Ingrid came to attention at the sound of an engine just outside the fence, and she set aside the book she hadn’t really been reading.
Some distance away, Mickey’s man ‘Xavier’ readied himself as well. She saw him from the corner of her eye.
A small, metal cylinder came sailing over the fence to land in the middle of the parking lot. All of the gangsters looked at it quizzically. Only Ingrid caught on in time to turn away and cover her ears before the police flash-bang grenade went off as advertised. (She didn’t know what in hell the device was, not by any contemporary name, although the intention behind it seemed plain enough.)
Stunned gangsters fumbled with guns and scrambled for cover while a coordinated team of six LAPD officers poured into the lot, wearing riot helmets with protective visors and carrying clear plastic shields. They took out three of Hardface’s hired men straightaway with handheld devices that delivered an electrical jolt, and then cuffed them.
The unit’s apparent leader downed that idiot ‘Top Shelf’ with a nonchalant punch to the face as he and Lia strode into the Yard, right behind the initial wave of cops.
Xavier ran for it, Ingrid saw, vanishing into the thick cover provided by the Yard’s vegetation, as did the dozen or so other gangbangers still at large.
The cops gave chase.
“That one, Ben,” Lia said, spotting Ingrid and pointing her out from across the parking lot. “Over there.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake! Ingrid thought. She spat and made a hex sign in the air before turning to flee, wondering how in the hell Lia had managed this.
Lia looked on as Ben Leonard drew his weapon, trained it on Ingrid Redstone’s leg-and then realized that the.9mm in his hand had somehow turned into nothing more than a red plastic water pistol. A toy. No cop was armed with anything else, to their very great dismay. Lia saw it as clearly as they did. The guns might still have worked if they’d tried them (Ingrid’s trick must’ve been perceptual, Lia figured, hypnotic, something easier to accomplish than an act of physical transmogrification), but none of the Blackdogs questioned the evidence of their senses enough to make the experiment. They were disarmed, for all intents and purposes.
Gunfire nonetheless broke out deeper in the Yard. Ben threw his shiny toy pistol aside and powered after Ingrid, vanishing into the greenery.
Lia followed after him.