by Alisa Woods
Pennies was smirking. “Recognize this, Ms. Strange?”
He tossed the bottle to her, and she awkwardly caught it. Then she quickly looked it over. It appeared genuine. Even the production stamp on the bottom of the bottle seemed legit. “Have you decided to sell legal drugs?” But her voice was quavering.
“Open it.” His grin was so evil, it was sending chills through her.
Zane’s eyes were wide. Willow was watching her as well, along with Pennies’ guards and their stares. Ever opened the bottle and broke the tamper-evident seal. Whatever this was, it looked very authentic. Inside were yellow-and-red capsules, the kind any normal pain reliever would be packaged in. Each was stamped with a code she recognized from the national database. Holy magick… there was zero way to tell these apart from the genuine article.
“What’s in these?” she asked, heart in her throat.
“Why don’t you take one and find out?” Pennies’ eyes glittered, and his cruel smile still shone.
“Some kind of magick suppressor,” she guessed, heart racing. Why? What was Pennies doing here?
“Nothing so simple.” Pennies grinned wider. “It’s magitek. The Boss calls it a miracle. I call it exactly what this world needs.”
The boss? Pennies was working for someone else? “You’re suppressing magick with a magitek drug?” Her mind zoomed off into the possibilities of a drug that could truly control magick in the hands of a drug cartel boss who knew more about killing people than helping them.
Pennies grin turned mean. “The lineage of your family ordained you an adept—one worthy of having Talents—at your birth, Ms. Strange. But what if a drug could switch that off… and on.” His eyes gleamed with a kind of madness. “It will restore the rightful balance of things. Take us back to the time when the most cunning, the most ruthless, those with the most truly human talents, could acquire any Talents they wished… for a price. And do you know who will rule in a market where the greatest magickal technology since the advent of High Magick now comes in a pill?” Pennies spread his hands wide, as if he were the beneficent Lord of all magick everywhere. “Someone who understands how much people will pay for even the tiniest edge in a brutal world.”
“You’re insane.” Holy magick, he was. So insane… and yet… this could be real. Researchers had been looking for a medical way to control magick for years… and never found it. Because it was a hideously complex problem. Magick was like intelligence—many forms, many levels—and yet unlike intelligence, some people seemed entirely bereft of Talents. But that didn’t mean private researchers hadn’t been trying to enhance it or control it outright. The Strange Research Institute had their own side research going. She knew others did as well. It was possible. And Pennies had destroyed her father’s magick ability—at least, he seemed to think so. And if that technology fell into the wrong hands… Ever looked again at the horror show of the magick asylum they stood in. It was the mad scientist version of a clinical trial. The overdoses, the disappearing bodies, the experimentation—all of it. Pennies could be telling the truth.
And what would mean for the world?
“Which is the more insane, Ms. Strange?” Pennies sneered. “A world where power is bequeathed by birth and by blood… or one where anyone can buy their way to the top?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Take the pill, Ms. Strange.”
She looked at him like he was truly insane.
“I could force you, of course,” Pennies said nonchalantly with a little wave of his hand. “I could strap you down and inject you like we did your father. But the Boss wants data on this new pill version of the drug, especially with higher level magick users, and I’d say…” He glanced at Zane. “I lucked into having two of those on hand.” To Ever, he said, “However, the charmer is useless to me. I’ll give you the choice, Ms. Strange—take the pill, and I’ll let her live. Maybe even leave. With me, of course. I’ll find a use for her. But if I have to go to the trouble of forcing the pill down your throat, the charmer dies. Either way, you’ll be joining our little experimental database.”
Willow’s eyes bugged out. “No!” She broke free, suddenly, from Anton. He must have relaxed his grip. Willow rushed up to her and grasped hold of her hand, the one not holding the pill bottle. “Please! Ms. Strange. Don’t let him hurt me!” Tears were running down her face, and her expression was twisted with fear—it was so sudden and wrenching, Ever almost missed that Willow was clasping something hard into Ever’s palm. Pennies’ thug came and hauled her back, and Willow let go, but only after squeezing Ever’s fist tight over something.
Something hard and cold.
A key. Ever tightened her grip on it and dropped her hand to her side. Her heart stuttered. Did Willow just give her a key to the cuffs? Holy magick—
“I’ll do it.” Zane’s voice short-circuited her thoughts. “I’ll take the pill. Then you set the girl free. The others as well. You don’t need any of them, Pennies.” He didn’t wait for an answer, he just strode over to Ever, his face still hardened and inscrutable, and took the bottle from her. He held her gaze for only a split second, and she couldn’t divine his thoughts in that instant.
What was he doing? Trying to save her? He didn’t need to be a hero by taking a pill that would turn off his magick—
Oh, no. The bottom fell out of Ever’s stomach.
Agent Zane Walker had never wanted to be an incubus in the first place.
Chapter Fifteen
Could a pill take away the one thing that had tormented Zane since he was fifteen? Since his magick killed the first girl he had ever loved, both with his heart and his body?
He had no real doubt.
Pennies was insanely ambitious and tormented by his flaming desire to possess the magick his genetic history had denied him. This pill might not fulfill Pennies’ fervent wish to gain Talents, but the evidence that it had sophisticated magick was all around him—and in the overdoses-and-resurrections that brought these people here. The scope of this whole operation seemed beyond someone like Pennies, no matter how ambitious. But when the cartel boss mentioned a bigger boss he was working for, Zane had no question all his claims were true—especially the part about robbing adepts of their magick.
The yellow-and-red pill in his palm would kill the beast.
Zane handed the rest of the bottle to Pennies and held up the pill. “How long until it takes effect?”
Pennies was enthralled. “Twenty minutes to the first symptoms.” He licked his lips. “It’s not too late to embrace what you are, incubus. Forget the FBI—join me. The adepts have never had a place for you, but in my world, you will be like a god.”
Zane gave Ever a long, slow look, one he hoped Pennies would read into. She seemed apoplectic—like she was ready to explode. The cuffs were keeping her from using that insanely powerful magick of hers, and if he weren’t cuffed himself, he would be tasting the sizzling temptation of it. “I made a mistake,” he said to her, but his words were for an audience of one. Pennies. Zane turned to look at him. “I fed too long. Too much. Became… addicted. This isn’t about the FBI. This is about her.” He gave her a look of both longing and loathing. Imagining his own inner beast in her place made it easier.
“You want to be free,” Pennies whispered.
Zane kept his gaze on Ever. “Yes. I want to be free.” He needed to be free of the cuffs. Would she understand? He could only stall for so long—then he’d need them off. Pennies was right—the FBI wasn’t coming for them. There was probably a back door out of this place, one that Pennies had either used to bring in his victims or, at a minimum, planned to use as an escape route now. But no matter what they did or said—no matter whether or not Zane took the pill—there was no way Pennies would let anyone walk out of this decrepit insane asylum except himself and his goons. And the crate full of drugs.
And no matter what else went down, Zane couldn’t let that happen. Drugs like those, out on the streets… the panic would be monstrous. And who knew what Pennies’ true
plans for the drugs were. Zane needed Ever’s help to end this… and soon. Some distraction. Some dramatic move that—
Pennies pulled a gun. “That’s easy.” He pointed it at Ever.
“No!” Zane lurched into him, crashing his cuffed hands into Pennies’ outstretched arm, throwing off his aim just as he fired. The sound cracked against his ears. Zane stumbled and nearly fell—but when he recovered, Ever was still standing. Without a bullet in her, that he could see.
Zane whirled on Pennies. “Fuck you!” he shouted in the man’s face, shoving him back for good measure, in case he took another shot.
Pennies tipped the gun up to the ceiling and held his hands up in surrender. “Just trying to make your decision a little easier, incubus.”
“Dammit, Pennies.” The adrenaline was just hitting his system. His hands shook, but he raised the pill, still miraculously clenched in his hand. “I take it, you let her go. Do we have an agreement?” Not that Pennies would abide by it. But at least he wouldn’t be shooting at her, for fuck’s sake.
Pennies holstered the gun and squinted at Zane. “You’re not addicted. You’re fucking in love with her.”
“I’m an incubus,” he spat, his anger welling up to crash head-on into the adrenaline. “There’s no fucking difference.”
Pennies drew back, examining him more sternly. Then he gave a slow nod. “All right. You’re no use to me like that.”
Zane flinched… then slipped the pill into his mouth.
“No!” Ever screamed—then the world went on tilt.
Zane stumbled back, but it wasn’t him or the world… it was everyone else. Pennies, Anton, each of the dozen goons Pennies had with him, from the train and inside the asylum—they were suddenly floating five feet off the ground, pawing at the air. Grabbing for their guns.
“Ever!” Zane whirled around.
She stood, feet planted, hands in the air as if holding them all up, fierceness writ across her face, hair flying like the goddess she was—and then she slammed her hands down. All of them—Pennies and all his men—crashed to the concrete floor. They lay without moving, either stunned or broken or dead, he couldn’t tell, not with his cuffs on. But Ever must have gotten free of hers… he turned back to her.
She was face down on the floor.
“No!” he roared and practically leaped the dozen feet between them.
Willow was already at her side. “No, no, where is it? Where is it?” She was inexplicably pawing at Ever’s hands and clothes.
Zane ignored her and bent over Ever’s prone form. His damn cuffs were in the way! But he managed to brush aside the hair covering her face. “Ever.” He fumbled to grasp her shoulder, trying to turn her, see if she were still breathing… No, no, no…
Moans and cursing started up, but they weren’t coming from her—she was as still as a doll. A broken doll, lying on the floor. Someone nearby was moving. Zane looked up just in time to see Pennies stagger up to his knees—
“Yes!” Willow cried next to him.
He threw an incredulous look to her but then—she was holding a key.
The air gushed out of him. “Quickly!” he hissed, thrusting his hands toward her.
She fumbled at the cuffs, jabbing and missing.
Zane looked to Pennies—he wasn’t bothering to stand, just drunkenly fumbling for his gun.
“Faster!”
The cuffs slipped off. His Talent raged back.
Zane slammed into the minds of every one of Pennies’ men. The blowback was intense, but he focused on Pennies, lest he somehow escape. Zane would drain every last one. He didn’t care if it killed him. Or made him lose his mind. He only cared that he didn’t lose control and try to consume anyone else. But the chances of that were small. Pennies and his men were simples, so there wasn’t as much to give. Thank magick. Otherwise, this likely would kill him.
It still might.
He was already on his knees but the dizziness of the waves upon waves of energy, the endless fantasies mangled together from more than a dozen men, pitched him forward until he was panting against the floor, lying next to Ever. Ever’s body. He could hardly see straight, but he knew she wasn’t moving.
She’d saved him—saved them all, really.
He fished around inside his mouth, just with his tongue as his hands were shaking too violently to be of any use, and found the capsule tucked between his gum and cheek. It was sticky and dissolving, but it hadn’t broken through—the gel of the outer coating was still intact.
He spit it out.
One by one, he felt the last of the life drain from Pennies’ men and into him. The high of it was incredible but manageable. Pennies was right in one way—simples and adepts were no different. They both moved through the wild background magick that surrounded everyone and everything. Adepts simply tapped into it more extensively than simples, thanks to whatever inherent magick that capsule he’d spit out was intended to disable—or turn on, depending.
Pennies was the last to go, his lurid fantasies fading as the essence of his life was pulled from his body into Zane’s.
Zane had killed men before. Not many—most of his “kills” were faked, brought to the brink and then resurrected by the Talents of a healer. But these deaths were warranted. Whether he stopped them with a gun or his Talent, the effect was the same. Their victims would have a chance at life again.
And Ever…
As the horrible wash of energy ebbed a little—he’d be feeling this buzz for hours—he blinked the haze from his eyes. Willow had turned Ever over, and her long brown hair was splayed across the floor, laying softly across Zane’s hand and not quite reaching his face.
“No, just lay back,” Willow was saying.
What? Zane squinted and tried to peel his face off the cold concrete floor, but his head was swimming. He managed to turn on his side and held his head up by shoving his fist between his face and the floor. Then he blinked, twice, before he was sure he was seeing clearly.
Ever’s eyes were open.
“Hawarishe.” His mouth wasn’t working at all.
But Willow heard him. She looked up from her tending of Ever and grinned at him. “She’s okay. Just a bump on the head.”
He exhaled his relief, not trying to put it into words.
Ever squinted then turned her head toward him. “Zane.” Her lips were chapped, and she looked frail. Too frail. And there was a bump rising on her forehead that was angry red and turning purple. He frowned. That gravity magick, whatever she’d done—it’d drained her. Just as he was swimming in too much magick, she had too little. And probably a concussion from her fall. But she was alive.
Ever reached a hand toward him. Her cool fingers lightly brushed his brow, which felt feverish by comparison.
“Heroes,” she said and smiled faintly.
He couldn’t help but return it. “SMossly you.” Damn, his mouth. He closed his eyes, wetted his lips, and focused on the cool feel of her fingertips still lingering on his skin. Then he opened his eyes and carefully articulated. “Mostly you.”
She turned on her side like him, her soft brown eyes seeking his. “Tell me you didn’t take the pill. Not really. Tell me you faked it.”
He nodded. Then managed, “Faked it.” His mind was clearing a little—enough that maybe he could hazard lifting his head or even sitting up. But he liked it right where he was, on the floor of this miserable place, Ever Strange peering at him with concern and then relief in her eyes.
Willow had gotten up from hovering over them both and gone off somewhere. A moment later, she returned. “I think they’re all dead.” Her forehead was furrowed, but she didn’t seem overly freaked out by that.
“Should be. I made sure.” Zane was in command of his mouth again, thank magick. And he really should get up off the floor. If nothing else, Ever probably needed medical attention. He was surprised how hard it was to tear himself away from her touch. It wasn’t an incubus thing—it wasn’t the normal attraction at all. It was… somet
hing else.
Something he tried not to think about as he climbed to his feet. He inspected each body of Pennies’ men, and Pennies himself, just to be sure. They were dead, but he was already ruing the necessity of that. Dead men couldn’t rat out their bosses. Dead cartel bosses didn’t bring down the entire chain-of-command with them. Zane had stopped a horror from happening, right here today, but so many questions remained.
He snagged Pennies’ gun and grabbed another from Anton’s body. Then he returned to Willow, who was helping Ever up to sitting.
“Stay here and watch over everyone,” he said to Willow, handing her one of the weapons. “You know how to use this?”
“Well enough.” She took it but didn’t seem to like it.
Then he knelt in front of Ever, who was holding her hand to her head. “I’m going to go get help,” he started.
“Or help could come to you.”
Zane whipped his head around and nearly brought his gun to follow—but he recognized Arrow’s voice before he completed that motion.
Zane grinned and stood back up. “Damn, it’s good to see you.”
“Aw, honey, don’t get mushy in front of everyone.” Arrow’s gun pointed at one fallen goon after another. A dozen agents fanned out behind him, sweeping the place, making sure it was secure.
“They’re all dead.” Zane grimaced.
Arrow holstered his weapon. “Well, you don’t leave much work for the rest of us, do you, Walker?”
Zane shook his head in wonder that Arrow was actually there. “How did you find us? I didn’t think there’d be cameras—”
“In the shower room?” Arrow gave a snort. “All conveniently shut down. But no way were we letting Pennies just disappear with one of our top agents inside a high-security correctional facility. That stunk of corruption the moment you were off camera. Took a while to get the riot under control, or we would have been here sooner. The bureau’s shut the whole facility down. The warden’s enjoying his interrogation by Special Agent-in-Charge Burrows as we speak.”
