by Laken Cane
So all she could do was try to put them from her mind.
On the way to Kentucky, she called Eugene.
“I need to catch you up on some things,” she told him, when he answered.
“I’m listening,” he said.
She told him about the assassin, the pikes, and the death of Epik.
“Where is the assassin?” was his first question.
“I let him go,” she lied.
“You let him go,” he repeated.
“I made a decision. He’s not going to do anything that might stop him from getting his fix. And we can use him.”
“Where are you now?” he sounded tired and discouraged.
“On my way to Tick Ridge in Reverence. I have the location of the Kentucky Shop head, and he has a lab in his house. Killing Epik might stop them from creating more lab monsters, but Orson Blackthorne is not someone I want to leave alive. Megan is there.” She paused. “And there might be more tank babies.”
“Rune…”
“Yeah?”
He sighed. “Try to stay alive. I’ll be there soon.”
“I’m not planning on dying, Eugene.”
His voice strengthened. “And this time, if there are tank babies, guard them yourself. Don’t leave them to Owen.”
Her heart, for one long moment, stopped beating. “Owen did not kill those babies.”
“Guard them yourself, Rune, that’s all I’m saying.”
But it wasn’t all he was saying, damn him.
She wasn’t going to let him make her suspicious of her own men.
“I’ll talk with you when you get there,” she said, and started to hang up.
“One more thing, Rune.”
“What?”
“When all this is over, I want to assign you to one of my men. I think he’s having problems with some people, but he refuses to say. I need you to shadow him for a couple days.”
“You want me to guard a man who doesn’t want to be guarded?”
“I don’t want him to know you’re tailing him. If you see him being…harassed, I’d like you to report back to me. Tell me who is troubling him.”
“Yeah, fine. I’ll spy on your man. Who is he?”
He cleared his throat. “It’s Bill Rice.”
Fuck me.
“Dude,” she said. “No. I’m not spying on Bill Rice.”
From the passenger seat, Lex vibrated gently, her face turned toward the window. But Rune knew the little Other was interested. And worried.
Raze leaned up from the backseat. “What is it?”
“He’s being hurt, Rune. Haven’t you noticed a difference in him over the last few months?”
Yeah. Yeah, she had. “Maybe.”
“You know Rice. He’s too proud to come to any of us for help. But something, or someone, has him terribly upset. He’s in trouble. I want to help him.
“Listen,” he went on, when she remained silent. “Just follow him. If you see something and want to take care of it yourself, that’s great. You don’t have to say a word to me. Handle it.”
So she relented. “I’ll make sure he’s okay when I get back.”
“Thank you, Rune.”
“Yeah.” She hung up.
But the call had left a bad taste in her mouth. She’d known something was going on with Bill.
“What’s wrong with Rice?” Raze asked.
“I don’t know. Eugene wants me to trail him when we get back.”
“Any news of Karin?” he asked, throwing a concerned glance at Lex when she growled.
“No. She’s in hiding. Regrouping.”
“We’ll know when she starts her shit,” Lex said. “But she’ll start small.”
Raze patted Lex’s shoulder, his well-meaning pats a little too hard. He said nothing.
“I have my demon,” Lex murmured, but she knew as well as they did that her demon wasn’t going to make up for a frozen, broken mind. She’d had a mini taste of that when Epik had become her mother.
“And us,” Rune said.
“Don’t worry about the berserker and Owen,” Lex told her, suddenly. “They’ll be fine.”
“I’m not worried, baby.”
Lex smiled. “They’ll be fine.”
“I know, Lex. I’m not worried.”
“They will be fine.”
Rune tightened her fingers on the steering wheel. “How do you know?”
“The berserker is giving Owen a spanking. They love you. They’re not going to kill each other.”
Rune said nothing.
“They won’t be of any use to us in the hospital,” Raze muttered. “You can’t use a shiv if your fingers are broken. Matheson could’ve waited for a quiet moment.”
Rune laughed. “We don’t have quiet moments.”
They lapsed into silence, each of them thinking about the time ahead. About Reverence, and the Shop head none of them really wanted to meet.
It was as though Reverence knew they were coming.
The town was grim and sinister, quietly watchful with its empty streets and burnt buildings.
Rune’s stomach tightened as she drove, her gaze going constantly to the rearview mirror to make sure Jack was still behind her.
She felt the berserker’s absence and cursed him for it. She grabbed her phone and punched in his number, furious when it went to voicemail.
“You’re fired, Berserker,” she bellowed.
Lex and Raze laughed, making her grin even through her anger. Immediately, the mood lightened and the town seemed a little less ominous.
They saw no one all the way to Tick Ridge. The only movement came from a couple of deer as they leaped away to the safety of the woods at the sound of the two cars.
“Spooky quiet,” Lex murmured. “Where are all the people?”
“We killed a hell of a lot of them,” Raze said.
“Third hill coming up.” Rune blew out a hard breath. “You guys ready?”
And just that suddenly, they were. The excitement of the fight overrode the eeriness of the strange town, and they looked eagerly ahead for the village.
“And there it is,” Rune said.
She parked on the street right in front of Blackthorne’s house—he’d have known they were there no matter where she put the car.
The assassin was right. The village was full of nondescript houses and nothing about Orson Blackthorne’s gave any hint to the horror that would surely be found inside it.
The house was a blue two-story. The yard was well kept and lush with plants, flowers, shrubbery. There was even a child’s bicycle lying on its side against a sandbox.
The other houses on the block were pretty much identical, varying only in color and types of toys or plants in the yards.
Very bland, very innocent looking.
Yet gooseflesh arose on her skin, and she rubbed her arms, shivering.
“Yeah,” Lex said, standing between her and Raze, staring up at a house she couldn’t see. “That’s some scary shit.”
Jack and the twins joined them, their steps quiet and careful. Lex and Levi clasped hands.
“Let’s go kill some monsters,” Rune said, and shot out her claws.
They wouldn’t be afraid, not of the fight.
We’re Shiv Crew.
“It’s what we do,” Lex finished, as though Rune had said the words aloud.
And they strode to the house, Rune in the lead, her crew at her back.
Ready for anything.
They thought.
Chapter Fifty
Inside, the house was a chaotic mess. She spotted two dead bodies almost before she’d crossed the threshold.
“No one is up here,” Lex said. “I don’t feel any heat other than ours.” Then she pointed at the floor. “But there, they’re waiting.”
“Enemies?” Rune asked. “Or…”
“I don’t know.”
They also didn’t know how to get to the basement lab. There were no steps leading down and no hidden door
ways they could find.
“Outside,” Rune said. “These fucks always have entrances in the ground or the hillsides.”
She was right.
The houses were little more than props to hide the real world the Shop boss had created underground.
And they would never have found it if not for Lex.
Blackthorne had likely believed he and his lab were safe. No one knew how to get inside the lab, and that would be where Orson and maybe his closest henchmen hid out.
But Blackthorne wasn’t aware the crew had someone like Lex, the bloodhound of demons.
And that was just too bad for him.
In the backyard, there was nothing. No patio furniture, no deck, no plants. It was, however, surrounded by a tall fence that Rune was pretty sure would be electrified. Not that it mattered. She didn’t want out.
“Where the fuck is it?” she muttered. “Lex, are you sure you feel people under the ground? Living people?”
Lex walked across the yard, then walked back, ignoring the crew’s impatience. Five minutes later, she fell to her knees in the middle of the yard. “Here,” she said.
They gathered around her. “What is it?” Rune asked.
Lex looked up, her blind eyes dancing crazily, her palms on the ground before her. “Magic, Rune. We can’t get into the lab. It’s…” she gestured angrily. “It’s hidden by magic. They’re not under the house. They’re inside the ground.” Then she shook her head and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. “No, not really inside the ground. It’s like they’re on a different plane. Or in a different world.”
No wonder Orson Blackthorne was unafraid.
And no wonder his lab was never found.
Rune turned in circles, trying to find something, anything, that would say Lex was wrong, and that they could get inside that lab.
But there was nothing.
“In hell,” she said, remembering the assassin’s words. “The lab is in hell. And how the fuck do we get into hell?”
“Kill people and shit?” Lex suggested.
Jack snorted. “Yeah, but we can’t be waiting that long.” He slammed his blades back into their sheaths.
“I think I know a way,” the berserker said from the back doorway. Then he opened his arms.
It was the first time in her life Rune could ever remember making a sound that resembled anything close to a squeal. She ran, too fast, and leaped at Strad.
He was ready for her—else he’d have been knocked over by the sheer force and speed of her body.
“Damn you, Berserker.” Her whisper was lost as she pressed her lips to his warm throat, but it didn’t matter. He heard her.
He squeezed her, hard, and released a long, tired, contented breath. “Hi, sweetheart.”
She pushed herself out of his arms and cleared her throat, almost afraid to look at her crew. They’d be watching her with grins and smirks, the bastards.
Strad looked like he’d been run over by a truck. Several times. He was a huge, battered, bloody mess. He hadn’t taken time to clean up, and there were no signs that he’d seen a doctor.
She glared at him. “Are you okay?”
He grinned.
She put her hands on her hips. “Where’s Owen?”
“No idea. He was alive when I left him. I checked my phone and heard where you were heading.” He lost his grin. “I wasn’t going to let you walk into this alone, Rune.”
“And you and Owen kicking the shit out of each other. That solve anything?”
He shrugged, but a smile played at the corners of his swollen lips. “I feel better.” Then he studied her, his expression serious. “I did what I needed to do. When you do what you need to do…”
“What, Berserker?” Her voice was little more than a whisper.
His smile was rueful. “We’ll see.”
“Men are idiots,” Lex said, then wrapped her arms around Strad’s middle, giving him a hard hug before pulling him further into the yard. It no longer made her cry to touch the berserker. “Now tell us how we get into the lab.”
“Remember,” he said, “When you were in the clinic, and—”
“Of course,” she yelled. “The circle!”
And then they all understood.
“Yes,” Rune said. “That power circle. It will get us where we need to go.”
How any of them knew that, she couldn’t have said. But it was a deep, unquestionable fact.
It was as though when the circle had happened, it had given them that knowledge, and they’d somehow forgotten it.
I know you. How did I forget?
The berserker reached out for Rune’s hand, and then for Lex’s. The other four were quick to join, and there was absolutely no doubt in any of their minds that they were doing the right thing.
And that with more of them in the circle, something big was going to happen. Something always did.
Strad let go of her hand long enough to wipe away a trickle of blood that slid from his ear and down his neck, causing Rune to frown. “Berserker?”
“I’m good.” He smiled, and she thought he seemed much too happy for someone who’d taken a beating.
But he’d be okay. He was the berserker.
“What now?” Jack asked.
“I think that’s up to Lex,” Denim said.
“Not just me,” Lex said. She motioned at Rune. “To you, as well.”
Rune nodded. She wasn’t sure what to do, or what she’d done last time, but she and Lex were the sparks that would start that particular fire.
She started to close her eyes, but right before she did, she saw Owen.
He limped out from the back doorway and leaned weakly against the house. He looked like he’d already been to hell and had somehow managed to find his way back.
He watched them with longing on his broken face, but he made no attempt to join them.
As though he knew he wasn’t one of them.
Not really.
She wouldn’t have recognized him if she hadn’t been so familiar with his hair and his particular way of holding his body.
“Shit,” she murmured, near tears.
The berserker had nearly killed him.
She squeezed Strad’s hand, getting his attention, and he followed her gaze across the yard and to the injured cowboy.
The berserker sighed. The others stiffened, unsure if Strad was going to finish Owen off or ignore him.
He did neither.
“Owen,” he roared. “Are you waiting for one of us to carry you over here?”
Owen straightened, or tried to, then hobbled to them as fast as he could. The twins broke apart to allow him between them, and then, with the last of their crew in his place, the circle was complete.
“Strad.”
He looked down at her, then frowned. “What’s wrong?”
She smiled and shook her head.
He waited.
“I…”
But he squeezed her hand. He knew.
She didn’t have to say the words.
He knew.
And across from her, Owen peered at her from his swollen, battered face, then limped toward her. There was determination in that limp.
Ignoring Strad, he grabbed her upper arms and leaned down to whisper something to her that left her breathless.
And a little horrified.
Then he went back to his place like nothing had happened.
The berserker stared at her, the look in his eyes angry and the tiniest bit exasperated.
“See?” Lex called. “Your fight solved nothing.”
But it had. The berserker had done what needed doing, and there was nothing else to do—because he wasn’t ready to kill Owen.
Not yet.
The rest was up to her. Exactly as it should have been.
Yeah, she’d settled on the berserker.
But something about Owen got to her.
She shivered, and threw him a quick look.
“I know you want me, too. That
won’t stop. I won’t fucking let it.”
“Fuck you,” she mouthed.
But he just smiled.
Because Owen, he knew as well.
Chapter Fifty-One
The power hit her as it had before, encompassing her, devouring her. Zings of electricity shot through her body, and unlike before, this time it was complete.
The circle.
Someone cried out.
The energy grew and thrived, created by and from the monster and the demon, then forced itself through every one of them.
It was something incomprehensible and went beyond anything any of them had ever imagined existed.
It was…life.
Magic. Their magic.
Power, raw and real.
The exquisiteness of that power hurt. Hurt, because it was too right, too good. Too much.
Just…too much.
And when she thought she would explode from it, it flung her away from her people. She landed against the fence, hard, but it didn’t hurt her.
She couldn’t have been hurt right then. Not by anything.
At last, she opened her eyes, expecting to be underground. But she wasn’t—she was still in the backyard, against the fence the power had tossed her into.
Her crew lay scattered about the yard. They slowly began picking themselves up, their movements slow. Dazed and befuddled, they walked toward her.
“Wow,” Levi said. Then he began to cry. Loud, ugly sobs.
Denim and Lex grabbed him and the two of them embraced him, holding him as he cleansed himself of the black. The evil.
He washed it away.
Rune could feel it, as surely as Lex felt her when they fought, or when she read one of them.
So that’s what it’s like.
The berserker and Owen were still battered, still bloody, but they stood without wobbling, and she knew they could fight.
While the effects of that power rushed through them, they were beyond the reaches of their human frailty.
“It might not last long,” she told them. “Let’s do this.”
But do what?
Lex pulled away from Levi, who had quieted. “Rune. Look.”
She saw it then. It swirled and danced above the ground on the other side of the yard.
The same green magic that had left Epik’s dead body.