Angie was pissed. I mean really pissed. She continued to spit and hiss in the lower level of Edward Hyde’s estate as she batted aside combat automatons with ease. As one came at her with an electrostatic baton, she launched at it with deadly grace and threw it high into the air. The results were as deliberate as they were terminal. When it fell heavily to the floor, Angie pounced on the thing’s chest and began tearing into its exoskeleton with furious gusto.
“Keep doing that to the training bots and Hyde’s going to start billing us,” Max growled from his chair a few feet away from me. His wounds had healed almost completely over the past two weeks, though he refused to allow Edward’s medical staff to remove the scaring. He thought the added effect of welted skin spreading across part of his face made him look more dangerous. A man-schnauzer needed every advantage he could get around here.
Angie’s breasts rose and fell in glorious syncopation as she caught her breath. “He won’t let me go into the cloister,” she said testily. Her horns were extended almost as far as they could go.
“It’s because you two couldn’t do anything without tripping over each other,” Max’s blunt observation only incensed her further.
“You weren’t there,” I flashed.
Max’s laughter was hard and unsympathetic. “I heard all about it.”
Angie walked over to Max and leaned her face close to his. “Pick,” she said at the point of boiling over.
Unfazed by Angie’s demeanor, Max rolled his eyes. “Pick?”
“Alpo or Milk Bone, dog boy. I’m about to shove one of them up your—“
Mike cleared his throat loudly to stop the two of them from going at one another. “I’m afraid Edward has made his decision,” he said in a calm voice that still managed to let both of them know he was done with their attitudes.
Angie sniffed and turned her back on Max. “It’s not like any of those cross-dressing cowboys has any idea what they’re in for.”
“Their suits are laced with your DNA,” Mike told her. For days, the engineers working in the caverns below had labored to get the Mark IVs ready for use. “Edward’s techs made a special batch for this job. They’ll be able to slip past the security with no problem,” he observed.
Angie crossed her arms in a stern, uncompromising gesture. “There’s more to the place than the security measures they’re going to run into.”
Mike said nothing, but chewed on a toothpick instead. I took the moment to draw Angie aside. I knew she was planning something, and could almost hear the wheels squeaking as they turned inside her head. She still wouldn’t tell us why she had managed to get on the Sisterhood’s bad side, and that made me angry. The uber-prowler’s words had done their damage, though. She had spent the past week either hiding from me or screaming at me. “You’re going to go in there with or without Hyde’s approval, aren’t you?” Angie gave me a cautious, almost mistrustful look. “Come on, Angie . . . it’s me. You need to tell me what you’re planning.”
Angie only stiffened up. I had no idea what had come over her. I felt the emotions roiling within her. “Do I really know who you are?” she asked.
I stood there only blinking.
I felt all expression flee from my face under the icy bite of her words. I knew we hadn’t known each other long, but the bond between us was undeniably real. I felt her, even when she was nowhere near. Her eyes were filled with the triad of emotional wreckage—hurt, anger, and confusion. I opened my mouth, and gently tried reasoning with her. “Angie . . .”
But Angie turned her back on me and stalked off. Crestfallen, I watched her go. She had become a bright spot in this terrible and new existence. I moved forward to stop her, but Mike put a hand on my chest. “Women cannot be reasoned with when they’re in that kind of mood,” he said. “It’s best to just give her time.”
I sighed in frustration.
“Fine,” I said. Hopefully this would ride itself out soon.
Only, it didn’t. For seven more days Angie kept to herself, and I did my best to stay out of her way. I stalked the halls of Edward’s estate, feeling like a condemned man. And I was mad at myself for feeling that way. Still, I wondered if she knew how much she had hurt me. She was up to something. I knew it. That was why she kept to herself. Mike had me so busy using Edward’s training accelerators that I barely had time to breathe. Even Max was too tired to show much of his sour temper. I suspected Mike did this to keep me from following my Angie around. I knew for a fact that the man had struck up some kind of deal with Edward’s ghost orchestra, because every time I attempted to slip away and find Angie, the hallways suddenly became filled with notes from Rossini’s William Tell Overture. Following a dozen unsuccessful attempts, I had to admit defeat. Finally, I forced myself to stop trying.