Chapter 8 - DEVIL'S TOOTHThe cove at Devil’s Tooth was hidden behind a jagged wall of granite cliffs that blocked it from the view of passing shipping lanes. A rusted corrugated-metal warehouse sat at the edge of the dark water, surrounded by stacks of shipping containers and rusted cranes.
Marcus cut the engines fifty yards out, letting the Zodiac glide silently into the shadow of an abandoned pier.
"Stay here," I told Nora, checking the magazine in my Sig Sauer one more time. "If we aren't back in thirty minutes, take the boat south toward the Canadian border. There’s a safe house in Nova Scotia under the name Vanguard. The code is 08-14-98."
"What's happening in Nova Scotia?" Nora asked, her eyes searching my face.
"Everything my father built before he became a monster," I said softly. "The life he had before my mother died. Before the empire consumed him."
I stepped out of the boat onto the slick wooden piling, followed closely by Marcus. We moved like shadows toward the heavy sliding door of the warehouse.
There were no guards outside—which meant whoever was inside was either very confident or already dead.
Marcus drew a heavy-duty tactical knife from his belt and wedged it into the seam of the sliding door, using his body weight as a lever. With a dull screech of rusted metal, the door groaned open just enough for us to slip through.
Inside, the warehouse was cavernous and dim, lit only by the pale gray light filtering through dirty skylights. Crates marked with fake medical supplies were stacked to the ceiling. But in the center of the room, sitting on a folding chair next to an oil-drum heater, was a man with a gray ponytail and a bottle of cheap bourbon.
"Vincent?" the man muttered, squinting into the gloom as we approached. Then his eyes focused, and the bottle slipped from his fingers, shattering against the concrete floor with a sharp crash. "No... you're Julian. You look so much like him it makes my teeth ache."
"Sully," Marcus said, lowering his weapon. "It's been a long time, old man."
Sully stood up, wiping his hands on his greasy mechanic's overalls. "I heard about Vincent. The whole coast is buzzing. Thorne has put a five-million-dollar bounty on your head, kid. Dead or alive."
"Thorne is moving fast," I said, stepping up to the oil-drum heater to warm my freezing hands. "Which is why we need to move faster. I need hardware, Sully. Heavy hardware. Encrypted comms, satellite uplink, and a clean vehicle that won't trigger automated license plate readers."
Sully let out a raspy, humorless laugh. "You sound just like your old man on a bad Tuesday. You think you can just walk in here and take my inventory?"
I reached into my coat, pulled out a heavy gold signet ring bearing the Calder family crest, and tossed it onto the metal drum. It clinked softly against the rust.
"My father is dead, Sully," I said, my voice dropping into an ice-cold whisper. "Which means I am the head of the table now. You can either help me burn Victor Thorne to ash, or I can take your warehouse apart piece by piece and leave you to the federal marshals who are currently tracking our GPS signals."
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Sully stared at the ring for a long, agonizing moment. Then a slow, weathered smile cracked across his lined face.
"God help us all," Sully whispered, turning toward the back of the warehouse. "The old man always said you had ice in your veins. Come on. Let's go see what kind of war you're going to start."
