by Jessica Gunn
“It probably is.”
Even if the rest of it weren’t made from metal, the handles sure were. I reached out and brushed my fingers along the door handles, getting a feel for it. Reaching out with my magik, I focused in on the minerals and earth, how they were combined to create this door.
“You got this, Ava,” Kian said, watching intently from over my shoulder.
I set my jaw and grabbed each door handle. And pulled.
In my mind’s eye, my magik snaked around my arms, down to my fingers, and imbued them with the power to pull metal apart. In reality, my fingers wrapped around each door handle and yanked them open. The sounds of metal scraping on metal echoed down the hall. The shrill shriek of it sent goosebumps down both arms and a chill down my spine. Beneath my magikal hold, the metal crumbled and I pushed the doors open.
Kian clapped my back. “Good job.”
My breath came in heavy gasps from the exertion of it, but I was grinning. I did do a good job, didn’t I?
Maybe I’d get used to this power after all.
I shoved the door the rest of the way open with my shoulder. Kian and I hurried through, not bothering to even attempt to make it look like we’d been here. I didn’t make it more than a few steps before what I saw on the other side froze my feet to the floor. A wave of desperate, heart-wrenching groans and cries filled my ears. My jaw fell to the floor, and my limbs immediately felt weighted down as if cement had incased my hands and feet.
The large, semi-circle room stood at least seventy-five feet across and smelled of both sterile sanitization and human suffering. To the left and right were cages. Cells with ether snapping and crackling between the bars. Dozens of people had been stuffed into each cell, and almost all had sallow, worn faces and exhausted eyes. Along the back wall were hospital beds, each with a person hooked up to several machines and IVs.
Bile slicked the back of my throat when my eyes found the courage to focus on what lay in the middle of the room: four large machines with piping. A lot of piping. And each had a chamber flowing with a deep red liquid.
Blood. Lots of it. With tiny little flecks of something glowing orange, like embers in the ashes of a fire.
Like Ember witch blood churning in machines.
My heart stopped, but my breath didn’t, now coming in short, desperate gasps that were sure to have me hyperventilating within seconds.
I reached out beside me, looking for Kian, needing him. The room started to tilt, black dots danced along the edges of my vision. Finally, my hand clasped around his still, cold one. I glanced back to find him pale as snow and just as frozen.
Mason and Talon weren’t just creating Ember witches for their army, they were farming them and their blood. Their magik, their power, their very being.
“Help us!” several of the imprisoned witches cried. “Help!”
Their pathetic, mournful pleas snapped what was left of my resolve. I started shaking my head in fast, short motions. What could we do for them? Was there anything we could do for these witches? Taking them back to Headquarters would be a start, but Fire Circle Headquarters could barely hold the witches they currently had under protection. And any life at Ether Circle Prison would still mean imprisonment.
My focus zeroed in on the arm of one prisoner. The crease of their elbow was red, the skin angry and abused from all the blood that’d been taken out of them.
But at least they won’t be farmed like they are here.
I sucked several deep breaths and swallowed hard. “We need to keep moving.”
Kian thawed beside me, the initial shock wearing off. We’d known there might be an operation down here, and if not here, absolutely Talon had another one elsewhere. We’d known.
But knowing and seeing were two very different things. And surely neither of us thought Mason would be doing this.
“We can’t leave them behind,” Kian said, looking at me like I’d kicked a kitten.
I locked my jaw. “We don’t know if this is a trap.”
“My teammates left me in a similar situation years ago,” Kian said. “I’m not walking away. I can’t.”
“Then tell me how we’re going to get all of these people out of their cells and then teleportante them all to Headquarters,” I said. “Even if some have been there before and can therefore assist with the teleportante, there’s no time. You said so yourself.”
As much as I hated to say the words, they were true. But at the very least, by coming down here, we’d confirmed our suspicions about more Talon bases.
“We can’t stay here and risk it, Kian,” I said, eyeing him down now.
He gave me that same hard stare back.
Kian wasn’t wavering. Not on this.
“Don’t worry,” said a voice from behind us.
Both Kian and I whipped around to face the speaker, my pulse pounding behind my ears.
Mason stood just outside the door, his hands clasped behind his back, and with two guards at his sides. His expression was hard, an angry line coursing along his forehead. “I knew it was a mistake to lighten security due to the test. No matter.” He waved his hand and two ropes of red-orange ether formed in front of him like snakes. “We’ll make this intrusion worth it, I assure you.”
Before Kian or I could react, Mason sent his ether attack slithering through the air between us. We tried to dodge, and I swiped at the ropes with my knife, but the ether attack wrapped around our bodies, pressing our arms to our sides, like the knife hadn’t disrupted the ether at all.
With both of us bound, Mason entered the room and came right up to me. Despite trying not to let my fear and disgust show, the evil grin that split Mason’s face sent my stomach rolling once more.
“I still wish to complete my master’s experiments,” Mason said, his voice low. “Starting with you, Ava.”
Chapter 17
“Your master is dead,” I spat at him. “In case you don’t remember.”
“Maybe,” said Mason as he continued to stare at me. His dark eyes searched mine, although I wasn’t sure what he was looking for. “His mission lives on, and I will see it through to completion.”
I gnashed my molars together and reached out with my magik, past Mason’s ether ropes, and farther into the room. A single piece of metal. My knife or Kian’s, an IV stand. I just needed something to turn into a weapon—a distraction. “What you’re doing here is unspeakable.”
Mason’s eyes narrowed. “What I’m doing here is ensuring the future of our world against those who wish to see us decimated.”
“What?” I asked. “So Darkness can rule?”
“Ava,” Kian warned.
“What’s he going to do? Kill me?” I glared at Mason. “If he was going to do that, he would have done it before now. He’s had plenty of opportunity.”
“I find it hard to kill something that my master found valuable,” Mason said. “But my patience with you is growing thin. Why are you here?”
“To find out if Crimson had the same secrets as Midnight did,” I said. “Let us go.”
Come on, come on. My magik locked on to both the knife behind my back and one of the IV stands closest to Mason. Please work.
Mason lifted an eyebrow. “You bother asking for freedom after you break into my operation here in Los Angeles?”
Got it. With a tight snap, my magik wrapped around both the knife and the IV stand and held on tight. “Had to try,” I said before throwing my head forward—the only part of me able to move.
The knife at my back flew out from its sheath and headed straight for Mason. He snatched it right out of the air with a surprised, sharp inhale but missed the IV stand soaring toward him. One of his guards went to grab it but missed. It struck Mason and the second guard at the same time, lengthwise. The hit knocked Mason’s control off guard for a single moment in which the ether ropes around both Kian and me slipped loose.
Kian tore the ropes off of him, cursing as the ether burned his skin. I did the same, ignoring the sizzling sou
nd Mason’s magik made as it seared me.
“No!” Mason yelled before picking up the IV stand and wielding it like a weapon. “You will not take this lab too!”
Mason struck out with the IV stand. I caught it in both hands and used my magik to crush it, then wrapped part of the metal around my knuckles and struck Mason in the jaw. His eyes rolled back into his head as he staggered backward.
“Hah,” I said, celebrating far too early. A fist careened into my gut from the side.
I’d completely forgotten, at least for that moment of victory against Mason, about the other demons in the room who were watching us.
One of his guards, burly and huge, with deep red eyes and unkempt facial hair, swung again. I dodged, coming up behind him, and struck him in the temple.
Weapon. Need a weapon.
I stole a quick look to the other side of Mason’s bloody face and caught Kian in his own sparring match with Mason’s other guard. Luckily for Kian, he still had his knife on him. Satisfied he’d probably win, I turned back to the guard in front of me and unleashed a barrage of kicks and punches on the unsuspecting demon.
A wave of heat warmed my back. I spun out of the way of another swing by the guard and came face-to-face with Mason. He’d recovered from my hit and now stood before me, his twisted Ember witch ether whipping around him like a cape of flames. His eyes, though still red, seemed to have embers, tiny gold flakes, sifting through them.
It looked exactly like the machines of blood did, with embers inside.
“What did he do to you?” I asked, the words out past my lips before I could reel them back in. I was too curious to truly regret them. Too winded from the fight to take them back.
Mason hesitated, only for a moment, before saying, “Veynix stabilized my power, then gave me life by turning me into a demon. Then he gave me a purpose. One which I intend to fulfill in his stead.”
Mason’s hands wrapped around mine in a motion so fast, I hadn’t seen it happening. His magik burned into my wrists, smoking where the ether ended and my skin began. “You survived his venom. But he so very much wondered if you’d survive the Ember witch poison as well. I think it’s time we discovered that for ourselves.”
“No!” I screamed and reached out with my magik once more. My knife, still lying against the ground, came to life and flew to my hand. I lifted it, slashing Mason across the stomach. Deep enough to wound, but barely anything more.
Mason let my wrists go and backed away, clutching his stomach. Blood seeped through his clothes and fingers. He’d left behind perfect handprints on my skin.
The guard—who I’d forgotten about again, dammit—latched on to my shoulders and threw me against a wall. I put out my hands to stop myself, dropping my knife to the floor. It clattered against the tile in a disappointing song.
I glanced back over my shoulder. Please let Kian be doing better. But a quick look revealed the guard Kian had been fighting was holding Kian’s arms behind his back. His lip was split and bloody, one of his eyes partially swollen.
Kian was a better fighter than that. What the hell had happened?
That was when I saw it, the deep slash in Kian’s side. One that mirrored exactly the wound I’d gotten in Kian’s safe house apartment three months ago. The demon had gotten in a good hit early on, one now infected by the powdered dharksa clinging to the outsides of the room.
“Submit,” Mason said. He stood before me, glaring with eyes that appeared to literally be on fire. It was an effect of his magik, the same magik that Veynix and other members of Talon had twisted and changed to their own agenda.
At one point, Mason had been an innocent who’d gone missing. Now he was nothing more than a martyr, another pawn for Talon and Jerrick’s cause. And he didn’t even know it.
“Over my dead body, asshole,” I spat. “I don’t care what you or Jerrick or Darkness itself is planning. Taking on the Neuians is a shit idea. You will get all of those innocents killed.” I spared the Ember witches in the cages a sad look. I couldn’t save them. Not now, and maybe not ever. “At least the ones who survive your machinations down here.”
“Brave words for someone stuck ‘down here,’” Mason said, his eyebrow raised once more, as if he had a question perpetually stuck in his head.
Not stuck for much longer.
Without glancing away from Mason first, I whispered, “Teleportante,” and closed my eyes. I reappeared a breath later next to Kian and the guard holding him hostage. I kicked him in the back and wrapped my arm around his neck, pulling him backward until he began choking.
Kian, apparently finding more fight inside himself, elbowed the demon in his ribs before twisting out of his loosened grip. Mason shot an ether attack at us, but Kian and I moved in tandem to put the demon guard between us and Mason’s attack.
I grabbed Kian’s hand and shouted, “Teleportante.”
We disappeared to the only place I could think of that’d be neutral and reappeared mere feet from the wall of protection magiks surrounding Hunter’s Guild. We stepped inside it just as Mason appeared.
We’d made it to safety. For now.
Chapter 18
The bartender at Hunter’s Guild, one of Kian’s close contacts, didn’t even hesitate as he watched us clamber in through the door. Mason kept close on our heels but stopped at the invisible threshold to the bar area. Other patrons, mostly demons in here tonight except for a group of Hunters in the back corner, eyed us warily. A few of the Hunters’ eyes even went wide, as if they recognized us or Mason—or both, if they were in the Fire Circle.
Good. Maybe one of them would give Headquarters a heads up and get us some much-needed back-up.
“What do you need?” Kian’s bartender friend asked. He was a tall man, slim too. Probably hadn’t seen a real demon fight in his life outside this pub and inn. Lucky him.
“Medical kit, if you have one,” Kian managed to get out. His words were sputtered between wet, heavy coughs.
I had half a nerve to call Bria and get her here to heal Kian, but she didn’t often go into the field. And since I also wasn’t sure what Mason intended to do by following us in here, I didn’t want to risk her life too. Neither would Kian. Especially after we had left those Ember witches behind.
Should have just gone to Headquarters. Except my instincts always told me to go to Hunter’s Guild first. To not risk Headquarters when Talon was involved.
I’d probably never get over it.
“Please,” I said, further driving home the point—unnecessarily—that Kian was seriously injured.
The bartender nodded once and disappeared behind the bar.
“You know,” Mason called from the dining area, filled with booths and tables, “if you return with me, I’ll get him a healer.”
I didn’t bother turning around. Demonic healers rarely helped Hunters—mostly because healers were generally claimed by the Hunter Circles first. And if one of the Circles managed to lose or turn on one of those healers, they didn’t tend to look favorably on those who’d left them behind.
“I honestly do not want either of you to die,” Mason called again.
This time I did turn around. “Then back the fuck off. Neither of us wants anything to do with your Ember witch army other than to end it. What you’re doing is wrong. If you’re that concerned with the Neuians, you and the rest of Talon need to realize it’s us versus them. And kidnapping, torturing, and transforming magik-users into Ember witches and then again into demons is not going to build favor with the Hunter Circles. Or the Powers.”
Mason’s face took on an expression of utter rage. I flinched as he closed the distance between us until he was standing so close to me, I felt his hot breath on my lips. Smoke rose from his fingers as if he were holding back an Ember ether attack, but only barely.
“Don’t speak of the Neuians so freely, Ava,” Mason warned. “Nor Talon’s plans.”
Kian turned around, an exhausted look on his otherwise unbothered face.
My p
anic fled at Kian’s expression. I’d momentarily forgotten about the protection magiks inside Hunter’s Guild. Mason couldn’t hurt either of us here even if he wanted to. Not unless he was stronger than ninety-nine percent of all demons in existence and could knock the protection magiks down before they slapped him in the face with equal power for trying.
“Why?” I asked as I placed a hand on my hip. “Is the rest of Darkness not too keen on what you’re doing?”
Mason’s eyes flashed with anger, but he kept his fists at his sides, balled as they were. His chest heaved with rage-filled breaths, his nostrils flaring.
“They’re not,” I said. It was the only explanation for his reaction. So that Rebel Darkness Faction nurse, Ben’s contact, must have been telling the truth. Even most of Darkness didn’t want to mess with the Neuians. My awe of that was only minutely outdone by my fear.
“Here you go,” the bartender said as he returned with a small bag. He held it over the counter for me to grab. I did so before Mason could. “And a room?”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
“I owe you,” Kian said, his attention totally on his friend. He either was confident in Mason’s inability to break through the protection magiks or more far gone than I thought.
The bartender tapped a few things on the one computer in the entire building. A few seconds later, he retrieved a key from beneath the bar and handed it over to me. “Room four. Don’t worry about the tab right now.” He gave a pointed look at Mason, who didn’t say a word.
“Thanks.” Key in one hand, I wrapped one of Kian’s arms around my shoulders and helped him over to the stairs. “Almost there.”
Kian emitted some sort of grunt of acknowledgement—I thought, anyway—and kept moving. So did Mason. He followed us up the stairs and down to our room on the second floor.
Mason stopped when we did and leaned against the balcony railing that overlooked the main floor below. Where the pillars and archways in here used to be made from wood and sometimes stone, they’d now been reinforced with steel. The addition was added after the Guild had nearly been destroyed two years ago.