Page 32

THIRTY-TWO

Sorsha

The steel struts of the construction site loomed above the lower rooftops of the neighboring buildings, reflected moonlight making them visible even from two blocks away. They gleamed faintly against the darkness of the night sky like the bones of some massive creature that had settled there to die and had its carcass picked clean. That image fit my mood perfectly as Ruse put the car into park.

“The end is nigh, but I’m holding on,” I sang, but not even the inspiration of Blondie could stop my voice from sounding thin in the silence. At this hour, no other vehicles passed us on the road. Not the slightest breeze stirred the warm air. My shoulder still throbbed from the silver bullet Snap had pulled out of me.

The end of our mission was up ahead, sure, but for all we knew it could end us .

Out of all of us, I had to admit the one most likely to meet some dire fate was the owner of a mortal body—a.k.a., me. I was prepared for that, but a tightness wound through my ribs as my shadowkind trio moved to get out of the car.

I gave Pickle one last scratch between his wings where he’d perched on my lap and then shifted him to the middle seat so I could get up too, resisting the urge to cuddle him so close he’d squawk. We’d brought him and all my belongings with us because regardless of where this night led, returning to the motel after we faced off against the sword-star bunch directly seemed unwise. Leaving him there in the car, the constricting sensation crept up into my throat.

The three men had gathered around me on the sidewalk. I turned to them when I’d shut the car door.

“If something happens to me tonight,” I said, “promise me you’ll look after Pickle? He won’t get very far on his own.”

Snap’s expression turned pained. “You don’t need to worry about that,” he insisted.

Thorn raised his chin, adding to the immense sense of his height. “I don’t intend to return without you, but if it eases your mind, you have my word the little creature will be taken care of.”

The hairs on the back of my neck rose with the implications of his initial statement. I knew he meant not just that he hoped to make sure I came out alive, but that if I didn’t, it’d only be because he fell too.

We had a plan, and I didn’t think we could have come up with a better one, at least not without days longer than the hour or so we’d actually had. But so much was still uncertain. Our enemies had caught us off-guard more than once. We intended to turn the tables on them tonight, but we hadn’t pulled off anything quite like this before.

An impulse gripped me that I let myself follow, because who knew whether we’d have another moment of relative peace. I grasped Thorn’s shirt and bobbed up to give him a light peck on the lips, swiftly enough that he didn’t have the chance to return it or pull away, whichever he’d have decided on. I had no idea how he’d feel about the others seeing any softness from him.

The warrior glowered at me after, but the heat in his gaze felt at least as hungry as it did annoyed. Ruse was smirking, wider when I turned to him. He reached for me and tugged me to him by the waist, his eyelids lowering seductively.

“I’ll take a little more than that, Miss Blaze,” he said in the chocolatey tone that still made my skin tingle. But he let me be the one to lean in the last few inches between us and capture his mouth.

I’d almost forgotten how much skill the incubus could bring to a simple kiss. The press of his lips, languid as if taking his time and yet passionate as if reveling in every second, set a whole lot more tingling than just my skin. Wouldn’t it have been nice to sink into that bittersweet cacao-and-caramel scent of him and leave death-defying capers for another night?

We didn’t have any other nights before our enemies discovered how close to them we’d already gotten, though. Reluctantly, I eased back.

Snap’s posture had tensed while I’d kissed the other guys. Glimmers of brighter green shimmered through his eyes with the intensity of the reaction he appeared to be reining in. “My peach,” he said, shooting a look at the other two that dared them to deny him that claim. The defiance turned his heavenly face even more dazzling.

I touched his soft cheek. I’d saved him for last for exactly this reason. “My devourer?” I said. I wasn’t entirely sure what that label meant yet, but the tension in his expression melted at the suggestion.

“Yes,” he said with a brilliant smile, and tipped his head to nuzzle my cheek before he brought our mouths together.

I’d expected all sweet tenderness, but Snap was clearly determined to both make a statement and stake a claim. He parted my lips with eager determination, his tongue flicking in to twine around mine as he deepened the kiss. The stroke of the delicately forked tip sent a rush of giddiness through me. As he traced my jaw to tilt it at an even better angle, he all but plundered my mouth.

It was sweet, hell yes, and dizzyingly intense too.

When he released me, every inch of him was lit with satisfaction, deliciously fucking gorgeous. A laugh both delighted and terrified bubbled at the base of my throat until I swallowed it down.

I’d gotten myself an angel, a sort-of sun god, and a guy most mortals would consider a demon. What sort of being was waiting for us inside that prison if we succeeded in freeing him?

It was time to find out. I stepped back and motioned toward the construction site. “Let’s do this thing.”

As I strode toward the site, my companions wisped away into the shadows to draw less attention if anyone happened to look our way. The site itself was bordered by a solid fence some six feet high, but I made short work of the chain securing one of the entrances with my scorch-knife. Trusting that the trio was following close by, I squeezed inside.

I crept along a meandering path between metal beams and stacks of wood until I skirted a raw cinder-block wall and the glow of the flood lights came into view up ahead. With a few more steps, I made out the concrete walls of the squat two-story building Snap had first seen in the impressions clinging to Meriden’s body.

It rose up out of a clear stretch of dirt in the middle of the larger half-finished building. The door on this side was indeed shiny—stainless steel, from the look of it—and the flat gray walls around it held only a couple of small windows, those on the first floor. The holding cells above must have offered no glimpse at all into the outside world.

Figures stalked along the edges of the harsh light that surrounded the place. I counted three patrolling in my view and two others stationed by the door. From what Ruse and Snap had reported, there’d be at least twice that many monitoring the entire area. They all wore helmets and vests that gleamed with plates of silver and iron.

I caught myself just shy of rubbing the bandage on my shoulder. Two guards had been trouble enough. But I wasn’t alone here—and if we didn’t get going, we’d lose all the advantage of the darkness and surprise.

I lifted my hand with an OK signal. That was Thorn’s cue. Tucking myself as close to one of the nearby beams as I could, the metallic odor filling my nose, I braced myself for the chaos.

It started with a thumping like several boards toppling off a pile. All of the guards jerked their heads around to stare in that direction. As one man trotted over to investigate, a sharper clatter split the air. Drawing his gun, he motioned for two of his companions to follow.

They’d just loped out of view when something fell with a clang in the opposite direction. A shout carried from around the side of the building as more guards must have sprung into action. As long as they weren’t heading anywhere near me, I was happy.

At an even more distant spot, there came a crash like shattering glass. One of the guards by the door spoke into her radio and then hustled off to help her colleagues. We were down to one between us and the entrance—but just distracting him momentarily wouldn’t do the trick. If we wanted enough time to not just get into the building but get Omen and the other shadowkind prisoners out, we needed as many of our foes as possible caught up in a wild goose chase.

Thorn hadn’t forgotten that part of the plan. A few seconds later, he charged over to join me, a dazed but thankfully not smashed figure dangling from his hands by the ankles so he didn’t need to touch the helmet or vest that would have burned him.

Without a word, he dropped the man on the ground in front of me. Before the guy could regain his equilibrium, I yanked off the tight helmet and jerked at the snaps on his vest, gritting my teeth as the ache in my shoulder grew teeth. The protections hadn’t been able to neutralize the warrior’s physical strength, but none of my allies’ supernatural powers would have any effect until we’d gotten rid of them.

The vest’s clasps parted to reveal a faded Guns ‘N Roses T-shirt. “Et tu, Brute?” I muttered.

As I tossed the vest aside, Ruse materialized out of the shadows. The guard took a swing at me, shoving himself more upright with a wobble, and Thorn clapped his hand over the guy’s mouth the second it opened to yell. Before he needed to intervene any more than that, the incubus started speaking, staring deep into the man’s widening eyes.

“Nice to meet you,” he said in his cajoling tone. “Tell me, won’t you, how many more guards are inside the building?”

The man’s pupils had dilated. Thorn loosened his grip to allow him room to speak. “I— You—” he stammered.

Ruse knelt in front of him. The power rang through his voice so distinctly it tickled my ears even though it wasn’t directed at me. “We’re going to be very good friends. It couldn’t hurt anything for you to tell me.”

The guard’s posture started to relax. “There are two people monitoring the security cams. Another patrolling the halls. Not that we’ve ever needed all this manpower on the site… before…”

Ruse made a swift gesture to recapture the man’s attention and peered at him even more intently. “Before now. Indeed. Quite the catastrophe that’s happening out here. Imagine how upset your employers will be if they find out you all let these intruders get away. They’re trying to break down the walls so anyone might wander in and see your secret base.”

“No. We can’t let that happen.”

“Exactly. You know what you need to do? Put in a call on that radio of yours, get everyone you can out here. You can hear the invaders—they’re all along the wall—you’ll need to keep moving to catch up with them. Don’t back down and keep everyone on their trail until you’ve nabbed them.”

The guard nodded with a slow bob of his head. Then his gaze whipped away, his body stiffening all over again. He scrambled to his feet. “You’re right—I hear them bashing at the wall right over there. Shit.”

He raised his radio as he dashed off toward the outskirts of the site, hollering for every guard at the facility to join him immediately between pants for breath that only played up the urgency.

Ruse flashed me a grin. “And now…”

The last guard at the door hesitated and then hurried over. One, two, and then a third burst through the doorway to join the defense. Bingo!

Thorn hurtled across the stretch of packed dirt to slam the camera poised over the door into the concrete wall it was mounted on. I sprinted after him. Snap darted from the shadows to meet me by the entrance. With a flick of his tongue through the air over the electronic lock, he smiled and tapped in the code he’d gleaned. The bolt slid over, and I yanked the door open.

As the warrior sprinted back to the shadows to continue diverting the guards outside, Snap, Ruse, and I ducked into the building. We found ourselves in an entry room with lime-green walls and an antiseptic prickle in the air.

Ruse pointed to another doorway at the opposite end. “The stairs are down that hall.”

We were hustling along it when a woman in a lab coat emerged, blinking, from one of the workrooms. She didn’t have a chance to do more than gasp before I’d spotted the silver and iron badge pinned to her blouse, like a larger version of my own. I snatched at it and wrenched it off her with a rasp of tearing fabric.

“Everything’s okay,” Ruse said to her in a ridiculously soothing voice. “You have so much work to do. You should get back to it. Nothing’s more important than that.”

She drew in a shaky breath, her eyes glued to him. “But?—”

“Trust me. Nothing going on out here interests you at all. Think of how much you want to accomplish before it’s time to leave.”

He nudged her toward her office, and she meandered inside looking intent if slightly puzzled. As the three of us jogged the rest of the way down the hall, I tapped Ruse’s side with my elbow. “Very impressive. I haven’t really seen you in action before.”

He chuckled. “I don’t normally have to skip so much of the foreplay. Turning the dial up this high is giving me an ulcer. Let’s hope I don’t have to charm too many more.”

We didn’t run into anyone else in the hall or the stairwell, but as we reached the second-floor landing, both Ruse and Snap slowed. Ruse’s jaw tightened.

Snap gave a little shudder as I pushed open the door to the hall that held the shadowkind prisoners. “A lot of unkind metals in this place.”

My gut twisted. “Can you keep going?” We’d known there’d be silver and iron in the cell walls to contain the prisoners, but we’d hoped the effect wouldn’t seep into the space outside them. How could we get Omen and the other shadowkind prisoners out of their cells if Snap couldn’t reach the locks? Hell, if I got the opportunity, I’d wanted to not just free every being in this place but grab whatever files we could get our hands on quickly to find out what the sword-star bunch had been doing here.

Snap squared his shoulders and marched forward, but I could see the effort it took in the clenching of his hands. Ruse followed, showing similar signs of strain.

The blank walls and solid metal doors offered no glimpse of the creatures inside the cells. I scanned the numbers on the doors as quickly as I could. “Cell 11 was Omen’s, right?” He was our first priority. I didn’t want to think through the implications of Subject 27 being in only the eleventh cell—or what might have happened to at least sixteen of the subjects before him.

The incubus gave a curt nod. “Let’s find it fast. I’m definitely not digging the vibe of this place.”

There. I rushed over, Snap close behind me. Fighting a cringe, he bent close to the keypad by the lock. On his first attempt, his tongue flinched back into his mouth before he appeared to catch anything. An even more determined expression came over his face, and he tested the air again.

“4-9-7-2,” he spat out, hauling himself back from the noxious surface.

I tapped in the numbers, willing my hand not to shake. How long could Ruse’s ploy and Thorn’s shenanigans keep all the guards from noticing what we were up to in here?

How were we going to make it out of here if they came back too soon?

The lock whirred open. Hallelujah. As soon as we made sure this was Omen—and that he knew we were his people, coming to rescue him—I’d get Snap to move on to the next cell. If he could even tolerate testing the rest of the locks with all the toxic materials in this place, that was.

I tugged the door wide. The entire ceiling of the cell was one huge panel of light, which glared off the reflective walls and floor and nearly drowned out the twitching form like a streak of shadowy smoke in the middle of it.

“Omen?” I said. “Do you need help getting?—”

Before I could finish the question, the blur of darkness flung itself at me with a guttural roar. Yellow-orange eyes blazed at me like twin flames; a clawed hand—or was that a paw ?—smacked me aside with a scrape of pain through my arm that echoed into my injured shoulder. I stumbled into Snap, who caught me in a tight embrace.

“Omen!” he protested. “She’s with?—"

The blare of an alarm drowned out anything else he might have said. My stomach flipped over. Sweet stinking cheese. There must have been some other device we’d needed to disable to remove a prisoner safely.

The overhead lights flared twice as bright—and down the hall by the stairwell, a barrier of silver-and-iron-twined bars dropped into place with a clang, cutting off our escape.

“Shit,” Ruse muttered. We bolted toward the stairwell anyway. The shadowy figure we’d released was still whipping around us, too swift and hazy to make him out clearly. One moment it looked like a hunched human form, the next some sort of muscular beast, its dark flesh streaked through with a fiery glow. A tail lashed in its wake, taut and sinuous with a triangular protrusion I glimpsed at its tip.

A devil’s tail.

I couldn’t think about that now. It didn’t matter what Omen was if we all ended up dead or jailed tonight.

There was no time to try to free anyone else. Ignoring the guilt that jabbed through my panic, I yanked the scorch-knife from my belt, switched it on, and rammed it into the bars the second I reached them.

The people who’d designed this place had meant the barrier to hold off shadowkind with the power of its metals, not the width of its bars. I cut through one in a matter of seconds, drove the blade against it farther down, and kicked the large chunk out to clatter onto the floor. My heart seemed to be beating right in my throat, my pulse thudding behind my ears almost as loud as the alarm.

As I moved to the next bar, Ruse’s voice carried from behind me. “Omen, pull yourself together. We’ve got you—we’re taking you out of this hellhole—but it’ll be a lot easier if you get a hold of yourself.”

“They did horrible things here,” Snap said, with a quiver of anger in his voice. “Horrible things to him. I don’t even have to try to taste it.”

I’d only cut out three bars when a door banged open below. Almost biting my tongue at the jolt of panic that hit me, I rammed the knife even harder into the fourth. One more and the space should be just big enough for the shadowkind to follow me through…

A guard barreled into the landing just as I severed the bottom of that bar. I punched it right into her face. As she stumbled backward with a grunt of pain, a form that now looked completely like a man sprang through the opening at her.

The shadowkind man who must have been Omen slammed the guard’s head into the ground with a cracking of her skull. He launched his sinewy frame down the stairs, and the three of us bolted after him.

Another guard had just reached the lower landing. With a snarl, Omen crashed into him, slamming him into the door frame and snapping his neck a second later. He flung the body to the side and raced on.

Then, at the far end of the hall where we’d come in, half a dozen guards rushed into the space. Weapons of metals and light flashed in their hands. We all stalled in our tracks.

They stepped forward, wary but ready, a few more of their colleagues coming in behind them to join the blockade. My pulse lurched.

They were prepared for us now, and there were too many of them. I couldn’t imagine tearing our way through the whole lot, no matter what Omen was.

My hands shot up instinctively, as if I could ward them off—and one of the guards at the front of the pack flinched as if I’d actually flung something at him. More chickenshit than I’d expected. Omen glanced back at me with eyes now icy blue, as if he’d only just noticed I was still with him and his companions.

But flinging my arms around wasn’t going to help us more than that tiny distraction. The guards advanced on us with increasing speed.

“Sorsha!” Thorn’s bellow carried through the walls, followed by the crackle of smashed glass. Omen jerked toward the sound. He sprang back to a door between us and him and shoved it open.

We dashed after him to find shards glinting around one of the small windows I’d observed from outside. Thorn stood beyond it, his harsh cheeks splattered with mortal blood.

“Omen,” he said hoarsely at the sight of his boss. “Come on, all of you, into the shadows. Sorsha, I’ve got you.”

It wasn’t anywhere near the leap it’d been from the apartment building. He swept his arm across the window frame, clearing the splinters of glass. Omen hurled himself through, his form thinning as he soared out into the flood of light. The incubus boosted me after him. As Thorn caught me and swung me onto his back, Ruse and Snap dove after us. Their forms raced through the glow and vanished into the shadows of the construction site.

The alarm was still blaring, frantic shouts breaking through its rhythm. A shot like a sizzling bolt of light smacked the wall less than an inch from us.

Thorn didn’t risk tangling with all these attackers. With me clinging to his shoulders for dear life, too grateful to have him to complain about the indignity, he charged off in the same direction our companions had gone. He dodged beams and boards, smashed through one of the gates at the edge of the site, and hurtled on down the street toward the car.

Ruse had already started the engine, the lights flashing on in the darkness. Thorn and I tumbled into the back seat, and he took off with a screech of the tires.

The bleat of the alarm pealed through my ears from deep within that giant steel skeleton. I couldn’t catch my breath until the cacophony of our escape finally faded away in the depths of the night.