by Sierra Cross
“Director, there are at least ten research floors in the sub-basement.” Matt’s voice was calm and even, but his fists were clenched at his sides. “Dozens, if not hundreds, of Mals and Deviants. Hardly a drop in the bucket.”
“A hundredfold power increase,” Bonaventura shot back. “I’m not misquoting you, am I, Miss Hill? If we don’t take him down now, he’ll be more powerful than any Caedis in history. He could take over every magicborn stronghold in the world—and move on to Wont cities.”
His words burrowed under my skin. Throughout history, we magicborn had carefully hidden our presence to stay safe. Too often, exposure led to persecution, torture, and death to those with special abilities. If Tenebris put his magic on display in the Wont world, he could bring about the end of the magicborn era.
“Yes, that is a terrible threat,” I said, meeting the vampire’s eyes. “But does it erase the value of those innocent souls inside?”
Bonaventura blew out a breath with an almost mechanical whoosh of air. “You think this is a humanitarian mission, witch?” he snapped. “We’re going in guns hot, shooting to kill.” He was in full tactical mode now and obviously not used to being questioned. “If we have a shot we’re duty bound to take it. Pussyfooting around ‘obstacles’ is diametrically opposed to the goal. You can get on board or you can stay out of the fight.”
I looked from Liv to Matt.
“We’re in this fight,” Liv said. “Doesn’t mean we’re signing up to kill innocents.”
“We’re going to do everything we can to save them,” Matt said solemnly.
Daria tilted her head at my coven mates as if they were speaking a foreign language. “We all want that Caedis dead,” she said. “Let’s focus on that, shall we?”
“Okay, we understand unavoidable collateral damage.” I gave Ambrose a steely look of my own. “But I’ll be damned if I’ll look at those magicborn like inanimate objects standing in our way.”
“Spoken like the naive fools you are,” Bonaventura said, but his voice held no malice. Only his usual impatience and a vague, vampiric contempt that I was starting to realize wasn’t personal after all.
For the next half hour, our wonky alliance moved with quiet determination back through the dark jungle. Insects buzzed and clicked in the trees all around us. Drifting past me, on the hot wind that played with my hair, was the sweet musky scent of some night-blooming tropical flower. The vampires slowed to a human walking pace, but led the way with their night vision and efficiently cleared brush for the rest of us.
Thankfully, we’d left the argument on the beach without coming to blows. But we still didn’t see eye-to-eye on the value of saving the innocents that remained in the building. In the end, Bonaventura had shut down the discussion, declaring that he’d never again put strangers’ lives above those of his family. After losing Griffin in the Wellspring gym battle, he wasn’t about to make another foolish promise to avoid firing on the witches. And should our attempts to play the heroes put us in the line of fire, we were, he assured us, entirely on our own.
Not the most comforting words to hear from your ‘ally.’
But as we approached the mountain that housed the facility, rage and purpose rose above my pain, and transcended my fears. Here, the ground beneath my feet was spongy with decaying plant matter. Dense and dark and green. Matt and the vampires moved like soundless shadows, communicating with hand gestures. Hamner and another brawny vamp I’d seen in Michigan ran the advance team—climbing trees and disabling cameras around the entire facility so they wouldn’t know what direction we were coming from. Liv and I dovetailed into the middle of the pack, doing our best to mimic the precision of their steps, the silence of their movements. I felt like I was in a military op in a movie.
The jungle came to an abrupt end and the facility came into sight. The rocky surface stretched as far as my eye could see, rising up from the ground and reaching into the sky. We were at the southeast entrance, the same door we’d escaped through.
God help us, we were voluntarily going back into that hell hole.
Wes and Hamner, defying gravity, scaled the face of the mountain and poised themselves above the door. Two more vampires pressed themselves flat on either side of the entrance. Matt and Ambrose took point.
Daria held an automatic rifle in firing position. Liv and I had firebolts, fueled with all the fury we could muster, dancing on our fingertips. Lethal all on their own, the vamps were also wielding firearms. With their enhanced speed and vision, they’d have faster trigger fingers and deadlier aim than our opponents.
Wes flattened the door with a single kick. Matt, daggers glinting in the moonlight, followed him in. We rushed the entrance.
And were met by no one.
The stairwell’s industrial lights burned cold and white, illuminating bare steel railings and concrete floor. But the place was empty. Silent.
I’d thought surely they’d be ready for us, whether they saw us coming or not.
“What the fuck?” Liv looked dumbfounded, but held her magic alight.
“In here.” Daria turned around a corner and went through a solid metal door marked “Security.”
“Let’s clear the area first,” Matt insisted in a low voice, but it was too late for that.
Wes was already pushing through the marked door. Normally I’d hesitate to follow that son of a bitch anywhere, but this was an occasion that called for a cold-blooded killing machine. I hustled in after him.
Inside, the cramped room was little more than a closet. Small monitors lined its walls, half of which—thanks to the advance team’s having disabled the cameras—just played static. The remaining screens rolled feed from inside the facility. Floor after floor showed stark labs similar to the one where we’d been held. Even in the dim light, we could see dozens of orange-clad prisoners in metal cages. But there were no techs in site. No guards. The monitors on the opposite wall showed the workers’ housing, flipping randomly between night-lit cafeterias, common areas, libraries—even the inside of residences. All completely empty.
“Place is a ghost town.” Wes sounded angry, and for once I didn’t blame him.
“The facility must have been evacuated using the dock in Dipsy Bay.” Daria stared at the screens in disbelief. “It’s harder to navigate...but with our primary dock blown up it’s the only choice.”
I stole another glance at the labs. When I looked at the wall of screens as a whole, I noticed that the glowing monitors in all the labs sported the same set of numbers. Weird.
Leave it to the Fidei to come up with the world’s most boring screensaver.
Where the hell were they? I looked at every screen and saw nothing moving.
Hamner spoke up from the doorway. “Maybe they did that nifty escape trick again, like in the school gym?”
“No,” I said, looking more closely at the monitor. “Tenebris is still weakened from doing that incantation. He wouldn’t have had enough power for that.”
“Well, we’ll have to search the building. Room by room if we have to,” Bonaventura said, clearly expecting everyone to fall in line behind him.
“Those prisoners need to be freed,” Matt said firmly.
“Suit yourself,” Ambrose said. “The battle is up.”
Matt crossed his arms. “I’m heading down.”
“Before anyone goes anywhere…” Daria pulled three walkie-talkies from a drawer and held them out. “Take these.”
Liv took a walkie and clipped it to her belt. “I’m going with Matt.”
“Do what you must.” Ambrose clipped a walkie to his hip and turned into the hallway, hissing to his fellow vampires to follow. Becoming a streak of light and movement, Wes flashed past me out of the security closet. All five of them disappeared around a corner at vampire speed.
I clipped the third walkie to my own hip but wasn’t ready to move yet. “You guys go,” I told Matt and Liv. “I’ll come find you in the labs.”
They each tossed me a look of concer
n, but there was no time to spare.
Once they were gone, I stared at the screens. What were we missing? What was Tenebris planning? I felt like I’d seen something out of place on the feeds, but it wasn’t clicking in my brain. I stood next to Daria and checked out screen after screen.
I watched as, in a whirlwind of fury, the vampires ransacked every residential floor and stairwell they passed. All were empty.
Tenebris and the witches couldn’t have left. And there wasn’t any place in this facility that wouldn’t show up on the monitors. What did they do, shrink themselves?
No. They were using a cloaking spell. I knew how to cast one too, so theoretically I could use that same spell in reverse to uncloak them.
Emphasis on theoretically.
I called on my feeble memory, hoping the words came to me. The spell tumbled out of my mouth and picked up in rhythm. The words choosing their own cadence. Daria stared at me as if I were crazy, but I focused on the magic bubbling up from inside me. As it left me, I felt it grasp onto something. It had indeed found a spell. Like a sweater unravelling, I felt their spell pull apart.
“Look, there they are!” Daria tapped a small monitor at the end of the row. “In that stairwell.”
Tenebris was being hurried up the staircase, shielded and supported on all sides by Wellspring witches. Beside him was Doctor Jones, who carried an aluminium-sided briefcase.
I pulled my walkie and pressed the button. “Ambrose.” No response. The vampires were at the far end of the third floor. Doors were being pulled off hinges. Couches and beds overturned. Any place large enough for someone to hide, the vampires tore apart. “Ambrose!”
I watched as he realized I was calling his name. “What!”
“They’re in the stairwell.” I looked to Daria to give me specifics.
“Screen 42AC corresponds with the southeast stairwell.” She squinted at the monitors. “They’re between the seventh and eight floors.”
Boneventura didn’t respond. He clipped the walkie back to his belt and the vamps moved in unison, speeding to the stairwell.
I watched the witches usher Tenebris up another staircase.
“No offence,” I said, “but why are they bringing the Wont doctor along? They needed a mascot?”
“No, a world-renowned expert on in vitro fertilization,” Daria snapped.
“Right.” I stared at her briefcase, suddenly realizing what was in it. Serum. So, the Caedis was planning to take his baby-making circus on the road.
Daria stared at the screen. “Why’re they heading up into the residential floors? There’s no exit up there.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Movement on the lower monitor caught my eye. Matt and Liv stormed into the first lab. They rushed to the cages and started unlatching doors. The slim blue light from the monitors lit the faces of the disbelieving prisoners. Liv had to coax some of them out. Others were so hobbled they couldn’t walk on their own. Prisoner helping prisoner, a weary parade made its way out of the lab.
Suddenly, on another screen, Tenebris tumbled backwards five steps—knocking his two witch attendants down with him to the concrete landing. Even with no sound, I knew the girls were screaming in panic. Their leader was down, and showing no signs he’d be able to get back up on his own. The doctor, briefcase handle in her white-knuckled grip, clung to the wall, her face ghostly-pale. Paige moved to the top of the stairs and yelled something at the young women. She pointed and commanded. Six witches surrounded Tenebris and hefted his weak, lifeless form.
Lifeless? Hope rose in my heart. Callista said the spell would leave him vulnerable and was potentially deadly. Could we be that lucky? Was the Caedis dying...thanks to his own greed and ambition?
The vampires were topping the eighth floor.
Even with six witches, lugging the tall, muscular frame that once belonged to Dr. Franco Cabrera was a struggle. They weren’t going to make it far. Paige opened the door onto the tenth floor, led them into the common area, and slammed the door behind her. Red magic bloomed on her hands. A quick snap of her fingers and a scarlet shimmering blanket of magic flew out before her. She’d created a veil in an instant. Grasping it by its corners, she flung it over the whole wall—covering the stairwell doors and the elevators.
Behind her, the other girls reverently laid Tenebris’s body in the center of the room. Forming a circle around him, they raised their arms in the air like some evil choreographed dance troupe. Red magic flowed from their fingertips and a shining fabric began to materialize over their heads. Within seconds, they’d built a second, denser veil around Tenebris, the doctor, and their whole gang. It shimmered and glowed a deep eerie red.
“What the hell’s going on, Alix? Some kind of spell?” Daria looked at the screen, perplexed.
The vamps were on the other side of the stairwell door clawing and pounding and throwing their huge bodies against the wall. Concrete shattered and metal bent. I saw blisters form and smoke rise as they hit the shield again and again. But the threads of the veil were fraying.
Good.
On the wall displaying the labs, I saw Matt reach into a crate to help a weakened older woman out. Tears of relief ran down her face, but she immediately called strong magic to her fingertips and blasted open the other cages to free her fellow prisoners.
Also good.
Yet something was niggling at the edge of my consciousness...what was I supposed to be noticing? On the glowing monitor behind them flashed the same number as in all the labs—but no, wait, it was a different number than before. This new one ended in an 8. “Daria?” I tapped the screen showing the lab Matt and Liv were in. “What do these digits mean to you?”
“What? Nothing. Just the code number for the security protocol sequence we’re in.” She blinked at the monitor. “Shit. No, that’s not the code. And the numbers are descending.” Her eyes went wide with fear. “Oh. My. God. It’s counting down. They’ve got a bomb somewhere.” She swallowed hard. “The number sequence is all out of order...but if I’m deciphering it correctly, we only have ten minutes left.”
“You mean—”
“This whole building is going to blow!”
“No way.” My heart was pounding double-time, but my brain was slow to catch up with it. “No, no, that doesn’t make any sense,” I muttered. “How could Tenebris’s big plan be...mass suicide?”
“Really, you’re going to waste time analyzing demon logic?” Panic made Daria’s voice high and sharp. “We need to clear the fuck out.”
“Right.” I pulled my walkie from my hip and pressed the top button. “Hey, people! Looks like Tenebris left us a parting gift. Building is rigged to blow. We’ve got nine minutes and change.”
“Got it,” Matt said calmly. Onscreen, I saw Liv point toward the stairwell and the prisoners—by now a group of two dozen—began to run. Matt and Liv brought up the rear, their hands around the older witch’s shoulders, steadying her.
Selfishly, I prayed they were heading back up to the exit, not to yet another lab.
Please don’t let this be how my coven mates die.
“The vampires!” Daria shouted. “They broke into the room.”
I’d been so distracted watching the labs I hadn’t been paying attention to anyone else. In the tenth floor common area, all five vampires were throwing themselves at the second red forcefield, only to be sizzled and thrown back. Doctor Jones, safely behind the ring of witches, jumped at every movement.
That second veil, built with the witches’ combined power, wasn’t going to be as easy to breach.
Meanwhile, a core group of witches faced Tenebris, who still lay prone on the carpet. They were sending wave after wave of power into him—and from their clenched, stricken young faces I could see it was hurting them to do so.
“Crap,” Daria said. “Whatever they’re doing, even I know it can’t be a good thing.”
It also made zero sense. “Why waste so much effort,” I wonder
ed, “if all they’re just going to commit suicide in nine minutes anyway?”
“Um, because it beats getting torn to shreds by vamps right now?” Daria shrugged.
It hit me then how much of Daria’s understanding of the world was born of fear. Fear of pain. Of poverty. Demons. Vampires. In that way, she was like most people.
But I knew Tenebris—his brazen arrogance made him fearless. It made his followers fearless too. They’d never give up the game.
“He’s planning to survive the explosion...somehow.” And I’d be damned if I stood by and let him. “Give us a countdown every minute,” I said, heading for the door. “Till the last two minutes. Then give us ten second intervals.”
“Alix, don’t go up there. You’ll never get back in—”
I ran out of the security room, avoiding Daria’s funereal expression, and raced up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Floor three, my lungs burned. Floor five, my thighs felt like lead, but I wouldn’t slow. Blood pounded in my ears. As I passed floor eight, the walkie at my hip crackled.
“Countdown is at seven minutes.”
I plowed into the common area on the tenth floor, my magic burning on my hands. The vampires were still wrestling with the red barrier, so I flung a firebolt, expertly weaving it between them. It hit the barrier and golden sparks flew off the red magic.
I heard a gasp followed by a thud and turned to see that one of the witches pouring power into Tenebris had collapsed in a faint. Beside her, Tenebris’s still, prone body suddenly twitched to life. A greenish glow surrounded him. I watched as if in a nightmare as, without moving a muscle, the demon’s body rose from horizontal to upright. Color returned to his face. Standing to his full height, he rolled his shoulders and stretched his muscles. Green magic bloomed out of him and melded with the red barrier. Even at this distance I felt the power of their combined magic.
Heat rose from the force-field as it pulsed and grew. The surge of energy was so intense I had to step back.
Bonaventura yelled to his men to fall back and block the exits. He himself leapt forward to guard the stairwell we’d come up. Taking my cue from the vampires, I stood in front of the bank of elevators. Together, we made a solid wall of might. Tenebris’s crew was trapped, unable to get back downstairs and out of the building.
