She smirked, and suddenly all pretense of civility dropped away.
What was left was terrifying.
A combination of beauty and raw power that would put any mean girl to shame.
“You think we won’t kill you?” Her eyes glittered. “You’re making accusations against someone on this very council. A Nephilim who could crush you into dust with nothing more than a flick of a wrist. You think coming here with these allegations, without proof, was the wisest course?”
“I think your poker face sucks.”
She stilled. “Excuse me?”
“You’re not nearly shocked enough. And don’t even get me started on the lack of outrage at the shit I’m talking about your fellow Neph. Which means you know something. Is that why Adrik sent you in here? Do you already know about the traitor? Do you know who it is?”
Selaphiel opened her mouth to answer, and I was pretty confident it was to admit what she knew about all this, but the door opened, and she fell silent.
Raguel strode in.
Selaphiel stiffened, and my shoulders sagged at the interruption. I’d been so close. But at least I knew I was safe with him.
“We were in the middle of something,” I said.
“Now you’re in the middle of something else.” His tone was hard; nothing like the one he’d used earlier. In fact, a quick glance at his expression showed no trace of the civility he’d shown me in the parking garage.
Shit.
Maybe not so safe after all. What was happening? And why did I feel like every Nephilim I met had a split personality?
He went to work, carefully rolling his sleeves to the elbows. It could have been all for show, but I didn’t think so. Not with the way Selaphiel kept darting glances between me and the door. I had a sinking feeling Raguel wasn’t here to become the third point in our little friendship triangle.
“Gem. Finding you here is such a surprise.”
Sure it was.
“Diarrhea is a surprise too.”
By the angel. Not now! I whipped my head toward the ceiling and scanned for the June bug I knew had just spoken.
Gran was going to get herself killed.
But I couldn’t spot where she’d tucked her tiny body away. Good. Hopefully, she would stay out of sight.
The two Neph ignored her. Or maybe they thought it was me who’d said it.
“Selaphiel.” Raguel glanced at her. “I didn’t realize you’d sequestered away such an interesting visitor.”
“I know how busy you are,” she said, her tone saccharine sweet. “I wouldn’t trouble you over something so inconsequential.”
I snorted, knowing full well I should let that one go. She was only trying to protect me. I was fairly certain, anyway.
“Gemini.” Raguel turned back to me, eyes blazing. “You saved us a considerable amount of manpower and effort by presenting yourself here today. And with a demon in tow. I’m impressed.”
“Wolfrick’s not the threat you think he is.”
“Yes, I hear you fancy yourself friends with the thing. A curious circle of friends, too, when you factor in the werewolf you stole from our custody.”
“Lester’s innocent,” I said.
“Be that as it may, you absconded with a murder suspect and evaded SSF agents.”
“I’m happy to answer for all of that.” I smiled sweetly. “Tell you what. Why don’t we call a meeting, and I can explain this to your peers. While we’re at it, I can tell them about the illegal black magic and the greater demons being summoned through dark portals by one of your own.”
“Selaphiel.” He flicked her the barest dismissive glance. “Gem and I have some things to discuss. You may go.”
The hard edge to his voice was back. My heart rate sped again, sending the previous headache into overdrive. I had a feeling being alone in this room with Raguel would end very badly for me.
Selaphiel must have thought so too because she did me a solid by hesitating for a full second before she headed for the door. Girls stuck together, obviously.
Raguel loomed in front of me, his power building between us until the air hummed with my imminent death. An invisible fist closed over my throat, squeezing my windpipe closed.
I gasped, struggling, but there was nothing to fight off.
Even without the ropes tying me down, I couldn’t move against the pressure of Raguel’s otherworldly power.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as Selaphiel opened the door but stopped short of walking through it.
Through the opening, I caught sight of Adrik standing in the hall. He let out a growl at the sight of me choking, and hope swelled within me. Selaphiel looked up at him, clearly surprised. Through the roaring in my ears, I heard her say something but couldn’t make out the words.
He didn’t respond, nor did he tear his eyes away from where they’d landed on me. Selaphiel finally muttered something and brushed past him.
When she was gone, Adrik stepped into the room, and Raguel finally looked up. At the sight of Adrik, the invisible fist clutching my throat abruptly vanished. I gasped, hanging my head and choking on a mouthful of oxygen.
“Adrik.” Raguel’s surprise turned quickly to something much more calculated. “You’re just in time.”
With Raguel distracted, I moved fast. Grabbing the tracker, I used what little magic I could summon to send it sailing through the air and over to Raguel. A final burst of careful power sent it sliding into the Nephilim’s pants pocket. With any luck, it would go unnoticed long enough for me to get the hell out of here and use it to track him to the next portal.
“You’re not doing this.” Adrik’s voice was stone cold.
I shivered and realized even when he’d been irritated with me that first day on the job, he’d never been remotely this angry. He’d been holding back this part of his power. But now, he felt ready to snap.
“I’m acting within the authority of a Nephilim council member,” Raguel said.
“We had a deal.”
Raguel cleared his throat, lowering his voice to a near-hiss. “That deal was void the moment she stepped foot in this building.”
“Let Gem go.”
Raguel sighed. “You know I can’t do that. She’s a fugitive. And I have a job to do.”
“So am I. Are you going to kill me too?”
“Now you’re just being dramatic.”
“Let her go, or you’ll see exactly how dramatic I can be.”
Raguel’s eyes narrowed, and his mask of congeniality finally slipped away. “Your feelings are your weakness. You never were cut out for this work.”
Adrik sneered, eyes glittering with the promise of a fight. “I’m just as strong and capable as ever, old man. Come here and let me show you.”
Raguel wasted no time in accommodating him.
In a blur of movement, the two Nephilim rushed at each other. The walls and floor shook with the impact. I jumped out of my chair and pressed my back against the wall, watching as Adrik slammed Raguel into the far wall hard enough to knock drywall loose. It crumbled down on them, raining onto the floor.
Raguel snarled and shoved Adrik, sending him flying across the room. He hit the wall with a thud before jumping up and attacking anew.
Holy angel muscles.
This room wasn’t going to last long at this rate.
I felt my pockets once again for the phone I no longer had. Dammit. How was I supposed to make a quick getaway without backup? I didn’t even know which part of the building I was in. I could only hope the tracking device we’d put on Wolfrick was still intact and that the guys had managed to get him out safely like we’d planned.
“Psst.”
I jumped clear to avoid being clotheslined by two raging Nephs.
“Psst. Up here.” The voice was urgent—and unmistakable.
“Gran?”
“Quick. Climb your ass up into the ductwork, girlie.”
I watched as one of the ceiling tiles above me rattled in its frame.<
br />
Dodging stray fists and sheer Nephilim power, I managed to push the metal chair over and climb up high enough to swing into the ductwork like Gran suggested.
Below me, a crash sounded, and I glanced back in time to see Raguel had been thrown clear through the wall and into the hall on the other side. A pile of drywall and concrete nearly buried him where he’d landed.
Voices sounded. Adrik roared.
I hauled ass.
Chapter Seventeen
The most important takeaway from my attempted escape through the ceiling vents was this: ventilation shafts were a lot narrower than movies portrayed. I slithered along, huffing and puffing until my wedged-in hips refused to budge any farther. Luckily, the sounds of the Neph-on-Neph UFC match had faded behind me.
Gran buzzed along in front of me, leading the way and chattering on and on about how I’d gotten myself into a “motherfucking pickle so big even she couldn’t see a way out,” and, “Why didn’t I come to her sooner? Didn’t I know she had friends in high places like the lady who ran the Bingo tournaments, and didn’t that just chap her ass at not being in the loop?”
Being stuck and forced to listen to her ranting was almost worse torture than being strangled to death by an evil Nephilim’s invisible fist.
Almost.
“Gran,” I whispered when she continued to buzz along the vent shaft, oblivious to the fact that I’d stopped moving.
“Gran!”
She doubled back, her rant cutting off long enough to assess my current predicament.
“You can’t stay here, girlie. They’ll find you for sure.”
“Captain Obvious,” I muttered.
From below, glass clinked together, and my breath hitched. If a Nephilim was somewhere down there, I was so screwed. But then a voice drifted toward me—female. Not the femme fatale version that was Selaphiel either, considering my lack of an inexplicable urge to lick the speaker’s face.
Scooting to a better vantage point, I pried the ceiling tile back and peered down into the space below.
A lab of some kind, I realized immediately.
Long white counters were scattered with various equipment. Beakers, measuring cups, and a few vials of what looked like blood sat directly below me. Farther down, something was being heated over a Bunsen burner.
Was the Neph council into human science now?
The voice came again, this time more clearly. “I’m going to send these latest stats upstairs. Keep an eye on the serum while I’m gone.”
A quiet grunt of agreement followed.
A second later, a door clicked shut.
Replacing that tile, I shimmied back a little and peeled back another.
I choked on a gasp.
The lab was gone. Instead, I was looking down into some kind of hospital room. A single bed sat in the center. Around it, all sorts of medical equipment including an IV and machines I couldn’t identify. But the biggest shock was the body lying on the bed.
Tony Coffell.
My friend from the Tiff and former SSF employee. When I’d last seen him, he’d been the same olive-skinned werewolf I’d come to know during our months as recruits together. And mostly, he looked the same as I remembered.
Only now, he was blue.
“What are you hyperventilating over?” Gran buzzed closer and peered down through the opening. She scoffed. “We don’t have time to stop for Smurfs. We’re in DEFCON level-one-four-six up in here.”
I slanted a look at her. “One-four-six is police code for breaking and entering.”
“So?”
“You want to tell me how you knew that?”
“Do you want to paint each other’s nails while we’re at it? Hell, let’s braid our hair too. Have a sleepover while we wait for the Neph to come kill us.”
I sighed. She had a point. But it was Tony. I’d promised Milo to help find him. And considering he was blue, I couldn’t just leave without making sure he was okay. Adrik’s words from earlier rang in my head. He’d mentioned experiments. I still had no idea what that had to do with me, but I couldn’t just walk away from my friend.
Before Gran could talk me out of it, I pulled the ceiling tile clear and dropped down into the small room.
“You’re going to get yourself killed,” Gran hissed.
I ignored her and crept to Tony’s bedside. The steady rise and fall of his chest let me know he was breathing. Beyond that, I had no idea if he was all right.
“Tony,” I whispered.
No response.
I laid my hand over his and squeezed his cold, cobalt skin.
His eyes opened instantly, a filmy white layer coating his irises. I jumped back as he snarled, snapping sharpened canines at me. He only got as far as halfway up before he was stopped by a strap I hadn’t noticed before.
“Whoa, Tony, it’s me. Gem.”
He fell back to the bed, eyes wide as he finally focused on me. “Gem?” He shook his head as if trying to clear it. “Is this real?”
“Yes, it’s me. What happened to you?”
“The doctor.” He looked around as if searching for someone.
“Are they trying to heal you from some kind of demon poison?” I asked, thinking of Desmond Ayers, another Tiff recruit whose skin had turned blue from demon slime—or so they said.
Tony’s brows furrowed, and he winced as if in pain. “No, the serum…” He glanced at the IV feeding into his arm.
“What is it?” I asked.
Something about this whole setup felt off to me. If they were curing him, why was he tied down?
Tony stared up at me, but his eyes began to glaze over as the white film returned. He blinked, and I could sense him trying to hang on to himself. His energy was darker than before. My fae senses were screaming at me to run. But I refused to leave until I knew what was happening here.
“Girlie, this joker looks like he ate one too many blueberries at the chocolate factory.” Gran buzzed incessantly between my ear and the ceiling. “We should go.”
“What about the serum?” I asked.
Tony made a sound like he was in pain. “The serum . . . is the demon poison,” he rasped.
My eyes widened. If he was telling the truth, no wonder he was getting sicker.
I reached over and yanked the IV line out of Tony’s arm. He hissed at the sting of the needle and then relaxed. I blew out a breath, reaching for the strap holding him down. Flicking the clasp open, I yanked it off, and Tony shot up from the bed, eyes clear and blazing with rage.
“Uh-oh.” Gran buzzed as she backed away from the crazy, blue guy currently mouth-breathing up all the oxygen in the room.
His eyes narrowed as he locked onto the tiny insect that was my grandmother. “You’re one of them,” he snarled. “Another trick to taunt me.”
“No, Tony, she’s a friend,” I said, but he shoved me aside and roared as he grabbed for Gran.
She buzzed away, and Tony crashed into the wall. He was burlier than I remembered, his muscles larger, but he was clumsy and unsure on his feet. An oaf. A ’roided out, mentally unstable, oaf currently trying to smoosh my family.
Shit. This is not how this was supposed to go.
Thinking fast, I called up the only thing I knew could stop Tony in his tracks.
“Holy goat balls,” Gran sputtered when she saw me. “You’re him.”
“What the hell is going on?” Tony bellowed.
“I’m you,” I told him, planting my size twelves and hoping like hell this guy was too vain to punch himself. “But I’m the old you.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“You needed to remember who you are.”
He blinked, staring himself—me—down with a wistful look that made my heart ache for him.
“Tony, I’m going to shift back now. But you can’t murder my Gran, okay?”
His eyes welled with tears. “You have to fix me.”
“I’ll do everything I can,” I told him.
He nodded, and I l
et the beast in me recede until I was Gem again.
Tony blew out a breath.
“Let’s get you out of here, okay?” I said.
He nodded but then jerked violently, his back arching like something had hit him from behind.
Tony cried out as he slid to the floor, his body seizing.
I looked past where he’d fallen, to the door that now stood open. In the opening, holding an agency-issue stun gun that had apparently just taken Tony down, was Faith Burkhart.
Faith took one look at me and readjusted her aim, pointing the barrel of her weapon straight at my chest.
“Uh, hi, friend,” I said way too enthusiastically.
“You have negative three seconds to tell me what the hell you’re doing in here,” she said.
“Someone’s clearly terrible at math,” Gran muttered.
Faith’s gun swung left to right. “Who said that?”
I sighed. This day was going in the books as the worst ever.
“It’s just my Gran,” I explained.
“Why can’t I see her?” Faith demanded.
“You can. She’s just tiny. Look.” I pointed at where Gran had perched on top of one of the monitors beside Tony’s bed.
Faith’s eyes narrowed. “Why is she a damned bug?”
“I’m going to ignore the condescension in your tone, young lady.” Gran’s rebuff ended in her muttering about “youth today,” which Faith and I both ignored.
“How did you get in here?” Faith demanded, re-aiming her weapon at me again. I was doing my best not to take that personally.
“Just passing through,” I said vaguely. “But I could ask the same about you.”
“I work here,” she said, and it didn’t take a clairvoyant to know she wasn’t happy about it.
“Wait. This is your mom’s lab,” I realized, thinking of the woman I’d heard leaving earlier. “They assigned you to work with your mom?”
“Don’t rub it in,” she grumbled.
“I thought you loved your mom.”
“I’m sorry. Did I miss the memo where a fugitive would show up and make me talk about my personal drama?”
Knock Em Dead (Supernatural Security Force Book 2) Page 18