Striking Souls

by Erin R Flynn

  “No, I’m pleasing her any chance she allows me as a man should,” Hunt informed him. “I’m not some asshole who cares only for sticking his dick in a woman, and she’s a goddess who deserves to be worshiped before my turn no matter how much I enjoy everything I’m doing to her.”

  Tanesha’s smile was comically big, as she was the only one who could see my reaction to what Hunt said. His very pointed reaction. What had he heard or figured out with his eyes that saw too much?

  “I need to get the negative chi and other supplies,” I said instead before popping up to my apartment. Hunt came with me because of the collar, and I stared at him a moment. “What do you know?”

  “That you talk when you doze,” he admitted. “You came to me once for sweet after that first time, and you zonked out for like five minutes before you woke up worried you hurt someone in your sleep since you weren’t behind your wards. You were crying that Victor fucked you and you were a whore to let him, but it was the only way for him to let it go and one up Andrew, and you hated both of them for it.”

  “Anything else?”

  He slowly shook his head, frowning. “Nothing that made sense or I could really understand. You said something about sanctuary not being worth it. It wasn’t coherent.”

  I checked his mind since I no longer trusted him and found it was exactly as he said. “I don’t need you to—”

  “Some battles only the men can fight just like there are only certain fights you could take for me against an ex-lover of mine.”

  “Fine, but we’re not together.”

  “That wasn’t what he asked,” he reminded me. He shook his head when I went to argue. “You don’t belong to him, and that’s because of how he’s treated you. Even I knew that. That’s the point he has to get. I know you’re not mine nor will you ever be, but others would treat you better and should. That’s what he’s missing, needs to be told.”

  “I get that, but not by you and not without talking to me first.”

  “I’m—” He growled when he couldn’t say it. “You’re right. It just came out because I saw how upset you were. I won’t do it again.”

  That was good enough for me and I took the win, gathering what we needed and heading off into the next crazy. Wasn’t there a limit as to how much shit and crazy one person could have in a day?

  8

  I cooked up a few bottles of the negative chi spray and handed them to Tommy to be in charge of and explain while Victor and I popped away to his nest. Checking the spot I picked in his basement was fine, I made an extra room, locking the door with magic so only he or I could open it. We checked it worked, and I was about to bring us back when he moved closer and reached out to touch my face, trying to force me to finally look at him.

  He let out a shaky breath when I ‘ported to the other side of the room in a knee jerk reaction. “I am sorry, Soraya. I know things went—”

  I brought us back to the coven, not wanting to hear what he had to say and more importantly, knowing I shouldn’t as it would distract me. We had too much to do, and it wasn’t the time for distractions.

  I went over to Hunt and tapped his collar, altering the magic. “I’m taking you off the link in case things get hairy, but you’ll still be bulletproof while we’re connected.”

  He caught my wrist in his hand when I went to pull away. “Fine, because I can see in your eyes you’d worry about my getting hurt and now isn’t the time for that, but I would do it. You can see in my aura I would, right?” He waited until I nodded. “Let me at least back up Tommy and them. I’m on leave from SPU so I’m not going with a badge.”

  “We were going to have you cover her back since you’re tied to her,” Tommy said, tossing him a shotgun. “Emergencies only. Protect her.”

  I rolled my eyes, hating when they made me seem as if I couldn’t take care of myself but also warming my heart they took protecting me seriously. I flicked my wrist and changed into the right clothes, my crossbow loaded with exploding bolts on my back in its harness. I checked my daggers on my thighs, much to the shock of several including Victor and his nest.

  “I keep telling you guys I’m not the girl you knew, but no one ever seems to hear me or cares enough to listen.” I turned to Helen, Jerome, and Keegan. “Your teams are ready?”

  “Yes, have Hunt pop back when you’re ready for us,” Helen answered. “My team will get every scrap of data while Jerome and the healers check all the supes there, and Keegan and his team will clean the scene of every ounce of anything before Tommy and his guys turn the place to dust. Just to be safe.”

  “We like being smarter than everyone else,” I told the others, knowing we were going over and above what most would.

  “It’s why we’ve never been caught,” Helen chuckled darkly.

  I made the emergency spell charms appear and handed them to her. “If I fall, you know what to do.”

  “You have my word the coven will be safe,” she promised, hating when I made her do this, but it was smart to always make sure our bases were covered.

  I checked we were ready and brought everyone to the research facility I’d seen in several memories. I walked right in the front door, smirking when the receptionist’s eyes went wide and she reached over to the phone.

  “No, you’re not warning anyone I’m here, darling,” I chuckled, freezing her and everyone in the building. I flinched. “One hundred and seventy-three people. I don’t know who’s who, but work fast. Knock the humans out and bring them here to Tommy and his team. He will take them to the nest, and Victor can toss them all in the room.”

  They worked fast, bringing two or three humans back at a time that now had sleepy darts in them so I didn’t have to use my power to hold them. Hunt was incredibly focused on the front door, and I wasn’t sure I understood that. I stepped closer, careful not to startle him with the loaded shotgun, and waited until he looked at me to nod to the door.

  “You froze them in under a minute, but there were cameras at the front door, so the security office could have signaled someone,” he explained. “She was going to call someone. We don’t know they were in this building. If she recognized you, that’s no easy feat with how you distort your image on camera, and that means she could have been calling a boss or someone not here.”

  “He’s right,” Tommy agreed. “We should get the Beijing nest to interrogate people at the top here.”

  I nodded, thinking it over. “I’ll sort through some minds and see who knew nothing and who knew something before they turn people and we punish them. I’ll leave the full interrogations to the nest if they know something more than a name.”

  “All the humans are gone,” Walter informed me not even ten minutes after we arrived. “Maybe you and Hunt should stay here.”

  “How bad?” I asked, knowing what he meant.

  “Bad. Some of this is really bad, Soraya,” he warned. “Not the level we saw of that place in the other dimension, but bad. And there’s a lot of quarantine stuff we didn’t go into. They were playing with viruses to wipe us all out.”

  “I understand, but that also means I need to clean it up safely.” I glanced to Hunt. “Get Helen and the others and warn them there are biologics. Keegan will know how to handle it, but they need suits.”

  “Okay.” He let out a slow breath and closed his eyes.

  I flinched at the amount of fear in his aura. He was terrified to teleport. I guess that made sense, but I’d been doing it for centuries, and for an enchanter, we could feel the magic and it wasn’t as worrisome then. Impressive that he not only still did it when that afraid, but he’d asked for me to allow him to do it.

  I pushed it aside after he left and followed Walter to take me to the first supes we needed to help. My mood took an even darker turn when I found a lion shifter who was no more than fifteen on his deathbed. I was shaking with rage when I saw from his mind how he’d ended up there.

  “Do you want to join your parents, or would you like to wait to see if my healers can
help you?” I asked him gently as I took his hand.

  Tears filled his eyes. “My lion is dead. I want to be with my parents, please.”

  “I understand.”

  And I did. His parents had died in an accident, and the people of this facility had come to their funeral saying they could give him a safe place for shifter orphans, as he had no other family. He was scared to try and find a pride to join, never having been in one officially as his parents had been infected, not born, and lions could be weird about that, and had opted for the “safe place.” Except they’d brought him to Hades.

  “They will all pay for this, I promise you,” I told him as I made a jar appear for his chi. “I will punish them worse than demons in Hades, and you will have peace with your parents in the afterlife.”

  “Thank you,” he wheezed. “It hurts so much.”

  I nodded. I could see it in his aura, and he didn’t have much time left. I knew in my heart even if I wasn’t a healer that there was no hope for him, but it hadn’t been right to decide that without talking to him. But enough, let the boy die and be with his family after all he’d endured. There was nothing wrong with saying it was enough and wanting peace.

  I chanted under my breath and took his chi, going further than when I drained magics and turning his body to ash so there was no chance of whatever they’d done to him being passed to others. I gathered the remains and sent it back to the coven in an urn along with his chart at the end of his bed.

  We’d warned the front desk that was how we were going to handle the supes who were too far gone and they could be handed over to their people to bury later. I sent up a small prayer for him to find peace and be well with the gods before moving to the next room.

  Unfortunately they were no better, and this time the healers were already there to tell me that. I swallowed tears when I heard from the young vampire’s mind what had happened.

  “Victor, you will want to speak to this one,” I said, not needing to even raise my voice or call, knowing he would hear me. He appeared before I even finished, glancing over the young fledgling. “A vampire not here was recruiting and turning people in dire straits so they had enough test subjects. He was being paid by these humans to do it and promised to pay off her mother’s cancer treatments if she did this. He did not, and now she’s dying.”

  He gave a firm nod, giving the woman a kind look. “I will handle the vampire and take care of your family. You have my word, young one.”

  “Thank you,” she rasped, her eyes overflowing with tears. “I just wanted her to live, and I thought being immortal was a great deal. I was so stupid.”

  “Oh, we all are, child,” I comforted, rubbing her arm carefully. “We all are. Some of us simply aren’t trapped into something leading to our death. If you don’t think all of us have made serious mistakes as well, you are mistaken.”

  She nodded, and I moved on, leaving Victor to handle her situation. Not only because it was a vampire issue and he knew to find me a visual to capture the one responsible, but also because I remembered being young and scared and how good he was at those sorts of situations. It wasn’t simply his power and commanding presence that made one know he would really take care of it all, but his firmness he would do it.

  And he always did.

  It was the rest of everything he tended to fuck up, but now wasn’t the time to think about that either.

  I spent the next hour taking the lives of a dozen supes that couldn’t be saved so they could have peace and end their pain. I needed a break, taking a moment in the stairwell, leaning my forehead against the cold wall as I tried to get myself together. Someone joined me, and I couldn’t even start to handle them.

  “Leave me alone, Hunt,” I whispered, knowing he would still hear me. “Just leave me alone.”

  “No because you’re seconds from breaking under all of this, and that’s not the time for you to be on your own.”

  I spun on him and shoved his chest hard. “I am not weak. I am not going to break.”

  “You’re not weak,” he agreed, backing me against the wall. “You’re caring, and this affects you. It would affect anyone with a heart. That is not a slight. I feel like I’m dying inside too. We all are from being here. You have the much harder job here, so no, I’m not going to leave you alone to let it eat you.”

  I moved so we were nose to nose since he was leaning over. “I know how to handle the pain. I take care of myself just fine. I don’t need you. I don’t want you.”

  “Only one of those is true and we both know it. You hate me for what I did, but that doesn’t change you want me.”

  I couldn’t even argue that nor was there a point to denying it with a wolf. Instead, I shoved him so he moved enough that I could escape. I headed back to moving through people, relieved when we found at least some we could save. Apparently what they were giving the shifters could be reversed if within the first few weeks. After that, there was nothing to be done. Same with the vampires.

  Those were the only two groups they had there though since elves were rarely on their own and their hive leaders were incredibly in tune with their people. Enchanters were the same and most solo ones in the country I protected, so really they weren’t alone and they knew coming to me was always, always the best option no matter the problem.

  It made me rather angry at the vampires and shifters that their people didn’t know and feel the same.

  By the time we finished sorting who could be saved and who could not, I was seething, my magic rolling inside of me. I held it in until I got the clear from the teams everything was done. The systems were brought to the coven to be completely cleaned and every drop of information scoured. We got everyone out, and Keegan’s team had cleaned every trace of everyone.

  I waved off Tommy when he started outlining how to use the negative chi spray to destroy the building. I had that covered.

  All the power that had ramped up inside of me I let out in a wordless scream and decimated the building. At first it was as if a bomb had gone off inside, the windows blowing out, but my energy pulled all the glass back, disintegrating it as it worked along the roof and walls. It became a black hole sucking in everything, including any biologics from the samples the labs had and the quarantines.

  It took several minutes, but when it was done, I felt better and the building was gone. All of it. There was now just a hole in the ground where the basement had been dug out.

  I turned to Tommy, ignoring the shocked faces of any who weren’t used to seeing something like that with me. “Contact Hui Yin and tell him I’ll have more for him after he’s done with who we sent. I will start using the low level people that I will fully drain and fast. The high ups will have a harder punishment.”

  “Sounds good to me, boss,” he muttered, looking a bit haunted after what we’d just seen.

  Yeah, he wasn’t the only one.

  They went back to the coven as I brought Victor and his nest home to the basement, Hunt coming with since I was there. I glanced around and counted them. “Are all ten of you helping on this?” They nodded, and I made ten steel coffins appear that would be the prison for those they would turn and I would drain. “When they are drained, the coffins will come back here and we’ll reload them.”

  I opened the door and went right for the receptionist, having a few questions I needed answered. Andrew grabbed her for me, and I muttered a thank you before waking her. I searched her mind and sighed. “Maybe they’re not as stupid as we always thought.”

  “What do you meant?” Victor asked.

  “They sent a sketch artist to catch me in several different angles and lights so they had something real to pass around since I block my photo or video taken of me.” I snarled in her face when she smirked at me. “Bitch, you had a sketch, but I have all of you now and I’ll get the rest of you. No one is coming to save you. Enjoy your punishment.” I tossed her to Andrew, and he didn’t even hesitate, biting her so he could turn her.

  I went back and foun
d another nine low level employees, pulling out a few details and names that Hunt took down as the vampires did their thing. Then I closed back up the door and handed him the first jar with the chi of the supes I’d put out of their misery. I warned him to keep that separate and then made ten jars appear, handing them to the right ancients holding their transitioning fledglings.

  I started with the first and forced her to spit in the jar before I repeated the spell I’d learned from Dorian, making a few tweaks as I just wanted them as batteries to drain. Even if it wouldn’t be for more than a day or two, that was still an incredibly painful torture. Keeping a fledgling from blood was horrible and then slowly draining them until they were nothing was… Well, torture.

  Good, they deserved it.

  “I’ll come back for you,” she threatened as I finished up and went to close up the coffin. “We know you can see and talk to spirits. I’ll come back and haunt you, demon whore.”

  I smirked at her. “Whore I may be, but demon I’m not, as an angel came to me for my help.” She looked horrified at that. “And you might have to speak to a demon to make that happen. You’re going where they are, after all.” She gave me a look like she didn’t buy that, and I laughed. “I can see your aura, darling. And you’re right that I do talk to spirits and can communicate with the other plane. Yes, I know where they go. You aren’t going to Heaven.”

  I sealed her up, ignoring her protests.

  Working down the line, I took the jars and handed them back once I finished and sent the closed up coffin to the bottom of the ocean. When I was done, I turned to collect them and found Andrew in my personal space, his fangs out.

  “You forgave me if I can get hard right now,” he murmured as he backed me up against the nearest wall. “You’re like one huge hormone after using so much magic and a variety of it. I can feel it. Let me take care of you, Soraya.”

  “You nor Victor will ever touch me again,” I sneered, my eyes going wide when his fangs slowly retracted and I saw the shock in his aura. Then I laughed. I laughed and laughed. “Oh, that’s just—have you two learned nothing? So you didn’t talk about this either?”