura’s arm at the door. “Where’s your gun, Crawford?”

Laura turned her visored face to him. She knew the staff file Foyle had reviewed, one of several different résumés she maintained for different personas. It didn’t tell her whole story. Foyle didn’t need to know Laura was an expert marksman—which wasn’t part of her Janice bio. That was not why she worked with SWAT teams. As far as Foyle was concerned, all Laura—Janice—did was work essence. As a druid, she had a long list of skills that came with her heritage. She could pull energy out of organic material—even people if circumstances were dire—and channel it into bolts of burning essence. Or she could use that same energy force to create a barrier of hardened essence to protect herself and others. If Foyle needed someone to shoot a gun, she wasn’t going to waste her time doing it for him. Plenty of humans were expert marksmen. “I don’t use one.”

To his credit, Foyle didn’t show any anger. “You have enough essence ability to overcome interference from metal. Take the Uzi pistol, at least.”

Metal, particularly iron, complicated using essence. Unless, as Foyle said, someone had enough ability to overcome its effects, metal warped the aim of an essence-bolt or caused a spell to fail. Laura had no problem with metal at all. The Janice persona profile gave her enough ability to be competent against it. Laura didn’t change the tone of her voice. “If you saw my file, you also saw I’ve never shot anyone. I don’t intend to start tonight. We do our job right, I won’t need a gun.”

It was an equivocation on her part. Janice had never shot anyone. Laura had, though. She wasn’t keen to do it again. They stared at each other. Foyle released her arm. “Okay. Stay where I can see you.”

Laura hopped to the pavement into the stark white light of a streetlamp. Other units moved in the shadows outside the pool of light, checking their weapons. Foyle had chosen a night-time assault to avoid the presence of civilians as much as possible. They stopped a block from the target—a brick apartment complex, run-down and mostly abandoned. Laura fell in behind the rest of the team while Foyle took the lead. He led them down the street at a hustling gait. Laura liked Aaron Foyle. He had the classic command ré sumé, a former Marine who had risen through the urban-assault ranks at an above-average rate, someone people looked up to.

Sweat trickled down her back. In addition to the standard SWAT-team gear, she wore her natural body shield. To the sharp-eyed, a slight air distortion shimmered around her body when light struck it from certain angles. Her body signature was strong, especially for a druid, and the shield drew enough energy from it to blunt the force of anything thrown at it.

Behind Foyle, Salvatore Gianni carried the battering ram, which looked like a toy in his large hands. Gianni was a big slab of a man and struck Laura as the type who was good at what he did and happy to leave it at that. Every unit needed leaders and followers. She saw Gianni taking the role of good soldier for Foyle, content to do his part and be that guy who waited for orders.

Her heart rate jumped as the street ran between close buildings. The narrow lane provided perfect cover for an ambush. As they scuttled along the cracked sidewalk, she scanned the rooflines. No movement anywhere. Her anxiety spiked at the emptiness. She noted it in a detached, professional way, years of experience having taught her to keep focused on the job at hand and not her emotions. After the mission was over, she could deal with feelings.

When Terryn macCullen, her superior at InterSec, mentioned in a meeting that he wanted more contacts in the D.C. police force, she volunteered to go undercover. As an InterSec freelancer for the SWAT team, the newly created Janice Crawford persona wouldn’t take up much time, and Laura wouldn’t have to travel. Despite some misgivings, armed missions spiced things up once in a while, though they were not something she wanted to do on a regular basis. She might be an expert shooter, but that didn’t make her bulletproof.

The team threaded through a tired section of the neighborhood that had never seen gentrification and probably never would. Most buildings had graffiti or broken windows. Most streetlights were out. Most people who lived down there were armed as a routine precaution. It was a far cry from the more commercial districts that had the sheen of middle-class commerce.

Behind Gianni ran Gabrio Sanchez, a tough guy whom Laura pegged as someone who liked the adrenaline rush of confrontation, liked being point man as much as possible. His record impressed her, though she suspected a few too many achievements were based on luck. He flirted with her during the entire prelim meeting. She had seen it before, the macho swagger of someone who had earned a position in the elite squad. She did her best to ignore him. As long as he didn’t pull the save-the-damsel-in-distress routine with her, she’d let him ogle her all he wanted.

An abandoned apartment complex came into view, several low-rise buildings three stories high. A few apartments on the street side of the property had been cleared of squatters, and a line of officers were stationed to keep bystanders out of the line of fire. Intelligence located the drug lab near the middle of the property. A central building on the edge of what might once have been a playground was the main target. Laura scanned for snipers and security cameras. Nothing. She had expected at least one person outside, but there were other ways to keep a lookout. The dealers probably thought the brownies were more than adequate. Still, the lack of outside scouts made her uneasy.

When she was a teen, she realized her essence-sensing abilities were poor. Despite substantial power, she had limited range in sensing the body signatures of others, something druids usually were the most adept at. Laura had to practically be on top of someone before she could sense their species essence. She kept her deficiency a secret, worried it meant she would be perceived as weak and destined for an unexciting desk job. That fear made her more sensitive to visual cues and her own intuition. And her intuition kept warning her that the drug dealers should have had a lookout.

Jonathan Sinclair, the last of the entry unit, took position in front of her. He was the newest member of Foyle’s squad. Where Gianni was stout and wide, Sinclair was tall and imposing. An underlying calm flowed off him that Laura thought could either make him sharp under pressure or overconfident. He had solid skills and good recommendations from well-placed people, so she decided to watch him in action before she made any judgments.

The Metropolitan Police barricaded the street a block in either direction to keep civilians out. SWAT-team members peeled away from the line to take up positions in doorways while others broke off down an alley to secure the rear of the building. The clock ticked off the last few minutes before the team made its move.

Of the squad from the van, only the five of them remained in motion to act as the entry unit. Foyle fell back as they neared the building entrance. Sanchez took point while Gianni moved up with the ram. Laura allowed Sinclair to shift into a protective posture beside her. While she could hold her own, having someone with a gun watch her back until the action started was prudent.

Laura focused on the spot in her mind that controlled essence. The desolate playground offered little but dirt and worn grass, which made the essence flow feeble, but she pulled enough from her surroundings to establish a good base charge. White light bathed her hands as essence flowed through her. She let the power build and held it primed for release.

Adrenaline surged through her in the last microseconds before entry. As the team reached the entrance, everything seemed to speed up and slow down at the same time. Sanchez overshot the door and took the right flank while Foyle took the left. Gianni had the ram in motion as he slipped between them. She and Sinclair hung back to let them do their work.

Essence cluttered the doorway. Everyone and everything left essence behind on things they touched, even the air. It dissipated over time. At narrow entry points like doors, people crossed and recrossed their essence trails, leaving a jumble of signatures for anyone fey to sense. Even standing several feet away and with Sinclair blocking the way, Laura felt a flurry of species signatures. Illicit activity brought together diverse people, and here it was no different: humans, elves, druids, and odd sensations that meant solitaries—fairies who fit no general fey category. The trails were fresher than she would have liked, but she trusted Foyle had moved the team in at the right time.

With a single strike from the piston-action ram, Gianni took out the door. It jumped in its frame, curling outward in a puff of dust. In a synchronized dance, Gianni spun away as Sanchez grabbed an edge of the metal door and yanked. It slammed to the ground. Foyle tossed in a flash-bang grenade, and everyone ducked. Despite her visor, closed eyes, and turned head, Laura saw the flash. The wall vibrated against her back from the concussive force.

A fraction of a second after detonation, Sanchez led the entry team in while shouting identification. Three humans lay inside the door. Laura sensed they were dazed and dismissed them. The point team leaped over the prone bodies, leaving them for the sweep unit to secure.

They charged down a dark, narrow hall, Gianni and Sanchez running shoulder to shoulder. Laura moved in a crouch behind Sinclair and Foyle. Ignoring the shouts of “Police” and “Stand down,” she opened herself to the surrounding essence, searching for the body signatures of her targets. Her job was to take the brownies out of commission. The rest of the team would secure the drug lab.

Tightening her focus, she found the distinct body signatures of two brownies. Intelligence on the mark, she thought. One signature felt stronger. The first brownie had been standing in the hall shortly before the door came down. Twenty feet in, she felt the second signature, then the cool static of a cast spell.

“Everybody down!” she shouted.

The team didn’t hesitate. In unison, they stopped, ducked, and crouched to either side. A bolt of yellow lightning scorched the air above them. Laura gauged the trajectory, threw out her hand, and released her essence reserve in a wide flare. She smiled as, up ahead, a male voice gave a short scream. Someone on the team tossed a smoke grenade forward.

Human essence surrounded her. Except for the team, she didn’t recognize any of it, which meant they were targets. She clicked on the microphone on her radio headset. “We’ve got three on the left, two straight ahead, all human. I’m getting metal essence warping on the left. We’ve got guns, people.”

Foyle and Sanchez shifted positions as gunfire burst from the left. Concerned, urgent chatter crackled on Laura’s headset as other units reacted, followed by Foyle’s calm assurances that they were fine.

She felt the other brownie receding into the building. With little mental effort, she pulled a small node of essence into her head and imprinted her thoughts on it. The fey called the process “sending” because they used it to project mental messages and images to others. Laura liked using them because they were faster, and sometimes she didn’t have the few moments to dial a phone number or click on a radio. She threw the sending to Foyle’s mind.
The first brownie is down. The second is running to the rear. Second unit back there can’t handle it. I need to go in.

Foyle’s voice came over her headset. “Sanchez with Crawford. Gianni and Sinclair, cover fire on my lead.”

Straight ahead,
Laura sent to Sanchez. She stepped around Sinclair to move in close with Sanchez. Foyle and the others opened fire as she and Sanchez charged past the open doorway. Stray reaction fire responded.

“What’ve we got?” Sanchez radioed.

Two at two o’clock. I’ll smoke them. Keep going straight.
She pulled a canister from her vest and tossed it as two humans appeared in a doorway on the right. They stumbled back as acidic haze erupted around them. Sanchez released a burst of suppression fire, and they rushed past. A bend in the hallway blocked their line of sight. Sanchez laid more fire into the opposite wall and rolled across the floor. He signaled all clear, and Laura came in behind him.

An explosion rumbled farther up the hall. The reverberation made her stumble into Sanchez as the lights went out. Sanchez cursed under his breath as radio chatter filled their ears. “The drug lab is down there. Sounds like we lost it,” he said.

The infrared in her goggles snapped on. A wave of nausea rolled through her as the night vision conflicted with her essence vision. She turned off the infrared.

“Which way?” asked Sanchez.

Ahead and left. The brownie’s around the next corner, let me . . . Hold on.
They froze in place, hugging the wall. Laura blocked out the noise of shouts and gunfire and concentrated on the body signature. The brownie essence wavered in her senses. One moment it felt like a brownie should feel, the next it intensified. She pushed at her essence-sensing ability to sharpen its acuity. The brownie felt normal again. Brownies liked to work with wards—stones the fey used to accompany spells. The brownie ahead of them must have some kind of ward on him, an amplifier perhaps, to boost his firepower.

We’re good. Lay down cover, then drop. I’ll hit the target. You secure,
she sent to Sanchez.

“Got it,” he said.

They reached a doorway at the turn. Sanchez went in low, firing, and dropped to the floor. Laura followed him and released a burst of essence into the room. The small, dark shape of the brownie wheeled away from her with surprising speed.

Dammit. I missed him, Sanchez. Be careful.

They huddled behind an overturned desk. The walls between several rooms had been torn open to make one large space. The odd sight of workstations of machinery cluttered the area—it seemed to be some type of abandoned illegal sweatshop. The metal warped Laura’s essence perception, the only ability it tended to affect since it was her weakest. A strong brownie signature at the far end of the room read as living essence. That was all she cared about. Behind her, she sensed more body signatures building up in the hallway, unknown humans, not SWAT personnel. She kept them at the edge of her awareness, but focused on the brownie.