by Raven Steele
Briar looked up. “Who?”
“Loxley. She just disappeared into that building.” I pointed half a block up. “Why would she be here?”
Briar frowned, anger flashing in her eyes. “Let’s go find out. She’s supposed to be working security with Gerald.”
I pulled Briar back, even though I was just as curious. Had she been watching us? “Find out later. We need to go.”
She huffed, staring after Loxley.
“Later,” I said again. “Let’s get on this problem first, then we’ll deal with your rogue shifter.”
“Fine.” She swung her leg over the seat and glanced down at her phone. “Roma is going to help. She said to come to the Apex so we can give her more details about this place.”
I nodded, my focus on the cathedral. The darkness of the Kiss swirled within me, connecting with something beyond the borders of the magical wall. Briar fired up the bike, but I stared for a moment longer, making a solemn promise to find out what they were hiding in there and destroy it.
Almost a week passed, and we were no closer to finding a way through the cathedral’s invisible barrier than we were the day we discovered it. The Witches of Rouen, along with Roma, had been working around the clock to create something that might work. Every night Briar and I had drank their potions or rubbed them into our skin to try and cross the barrier, but nothing worked, and we were left with strange skin rashes or a sick stomach.
“Look at this!” Briar said rubbing at her arm that had turned a pale yellow. “I’m jaundiced. Is it on my face, too?”
I studied her. “Yeah, you look like a dying alcoholic.”
She groaned and tossed the empty vial. The glass shattered along the sidewalk of Raven Street. “I’m so over this.”
“Text Roma and tell her it didn’t work again. We can try again tomorrow night.” I stared through the darkness at the untouchable cathedral barely a hundred yards from us. I had to get to it. Korin could have his whole world in there just waiting for me to destroy.
Briar shook her head and began to text into her phone. “I’ll tell her, but I’m not doing this again. We’ve got to try something else. It’s time we talked to Eddie about it. Or even Oona. Speaking of fae, we should probably check on your boy Teddy.”
“Perhaps.” But my thoughts weren’t on Teddy. I was frustrated with our lack of success getting into the cathedral. Last night after taking Roma’s new concoction, I’d vomited until I tasted my own blood.
I’d told Mateo and Angel about the cathedral early on, hoping they could help too, but all their resources hit a dead end. It angered me that between powerful witches, centuries-old vampires, and a pack of highly connected shifters, we couldn’t come up with a solution that worked.
It didn’t take long for Roma to respond, but it wasn’t the answer we were expecting. Briar read the message aloud: “Forget about the invisible barrier right now. We have a bigger problem. Meet me at Fire Ridge as soon as you can.”
Briar looked up at me. “A hidden fortress seems like a pretty big deal to me. What could be more important?”
“Let’s go find out.” I leaned back into the seat, thinking hard. Whatever Roma was going to tell us, I couldn’t let it sidetrack me. Unless it had something to do with Korin. Anything else was a waste of my time.
I glanced over at Briar, who was texting someone while she drove. “That’s illegal.”
“For humans.” She pressed send. “I just invited Luke, Mateo, and Angel to the house too. They’d want to know if shit was going down, and I don’t want to have to repeat the information.”
The thought of seeing Mateo—and all the emotions he made me feel—excited the Kiss. I sucked in a breath and attempted to calm my racing pulse.
When we reached Fire Ridge, most of the shifters were in the backyard drinking around a raging fire. Roma was waiting for us inside. “Is there somewhere we can talk in private?”
“Let me grab a beer,” Briar said, “and we can talk in my office. Are the boys here yet?”
Roma motioned to the backyard. “Out back. Grab me a beer, too. Maybe two. I’m going to need them.”
I remained by the hallway leading to Briar’s office while she called the guys in and grabbed some drinks. Roma glanced at me sideways, her eyebrows drawn together. “You seem more tense than usual, almost … what’s the word? Ragey? Your aura is all kinds of dark.”
I shifted my weight and kept silent. What could I say to that, anyway?
She reached out her hand as if to touch my arm but seemed to think better of it. “How can I help?”
“You can’t.”
“What can?”
I looked her square in the eyes. “Korin’s destruction.”
The corner of her mouth twitched upward. “Then maybe my news will be good news, not bad.”
I lifted an eyebrow just as Briar walked over. I didn’t have to see Mateo to know he was behind her. His presence took over the room, and it was all I felt.
Briar walked past me. “In my office.”
A minute later, Mateo and Angel stood near the closed door while I sat on the sofa next to Roma with Luke on her other side. Her blood smelled oddly like chemicals. But this was a good thing. I didn’t want to think about drinking her blood.
“How bad is it this time?” Luke asked, watching Briar carefully.
“That’s what I’m waiting to find out. Roma, you want to tell us why we’re here?” Briar leaned over, elbows on her desk. She looked more tired than usual with dark circles under her eyes. I wondered how much sleep she’d been getting.
Roma lowered a bottle of beer from her lips and wiped at her mouth. “Two words. White Pine.”
“What about White Pine?” Mateo asked.
Roma’s nostrils flared. “What happened there really pissed me off, more so than I told any of you. We were there to save those people and came so close, then bam! Some motherfucker made them all disappear!”
Briar snickered at Roma’s cursing.
“Since then,” she said, “I’ve made it my personal mission to find them.”
Briar looked at me. “They could be at the cathedral.”
Mateo frowned. “Do you really believe that?”
Before I could answer him, a knock on the door sounded. Mateo opened it and stepped back.
Marge filled the doorway, her thumbs linked through her suspenders. “There’s a cute black kid at the door asking for Samira. Want me to take care of him?”
Everyone in the room looked at me. That’s when I remembered Aris’s text the night before telling me Oz was on his way. Good thing I’d told Aris to send Oz to Fire Ridge, as I’d been spending a lot of time here trying to figure out a way into the cathedral. “It’s Oz. He may have something we can use against Korin.”
Marge played with her long and thick side braid. “Do you want him to wait outside until your meeting’s over? I could keep him busy.”
“We don’t need the poor kid traumatized,” Briar said.
I slid to the edge of the sofa. “Send him in. He should know everything.”
While Marge left to retrieve Oz, Mateo asked, “Who is this kid?”
“He’s a friend of Aris Crow’s up in Coast City. He’s also a genius and has helped the Ames de la Terra many times.”
Marge reappeared in the doorway with Oz in tow. She towered over his smaller frame. “This is your stop.”
He slowly looked up at her, readjusting the backpack hanging from his shoulder. “You’re all woman.”
She licked her lips and grinned. “And then some.”
Before she could eat him, I said, “Glad you could come, Oz. It’s good to see you.”
He tore his gaze away from Marge and found mine. “Samira! You look amazingly undead, as usual.” He moved to give me a hug, but I stopped him. “Let me introduce you to everyone.”
I took a few minutes to let Oz meet everyone, something he loved to do. In fact, he thrived on being around others. The more the better. In a way, he remi
nded me of Lynx with his positivity and ability to instantly connect with others.
“Hey Luke,” Briar said. “Stop staring at your phone for a second to say hi to the new kid.”
I glanced over at Luke. He was staring at his phone with his brows furrowed and jaw clenched tight. “Everything okay?”
He lowered it to his lap and looked up at Oz. “Nice to meet you, kid. I hear you’ve got a big brain.”
Oz beamed. “You’ve heard of me?”
“Yeah, like a minute ago.”
Oz’s face fell.
“Have a seat, Oz,” I told him. “Roma was just about to fill us in on something you might be able to help us with.”
He nodded and dropped into a hardback chair next to Luke. I looked at Roma to continue.
“Right,” she said and drank one more long swig of her beer. “So the missing prisoners at White Pine. I tried to find them with magic, but the trail went all over the place, and I was getting nowhere. That’s when I tried the old-fashioned way of tracking down someone and followed a paper trail. That building where they were being kept? It was owned by Bodian Dynamics. Big surprise, right? Anyway, I began to look into other buildings they own in Rouen.”
“What did you find?” Briar asked.
“A lot, actually. Bodian is into some serious shit, half I don’t understand, but there was one building that drew my attention more than the others. And it’s located smack dab in the middle of Rouen College.”
“Why is that suspicious?” Angel asked.
Luke jumped to his feet holding his phone up. “Sorry, but I have to take this call. Go on without me.” He hurried out the door leaving Briar staring after him, confused.
I glanced at Briar. She just shrugged, but I caught the worry in her eyes. It wasn’t like Luke to ditch a meeting like this.
“Should we wait for him to return?” Roma asked Briar.
She shook her head. “Continue.”
Roma looked at Angel. “It wasn’t suspicious until I personally went there yesterday and saw a delivery truck in the rear of the science building. Two Hydes, at least I think they were Hydes, were filling the back of a truck with boxes. They both had that vacant zombie look in their eyes. And they looked like the same kind of boxes that were at White Pine.”
“Do you think it’s Scorpion’s Breath 2.0 or whatever the hell he’s calling it?” Mateo asked her, his voice filled with venom. He hated that Korin had turned his drug into something that created Hydes.
“I do, but it could be more. My witchy senses were going off like crazy.”
I sat up straighter, my pulse racing with excitement. “Then we check it out as soon as possible.”
Maybe this was it. Finally, I could do some real damage.
Chapter 11
I wanted to run from the room and hit the college this very second, but Luke returned just then, the muscles in his body strung tight. He lowered back into his seat, gripping his phone. “What did I miss?”
“Hydes and drugs at Rouen College,” Briar summed up. “You okay?”
He nodded, but avoided eye contact.
“That’s not all,” Roma said. “Owen and I did some digging around the college when we learned about that building. Did you know that in the last year, the college has had over a hundred students just disappear?” No one said anything. “They don’t use that word, though. They think the students transferred without letting anyone know.”
“But isn’t there any follow-up?” I asked.
Roma removed her long sweater. “That’s where it gets strange. We asked the same thing, but no one in the registrar’s office seemed concerned enough to do a follow-up call even though they’ve never received a student’s official withdrawal request.”
“What about parents?” Briar leaned back in her seat, brows drawn together. “Aren’t they calling?”
“We didn’t have time to look into each case, but the few missing students we did investigate had very little or no family. I’d bet they’re all like that.”
The thought of Korin taking all those kids and turning them into monsters made anger, hot and fluid, run through my veins. With it came intense hunger as if it were a living thing, clawing and fighting inside me. I needed to feed soon.
Mateo leaned into the door, his arms crossed. “Did you go inside the building the boxes came out of?”
“We did. The first floor of the science building is some kind of study hall with desks all over. Upstairs are classrooms, but to get to the basement, you have to have security clearance. There were lots of students going in and out.”
I scowled at the very normal image that entered my mind. Having drugs held at such a public place didn’t seem like Korin’s style. Maybe it was one of his smaller operations. My earlier jubilation fizzled to nothing.
“Security is my area of expertise!” Oz said to Roma. “Did you see what kind it was?”
Roma looked at him. “A box with buttons on it next to a door.”
He frowned. “Not helpful.”
“I say we go investigate as soon as possible,” Briar said.
“I agree,” Luke added.
I leaned back into the sofa. “It could be something, but is it as big as what’s going on at the cathedral? We need to hit Korin where it hurts him the most. The Phoenix too, and I’m afraid this place sounds insignificant.”
Angel shook his head. “But from what I hear, you’re not breaking into that cathedral anytime soon. Might as well turn your attention to something else.”
I ground my teeth together and met Briar’s gaze. She stared at me with pleading eyes.
Roma rested her hand on my leg. “Trust me. This will hurt Korin.” She stared into my eyes. “I know how much you want this. Go there and just check it out.”
I sighed, realizing she was right. It wouldn’t hurt just to see. It’s not like we were making any progress getting into the cathedral anyway.
“How should we do this?” Angel asked, looking at Briar. I didn’t think he’d looked away from her since we entered the room.
Everyone began talking at once, all sharing their opinion on how to get into the science building and behind that door. Some thought it should be done during the day, under the guise of pretending to be students, but others thought it should be done at night and in secret.
I remained quiet through it all, mostly because my hunger was becoming unbearable, and I needed to focus all my energy on not losing control. Especially because there was another human in the room, and I couldn’t stop staring at the pulsing vein on Oz’s neck. I liked him, but I was going to have to remove myself from the room soon to protect him. I hated that I had lost this much ground to the Kiss. It had been a long time since I’d been at this point.
“We don’t know if the place is guarded at night,” Oz said, picking up his backpack, “but if it is, I have some things that could help beyond hacking into their security system.”
“What’s in the bag, Gizmo?” Briar asked.
Oz held up his finger. “If we go at night, I can get past their security easily enough, but let’s say beyond that door there’s an army of evil supernaturals. What do you do?”
“Kill them,” Luke drawled.
Oz pointed at him. “Correct. You supernaturals love to fight up close and personal, but that increases the chances of one of you getting hurt along with possibly harming innocent humans. But what if you didn’t have to fight so … violently?”
“Oz!” I snapped. “Get on with it.”
Oz glared at me and continued. “I know supernaturals tend to be anti-gun and anti-tech because they feel it somehow diminishes their supernaturalness, but what if you can do both? Use tech and fight close?” He reached into the bag and yanked out a metal tube-like object with a short, black strap hanging from its bottom. He held it up for all to see. “I give you the knuckle blaster!”
Everyone remained silent as they stared at Oz. Eventually, Briar sighed. “What does it do?”
Oz lowered it and began
to strap it onto his hand. “It’s a modified version of the air blaster we used in Coast City. It’s pretty much the weapon that chased Bastian and his minions from town.” He glanced over at me. “Aris helped too, I guess.”
“Toss me one,” Briar said.
Oz obeyed.
She caught it with one hand and studied it. “What do the buttons do?”
Oz held it up toward the wall as if aiming at an invisible target. “The green button sends a blast of air at your attacker, knocking them flat on their ass. The blue button shoots electricity. It gives any supernatural a nasty tremor long enough for you to slice and dice them, should you feel so inclined.” He looked all around the room. “By the feeling in this room, I bet most of you are fond of the slice-and-dice method.” When no one disagreed with him, he continued. “The great thing about this weapon is it still gives you the ability to use your hands, should you still want to wield a primitive sword or dagger.” He looked over at me and winked.
“I call bullshit,” Briar said. “There’s no way it will knock me out of commission. Maybe give me a big jolt, but that’s it.”
Oz shook his head slowly. “Cocky supernaturals always say that.”
“Cocky?” She stood up, staring him down. “Do it.”
“Do what?”
“Blast me.” She thumped her chest.
“Not a good idea, Briar,” I warned, but a smile creeped up my face as I knew she wouldn’t listen to me. I’d seen this gun in action before.
“Come on, little man,” she goaded. “Give it your best shot.”
Roma chuckled. “You’re really asking for it, Briar.”
Oz lifted his arm and pointed the weapon in Briar’s direction. “You want lightning or a tornado?”
Mateo looked back and forth at them. “Maybe you should listen to Oz, Briar.”
With fire in her eyes, Briar said, “Blow me, kid, and blow me hard.”
Oz pressed the green button. An invisible blast of air shot from his hand and slammed into Briar’s chest. Her body flew backwards and crashed into the wall behind her, creating a huge dent in the drywall. She slumped to the floor moaning, her eyes rolling into the back of her head.
