by A and E Kirk
While Jayden checked me over, Ayden kept hold of my hand. “It was made very clear to everyone at Novo that Madame Cacciatori personally requested our presence for this big honor.”
“But during the flight our escort, Director Renard, tried to poison us,” Tristan said.
“Then she tried to crash the plane,” Jayden said.
“What?!” I shrieked.
Ayden squeezed my fingers. “We’re fine. We were prepared then.”
“And if all else fails,” Blake said. “Tristan’s got an entire hospital crammed in that backpack.”
“You joke,” Tristan said, “but look how handy it is now.”
Jayden said over his shoulder, “I need a—”
“Antiseptic. Got it.” Logan tossed an aerosol can to Jayden who sprayed a fine mist on my wound. Hot, needling pricks erupted.
I cringed back. “Ow! That stings!”
“I will need an analgesic too,” Jayden said. “She possesses a minimal pain tolerance.”
Ayden said, “Once we landed, still very much alive, the operatives that picked us up had the impression we were here under—”
“Suspicion for aiding the demon infiltration at Novo,” Cristiano said.
“Uh-huh.” Ayden nodded. “And it didn’t look good that the pilot was knocked out and we had Director Renard tied to a chair. Then your mom talked to us and said she believed our story.”
“My mother is on site?” Cristiano said.
“Oh, yeah,” Blake said. “She was ticked off that she got pulled out of preparations for The Gathering for some bogus appreciation ceremony. Way below her paygrade. She’s hot when she’s angry.”
Cristiano scowled, “Excuse me?”
“Uhhh—”
“Enough.” Logan jumped up so he could reach high enough to whack Blake across the back of the head, then quickly passed Jayden a roll of cotton. “She removed us from holding and transferred us to her office while she left to clear things up.”
“Guess who came in later snooping around?” Matthias glared at the Bill and Ted, the flies caught in his web of shadows. “We followed them and here we are. Saving your butt. Again. So you can just sit tight. We’ve got everything handled.”
“What do you intend to do with Dubois?” Cristiano asked.
“Dubois?” Matthias said.
“My mother’s assistant director.”
I added, “And the traitor.”
The Boys all looked at me.
“But Director Renard is the traitor,” Jayden said.
“She must be working in accord with Dubois,” Cristiano said.
Matthias frowned. “Are you sure?”
“Very.” I pointed at my chest. “She’s the one who shot me. Twice.”
“Twice?” Jayden paused his ministrations. “Where is the other one?!”
I pointed at my stomach. “Right here.”
I lifted my shirt, but there was no blood. My hands rubbed over the smooth, milky-white skin of my belly. No wounds. Actually, come to think of it, that second shot hadn’t been hurting.
“You were shot but once,” Cristiano said.
I flapped my shirt up and down. There was a second tear in the fabric that covered my stomach. Just no matching hole in my body. Just like Cristiano at Novo. The stolen lab coat had been shredded with bullet holes, but flesh remained flawless. Was I somehow bulletproof?
“Ok, arms up.” Tristan came over and unwound a roll of gauze. He grimaced. “I don’t think I have enough to go around you. Have your boo—has your…chest area always been this big?”
“Man up, dude,” Blake said. “They’re called boobs, and yes, babe has always been that voluptuous.”
Cristiano snorted, then coughed and tried to hide a smile.
Ayden swacked the big guy’s arm. “Stop checking out my girlfriend’s,” he shifted uncomfortably, “…you know.”
“Mammilla? Bosom?” Jayden said helpfully. “Or we could go with the array of urban slang I’ve been attempting to amalgamate into my knowledge base to further improve my acclimation into conventional culture. Alphabetically, the first that spring to mind are bazookas, bazooms, cans, headlights, hooters, speaking of which I found that a thriving entrepreneur has created an entire chain of restaurants based on the waitresses' generous size of said hooters, and based on my research, Aurora, you would not meet the requirements for employment. No offense.”
I lifted my arms to accommodate Tristan’s ministering. “None, uh, taken?” Even I had to admit, Blake’s term of “voluptuous” was a bit of a stretch.
“As there shouldn’t be,” Jayden said. “Your body proportions are quite adequate for the size of your breasts, or as we return to my terminology list, knockers, melons—”
“Jayden, stop!” Ayden ordered.
I tried not to laugh.
Ayden rubbed his face with his palms. “Let’s just say anatomical assets, and Blake, quit checking them out.”
“I can’t help it.” Blake grinned unashamed. “I love boobs!”
CHAPTER 106
I threw my arms around Ayden and nestled my face in the crook of his neck. “I missed you so much.”
He wrapped his arms around me and squeezed gently. “Me too.”
“Me three.” Blake pressed against my back, arms around us both, and rested his chin on my head.
“Blake.” Ayden gritted his teeth. “Why are you not wearing a shirt?”
Blake shrugged against me. “Cacciatori took his off.”
“That doesn’t mean—” Ayden sighed. “Just get off of us.”
“Nah, I’m good.”
“Let me bandage it,” Tristan said with growing exasperation.
I craned my neck to see Cristiano, shirtless, his arms raised, trying to dodge Tristan.
“I can do it myself.” Cristiano attempted to brush him away.
“An accurate statement.” Jayden caught the Italian by the belt and stilled him. “But not as efficiently. These wounds are remarkably similar to Aurora’s. Were you wearing some sort of armor?”
“Blake, seriously, let us have our moment.” Ayden let go of me to shove at the mammoth.
“You are intruding on our moment, so you can just bite me. Or actually, I’d rather have Aurora do the honors. How about it babe?”
Dizziness rocked me into Ayden. Not from any blood loss. A Divincus vision took over my consciousness.
My mind’s eye bobbed and weaved through Hex Boys and curved out the door. I passed through the elevator and abruptly soared up. Cables and pipes sped by before I burst out into a hall, spiraling this way and that.
I was face-to-face with a starfish mouth, row upon row of teeth oozing saliva. I wanted to recoil, cringe away from the coppery, scaled skin of the Triassic demon. But I stayed, because Sophina Cacciatori's limp body was draped over the hellion’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes. She was leaving a trail of bloody droplets on the cream-colored floor tiles as the demon lumbered through her office.
“I told you not to kill her yet!” It was Dubois, fuming and red-faced, cross as an unholy angel in her white get-up. “Keep her alive and hidden until this is over.”
“Until what is over?” Triassic asked.
Her fist slammed onto the desk. “You do not question! You take orders. My orders, and nothing more. Or else.” Her outburst caused her metal wristband to clang against the desk. An ugly look crept into her eyes.
The demon backed away. “No, please.”
Dubois touched a delicate finger to the band. The demon arched his back and went rigid, its mouth opening in a squeal of pain.
My vision jolted back to the room and the guys.
“What is wrong with her?” Cristiano asked.
Ayden gave him a confused look, then noticed my wobbly state. I ducked free of the Hex Boy sandwich and headed for Matthias and his web of shadows.
He looked like he’d swallowed a bug. “If you hug me, I will tie you up with them.”
“You wish.” I knelt before Bi
ll and Ted. “Tell you what, you tell me what Dubois wants with Sophina Cacciatori and I’ll forgive you for trying to gun me down.”
“Please,” Bill said. “We knew the car was bulletproof. We were just trying to scare you off. At that point we hadn’t been contracted to kill you.”
“This is business,” Ted said. “Nothing personal.”
“Well, that makes it all okay.” I rolled my eyes. “But I still want to know what Dubois is planning to do with Sophina.”
Bill and Ted’s faces went devoid of all expression.
Matthias shoved them with a booted foot. “Answer her bloody question or I’ll let my team take a crack at you. We’ve got some anger issues building up the last few days that we’d love to work out.”
Bill snorted. “We’ve seen your files.”
“Yeah,” Ted said. “Unless it comes to demons, you’re all bark, no bite.”
“Perhaps,” a deep voice cut in with clear menace. “But I believe you understand that I am all bite.”
Nudging me aside, Cristiano speared a hand through Matthias’s whips and grabbed a fistful of Bill’s shirt. As he lifted the man up, the tangle of whips slipped off Bill like they were simply shadows, and using only one arm, Cristiano raised Bill so the two were eye level, Bill’s feet dangling in the air. Cristiano yanked a gun from Bill’s holster and buried the muzzle in the almost-assassin’s belly.
“Tell me what they intend to do with my mother,” Cristiano growled. “Now.”
While both Bill and Ted had gone a few shades of pale, Bill composed himself enough to glare. “Don’t know. So you can threaten all you—”
Bang!
I jumped back into Ayden who spun me away from Cristiano as Bill’s body jerked. Behind him the wall exploded. He cried out then went limp as Cristiano chucked him in the laundry bin meant for us. It skidded and slammed out of the room and into the hall.
Cristiano lowered the gun on a wide-eyed Ted. “I do not threaten. I ask. Once. Answer or I will find someone who will, and you will die.”
I needed to be better at remembering this Psycho Squad member’s homicidal side. Even the Hex Boys eased back a step, sharing apprehensive looks. Matthias rolled his wrist and a black rope around Ted’s throat tightened.
“I’d do what he says, mate.”
“…I’m,” Ted grimaced. “…not sure.”
Cristiano clicked back the gun’s hammer.
“This wasn’t the plan,” Ted rushed. “But you blew her operation at Novo which put every Mandatum station on alert to search for anyone wearing those wristbands.”
“Including this facility,” Matthias said.
“Right,” Ted said. “Mandatum is trying to track their source, so Dubois threw this place into emergency lockdown before anyone could investigate. She’s covered her tracks using your mother’s name, but Dubois hasn’t finished setting her up yet and wanted the Hex Boys out of the way because they were figuring too much out.” Ted gestured toward me. “And they were protecting her.”
“Why does Dubois want Aurora dead?” Cristiano asked.
Terrified at his answer, my heart skipped a beat.
“I don’t know!” Ted whined.
Whew.
“But getting your mother and the Hex Boys here was somehow going to solve all her problems. Dubois told us that after we picked up your two dead bodies, we were to wait for the delivery of seven more, then take them all to the portal and throw the whole lot in for disposal.”
“Seven? The Hex Boys and…” Cristiano’s arms trembled as his face lost all color. “My mother.”
“That’s it,” I said. “With your mom dead, Dubois can spin the narrative of what happened here any way she likes. Plus, who would take over as Director of the Divinicus Task Force?”
Cristiano’s eyes narrowed. “Cate, of course.” He tucked the gun in the back waistband of his trousers and snatched up Tristan’s backpack, scowling at Ted. “Tell me where they took my mother or you will be joining your friend.”
“I don’t know.” Ted swallowed hard. “I really don’t know.”
Cristiano reached for his gun.
“Wait,” I said softly, putting a hand on his arm. “I do.”
Cristiano paused. “How?”
“Does it matter?” I said.
He gave me a long, searching look and finally said, “No, Fiamma, for the moment it does not.” He slammed a solid left hook into Ted’s face which knocked him cold.
The Hex Boys exchanged uneasy looks as Cristiano rummaged over Ted’s prone form, finding a gun, a knife, and three cloaking wristbands. He also took an earpiece out of Ted’s ear, fiddled with it for a moment then pressed it into his own ear as the building’s loudspeakers crackled to life.
He turned his attention to the Hex Boys and asked, “Where are your weapons?”
Logan looked at the fallen Ted, then back to Cristiano. “We are our weapons.”
CHAPTER 107
“Attention everyone,” came a breathless, desperate voice over the loudspeaker. “This is Assistant Director Dubois. The lockdown to ascertain if we have been infiltrated has revealed it is true.”
“What is she doing?” I said.
“I believe you refer to it as getting her ducks in a row,” Cristiano said.
“There are demons disguised amongst us,” Dubois hurried on. “I’m shocked to tell you that the traitor in our midst is Madame Cacciatori. She returned from The Gathering to destroy us all. I have her in custody, but her son Cristiano and the hunters known as the Hex Boys are still in the facility assisting her and the demons. Help me find them and kill them before they kill us.”
Ayden ran a hand through his hair. “And she’s making us sitting ducks.”
“Oh no!” Dubois shouted. “They are coming! Ahhhh!” Then the speakers cut out.
In a jolt of pain, another vision ripped my mind from my body, traveling through the building in a blur, but the screams I heard clearly. Bloodcurdling and full of fear. Getting louder and louder until my vision entered a five-story room with metal walkways lining the perimeter. Each level housed hundreds of people working side by side at computers and other state of the art electronic equipment.
I’d seen this place before when I’d Holocommed into Madame Cacciatori’s office which overlooked this massive Control Center. But what was happening in that room was chaos, not control.
I saw demons, mostly haptogian mols, attacking the Mandatum hunters. The innocent employees had been taken completely by surprise. The demons were wearing cloaking devices on their wrists, so while I saw demons, the shocked hunters only saw trusted co-workers suddenly turning on them in a vicious frenzy.
Blood sprayed. Internal organs became external. Body parts severed. I cringed away from the sight and zipped back into my body feeling lightheaded and nauseous from the bloodshed. I blinked my eyes open and found myself on the ground in Ayden’s arms, the rest of the crew hovered over me. They all looked frantic.
“What is wrong?” Cristiano tried to shoulder his way through the wall of Hex Boys, but they kept him at bay. “She is ill. Something frightened her. Let me through!”
There were sounds of a struggle getting violent.
“Stop!” I yelled. There was silence.
Ayden whispered in my ear, “What did you see?”
I shook my head. “Dubois’ latest killing spree.”
CHAPTER 108
“Aurora, wait!” Ayden caught up with me as I raced down the hallway.
“No!” I said, reaching the elevator and punching the up button. “I’m the only one who can see the demons. We need to get up there and help before they kill everyone.”
I slammed my fist on the button again, which still didn’t illuminate.
“Dubois has shut down the elevators” Cristiano said.
A swarm of guards burst through from the stairwell, several of them being demons. One of them yelled, “There they are!” and threw a fireball.
Logan flung his arm, sending a t
orrent of air that knocked the guards to the ground, while Jayden doused the flaming orb.
“This way!” Cristiano led us down the hall, through a door, and up a stairway.
After we all hustled through, Blake laid his palm on the concrete. There was some odd crackling sound and the lines rimming the doors disappeared, fusing it into one solid wall. On the other side, the guards rammed against the former door with a reverberating thud, but nothing moved.
“We need a plan,” Matthias said as we raced up the stairs.
So, literally on the run, we formulated a plan. As we reached the fifth-floor landing, the sounds of the melee inside the control room on the other side of door seemed to shake the entire building.
Tristan kept going up the next flight of stairs. “I’ll let you know when I get there.”
Cristiano flattened his back against the wall and placed a hand on the knob. “Ready? One, two—”
“Wait,” I said. As I concentrated on what was happening on the other side, I got a vision of the slaughter. It was ugly. It did a kind of double exposure on my regular sight so I could see both here and there. “There are demons—”
“On the other side guarding this exit,” he said. “I know.”
“How?” I asked.
Cristiano blinked, seemed to think about it, then shrugged. “Because it is what I would do to keep my quarry from escaping. Give me a moment.”
He opened the door, the sounds of violence thundered into the small space, and moments later two bodies flung into the landing followed by Cristiano who closed the door behind him. I jumped back from the unconscious forms.
“Demons?” Ayden asked me. When I nodded, he blasted them with fire. “Aurora, when we go in, stay behind us.”
“But get your power started,” Cristiano said. “We will need it.”
All the Boys looked at me.
“He knows about your power?” Ayden said.
“I have seen it in action,” Cristiano replied. “I now know why you find her to be such an asset on your team.”
Matthias snorted. “Hardly.”
I closed my eyes and immediately got a clear vision of the brutal madness inside. At first it distracted me, then I used the anger it caused to help gather my power. A pinprick of heat started in the center of my chest, then spread out like ripples in a pond. I felt pressure, my skin tightening, then a comfortable warmth flowed over me. I let out a deep breath and opened my eyes.
