Playing With Fire

Chapter Four

After leaving Boris in the hallway I stomped to the kitchen. If I was going on this suicide mission I needed protein. Opening the large refrigerator I wrinkled my nose at the smell. I wasn't sure the thing had ever been cleaned. There was left over Chinese takeout that had seen much better days, and a moldy half eaten cheeseburger unwrapped on a paper plate. With my head stuck in the nasty cool opening of the refrigerator I tensed when I felt someone approach from the side. Slowly closing the door and straightening I prayed to the merciful gods that it wasn't Maverick standing behind me. It seemed that I did not have the favor of the gods today because when I turned I met the Fae Male's cool indigo eyes.

Before either of us could speak Jagger and his men spilled into the kitchen. Their conversation stopped as their eyes fell on me and I bit back a sigh. I couldn't lose my temper in front of Maverick. I needed to be the most boring woman he had every laid eyes on. Maverick took a step to the side and turned to track the three men, careful not to give me his back.

"Well well, what do we have here. Delany, I'm sure Maverick was about to politely let you know that the Rookery mission was for capable warriors only."

I was fairly sure Jagger took most of his lines from a book titled Supervillians for Dummies. He also clearly had no idea about Fae culture if he thought that Maverick was about to discourage me from going to the Rookery. The Fae had a very healthy respect for female warriors. Granted, Maverick had no clue what my skill level was, but that kind of seemed to be the whole point of this gods forsaken adventure.

"No. I wasn't," Maverick replied. The Male clearly was a warrior of few words. His voice was still a low rumbling growl like when he had spoken earlier. This close I could smell the distinctly Male scent coming off him, a mixture of that primally aggressive scent all Fae Males gave off and a forest right after rainfall. Jagger looked distinctly uncomfortable at his terse reply and I smothered a smirk.

I wasn't sure what Maverick had been about to do or say, but for once I was grateful for Jagger's interruption. Before he could turn his attention back to me I backed away from the refrigerator and slipped out the door. Since food wasn't going to be an option I decided to find Boris and try to sketch out some semblance of a plan. Just because we would probably all die in there didn't mean we had to enter the Rookery blind. I found Boris back at his usual table in the lobby with a beer in his hand.

"Where did you manage to find that?"

"Would you like one Sotnos?" Boris asked slyly pulling a cool bottle out of the cooler behind his chair. I let out a genuine laugh which seemed to surprise Boris and took the cold glass. After I took a sip I took my phone out of my jacket pocket and pulled up the schematics of the Rookery.

"Alright, so here is the layout of the Rookery. The cave the spiders crawled out of is located in this central courtyard here. The two main buildings are across from one another with the cave in the middle. The road leading up the the Rookery will take us right up to the welcome center, one of the main buildings. Here is the floor plan." I continued speaking outlining what I thought would be a decent plan of attack. A few other mercs had come to our table to strategize with us.

"If we go straight into the welcome center we risk being trapped," Ryker spoke up from beside me.

"I agree, Anansi's Children have the advantage of their long spiked legs in close quarters. Our best bet is to lure them outside into the open where we can gang up on them." Thorn and a few of the other men nodded their approval. "We don't have to worry about these smaller buildings here. The spiders are too big to comfortably fit in them, but they might store their food there. The two larger buildings along with the cave would be the occupied areas of the Rookery."