Embrace the Night by Alexandra Kane Page A

seven. He figured they were waiting for him, so he picked up his pace, and soon entered the room.
     
    Marcelo was reclining in a chair on the table's left side, near the whiteboard. Junjie was jotting something on the whiteboard with a red marker, and Tatiana was sitting on the edge of the table, her back to him. As irritated as he was with her for the way she'd behaved the night before, he couldn't help noticing the way the black slacks gripped her full, round behind. Nodding to Marcelo, and vowing to keep his mind on the matter at hand, he sat down next to the sorcerer.
     
    Junjie turned momentarily from what he was writing. “Glad you're here, John, because I've dissected your clue and it's solid gold, man.”
     
    He smiled. “Glad I could be of assistance.”
     
    When he spoke, she turned around at looked at him, as if she'd just noticed him. “Hey, John.” Her voice was as soft as he remembered her skin to be beneath his hands, and her eyes held a quality of uncertainty.
     
    “Lieutenant.” He kept his expression blank. If she thought she was going to squirm her way out of this with the sad puppy dog eyes, he had news for her.
     
    Seemingly hurt, she turned back toward Junjie at the whiteboard.
     
    “Basically, this is what the note says, decoded,” Junjie announced, stepping away from the board a bit so everyone could see what he'd written.
     
    John read the text in his mind.
     
    Tempest,
     
    Bring the Meadowlark Lemon uniform and the Virginia Dare Painting to the Port of Wilmington, General Cargo Terminal, CSX Transportation station, on October 31.
     
    -The Merchant
     
    “Wow. How did you get all of that out a bunch of numbers and letters?” As Marcelo asked the question, his voice was filled with awe.
     
    “It actually wasn't the most complex of codes. The first set of numbers on the slip represented latitude and longitude, and I figured the second set was a date. Once I knew the city, the other abbreviations weren't too difficult to crack.” Junjie place the marker back in the tray, and leaned back against the board.
     
    “Impressive, Agent Yu.” Tatiana patted J on the back. “Very impressive.”
     
    She stood, and he got a very distracting view of her long legs encased in the tight fitting slacks. His mouth began to water, and he dragged his eyes away.
     
    “Marcelo, have you finished the containment spell?”
     
    The sorcerer nodded. “I finished it last night.” He reached into the pocket of his coveralls and pulled out a vial, about the size of a cologne bottle. “One spritz of this will render a sublimer's powers useless.”
     
    “How long does it last?” She folded her arms.
     
    “It will last about 24 hours, and cannot be washed off once it's applied. I figured the perps would try to remove it once they understand what it does, so I eliminated that concern.”
     
    John shook his head. He'd never understood the sorcery thing. “Marcelo, how do you do this stuff?”
     
    He shrugged. “I owe it to the power that dwells within me, John. And I did enlist the help of my younger brother, Carlo.”
     
    John nodded. He'd heard of the other sorcerer, Carlo, before. According to the archives, he and his brother had recently taken down a prostitution ring up in the mountains. Whatever power the Spirelli brothers wielded, it was obviously pretty damn strong.
     
    “This means the drop is planned for Halloween,” she said, her hand on her chin as if she were thinking out loud. “That's nine days from now. Any idea of the time?”
     
    Junjie shook his head. “I would imagine they do this on a regular basis, so there was no need to mention the time.”
     
    He scratched his head, wondering how this was going to work out. That week, he would be swamped with mid-terms. This year he'd assigned papers to his students as their mid-term, on various historical topics pertinent to their respective classes. He knew he would have to finish grading the papers earlier than usual, since