The phone on the counter warbled before it finally rang. Josie jumped, then froze as she stared at the device as if it were a snake waiting to strike. On the second ring, she lunged forward and picked up the headset, gazing at it in horror, before raising it to her ear. “Yes?”
After a full minute, Josie shook her head. “She’s an untried witch. She just needs training.”
“Take the magic from her and use it to create the stones. You should be able to produce double the charms.” Frankenstein’s voice carried through the phone.
“Sir, I don’t believe anyone would be able to handle her magic. It’s too raw. Any witch who tried would fry.”
There was a pause, then his melodious voice emerged from the phone. “Would she have better control with a familiar?”
Josie turned toward Raven, and widened her eyes in silent question.
Not willing to give up the chance to see Durant, Raven nodded, urging Josie to lie.
“Yes, sir.”
Instead of replying, Frankenstein hung up.
Josie lowered the headset to the cradle. “Do you know how to use a familiar?”
Raven snorted. “Of course not.”
She swallowed hard. “If you fail tomorrow, he will make you both pay.”
The other witches had watched her with awe…at first. Once they realized she had power, but no skill at casting, they saw her as inferior, little better than a wizard.
If Raven didn’t learn this new skill and make herself useful, Frankenstein would have no need to keep her.
These weren’t the kind of people who would simply release her. They would crack her open to discover how she could harness so much energy and still survive. They would do testing to see if it was something that they could duplicate or bottle, keeping her alive as long as possible. Last time, they hooked her up to car batteries, testing to see how much voltage she could endure before her skin charred, and her teeth cracked from clenching her jaw to hold back the screams. Smoke would rise from her body before she ultimately lost consciousness.
Then they would test how long it took her to heal.
The next day, the process would begin over again.
When they discovered she was getting stronger with every charge, they pushed her harder and harder, wanting to see how big a monster they could create, not caring that her blood was literally boiling in her veins, or the seizures that followed while her body struggled to adapt.
Josie headed back toward the counter, grimacing as she placed the cuffs back around her wrists. “The doors are spelled. If you don’t put your cuffs back on, they won’t open.”
For a security measure, it wasn’t bad. “What if you don’t leave?”
The pixie girl pointed to a small vent located at the base of the counter. “You get gassed. When you drop to the floor unconscious and convulsing, they will enter, wearing masks, and bind you. Only then, you’re on their shit list. Instead of coming to the labs, you will be handed over to the guards—they get to play with you until you’ve learned your lesson.”
Her green eyes dulled, as if haunted by memories.
Raven recalled the gleam in Igor and Quasimodo’s eyes, and knew she would receive far more than a beating if she disobeyed. She fisted her hands and imagined beating the men to a pulp, showing them that they were no longer the biggest predator, and that they shouldn’t pick on people weaker than them.
Heaving a sigh of frustration, she shook off her fantasies, promising herself she would make a point of visiting them before she destroyed this place, and obediently clamped the restraints back on her wrists.
They clicked into place. Magic flared, the bands tightening like a blood pressure cuff until she swore they were trying to cut off her circulation, before they gradually relaxed.
When she lifted a brow at Josie, the girl shrugged. “It ensures that they are fitted for each wearer. Wouldn’t want you to slip out of them.”
Her wry grin let Raven know it was a feature that had been installed only recently, due to Josie’s defiance. Despite the girl’s rail-thin appearance, she had a spunk and courage that Raven admired.
“Time to go.” Raven approached the door, watching the glass light up, as if the magical symbols had been etched into the material itself. It was a powerful spell that would take some time to break. If she tried to dismantle it, the delay would give the doctors time to hit the button and flood the chamber with gas.
They walked toward the elevator together. Raven entered, then heard the grate slam shut behind her. Whirling, she saw Josie pressed the button that would send her up alone. “What are you doing?”
“Until you’ve proven yourself, you’ll be kept in solitude, and won’t be able to sit or eat with the rest of us.” Josie rubbed her arms and glanced away.
Good. The separation would give Raven time to study the lay of the land. The shifters and witches were land mines. Until she learned who she could trust, she couldn’t risk anyone discovering the truth. She couldn’t risk slipping up—any more than she already had.
Knowledge gleamed in Josie’s eyes, but for whatever reason, she didn’t tell Frankenstein she wasn’t a real witch. For that, Raven owed her. “What about you?”
“I didn’t finish my quota. I can’t leave yet.”
The elevator jolted to life, metal screeching as the cables ran through the pulleys. Raven grabbed the grate separating them. “But you’re exhausted. If you extend yourself too much further, you’re going to collapse.”
“I’ll be fine.” She shrugged, the dark circles under her eyes belying her words. “You might want to figure out a way to get out of your own mess, or you’ll find out tomorrow what happens to those who don’t obey.”
Before Raven could reply, the elevator clunked and lurched upward, cutting the witch off from view. The slow death trap took twice as long to reach the surface. With each foot the elevator rose, the pressure in her chest eased, allowing her to breathe easier. A guard stood ready and waiting, yanking up the grate when the death trap finally stopped.
As she exited the elevator, she came face to face with the last person she expected to find.
Randolph.
In orderly scrubs.
He was her new jailer.
Chapter Fifteen
Raven stood frozen, flabbergasted by Randolph’s unexpected appearance, struggling with the ramifications. She waited for him to attack, and braced herself, expecting his power to slam into her at any second. Static sizzled under her skin, and she curled her hands into fists to keep from striking first.
“What are you staring at?” She flinched when he reached into the elevator and roughly dragged her down the hallway. “Someone needs to teach you some manners.”
When she heard a masculine chuckle, she was surprised to find Igor leaning against the wall. She’d been so focused on Randolph that she hadn’t sensed him at all—a costly mistake that could have gotten her killed.
Electricity crackled in the air between her and Randolph, and his grip tightened on her in warning. When she wasn’t filleted alive, she scrambled to pull the energy back. Every step was agony as the voltage settled in her bones, until they felt so brittle she was afraid they would snap.
The human giant trailed beside her. “They’re always defiant when they first arrive. She failed her task.” He cracked his knuckles, his muscles flexing, eying her like he was trying to find where he would place the first blow. “It’s up to us to show them cooperation is best.”
By the time they hiked up three stories and stood outside her room, she’d regained some of her composure, and followed Randolph’s lead. Igor unlocked the door. When Raven went to step into her cell, Randolph shoved her so hard, she flew across the room and crashed into the wall. The impact knocked the air out of her lungs.
She turned on wobbly legs, her hand going to her head. She winced when she encountered a growing lump, her fingers coming away bloody. When he followed into the room after her, she automatically backed away, not all of her fear feign
ed.
The two of them mixed like oil and water.
Even their magic, when combined, was combustible.
If he ever truly decided to attack, she wasn’t sure if either one of them would survive. The uncertainty was the only reason he hadn’t tested himself against her sooner. He grabbed the door without looking behind him, the industrial metal clanking loudly as he pulled it shut.
Neither spoke until they heard the guard’s footfalls fade.
“The others?”
“I’m here alone.”
Raven was both relieved and uneasy. “What happened?”
“When the soldiers finally left, the group remained scattered and hidden. I had a choice to follow your trail or risk losing it.”
He meant her energy signature.
She shouldn’t be surprised that he could pick up on it, since they had similar capabilities. That he knew enough about her to track her was disturbing.
It meant he’d been studying her a lot longer than she suspected.
Raven ignored the pounding in her head, wishing she could collapse on the bed, but didn’t dare risk showing weakness in front of Randolph. “How did you get inside?”
“I caught one of the orderlies out smoking.” He shrugged, glancing around her cell in curiosity. “We talked.”
Raven raised a brow, and he amended. “I persuaded him to talk. You might say we traded places. I’m the new replacement from Spokane.”
It didn’t surprise her that he would torture someone for answers, nor that Frankenstein would hire him on the spot. He had an unassuming appearance, everything about him bland and forgettable.
Which made him the perfect assassin, especially since people forgot about him the instant he walked away.
“You didn’t wait for the others.” It wasn’t a question.
“I’m the only one who could pass for human and go unobserved. The others wouldn’t be able to do anything without drawing attention to themselves.” He shrugged again, his eyes latching onto hers. “I figure by the time they arrive, we’ll be on our way out.”
Raven hesitated to trust him, praying his hatred of the labs overshadowed his curiosity about her. “I’m meeting up with Durant tomorrow, so this will likely be the last time we see each other for a bit. Stay topside, and keep watch. I don’t want to risk all of us getting trapped below.”
She wasn’t sure he would follow her orders, but as long as he didn’t put her pack in any danger, she would leave him to his own devices. She had too much to worry about to monitor him. He’d survived the labs once, he could do so again.
He knew the dangers, the risks involved if they were caught.
“Keep an eye on the witch called Josie. She should be able to help you when I make my move. Wait for my signal.” By the way his eyes narrowed slightly, she knew he didn’t liked to be ordered around, and she wondered if he would obey.
“While my abilities might interfere with their cameras, we need to make this look convincing.”
Randolph raised a brow in question.
Raven gave him a twisted smile and straightened, shaking back the hair from her face. “Beat me up, but try not to damage me too much.”
She expected him to show pleasure at the task, but he grimaced before reluctantly nodding. It was a struggle to stand still as he knocked the crap out of her. He pulled his punches slightly, doing as she asked, each blow placed to show maximum bruising. He moved fast, his face impassive while he landed another blow to her ribs. “That should do it.”
It took five minutes for her to feel like shit. Her left eye was partially swollen shut, her jaw ached, and each shallow breath she took tightened the band around her chest. The two blows to her shoulder made lifting her left arm nearly impossible, leaving spots dancing in front of her eyes every time she tried.
To her surprise, hitting her seemed to bother him.
He backed away, looking down at his hands, as if disturbed by the same realization. When he reached for the door, Raven took a step after him. “Be careful.”
She wasn’t sure why she said it. She didn’t like him, she wasn’t sure she could trust him, but she couldn’t let him leave without saying something. When she spoke, he faltered for a second, before he quickly opened the door and left without saying anything else.
Raven limped to the bed, rubbing the bruise on her leg where he surprised her with a kick to her thigh. She cradled her ribs and gingerly stretched out on the bed. Even lying perfectly still, she ached. She probed her jaw then her eye, the angry wounds throbbing at the assault, and she winced.
Even now, the current crackled to life. She healed the deeper tissue damage, but left the bruises alone. Suspecting this would be the last time she would be topside, Raven began to pull as much current she could from the old building without shutting it down. The energy consumption might trigger a warning to her pack if they were watching.
Instead of keeping all the delicious energy, she deflected it into the air, every hair on her body lifting as static surged into the room. It was so thick, she was surprised that she wasn’t lifted off the bed as the current floated higher and higher.
Clouds began to gather and whirl overhead, gradually darkening as minutes sped by. Soon the light dimmed as the sun disappeared behind the clouds. At the first crack of thunder, the building shook, a tiny bit of dirt trailing down the walls.
Even though she didn’t absorb any of the voltage, funneling that amount of energy made her insides feel like they’d been scraped out by a dull, rusty butter knife. Every time she moved was pure agony.
As rain began to splatter against the window, she smiled.
The guys had their locator beacon.
With so much energy soaked in the air, it was inevitably drawn back to her. Knowing she couldn’t absorb more without completely healing and risk exposing the truth, she deflected the current into the hall, determined to use the extra boost to search the compound.
She tapped into the power grid, following the ancient wiring along the twisted corridors of the building until she found the elevator shaft. The current flickered dangerously when a large bolt of lightning struck the ground outside her window. The energy arced through the earth like a juggernaut, its only goal to reach her.
Fortunately, the soil and tons of stone dampened the voltage. Raven braced herself and called the bolt toward her. Her back arched up off the bed, her muscles spasming as the power tore through her body. She used the energy to expand her reach to the tunnels under the witches’ lab.
Using the energy like echolocation, she painstakingly repeated the process until a map of the tunnels began to form. She was able to tell the depth and height by how long it took for the charge to bounce back to her. Dead spots were cracks, caverns, and even chasms that had no end, the current fading before it had a chance to rebound back.
Just when she feared she could go no farther, her head pounding under the strain of directing the energy for so long, she noted something different.
A second grid of energy rested hundreds of feet below the monastery. It consumed so much voltage, it blazed like the sun.
The lab.
Unwilling to give up now that she was near her goal, Raven stopped sending out tiny pulses and began to search for the familiar energy signatures only shifters emitted. Even behind her closed eyelids, her eyeballs began to ache.
It wouldn’t be long before everything inside her shut down.
Just when she was ready to give up hope, she located a huge mass of paranormal creatures.
Frankenstein had captured close to fifty people to help feed his crazy need for power.
Their wild, churning emotions threatened to pull her under, and it took all her willpower to search for the one she needed. Vampires had a signature that was a kind of reverse shifters. Shifters were so full of life, they practically vibrated with it. Vampires on the other hand were the exact opposite, registering as a total absence of energy.
A void.
That’s when she noticed th
e anomaly.
Rylan.
Excitement tingled along her skin. Ignoring the way her body threatened to drown her in pain, she dropped into her core, where her connections to her pack resided.
The cord to Rylan had a slight, spicy scent. The comforting smell surrounded her when she touched the dull, nearly lifeless thread linking them.
She quickly followed the connection, growling in frustration when she ran right into a brick wall.
The bastard was still blocking her.
She pushed, felt his resistance waver, and ruthlessly took advantage of his weakened state, overpowering the shields he built between them.
An avalanche of pain and madness ricocheted in her head. What little remained of his life force was erratic and faltering. Her heart fell and shattered at her feet.
He was turning feral.
“Little one. What did you do?”
Raven lifted her chin. “I did what I had to do. What you would’ve done for me.”
His dry, brittle laugh whispered through their connection, and she winced at the pain. “You give me too much credit. Leave. Now.”
A dark shadow wrapped around him as he gathered what little power he had left, using it to shove her away.
Giving her a splitting headache.
She gritted her teeth and tightened her hold, refusing to give up on him so easily. As the pain increased, her dragon uncurled for the first time since Raven was taken. It lunged forward, slashing at Rylan with her claws.
Rylan stumbled back, and whatever control he had over her shattered. Even weakened, he nearly managed to sever the connection, and it scared the bejesus out of her. Instinct told her she was the only reason he’d hung on as long as he had. “I’m trying to help, you ass.”
Particles of energy gathered in the room. To her surprise, the darkness in her mind began to shift and fade, and the cell where they held Rylan gradually took shape.
“I’m too far gone.” Rylan scratched his scalp, his normally meticulous grooming in shambles, his wavy hair matted and snarled. His whipcord frame was almost skeletal, his immaculate clothing in tatters and bloody.
Electric series- Raven Investigations BoxSet Page 43
