by Jamie Davis
She climbed up on the desk, holding back a groan as she twisted her torso to lay down. She pulled the VR goggles and headset on before giving Taylor a thumbs up. “Where are you dropping me?”
“I think I can drop you into that back storeroom leading from the bar to O’Malley’s office. Will that work?”
Quinn nodded and slipped the goggles from her forehead into place. “Do it.”
There was a brief flash of pain as her body wrenched backward, the falling sensation, then everything went black. Quinn was in.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Quinn opened her eyes. She knelt amidst the stacked crates and kegs in the bar’s storeroom. Reaching out to a stack of kegs beside her, Quinn steadied herself while the nausea and dizziness of the transition passed. The steady thump of the country beat pounded through the door, not that far away to her left. The overhead lights were dimmer this time, but that might be the VR system. It was hard to tell. It seemed like she had more shadows around her, and that was to her benefit.
Concentrating on her HUD, Quinn muttered, “Mist.” Instantly, the familiar haze came up around her field of view.
It was good she’d done it. The door to the bar opened, and the pulsing country music grew louder for a few seconds. Jonas, the giant bouncer, ducked through the opening.
He turned back and said, “I’ll be right back, Juni. The boss is going to want to know why the wards were tripped. I don’t know who it was, but there’s been an intrusion somewhere in the building.”
Jonas pulled the door closed and shuffled along down the center of the extended storeroom. It surprised Quinn when he didn’t stop at Paddy’s office door. Instead, he pulled a small flashlight from his pocket and continued walking into the darkness beyond.
Once again, the scar on Quinn’s chest chilled and set off a small vibration as she stared into the darkness. With a nod, she murmured, “Dammit, I need to see.”
The storeroom still had a gloomy feel, but she could see much better, even into the near-total darkness beyond Paddy’s office door. Moving slowly, careful to remain quiet, Quinn followed Jonas down the long corridor.
After she had followed the giant man for a few minutes, Quinn realized the corridor narrowed into a genuine tunnel. She saw they had passed beneath the block of row homes. Periodically along the passageway, doors led off to one side or the other.
Quinn stopped and listened at one of the plain wooden doors. When she heard nothing on the other side, Quinn opened the door and peered through. The other side seemed to be the basement of a home or perhaps a small business, based on the collection of boxes and shelves she could see from the doorway. That matched her theory about where the tunnel was going.
Closing the door, Quinn moved forward again, following the bobbing light marking Jonas’s position ahead of her. The farther she traveled down the passage, the more frequently the scar on her chest vibrated and sent a chill through her. At one point, she shivered involuntarily. Something evil or threatening was going on ahead if the residual presence of her amulet was to be trusted.
As she realized what the scar seemed to be telling her, Quinn thought again about what Miranda had tried to say to her before. Did the former witch know what she was talking about? Quinn had her doubts, but at this point, she needed any lifeline that could possibly help her survive the night. She had to stop Handon, no matter what.
Jonas’s bobbing light disappeared ahead of her, although she could see a faint, fading glow ahead. Quinn picked up her pace and came to the top of a flight of stone stairs leading down. She stopped, staring down. Her scar throbbed nonstop in time with her heartbeat now.
Bringing up her map overlay, Quinn tried to see where she was in relation to the bar. If the map was correct, she was almost two city blocks away from O’Malley’s. She also understood why the passage led here. The stairs led down toward a point where two ley lines crossed each other. Quinn didn’t know what such a nexus meant, but the increased magical energy down there must be why her scar chilled and pulsed the way it did as she got closer.
She couldn’t turn around now. She was sure Handon and his minions had brought all three components to this place. The power nexus pretty much proved it. That meant she didn’t just have to find and rescue Clark, but she also had to try to stop them from completing the ritual and making evil versions of the hunter amulets.
Quinn started down the stairs, keeping to the left side against the stone wall as the stairs curved to the right. As she continued downward, chanting voices carried up to her from below. She moved down step by step, her scar pulsing so hard now it ached. The strangest thing was, despite the obvious signs of danger below, there was something about this place that seemed almost comforting to her. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she knew why.
The landing at the bottom of the curved staircase continued about ten feet, ending in an arched doorway with two heavy wooden doors bound in steel straps. They both stood open, but Quinn could make out the symbols carved on the outer surfaces. The stylized tree and accompanying runes carved into the doors matched the symbols that had been cast into her amulet.
This place had belonged to the hunters before the purges.
It made sense. The convergence of the two ley lines would have lent their power to any magic worked here. It would have been the perfect place to create the amulets and bless new members of the clan. The familiarity made Quinn wonder if she’d been brought here as an infant.
As she stood in the shadows outside the doors to the chamber, something else was familiar. The voices inside chanted in that same guttural language she’d last heard in the cavern beneath the VirSync complex. She even recognized the cadence and many of the words being used in that language. It meant they were in the middle of a ritual to convert someone into a demon-kinder, merging the soul of a demon with a human host body.
Quinn moved up to the doorway and peered around it into the room, trying to see more of the ritual in action. Her heart sank when she saw the subject of the chanting and transference.
Clark lay bound by his hands and feet to a rough wooden table. He’d been stripped to the waist, and black runes had been painted over his entire upper body, including his face. He wasn’t comatose, as the victims had been when Quinn had seen this process before. The hunter struggled, wide awake, against the leather straps securing him to the tabletop.
Myles Hickman, wearing the same black and red robes he’d worn before, stood beside Clark. He held the glowing Ruby Heart in his fist, waving it in slow passes up and down the length of Clark’s body while he chanted in unison with the cluster of ten robed individuals behind him.
Beside Myles stood the demon-kinder Cindy, one of Quinn’s former candidate colleagues from those first few days at VirSync. Quinn scanned the faces beneath the hooded robes behind Myles. Most were familiar, although she didn’t know all their names. She recognized her former handlers, Philip and Velma, among them.
On the opposite side of the table stood John Handon. Naomi was beside him, with a cluster of ten vampires in the shadows behind them.
At the head of the table, robed in green and white, stood another figure. The new person wore a hood, and Quinn couldn’t make out the face because they were turned away from her. Jonas approached the person in the green robe, bent down, and said something. The robed individual nodded, and Jonas stood up and started back toward the entrance.
Quinn moved to enter the room, keeping close to the far wall and the shadows, trying to avoid Jonas. She slipped inside just in time. The giant bouncer crouched to pass beneath the arched entrance and head back up the stairs.
Quinn kept going into the room, trying to get a better look at the green-robed individual.
A few seconds later, the green-robed figure lifted their head a little. The hood shifted so Quinn could see inside. She ground her teeth in anger as she recognized the person.
It was Filippa.
What was she doing helping them torture Clark? They were supposed to be fr
iends, perhaps even former lovers. The look on the fae princess’s face was one of ecstatic expectation as if she awaited something wonderful.
Looking around, Quinn tried to come up with a way to stop the ritual. There was no way she could take on all the people in this room on her own, especially as injured as she was.
Carefully fitted stone blocks formed extended arches spaced around the perimeter to support the vaulted ceiling. Carved stone panels, each about four feet across, appeared every ten feet or so around the room. The same angular rune and tree motif carvings covered the panels. The images comforted her. It felt like home here, although it was now tainted with decay and evil from the use to which it was being put. Anger welled within her at the way they’d appropriated this sacred space.
Hidden in the shadows next to one of the buttresses that supported the arches, Quinn pressed herself against the wall and traced one of the runes on the carved stone panels. Her mind flared with a sudden awareness of otherness, coupled with belonging and family.
“Welcome, Huntress,” a woman’s voice crooned in her head. “We have waited a long time for your arrival.”
At first, Quinn thought it had come over her earpiece from someone on Taylor’s end. She quickly realized it was inside her mind. Moreover, she recognized the voice. She had heard it twice before.
Quinn formed the reply inside her mind. “Who are you?”
“We are those who have gone before, preparing the way for your arrival.”
“You-you were expecting me? How?”
“Your coming was foretold long before your time on this earth, long before any of us at rest here walked these halls. It was foretold by the founders during the earliest formation of the clans.”
The woman’s voice changed, taking on a sense of many others speaking in unison.
“For in time will come one who was lost.
They will restore that which was taken.
They will rebuild the clans.
Forging them into the final weapon.”
“I don’t even know what that means. I’m here to stop them from hurting my friend. I don’t know how yet, but I will think of something.”
The woman’s voice returned alone again. “Trust in yourself, my huntress. You have much more within you than you believe. Trust in your power. Trust in us. Nothing made can truly be destroyed. Nothing has been lost.”
As Quinn tried to wrap her head around the riddles the voice uttered in her head, a cry of anguish from the center of the room drew her attention back to the vile ritual at work there. Straining to see past the robed people surrounding the table, she took a step forward. As soon as her hand left the stone panel, her connection to the other woman ceased.
She had no time to reconnect and ask more questions. Clark had resisted as long as he could. With a cry of triumph, Myles shouted something in that same guttural language. He moved the Ruby Heart lower to hover over Clark’s head. The chanting increased in both speed and volume.
The hunter now seemed to be aware of his surroundings. His entire body had tensed, and his limbs strained against all the bonds at once. His eyes were locked on the red gemstone Myles held a few inches above his face.
Quinn moved forward, realizing she was out of time. Disregarding her aching side, she drew power from her half-filled stamina bar, adding both strength and speed. She’d only have enough to maintain power for maybe a minute, but it would have to do.
Rushing forward, Quinn drew her Bowie, holding onto her shadow invisibility for as long as she could. Clark had told her that once she attacked anyone, the magical distraction of the ability would be dispelled. That meant she’d only get one chance at this.
Gliding to the table between Clark and Myles, Quinn held the knife in two hands and slashed at the hand holding the Ruby Heart. The Bowie’s blessed blade cut through skin, muscle, and bone with ease, driven by the enhanced force of her blow.
Myles Hickman screamed in agony, yanking his arm back and staring at the stump of his wrist, now spurting blood into the air. His severed hand, the Ruby Heart still clenched in his fingers, fell to the table beside Clark’s head.
Quinn turned in place, her forward momentum still carrying her as shouts of alarm sounded all around her. With her free hand, Quinn snatched a curved silver dagger from where it was tucked into the sash of Cindy’s robe.
At the same time, with her other hand, she slashed the Bowie through the leather straps holding Clark’s hands together on the table above his head.
He sat up, in control again now that the ritual had stopped. Quinn pressed the stolen dagger into his hands. He’d have to free his feet on his own. She had work to do while she still had the strength.
Still spinning, Quinn charged at the closest target—Filippa, in her green robes.
The fae princess recovered from her initial shock faster than Quinn expected and pulled Clark’s blessed short sword from beneath her robe. Holding it in a guard position, she easily parried Quinn’s initial attack.
Quinn, angry that she hadn’t been able to make surprise work in her favor a little longer, snarled at the fae princess and redoubled her efforts to break through. It was no good, though. Her injuries kept her from moving fast enough to get any advantage. The princess was just too good.
Behind her, shouts and the sound of metal on metal told her Clark had freed himself. At least he had a fighting chance now.
Filippa smiled, sensing Quinn’s weakness. In an instant, the princess turned her purely defensive moves into parries, coupled with attack combinations. Before Quinn could stop the woman, she found herself driven away from the table. Soon she and Clark fought back to back in a desperate melee against a surging host of foes.
Several robed bodies on the floor around them told Quinn Clark had managed to end a few of them before the tide turned. Myles knelt nearby, sobbing as he tried to staunch the flow of blood from his wrist.
At some point, the demon-kinder Cindy joined Filippa in front of Quinn. The possessed girl had found another blade somewhere, and she and the fae woman attacked in tandem.
Quinn somehow managed to parry the initial flurry of doubled attacks, but it was only a matter of time until they broke through. She checked her status in the HUD. Her strength boost had almost run out, and there was nothing left in her stamina bar.
The press of attackers forced her and Clark back until they stood side by side against the wall between two of the carved panels.
The blades came in all at once, and Quinn knew they were finished. Her strength faded, and weakness swept over her.
Quinn closed her eyes, welcoming the end at last.
Chapter Thirty
“Stop!”
The multiple blades coming at her did not strike.
Quinn opened her eyes to see three polished points mere inches from her face. They all quivered with anticipation in the hands of those who wielded them.
“Do not kill either of them,” John Handon said from across the room. “Drop the blade, Huntress, or you won’t live to see the end of what I’ve planned here.”
Part of Quinn, aching and in pain, wanted to defy him and die fighting. However, a distant part of her mind heard the faint echo of a familiar voice.
Patience, Huntress.
Beyond caring, she resigned herself to whatever came next. Her body beaten, sore, and exhausted, Quinn lowered her left hand, her grip loosening until the Bowie clattered to the stone floor beside her.
“Good,” Handon said. “Now we have two hunters to join our ritual and become one with us. One will join as a demon-kinder slayer as planned, and the other as my newest vampire child.”
“You’ve lost your chance, Handon,” Clark shouted. “You won’t take me by surprise again. I’ll die before you have your way with me.”
Quinn said nothing. She tried to put on an air of defiance, emulating Clark. She saw no way out, though, despite what the voice had told her.
Handon smiled. “We shall see, Hunter. I see your protege also doubts I can
turn her. You’ll find I’m very persuasive when I want to be, Huntress. I know you’ve met my first turned hunter,” he said, gesturing to Naomi by his side. “She’s proof that even one of you cannot resist my desire when it comes to creating new children for my coven.”
“She’s not me, Handon, not even close,” Quinn said, calling up one last ounce of bluster. “I told you the last time we met, I’m something more. I’m a huntress, and that is something you’ve yet to defeat.”
Quinn dug deep. Despite her pain and weariness, something in her refused to give up. There had to be a way out. She’d defeated this vampire once before, and she could do it again. She just had to figure it out.
She kept her eyes on Handon, but her mind reached out to the nexus of power pulsing beneath the room. If Miranda was right, she could do this without the amulet. The power lines were much closer this time than before. She was right on top of them. The power of the magic thrummed in the back of her mind. It was as if someone played a sustained chord on the lowest keys of a piano. She noticed for the first time that the room seemed to carry the vibration, magnifying it. Quinn couldn’t help but think there was something there, something about this chamber she was missing.
The vampire lord nodded at Naomi and pointed at Clark, saying, “Take him. Return him to the table.”
Moving in a blur of speed Quinn couldn’t follow, Naomi charged forward. Somehow the woman’s hunter reflexes had been magnified by the power of being a vampire, making her more than just another of the undead.
Naomi’s move happened so fast, she’d batted the curved dagger from Clark’s hands before he could even twitch in her direction. The blade clattered to the floor. Unarmed, he fought back with his bare hands, landing several powerful blows that shook the vampire woman, driving her backward a few steps.
She came back, though, stepping back into contact with him, striking with even more speed and power, beating Clark until he crumpled under the rain of blows and collapsed to the floor. The red-robed cultists around him piled on top, keeping him down as they continued to pummel him.
