Page 41

T wisting in his seat, Foxx peeked into the back of the Jeep, smiling as he met Mari’s gaze. “So, is there a reason we can see each other, but others can’t? Or are they like part of the same spell? Or like sister amulets! Or?—”

“Foxx, give her a chance to answer!” Harlow huffed, cutting him off.

“So energetic!” the witch cackled. “To answer your multiple questions on the matter, they are part of the same whole. A spell was cast on a large gem and then broken up, thus they work in a way that benefits a group.”

“I knew it! Well, I didn’t know that specifically, but I knew it was something along those lines. You mentioned you have a grandson, is he the only one, or do you have others?”

“One of many. I also have great-grandchildren, and even great-great, and so on. With more on the way.”

Ew…that was a lot of children. He wrinkled his nose. “I’m not personally a fan of children, but I bet you’ve baked a lot of things between them all. The question is, what is your favorite thing to bake? I’m partial to cookies, but will really make whatever I’m in the mood to. Harlow likes pies. Eating them, that is. Not actually sure if he can make them. He has helped me bake cookies before?—”

“ Harlow has helped you bake?! The same man that's currently driving us?” Gavin rasped with disbelief.

Foxx sent a glare Gavin’s way. “It’s rude to interrupt someone when they are talking. ”

The dragon sputtered, before grumbling, “Harlow did it too!’

“Are you fucking me?” he asked with a brow raised.

“I—” Gavin cut off when Harlow let out a threatening growl. “Well, I was going to make a joke, but I fear him crashing the car, so my answer is no, I am not fucking you, Foxx.”

“Then don’t interrupt me,” Foxx chimed sweetly, before looking back at Mari.

She just smiled at him, looking thoroughly entertained. “You were saying?”

What had he been saying…?

“Right, Harlow helps, but I don’t actually know his skill set. He is at least proficient enough when it comes to following instructions. Not sure what Gavin likes, but I feel he is a ‘will eat anything’ type of person.” He looked to Gavin and waited.

“You didn’t actually ask me a question, but I’ll answer anyway. I will eat anything. And I can bake, in the sense that I too can follow instructions,” Gavin drawled, the dragon now also looking very amused.

“So, with all that said, what do you want to make after we take out these twatwaffles?!”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to figure that out after, as we are here,” Harlow said with a snort.

“Fine!” Foxx pouted.

Looking forward, he tossed his seatbelt off with a huff as the man pulled to a stop at the side of the road.

Harlow had to say it felt weird to just walk into the building without any sort of attempt to hide. At least he knew the amulets were working. Because him, with his all black outfit, and Gavin wearing bright fucking green cargo pants and a red T-shirt with some sort of fucking band on it, not to mention Foxx’s entirely starry existence, sure as shit stood out from the people in scrubs, and all the white fucking walls and floors .

Foxx definitely would be the more eye catching, or rather eye raising one out of all of them.

With it being midnight, the vampire had removed his sunsuit hours ago, and was now showing off an outfit that matched pretty fucking well with it. His boots were yellow, and the man was wearing cuffed navy-blue overalls, covered with yellow stars of various sizes, and one giant star on the front chest part. Underneath, Foxx wore a bright-yellow sweater with puffy sleeves and star-shaped cuffs, and on his head was one of those puffy newsboy caps he liked to wear in navy, with a yellow ribbon right above the brim, and a star in the center.

“You sure picked a great time to wear a new outfit. That’s going to be absolutely ruined, you know that, right?” Harlow teased.

“I bought doubles!” Foxx stuck his tongue out.

He snorted. “Of course, you did.” Why wear clothes that were already ruined when you can buy two of the same outfit and just ruin one of those , he thought sarcastically.

Harlow glanced around the waiting room they were walking through as they followed the older woman up to the front desk. In the same outfit as before, the witch was clearly visible to everyone. Everyone being the black-haired woman in blue scrubs that was currently sitting behind the desk with a glass barrier on the upper part that extended to the ceiling and wall, and the two men in masks occupying two of the chairs in the waiting area.

Directly to the left and right of the front desk were double doors. The bathrooms were on the left wall, and on the far-right wall, near the corner, was another set of doors, with a sign above them indicating it was the stairwell, while the elevators were only a few feet away.

It wasn’t busy. In fact, the place looked and sounded pretty dead—at least clinic-wise. He was luckily at a point where his hearing would sort of filter out the voices on other floors. Not always, but sometimes. What he did note, before pushing it all out, was that everyone he heard appeared to be human.

Harlow remained quiet, as did the others when they stopped short of the desk, while Mari went right up to it.

The woman behind it smiled. “Hello, first time here? ”

“Deary, it’s time for you to go home,” Mari said, her voice soft and oddly melodic.

The human blinked, clearly confused. The woman’s gaze remained clear for a second, but clouded as she almost absently murmured, “It’s time for me to go home.” She repeated herself once more before standing up and walking off.

The human disappeared out of sight, but reappeared moments later, coming out of the left double doors. Without hesitating, the woman walked past them and…left the building.

Oddly, she wasn’t the only one. The two humans in the lobby also stood up and walked out. Moments later, all three sets of doors—from the ones beside the desk to the ones before the stairwell—opened and shut, again and again, as humans, both doctors and patients, with the same cloudy gaze, left.

“That was bloody awesome!” Foxx beamed as he bounced where he stood.

“I’d call it beyond useful,” Gavin said with a laugh, before turning to the witch and asking, “So, would you happen to have any interest in working as an assassin?”

Mari let out what he assumed was just her signature cackle. “No, young dragon, I have no wish to become an assassin, or to work for them, and wouldn’t even if your group was run by a prince.”

Fitting words—ones that had the dragon tensing a bit. The witch’s smile just widened.

Gavin cleared his throat. “Right, so, moving on. Based on what I can hear from the floors without soundproofing, right now there are thirty-three people on floor three—don’t cut me off, Foxx. We all know you number floors differently, just subtract one in your head.”

The vampire huffed, but didn’t say anything.

“Floor four has twenty-six, and on floor five there are twenty. As for guesstimating the other numbers, through surveillance, I know they usually only have ten guards on floor six. The numbers only go up when they take someone to experiment on, which won’t happen at this time of night. As for the final floor, it fluctuated a lot, but thirty-eight is a good guess.

“Camera-wise, all are on a loop in the building, the elevators are jammed, and I’ve blocked, disconnected, or scrambled any signal, or let’s just say, any form of communication they could possibly have access to. So even if they do hear us, they won’t be able to check shit or reach out for help.

“There are two stairwells. The one right over there that we plan to use, and the one at the back, which has electronic door locks. I’ve already jammed those, so no one will be getting down them. As for the fire escape, after a bit more surveillance, I realized they blocked those for their floors so, yeah.”

“Very thorough, aren’t you?” the witch hummed. “Well, it’s up to y’all if you want them to be able to see you. Just remember, you won’t be able to see the ones still wearing the amulet if you remove yours.”

“Seems less fun if they don’t see us! Removing!” Foxx chimed as he pulled the chain from around his neck and pocketed it.

He and Gavin did the same.

“Let’s go get these bastards.” She laughed and took off running at a rather impressive speed for someone who was…whatever her age was.

Foxx let out a manic giggle and followed.

Harlow sent a glare Gavin’s way. “Her, you tell instantly, Foxx you tell within days, but me, the man who had to babysit your ass, I had to wait years to know who you work for?!”

To be clear, he didn’t care, but he did feel slightly insulted.

Gavin huffed. “Please, you already knew!”

“That’s not the point, it’s the principle.”

The little shit rolled his eyes, growling, “Let’s just go,” before taking off after the other two towards the stairwell. Harlow scoffed in irritation, but followed.

“We can be as loud as we want, right?” Foxx asked as he ran up the very white stairs beside the witch.

“You can. No one will hear anything going on inside this building, until the barrier I created drops. And anyone who tries to enter will instantly decide to leave, hearing and seeing nothing.”

He smiled widely, flashing his dimples and one fang at her. “Any objection to a little music while we murder?”

Mari threw her head back on a laugh. “Oh, you are a nut. I love it!” Smiling widely, she said, “Sure, why not!? I’m always up for a cinematic experience!”

“Yes!”

Harlow almost missed a step as he heard a familiar song start to play above.

“What the fuck?” Gavin asked with a laugh.

“That would be Foxx. I guess he wanted to make an entrance. I’m starting to think I need to get him a pocket speaker or something.”

The dragon took out his phone and started messing with it as they continued up.

His brow rose when the man looked over at him with a grin. “What?”

“Nothing, just thought I’d make it better!” Gavin chimed, before tapping on his phone one last time.

Instantly, the song started playing loudly over what he was going to assume was the PA system in the building.

Harlow smirked as he heard Foxx’s delighted laugh coming from above. “You just became his favorite person right now.”

A laugh of pure delight slipped past Foxx’s lips as Play With Fire started blaring through the building. “Gavin, you beautiful, nerdy dragon, you! ”

He turned off the music on his phone while pocketing it.

Mari cackled. “You all sure know how to make it a party, don’t you?!”

Foxx would have responded, but they reached the landing right as the second-floor doors burst open. A man stumbled out, gun in hand. The human’s eyes were wide and confused, no doubt having heard the music come from this direction before it had started playing everywhere.

With the beat of the song thrumming through him, Foxx’s head bobbing along with it, he didn’t pause.

“Time to die!” He leaped with a laugh.

Bringing the man down with his knees, Foxx began to loudly sing as he gripped the sides of the man’s head and twisted. The vertebra popped and cracked in the human’s neck, breaking completely when he spun his head all the way around until the man was once again facing forward.

Hopping off the corpse, his smile widened as he peered through the window in the door and saw more and more humans entering the hall beyond it. “How nice…they are coming to us. Let’s not keep them waiting.”

Mari, with a smile as wide as his, picked up the dead man’s gun. “Would be rather rude if we did,” she drawled.

Kicking the body out of the way, he tore the door off its hinges, tossing it aside as his smile twisted viciously at the startled humans now staring slack-jawed at him.

Foxx cleared his throat, and in his best mocking announcer voice, he loudly proclaimed, “Gentlemen, it is I, Foxx Honeywell, your loveable and very adorable bloodthirsty vampire. And I am here to rightly ring in the ‘retribution’ and ‘find out’ stages of your life, brought to you by the mercy you lacked, and the fucking around you did! Who wants to go first?!”