and especially their vulnerabilities.”
“I know how we can find out, Doyenne,” Tony offered after lifting his hand and waiting for Killjoy to acknowledge him. “I can have Bella and my Watchmen ready and waiting for them in New York. Then we visit say, the Met, and when they show up we spring a trap on them. We might even get lucky and capture them.”
“Hey!” Thomas said. “I don’t want to endanger Gramps.” Thomas knew Bella and the other Watchmen, and he had seen how they dealt with “Mashcrits,” what they called Magical creatures, especially Bella, who always carried a double-barreled shotgun under her coat.
He wasn't going to let Tony's old enforcer team get close to Gramps.
Tony turned toward Thomas. “We'll take care not to hurt any of them, especially Morgan.”
“I don’t care,” Thomas insisted. “I’m not going to be part of that.”
“Look, Thomas. I know you don’t want to accept this, but Morgan’s on the other side now,” Tony explained as contained as he could. “He’s the—”
“The what?” Thomas yelled. “The enemy? That’s exactly what one of his bodyguards said about me before trying to put a bolt through my head in Ormagra, and Gramps stopped him.”
“Enough!” Killjoy intervened, and both of them turned to her. “This debate serves no one. Doctor Franco and I will make the decision on how to handle this situation. You will not talk about it, or make any plans about this anymore,” she said to Tony. “You are a team, and I will not tolerate infighting. Are we clear?”
“Yes, Doyenne,” they all answered, although Tony did through clenched teeth.
“Meanwhile…” Killjoy clapped and her monk attendants brought out three racks with weapons and set them out behind her. “You will begin weapon training.”
Thomas sneered; he was also set against raising a weapon against his grandpa and was about to speak up when Killjoy interrupted his thoughts.
“This is not a request,” she told him sternly. “Morgan and his guards are not the only dangers you’ll be facing. There are other creatures out there—Fae and human enemies of Guardians Inc., and the Wraith too. Are you forgetting about Tasha? She won’t hesitate to kill you the next time she faces you.”
Tasha.
Thomas hadn’t forgotten Tasha, but he had relegated her to the back of his mind. He preferred to remember her as he had met her—the beautiful Elven queen with the emerald eyes and sweet voice instead of the Wraith-infused monstrosity she had become when she’d tried to kill them in Ormagra.
Before King Seryaan had sealed the Wraith City, the company had sent autonomous underwater vehicles to confirm that Ormagra was, once again, lifeless. The AUVs had entered through a shaft in the ocean floor created by powerful magic and searched every inch of the city for signs of Wraith activity. They had all seen the reports; the videos showed creatures turned to stone where they stood when the cleansing light of Perseus reached them, and some had even turned to stone as they were coming out from the angles and crevices of the structures. They had searched extensively for Tasha, but they had found nothing remotely similar to the creature she had become. Thomas still had nightmares of her Wraith figure—her elongated arms with razor sharp claws, the distended jaw full of crystalline teeth, her beady, black eyes centered on him, and the grotesque folds of skin that had grown over her body. The nightmares usually ended with the sickening crunch of her leathery wings sprouting from her back as she realized that Thomas had activated the Perseus statue.
He had woken up many times with the echo of her last howl of pure rage still ringing in his ears. It had been those wings that had taken her to