Before I could make a choice, Ian decided for me. “Coward!” he screamed. The chains rattled and clanked, like he was trying to wrench them from the wall. “Should have killed you when I met you. Worthless, sniveling thief. Gods take you to hell!”
The guard banged the door open—right into the shoulder I’d turned to retreat. I grunted at the impact and moved out of range. Maybe he hadn’t heard me over Ian’s raving.
“The fuck’s goin’ on down there?” The guard came through gun first, then stuck his head cautiously around the edge of the door. I recognized him. Kit, the other brother from the forest. And Jesus, he was young. I didn’t realize it while we were fighting for our lives, but the kid couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen. His efforts to hide the fear in his face behind a tough mask failed miserably. “Gahiji-an?”
Another violent chain rattle. “I will rip your head from your shoulders!”
“Aw, shit.” He withdrew, and I heard the distinct tones of a phone being dialed.
I couldn’t let him call for help. I lunged through the gap in the door and cast a lockdown spell at him, barely noticing that it didn’t hurt me like calling on magic usually did. He froze with a finger pressed to one of the numbers. The digital tone stretched out in a continuous whine until I pulled the phone from his hand and thumbed it off. I shoved it in a pocket, and my fingers brushed the barrel of the Sig.
Kill him.
I hoped that cold voice came from the part of me that was connected to Ian and not myself. Either way, there wasn’t a chance in hell of me shooting a kid. Especially not one with his eyes bulging from his head in terror, unable to move and trying desperately to see what was attacking him. I shut the door in an attempt to close off Ian’s lunatic shouts and searched more pockets. Wire, switchblade, napkins—no idea what I was thinking when I grabbed those—handcuffs. Bandanna. Perfect.
“I’m not gonna hurt you, kid.” I stayed invisible while I cuffed his hands behind his back and gagged him with the bandanna. The less he knew about me and my plans, the better for both of us. “I just can’t have you calling for the cavalry yet. Don’t worry. I’m sure they’ll find you soon, if you don’t get out of this yourself first.”
I sat him down on a stair and frowned. Best thing would be to make sure he couldn’t get up, at least not easily. The walls at the sides of the stairs were hard-packed dirt. No protrusions, no railings. Maybe I could make something. I put a hand on the wall and thought about hooks.
Heat flowed into me. A spot near the bottom of the wall bulged out, extruded to a point, and curved up. It looked solid enough. I bent to touch it, and found a smooth, cool surface like stone or marble. That’d work.
The kid groaned against the gag. I didn’t have time to marvel at my new abilities. Had to work fast before he came out of the lockdown. I moved him closer to the hook and slipped the cuff chain over it, then I touched the wall again and made the hook an enclosed loop.
It would’ve held him, if he was just human. But I still didn’t know everything these guys could do—hell, I didn’t even know what I could do—and I wasn’t going to risk being discovered before I got Ian out.
“Sorry, kid,” I said. “You’re gonna have to take a little nap.” I considered whacking his temple with the gun, but if I hit him too hard it’d be the same as putting a bullet there. So I balled a fist and cracked his chin with a hook. His head snapped aside, held for a second, and rolled forward.
After a quick check to make sure he was breathing all right, I sprinted up the rest of the stairs. Ian’s little outburst had cost me a lot of time. I wouldn’t be able to make a thorough canvass of the place—I’d be lucky to find a way out and get back here before someone who’d give me a lot harder time than Kit found out what had happened.
At least I had no further qualms about giving back whatever they wanted to dish out. Harder, if I could manage it. Anyone who threw kids out for cannon fodder like this deserved to suffer. And for once, my conscience agreed.
Chapter 24
Halfway up was another landing, with tunneled hallways leading left and right that suggested there was a lot more underground to this place than just the dungeon they kept Ian in. More stairs bent around the other way. I headed up, and a closed wooden door with no windows greeted me at the top. I stood behind it and listened for a minute. Didn’t hear anything. I cupped my hands on the door and held an ear against them, waited. Still nothing. Of course, that didn’t mean whatever lay outside this door was safe. I pulled the gun out, took a breath, and tried the knob.
It wasn’t locked. For some reason, that fact failed to comfort me.
I pushed the door open a few inches. A light brighter than the bare bulbs in the stairway spilled through the crack. No one shot or shouted at me. I kept going until I could see into the room beyond. This was the place Akila had spied on. Same round table with chairs—empty now, two of them pushed back as though they’d been recently occupied. I couldn’t see much else.
If I waited any longer, I’d probably lose whatever small opportunity the deserted room gave me. I slipped through. The instant my feet touched the floor, a familiar and unwelcome sensation slammed through me. A massive shock, as if I’d grabbed the spitting end of a severed power line. I’d walked into a snare spell like the one Lynus had cast at Jazz’s place. And I wasn’t invisible anymore.
So much for exploring the compound. At least tripping the spell didn’t seem to alert anyone. Just like back at the house, it only screwed me if they saw me.
I could see the whole room now. It was unoccupied, and didn’t contain much outside the table and chairs. Against the wall to my left was a big free-standing cabinet closed with a padlock. A huge mirror, big enough for two or three to pass through side by side, dominated the right-hand wall. They must’ve used that to invade the house. The building’s entrance was kitty-corner from the basement door. It was ajar. Cigarette smoke and low voices—one male, one female—drifted through from outside. Thanks to Ian’s unintended enhancements, I made out what they were saying.
“We’re gonna get in trouble, Billy.” That was the girl. And I remembered the name Billy from Akila’s thought-form—one of the gate guards. The younger one, but now that I thought about it, they’d both been smooth faced and still in their mid or late teens.
“No, we ain’t. They’re busy. ’Sides, I’m not gonna smoke inside with you.” He paused. “Don’t wanna hurt the baby,” he muttered.
Baby? Damn, how many more kids were these assholes planning to destroy?
“I didn’t think you cared.”
“Shit, Penny, you know I do.”
“Well, ain’t you sweet.” She let out a breath. “Billy,” she whispered. “D’you think we could … you know … leave?”
“Don’t ever say that.” There was a flatness to his breathy tone. “If Val or Father heard you … just don’t.”
“He ain’t my father,” Penny murmured.
“Mine neither. But we don’t wanna fuck around with him, do we? I already done a week of diggin’ just for usin’ the damn mirror to get smokes.”
“Yeah, but at least you got a way out. Me and the girls ain’t got magic like y’all.”
Billy gave a bitter laugh. “Kind of a good thing for me. I’m surprised they don’t make us fuck our cousins, jes’ to see if it’d make the babies stronger.”
Silence stretched out. I told myself to move, get back down to Ian before they came in and saw me, try to figure some way out—but I didn’t listen to my own advice. I wanted to hear what else they’d say, to understand a little more about what the hell had been going on out here.
“I hate this,” Penny said at last. “Why’d we have to guard him?”
“Everybody takes a turn. And it’s Kit’s ass, anyway. He’s closer.”
There was a slight thud, as if she’d slapped his arm. “Don’t say that. I don’t want nothin’ to happen to Kit neither. Damn, he’d kill us soon as look at us, wouldn’t he?”
�
��I guess.” He paused, probably to drag on his cigarette. “Don’t you worry none. He can’t. You ain’t seen … what they done to him.” The edge of horror in Billy’s voice suggested that he’d seen more than he wanted.
“Yeah,” Penny said. “But you know what he did to the elders. Tore ’em up like meat. I heard he ate ’em some too. And he killed Davie, and—”
“Hush up, Penny.” He changed his harsh tone, and added, “Won’t be much longer, anyway. Now they got him, Father’s gonna go soon. Val said we’d have the world then. We c’n go anywhere we want, long as we keep to the plan.”
“Yeah, but …” She sighed. “I just don’t wanna be around him.” “Guard change in an hour. I got the next shift off.” A grin practically oozed through his words. “You got a room alone now, right? I ain’t tired.”
She giggled. “Me neither.”
Rough as they were, the love between them shone like a torch. My soul ached—for them, for me and Jazz, Ian and Akila, Tory and Lark. So many torn apart by these stupid-ass clan grudges. I decided I’d do everything I could to make sure their torch kept burning. Even if it meant I’d never be lucky because I wasn’t trying to kill them. I’d dealt with bad luck for so long, I almost missed it. At least it’d been reliably bad.
I withdrew to the stairs and closed the door quietly. Still had to get Ian out somehow, and I had the beginnings of an idea. A typical Stupid Donatti plan. So dumb, it just might work.
If I was lucky. Which I wasn’t.
Kit was still out cold. I stepped over him and entered the basement with caution, expecting another volley of curses.
Ian slumped in his chains, head hanging slack. He must’ve exhausted himself screaming. My brilliantly doomed plan included healing him and keeping him calm long enough to explain a few crucial things, like the fact that I was physically unable to destroy him. It was the keeping him calm part I’d have trouble with.
I approached him slowly. He didn’t move, didn’t twitch. I would’ve tapped him to get his attention, but I didn’t see an inch on him that wasn’t bloody or bruised. This close, I couldn’t escape seeing the damage they’d done to him. It turned my gut inside out.
His clothing, what was left of it, hung in tatters. All his fingers were broken. He had at least three bullet holes in him, ruptured flesh crusted with black blood. Dribbling puncture wounds that looked like they’d been made with nails—or fangs—dotted his arms and legs. His chest and stomach had been flayed raw. I suspected his back looked the same.
“Ian,” I managed through the hitch in my throat. “Are you …”
His head winched up a few notches. His eyes opened, and his mouth followed.
I cast a lockdown at him before he could threaten me with gruesome murder at the top of his tortured lungs. This time I paid attention to the magic. It came up through my feet, where I made contact with the ground. I filed that away for future reference. “Sorry to do this, man,” I said. “But you have to listen, and we don’t have much time.” I gave him the CliffsNotes version of all the fun things his little soul bind had done to me, and watched the fury in his eyes change to shock. “Now, if I let you go, are you going to keep screaming at me? Never mind. Just stay quiet, all right?” I undid the lockdown before I even registered that I knew how.
Ian sagged forward. “Paralysis spell,” he gasped. “How …”
“Old dog, new trick. Long story.” I frowned. “You understand why I can’t kill you, right?”
He made a choked sound. “Cannot destroy your own tether.”
“Ding, ding. You win. So, right now our only option is getting the hell out of here. And we’re not going to kill anyone doing it.” I felt the rage rolling off him, and added, “We’re taking a hostage with us.”
“Never work.”
“Maybe not. But you’re in no shape to plan, and I don’t have any other ideas. So that’s what we’re doing. Now, do you want me to heal you or get you down first?”
He stared at me. Finally, he said, “Heal.”
I nodded and held a hand near his throat, looking for the bright red spot. Found nothing. I closed my eyes and made out a weak glow that was probably all the energy he had left.
When I honed in on it, his pain flooded me.
“Ah, shit,” I ground out. My legs went limp and tried to buckle. Every bit of me shook like a wet dog. I concentrated on the warmth rising up through me, felt it turn white hot. Sent it all toward the dim light at Ian’s throat. Heal him. For fuck’s sake please …
The glow increased, blazed crimson. Through the pain clouding my head, I reminded myself that I had to pull the light through him. Like threading a needle. But there were so many holes to patch, I barely knew where to start. The indecision had me trying to direct it down and up at the same time.
It worked. The light split, branched, seeped into his body like ink spreading through water. Bones straightened and fused back together, muscle and skin rejoined. Three faint metallic clicks reached my ears—bullets being ejected from him and dropping on the ground.
The heat in me started to burn. I pulled out and dropped to one knee, panting, hoping I’d done enough. I didn’t feel drained the way I did when I ran out of djinn magic. It was more of a wrung-out, raw sensation, like someone had scrubbed my veins with Comet. Probably could’ve kept going if I could take the heat. “Get you down in a sec,” I said. “Gotta catch my breath.”
Chains clanked and popped. Ian dropped in front of me, landing on hands and knees.
“Or you can do it yourself,” I said. “You okay?”
“No.”
“All right. Stupid question. How about this, can you walk?”
He looked at me. “This is not possible. How could you have done that?”
Calvin taught me. I caught myself before I said it out loud. No way he’d believe that right now, and it’d probably start him screaming and calling me a liar. “Tell you later.”
He crooked an eyebrow. “Old dog?”
“New tricks.” I stood and held out a hand. “Can we please blow this place?”
He let me help him up. “Your eyes.”
“Yeah. Thanks for the makeover. You coming?”
“I suppose I must.”
I would’ve felt better if he sounded pissed at me. Anything but this broken devastation. “There’s a mirror up there,” I said. “Hopefully, we’ll use that to get out. One guard on the stairs—he’s our hostage. Two in the building, if they’re done smoking. Don’t bother with invisibility. They laid a snare spell on the place.”
Ian shook his head. “Where have you been to know such things?” he whispered.
“In a cave. Let’s go.”
Now we’d just have to live long enough for me to explain everything else.
Chapter 25
Ian didn’t try to attack Kit when we reached the first landing. He didn’t even hurl so much as an insult. I wished I could take that as a good sign.
The kid twitched and groaned. He’d come around soon. Knowing what I had to do, and not liking it one damned bit, I got my gun out and laid my other hand on the wall to rearrange the earth again. Kit slumped sideways against the stairs and flinched into consciousness. His eyes flared wide when they found Ian.
I knelt and pushed the Sig against his throat. “I will if I have to,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t shake too much. “Understand? Blink if you do.”
He blinked. Sullen fury replaced his fear as his attention shifted to me. Like Vaelyn, they all probably thought I was weak. No threat. That was good. A nasty bruise darkened his chin where I’d clocked him. I thought about healing him, but decided to leave it. He might try to defend himself if I threw magic at him. If he had something I couldn’t counter, we were fucked.
“You’re coming upstairs with us. You’ll live if you don’t do anything stupid. Got it?”
Another blink. Slow, and somehow sarcastic. He didn’t believe me.
That was good too.
I hauled him up by the arm and m
oved the gun to his back. “Walk.”
Kit muttered something. A single word, muffled by the bandanna. It sounded like asshole. But he walked.
I stayed one stair behind and kept my grip on him. Ian followed without a word. This new docile attitude of his scared me more than anything else. I kept expecting him to snap, turn into a wolf and go for Kit’s throat, try to carry out the threats he’d made to me. But he just plodded along, silent and stiff. A motorized husk.
I stopped the kid on the second landing and took the gag off. “Where do these tunnels go?” I dug in with the gun, just in case he’d forgotten it was there.
Kit coughed and spit on the ground. Bright blood winked an accusation from the glob. He didn’t try to run, or scream for help. Smart kid. “Different places,” he rasped. “Whole nest of shit under here.”
Something Billy had said flashed through my mind, about doing a week of digging as a punishment. Christ, it wasn’t bad enough these bastards sent the kids out to fight their battles, to die for them. They used them for slave labor too.
“You ain’t gettin’ out of here,” Kit said, in that same flat tone Billy had used. “Nobody does. Think they won’t kill me to stop you?”
“Your friends up there won’t,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “Now move.”
He stood still. A muscle worked along his jaw.
“Jesus!” I whirled him around, forced him to the stairs, and wrenched his mouth open before he could pop the suicide cap. He fought hard, whipping from side to side like a snake. I planted a knee on his chest and shoved two fingers in his mouth.
He bit down. His teeth broke skin.
Somehow I managed not to scream. I snarled a lockdown spell and pried his teeth out of me. “Fine,” I said. “We’ll do it the hard way.” I probed until I found the hollow point in a back tooth, extracted the glass capsule, and threw it back down the stairs. I checked to make sure it was the only one, then released the spell. “That was stupid, kid. Didn’t I tell you not to do anything stupid?”
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