by Deanna Chase
The agent moved closer to her, his hand outstretched. “Do you need to see someone? You look… off.”
But she didn’t look off at all. Not to me. Her shoulders relaxed, a hint of a smile on her angular face, and when she turned to me she said, “What are you doing down here? You hate being underground.”
Fat tears of relief sprang to my eyes. She wasn’t the director I’d come to loathe in the last few years. She was my aunt. The one who used to visit when Beau and I were kids. The sweet, loving, caring aunt I’d long since forgotten. I clamped down on the joy blossoming in my chest.
You can’t trust her, Wil.
Her act could be a very clever ruse.
“Take me home, Maude,” I whispered the order, casting a sideways glance at the agent.
“Of course. Sure.” She snapped her fingers. “Agent, arrange for my niece to get home as soon as possible.”
He glanced between the two of us, clearly suspicious. Maude was not following the plan. Oh no. Maude needed to get her she-bitch back in gear, stat. Or else he was going to be a problem.
“Now, Agent!” she demanded. “Can’t you see she’s hurt? And get someone to carry her dog out to the car.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The agent cast me a cold hard stare and then ran up the stairs two at a time.
He wasn’t buying Maude’s sudden change of heart. We had to get out of there. Fast. Before the cavalry came. I turned to Maude. “Listen.”
She smiled and nodded.
“Whatever happens, your first priority is to get me and Link out of the building. You are to follow my orders and no one else’s. Are you clear?”
“Clear,” she parroted.
“Good,” I said more to myself than her as I eyed Link. No way was I leaving him, but we couldn’t carry him either. I crouched down beside him, and let out an enormous sigh of relief when his chest rose. He was indeed alive. Thank the powers that be.
I ran my hand over his fur, reached down, and yanked out the yellow dart still stuck in his leg. The shimmering glow encircled him and a second later he was Shih Tzu again. The dart. That’s what had kept him wolf while he’d been out. And his wolf form had saved his life.
Whooping for joy, I grabbed him and hugged him to my chest. I glanced back at Maude. “Let’s go.”
“You’re the boss,” she said cheerily and swept past me up the stairs. When she got halfway up, she glanced back. “You know, I don’t think the director is going to like this.”
I stopped my laborious climb and braced myself against the wall with my free hand. “The director? You’re the director.”
She laughed, a deep throaty sound. “No. That’s what he wants you to think. He likes moving the players around the board. But now… Well, things just got really interesting.”
She was amused. Completely and utterly thrilled to be under my control. And I hadn’t compelled her to think or feel any particular way. A horrible realization washed over me. “Maude?”
“Yes?”
“How long have you been under the Influence?”
“Combined time?”
I nodded.
“Three years. Right after you invented it.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Oh, Jesus,” I whispered, barely able to breathe. “Three years. All because of my creation.”
Maude’s face turned grim. “We’ll talk about it later. Right now, we need to get out of here.”
I nodded. But who was the director? Since the guard could be back any minute, the information had to wait. Once up the narrow stairs, we crept into the brightly lit, deserted hall.
At the end of the corridor we came to the first connection. White gleamed in every direction, only broken by nondescript gray doors. Maude grabbed my arm, clutching it so tightly my knees almost buckled.
I jerked, my back throbbing with a dull ache as I whirled on her. “What are you doing?” She should be under my Influence. Had it all been an act? If so, she was vying for an Oscar.
She smiled. “Relax. I’m doing what I have to in order to get you and your dog out of here.”
“Oh.” I forced the suspicion out of my mind. All kinds of flags would be raised if anyone saw her letting me waltz out of the building.
She pulled me close to her body once more and pushed me down the hallway.
“What about David?” I whispered. I’d forced myself to not think about him while I’d been underground. There wasn’t anything I could do from there anyway. But now… I couldn’t just leave him.
She shook her head. “He’s being monitored. There’s no way you’re getting to him now. But Allcot will probably work a trade.” Her hand tightened on my bicep when a clean-cut scientist with black-framed glasses strode toward us, a crooked sneer pasted on his face.
“Director.” He bowed his head in a patronizing nod. “I’ll take the subject from here.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw her raise her chin. Her tone shifted back to evil-bitch mode. “You’ll have your chance, Felton. My plans won’t take long.”
Felton’s lips formed two thin, straight lines. His eyes narrowed and his pupils constricted. “Director.” He dragged the word out in barely controlled anger. “I think maybe you misunderstood. We have an experiment ready. I must insist you bring Rhoswen in now.” The tension drained from his posture, and his tone turned neutral, almost uninterested. “We’ll be quick. And I’ll personally bring her to your office when we’re done.”
Link twitched and opened his eyes, staring up at me in confusion. I clutched him to me, ready to run. Felton wasn’t negotiating. He was ordering her. This man was the true director. He had to be the one Influencing Maude.
Maude smiled tightly, exactly as her Influenced personality would have, and then gave him an impatient nod. “Make it fast.”
Then she sprang into action, propelling me forward with enough force that I slammed into the slimy little bastard. My shoulder jammed into his chest, and I took him down in a heap. A fireball of frustration blazed a path through my sanity as I fought to extract myself from a tangle of limbs.
Link rolled and came up snarling. Felton didn’t hesitate. Knocking Link aside, he lashed out one arm and clutched me around my neck. Before I could even attempt to throw him off, his grip tightened, abruptly cutting off my air.
“Let go,” I tried to choke out, but the words wouldn’t form. My face grew hot with effort as I clawed at his forearm and kicked with zero result. Panic gripped my mind. Do something, Willow. Anything. But I couldn’t move and all too soon my vision started to blur. Phoebe’s face flashed through my mind, along with the memory of her insistence I take a self-defense class. Everything started to fade. The light. The agony seizing my battered body. A faint sound of voices.
Peace settled over me. A faded memory of Beau and Talisen, arm in arm on the beach, lulled me into a soothing fog of tranquility. The world went dark. Was this it? Was I dying here on the cold floor of the Arcane? Maybe Beau was waiting…
The harsh slap of fluorescent lighting blinded me. Sound rushed in with the air filling my lungs. Vicious growling blocked everything else. I tried to lift my head but my muscles wouldn’t cooperate. Shifting my head to the left, I caught Link, still in Shih Tzu form, doing his best to rip Felton’s arm off. Needless to say, without his wolf teeth he wasn’t getting very far.
Felton scrambled to his feet, desperately trying to shake the twenty-pound Shih Tzu clinging to his shirt sleeve. Link dangled in the air, his little paws desperately trying to find purchase. I stared in horror as Felton picked up the tranq gun and swung it butt first like a baseball bat.
“Link,” I rasped through bruised vocal cords.
Maude appeared from nowhere, jumped on Felton’s back and slammed her hand down hard on the crook of his elbow. The man’s arm deadened with the impact, and the gun clattered to the floor, barely missing Link.
“I’m not taking orders from you anymore, you sick, power-hungry vamp killer.” She kicked, spiking the back of his knee wit
h her Mary Jane heels. He crumpled a few feet from the gun.
Lucky for me and Link, it seemed Maude had taken self-defense lessons.
Link scrambled to my side and nudged my cheek with his nose.
“I’m okay.” I pressed my face against his fur, enjoying the warmth of his body. “Thanks to you.”
“Get up!” Maude demanded, grabbing Felton by his coat. With one hand, she managed to slap handcuffs on him and then tossed him into the nearest room, kicking him in the ass before she slammed the door shut. She eyed me. “Can you walk?”
I rolled onto my knees. “I’ll have to.” I squeezed my eyes shut and hauled myself to my feet.
“David?” I asked again. How could I live with myself if we left him there?
“Not now,” she snapped and grabbed the fallen tranq gun. “More guards will be here any second. Just move.”
I stared at my feet, focusing on keeping one foot in front of the other, ignoring the screams of protest in my aching muscles.
Maude stopped in front of me, forcing me to glance up. “Take this.” She held the gun out. “If we run into trouble, shoot first and ask questions later.”
I took the gun and nodded. “Got it.”
She hit a hidden button, revealing a door with a glowing green keypad. She hastily punched in a code and the door slid open. I followed her inside. Stainless steel tables lined the perimeter of the room filled with sparkling clean, scientific-looking cooking apparatuses. A research lab.
No. Not just a lab. The lab. The one where they messed with Influence and anything else they wanted to alter for their own benefit. I paused in front of a glass case, staring at the pounds of familiar chocolate goodies. “Is it all Influence?”
“Not now, Willow.” She strode to another hidden door. “We have to go.”
A piercing alarm slammed through the silence. Link howled, scrambling alongside me to the door.
“Move,” Maude ordered, then swore when the door wouldn’t budge. The alarm must have locked it down. She scrambled to one of the tables, grabbed a sharp-edged knife, and returned to the door. Just to the right, she used the blade to whittle away at something on the concrete wall. I inched closer, realizing there was white metal sheeting she was trying to pry off.
The knife slipped and clattered to the floor. “Damn Void and their overzealous protective measures!” She grabbed the knife and went to work once more.
I stood behind her, tapping my foot to the tempo of the panic rising in my chest. They were coming. Something pounded on the door across the room, making the hinges vibrate. “Hurry,” I whispered.
Maude grunted in frustration.
The door from the hallway banged open, and Felton filled the threshold. “Maude Jenkins. Stand down. That’s an order.”
“Fuck off, Felton.” She gave the knife one more thrust and the metal plate popped off. A red light flashed in unison with the alarm on the small keypad. “Your hold on me is broken.”
I inched as close to the exit door as possible while Felton led the guards into the room. All of them wore nondescript white lab coats over the weapons strapped to their utility belts.
Maude punched in a code. The light stopped flashing.
I rushed toward the door, expecting it to open of its own accord. But the light flickered to life again.
Felton weaved closer.
I raised the tranq gun and aimed at his heart, my hands steady. Dogs weren’t the only ones in danger of dying from a tranq dart.
He slowed his steps, attention focused on me. “If you pull that trigger, my men will tear you apart.”
“Only if they can get to me.”
Maude punched in another code. The alarm didn’t stop blaring.
“You won’t get far.” His low, commanding voice made me acutely aware of just how suited he was to be a puppet master. He had to be fae. If he were a witch, he would have spelled us already. And he certainly wasn’t a vampire. That meant he could have almost any sort of power. There was no way to know what it was until he showed his cards.
“Farther than you,” I said.
Maude’s face broke out in a relieved grin, and even though the alarm didn’t fade, the blinking light went out. And stayed out.
The door opened with a pressurized whoosh. I backed up, keeping the gun trained on Felton.
“Go,” Maude ordered.
“You first.” I wouldn’t leave her with the possibility she’d get captured after all the years she’d suffered because of my creation. She was my aunt again. The one I remembered from my childhood. The one my mom mourned for.
“Rhoswen!” Maude jumped in front of me as a yellow dart sailed toward us from somewhere behind Felton.
I fired. But Maude had knocked the gun to the side and the dart bolted into the table leg two feet in front of me.
Maude wasn’t so lucky. The other dart stabbed her in the left shoulder. She crumpled at my feet.
“No!” I cried, and threw the gun at Felton, wishing it would bash his head in. He shuffled back, avoiding the blow. With angry tears and blind rage, I grabbed Maude by the shoulders, took two steps, and hauled her out the opened door.
“She won’t get far.” Felton’s faint voice barely registered over the rushing in my ears.
Link bolted as soon as we hit the humid September night air. Vampires. They were close. My skin itched with the sensation. A few blurred past me, one of them undeniably familiar. Nathan, David’s best friend. Good. He’d get him out.
“Shit!” I heard Phoebe’s voice from somewhere far off. Footsteps pounded on the pavement. Tears blurred my vision as adrenaline pulsed through me, fueling the last bits of my energy.
I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink in hours. My magic was neutralized, and my wing had to be broken. Not to mention, I’d been beaten to hell.
I stumbled off the sidewalk, bringing Maude with me, and landed on my back, crushing my fragile wing with Maude’s dead weight on top of me. The all-encompassing pain took over my senses and nausea hit me. I threw Maude off and rolled, just in time to vomit in the street.
“I’ve got you,” a soft male voice soothed. “You’re okay now.” A cool, numbing sensation spread like heaven through my tattered body. I glanced up, knowing without a shadow of a doubt who it was.
Tal’s forest-green eyes shone above me.
Emotion closed my throat. “Tal…”
“Shh.” His soothing charm intensified, causing my vision to fade. He was putting me under. Cutting off all the pain.
Shouts echoed and guns fired around us, but my focus narrowed to his intense worried eyes. “Maude. Influenced.”
“Don’t worry about that now,” he said, caressing my cheek.
“No!” Frantic now, I clutched at his shirt. “She was Influenced. Help her.”
Talisen said something else, but I couldn’t focus enough to understand. “Save them,” I mumbled. “Maude and David.”
Chaos swirled around me in a frenzy of lights and sounds. Nothing made sense. “Save him,” I said again and the world went dark.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I floated in the hazy, dreamlike state between sleep and consciousness, content in my world of oblivion. I felt nothing but the gentle caress of soothing magic.
Peace settled over me until liquid-fire pinpricks snapped me out of my heavenly state, stabbing my battered back muscles. My eyes flew open as I sucked in a sharp breath. I groaned and pressed my stomach flat against the soft surface I lay on.
“It’ll be over in a minute,” Talisen’s soft voice penetrated my fog.
Warmth started to tingle from the depths of my gut. Tal was here. I wasn’t locked up being tortured somewhere. He’d taken care of me. His tender fingers trailed over my skin, bringing a blessed numbness with his touch.
“Hold still,” he said softly.
“I’m not moving,” I mumbled into the pillow.
Despite the magical anesthesia, I felt an increased pressure at the base of my wings.
�
��You’ll want to in a second,” Talisen said.
A shot of paralyzing cold ice spread through my wings. “Stop!” I gasped and then bit the pillow to keep from whimpering.
“Shh.” In one fast motion, Tal flattened my right wing against my back, readjusting the dislocated connection. The loud pop was muffled by my scream as my muscles convulsed from the torture. Tears soaked the pillow as I trembled. My muscles were numb, but the sensitive nerve endings in my wings were not.
“I’m so sorry, Wil.” He placed a gentle hand on my cheek and bent over, his breath warming my ear. “I don’t think there’s any permanent damage. One bone was crushed, but I healed that. The base of your right wing will be sore for several days, if not weeks. There’s no way to fix a dislocation other than popping it back in.”
I nodded, knowing he’d done his best. Link repositioned himself beside me, cuddling into a small ball, breathing deeply. The dog was out cold. Thank the Goddess he’d made it home safe. But was he okay? “Link?”
“He’s fine. Just needs a day or two to sleep off the lingering effects of that tranq they hit him with.” He held up a cup with a straw. “Here.”
Water. Thank goodness. My mouth was dryer than Death Valley. I sucked down the entire contents of the flavorless liquid. The trembling stopped instantly. No, not water. I pressed up on one elbow. “What was that?”
He smiled. “Something new I’ve been working on.”
Impressed by the instant effect, I stared at him, my eyebrows raised in anticipation.
His smile widened. “It restores strength and numbs the senses at the same time. It’s sort of like Chimney Bark, only it doesn’t affect your cognition.”
“Plant-based?” I asked, eyeing the cup. No color. Not likely.
He shook his head. “Stone-based. I’ve been working on it for months now.”
“Months?” This new drug could be a game changer. Why hadn’t he said anything? I tried to keep the frown off my face, but Tal knew me too well. Holding back this kind of discovery was like not telling me he’d gotten married or something.