I gave Ian a terse nod that conveyed a lot more confidence than I felt.

Ian smiled grimly and held his fist out.

I sighed, made a fist of my own, and bumped it with as much bravado as I could muster, which wasn’t nearly enough to do what I had to do.

The scouts reported the all clear, and we continued our climb.

• • •

We got to the armory on the main level without being attacked by the grendel spawn. Not a one of us trusted it. If we didn’t get ambushed now, it probably just meant the little critters had something more fun in mind.

Sandra had half of her team stand guard while the others geared up. Ian ran to a big metal locker and started ransacking it for whatever he was looking for. When he found it, he threw it at me, and I caught it with my face.

Pants. Better than that, dry pants. With both legs intact.

Ian followed it with a thick pullover shirt that I managed to catch with my hands.

They were both black, the pants had lots of pockets, and the shirt was padded.

“You’re not accessorizing them,” Ian said. “Just put them on. Quick.”

I glanced around. We were in one, big room.

“There’s no dressing rooms,” he said, “and no time for modesty. Just strip and change.”

Ian pulled out identical clothing and shimmied out of his wet jeans and skivvies, right there in front of God and the world.

And me.

“Sandy,” Ian called, standing there showing what had to be the best set of buns in the tristate area. Damn, you could bounce a quarter off those things. “Mac needs a vest.”

“On it.”

Seconds later, Sandra was pushing something into my hands. A bulletproof vest. She flashed me a quick smile. “Concentrate, Mac.”

I was concentrating. On my partner who was flashing more than a smile.

Sandra’s team had grabbed body armor, bigger guns, and more ammo. The second half of the team came in while the newly armed and armored folks took their place standing guard, and I hadn’t even taken off my boots.

Body-hugging jeans were nice, but not when they’d soaked up three times their weight in water. I’d gotten them unzipped, but they weren’t going any farther. Then there was my bandaged thigh to contend with.

As I struggled, Ian appeared next to me, dressed and armored.

I gaped at him. “How’d you do that so fast?”

“Repetition. And motivation not to have those toothy bastards catch me with my pants down. We’re out of time.” Ian grabbed the waist of my jeans on the side of my bandaged leg in one hand, pulled them as far from my hip as he could, whipped out a knife, and sliced the Daisy Duke side of my jeans clean off—including panties.

“You need help with the other side?” The words were all business, but his eyes had darkened.

I quickly held up my hands. “No, no. I got it.”

One tug from me sent the rest of my jeans—with undies—to the floor in a wet plop.

Meanwhile, Ian had grabbed the fatigues and unzipped the legs from the ankles to midcalf, then went down on one knee in front of me, eyes steadfastly on my feet.

“Don’t need to take off your boots,” he said, “just stick your feet in.”

I did before he decided to cut anything else off of me.

“Does going commando make me one?” I asked hopefully.

Ian let out a low laugh. “I wish it was that easy.”

While Ian took care of the zippers and ties on the bottom of my pants, I got my wet sweater over my head and wiggled into the dry one so fast that if anyone saw anything, they didn’t see it for long.

In the minute it took Sandra’s folks to grab their gear, Ian had changed his clothes and mine. He held up the vest for me and I stuck my arms in and fastened the front.

“No time to find armor for you,” he said. “But that’ll at least protect your vitals. Let’s go.”

18

THE grendel might have been a present for the boss from her sister, but it had left presents for us.

There were five deep gouges down the length of the walls of the corridor leading to the bull pen. It was obvious what it had done. The grendel had reached its arms out and scored the walls at least an inch deep as it had stalked toward the bull pen doors and its destination. The corridor was easily ten feet across.

The grendel’s claws had raked through that wall like it’d been a piñata.

“It’s marking its new territory,” Ian growled.

That wasn’t all it had done.

There were two bodies in front of the bull pen doors. They’d been torn open, gutted, and dismembered. The arms and legs had been carefully placed next to the trunk of the body they’d been torn from—but facing the wrong way. The heads—a man and a woman—had been cleanly severed and set on their own chests, the dead eyes facing us. The bodies had an uncountable number of small bites taken out of the flesh.

The spawn had been here. They’d gotten ahead of us.

Sandra spat a curse. “They were Roy’s people.”

It was a warning.

But most of all, it was meant to terrify, to paralyze.

It sure as hell worked for me.

It also really pissed me off.

I hadn’t known their names. Like me, they’d been relatively new. They had been standing guard at those doors to prevent what was now beyond those doors from getting in. From the bullet holes pocking the walls, the amount of blood saturating the carpet under the bodies from one side of the wall to the other—and up the walls and onto the ceiling—they had stood their ground, determined to do their jobs.

They had been butchered for doing them.

They were heroes.

I didn’t want to die.

I didn’t care about being a hero.

But, like those two fallen security agents who’d been slaughtered and staged in front of those doors, I was going to do my job.

With Sandra’s team leading the way, we went in.

• • •

Vivienne Sagadraco was a dragon.

I’d known it, I’d seen the aura of her true form, and I’d known it was big.

But damn.

The SPI bull pen extended five stories above the main floor.

Vivienne Sagadraco’s head came to the third story, and the width from one side of the atrium to the other was enough to accommodate her wingspan. By having the complex built with five stories, she’d allowed herself enough room to take off and hover.

She was doing that now.

It still didn’t put her out of the grendel’s reach. Propelled by its powerful legs, the grendel leapt and sank its claws into Vivienne Sagadraco’s hip, the force of impact and the grendel’s weight pulling her down almost to the floor, where not one piece of office furniture or equipment remained intact.

It’d all been stomped to bits.

The spawn waited below, leaping impatiently for dad to bring down dinner. And yep, it was definitely male. When your skin doubled as armor, clothes were kinda redundant.

And I was the only one who could see him.

Ian swore a blue streak.

I snarled in frustration. “When this is over, you’re gonna train me with a gun ’til I can shoot the ticks off a bear.”

“Count on it.”

The boss had to know what was attacking her, but she couldn’t see it, and barring a lucky slash or bite, there was only so much she could do against a monster assassin she couldn’t see or hear. She could only fight back when it latched onto her, and the grendel was too smart to stay in one place for any longer than it took him to add another wound.

The spawn surrounded its parent, putting a ring of baby monster death between Vivienne Sagadraco and any possible help.

Roy and the rest of his team were killing the only things they could see to aim at—grendel spawn—or at least they were trying. They were highly trained and their bullets hit what they were shooting at, but there were no explosions of pink this time. The spawn’s armor was hardening. Our folks had to be using everything in their arsenal. Silver, lead, brass—the metal didn’t seem to matter. The spawn were either too fast to hit or too armored to penetrate.

“How the hell did they get ahead of us?” Sandra shouldered her weapon and took aim at where she thought the adult grendel was. “Just what we need, the little bastards are problem solvers fresh out of the egg.” Her dark, sharp eyes were trying to pinpoint the adult grendel’s location based on Vivienne Sagadraco’s reactions and counterattacks. She held her weapon ready, but didn’t dare fire for fear of hitting the boss. “Talk to me, Mac. Help me out here.”

I didn’t know what to do, or what was even possible. The grendel wasn’t mindlessly attacking. Any shot taken would risk going through the grendel and into the boss. He never presented himself as a clear target. The boss’s body was always behind him, so there wasn’t a good or even a decent shot to be had. How was I supposed to direct fire at that?

It wasn’t like I could point and scream “Shoot!” Quick as our people’s reflexes were, by the time they fired, the grendel would be gone and their bullets would tear into the boss. We couldn’t take even the slightest risk of hitting Vivienne Sagadraco with bullets.

I stopped.

Bullets.

Perhaps I didn’t need to use bullets to help the boss.

The grendel was both invisible and buck naked. My budding theory—and hopeful plan—didn’t involve putting a natty dressing gown on the monster, but it might work just as well to help our shooters see their target. I didn’t know if it was possible—based either on the laws of science or woo-woo crap—but there was only one way to find out.

I sprinted to my desk, which by being in a corner had escaped being squashed. What I was looking for was right where I’d left it, leaning against the wall beside my desk.

And it was loaded.

Grandma Fraser always said a gun ain’t gonna do you a lick of good if it ain’t loaded for what’s most likely to come lookin’ for you.

My semiautomatic paintball rifle had a hopper full of neon yellow paintballs, ready to take down the Research Department—or hopefully tag the grendel that was trying to eat the boss one bite at a time.