Enchanted Addictions: A Reverse Harem Fairy Romance (The Twilight Court Book 11)

by Amy Sumida

  The first floor was one open space broken up by brick columns but it was filled with so much broken furniture, rusting machinery, and garbage that we couldn't see across it. The wan light seeping in through dingy windows was enough to navigate by but left too many shadows for my peace of mind. We crept cautiously through the room, easing around towers of metal and scattered broken glass, though I don't know why we bothered to be quiet. They had to know we were there—Conri's growl would have carried through a space like that.

  We were nearly to the other side when Sloane's strained whisper floated back to me, “Fuck me.”

  All efforts at stealth left with those two words and the rest of us rushed forward to join the extinguishers. They'd gone around one last wall of junk and had emerged in an open area directly before the far wall. Their arms hung limply by their sides, guns pointing down, and their stares were focused on the ground before them in grave dejection. Raza shouldered his way through the extinguishers urgently, then came to an abrupt stop and let out a mixed sigh of relief and anger.

  “Go let the others know,” Sloane said to one of the extinguishers.

  The path Raza had opened spread wider as the extinguishers moved to the sides, one of them heading back to the door. I stepped forward with a sense of dread filling my belly. Raza turned to look at me and shook his head, but I only spared a second for the angry expression on his face. My stare was drawn to the ground where a line of people laid on the cement. Blood connected them, puddles of it flowing out from each body to become one large pool.

  Their expressions were peaceful, some even blissful, which made the slaughter seem even worse. They all had the look of the streets to them—dirty skin and ragged clothing—but their ages differed greatly. From scrawny teenagers to the elderly, every phase of human life was represented. Every phase at its worst. The wall behind them was riddled in bullet holes.

  “Why?” Drostan whispered as he came up beside me. The electric blue of his eyes had dulled.

  “I don't know,” I whispered back.

  “It's a drug den,” Killian said in a clipped, furious tone. “Alicia and her people are cleaning house—killing their customers before they can die from newt.”

  “But why?” Drostan asked again. “They might have lived.”

  “And we might have found them,” I countered. “They're loose ends, clipped off before they snag.”

  “Are we going to start finding assassinated housewives and stockbrokers too?” Felix asked.

  “I don't think so,” Sloane said. “Drug users who live on the streets are easier for us to track down. We wouldn't know how to pinpoint middle-class drug users. Especially now that Enchanted Addictions is shut down. There's no point in killing them.”

  “Fuck!” Killian blasted a broken metal desk with his Firerain.

  The acrid, fetid scent of burning metal and garbage wafted over to us as smoke drifted up to coat the high ceiling. The desk creaked as it collapsed amid a shower of sparks. Killian hung his head and clenched his hands into fists.

  We stared at Killian in shock—all of us except for Raza. He strode over to Killian and laid a hand on his shoulder. I watched in pleased surprise; Raza cared about my other husbands, perhaps even loved them, but it was rare to see him offer another man comfort. Killian looked up at Raza with wide eyes, just as surprised as I.

  Raza leaned toward the heavily panting, volatile Nathair-Sith and said, “Now, who's the soppy, whiny civilian?”

  Killian gaped at Raza for a second before letting out a shocked and slightly horrified laugh. “Touché, Dragon.”

  Raza nodded. “Indeed. Get on with it, Snake. Start touché-ing things. We need another lead.”

  Killian looked back at the bodies. “Yeah, we do.”

  Kill was reaching for a discarded bottle when one of the bodies stirred.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  It was one of the teenagers. His foot twitched.

  Killian froze with his hand just above the bottle. “Did you guys see—”

  The kid sat up and took a deep breath of air.

  We jumped back, all of us—even Raza flinched.

  “What the flying fairy fuck?!” Killian fell onto his ass and then scrambled to his feet.

  The boy held a hand to his chest, right where the bullets had hit him, and looked down at the blood in confusion. He moaned and hunched forward.

  “Sweet Danu,” I whispered. “Hey,” I called to the kid. “Hey, kid, are you okay?” Stupid question but I couldn't think of anything else to say. I ventured forward and Raza went with me, moving a step ahead to slightly block me. “We're not going to hurt you.” I started to crouch to look at him. “My name is Seren. What's yours?”

  The kid looked up at me. His eyes shimmered gray. Not a human gray but a ghostly, eerie misty gray that made the kid look possessed.

  “Jesus,” one of the extinguishers whispered. “He's a fucking zombie.”

  “He's not a zombie,” I hissed over my shoulder.

  As soon as I turned, the boy lurched to his feet. Raza pushed me back. I stumbled and Drostan steadied me. While everyone else had been watching the kid, Drostan had been watching me. I met his intense gaze briefly, then nodded my thanks and drew away. The boy wavered, his glittering stare coasting over us. As he swayed, the other bodies started to twitch.

  “Oh, fuck,” someone said. “They're all coming back to life!”

  “What in God's name is happening?” Williams whispered.

  “Everyone calm the hell down,” Killian growled as he kept his eyes on the reviving humans. “Don't startle them.”

  “What's your name?” I asked the kid again. “Can you understand me?”

  “Brrr...” the kid murmured. “Brrriii-aan.”

  “Brian?” I asked. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the other people sit up and start looking around in confusion.

  “Brian,” the boy said more firmly.

  “It's going to be okay, Brian,” I said gently. “We're going to get you some help. Just—”

  Brian started to scream.

  I flinched back and Raza inserted himself fully in front of me. The extinguishers pulled their guns and my guards flanked me—Conri sinking into a snarling crouch as Felix readied his magic. Their aggression only served to aggravate all of the victims and the ones who'd still been on the floor, tottered to their feet and started screaming too. The sound grew in volume until it was unbearable.

  Then Raza roared. It echoed through the large space and rattled the windows. The risen dead went silent and stared at him with wide, gray eyes. The sudden quiet rang in my ears but it didn't last long. The undead—there really wasn't a better word for them—surged forward as one unit with a fluidity that hadn't seemed possible mere moments before.

  “Try not to hurt them!” I shouted but my command was lost to the thunder of guns, the howl of a Bargest, and the rumbles of an enraged Dragon-Djinn defending his mate.

  The guns didn't stop the undead. They barely paused when hit. Only magic and claws seemed to do any damage. The extinguishers pulled their iron swords and started to swing. I did what I could in the melee, dream-dusting every undead human I could reach. Dream-dusting isn't a mór magic nor is it exactly a beag since not every fairy can do it. It's sort of a special bonus magic I had. I could also star-cross, which is essentially fairy-striking—an enchantment fairies can place on humans that turns them into slaves—except done to fairies, and I can even unstrike fairy-struck humans to release them from the enchantment. It might have been better to star-cross these people—I assumed it would be star-crossing since they were reacting to our attacks like fairies—but, unfortunately, it's difficult to star-cross people in a battle like that. Star-crossing requires a certain amount of concentration. Even with dream-dusting, I had to be careful not to hit one of our own.

  The more we fought them, the stronger they seemed to become. And the angrier. They took great wounds but kept coming at us—hands curled into claws and teeth bared. They did try to
bite, but they weren't after flesh. Despite the resemblance, these people weren't zombies. No, they were something different and far more dangerous. Hopefully, they weren't contagious.

  I lifted my hand to blow dream dust off my palm but my target ducked and rushed me. It was Brian. I reached for a sword that I wasn't wearing and finally, called on my firethorns. I bashed Brian back with my forearm as my other hand filled with a fireball of thorns. He was back in a second—his bloody hands reaching for me, his lips pulling back to reveal stained teeth, and his eyes flashing silver.

  Before I could launch my fireball at Brian, a hand grabbed his shoulder and yanked him back. As it did, light flared and Brian's body started to sizzle. He screamed as his body burst into flames but the sound was abruptly cut off as fire consumed him. I jerked away as smoke rolled outward, scented with flesh. Brian's body fell to the ground and went still. The flames died out but the body continued to smolder. I looked up into Drostan's face; his expression was strained.

  “Seren, we need you! Stop fucking around with dream dust!” Killian shouted, jerking my attention away from Drostan.

  I looked over to see him swinging his swords in alternating arcs.

  Killian fights Florentine—a style of swordplay in which two swords are used by one person—one in each hand. I hadn't seen him fight a real opponent, as opposed to one in training, in awhile. Honestly, I'd forgotten that Kill had brought the swords with him. He always glamoured them when he knew we'd be around humans.

  I scanned the battle. The people I'd dusted were getting trampled and the rest were fighting like savages. Hailstones bashed, iron swords sliced, and dragon claws disemboweled them. It was a slaughter and yet they wouldn't stop. Killian was right, dream-dusting wasn't the way to go; we'd only have another fight to deal with when they woke up.

  I lifted my hand and formed a ball of burning thorns in it once more.

  Then a shriek caught my attention. Yes, there was a lot of shrieking going on but this one sounded different. It sounded painful. Another cry joined it. And another. Hands clawed at bleeding wounds and eyes rounded in agony. But most of the undead were fine and didn't even notice the distress of those few, not even when they fell to the floor and started trembling. Black streaks ran over the skin of the fallen.

  “It's the iron!” Killian shouted. “It's poisoning them!”

  “Even faster than it poisons fairies,” I murmured.

  “I'm doing just fine, thank you,” Drostan said grimly and roasted another one.

  Raza snarled in agreement and dug his talons into an exposed throat. He closed his fist and tore the head away from its body.

  Conri used his Shatterhowl as he pounced, breaking bones before he even laid a claw on his victims.

  Felix swept up his opponents in swirls of hail, tearing the flesh from their bones before dropping skeletons in bloody, broken heaps.

  I set my shoulders and released my flaming thorns with one thought in my mind: I was going to watch Alicia Waterhouse burn.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Williams' phone was ringing. It had started ringing during the fight but he'd been too busy killing the undead to answer. As we all stood and stared blankly at the piles of smoking flesh, bloody bones, and all the other nasty bits of people that should never be seen, Williams blindly pulled out his cellphone and answered it.

  “Yeah?” Williams croaked. He blinked, then shouted, “What?!” A pause. “Yeah, we just took care of a similar situation. Tell them to use iron. Treat them like fairies—rabid, insane fairies.” Another pause. “Yes, Sir! On our way, Sir!” Williams snapped the phone shut. “Fucking zombies are rising all over the city. The Police are freaking the fuck out and citizens are panicking. The Councils have called in every available extinguisher, hunter, and vex in the area. The investigative team is already fighting another group of these”—he waved a hand limply at the corpses—“things. We've got to go. We're needed at another site.”

  Williams turned and headed for the door.

  “What about all of this?” Drostan asked as we chased after him.

  “A crew will come by later and conduct the clean-up.” Williams didn't stop moving. “Fey and human council members in government are working to cover this up even as we speak. We've got to get out there and help stop this before it gets out of control.”

  Williams gave an address to the other drivers, then we piled into our SUVs and zoomed away from the scene of resurrection and slaughter.

  “Why is this happening?” Williams growled. “The other bodies didn't come back to life. Why are these? And why the fuck do they have fairy immunity?”

  “Fairy immunity,” I murmured. “Their eyes were gray mist and the iron poisoning...”

  “Yes, I suspect you're right,” Raza said grimly even though I hadn't finished my thought.

  “About what?” Conri demanded. “What the fuck was that?”

  “A new version of newt, I believe,” Raza concluded. “I don't think they were tying up loose ends at all. Not at first. I think those people were originally test subjects.”

  “Test subjects?” Killian asked. “You mean, that was a drug reaction?”

  “In a way. Whatever they've done to the Alp Luachra secretions, it seems to have created strange and horrifying side effects.”

  “It's made them part Fey, or fey-like,” I concluded. “Somehow, the magic in the drug was able to alter their bodies. It's likely a temporary change but it's a significant one.”

  “We won't know for sure until they're autopsied, but I think you two are right,” Williams said. “They gave those people the new drug and something went wrong. Judging by the way they just attacked us, I'm guessing that they attacked Waterhouse and her men first.”

  “And Waterhouse shot them,” Killian concluded. “Shot them and left, thinking they were dead.”

  “And the drug continued to alter their bodies until it healed the bullet wounds,” I said. “It gave them fey healing and strength. Fey magic.”

  “And Waterhouse doesn't even know what she's done,” Raza said grimly.

  “At least she's realized that she failed,” I said.

  “Has she?” Felix asked. “It sounds as if she had several groups of test subjects. If it reacted so badly with the first group, why try it on another?”

  “Unless they kept tweaking it,” Extinguisher Sloane suggested.

  “They had multiple versions,” I concluded. “All this time that we've been chasing her, Alicia Waterhouse has been working on several new versions of newt.”

  “And now, she's out there, testing them,” Williams snarled.

  “And we're left to clean up her mess,” I added.

  “It's one thing to try to make some money by selling magic drugs to humans, but this?” Killian shook his head. “This woman is a monster.”

  “Well, we just so happen to be good at killing monsters,” Sloane declared.

  Something inside me shivered. Sloane had meant fairies and I might have taken offense to that if I hadn't been an extinguisher once. I knew that he meant fairies like Alicia Waterhouse—the ones who behaved monstrously—and I also knew that her sort of monstrosity wasn't limited to the Fey. There were human monsters out there as well. Some were helping her and others were being made by her drugs.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The next group was easier to deal with now that we knew how to... put them down. Killing them left me queasy and sad. These people had a hard life and their death was even harder. But we knew now that they couldn't be allowed to live. Their minds had obviously been broken in the process of death and revival and their existence was something that could potentially destroy the peace between the realms. But that didn't make it any easier.

  By late afternoon, the combined efforts of several teams of extinguishers, hunters, and vexes—the witch equivalent of extinguishers—had killed every human Alicia Waterhouse had experimented on. At least, we hoped that we got them all. The council members who had jobs with the Police and lo
cal government managed to cover up the episode by keeping as close to the truth as possible. They announced that a new drug had hit the streets and made its users extremely violent and immune to pain. It's not as if something similar hasn't happened before. The “crazy misty eyes” witnessed by other humans were explained as a chemical reaction. The humans bought it because people always prefer the clean explanation to the scary one.

  We drove back to Drostan's home weary in so many ways. Despite our exhaustion, Williams gathered the team in the living room to go over the day's events.

  “I'll just see if Ana can make us something to eat,” Drostan offered.

  “Thank you,” Williams said. “You've been very generous and your help out there today was invaluable. I'm going to put in a request for you to receive some monetary reimbursement.”