Chương 118: 31 - THE INFILTRATION PLAN

It was the middle of the day by the time they reached Vienna at the Hunter's Club estate. T'balt found her in a tree, sporting a pair of hi-tech binoculars, scoping out the mansion. She was just outside the barrier of its walls and used a tree still abundant with leaves to hide herself from the guards. She had a small screen up there with her. She used it to cycle through different areas of the mansion that she'd somehow managed to sneak hidden cameras into. There were over thirty different angles.

"Where are they keeping her?" She stared at the screen, sitting on the tree's branches and flicking through channels.

"But she must be in there somewhere." She noticed T'balt staring up at her from the bottom of the tree. Then she threw him a notepad. On it was an extensively drawn map of the entire area, more sophisticated than the mansion's own blueprints. It had every room mapped out, down to the square footage, obstacles, and guard rotations. She even had a bunch of the guards written down by name and their company. It was apparently named "RazorWind."

"This is honestly terrifying," T'balt said aloud.

"You really are good at your job." She ignored the compliment, putting the binoculars back up to her eyes.

"There are 42 mercenary guards throughout the mansion. They work 2 cycles: half at night, the other half in the daytime. 5 at the front gate, 10 patrolling the walls, and the rest scattered inside. 188 possible points of entry, including 6 pedestrian entrances on the first floor."

"And you still haven't been able to find where they're keeping Tyene?"

"Without free access to the building, I won't easily be able to locate any secret passages or rooms they might be keeping her in." T'balt considered.

"That's what you needed us for. Corlander knows you. But in this iteration, he doesn't know me. So we'd have an easier time getting inside. I figured it was something like that," he said a bit too smugly. It was an attempt to achieve some camaraderie with Vienna. Unlike before, they were on the same page now, which was already a better relationship than he had with the other Redeemers. She didn't care. She just started ignoring him.

Despite that letdown, there was a question deep in his mind that he knew he couldn't ignore.

"Why exactly did Tyene think she'd be able to reason with a guy like Corlander?"

"She mentioned a special relationship between family members that would make them unlikely to harm each other. Obviously, that notion is wrong, which is why I never took parents off the potential dangers list." He raised an eyebrow at the strange wording, but that was far from the most alarming thing about that statement.

"Family members?" Tyene and Corlander didn't look similar in any way. He had silvery blond hair, and Tyene's was a fiery red, and nothing about their mannerisms reminded T'balt of the other. But it might've explained why she was so closely tied to this drama.

"He's her stepfather," Vienna told him.

"Right. I think I overheard that when you guys fought last iteration." She gave him a strange look, like speaking of past iterations was breaking some unspoken rule.

"What?" T'balt responded.

"She's here… because of you."

"Me?"

"For some strange reason, she wanted to talk to you. And she thought that if Graceland was safe, you would come back and stay for a while. I strongly advised her against it. But she was insistent. So I was to wait aside, and if something went wrong, she told me to find you, just in case you did show up… Against my better instincts, I did as she said." It was strange hearing her say that. When he saw the way the other Redeemers acted around normal people, it was never in a follower's role.

People were effectively wrapped around their fingers. With Monan, with Uriel. Even himself, he couldn't see taking orders from Ellie and Cannon when, by his nature as a Redeemer, he was usually the most knowledgeable person of the group. At least about this brand of the apocalypse. When others accepted what he was, they didn't argue against his instincts. If Vienna didn't want to come back, he was sure she would've found a way to convince Tyene not to. It almost didn't make sense. Why take orders from someone else?

It was one of those things he didn't understand about her but wanted to. Why was she so infallibly dedicated to her role as Tyene's servant and protector across lives? It's what made her different from the other Redeemers. He remembered Uriel's speech. At what point does Sisyphus accept that he's in hell and stops pushing the boulder? How many times had Vienna seen something like this happen to Tyene? How many times had she failed to protect her? And she still continued pushing the boulder.

That idea made him hopeful. Maybe he wasn't going to end up like the rest of them. A Corlander SUV pulled up on the road nearby. Vienna finally got down from the tree so she and T'balt could go greet the others. Cannon and Ellie got out of the car, and T'balt wanted to drop his jaw. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

"Is all this really necessary?" Ellie asked. She was wearing a vibrant plum-colored dress with a long slit up the side of her leg, showing off her bare skin and glittering half-heels. She even had a matching sunhat adorned with synthetic baby-blue roses. She had a bit of makeup on that made her blue eyes shine brighter under the shadow of the hat.

"Wow. I've never seen you done up like this…"

"Yeah," she said, looking for something on her body to fix like she hadn't already spent an hour fixing everything in the car.

"There's a reason. I don't have the hips or… really the anything to pull off something like this. I doubt anyone will believe this is actually mine."

"Are you kidding? You look gorgeous." When he said that, he was disappointed because he'd forgotten that this wasn't one of the iterations where Ellie was effectively his girlfriend. She responded as one would when complimented by a stranger: a brief moment of flattery, then looking away to get the attention off herself.

"Well, she better be," said Cannon, playfully putting an arm around her.

"We spent a fortune on these after all." His dyed blond hair was slicked back, and the sides shaved down, looking like he had a fresh haircut. He was wearing a white tuxedo, with black accents and a set of rose-gold rings on both fingers. Along with that, he had an expensive-looking pair of shades and a brown fur coat to top it all off. If T'balt didn't know any better, he would've thought he was a pimp.

"No, we didn't." Ellie interrupted.

"We stole these clothes from that mall T'balt told us about." Cannon flipped up his shades.

"Come on. You gotta play the part, El. I'm not smelling any entitlement on you." He sniffed. Vienna circled them, ogling them both up and down. She checked everything, the fitting, the accessories, even the socks. It was enough to make both of them extremely uncomfortable.

"It's too clean," she said.

"What?"

"You're meant to look affluent, but also like experienced hunters. Not even the richest individuals can manage to get by all the demons without a scratch on them. At least, not before the Hunter's Club."

"So what? You expect me to roll around in the dirt in a suit like this?" Cannon complained.

"No, that would look too deliberate. The only way would be to simulate actual combat." From a holster on her hip, she pulled out a small stun baton and made like she was about to swing it at him.

"I don't think we need to go that far." Ellie jumped in.

"Let's just go over the plan again." Vienna frowned as T'balt explained.

"Last time we got in, we had an escort. This time, we'll have to convince them we're worthy of being hunters. We'll use my bag of loot as admission. Knowing Corlander, he'll want some of the things we have. Hopefully that's enough to get us entry. Then we blend in, acting like normal hunters while we try to figure out where they're keeping Tyene. Once we do, I teleport into the room she's in and teleport us out."

"Understood." Cannon and Ellie both nodded.

"By the way," T'balt looked around.

"Is Acelin still in the car?" Ellie shook her head.

"We figured this mission might be a little too much for him, so we dropped him off in Graceland and left him with Monan."

"You did what?" T'balt growled.

"We just figured it's better there than here. Just in case things start blowing up. He is a kid after all." Cannon reiterated.

"I know, but…" He squeezed his fists, realizing this was just one of those times when he was going to have to hold his breath. It felt like someone leaving his kid with their convict uncle. Of course, none of them saw it that way. And nothing he said would convince them otherwise. Monan was just a losing battle in this life. So he had to let it go.

"Whatever. Do you guys have my suit?" Cannon turned to fetch it from the car, but Vienna stopped him.

"No. They'll check your loot, and they'll know about the Redeemer. Just these two will go." T'balt was a little disappointed. He was looking forward to playing James Bond, a playboy spy infiltrating an affluent criminal organization. Unfortunately, she made sense. Having the Redeemer loot is exactly what put him on their radar last time, so it'd make it harder for them to blend in.

"Fine. Then Cannon, Ellie. Whenever you can, come out and report back to us. We'll… I guess be floating around outside the property." Vienna nodded, confirming that she had no intention of leaving without Tyene. Cannon grabbed their sack of loot from the trunk of the car and started shaking his shoulders, saying he was turning on the charm, and he and Ellie started walking up the front road toward Corlander's gate. Vienna climbed back up the tree with a cat-like swiftness, watching.

T'balt did the same, but with less elegance. Though she didn't leave him any space to sit up there with her, so he just awkwardly hung from the tree trunk. As soon as the two got to the gate, the guards swarmed with their rifles aimed at them. They were yelling, and Cannon and Ellie put their hands up. Thankfully, Cannon kept his smile on, smooth-talking the guards until one of them eventually checked their sack of loot. The guard then made a call on his radio, and the two were made to stand put for a while.

"Seems like it's working," T'balt said.

"We'll see," Vienna focused her sight on the two as a dark-haired man in a navy silk vest and matching dress pants approached the gate. She chewed her tongue.

"Who is it?" T'balt asked.

"German Casas."

"I guess that makes sense." German did seem to run everything here in Corlander's stead. He was likely also in charge of any new recruits.

"Wait. Shit!" T'balt suddenly reacted.

"What?"

"German has a telepathy loot. If he reads their minds, that'll give away our plan."

"Telepathy loot?! How could you be so stupid as to forget something that important? I couldn't plan for that. If he uses that to figure out we're here, our whole operation is forfeit."

"I'm sorry," T'balt said.

"I didn't consider it in this context. That's my bad." They watched German inspect Cannon and Ellie closely. So far, it didn't seem like anything was amiss. He checked the bag and gave it to the guard, who ran it back inside. It looked like he was introducing himself before inviting the two up to the house. And T'balt breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe they got lucky, and German hadn't used the ability on them.

But as the two walked up the driveway with a guard escort, he looked back into the trees, scanning, and at one point he paused. It was only for a second. Whether it was by coincidence or not, they didn't know. Vienna was well covered by the leaves, and they were far enough away that he wouldn't have been able to see them without vision-enhancing loot. But for that second, he stared straight into the sight of Vienna's binoculars. Then, without changing his expression, he walked back up to the mansion.

"Am I going to have to deal with him?" Vienna said.

"If it's your way of dealing with people, no," T'balt answered.

"I don't want him dead. But we might have to do something."