Page 35

Karmen, although dressed for . . . something, had to stay in the van. He wasn't a trained extinguisher. He was a councilman. Yes, he'd gotten involved in fights before, but he wasn't supposed to. Not unless absolutely necessary. So, I tasked him with monitoring us with the equipment in the tech van. He was surprisingly fine with that.

“No problem. I'll have the best view from here.” He looked around the van from the slim counter with inset keyboards to the floor. “Where are the snacks?”

I rolled my eyes and walked away.

Karmen might not be joining us, but Daxon was. Having the King of Nightmares with me was oddly comforting. Even more so than the King of Hell. Star could rain fire upon our enemies, but so could Killian. It was literally his mór. Dax, however, could look into a person's mind, find what they feared most, and bring it to life. It was one of the most powerful mórs in Fairy. A brush with Daxon's magic could send men running in terror. I was looking forward to seeing what it would do to that sorceress.

But first, we had to check out her warehouse.

It was several miles outside Bangkok, with a production facility and storage warehouse both on the premises. A length of chain fence made a pathetic barrier, but the barbed wire coiled around the top helped. If you were trying to keep out humans.

Our team went in through the gate. I simply put the single gate guard to sleep, and we drove past him. At that hour, no one was in the manufacturing facility or the warehouse, and there weren't any other security guards wandering around. Not so bright on the sorceress's side.

We split up to search both buildings at once. Dax and Kill went with me, the vexes, and the extinguishers into the warehouse while Star led his Demons and the hunters into the manufacturing facility.

“I'm going to do a quick explosives check,” Kill said as we entered the warehouse through a side door.

“All right.” I glanced at the metal shelves towering several feet over our heads, set into neat rows that took up most of the warehouse. “Everyone, stay near the door until Killian clears the building.”

“I can help with that,” Team Leader Sullivan said. “I have some light psychometry too.” He went in the opposite direction of Killian.

The rest of us chose an aisle and got to work opening boxes. Daxon went with me and pulled a large box off a shelf for me. It had the Beauty Forever logo on it. He tore it open to reveal smaller boxes wrapped in thin plastic film.

I picked one up and inspected it. “I think this is French.”

Daxon cocked his head to read it, “Night cream. For unmatched beauty.” He snorted. “They could have come up with something better than that.”

“This is in French .”

“Yes, I speak French.”

“No, I'm saying this is in French, so it's reasonable to conclude that they're planning on distributing it in France .”

“Ah. Yes.” Dax took the box from me and fiddled with the plastic. “Ugh! I hate these things.”

“Give it here.” I took the box back and flicked it, apportating the film away. It reappeared on top of the other products.

“Did you just use magic to open a box?” Daxon drawled.

“What—like you wouldn't have?”

He chuckled. “Let's see it then.”

I pulled out a sleek white jar and tossed the box back to the others. A twist and it opened, revealing a thick cream that looked and smelled like the samples we'd seen. But it was the tingle of magic that came when I touched the cream and the aura it gave off that confirmed what it was.

“Damn.” I looked around at the stacks of boxes. “How many Witches has she killed?”

Daxon flexed his fingers. “Too many to get any mercy from us.”

“I almost hope they’ve wired this place to explode.” It will make our job easier.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Twilight,” Killian said as he came around a corner. “We're clear.”

“Then it'll be Light. That will do a better job anyway.” I tapped my comm device to speak to the entire team. “Confirmation of the product. We've got a massive amount here.”

Star's voice came back with, “And we've got even more in here, waiting to be packaged.”

“Burn it all,” I said. “I'll take care of this bunch.”

“Take a look around before you destroy everything.”

“I intend to.” I tapped the device again. “Kill, did you find an office?”

“Yup. This way.” Killian led us past more rows of boxed cream.

As we went, our team joined us.

Sullivan came up beside me. “It's just boxes of that cream. All of it. If they made other products before, they're not bothering with them now.”

“Why would they? They're about to make all other beauty products look ineffective. Let's search the office and then I'll destroy everything.”

He nodded.

The office was at the end of the warehouse and larger than I expected. It ran the length of the building, with several desks spaced out in a row, with office equipment along one wall.

“We'll handle the computers, Ambassadors.” Sullivan waved a couple of extinguishers over to the desks and then went to one himself.

“Search everything.” I went to a filing cabinet. “I can't believe people use these anymore.” I pulled open a shrieking drawer and started flipping through the files.

I don't know what I was hoping to find. Any evidence of Sarai's product had to be destroyed, but I could have handled that with one blast of Light. Still, I looked. Just in case there was something there that we didn't know about.

“What the fuck is this?” Rue's voice rumbled from my right.

I turned toward him and found the Pack vex staring at something on one of the desks. It was a wooden box, and he had the lid opened. Whatever was inside emitted a glow.

“Don't touch it!” I hurried over to him.

As I got to the desk, my foot slipped, and I fell forward. When I looked down, I realized I hadn't slipped at all. I had fallen into the floor. Yup, into the floor. And with nothing to support my forward step, I kept falling. I cried out and fumbled to set my weight on my back leg, but that only caused me to spin and drop fully into whatever had me. At the last second, I grabbed the desk leg and wound up halfway into an invisible pit.

“Seren!” Killian shouted.

“Seren!” Daxon shouted a second later.

Both men converged on me.

“Don't touch me!” I shrieked as I fell deeper. With nothing to support my legs in the hole, I couldn't get myself out.

“The fuck I won't,” Killian growled and grabbed my arms, taking me away from the table.

He pulled me up, and I clawed at his shoulders in relief when I rose. But then something cold enveloped my ankle, and I felt a drain of energy. Not just energy—magic. I cried out again when the metal around my ankle yanked me down.

“Kill,” I whispered, my eyes wide. “Someone's got a magic-dampening manacle on me!”

“No, they fucking don't! I've got you.”

“And I've got him,” Daxon, who had his arms wound around Killian, said. “We'll pull them out with you if we have to.”

And they did make some headway. Even as I went limp from dizziness and waves of exhaustion, they drew me out of the floor like a magician's trick. It was bizarre to see my body go back and forth into the concrete. What made it truly awful was not being able to help them.

Then Rue roared and barreled into Daxon.

Other people had been rushing over to help Daxon and Killian, but they froze when they saw Rue in his werewolf form, rolling around with Daxon. Even Killian paused, and I went in to my shoulders.

“Babe!” Kill pulled back.

Seeing Rue take down Dax, I knew instantly that he had betrayed us. Which meant the sorceress was on the other end of this tug-of-war. And she would be ready for us this time. I met my husband's stare and said, “Killian, let go.”

Snarling came and the sound of things crashing, but I didn't look away from Killian.

“Not happening,” Kill said.

“It's her, Kill!” I hissed. “It will be bad enough if she captures me. But if she has two of us, she can play us off each other. Let go!”

“Nope. You go, I go.”

“Killian, let go!” I tried to push him away. “She can use me as a hostage, but she doesn't need two! She'll kill you!”

He didn't answer. Instead, he roared and the veins in his neck popped as he put more effort into pulling me out. But that pit wasn't just a hole. The magic was sucking me in, and it looked as if it were stronger than my husband. Or maybe not. Killian got to his feet, using the ground as leverage, and yanked harder. I started to move upward. He got me halfway out when I felt the tug on my ankle. It became painful.

“Stop! She's got me chained to something, Kill. You can't pull me out. You'll take my foot off!”

“Then we're going in together.” He met my stare and wrapped his arms around me.

“No! Killian, please! Kill, let go!”

I fought him, but he held on, vowing, “Never, Twilight.”

As we fell, I saw Rue leap for us. He jumped into the hole after Killian and the three of us fell into a heap on a cold cement floor. Above us, a circle glowed on the ceiling and then it winked out.