“Why do you have that contraption?” Mission Leader Ajani asked, pointing to the cuff on his wrist.
Before the acquisitions could start, he redirected their focus. “Hota is behind that door. I can feel him.”
He could feel Kivah too, but that was another subject he wanted to guard from the Mission. Ajani gave a more direct order to open the door, but despite their individual strength, it took a couple more betas to force the door open.
Being the closest to the open door, he stepped forward first, peering into the vastness. His eyes immediately fell on the circle of light among the gloom. Silver caught the light as an object flung onto his vest. It sat a second, long enough for his mind to register the spider-like body. It looked up at him with a human face and gnashing jaws. Its claws caught the fabric, but didn’t pierce his tactical vest as it crawled towards his face. He took the butt of his gun and smashed it.
“Go!” The order came from a few leaders behind him.
A beta squeezed past him, quicker than he could grab. The man made it halfway into the room, but nowhere near the circle where the light was brightest, before the crawling floor swarming with the mechanical bugs, consumed him. Beyond the throng of mechanical bugs was a clear circle with the assassin laying at the center and a large, black werewolf pacing along the inside of the line.
The mechanical bugs crawled and twisted over each other, but none of them attempted to leave the room. They stayed a few feet from the door as if they weren’t aware of the werewolves standing beyond it. His attention returned to the circle that was at least forty feet from where they stood. Hota’s back was to them. He stared at the darkness and paced with fervor.
“Something’s off,” Tristen said, over his shoulder.
“Something more than those mechanical freaks scurrying around?” Briley asked, just as close.
The something in question was big. Its long, spiny legs were first to part from the curtain of darkness. The torso was human, with death-gray skin and a hallow chest. Her smooth, bald head had patches of stringy, black hair. Her eyes held his as the rest of her long, shelled body parted from the dark. Her tail end curved upward like a scorpion.
“Jesus,” was mumbled behind him. He didn’t dare take his eyes off her as she moved to the circle. Hota stopped pacing and hunched, ready to spring. Given the distance he couldn’t hear what the creature was saying, nor could he hear Hota’s growls, but his body vibrated in response.
Pembroke pushed to the front. “There isn’t a way to reach them.”
The outline of the circle and the lines within started to glow. Dread bubbled in the pit of his stomach. Kivah was on his feet, both blades drawn but he didn’t move past the line. Waves of power reverberated through the air. From the few lessons he accepted from his father on being a Skin Walker, he’d classify this energy as destructive and from an unnatural force.
“There are too many of those things. We aren’t going to be able to get in there,” Dax said.
“Disk,” Mercer ordered.
“Ahead of you, chief,” Axel said.
There was no warning. The disk hummed as it glided through the air. The second it touched the moving ground, Mercer turned away, shielding his face from the first spark of light. Fierce heat slammed into his back, shoving him to the floor. The heat continued to press against him, though the blaring light faded into darkness against his closed eyelids.
“Are you okay?” Tristen asked, surprisingly close to his ear.
“I might have a broken rib, but I’m okay,” Axel said, equally close and breathless.
Seconds ticked before he was aware that people were moving underneath him. He blinked a few times finding that the disconnection wasn’t only visual; it lingered in his sense of hearing too. Dax and Rider pulled him to his feet, freeing Axel and Tristen. They broke his fall, but he took the brunt of the abuse. The soles of his shoes were gone and the bottoms of his feet were raw. He swallowed the taste of blood in the back of his throat, aware he bit his tongue during the blast. Turning would fix the physical damage, but it had to wait. Kivah warned them not to change into their werewolf form while in the magi’s realm.
Jesus, Kivah and Hota were in the room when the disk went off.
The Mission and their betas were already past the door and into the room littered with tiny mechanical body parts and dark splotches of liquid. His attention went to the circle. Both were standing, looking no worse for the wear. Hota, in werewolf form, came to Kivah’s hips in height. With a werewolf at his side, the assassin looked even more mysterious.
He started to walk in and Rider blocked the doorway whose frame was riddled with the sharp metal pieces. “All due respect, but are you in any shape to do this?”
Mercer gave his shoulders a tentative roll. The muscle in his back screamed in agony. No doubt the vest saved him from further damage. It was luck he didn’t get shrapnel in the back of his head. “I can handle this, Rider.”
The werewolves needed him. He was their only way out of the realm. Rider nodded and stepped to the side.
TWENTY-EIGHT
The explosion was vast. The brilliant light was sheer against his eyelids and skin, but not nearly as hot as the disks could get. It took a moment for his vision to return, long after the room returned to its quiet darkness. The werewolf beside him shifted its weight, impatiently.
“Those were expensive,” he told Hota. The werewolf glanced at him with dark, intelligent eyes. He looked away first, surveying the room. Chancellor’s spell possessed mechanical toys were shattered and the magi wasn’t currently present.
The circle was still open, but before he could assess how charged the chalk line was, Hota leaped over it. His surprised yelp brought the Mission in their direction.
He stayed put, watching Mercer break through the arms of the betas trying to keep him from getting closer to the circle. A few black strands of hair were pulled loose from his ponytail and brushed along his shoulders. His shoes were gone and his jeans were burnt to his knees leaving his skin red and raw. It had to hurt, but his face masked the pain. He respected the warrior within the Texas alpha.
Mercer stopped at the edge of the circle. His eyes dropped to the chalk line that separated them and followed it upward, aware of the power that hummed along the ritual ring.
Wolffey held his breath, steeling his strength as he crossed over the line. The power was electric and the jolt painfully touched every nerve in his body. Hands caught him under the arms, righting him. He pulled away from Mercer, who caught him again before he crossed the ritual line. He pushed away again, but didn’t step back. “I told you to stay put.”
Mercer’s lip twitched into a half smirk. “You give me orders I’ll never follow, which is mutual.”
“You need to take your werewolves and leave.”
“Is that another order?” Despite the tension, humor touched his tone.
It was short lived. The magi fell from a web string into the center of the space, separating them from the herd. Mercer started towards the fight and Wolffey caught his shoulder, yanking him back. The werewolves were keeping their distance from Chancellor’s jabbing tail, but if she turned on a dime, Mercer would get caught off guard.
“Chancellor isn’t going to let any of you leave,” he said. The weight of his words hit harder than the damage he put his body through. Without his help, the werewolves weren’t getting out alive.
Mercer’s eyes darkened. “We knew the risks. Thank you for finding Hota.”
The waver that rippled the air was the only sign something was about to happen. It was magic Aire’Si could never teach him, but he felt it as unmistakable as the wind. The room was a web of energy, long, tin webs that caught every movement.
Her power rippled outward, sending them flying back over the line into the circle. His head whacked the ground, sending a sickening whiteness through his skull and down his spine.
“Don’t move on my account, gentlemen,” she tsked her tongue. Her bug like legs scurried h
er around to look at them, trapped in her circle. “You saved me a great deal of trouble bringing another Skin Walker, Wolffey. I’ll need him in another two hundred years.”
Wolffey rolled onto his uninjured side, but the agony pressed through every limb making it difficult to breathe. His sweat was clotting and sour, drenched with the venom that was devouring his body. Beyond that, he could smell Mercer in the fabric of his borrowed clothes and the warmth that enveloped him when the alpha touched him. He shook his head to clear his drifting thoughts.
The smell of blood was strong. His stomach tightened with hunger. Not even the suppressants kept that part of his dark nature under control. The werewolves’ energy dominated the metaphysical currents. His skin crawled with their combined vitality, but Chancellor could easily dispel it.
He drew his arms underneath him and forced his body up. The movement made his stomach lurch, forcing its bloody contents onto the stone floor in front of him. Strands of his hair fell over his face, drifting with every labored breath he took. The wheezing was hollow and loud to his ears. He couldn’t straighten his curled fingers. The venom caused every nerve to fire with a vengeance. It grew increasingly difficult to think with every passing moment.
If he curled up in pain, he would die in that position. His body wouldn’t straighten. He forced his eyes open when he realized he was drifting again.
Beyond the circle he now resided alone in, there were little golden shelled bugs moving from deep pockets of shadow into the light. Their feet clicked on the flooring as they passed him in drones. The werewolves were sitting targets, spread out, ready to overpower something they’d never witnessed in flesh and bone before.
Gaia, be with him. The werewolves needed him. He forced his bent fingers to uncurl enough to dig into the blue pouch on his hip. He unearthed a tiny glass pill box. Within it was a single, grainy, black oval pill. It was the only one the voodoo priestess gave him and not without a striking trade.
The pill felt like a rock on his dry tongue. Swallowing it was made repulsive by the bloody slickness and thicker material at the back of his throat. Gravity settled the pill like cement in his stomach. There was no time to regret his decision, though the consequences were disquieting. A desperate man, a dying one, would’ve made the same decision.
He counted the seconds, listening to the chaos. There was too much noise to pinpoint what was going on. The screams made his ears ache and heart race, but, all too quickly, his heart slowed and his body felt still inside and out. Sour, chalky bile crawled up the back of his throat. The pill instantly dissolved and with it, his muscles loosened enough to allow mobility.
Gaia, bless the voodoo priestess. There was a very small window of opportunity before the worse of the effects dominated everything.
He forced himself onto his feet and waited to ensure the vertigo didn’t send him face first into the stone flooring. When it didn’t, he lifted himself to his full height, holding his breath so he wouldn’t vomit. He couldn’t stand the thickness of his liquefied guts coming back up.
The werewolves were falling fast. Mercer was batting the bugs crawling over his legs, pulling him down. Rider was bleeding, Axel was on the ground. Briley and Dax were trapped against the wall and Wyatt was lost among the chaos. The others were strangers, but their screams left him perturbed.
If they were going to have a chance, the little metal bugs had to go, but he couldn’t accomplish this within the circle. His balance was shot, and shuffling his feet further destroyed the crafted salt circle. If he failed, Chancellor would be drawing a new circle and using both Mercer and Hota as a sacrifice.
He crossed the threshold, feeling the undiluted pull of the room. The essence was frenzied. The werewolves, without knowing it, were contaminating the ritual room with their Topside energy.
Wolffey whispered the words from the spell book he’d stolen from Bohu a decade ago. There was no energy attached to the words, but he refused to let panic enfold him. He repeated the spell until the words left the edge of his tongue tingling. This time, he knew as the words left his lips that it was going to work. He released the words and it took his reserves, pulling the spell together and sending it out into the room.
Anything that gleamed gold sparkled into a fine dust and completely disappeared into the murky surroundings. Chancellor threw her head back and screamed. The werewolves standing as humans threw their hands over their ears. The ones that changed threw back their heads and howled to counteract the ear shattering noise. Going deaf was the least of his worries as he pulled a bow and watched the quiver vibrate with the tremor in his hand.
The earth shook under his feet when Chancellor moved her massive body toward him. He held his breath, dripping the arrowhead and the front half of his quiver with the venom. There would be only one shot.
Her face twisted with pain and anger. “A werewolf should not know such powerful sorcery! What have you become?”
“I’m not a werewolf,” he answered. He refused to look beyond her, to locate Mercer in the crowd. The few standing werewolves blinked at him. He was not a werewolf. He repeated that to himself, though he cared more than he ought to about their wellbeing.
“I’m going to gut you and stuff you for my garden,” she swore in her ancient language.
He shouldn’t have understood, but it was as clear as day. Rufus once told him, that after death, every language was comprehensible. Even the spell she wove linked meaning. She released it and the energy slammed into him, knocking him off his feet and into the small pillar behind him.
His rib cracked on impact, sending a weightless haze rolling through his body, but the pain wasn’t present thanks to the pill from the voodoo priestess. The pill was working too well now. Not much longer and he’d be useless to everyone, except the garden when he became Chancellor’s life size lawn ornament.
Werewolves jumped onto Chancellor’s back, forcing her to swing back in response. Her tail whipped out and someone yelped. Wolffey heart raced. What if it had been Mercer? The alpha didn’t know when to leave it alone.
He forced himself up. There wasn’t enough strength inside him for a more precise spell. Anything in the crossfire would be affected. He removed the small vial of Beithir blood and popped the cork. The thick, green slime spilled over his exposed fingertips as he poured it on the arrowhead and partially over the bone quiver. The tremor in his hands left much to waste as it spilled onto the ground.
He positioned the quiver nook against the bow string and pulled back and took his stance, waiting as Chancellor knocked the last of the werewolves from her body. One of her human arms hung limply by a strand of muscle, but she was no less dangerous.
He waited for his moment, senses dull and mind closing down. She spun in his direction, stopping a werewolf short with the spiked tip of her tail. She tossed him back and Wolffey released the bow and a silent prayer. It cut through the air, slamming home into her blackened heart.
The muscles in his shoulders clenched, forcing him to drop the bow. Chancellor reared back and charged, but her back limbs went down first, forcing her front legs to drag her body.
“I’ll kill you. I’ll eat your guts, Wolffey!” She screamed. Her black eyes roved in her head, unable to focus. She jerked herself along until her limbs failed. Her teeth gnashed at the air until her last breath shuddered through her body.
“What did you do?” Hota asked. The Mission Leader was shirtless, but nothing of the beast lingered at the forefront of his skin.
Wolffey sagged under the weight of his pounding head and feverishly hot skin. He heard the question, but his thoughts were slow to formulate a conscious answer.
“Beithir venom, it’s the only thing that can kill another Beithir demon,” he answered, surprised that his tongue still worked.
Hota’s brows furrowed. “Demon?”
The word was repeated by others. The Mission crept forward with their automatics at their side. He didn’t try to gauge how many were still loaded. At this point, there was only o
ne reason to stay alive.
He glanced around the standing men and Mercer wasn’t one of them. He pushed through the group, and a strong grip on his upper arm stopped him. He turned to face his dilemma.
“Kivah Lemke, you’re charged with conspiring with the fey, breaking the verboden code of conduct, hunting without a pack and not submitting to the Mission immediately,” Tamerlane Gorman said.
Wolffey looked past Tamerlane, to where Mercer gripped the floor, vomiting. He jerked from Tamerlane’s hold and turned Hota. “I can save Mercer, but you need to guarantee that I won’t be attacked when I return.”
Hota chin lifted and he swallowed hard, before nodding. It wasn’t a stern promise, but Wolffey took it. He focused on the Rainbow room, a room he saw only once, but remembered in explicit detail. The ritual chamber melted away, leaving the werewolves and the merge of negative energy behind. When the world rematerialized, he was in front of an arched door. Bright pink light slipped out from underneath the massive door frame.
He pressed both pieces of the key together and slid it into the cutout at the center of the decorative door. Gears started to grind behind the heavy, spell bound wall and the door slowly swung inward. The circular room had four stone, massive, arched windows unguarded by glass or shutters. Each window showcased an alien atmosphere; one was black with stars, the next window had no visibility past the cotton candy pink mist that ebbed and flowed, the next window showed white horses in a field outlined with thick jungle and the fourth was a barren land with red dust that the wind swept into mini dust devils.
He held his breath and stepped across the threshold, expecting the same electric current the ritual circle gave off. Nothing physically attacked his senses. The room was cool with a hint of sulfur sitting in the air. Items were displayed on pillows on different level pillars throughout the room. The glass cases were along the wall with smaller items carefully placed. What he needed sat between the cotton candy pink mist window, and the starry night window.
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