by Хлоя Нейл
“Maybe it has something to do with the slime,” I suggested. “Maybe the slime served some kind of purpose. Like, I don’t know, some kind of immortality elixir or something.”
“That is totally rank,” Scout said, her face screwed into a look of disgust. “But I wouldn’t put it past them.”
“Temperance must not have known what these were,” Detroit said. “If she had,
she’d have known this wasn’t a clinic.”
“I’m sure she did the best she could,” Scout said.
“We’ll let our guys figure out the details,” Jason said. “Scout, take pictures of the whiteboards so we can turn them over. Lily, as soon as she’s done, erase them. All of them. We’re not helping them preserve whatever ‘science’ they’ve done here.”
We followed his directions. Scout walked slowly around the room, snapping photos with her camera so we had proof of what the Reapers had been up to. I followed behind her. Each time she snapped a photo, I used my sleeve to wipe off the writing.
When the room was clean and Scout’s phone was tucked away again, we headed back into the hallway. The rest of the rooms on the mazelike floor were either research labs, or more like the medical facilities Temperance had described.
There were needles, bandages, and monitors just like she’d said, but not for healing. For experimenting.
The whole place had an awful vibe. And then we rounded a corner . . . and walked right into the nest.
The rats had taken up an entire corridor, the walls and floor coated with slime.
Dozens of them slept in a pile in one corner.
Home sweet home, I thought.
Detroit screamed.
Chaos erupted.
Jason immediately shifted, his giant silver wolf taking the attack. He pounced on the back of a rat, which began squealing and screeching and trying to throw him off.
I looked over at Michael, who stood in the middle of the room, eyes wide with fear. I pulled him away, then planted him beside the wall on the other end of the corridor. “Stay here, okay?”
He nodded, but pointed at Scout. “I think she needs help.”
Scout was throwing what looked like marbles at the rats. Each time they made impact, they sent a shock wave through the creatures—their skin wobbling in circular ripples just like on a slow-motion camera. Unfortunately, while the shock waves moved the rats back a few feet, they didn’t stop coming.
I looked around the room—and found the same problem all over. Everything we were doing was working, but only to a point.
“This isn’t doing much good,” Paul yelled, tossing one rat over his shoulder. “It’s not killing the rats!”
That was when the gears clicked into place. Scout’s spell might have worked before, but normal combat wasn’t going to do the trick. “That’s because they’re not really rats!” I yelled over the din of battle. “Scout, what takes out vampires?”
“The usual stuff!” she yelled back. “Fire, stakes, garlic, crosses, silver, and, you know, dismemberment.”
I decided to leave that one to Jason. “Remember they’re related to vampires!” I called out to everyone else. “So hit ’em where it hurts!”
I went with my best weapon. Firespell wasn’t exactly fire—it was Jamie who had that power—but it was as close as I was going to get. There was too much chaos to try an all-out burst of it—too high a chance that I’d hit an Adept. But Sebastian had said I could use it in pinpoint fashion. Might as well try that now.
I maneuvered around until I had a clear shot at one of them, then squeezed my hands into fists. I opened myself to the power, but instead of trying to throw it all back out again, I lifted a single hand, my fingers cupped, and visualized sending that single burst of magic into one of the creatures, the way Sebastian had taught me.
And then I let it go. It still warped the air, but it was focused—the firespell moving in the air in a tight spiral that ripped toward the monster and hit him square in the chest.
He went down . . . and he didn’t get back up.
Sebastian might have been evil—but he definitely had some firespell skills. And maybe because it was kind of like fire, vampires weren’t immune to it.
Together, the four of us used our magic to knock out the rats one by one. It wasn’t easy—there were so many of them, we hardly had time to get one on the floor before the next one attacked. Even with my focused attack, I’d gotten too close to their claws and had burning scratches up and down my arms and legs as I fought back the army.
I finished up the knot closest to me, then glanced over at Scout. She was using a pencil from her bag—a make-do wooden stake—to take out a rat in front of her. It worked, and he hit the ground, but the rest of them were beginning to surround her.
“Scout!” I yelled over the sounds of fighting and squealing monsters. “Duck!”
She did, and I threw out another dose of firespell, which put the creature lurking behind her on the floor. Then she popped up again, gave me a thumbs-up, and knocked out the one in front of her.
“Lily!”
At the sound of Detroit’s voice, I glanced back, expecting to see her encircled by monsters. But there was a pile of them at her feet, her silver-tipped walking stick between both hands like she was wielding a sword. For an Adept who wasn’t supposed to be a fighter, she was definitely holding her own. But she used the stick to point into the other corner—where Jason was quickly getting surrounded.
I couldn’t see Jason’s entire body, just bits of bloody fur as he leaped and rolled with the monsters.
“Jason!” I ran forward toward the melee, my hands outstretched, spiraling the firespell at each monster that jumped forward to attack him.
One of them jumped out at me, but I tossed firespell in his direction. He was too close for a shot and the bobbling air nearly bounced back to knock me down as I moved toward Jason, but I shimmied and sidestepped it.
I became a dervish, spinning and tossing firespell at anything and everything that stood between me and him. I finally reached him and helped him claw his way out of the pile. When the path was clear, he sat back on his haunches, tongue lolling as he caught his breath.
I couldn’t help but smile down at him. “Good dog.”
He might have been in wolf form, but the look he gave back was all Jason Shepherd. He shifted back, scratches on his face and arms, and looked around.
“Thanks,” he told me. I nodded and squeezed his hand.
We stood, chests heaving, in the middle of a room full of dead rats. Whatever genetic engineering the Reapers had done, they really hadn’t done much for their postmortem longevity. They were beginning to smell.
He glanced around. “Everyone okay?”
Scout wiped at her brow with the back of her hand. “I’m good.”
“I’m tired, but fine,” I added.
Michael and Paul gave waves from their corners of the room.
Detroit looked up. “I’m—I’m not” was all she got out before pulling up the knee of her pants. There was a giant bite on the outside of her calf; blood was everywhere.
Jason reached out to grab her before she went down, but didn’t quite make it. She stumbled backward into the wall—and into some kind of emergency button.
A piercing alarm began to ring through the sanctuary.
Jason let out a curse. “That might alert the Reapers,” he yelled over it. “We’ve put the monsters down, and now we have got to get out of here.”
Detroit slid onto the floor. “I’m not sure I can make it out.”
“You just need a little help,” he said soothingly, then scooped her up and into his arms. “I’m taking the lead, and I’m going as fast as I can. Stay close behind in case we missed anything.”
He began running down the hallway. Michael snatched Detroit’s walking stick and took off behind him. Scout and I followed through one corridor after another . . . at least until she stopped short. I watched Jason, Paul, and Michael disappear around another corner.
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“Scout, come on! Reapers might be coming, and we need to go.” I tugged her arm, but she wouldn’t move.
She pulled her arm free. “I can’t go, Lily. I’ve been in the missing vampire’s position—being hurt and alone. And what they’ve done is awful. We can’t leave it intact and let them continue the work. We just can’t.”
“Scout, we have to go. Detroit’s injured and—”
“You don’t have to be here. I’ve been working on a spell. I can plant it alone and get out afterward. You don’t have to be here.”
That, I realized, was what she’d been working on her in room. Getting rid of the sanctuary had been her plan all along.
“I was one of them, Lily. I know how they work—how much it hurts, how bad it feels.” She slapped a hand to her chest. “I’m an Adept. I make a promise every day to help the people they try to hurt. To stop them from doing it. I can’t leave this place here for them to use at will. I can’t.”
Tears began to brim in her eyes. “I can’t.”
We looked at each other for a moment, before I nodded. “Then I stay. And I help.”
She shook her head. “You should go. You used up all your firespell.”
“I think Sebastian taught me how to make my own power.”
Her eyes went even wider. “Lily—” she began, but I shook my head.
“I’ve already kind of tried it, and I think it will work. You need it, and that’s all I need to know to try again. What’s your spell supposed to do?”
“Implode the sanctuary.”
Well, that would probably do it.
“Won’t that take down the buildings on the street?”
She shook her head. “It’s a pinpoint spell. It’ll wipe down the interior, but leave the architecture—the hardware—intact. It’s like cleaning off your hard drive—the hard drive’s still there afterward, right?”
I still wasn’t crazy about the idea—one wrong move, and we single-handedly brought down whatever building happened to be above us—but she was right—we couldn’t just leave this place intact. Decision made, I nodded back at her. “Okay.
What do we do?”
She reached into her bag and pulled out one of the tiny houses from her shelf.
“We have to set this spell. Then I give the incantation, and we run.”
“Can you take down a building this big?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t actually tried it. And even better, I’m only going to get one shot.”
An idea bloomed. I reached out my hand toward Scout. “Then we make that one shot count. Give me your hand.”
“You want to help me trigger it?”
“It worked last time.”
“It hurt last time.”
“And it’s probably going to hurt this time, too. But if that’s what we need to do, it’s what we need to do. And we’re in this together.”
“You’re the best.”
“I know. But mostly I want to get out of here. Preferably in one piece.”
She nodded, then walked into the room and put the tiny house on one of the tables. When she made it back to me, we let the door close in front of us. Scout offered her hand. I gripped it tightly in mine.
Before we could begin, Michael ran back around the corner. “What are you doing? We need to go.”
“Michael,” I said. “Run. Tell Jason to get out of the building, and tell everyone to huddle down at the other end of the corridor. We’ll be right behind you. We promise. But for now, we’ve got to take care of the sanctuary. Go now.”
I saw the hitch—he wasn’t sure if he should leave us.
Scout looked back at him. “Do you trust me?”
His face fell. “Scout—” She shook her head. “I have to do this, Michael. And I need you to trust me.
Okay?”
He ran to her and whispered something in her ear. She threw her arms around his neck and gave him a fierce hug, then pressed a kiss to his cheek.
“Run,” she said, and Michael took off. I trusted Scout just like he did, but that didn’t mean I didn’t still cross my fingers for luck.
Scout moved back, took my hand, and closed her eyes. “Your cue is ‘night.’ When I hit that, fill me up.”
“Let’s do this,” I agreed, and then she began.
“We are bringers of light.”
I closed my eyes. Instead of pulling in power from the world around us—power that I’d had trouble controlling the last time—I imagined a spark blooming of its own accord. Bright and green, shaped like a dandelion.
“We are fighters of right.”
I opened my eyes. There, in front of me, hovered a tiny green spark. Small, but condensed. A lot of power in one tiny ember.
“We must pull this place in, and make safe the night.”
I pulled the spark into both of us. It bloomed and blossomed and spilled outward. I opened my eyes, and through the window in the door saw the tiny house explode into shards of light.
And then it began.
Like a tornado had suddenly kicked up in the Chicago underground, all the stuff in the building—doors, walls, tables, medical implements—was sucked behind us.
Scout and I yanked our hands away from each other. It definitely hurt—my fingers burning like I’d stuck them into a roaring fire—but we were still on our feet.
And then we ran like the rats were still after us.
We hurdled spinning lamps and dodged computer gear, pushing ourselves against walls to avoid the doors that came hurtling toward us. Scout stumbled over an office chair, and I grabbed and pulled her along until she was on her feet again.
And the sound—it was like a freight train roaring toward us.
The walls began to evaporate, drywall and wiring sucking back toward the center of the spell. Finally, we turned a corner, and there were Jason and Michael, holding open the double doors that led out of the sanctuary.
It was getting even harder to run, like we were swimming through molasses. The nightmare flashed through my mind, the door I hadn’t been able to reach.
But this was real life, and I wasn’t about to go down in a sanctuary in some nasty tunnel. I pushed forward like I was racing for the finish line. We made it through the doors just as they were pulled off their hinges and into the current.
We ran to the other end of the corridor and hunkered down in the threshold of the tunnel with Jason, Michael, Paul, and Detroit, and then we watched it happen.
All of the stuff—everything but the concrete support columns—was sucked backward into an ever-tightening spiral. It swirled around and closed in, becoming a sphere of stuff. And then, with a pop and a burst of light, it was gone.
There was silence for a moment as we stared at the husk of the sanctuary—a place the Reapers could no longer use to hurt anyone, or try to further their own magic.
“Now that,” Scout said, “was a good spell.”
18
Maybe needless to say, we slept in Saturday morning. There was something about working serious magical mojo that pulled the energy right out of you.
After checking in with Scout and reading a message from Daniel (Detroit was doing fine, and Veronica’s memories of the capture had been ixnayed by Katie,
who had manipulation power), I finally managed to pull on jeans and a hoodie so I could scrounge through the cafeteria for some breakfast. I nabbed a tray and loaded it with energy: juice, yogurt, and muffins for me, and a plate of eggs, bacon,
and toast for Scout. I ignored the stares as I carried the tray back through the Great Hall. They thought I was weird, and I might have been. But I’d also worked my tail off keeping them safe, and I deserved a little weirdness now and again.
When I got back, I went directly to Scout’s room. We chowed down without speaking, finally mumbling something about being tired when we’d cleared the tray of pretty much every crumb. Although I was still contemplating a trip over to Mrs.
M’s for a postbreakfast.
And that was pretty much
how the rest of the morning went, at least until we made the transition to my room.
After all, it was Saturday, and I had a date.
With a werewolf.
I know, I know. I play the unique, totally hip, magic-having, brilliant, always-
together teenager.
Of course, the “teenager” bit is the most important part of that sentence. That was the part that made me change clothes four times, flipping through skirts and jeans and tops and scarves until the floor was pretty much covered in fabric. Scout read a magazine on my bed, generally not helping.
She’d suggested I wear a “potato sack.”
What did that even mean?
The sun was out, so I settled on skinny jeans, a tank, and a half-cardigan. I shooed Scout out of my room and locked the door behind us, then settled the key around my neck. I was getting used to wearing it, and there was something about the weight of it that was kind of familiar.
Outside my door, Scout yawned again, back of her hand at her mouth. “You wanna go to dinner when you get back?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
She nodded, then began to trudge toward her door. “I’ll be in my room. Wave at the gargoyles for me.”
I snorted. “Yeah, ’cause they’re gonna wave back?”
She arched an eyebrow.
Right. We were at St. Sophia’s.
But it was also a weekend at St. Sophia’s, so the buildings were pretty quiet as I walked to the front door. Some of the girls’ parents picked them up for a weekend visit home; some of them headed outside to explore the city.
Me? I was going on a date with a werewolf.
He stood at the edge of the grounds in jeans and a tucked-in, button-up shirt in the same spring blue as his eyes. In his hand was an old-fashioned picnic basket.
“Hello, Lily Parker,” Jason said, leaning forward and pressing his lips to mine.
“Happy Saturday.”
“Happy Saturday.”
“Our goal for today,” he said, “is to pretend to be normal for a few hours. So I thought we’d spend our time outside. In the sun. And not underground.”
