By unspoken agreement, Maddock took the back of the house while I took the front. There was nobody around, not so much as a mouse scurrying through the grass. It was impossibly quiet, like the calm before the storm that was sure to break as soon as we entered the house.
Maddock circled back around to the front and gave me the all clear signal. I drew my weapon, checked that it was loaded, then approached the front door. The porch creaked beneath our boots, and the wind picked up speed, whipping my hair in a frenzy around my face.
And then the door burst open.
A woman with long, fiery red hair rushed out. She was dressed head-to-toe in black, and her outstretched hand glowed with yellow-red energy that she flung in my direction. I squeezed off a shot, and she staggered back through the open doorway, a bloody red hole in her forehead. The energy died in her fingertips as she collapsed into the darkness of the house, and I blinked, surprised that I’d actually killed her. I thought she’d use her magic to deflect the shot or something, but apparently not.
I guessed bullets worked on witches, too.
“Fuck,” Maddock hissed. He grabbed my free hand and pulled me through the door, leaping over the body of the dead witch as he did so. Inside was a large foyer, and past that a main hall with couches and chairs and tables from another time.
Curved stairways led to a balcony on the second floor, and more women rushed down the stairs, their faces illuminated by wall sconces that held flickering candles. Their hands glowed with energy, and I raised my gun, hoping I could take down a few more before they launched their magical missiles at us.
“Stay back!” Maddock growled, shoving me out of the way.
He raised his own hand and spoke quickly. A large blue shield shimmered into existence, surrounding us in a protective cocoon. Just in time, too, as several of the witches loosed the glowing balls of energy they’d been building in their hands. Purple, green, orange and more splashed against the shield as they converged on us.
“Shoot them!” Maddock yelled. “Take them out while I cover you!”
I did as I was told, aiming for the closest witch. I took her out with a shot to the heart, and she crumpled, revealing angry brethren just behind her. Planting my feet wide, I squeezed out shot after shot, taking down as many as I could while Maddock simultaneously deflected their blasts and returned fire with his other hand. I needed to focus on the fight, so I tried not to think about how awe-inspiring he was. But it was difficult. After all, it must take an extraordinary amount of energy to simultaneously defend and attack.
“You think you’re so powerful,” one of the witches spat as she pushed herself to the forefront. Anger burned hot in my chest as I realized it was the blonde I’d seen in my visions. “But you are only one, while we are many.” A wicked smile curved her perfect red lips as she eyed Maddock up and down. “You will fall, fae, just like the many who have come before you.”
She joined hands with her sisters, and they began chanting. Maddock tried to blast them, but other witches closed ranks, deflecting Maddock’s blows and returning them with more blasts. One of the blonde’s blasts, however, sliced right through Maddock’s shield with such resounding force that the explosion of energy catapulted us to opposite sides of the room.
My shoulder crashed into a wall, shooting pain all the way down into my hands so suddenly that I nearly dropped my gun. Through the chaos and the crowd of witches, I couldn’t see Maddock from where I’d impacted the wall.
I lifted my gun despite the pain in my shoulder and shot two more. But as I tried to shoot a third, my gun clicked empty. Frantically, I grabbed for my second magazine, fumbling in my efforts to reload as fast as possible. I fired enough shots to take down some of the witches between Maddock and I, then bolted to his side. He started trying to get the shield up, but that was the same moment a blindingly bright glow surrounded the chanting witches, and it just didn’t take.
Maddock looked at me and shook his head, and he didn’t have to say it. I knew. That shield wasn’t going back up until Maddock’s energy regenerated. The witches advanced now in hordes, and I aimed my reloaded gun right at them.
“Oh, no you don’t!” I shouted, as I shot one of them in the throat. I aimed again, but somebody sideswiped me and I staggered, thrown by the unexpected blow. My gun clattered to the floor.
“Enough with the bullets.” A witch with black hair and burgundy lips sneered. Her eyes glowed red in the darkness as she lifted a blazing hand toward me. “Let’s see if you’ve got what it really takes to be one of us.”
“To be one of you?” I shouted as I ducked her blast. I tried to make a grab for my gun, but another witch kicked it across the room, advancing on me as well. “Why the fuck would I want to do that?”
“Because you want to belong, and the only place you belong is among us.”
More witches approached, closing ranks around me, but strangely enough, only the blonde raised her hand again. The rest stood at the ready, clearly able to attack if needed, but not making any moves. Not that I was complaining—but why hadn’t they killed me already?
As I glanced over at Maddock, who was fighting off his own pack of wolves—or rather, witches—the blonde scoffed.
“Why do you worry about him?” she snapped. “He is not on your side, Brooke Chandler. He is fae—he is our enemy. You belong with us.”
I turned slowly to face her. “I don’t know who I belong with, but it’s most definitely not with you.”
Her expression turned ugly, and she blasted me, shouting the words to some kind of enchantment. I threw myself to the side, but the blast grazed me, and my left arm went numb. The witches I stumbled into shoved me back into the center of the strange little mosh pit we’d formed, and somehow I knew that the spell the blonde tried to hit me with was intended to paralyze me.
Cold anger filled me, and a rush of power the likes of which I’d never experienced spread throughout my body. Acting purely on instinct, I threw my hands out to either side of me, and a string of strange syllables burst from my lips.
Icy-blue energy rippled out from my palms in a shockwave, blasting the ring of witches off their feet. Their bodies clattered to the floor as if they were made of stone, and a bluish tint settled over their features, almost as if they’d been frozen.
A wave of tiredness swept through me, so sudden and fierce that my knees nearly buckled. But a gasp drew my attention, and I turned my head to see that all the witches who were fighting Maddock were standing stock-still, staring at me open-mouthed. Bodies littered the ground surrounding Maddock, who was staring at me with a similar expression of shock, but he recovered before they did, and blasted them with a wave of green energy that sent them all skidding back.
“Go!” he shouted, engaging them again.
I didn’t need to be told twice. We hadn’t come here to fight; we’d come here to find missing persons. We needed to do that and get out of here. Battles could be fought another day.
Unfortunately, the witches didn’t feel the same.
CHAPTER 25
Heart pounding, I sprinted up the stairs, trying to put as much distance between myself and the witches as possible. I raced along the mezzanine corridor, ducking and swerving to avoid the occasional blast from below, but Maddock kept them occupied.
Even so, I needed to get out of the open before one of them actually hit me, so I threw myself through the first available doorway. This one led down a long, dark corridor with dusty old portraits and paisley blue carpeting. Red wax candles flickered in their holders as I raced past, throwing open door after door as I tried to figure out where the hell I was.
The first two doors led into empty bedrooms, but as I came to door number three, my second-sight tingled. Somehow, I knew there was a single witch beyond the door, and that she was waiting to blast me. So instead of throwing the door open, I drew my gun and fired three shots at different angles. A cry rang out, and I kicked open the door, gun at the ready in case my shots hadn’t struck anything good
.
But the witch was sprawled on the floor, blood gushing across the carpet beneath her. My shot had struck her barely an inch above the heart. Still alive, she struggled up onto her right elbow. Magic crackled weakly in her left hand, but she was losing blood too fast, and her magic was already winking out by the time I placed my boot on her wound and pressed down.
The witch let out an ear-splitting shriek, collapsing beneath the weight of my leg and the excruciating pain I was causing her. Unrepentant, I leaned in and pinned her with my stone-cold glare. “Tell me where you’re holding the prisoners.”
“N-never” the witch shrieked.
She bucked her hips, but stopped when I applied more pressure. My noisy interrogation was likely going to attract all kinds of attention from other witches in the hall, so I removed my boot and straddled her instead, poising my knee directly above her wound so I could apply more pressure as needed.
“If you scream again,” I told her calmly, “I’m going to apply more pressure. And if that doesn’t work, I’m going to start shooting. But not in the head, or the heart. I’ll blow your fingers off, one by one, and then your toes, until you bleed to death.”
I wasn’t actually going to do any of those things—it would be a serious waste of bullets—but I wanted her to see me as an even bigger monster than her own kind. “And after that,” I continued, “I’ll hunt down your loved ones and do the same to them. Unless you tell me what I need to know.”
“F-first floor,” the witch stammered, her eyes glazed now. Her voice was growing weaker, and I knew she didn’t have much time left. “Toward the back…is where you’ll find them.”
“Are they guarded?” I demanded. “How do I get in?”
“S-secur-ity c-c-c—” She gasped, and then her eyes rolled back in her head. Her body went limp as she expended her last breath. And then she was gone.
Cursing, I searched her body until I found what she must have been talking about. In the back pocket of her jeans was a security card, and as I touched it, I got a flash of the woman swiping it, then punching in a code.
CHAPTER 26
Damn, was it really going to be this easy?
Footsteps echoed down the hall, and I launched myself to my feet, spinning around to face my attackers. So much for easy. A witch barreled in, magic already blasting from her palm. I twisted out of the way and rolled, then came to my feet and aimed my gun straight at her forehead. She dodged the shot, but the witch that rushed in behind her wasn’t so lucky. She took it right in the eye.
Ouch.
“You bitch!” the first witch cried, flinging another blast at me. I didn’t move out of the way fast enough, and the ball of energy hit me in the right arm, rendering it completely numb. Panic rose up in my chest as my firearm clattered to the floor.
The witch smiled smugly. “Not so tough without your bullets, are you?” she purred. “I don’t know what you did to the others in the main hall, but you won’t be getting away with it again.”
She extended glowing hands, clearly intending to paralyze the rest of me.
“Fuck you.” I swung to the left, my dead arm acting as a counter-weight, then side-kicked her in the stomach. She flew into the wall, head cracking against the plaster. Her eyes rolled shut as she slumped to the floor. In the movies, she would have gotten back up again, but in real life, when the back of your head is slammed up against a wall, it tends to knock you for a loop. Even if you are magical.
Not wanting to wait around for more of them to show up, I snatched my gun from the ground and made a break for it. There would be more like her, though, and I wasn’t as good of a shot with my left hand, but I’d make do.
I dashed to the end of the hall, took three turns, evaded another magical blast, blew another witch’s head off, then stumbled down a flight of steps. My foot missed the last step, and I narrowly avoided face-planting in the hall. But my left foot landed a little too hard, and pain shot through my ankle, sending me hobbling against the wall like an old lady.
Only two bullets left, and then I was going to have to pull out the vampire gun. Hopefully, my right arm would start to work again soon, because it had taken me three shots to kill the last witch with my left hand. I didn’t have that kind of ammo, and the witches seemed to be endless around here. Just how big was this damned coven, anyway?
Thankfully, the number of witches seemed to be thinning out, because I encountered no one as I limped along a narrow corridor. The walls were dark and bare here, the wooden floorboards beneath my feet unobstructed by carpet—probably a sort of back passage that servants would use, if we were in a different time and place.
It didn’t take me long at all to find the prison—the last door on the left-hand side, right where the passage curved, was made of reinforced steel, and there was a glowing blue security pad there. Slowing to a stop, I slipped the keycard from my pocket and swiped it, then punched in the code I’d seen in my vision.
The locks disengaged with a series of echoing clicks, followed by a long, loud blare that made me wince. Stepping inside, I fumbled for a light switch on my right, and found one. Fluorescent bulbs glared, and animalistic hisses ensued as captives tried to shield themselves from light they were no longer used to seeing.
Eyes wide, I looked around the room. It was exactly as I’d seen it in my vision—rows and rows of iron cages stuffed with fae and other supernatural creatures. Now that the room was illuminated, I noticed a good deal of them were vampires, and my hand went instinctively to the vampire gun strapped to my side. But these weren’t the bloodthirsty, evil beings I was used to gunning down on the dark streets of Chicago. These were sickly, listless, emaciated creatures, just as much of a victim as all the other supernaturals. Even the giant in the back, who must have been Maddock’s employee who had gone missing, looked pathetic—he was curled up in a ball in his humongous cage, clearly trying to avoid the bars, and he looked like he hadn’t eaten in a week even though he hadn’t been gone that long.
Yes, I could waste time going around and killing all the vampires, but to what avail? My fight wasn’t with them today. It was with the Onyx Order.
I crept down the rows of cages, sending up a silent thanks to the powers that be that the pain in my ankle was starting to ease. No permanent damage, then—at least not to me. I was sure the vampires here couldn’t say the same.
I peered in each cage as I continued on, looking to see if Jason was amongst the prisoners. But when I caught no sign of him, my heart sank.
Don’t despair, Brooke. He’s not a supernatural. They’re probably keeping him somewhere else.
But why? That was the burning question making the pit in my stomach grow no matter how much I tried to tell myself this was all going to work out somehow.
You can’t afford to spend any more time here, I told myself as I walked around the room. The prisoners were all shouting for help now, those who weren’t fae rattling the bars of their cages as they begged to be let out.
I warily eyed the vampires one last time, who were looking at me with a combination of hope and hunger, then ran my fingers over a metal switchboard set into the wall just to the left of the entrance.
A burly human stood in front of the switchboard, showing two witches how it operated. He flicked several of the switches, demonstrating the one that sent an electric charge through the cages, one that set off an alarm, and one that opened them all simultaneously.
The witches thanked him, and then one of them blasted him with a glowing red ball of energy that punched a hole straight through his chest. Gore splattered everywhere as the man fell to the floor.
“All right, all right,” I muttered, pulling myself out of the vision as my gut roiled. Yeah, I’d seen death plenty of times, but there were still a few things that could make me queasy. “Let’s get going here.”
I took a deep breath, bracing myself, then flicked the appropriate switch. Another loud noise blared as the cage doors clanged open, and I was out the door, getting out of the way
as fast as I could.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t fast enough to get ahead of the desperate, angry, and scared horde of supernatural creatures, and pretty soon I was being jostled and buffeted against the walls as they overtook me. Fear hammered in my heart as a vampire turned toward me, red eyes glowing as his fangs flashed, but even though he was out of his mind with hunger, he didn’t turn on me, nor did any of the others.
Maybe gratitude was a thing after all?
Either way, I wasn’t going to wait for them to change their minds, or regain the energy to attack, or whatever it was that was saving my ass right now. But it wasn’t like I’d had a lot of options, either. The witches pointed it out themselves—we were outnumbered.
Were being the operative word now. With the vamps loose—as long as they turned on the witches and not on Maddock or myself—the playing field was about to be leveled.
Grasping for the nearest door handle, I wrenched it open, then locked myself into a pitch black room. No, I hadn’t checked the room for lurking enemies, but the alternative was staying on the other side where there was, for certain, a stampede of vampires who might kill me in their haste to escape. A dark, unknown room was a safer bet than certain trampling.
Heart hammering against my chest, I leaned against the door, then took slow, even breaths. My second-sight tingled like crazy, though, so I flipped on the light switch, wanting to know what magical thing was causing it to go off. But the room didn’t seem out of the ordinary—it was a kind of sitting room, with low couches and tables and shelves filled with decorative knickknacks. A single casement window lay straight ahead, and I stepped toward it, drawn to the moonlight spilling through the pane.
As I approached the window, it shimmered, and suddenly it wasn’t a window at all, but a painting of a woman sitting in a high backed chair in front of a window. Moonlight spilled over her, illuminating the dark hair she wore piled atop her head in an elaborate dressing, her pale-as-cream skin, and the high-collared black dress she wore with white lace ruffles. A beauty mark was the only thing that marred her otherwise flawless skin, and she would have been extraordinarily beautiful if not for the haughty, there’s-shit-under-my-nose expression on her face.
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