The Epilogues: Part I: Badge of Honor (The Potentate of Atlanta Book 6) - Hailey Edwards (the best novels to read .TXT) 📗

Remy shimmied up the swaying ladder, eager to escape the small craft, and I stuck close behind her.

Higgins offered me a hand up I was glad to accept, given how woozy I felt swinging in the breeze.

“Meredith tells me you’re High Society.” I stepped onto the deck. “Can you help me with something?”

“Perhaps.” Interest tilted his head in an expectant expression. “What did you have in mind?”

A grimness settled in his features when I asked my favor, but he agreed to my request without haggling.

A text chime drew my attention to the burner phone.

>>The Grande Dame can give you thirty more minutes.

Had my lips been as stretchy as The Mouth that Swallowed Downtown, I would have kissed Midas.

>I’ll start the clock.

Thirty minutes for a rescue mission was tight, maybe impossible, but I would take it.

I wanted everyone out of their bubbles before the general paranormal public discovered Sue and I were no longer in the gauntlet in case Clan Jefferies had some means of drowning their victims remotely. With black witches involved, I wouldn’t expect anything less.

>>I’m on my way.

>See you soon.

Linus, I was certain, would remain behind to babysit his mother and hold her off for as long as possible.

“I don’t suppose you have a spare wetsuit?” I still wore my Kevlar ensemble. “Or a swimsuit?”

“We use our own suits. They’re spelled to the individual wearer. No swimsuits either.”

“Undies it is then.”

After I unlaced the heavy boots, I stepped out of them and my clothes to stand in my bra and panties.

“Don’t panic.” Meredith rested her hand on my bare arm. “This won’t take but a minute.”

On edge after that warning, I tensed under her touch. “I’ll do my best.”

The witch held a hand to either side of my ears, chanting until an iridescent dome formed over my head. I didn’t register I was holding my breath until she laughed at my chipmunk cheeks.

“Breathe.” She shook me by the shoulders. “The spell works fine on land and in water.”

“That is so cool.” Remy poked it, to no one’s surprise. “Hey, it didn’t pop.”

“Thank you for testing that.” The urge to smack my friend and business partner was strong. “What will you be doing?”

“Me, myself, and I are going to patrol the area for unfriendlies.”

As much as I loved Remy, she was a fighter, not a lover, so that was for the best. And three Remys was a lot of backup for the coven.

“Dee.” Meredith waved over a short woman already in a wetsuit. “Come here, please.”

“Hi.” Dee gave me a short wave then turned to Meredith. “What’s up?”

“Can you give Hadley the rundown?”

“Teams Three, Four, Seven, and Nine are in position,” she reported. “We have two swimmers per person to get the initial targets to the surface quickly. Five has the spare oxygen tanks and masks. One will remain on standby in the event of an emergency. That leaves Team Two, Six, Eight, and Ten available for secondary target retrieval.”

The scope of the operation, and the attention to detail, gave me hope we would get everyone out alive.

“Excellent.” Meredith angled toward me. “We swim with buddies. You’ll be with Dee.”

Already dreading the plunge into icy water, I plastered on a gung-ho smile.

Dee checked her tanks, put on her mask, then shoved me over the edge of the boat to Remy’s snarls.

I hit the water with a splat, my head bouncing oddly off the surface before sinking with the rest of me.

Oww. Oww. Oww.

Ambrose thrashed and kicked and generally made an ass of himself.

Oh, wait.

He was miming me.

Oops.

With that in mind, I stopped acting like a cat thrown into the tub for bath time.

Bubbles exploded in my vision, and Dee came into view with an apologetic wince.

“Sorry about that.” She looped a length of rope around my middle and tied it off on a carabiner hooked to her waist. “We do it for all the first-timers. Folks get antsy about the bubble. Nothing like a little shock to push you past the fear.”

“Well, I was definitely shocked.” I forced myself to breathe normally. “Oh, hey. I can hear you.”

“Yeah.” She took my hand and pierced the dark water like an arrow. “All part of the spell.”

“You guys must use it pretty often to have tweaked it so much.”

No way had they designed such an intricate spell on the spot.

“We’re a tactical coven, remember? We get called in for all kinds of weird crap.” She snorted. “With Lake Lanier so close to our home base, we spend a lot of time in the water. Pretty sure this place is a hellmouth. You wouldn’t believe the number of bodies we’ve recovered.”

Bodies.

“I, uh, didn’t mean it to come out like that. Those were recovery contracts, not rescue.”

But it could still be Neely, or the Billiards, they fished out of the drink if we failed.

“I get it.” I spotted more people in the water, all in wetsuits, ready for anything. “How much farther?”

“See that mound?” She pointed ahead in the murk. “That’s an old barn. Your friend is in there.”

Until she pointed it out, I mistook it for debris, which it was. Just not the dead trees or muck I expected. The inhabitants of the lake must not have had a use for the barn. The uppermost part had been sheared off, probably when the area was flooded, and it had been left to rot.

On my periphery, I swore I glimpsed scales. Gray ones, edged in black. And teeth. So many teeth.

“Don’t look at them,” Dee murmured. “Pretend you don’t see them, and they’ll do the same.”

“I’ll do my best.” To Ambrose, I thought, Keep an eye on them.

The shadow was invisible in the gloom, but I sensed his curiosity as to what manner of creatures swam alongside us. They had magic. That much I could tell without Ambrose zinging me. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be salivating at the chance to nibble on them.

“Meredith is point on the Billiard extraction.” Dee picked up speed. “Neely is being held lower in the lake, so