Page 40

“Where is he?” he growled, his voice echoing in the confined space. “Where’s Solomon and the other thralls you’re keeping prisoner, you bastards?!”

The two mages dropped their charge clumsily and whirled around, shock evident on their faces. The shorter one recovered first. Dark magic flared in his hands as he prepared to unleash a spell.

Leon’s Nullification Magic caused his powers to dissipate in the blink of an eye.

Viggo closed the distance to the mage in two powerful strides and drove his fist into his solar plexus. The man doubled over with a wheezing gasp. Viggo knocked him out with a sharp blow to the back of his head.

The taller mage backed away and fumbled for something in his robes.

A wall of water surged past Viggo before he could move. The Brute’s pulse raced as Leon wrapped the man inside a bubble from which there would be no escape.

The device the dark mage had removed from his robes detonated in his hand, the sound of the explosion muffled by the water. He screamed and gurgled, the water around him rapidly turning red with his own blood. All that was left of his hand was a mangled mess where bone and gristle protruded.

Leon waited until he choked and lost consciousness before releasing his magic.

A few officers rapidly secured the fallen mages while Viggo checked on Stoker. He swallowed when he felt the strong pulse at her throat. Her breathing was slow and deep, indicating sedation rather than a state of near death.

“How is she?” Leon asked thinly, squatting beside him.

“Alive.” Viggo gently pulled up the unconscious thrall’s eyelid. Her blown pupil was all the confirmation he needed.

“They’ve drugged her,” Leon stated in a hard voice.

“We should move her to one of the storage areas for the time being and have an officer and a mage guard her,” Viggo suggested.

The mage who’d created the sensory ward volunteered. “I’ll do it, sir,” she said nervously. “My magic can help keep us hidden.”

“Thank you,” Leon said.

Viggo gave her a grateful nod. He rose and studied the metal door at the end of the antechamber. It was where the men had been heading. He shot a scowl at the unconscious mages.

“Check their pockets for a key or a seal ring.”

To his chagrin, the officers found nothing.

Leon moved to the door and ran his hands lightly over the metal, his brow furrowed in concentration.

“It’s warded,” he confirmed grimly. “Multiple layers. It may take a little while to dismantle them safely without alerting anyone of our presence.”

“We don’t have time!” Viggo growled. “Just use your Nullification Magic to strip it bare. I’ll take care of the rest.”

A muscle jumped in Leon’s jawline. He released a frustrated sigh and began undoing the wards.

“Don’t blame me if a bunch of shadow creatures appear and eat your face.”

“They won’t,” Viggo grunted. “That amulet around your neck hasn’t glowed once in all the time we’ve been inside the facility.”

Still, everyone held their breath when the Frenchman finished removing the magic wards on the door. To their palpable relief, no monsters appeared.

Viggo braced himself and drove his shoulder into the door with all the force he could muster. Metal caved under his blow. He moved back and repeated the movement with even more force. A tortured sound left the hinges. Viggo scowled, retreated a step, and kicked the door.

It went flying off the frame and clattered noisily inside a long corridor lined with cells.

The stench of fear and human waste washed over them.

“Solomon!” Viggo shouted, moving quickly down the line of cells. He peered desperately through the observation slits in each door. “Solomon, can you hear me?!”

A voice responded from one of the cells near the end. “Viggo? Is that you?!”

Relief made Viggo weak-kneed. He hurried to the door and found Solomon’s tense face peering through the narrow opening. He had a few bruises and was favouring his right leg, but otherwise looked remarkably well considering the circumstances.

“Thank God,” the Brute whispered shakily, his fingers finding Solomon’s through the slit in the door.

“Took you long enough,” Solomon said with a lopsided grin.

“Yes, well, Evander and I promised to turn this city upside down to find you,” Viggo admitted with a weak smile. He studied the cell door. “Stand back.”

He was about to kick it down when two officers rushed towards them, metal jingling in their hands.

“Sir, we found the keys!”

It took but a moment to open the cell door.

Viggo engulfed Solomon in a bear hug when he stepped out.

Leon began working on the next lock. The Met officers and mages joined him, splitting up to work on the remaining cells.

The doors opened one by one, revealing thralls in various states of distress.

Some could barely stand, while others seemed physically unharmed but mentally distant, their eyes dull and vacant.

Viggo counted twenty people in total. Eight of them wore clothes more befitting of nobles than thralls.

“Sir, some of these prisoners are mages,” one of the Met’s officers confirmed as he listened to a woman whisper something to him from parched lips.

Viggo searched the faces of the thralls. “Did you find Tom Simmons?” he asked Solomon.

“He’s in the main chamber, along with the missing professors,” Solomon replied darkly.

Viggo frowned. “Main chamber?”

Solomon’s eyes grew haunted. “It’s where they’re conducting their experiments.

It’s a massive laboratory with these—tanks.

There are people floating in them, kept alive somehow while they have their magic extracted.

” He shuddered. “I saw it when they brought me in. They were attempting to inject the magic they’d stolen into a thrall. ”

Viggo and Leon exchanged a grim look. The description matched what they had most feared.

“We need to hurry,” Solomon urged. “When they took Simmons, I heard one of them say he was ready for the ‘final stage.’ I haven’t seen him since.”

Dread settled in Viggo’s gut. The final stage was no doubt the full elemental transfer the two mages they’d knocked out had alluded to.

“Please, help them.”

Viggo and Leon turned to the female mage they’d rescued. She was staring at them, her eyes wide and her hand clutching the arm of the officer who was helping her stay upright.

“I’m a scientist myself. What they’re attempting to do isn’t stable,” she mumbled with a German accent. “Most of the thralls won’t survive.”

Viggo’s throat tightened. “How many have died already?”

The woman exchanged a harrowed glance with one of the other prisoner mages. “Four that we know of since we were brought here a month ago. They—they screamed for hours before the end.” Her face crumpled, a low sob escaping her.

Rage and horror warred within Viggo’s chest.

Leon placed a hand on his shoulder. “Focus,” the Frenchman said in a hard voice. “You can indulge your anger later.”

Viggo took a shallow breath and nodded stiffly, not trusting himself to speak.

“Let’s go,” Solomon said in a resolute voice. “I’ll show you where they are.”

“You’re in no condition to fight,” Viggo protested.

Solomon lowered his brows. “You’re not stopping me, Viggo.”

Frustration burned through the Brute. “Alright,” he reluctantly agreed. “Just make sure you stay behind me.”

Leon studied the captives with a frown. “We should send these people back the way we came. A couple of the officers can guide them to the sewer entrance while the rest of us continue. The men Winterbourne has stationed there can take them to the Met’s infirmary for care.”

“Have them bring Katie too,” Viggo said. “And they should take a pair of mages with them to be on the safe side.”

Leon nodded.

The Frenchman assigned a small team to escort the freed thralls and mages to the room where they’d entered the secret facility while they continued on.

Solomon guided them swiftly down the left-hand branch beyond the T-junction. They navigated a maze of passages and passed several deserted rooms. He finally slowed at the entrance of a large antechamber.

Solomon stopped and frowned heavily at the metal doors ahead.

“The main lab is beyond those. It’s vast and round—like a cathedral underground.

There are tanks arranged around a central device, with walkways connecting them.

The base of the chamber looked like some kind of cave, the bottom of which I couldn’t make out.

” His voice faltered. “There were at least six mages working there when I was brought through, including the man in charge.”

Leon’s face tightened. He briefly described Musgrave.

Solomon nodded grimly. “That’s him alright.”

Viggo furrowed his brow. “Whitley and Chevalier are in those tanks too?”

“Yes.” A muscle jumped in Solomon’s cheek.

“I spoke to several of the captive mages and thralls. They said the two professors were tortured for days to get information from them. This Musgrave guy then decided they weren’t of any use to him and chose to use them as his lab rats instead.

They were dragged out of their cells yesterday.

” He paused. “I think he’s extracting their magic. ”

A fraught silence fell over the group, the implications of his words sending a chill through them all.

Viggo’s thoughts strayed to Evander as he studied the metal doors.

He’ll be closing in on this place soon, I’m sure of it.

“We end this now,” the Brute said in a steely voice.

“Let me take the lead,” Leon urged. “I can disrupt whatever arcane processes they have running in there.”

Viggo started to object, then reconsidered. Regardless of his personal feelings about the Frenchman, it was a sound tactical decision.

“Very well,” he agreed. “I’ll be right next to you.”

Leon smiled faintly. “I’m counting on you to have my back, Brute, just as you have his.”

Admiration darted through Viggo then. He could vaguely understand why Evander had once loved this man. He turned to the remaining Met officers and mages.

“Are you ready?”

They nodded, determination evident in their faces despite the fear lingering in their eyes.

Leon positioned himself before the doors and gathered his powers around him like a cloak. He stiffened a little when the amulet around his neck began glowing.

“There are shadow creatures in there,” the Frenchman stated grimly.

“Then we’ll just have to deal with them,” Viggo muttered.

Leon squinted at him. “I can see why he likes you.”

Viggo blinked.

“On my mark,” the Frenchman warned. He took a deep breath. “ Now! ”

Viggo thrust the doors open at the same time Leon unleashed a wall of magic.

The sight that greeted their eyes would haunt the Brute’s nightmares for years to come.