Neither Tess nor Axel spoke, but I felt the energy crackling from them both. I wondered if they had the strength to close the other gates so soon or if they’d expended their resources. How much would pulling that much energy from the gate affect them?
“Tess, are you doing okay?” I asked, peeking through the rearview mirror to meet Roman’s burnt orange gaze peering intently into mine.
“I’m okay, though the energy we pulled from the gate will take time to disperse. It would be best to find a forest where I could nurture it with this excess of energy. Conversely, Axel will need to find his own way to expend his extra energy as well.”
“I don’t know, Druid. I’m feeling pretty fucking good right now!” Axel said with a laugh.
I held back the urge to roll my eyes, but I could see from where I sat that he wore a very relaxed smile. His normally sickly-looking, pale skin now boasted color, with even a rosy glow staining his cheeks.
Whatever impacts the syphons felt might have overwhelmed Tess, but Axel was clearly enjoying it. Roman pulled up to the house to drop me off, but I didn’t make a move to get out.
“Anubis is inside, but I would feel better if a friend of mine swung by to watch over the house, too,” Roman said. “The only thing is, I don’t know how quickly he can get here.”
“I promise not to leave the house if that makes you feel better, but you guys need to go ahead and start on the next gate. Like Axel said, Key will move quickly once he realizes what we’re up to.” I didn’t plan on leaving the house once I got inside. Not until I got the okay to return to the Veil and find my mate and best friend.
“Olezka is going to kill me. He’s going to kill me,” Roman muttered, rubbing his hand over his face as he groaned. “Fuck, fine. I’ll call my friend. He’ll come to the door and call you what Timur calls you all the time. Got it?” Roman turned in his seat to stare at me. I nodded. He held my gaze a moment longer before nodding back and waiting for me to get out of the car.
I went straight into the house where Anubis greeted me with a happy grin and a wiggling butt. I gave him a pat before jogging upstairs to change into a hoodie and sweatpants. Then I hurried downstairs to my laptop that sat on the coffee table in the living room. I immediately got all of my programs up and running. Once they were initiated, the next couple of hours would be filled with a lot of waiting. I wandered to the kitchen to see what I could munch on.
An hour passed before there was a knock at the door. I walked over to it and listened for noises on the other side. Unfortunately, this door didn’t offer a peephole or any windows from which to view visitors.
“Kroshka?”
The accent was all wrong, and I could tell it didn’t come out as smoothly as a native Russian speaker like Timur’s would. But I doubted my babysitter would be Russian. Roman tended to run in different circles than his brothers. I didn’t know why, but I had a feeling Roman was much more comfortable in… seedier company from the human realm than either Timur or Olezka were.
“Are you Roman’s friend?”
“Is that what he called me? Let’s just say he’s cashing in a favor. If you’d like to open the door, we can meet face to face.” My visitor sounded very smooth and cultured. I had to place my trust in Roman, especially with what I knew about fae and favors. I opened the door and took a step back. My eyes widened when I saw who stood on the other side.
“Ah! The human seeking a weapon… we meet again.” The fae from the antique shop stood in the doorway. He looked different tonight, and something about him still felt off. He wore an all-black tailored suit that looked far too classy to spend an evening babysitting a human for a ‘friend’.
I raised a brow. “I hope Roman didn’t ruin a hot date for you?”
He gave an enigmatic smile. “Not at all. You are a perfectly acceptable substitute for the evening. Tell me, how is my gadget working for you?”
“Decently enough, but I think it might be time I actually allow my mate to train me with a weapon,” I said. I paused before putting my hand out for him to shake. “Sorry, my name is Sixx.”
“Hello, Sixx. I’m Xinwei.”
My gaze narrowed. Why did that name sound so familiar? It was unique enough that I knew if I’d ever met someone with it before, I would have remembered it. I shrugged it off, and for a second, he appeared relieved that I so readily accepted his name and presence.
He took my hand gently and brought it to his lips. Sometimes in the human realm, I forgot that fae acted differently and had different customs. With a human like me, they didn’t have to keep up with human mannerisms.
Still, he was handsome with sharp, Asian features and strange, violet eyes. He grinned at me. After the ease with which he’d made my weapon, I assumed he was some type of mage. Releasing my hand, he stepped into the house. I offered him food, which he politely declined. He took off his jacket and folded it over the love seat.
He took a seat, primly folding one leg over the other. His gaze dipped to my computer. As much as I appreciated the favor that he had going with Roman, if it was anything like the deal I made with Cyril, he was bound against betraying him while watching over me. But it didn’t mean he couldn’t pass along information he gleaned here.
I moved my computer so it faced the opposite direction. As I settled back in, I got an alert on a recent news article. It described how a street drug called Dreamscape had exploded over the last couple of months, claiming it had caused more overdoses than any other street drug. The police were cracking down on its use.
In another article, this one from a medical journal, it described a drug very similar to Dreamscape that was being leveraged for different uses. Variants of the drug were already in production and were set to be distributed within the next couple of weeks.
More articles kept popping up. It seemed like overnight, the drug was being pushed through all of the legal and regulatory procedures at a speed never before seen in the pharmaceutical community. Not to mention the articles about how it was becoming the highest used street drug. My mind was spinning.
Whatever Key was doing, it was obvious he intended to get that drug into as many humans as he could. Ignoring my babysitter, I started searching the net to see if there were ways to stop pharmaceutical companies from picking up the drug.
I didn’t know how long I’d been working on the computer before I felt a hand on my shoulder. I had been staring so long and hard at the computer that my eyes burned. I blinked slowly and glanced over at the person who touched me. Xinwei stood there, his hair flopped over his forehead instead of the artfully styled fashion it had been when he arrived.
“There was a knock at the door. I believe it is for you. If my senses are correct, it should be Roman. You have been working there for hours,” he whispered.
There was a hint of concern in his voice but also a murmur of coaxing, too. Like he was encouraging me to take a break. But all I needed was coffee. I still needed to get the locations of all of the factories that were producing Dreamscape and any drugs that were based on it. Once I got that information, I would pass it off to Olezka’s connections with the Sentinel, and they could send people in to destroy the factories. I needed to continue my search, but as I started to turn back to the computer, I remembered that Xinwei said someone was waiting at the door. I closed my laptop, still uncertain what his intentions were and if he had any connections with Key. I walked over to the door and waited.
“It’s me, Sixx,” Roman’s muffled voice came through the door.
“Use your key, then,” I answered. My instincts said I should just trust that it was Roman on the other side of the door, but he was the one who insisted I wait to hear someone use Timur’s pet name for me.
“I’m going to, but I didn’t want one of you to attack me before I even got a foot in the door,” Roman said.
I stepped away from the door, pulling SOL Jr from the pocket of my hoodie. I’d learned my lesson, and now I made sure to keep my stun-gun with me at all times.
&n
bsp; With my stun-gun out and sparking an electric current, I waited for the lock to turn over. Xinwei was leaning casually against the wall, carefully watching the door. I narrowed my gaze at him. Would he fight by my side if it turned out to be someone else? Somehow, I didn’t feel like he would.
The door creaked open. My heart hammered in my chest. Who would be coming through there? My hand twitched.
“Sixx?” Roman asked as he stepped through the doorway. He looked exhausted but otherwise okay. He glanced to my active stun-gun then to Xinwei. Roman stiffened for a moment before letting his shoulders visibly relax, which made me go on alert.
“Don’t know what I should be more worried about: you using that torture device on me or letting another one of your admirers meet me.”
I gave him a bland stare. When he just responded with a raised brow, I shook my head at him. “How did it go?” I asked, forgetting our company.
Roman didn’t, though, because he eased up again and gave me a loose smirk. One that spoke volumes. My cheeks heated at the satisfaction in his eyes.
“Well, I didn’t realize you wanted to hear all of the salacious details of your brother’s sex life, but if you insist…” Roman opened his mouth to start speaking, and I rushed forward to slap my hand over his mouth. He laughed for a moment before his humor died away and he looked back to Xinwei. “Sixx, you mind getting me some coffee? I’ll see our friend out.”
I saw the request for what it was, but I turned on my heel to head to the kitchen. They both waited until I was far enough away before they started to speak. I crept back down the hallway to eavesdrop.
“What are you doing here?” Roman snapped.
My stomach dropped. That wasn’t good. Roman rarely got upset, but now he sounded beyond pissed.
“You requested help. Once I heard who it was for, I decided to swing by,” Xinwei replied casually.
“Where’s Sage?”
“He’s preoccupied.”
“Meaning you attacked him so you could come here instead,” Roman accused. He paused for a moment. “Why? You recognized Sixx at your shop.”
“Yes.”
“The only reason I’m not killing you right now is because she’s still alive and well, and I suppose it was your wards that kept the peace, not to mention they kept Anubis from attacking you. But if you want to continue to live, tell me why you came. Or next time Olezka is in this realm, he will be the one to kill you.”
“I knew her from a past deal and felt… obligated to check on her. I was honestly surprised to see her in the store the other day. The fact that she and her friend made it this far into life was remarkable to me,” Xinwei said.
My face screwed up. Rude.
“Interesting,” Roman mused. “Is your curiosity satisfied now?”
Xinwei huffed a laugh. “Very much so, but I doubt hers will be. I’ll be seeing you around, Rarog.”
Chapter 30
My mind swirled in several directions, causing a monster migraine to start creeping up into my temples. I still needed to organize my discoveries concerning Key’s factories and determine ways to stop the shipment. Not to mention I wanted to hear the latest updates about the gate and how Axel and Tess were faring. Since they didn’t come home with Roman, I assumed they were trying to close the last one we knew about; the one we used to escape the Light fae.
My head kept trying and failing to place Xinwei. Aside from our meeting when I had SOL Jr made, I couldn’t think of any other time we could have met. I even thought back to the first time Aunt Lola took me to the shop. He definitely wasn’t there then, and I would have known if she’d been dealing with another fae. It was possible I’d seen him around Ana at the bar where she bartended.
Those thoughts kept circling even when I tried to pull them away. It was strange. There was a sense of missing time, similar to when Key controlled my mind and tried to suppress my memories. I shook my head.
“Sixx?” Roman called my name then flicked my arm because I was lost in my thoughts.
“Stop it!” I slapped his hand away. “I’m thinking.”
“Could you stop thinking? You’re giving me a migraine. Also, don’t you want to know how the closing of the gate went?”
“Yeah.”
“They were a bit faster this time around, and the explosion at the end wasn’t as bad. I think the quicker they can sync their syphoning, the less time the gate has to react and essentially fight back. Fae magic like that has a way of coming alive,” Roman said.
I thought about that. The book mentioned there was a possibility that the gate’s energy would ebb and flow, rising to a crescendo as it fought against its closure. What would happen when they closed the final gate? Would it be harder to close because they’d closed the other relief valves?
Unfortunately, that wasn’t my biggest concern at the moment. Right now, I needed to package the information I had about Dreamscape and the pharmaceutical companies interested in manufacturing and producing it to the Sentinel so they could stop Key.
“What did you guys do while I was away?” Roman asked, pulling me from my thoughts. I had more important things to worry about than the strange relationship between Roman and Xinwei. Olezka, Timur, Ana, and Erebus needed our help in the Veil, which meant we needed to do as much on this side as we could to help them.
“Didn’t you say you had a way to contact the others in the Veil?”
“I do.”
“Can we check in on them?”
Roman got a look on his face that I didn’t like at all. “Sixx, it’s best we deal with our problems here and let them deal with their problems there. We can’t afford to distract them right now.”
My stomach tightened. He was right. Armed with this information, I could finally pull my weight. If we could stop Key from using humans dosed with Dreamscape, then we would be protecting those we cared about.
“While you were with Tess and Axel, I started hacking into different systems to find traces on the businesses that either Key founded or the ones he was affiliated with. It’s not good.”
I explained to him that Key was in the process of getting the drug pushed through a plethora of regulatory channels for ‘alternate’ uses. I told him I learned where he was storing the drugs. He listened as I described my theory that if we could destroy his lifeline to the drugs, along with the portals, he wouldn’t be able to dose his unwitting recruits to do their damage on the other side of the Veil.
“We need to get ahold of Sasha and have her and Kallan send out squads to deal with the companies. They can shut them down internally and stop any drugs from being distributed. But even with the companies on this side of the Veil taken care of, Erebus still needs information against Key for his Court. Key has grown too much of a following for them to blindly follow Erebus on his decisions regarding Key. But most of the Court will respect Erebus’s decision if they know Key was working to make a power play for the human realm. I’ll contact some Dark fae I know who live on this side of the Veil to help me infiltrate the factory.”
“I’m going with you, then.”
Roman gave me a bland look. “So Olezka will have more of a reason to wring my neck? Nyet, Sixx.”
“I have to do something. Olezka, Timur, and Ana are risking their lives on the other side of the Veil. I can’t just sit here and do nothing!”
“You’d be surviving, which is all my brother and Ana asked you to do,” Roman insisted stubbornly.
“But what if I don’t do this and I lose one of them?” I whispered, feeling broken. “I’ll live the rest of my life wondering if my actions could have made a difference.”
“Sixx…”
I could tell I was wearing him down. I understood his standpoint, but I just wanted to be there for them in any capacity that I could. And in this realm, I felt stronger, safer. “Please, Roman.”
He scrubbed the back of his head before sighing heavily. “Promise to do as I say and not put yourself into unnecessary trouble?” Roman snarled, obviously ann
oyed that I’d worn him down. Big softy.
“Yes.”
“Sixx, understand that I’m only letting you do this because I trust you and I have confidence in you. Do us both a favor and don’t betray that trust.”
I nodded, pausing a moment before asking, “How soon should we contact the others?”
“Immediately. Sasha will get her teams mobilized quickly, but she’ll probably want to pull specialists in from different towns. That will take a couple days to mobilize. But right now, you need to rest.”
Roman looked exhausted, and I couldn’t claim that I was on my A-game. But I couldn’t help the feeling that a couple of days might be too late. What if Key changed his plan the moment we started closing the gates? What if there were more gates we didn’t know about and he was already funneling his troops through them?
“Sixx, you’re thinking too hard again.”
“I’m thinking things through.”
“Trust me, I have as well. Key will be too busy right now to try and focus his attention here. Knowing that we’re closing in on him in the human realm, he’ll double his attention on his forces in the Veil. If he truly wants the crown, the High Fae will only respond to the same kind of power. The humans are only being used as a backup plan, at this point. It hurt his cause to lose Ana. When Olezka stole her back, it forced Key to make his move earlier. He doesn’t like to be outsmarted or outplayed.”
“All the more reason for us to act sooner!” I argued.
“These things don’t happen overnight in the human realm, Sixx. Our mission is to protect humans from making it to the Veil in the first place. Trust me.”
Roman and I discussed it for a while longer, but soon, the day started to catch up to me. I couldn’t stop yawning, and my eyelids kept dropping. Roman urged me up to bed, claiming he had a few things to take care of first. Olezka’s youngest brother was always quick to make jokes, but he had a dark past that haunted him. I was starting to realize he had a lot more secrets than even Olezka knew about.
Sixx Saves the World: The Sidekick Chronicles Page 19
