by Trina M. Lee
“Jez? It’s really you, isn’t it?” Despite the tangle of limbs we lay in, I pinched and poked at her, needing to know if she were an illusion of some kind.
“Stop that.” She slapped my hands away. “It tickles.”
I dragged her into a joyous hug, ignoring her attempts to pull away. “How did you get here? Where were you? Where’s Briggs?”
“Slow down, Alexa.” She humored me by giving in to my hug. “I lost Briggs right after we got here. He opened a closet and, bam, gone. Just disappeared.”
We got to our feet, and she gaped around at the room, much like I just had. I nodded, agreeing with what she hadn’t yet said. “Pretty sick, huh? I just lost Falon in a library. He went nuts and tried to kill me after we each saw someone from our past. Where have you been?”
Jez’s braid was in disarray. Makeup smeared beneath her eyes gave her a ghastly look. She still had her daggers though. “We started out in a dining room. After Briggs disappeared I followed a winding staircase to a tower. It was a dead end. Came back down to a sitting room. Saw a few apparitions who chased me down a dark hall. Next thing I knew I was falling. On top of you.” She laughed and tugged her hair tie out, finger combing her golden locks back into a smooth ponytail.
I was so glad to have found somebody that I grabbed her hand as soon as she was done, refusing to let go.
“There’s a maze outside,” I said. “I’m not sure, but I think we may have to go through it if we can get out of this goddamn house.”
Jez groaned. “A maze? This whole damn place is a maze. I can’t tell how long we’ve been in here. My sense of time is all screwed up.”
Mine was too. It felt like just minutes, but it also felt like it could have been days already. I hoped the others were ok.
“How did you get in here?” Jez pointed at the only door on the other side of the room. “Did you come that way?”
“No, I was chased in here by waves and flying arrows. I came in right—” The place where I’d entered was just a wall. No sign of the door I’d come through. “It’s gone. The door I came through is gone.”
Jez nodded, her red lips pursed. “So then we go that way, I guess.”
Together we went for the only door in the room. I cringed as Jez grabbed the doorknob and turned it. Another hallway, but this one was lined with doors on either side and stretched a great distance. There had to be more than a dozen doors. I groaned. My patience for this game was running out fast. All I wanted was to find the people I needed to trap Shya and get it done. Of course, I needed Shya for that too.
“Motherfucker,” I sighed.
“So, which one do you want to start with?” Jez asked, looking as daunted as I felt.
“Take your pick.”
Pausing outside each door, feeling for the energy of whatever might be on the other side, proved fruitless. At random we chose the third door on the left…and were led right back into the room we’d just left. We entered beside the bed through a door that vanished as soon as we were through.
“Son of a bitch,” Jez hissed.
“This is going to get old fast.”
Again we left, entering the hallway of many doors. This time we chose the ninth door on the right…and ended up right back in that damn room.
“Fuck!” In a fit of temper, Jez picked up the organ bench and smashed it down on top of the organ. The dark song it played continued without issue.
“Come on, Jez. We have to try again.”
Eight times we chose the wrong door and found ourselves back in the room of shifter heads. I was beginning to think there was no right door. Then on the ninth attempt, we walked into the very same ballroom that Falon and I had started out in. Evidently the house could rearrange itself at will.
Though I hadn’t anticipated finding myself back in the ballroom, I most definitely hadn’t expected to find Briggs in there fighting for his life. Three nasty demon-slave creatures had him cornered. Jez and I had killed one that had gotten loose in the city. Shya later told me that this was what humans became after selling their soul to demons. They were hideous things. Hairless and horned with cloven feet and razor sharp teeth, they struggled to get to Briggs who huddled atop the piano brandishing a heavy candelabra. His relief at the sight of us was almost palpable.
Somehow my inner snark managed to surface despite the circumstances. “Well, let’s keep moving, Jez. Looks like Briggs has everything under control in here.”
“Come on, O’Brien.” Briggs’s voice was higher and more frightened than I’d ever heard it. I liked that. “Throw me a bone here.”
“Oh, so now we’re friends? I see how you think this works. When you need something from me, then I’m not so bad after all.” I shook a finger and tsked. “It doesn’t work that way, Briggs.”
The demonoid creatures spared us a glance, but their focus stayed on the man that reeked of fear and desperation. We could simply close the door and leave Agent Briggs to fend for himself. Tempting.
“You insist you’re not a monster?” he shouted, kicking a misshapen hand as it grabbed for him. “Here’s your chance to prove it!”
“What do you think?” I asked Jez. “Should we help?”
With a golden brow raised, she cocked her head to one side. “This is your sister’s lover. Right now she’s somewhere in Las Vegas, possibly with yours. If Kale were in trouble and Juliet could help, would you want her to?”
“Ah, fuck. Thanks a lot, Jez.” I shoved away from the door, my face hot in response to the image she’d painted in my head.
I pulled the Dragon Claw from its sheath and advanced on the creatures with Jez at my side. She pulled both daggers free and tossed one to Briggs who caught it expertly. He swung the blade down, burying it in the face of the creature closest to the piano. Lucky for him they hadn’t figured out how to clamber up there to get him.
Together Jez and I surged forward to kick some demon-slave ass. Briggs jerked the dagger free of the one he’d impaled, and I swung the Dragon Claw in a wide arc, taking off its head. Jez plunged a dagger into the back of another before planting a seriously aggressive boot against its side in a kick that threw it to the floor where it flailed. She jumped on top of it to finish it off with several dagger stabs to the throat.
Briggs jumped off the piano, knocking the remaining creature down. It grabbed hold of him with clawed hands and dragged him close, its grotesque mouth stretched wide open. He stabbed at it with Jez’s dagger, but it was too intent on tasting his flesh. It shook Briggs like a ragdoll.
With a few choice words, I came to his aid, plunging the Dragon Claw into its skull. It made a strangled sound and slumped, releasing Briggs who got to his feet and smoothed out his hoodie as if it were his secret agent suit, though the hoodie didn’t hide the dirt and blood as well.
“Thanks,” he grumbled, sticking out a hand as if it hurt him to do so.
Because I wasn’t a total jerk, I accepted, and then pushed a subtle but effective erotic pulse through our joined hands. I grinned when he gasped and jerked away.
“Sorry, Briggs. Couldn’t resist. We better get moving. Based on past experience, I’m thinking we go that way.” I pointed to the door Falon had first opened, the one with the scary black passageway.
“You were here before?” Jez accepted her dagger from Briggs, wiped it on his hoodie and stuffed it into her thigh sheath.
Determined not to be deterred this time, I nodded and strode over to the double doors. I half expected to find something completely different when I flung them open, but no, the narrow, pitch-black hallway was still there.
“Leave it to a demon to concoct darkness that we can’t see in.” Jez peered in with a half shrug. “Who wants to go first?”
Wearing a scowl that would make doves cry, Briggs crossed his arms and affected his token, federal agent, tough-guy stance. “Should be the person who’s hardest to kill. That means you, O’Brien.”
“I guess that’s fair.” The unease I’d exhibited in front of Falon last
time I faced this hall was absent. No way was I showing vulnerability in front of Briggs.
The tight squeeze was cumbersome. It was a claustrophobic’s nightmare. Thankfully, I wasn’t claustrophobic, yet. If this hall dragged on too long that might change.
Again I conjured up the glowing psi ball. A self-satisfied smile played along my lips when Briggs muttered something about my being useful after all. If he only knew.
The air was musty and thick in the tight passage. Briggs followed close with Jez right on his heels. Nobody wanted to be left behind in the dark. I floated the light ahead, trying to see around each bend. The entire way I was tense, ready to react if something came at us.
As we went, the passage began to shrink. The ceiling descended until I was hunched beneath it. The walls closed in until it wasn’t merely narrow but was actually brushing my shoulders on either side.
“Motherfucker,” Briggs panted. He stank of fear and sweat. It was both acrid and enticing.
“Better calm down, Briggs. You’re starting to smell like a snack.” My evil cackle echoed, indicating that the passage must widen ahead. God I hoped so. Being trapped in the shrinking space already sucked. If Briggs started to panic, it was going to get a lot worse fast.
When he didn’t respond I paused to glance back at him, having to drop and twist in the effort. He screwed his face up into what was supposed to be irritation but was more like poorly suppressed anxiety. “Keep moving.”
As much as I enjoyed his discomfort, I knew how serious a fear-induced meltdown could be. We needed him to stay in federal agent mode. If he dissolved into an irrational mess, I’d be forced to make a choice I didn’t want to make.
Each breath came fast as Briggs struggled to keep his cool. My skin prickled in response to the influx of nervous energy. He reeked like prey. I didn’t want to say anything and make matters worse, but if he came undone, I was going to come undone.
I wasn’t sure who was going to lose their mind first, but I was betting on me.
Just when the strain became unbearable, the passage widened into a room. Not just any room. A large room filled with mirrors.
Briggs sucked in a huge breath and mumbled, “Thank God.”
Jez surveyed the maze of mirrors before us and said what I was thinking. “What in the ever-loving fuck?”
Rows upon rows of mirrors laid out in an erratic pattern made it impossible to pinpoint a way out. There wasn’t a surface of the room that wasn’t mirrored, including the floor and ceiling.
“Well this should be fun.” A quick perusal of the room offered me no obvious exit, yet there had to be one.
I ventured further into the room, stopping dead when I caught sight of my reflection in the first mirror: eyes wild and deep blue, fangs red, blood dripping from my hands as if I’d been finger painting with someone’s insides. Despite knowing it was an illusion, my gaze dropped to my hands anyway, finding them blood free. Yet the many mirrors surrounding me all reflected my alter-image.
Jez joined me, sucking in a sharp breath, not at my reflection but her own. For the most part she looked as she always did, like a golden-haired knock out. Other than the soul-sucking black eyes in place of her usual green orbs.
“What is this?” she breathed, barely forming words.
“A lie,” I said because I needed her to stay strong. Breaking down under the weight of Shya’s tricks was not an option for any of us. “You can’t trust anything you see.”
“But it’s just like my dream.” She reached out to the mirror, and her reflection reached back. “This is who I am inside.”
“No.” I shook my head, unwilling to believe that. “That is what you are inside. Not who you are. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
Briggs scoffed but seemed to know better than to say what he was thinking. He didn’t have to though. I knew. He saw me as a murderous fiend, and maybe I was. But he was no saint either.
He pushed by us, having found his balls again now that he was free of tight spaces. “Let’s find our way out. No time to stand around gawking at ourselves.”
Jez and I shared a look as his reflection floated by in every mirror. “I know why we appear the way we do, but what’s your deal? Is that what stealing from people’s dreams does to a guy?”
Try as he might to keep his head down and move through the mirrors, there was no avoiding the countless images each mirror reflected to the next. Briggs paused, assessed himself, and snarled beneath his breath before quickening his pace.
Briggs was still Briggs in each mirror, however, he was trailed by a black, shadowy figure that followed his every move. It seemed to be part of him, until it turned toward us while he kept moving. Something peered out of that blackness at us, something with no visible form or face. It made my skin crawl.
Jez grabbed my hand, and together we weaved our way through the many rows of mirrors. Once we determined there was no door, we decided that the answer to this puzzle must lie within the mirrors.
One by one we touched each hard surface. Nothing. Just glass and a reflection of something buried within us, something we shouldn’t have to face like this.
“This is all your fault, O’Brien,” Briggs suddenly hissed, his voice carrying though I couldn’t tell where he was. His image was everywhere. “You can’t let anything go.”
“Me?” I growled, pleased when it echoed. “You’re fucked in the head, you know that? Winston asked me to help find you, and I actually considered bringing you back, but I think you can stay here, stuck in Shya’s illusion forever. At least then you can’t hurt anyone anymore with your disgusting lockup and tests.”
“Winston? They sent that bitch? Figures.” Expletives followed, painting a clear picture of what Briggs really thought of his colleague.
“I kind of like her,” I said for no other reason than to piss him off.
“You would.” Briggs fell quiet so long I wondered if we’d lost him somehow. Then his ragged breath broke the silence. “I was only in charge of a particular line of testing. Getting rid of me won’t stop anything. I’m just one man in an organization bigger than you realize.”
Jez and I paused at the end of a row, and for a moment I couldn’t figure out which way to go or which way we’d already gone. It was an endless cycle of mirror after mirror.
“What did you do with my blood, Briggs? Where is it? I want it back.” If he was ever going to volunteer that information, it would be now. I wasn’t betting on it though. I should have tortured that information out of him when I’d had the chance, but I’d been more focused on finding out where my sister was.
His bitter laugh was weary. “That’s confidential.”
“Of course it is.” I followed Jez as she tugged me along, tapping every mirror, inspecting every surface for some kind of reaction. “So what did you plan to do with it?”
“I wanted to figure out how to create a hybrid like you,” he said, surprising me with his honesty. “When we turned werewolves into vampires in the lab, the wolf element was lost. But yours wasn’t.”
It was so typical, humans trying to play God, attempting to control creatures that were out of their league, beyond their understanding. We were either monsters or weapons, but we would never be people to them.
“Do you see any of us as people, Briggs? Does it mean nothing to you that we think and feel like anyone else?”
“Do you now? All of the cold-blooded killing must have had me confused.”
There was no point trying to get through to him. This was the same song and dance we’d been doing since we’d first met. One thing was certain: he could never learn that magic had retained my wolf. The last thing this city needed was the FPA breeding undead hybrids. The thought sickened me.
“It’s not worth it, Lex.” Jez squeezed my hand and shrugged. “Until he experiences it from our side, he’ll never understand.”
She was right. It wasn’t worth it, and yet it picked at me. I didn’t want to let it go; I wanted to pummel Briggs until he saw me
as more than a killer. That would be counterproductive so I had to choke down my vehemence and refocus on the task at hand.
Why did it bother me so much what Briggs thought of me? Why did I care? Maybe I’d be better off not knowing the answer to those questions.
In the absence of voices, I was able to detect a faint, high sound, like the irritating frequency an old tube television gives off but at a much higher pitch. I tilted my head, trying to pinpoint where it was coming from.
“Do you hear that?” I nudged Jez who stopped tapping mirrors long enough to listen.
She nodded. “What is it?”
The longer I tuned into the sound, the more sure I became that it was magic of some kind, a supernatural energy vibrating at a high frequency.
“I think it’s the way out.”
Tracking the noise wasn’t easy. In a room that echoed, it seemed to be everywhere at once. As Jez and I both sought the source, we were pulling each other in opposite directions. We rounded a bend of mirrors and found Briggs studying one as if he’d found Alice’s looking glass.
“Every minute or so this one ripples.” He reached out with a hesitant hand but didn’t quite touch the surface. Then, with a shrug and a smirk, he pressed his fingertips to the glass.
Nothing happened.
And then it did. The mirror opened up like a black hole, pulling Briggs in. With a shout he disappeared so fast I looked to Jez to ensure I hadn’t imagined it.
“Oh, that’s scary,” she said.
We drew closer, still holding onto one another. Our bloody and black-eyed reflections surrounded us. They were tough to ignore.
“Together?” I asked.
She gave a tight nod, and we reached out for the mirror in unison. The energy it gave off crackled and popped. As soon as it connected with my own personal energy, it crawled quickly up my arm. The mirror opened up once again, and all I could see was black. It sucked me in like a vacuum. There was no fighting the pull. I was simply jerked off my feet, thrust into the black abyss. My hand was pulled from Jez’s. I couldn’t tell if I was right side up or upside down. My stomach flipped a few times…
