Page 33 of Triumph of the Wolf (Magnetic Magic #6)

As I trailed Bolin down the shadowy walkway along the wall of the building, heat and magical energy radiating from the vats, distant tink, tink, tink sounds reminded me of the mechanical bugs.

They would doubtless show up in here too.

Other noises, I couldn’t identify. Some of the vats gurgled ominously, and so many scents assailed my nostrils that something toxic could have been mixed among them, and who would have known?

Reminded of the mask, I touched it to reassure myself that wearing it was an option. Bolin passed an aisle that opened up perpendicular to the wall. He glanced down it but hurried past without slowing.

“It’s getting harder to tell where she is,” he whispered back to me. “I’m afraid the elixir is wearing off.”

“We’ll find her. She’s in here somewhere.” I kept glancing toward the catwalks, reminded that Lykos was in here too. And some of his rifle-toting allies? The grenade probably hadn’t scared them off for long.

I couldn’t sense Lykos up there anymore. I couldn’t even sense Duncan. There was too much other magic about. It was like trying to hear a pin drop in a room while rain hammered on the roof.

Since Bolin hadn’t reacted to anything in the aisle, I didn’t expect trouble when I reached it but glanced to double check. Two men jogged out of a gap between two vats. They were less than ten feet away, and I blurted an exclamation.

The men flinched, as surprised to find me as I was to find them.

Recovering quickly, one turned toward me, a rifle cradled in his arms. Maybe my instincts should have urged me to run, but I charged toward him with the sword instead, hoping to reach him before he could fire.

He aimed the weapon at my chest, finger on the trigger.

I whipped my blade toward the rifle, clipping the end of the barrel and deflecting it. To my surprise, the sword not only struck the gun but lopped off the last inch of the barrel.

My attack didn’t keep the man from firing, but I’d knocked the rifle aside. Several bullets hammered into a nearby vat, and two struck his ally. The man screamed and reeled back, dropping his own weapon.

The guy who’d fired jerked his rifle back toward me and lunged in, trying to club me with it.

I parried it as if it were a sword in a sparring match with Yuto in the dojo.

Again, I knocked the rifle wide. This time, the man kept from accidentally firing, but I took advantage of the opening and kicked him in the gut.

He stumbled back, bumping into his ally.

The man had dropped to hands and knees, blood gushing from his neck.

He gripped the wound, trying to staunch the flow, but it looked like a fatal wound.

My gut twisted—I hadn’t wanted to cause anyone’s death—but I forced myself to keep fighting. My other enemy remained on his feet, his rifle still in his hands. Again, he pointed it toward me.

Sword leading, I lunged in and stabbed him. He jerked his arm across to block me, and I struck his biceps instead of his chest. Even so, he cried out and dropped the gun.

I stepped back, thinking of ordering them to surrender, but what the hell would I do with prisoners? I hadn’t brought rope to tie people up.

Thinking of Bolin’s entangling magic, I opened my mouth to call to him to come back, but my foe wasn’t ready to give up.

Even as his ally groaned and flopped onto his side, blood puddling underneath him, the remaining man bent, reaching for his gun.

I stepped on it so he couldn’t pick it up and kicked him again.

“Surrender, you bastard,” I ordered as he reeled back.

He slipped in the puddle of blood, pitched against one of the vats, and went down. A huge drop of a glowing blue liquid dripped off it and plopped onto him. Screaming, he rolled away from the vat. But more blue liquid spattered onto the cement floor and droplets struck him.

The sizzle of burning clothes and flesh invaded my nostrils, and I backed away, realizing one of the bullets had pierced a vat. The others had clanged off the sturdy material, but that one must have landed just right.

The man rolled about, swatting at his wounds and shrieking in utter pain. His ally had stopped moving and might already be dead.

I grabbed the rifle that hadn’t been damaged and backed farther away, feeling far more horror than triumph.

These people brought it upon themselves, I told myself. They’d attacked me . Working for Abrams, they’d been attacking both Duncan and me for weeks.

That didn’t keep me from hurrying around the corner, away from the screams of the dying man.

Back in the dark aisle that followed the wall, I wiped sweat from my brow. Bolin hadn’t waited for me while I’d battled the men, and I cursed. He couldn’t have failed to notice that gunshots were going off—and screams.

“The boy is obsessed,” I grumbled, hurrying deeper into the building.

It was possible he’d heard something to suggest that Jasmine was in trouble. Abrams might use her as a hostage if necessary. Maybe that was the reason he’d kidnapped her in the first place.

“Who knows,” I muttered, wincing at another scream, weaker this time. That guy didn’t have much life left in him.

Whatever that blue gunk had been, it might have been worse—more deadly —than magical bullets.

I eyed the rifle in my grip, thinking of tossing it into a vat, but if I spotted Abrams across the building on a catwalk, it might come in handy.

Since I couldn’t sense Bolin’s aura, not with so many other magical items drowning everything out, I could only head deeper into the potion factory.

Soon, ceiling-high stacks of crates and more white plastic barrels blocked the route I’d been following along the wall.

I debated attempting to climb a support post up to the catwalk, as Duncan had done, but tried backing up to a perpendicular aisle instead.

It led me into the interior of the building, then turned to angle around giant metal mixing machinery. Sweat dripped down my face, the heat more intense farther from the walls.

Feeling overwhelmed by all the magic and the steamy air filled with chemical scents, my senses weren’t at their sharpest. I jumped in surprise when I rounded a vat and stepped into an open area with two large cages on the floor surrounded by cabinets and counters littered with machinery and equipment.

One cage was empty, the gate ajar, but the other was not.

A female wolf that I recognized—Izzy—lay tethered inside, chained to the bars so that she could barely move.

Was some magic keeping her from shifting back into her human form?

She lay on her belly, head between her forelimbs, eyes closed. Unconscious? Dead?

No, not dead. As I crept closer, I sensed her aura.

An IV ran from one of her limbs to a machine with a slight magical signature.

My first thought was that Izzy was being drugged, but there was blood in the clear tubing.

Maybe hers. A sample for Abrams’s experiments?

In his journal, he’d implied that he’d given up on needing werewolf blood, but with a ready supply available, maybe he’d decided to put it to use.

Broken tubing dangled in the empty cage as well, a few spatters of blood on the bottom. It was still damp. Jasmine must have been inside it recently. Bite marks on the mangled lock suggested she’d also been in her wolf form when she’d found a way to escape.

“Probably sensed Bolin coming and was moved by her love for him,” I whispered. “Or her desire not to need rescuing.”

The latter seemed more likely.

Where was Bolin, anyway? Guided by the Elixir of Locus, he should have found Jasmine before I had. Maybe he’d been the one to let her go? And then they’d gone…

“Where?” I looked all around and also up at the catwalks but didn’t see anyone, neither enemy nor ally.

Izzy lifted her head, opening her eyes and looking at me. They were glassy—maybe she was drugged—but her lips parted, revealing her fangs. She recognized me… and still adored me.

It crossed my mind to leave her in the cage and stuck in another realm where she couldn’t pester me further in the future, but she had a daughter. Besides, no werewolf deserved to be chained and experimented on.

“Do me a favor, and don’t attack me when I let you go,” I said.

A deep bong sounded elsewhere in the building, echoing from the walls and reminding me that we weren’t alone. A nearby vat gurgled and bubbled.

The chains kept Izzy from rising to her feet. Fortunately, the cage wasn’t locked from the outside, and all it took were human fingers to unlatch the door. Again, I wondered what power was keeping Izzy stuck in her lupine form. Had she shifted, she might easily have escaped.

Izzy stared at me as I swung the door open. She seemed… surprised? It was hard to tell with a wolf, but she cocked her head, a pointed ear flickering.

Glad I still had the sword—the magically sharp sword—I sliced through the chains securing her. I debated whether to cut the IV tube as well, but who knew what that would do?

Izzy rose to her feet, snarled, and lunged to the side. Her jaws snapped down on the tubing and she ripped it from her vein.

“Ouch,” I murmured as a needle fell, blood flowing out and dampening her fur.

She padded out of the cage, then startled me by collapsing.

“Shit. I knew removing that wasn’t a good idea.” I glanced at the needle, as if I might stick it back in her leg to save her life.

But her aura rippled, and she shifted back into her human form. Blood continued to dribble down her limb—her arm —but she soon stirred.

“Thirsty,” she rasped, looking at me.

Yeah, there was no sign of a water or food bowl. What if Abrams hadn’t given her anything in the days since his thugs had caught her? I hurried to remove my pack and offer her a bottled water I’d brought.

She clawed it out of my hands, tore off the lid, and guzzled.

“He didn’t give you anything to drink?” I asked. “What a bastard. How’d he expect to get good blood samples from your veins if you were dehydrated?”