by D. N. Hoxa
“Correct. Going in is not going to be a problem. Coming out is,” Oscar said. “We’re not sure how many others they’re keeping in the building, but we have to assume it’s at least ten. Ten witches that will need our help to get out. By the time we’ve gone in, all the ECU bases would have been alerted, and backup sent. We’ll assume we have fifteen minutes, but we might not. It takes thirteen minutes to get from the closest ECU base to the research facility, and I’m willing to bet they’ll make it there in ten. That’s what we need to prepare for.”
Suddenly, nothing sounded easy anymore. The guy made perfect sense. I just wished my gut would let me trust him.
“How many people will they send as backup?” I asked halfheartedly.
“Twelve are on call at all times, but we’ll have to assume sixteen,” Oscar said. “Which we can very well avoid if we can get everyone out to the cars on time.”
“In ten minutes.” When we didn’t even know what was waiting for us inside?
“Exactly.” Rubbing his palms against his knees, he smiled again like that was a good thing. “We’ll have four cars waiting for us right outside the doors.”
“And the destination?” Ax asked.
“Well, we haven’t decided yet, but we have a handful of unregistered spells, Blood, Bone and Green, to make sure we won’t be followed. After that,” he shrugged, “each of us will be on our own.”
“Assuming we’ll even make it that far, if you have four cars waiting, doesn’t that mean that four of your people will be waiting outside?” I asked, unsure if I’d heard him right.
“No, the drivers are my sons,” Oscar said. “They are too young to fight, but they’re all very good drivers.” I doubted that they were too young, but I couldn’t blame him for not wanting them to fight against the ECU. His daughter was already in prison.
“So all your men are able to fight,” Luca said. “Trained?”
“Yes,” Oscar said without missing a beat. “We all are.” I wasn’t sure if having him with us was a good idea—he was pretty old looking—but if he thought he could handle it, who was I to judge?
“You never asked us,” Luca said, a bit confused. “You never asked if we were trained.”
Oscar smiled. “I know you’re not.” Now, how the hell would he know that? “But you have magic. If you can do what my daughter could do, all you’ll need is guns, and we have plenty of those.” Waving his hand to the four werewolves, they immediately brought the two black bags they’d been carrying to Oscar’s feet. When they dropped them to the floor, it gave me an idea how heavy they were. My mouth watered at the thought of everything I’d see once he unzipped them.
“What exactly could your daughter do?” Ax asked.
Straightening his shoulders, Oscar spoke like a proud parent: “She can create wind. She can make small tornados. She can move things around by manipulating the air. She’s very strong.”
“Have you tried to train her?” I asked.
“I have, but not very successfully. I know nothing about being a witch,” Oscar said. “But when she was little, she could manipulate the weather with her mood. I’m not sure if any of you could do it, but I’m sure she can do it again, if she trains.”
I, for one, had noticed I could manipulate the weather when I was eight, and if Oscar’s daughter had done it, too, I was sure the others were the same. It made no sense whatsoever, though. Witches had little strength, if at all, when they were kids. It seemed to be the other way around with us.
“You mentioned unregistered spells,” I said, knowing that the others didn’t want to tell Oscar what they could do when they were little, or else they’d have said so. “Can I ask where you get them?”
I’ve tried a lot of spells before. Spells of all kinds, but none had worked with me. Maybe unregistered ones would? It wouldn’t hurt to try.
“In the black market,” Oscar said with a shrug, as if such thing was a place where you could go on any given day and buy things off the cart. To be clear, it wasn’t. The black market had evolved since the old days. Now, those who bought off it were notified an hour before with the location, and so far, I hadn’t been able to meet anyone who could get me in.
“Yes, but who makes them?” Going straight to the source was another option.
“I don’t know,” Oscar said, narrowing his brows. “Other witches? Spellmakers?”
Yeah, right. A Spellmaker wasn’t born in more than a hundred years, according to the books. There were others who could create spells, but those people were rare and they spent their whole lives researching and analyzing spells, until they made them. They also didn’t come out openly about it, not before death, and the spells they made were always for their kind of magic, Blood, Bone, or Green.
“So…what do you think?” asked Oscar when none of us said anything for a good two minutes.
“I think it’s easy,” I said, just in case the others felt the same.
“It will not be easy. If it were, everybody would have done it,” said Oscar. “My plan is clear. It’s a no-bullshit plan. We go in, we rescue, we come out. We all know the risks. But if you have a better idea, I’m all ears.” And he didn’t even sound like he was offended.
“We don’t have a better idea because there is no other idea,” Ax said. “The only way to save those people is to go in by force. What we need is a plan B. We need to assume that there will be forty-four soldiers instead of twenty-two, and that there’ll be twenty people like us down there, instead of ten. Backup will come in seven minutes, and there will be thirty of them, instead of twelve or sixteen.” Amen.
“To be honest, that’s easy,” Oscar said. “The numbers would never add up if that were the case. We’d know for certain that we’re never getting out of there.”
“Are you willing to do this, even knowing that?” I asked.
“My daughter is in there,” Oscar said. “I’ll do anything. Anything at all to get her out.” He looked and sounded genuine.
“Then God help us all,” Luca whispered, holding on tightly to Fallon’s hand.
Oscar was ecstatic. “I can assure you that we will provide maximum protection. Five of us will be in the front, and four in the back, behind you. You’ll stay in the middle, and use your magic whenever needed.” That was awfully generous of him. “These are for you.” He leaned down to unzip the first black bag by his feet. My heartbeat tripled with excitement. Weapons. Yummy.
He wasn’t kidding when he said we have plenty of those. The firearms he had in there were pieces of art. He had it all: guns, shotguns, rifles, and lots of bullets. When he pushed the bags in the middle of the room, we all gathered around them to see. I found a dagger that fit my hand well that nobody else seemed to want. They were all focused on the firearms. A revolver was all I took—I had one of my Desert Eagles left, and all I needed was ammunition. I asked Oscar if he had any, and he said, “I’ll get you as many as you want before Saturday.” Consider me a happy camper.
Grover and Ax put every item on the ground, one next to the other in two perfect lines. I found a couple of throwing knives, but they were rusty and they didn’t feel well balanced, so they wouldn’t work. Grabbing the bags to take back to Oscar, I realized that there was something else in one of them.
At first, the thing looked like a toy. A snake toy, dark green in color, but when I touched it, I realized it wasn’t plastic. It was something else, stronger but softer to the touch. The snake curved into a perfect spiral shape. Maybe it was a bracelet?
“What’s this?” I asked Oscar. He seemed surprised.
“Not sure,” he said, squinting his eyes, before turning to his men, who all shook their heads in unison. So none of them had any idea.
Upon closer inspection, I realized it wasn’t a snake, but a wyvern, one of those long dragons that looked like snakes with wings. The wings were at a weird angle, though. One was bent toward the tail and the other toward the head. I had no idea how I missed them. It was almost like the thing had grown wings as I w
atched it.
Putting it back in the bag, I pushed them toward Oscar’s men.
“No, keep it. I’m sure you’ll find it useful,” Oscar said, nodding at the dragon.
I wasn’t sure what I’d do with it, but I did take it because it was pretty and I was a girl. I still liked pretty things. Putting it in my pocket wasn’t going to work—it was too big—so I put it on the ground next to the firearm collection the guys were drooling over. Those guns gave me a bit of hope. Who knew? Maybe we’d be better armed than the soldiers we’d meet in Inwood. It definitely gave us an advantage, especially if we had werewolves at the front and back to shield us. All we’d have to do was shoot.
A wave of heat shot up my bloodstream as I imagined fighting off those soldiers. Logic said I wasn’t ready for that yet, but my heart had a mind of its own. It was almost like it wanted to test me, to see what I could do when I wasn’t caught by surprise.
“I think we should cease all communication until Saturday,” Oscar said. “We don’t want anyone to get suspicious.”
“Agreed,” Luca said with a nod. It was better that way. Saturday was three days away. We had weapons and we could train with them, as well as with blocking.
But as I watched the werewolves walked out of Mathias’s house, the bad feeling in my gut returned. Ignoring it was the only option, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make the voice in my head, telling me that this was a bad idea, shut the hell up.
Thirteen
Saturday came faster than I was ready for.
And the ECU never found us hiding in Mathias’s house.
One would argue that he was just a strong witch with very strong spells and spell stones all over his house, and I’d lived like that for two years myself. But back then, I wasn’t one of six people on the Most Wanted list of the ECU.
“You’re just paranoid,” Ax said, trying to hide his own nervousness with a fake smile. I knew he felt the same way. I’d caught him sneaking in and out of rooms in the dead of the night, looking out of windows and making sure everything was okay, every single night.
“I just wish the night would come faster.” It was a lie—I wanted for the night to never come, because the more hours passed, the surer I became that I was going to fail them. They trusted me, looked up to me when it came to my magic and my fighting, and the pressure made me dizzy.
I’d tried my best to teach them how to block their magic. We’d even gone so far as to train a bit in Mathias’s backyard, until we almost slammed one of his bunnies against the wall, and he forbade us from using magic again. The bunny was okay, thank God. I took him with me wherever I went that day.
As for fighting, I showed them some easy moves that could be learned quickly, but other than Fallon, the guys didn’t seem to get anything. Fallon though, she was quick. She moved extremely fast and was very flexible. She managed to knock the sword off my hand on the third day while I smiled proudly. We weren’t exactly friends or anything, but she was beginning to…tolerate my presence more every day. She even spoke to me on a few occasions.
Mathias made us help him with house chores. I vacuumed the whole house twice, washed some dishes once, and folded laundry three times. It was a good way to keep from thinking, but maybe that was why the time had passed so fast.
Suddenly, we were just three hours away from being picked up by Oscar’s people. We were planning to be in Inwood at five minutes to ten. We insisted on it, because Elisa had said that the ECU had a way of finding us now, and we didn’t want to risk it. So when Mathias called Oscar to give him the news, he didn’t leave any room for arguing.
As we waited for the minutes to pass, all pretending to be ready but secretly wishing something would happen and the plan would be cancelled, we sat on the floor in the middle of Mathias’s living room. It was the only way we could all sit in one place comfortably.
“In case we die, I want you guys to know that it was a pleasure meeting you all,” Grover said out of the blue, while the rest of us analyzed our weapons. Goosebumps broke on my skin. In case we die.
“In case we die, I want you to know that I’ll haunt you for the rest of your afterlife for letting me die,” Fallon said, making us laugh.
“In case we die, we’ll know we died trying to save others. It’s a good way to die, if you ask me,” Luca said.
“In case we die, I’ll forever be grateful for all of you,” said Ax, and they suddenly turned to me.
“In case we die, I’ll be at peace knowing that I’ll take as many of those assholes with me as possible.” It was a promise I made to myself. If this was the end, it was going to be the end for at least some of the people who helped in making prisoners out of others like me.
“In case you die, I’m screwed,” Sienna said. “So don’t.”
She’d come out of the room on the second day, and had finally begun to speak to us. None of us asked how she felt about any of it, or if she’d been able to come to terms with this new life. The way I figured, she’d tell us once she was ready to. For now, she could just soak it all in and learn. Mathias agreed to stay with her until we were done.
And in case we didn’t die, we were going to move to Detroit, which was a place the ECU had the smallest control over. Small wolf packs made the most of the paranormal community over there. It was our best option, at least until we decided on what to do next.
Soon, Grover began to tell his jokes, and we laughed and forgot what was going to happen in just a few hours. For once, I thought of my family. Would they care if I died tonight? Or would they be glad? The fact that I couldn’t decide was not very encouraging, but I reminded myself that I’d come this far on my own. It was my choice to leave Boston. My choice to leave them, no matter if they forced my hand. What happened tonight was going to determine who I was for a long time, if not for the rest of my life. I just hoped that I’d be able and willing to do what needed doing, when the time was right.
We’d completely forgotten what time it was, and Mathias didn’t notice anything while he chatted with us, until the door knocked. The sound cut our laughter and our words off, and none of us smiled. The werewolves were here to pick us up.
The time had come.
Fourteen
The trucks Oscar had brought were big. One would easily fit four in the back, and three inside in the front seats. The five of us sat on the bed of the truck, feeling the wind on our faces, thinking about where we were going. Oscar was in front, and two more trucks full of werewolves were right behind us. We’d been on the road for more than two hours, but we were almost there now, driving into Manhattan. Probably into our deaths, too.
“You look concerned,” Grover said, his smile so big, you’d think he was going to a party.
“I am.” There was no point in lying. Apparently, my face said it all.
“You should be, too,” Ax said, nudging Grover in the arm. Luca laughed as he held on tightly to Fallon, who was sitting between his legs, back pressed against his chest.
“If she’s concerned, we’re all screwed,” Grover complained. “She’s the only one who can fight.”
Well, I couldn’t fight, at least not nearly as well as they thought I could, but that was just because they hadn’t had the chance to analyze someone better. I had. I’d analyzed my trainer and compared my moves to his many times. Good thing I had my weapons, and the ones Oscar had given us. The pretty green dragon fit perfectly into my right hand, just like a bracelet. The tail wrapped around my wrist twice, while the head of the dragon went all the way around my palm, and the wings made for the perfect shield in front of my knuckles. It was a brass knuckle, and I was hoping it would help me cause some damage to the ECU.
“We’ll be all right,” Ax said. “They won’t know what hit ‘em.” He was faking his enthusiasm, and we all knew it, but refused to call him out. We needed positivity, even if it wasn’t genuine. The illusion of it would do just fine for now.
When we finally made it to Inwood, the drivers—Oscar’s sons, the youn
gest of the bunch—parked us aside the street a few blocks away from where the ECU facility was. They were going to stay in the car, and as soon as we made it to our destination, they were going to drive in front of the building and wait for us with the engine on. A decent plan, one that would go perfectly if the backup didn’t get there on time.
Oscar only nodded at us when we jumped off the trucks, and he immediately crossed the street with four of his werewolves right behind him. The other four stuck to our back. I didn’t dare look at the others from fear I’d get discouraged by the looks on their faces. It was too late to back down now. We were there.
The street was crowded but nobody looked at us twice, which could only mean that most were humans. It made sense for the ECU to be located in a place without too many paranormals living around. So much easier to control the area for them, I guessed.
Oscar’s werewolves were all dressed in brand new looking black clothes, with lots of leather holsters around their torsos, hips and even thighs. We stood out like sore thumbs in their midst, dressed in plain clothes, hiding our weapons however we could. I’d traded my torn black shirt for Ax’s white one, because it suited me, not because he’d said I should keep it. Not at all.
When we turned the corner, it was pretty easy to guess which one was the ECU building. This street was pretty empty. All we could see were two people walking in the distance, and a car or two passed every other second. It was quiet there, too, and the ECU building looking like a drawing compared to the modern buildings surrounding its gates.
It was white and square, two stories high, but we couldn’t see how wide or long it was. The metal fences were three feet tall, pointy at the top, and stinking of mint and wet wood. The place was heavily spelled, probably by the best witches out there, and the best Pretters money could buy. The lawn on either side of the five stairs that led to the double wooden doors was perfectly mowed, the two lights on it extra bright, as if to make sure that whoever went through the doors at night couldn’t see the sides of the building.
