Page 82 of Fastest Kill

"Mind your business, Edgeworth," Frederica shot back.

Athena rolled her eyes. "I only want to make sure he doesn't burn my bacon. You can fool around after I've eaten."

Dario went back to his pans without missing a beat. "You can set the table if you're so impatient. Plates and cutlery are there." He gestured to the stack on the counter, and Frederica and Athena got to work without complaining.

By the time the food was on the table, most of the house was in the kitchen. Leo had brought Tore down from the guest room, one careful arm under his, and settled him into the chair beside Frederica with a gentleness that she couldn't help but be thankful for. She was feeling like an overprotective bear, and if anyone so much as looked at Tore the wrong way, it would end badly for them.

Tore moved with the stiffness that even the good painkillers couldn't fully fix. He took Frederica's hand under the table and held it. She let him without looking at him because that was the only way either of them would get through the morning. He was the affectionate one in the family, and he needed the touch to ground him because he hadn't spent so much time apart from Despina since they had married.

Rodrigo took the head of the table. Giana was beside him, already with her laptop. Kon and Athena on the other side, Silas at the end with his coffee, and Iz with three windows open on her tablet. Serapis came last, taking the chair nearest the window, which put him at the edge of the group, a placement that might have been deliberate.

Dario set the food down and sat beside Frederica on her other side. She had Tore on her left and Dario on her right, and it calmed her down enough to eat.

Leo had set up the laptop at the corner of the table, angled so the screen was visible to most of the room. It finally connected, and Altun's face appeared, sharp-eyed and unhurried, her dark hair with its silver streak pulled back, jade eyes moving across the room with her usual scrutiny.

Behind her left shoulder, Julian sat with his arms crossed, looking like a bodyguard in a good suit.

"Tell me where we are at," Altun said. No preamble. She had been briefed the night before and had spent the intervening hours, Frederica assumed, doing whatever it was Altun did in the dark hours with the information she was given.

Rodrigo laid it out, speaking the way he always did in an operational context, straight to the point with the facts in the order they were relevant. The three-day timeline, Serapis's confirmation of the Praetorium site connected to Agrippa's house through the old catacombs, and Despina's situation as they understood it.

"The relics," Altun said when Rodrigo finished. "The ones gathered from Ephesus and the others. I need to know what you still have with you."

Serapis spoke up and explained that the Tears of the Theotokos were in Venice, as were the other magical objects they had collected over the previous weeks. He had his own collection with him as well.

Altun asked him questions about the condition of the Ephesus reliquary and listened to the answers with her eyes slightly unfocused in the way that meant she was working through something Frederica would never entirely be able to follow.

"They can be used as a shield wall," Altun said finally. "Not a physical barrier but a good disruption. Agrippa will be drawing power in that chamber, channeling it through the alignment and the disciples he has prepared. The relics carry consecrated energy that predates the divisions he's trying to exploit. If the protective objects are distributed correctly among us before we enter, they will interrupt his ability to direct power at you. If any of his followers are adept enough at battle magic, it will slow their attacks. It won't eliminate the threat, only disrupt it. I'll bring additional protection and make preparations for when I meet you in Cologne."

"You're coming?" Frederica asked.

"Your mother is one of my friends," Altun said, narrowing her eyes. "Did you think I would stay home?"

"Thank you, auntie. I will fight better knowing you are with us," Frederica said, and something in her chest settled a fraction.

"Agrippa's disciples," Rodrigo said, moving the briefing forward. He looked at Serapis. "Tell me what you know about them."

Serapis set down his coffee. "Agrippa has been gathering people for years. He chooses them the way he always has. They will be people with latent gifts who don't understand fully what they are. He makes them feel seen. Special. He tells them they will ascend alongside him, and he teaches them just enough to make them believe his intentions. Worse, they will have faith in him."

"He told them they'd become gods with him before he sucks all the magic and life out of them," Athena commented. "I bet Liddell tried the same pitch. Told people they were participating in something magically transcendent on an autumn equinox." She glanced at Kon. "He really did just copy Agrippa's playbook, didn't he?"

"Down to the rituals and the belief in his own godhood," Kon said with a grunt.

Serapis inclined his head. "What Agrippa doesn't tell them is that they are fuel. That their deaths are the mechanism of his transformation, not a side effect of it. They will die in that chamber to power what he intends to become. The Thriae Bee can strip that lie from their eyes."

Frederica always had issues believing that the smallest magical objects could be the most powerful. It was a part of the world she knew about but didn't pretend to understand.

"The bee still carries the power of true sight," Serapis continued. "Oracular clarity, or in layman's terms, the ability to see through constructed illusion to the reality beneath. Agrippa has built an entire belief system around his disciples. He is their salvation, their god-in-waiting, the one who will take them beyond what they are. When the bee is activated in that chamber, they will see him as he is."

"About that," Dario interrupted. "I've handled the bee, and nothing magical happened. How do I get it to work?"

"There's a phrase I will teach you. It might only be good for one blast, so we will need to be careful not to set it off by accident."

"Say we do get the bee to work at the right moment and Agrippa's followers don't care?" Iz asked from beside Silas. "What if they would rather burn for him? It's not hard to believe, considering the history of religious nut jobs. Fanatics still exist. We have all seen them, and I got up close and personal with Gadal and his merry band of witch burners, remember? I got the scar on my chest to prove it."

"Then I stop them before Agrippa can use them," Frederica replied. "Bullets work on people regardless of what they believe, and they will need more than faith and hope to stop mine."

"Now you are talking my language," Athena said and winked at her.