by Lizzy Ford
Vikki glared at him. Before she could retort, he held up a hand.
“You’ve got a ten minute head start.” He tossed her three of the armbands that blocked the wearer from the influence of sex magic.
She caught them, eyeing him, as if suspecting he was tricking her.
“Nine minutes and fifty seconds,” he said with a glance at his watch. “Don’t get caught, Vikki. There’s no get out of jail free card this time.”
Understanding, tinged with fear, crept through her features. She snapped one band around her arm and stalked out of the suite.
Declan tossed back the rest of his vodka, poured another shot, and downed it just as quickly. The liquid warmed his throat and thawed the frozen stiffness of his chest enough to breathe deeply once more.
Aware his brothers were waiting, he set the tumbler down and left, unable to stop thinking of how he was going to handle the latest crisis with his soul-mate in a way where she didn’t die and he wasn’t rendered powerless to help her.
Chapter Twelve: Framed
Zoey killed the Cambions and succubae that came to Lydia’s sister’s then made her way towards the secondary emergency rendezvous point, where the team would have gone after her warning. To her dismay, the abandoned building in the slums of Baltimore was vacant. No trace of Hunters’ magic was anywhere. She entered through the rear entrance, senses on full alert.
The building was rotting from the inside out, the floors coated in dust, rubble, nails and abandoned office furniture. No footsteps were visible from the light trickling in through one window covered in graffiti. Pausing to listen, she assessed that the team had taken refuge at an alternative site.
Rather than leave any trace Cambions might be able to track, she left the building for the alley beside it and pulled out her phone.
“Zoey.”
She whirled, heart slamming into her chest and knife in hand. “Fuck, Chrissy!” she breathed. “You’ll get killed sneaking up on me like that!”
“Ginny said you’d come here. Everything okay?” Chrissy crossed her arms, clearly expecting bad news.
“I dealt with it. We need to get the Professor, though. He stayed behind while I scouted ahead. You alone?”
“No.” Chrissy tossed a thumb over her shoulder. “Grant Brown refuses to let me out of his sight until he verifies that certain proprietary property hasn’t fallen into hands it shouldn’t.”
“Persistent,” Zoey grumbled. “Where’s Ginny?”
“They split up again. Ginny took west DC and Tiff east, in locations different than yesterday. They’re being pretty heavily tracked by Cambions, we think on behalf of the Sucubatti.”
I thought Declan bought us some time. Her instinct wriggled, warning her something had changed. “This is getting old. How can we kill bad guys if that bitch Olivia won’t leave us alone?” Zoey didn’t expect a response and started past the tall human towards the direction she indicated. “Set off the electro-thing. It should distract them long enough for us to regroup, plan and scatter.”
“I set it on a timer. If they have it in a compound with no wifi, I’m not sure if I’ll be able change it.” Chrissy had her iPad in hand and was tapping commands to her latest creation. “No wifi. Can’t change it.”
“When is it supposed to go off?”
“Tonight at midnight.” Chrissy drew a deep breath. “Zoey, we kind of have another problem. A bad one.”
“We’re getting good at problems.”
“Heidi was found dead this morning, and someone kidnapped Ethan.”
Zoey froze. “What?”
Chrissy cleared her throat before continuing. “We’re kind of being blamed.”
Zoey faced her, stunned by the news. Her thoughts flew first to the Professor then to Declan. She knew firsthand how close the super-incubuses were to their father and that Ethan himself was a clandestine advocate for what she was doing. Taking him out of the picture seemed like something Olivia would try, a warning to his sons, but Heidi? She was Olivia’s loyal lapdog. Zoey had a reason to hate her, though she doubted anyone else did.
“Hence the sudden pressure,” Chrissy added. “I have some bad news about your tests, too.”
“Stop there.” Zoey held up her hand. “I don’t give two shits about my tests! I sleep for one night and the world goes even more to shit! What the fuck happened?” She began walking again, her sense of urgency rising.
“Well …” Chrissy drifted off, lowering her iPad. She trailed. “Nobody really knows. Our people were all over the place last night. Five never reported to any rendezvous site. We heard about Ethan from Vikki and Heidi by intercepting communications.”
“She means she was in my office when I got the call,” Grant said, appearing from around the corner of the alley.
Zoey almost snapped at the liaison but managed to swallow the retort. With some agitation, she yanked off the band and tossed it to him.
“Actually” Chrissy stretched forward and took it back “that’s mine. He had a backup and promised me one if I took him to you.”
“Backup?” Zoey asked, perking up. “You have a third one?”
“No, and I was assured you wouldn’t be cornering me in my house again to borrow any of my belongings.” Grant Brown spoke with a polished accent and cultured delivery, no annoyance entering his tone despite the words. “We tend to do business in a more civilized fashion.”
“Everyone’s a critic. What do you want?” Zoey asked.
“You’re now wanted by the human population as well. The police issued a warrant. Someone managed to pin your DNA on Heidi’s body, and her murder was conveniently reported to the police before I had a chance to intervene.”
Zoey’s anger rose as she listened, aware of the severity of the situation. Heidi’s death meant little to her, aside from the fact it was going to influence the Council to give Olivia a blank check to go after her.
“What about Ethan?” she asked. “You know anything about that?”
“Only what you do,” he answered, glancing at Chrissy. “Do you understand the implications of what I said? Every news agency, beat cop, incubus, Cambion and succubus in the greater DC area has your picture.”
“I get it. No more clubbing.” Unable to shake her concern about Ethan’s disappearance, she couldn’t find an ounce of her that cared about being hunted by humans whose senses and instincts were dulled compared to hers. “Anything else?”
Grant appeared ready to say something but stopped himself, instead shaking his head.
“We gotta go.” Zoey started past him.
“Any sort of alibi or information you want to provide so I can start a campaign to counter the accusations?” Grant called.
“I didn’t do it.”
“I guessed that.” He offered a wry, if tight, smile. “But the press doesn’t really buy excuses like that.”
She sighed, thoughts on the basement that was empty of witnesses, except for The Professor. She doubted an incubus’s alibi was what he hand in mind. “Make something up. You’re good at this stuff.”
Chrissy pointed to their van, and they crossed the street, leaving Grant on the sidewalk.
Climbing into the driver’s seat, Zoey started it.
Chrissy was frowning when she closed the passenger side door, clenching her iPad to her chest.
“What’s wrong?” Zoey asked. “I mean, aside from the rest of everything.”
“You wanna see now or later?”
Dread sank into Zoey’s stomach. She lowered her hands from the steering wheel. “See what?” she asked warily.
Chrissy opened her iPad and swiped it awake before double tapping a video to life. She held it up for Zoey to see.
Zoey took it, staring at the black and white security camera image of her hauling Heidi’s body out of a car and slinging it in front of a store in downtown DC. The time stamp read two fourteen in the morning.
“There’s no way.” Her mouth went dry, and she replayed the short video. “That can’t be
, Chrissy.”
Wracking her mind, she recalled nothing beyond lying down to go to sleep in the basement. It had been after midnight when she arrived. Too tired to do anything, she slung herself into the cot and slumbered.
“I always feel the blackouts coming on. Or wake up somewhere different,” she said, struggling to understand the images playing before her.
“Do you have any memories about what happened last night?” Chrissy asked.
“No! It was my first good night of sleep for fuck’s sake! I never wake up feeling this good!” Was that in itself an indication she’d been somehow drugged into deep sleep? She’d woken up where she fell asleep, with no indication of what she’d done, a realization that made idea of becoming a zombie robot serving Olivia even more terrifying. At least when she woke up elsewhere, she had an inkling something was wrong.
“And no one else was there?”
“The Professor was when I woke. I don’t know what time he arrived. He wasn’t there when I fell asleep.”
“You locked the door and set the alarm?”
“Hel-lo! Of course I did.”
“Then a possible way he got in was if you left and forgot to lock it again when you got back,” Chrissy reasoned. “I’m not saying you did this willingly Zoey.”
Zoey couldn’t look away from the video.
Chrissy pried the device out of her hands and tapped a new video open. “It gets worse.”
“I think I can guess,” Zoey said in a tight whisper. She dreaded seeing the second piece of evidence against her.
She and another succubus each had one of Ethan’s arms and were dragging him out of the back door of the apartment building where the incubuses lived, near Rock Creek Park on the Maryland-DC border.
Heart hammering as if she’d fought twenty Cambions and palms sweaty, she sat in complete shock, unable to look away, even after the screen went blank.
“I didn’t do these things,” she managed finally. “I mean … fuck!” She rubbed her face. “Chrissy, if I did …”
“When we get somewhere where I can unpack my gear, I’ll run every known software I have against the files to see if the videos have been tampered with,” Chrissy replied. “Zoey, you wouldn’t have done these things of your own choice, which to me means that you didn’t do them.”
“But if I did them, I did them! It doesn’t matter if I knew what I was doing!”
“It wasn’t you mentally. Olivia fucked with your head.”
Zoey frowned. “That’s worse.”
“If you’re brainwashed, how can you be held responsible for what you’ve done?” Chrissy squeezed her forearm. “Zoey, I know you. I know what you do and why. You saved my life and the lives of countless others. This” – she waved at the screen – “isn’t you.”
I can’t accept that. There was no excuse for using her magic and skills for evil, for Olivia. “I need to kill some shit!” With her emotions rising and the all-too-real possibility she’d had a hand in harming someone Declan cared about, she slammed the van into gear and took off, adrenaline making her edgy.
Chrissy tugged her seatbelt on. “You know where to go?”
“I don’t care.”
“Okay.” Chrissy fell into silence.
Zoey gripped the steering wheel hard enough for one hand to cramp. She wove in and out of morning traffic, mind racing.
She was losing control in the worst way possible. “Blood tests,” she said between gritted teeth. “What do they say?”
“That’s the bad news. They don’t say anything is wrong with you. There’s nothing I can cure or change.”
“It’s me. I’m what’s wrong.”
“No, Zoey.”
“Best guess. How long until I can no longer control who I am?”
“I’m not a doctor. I’m not even a real scientist!” Chrissy objected.
“You’re the smartest person I know. Just … tell me something!”
“Three weeks.”
Zoey glanced at her. “You’ve thought about this.”
Chrissy looked out the windows.
Three weeks. Zoey’s fury deflated, leaving her with an ache that pierced her core. It wasn’t enough time to be the hurricane-for-change the Professor spoke about. While she despised long term planning and preferred to be in the middle of a mission, she’d learned enough as the leader of Team Rogue to know how important it was for the vigilante movement to stick. The lives of every Halfling, and every potential human victim of a Cambion, depended on her winning a war she didn’t realize she was declaring when she turned her back to both societies.
For the first time in her life, she understood that she was fighting for something much bigger than killing a few Cambions here and there. She had to make sure the Cambions were eradicated as a whole. If that meant Team Rogue did the dirty work, then so be it. If it meant the Sucubatti decided to do what was right, or that the Incubatti stopped supporting the murdering creatures, she also won.
But that took time. Three weeks wasn’t long enough for her to win the war she started.
“There’s something else I need to tell you,” Chrissy said quietly. “How close are you to a meltdown?”
Zoey held up her hand, index finger and thumb mere centimeters apart.
“It can wait.”
“You okay?” Zoey asked.
“Great. In a perfect world, I’d have a lab that didn’t have to be mobile and didn’t end up set on fire.”
Zoey smiled, entertained by the human genius’s disgruntlement. “You regret joining us?”
“Never,” Chrissy said resolutely.
Zoey’s sighed. She didn’t know what to think about all she’d learned. “If I did those things, is the information in my head somewhere? Like could you access it somehow?”
“Access it?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t think so. You want me to learn to hypnotize people now?” Chrissy asked skeptically.
“Does it work?”
“I was joking! I don’t think that stuff really works. Besides, I haven’t given up hope that the videos were tampered with. Let me try that route before I turn into a psychic or whatever.”
“Any leads on Ethan at all?”
“None.”
Zoey said nothing, her dread turning to a sense of doom. There was no coming back from this, if something had happened to Declan’s father. She wasn’t able to think of Olivia without overwhelming rage clouding her judgment and thoughts.
The IAB chief had sent a message – a damned good one. Any sort of leniency the societies might’ve shown her was out of the question, and Olivia was serious about making her life worse and worse if she didn’t do what she wanted.
Now the Incubatti was after her in earnest. The one man who could always find her was just handed the best reason ever to do so.
“This is for you.” Chrissy removed the band and placed it around Zoey’s wrist. “Once I saw the videos, I figured you’d need it.”
Zoey managed a smile. “Thanks. It’ll keep me hidden from everyone but Declan.”
Chrissy gave her a worried look.
“You figure out why I’m having more blackouts?” Zoey asked. “I’m not drinking the energy drinks that used to put me under.”
“I have a theory,” Chrissy said reticently. “Emotion maybe. Hormones. Stress.”
That’s not about to change. At her limit, Zoey didn’t pursue. “We’ve gotta go get the Professor first.”
They drove in silence to the summerhouse belonging to Lydia’s sister. The backyard was spotless, no sign of the battle that had occurred remaining. Zoey left the van running and darted out, hurrying down the cement stairs to the basement. She flung the door open to see the Professor seated where she left him, reading one of Lydia’s romance novels. He set the book down and looked up, smiling.
He doesn’t know I’m a monster. Zoey lingered in the doorway, not wanting to admit the truth, terrified she’d lose him. The irrational fear faded, and she realized he was t
oo good to do anything of the sort. He’d stuck by her through everything.
“How are you, dear?” he asked, searching her features.
“I feel like an ant trying to carry a potato chip alone in a hurricane.”
He laughed.
She frowned, dismayed. “I’m serious.”
“You can tell me about it as we drive. I assume we are moving?” he rose and tugged his sports jacket from the back of the chair.
“Yeah, we are.” She led him out of the basement and up the stairs.
“I can share with you the mission Declan asked me to give you.”
“What mission?” she asked.
“One you will find useful, since it pertains to your blackouts.”
She glanced at her mentor.
“Olivia has a laboratory where she does the genetic manipulations. We think the answer to what’s happening to you is there, along with the reason why she’s after the members of Team Rogue and what she’s doing with the Cambions. There must be files upon files with the research they’ve done over the past century to breed wonderful Halflings like you.”
Files. A tingle of awareness flickered, along with her interest. She’d wanted to go after whatever it was Olivia was using to hurt the Halflings. The timing was horrible.
Or maybe, it was perfect. She debated for a moment, forced to admit she had to address what Olivia had been doing, the escalation of attacks against Team Rogue coming from the direction of their former society.
They reached the van. Chrissy was in back. The Professor took the passenger seat, turned and then opened the door to exit.
“Ladies in front,” he said politely with a smile.
Chrissy flushed, affected by the ancient incubus’s magic. “I’m okay here, thanks.”
The Professor hesitated.
“Get in, old man!” Zoey belted. “I’m in a heap of trouble.”
“When are you not?” He climbed back in. “Which first? Your latest adventure or the mission details?”
“Mission,” she said. “Why does he want my genetic files?”
“Aside from helping his soul-mate?”
