by Amie Gibbons
And held onto it, prayin’ I wouldn’t puke.
That wouldn’t be very badass, after all.
Carvi pulled his fist back and slammed it into the man’s chest, pulling something bloody and squishy looking out.
I gagged.
Was that a lung?
Marco shook his head and his face healed, and he blocked Carvi’s next punch with a lightning fast arm.
Him and Carvi traded blows, blocking and dodging most.
I swung the metal beam as hard as I could into Marco’s back.
The force doubled back on me, rippling into my hands and ripping the beam outta them, and I screamed as pain shot up my arms.
Marco whirled on me and kicked me in the face too fast for me to react.
My head snapped back as I felt something break and I flew backwards, slamming into a lounge chair next to the pool.
Everything hurt.
It was too much.
I couldn’t take it.
But I had to.
And none of this was real.
I focused on me, the me that was under the pain, and focused on the fake injuries being gone.
The pain vanished and I pushed up.
Carvi took full advantage of Marco being distracted by me and was slamming fists and feet into the man, not giving him a split second to recover.
And beating him to a bloody pulp was an understatement.
He was ripping him apart.
He dodged around Marco and punched into the man’s back.
Marco actually screamed at that, lurching into Carvi weakly as Carvi slammed him again in that same spot.
Kidney shot.
If you wanted to take someone down with pure pain, you hit them in the kidneys.
Carvi danced around and punched straight into Marco’s back.
Straight through it.
And pulled out a bloody lump I was pretty sure from watching doctor shows was a kidney.
Marco fell forward, gasping as Carvi ripped the kidney free of the tissues and… gag, other things holding it to the body.
“Thank you, old friend,” Carvi said. “Lea, we need to get out of here.”
“Can we?” I asked.
He held up the bloody mass and I gagged again. “Piece of him. We can use this to see the trail he left for himself. And he should be in enough pain just long enough for us to get out.”
He knelt down, bringing his face to within an inch of Marco’s.
“And after we are done with Ariana’s assignment tonight,” Carvi said, the words soft and gentle.
And utterly terrifying.
“I will track you down, and I will torture the information about your employer out of you,” Carvi said.
I shivered.
He wasn’t even talking to me. He was actually doing this to protect me.
And he was still as scary and focused as the devil on Adderall.
“I thought they didn’t know,” I said as Carvi stood.
He kicked Marco in the face one more time, making the man’s face crumble in at the eye socket.
“If any of them will, it’ll be Marco,” Carvi said. “He has psychic powers similar to mine. He’s not psychic like you and Milo, but he can travel in here and track people and things by himself. It’s how he found us. He was waiting since he knew he couldn’t find you in the real world after all the magic we layered you with.”
I nodded and Carvi held up the kidney.
Don’t puke. Not real. Don’t puke.
I glanced back down at Marco and the gaping hole in his back.
Big mistake.
I gagged, bile coming up.
And pictured it going back down.
Carvi snorted and walked to the edge of the deck, overlooking the beautiful calm sea.
I joined him, staring out.
The sun was high in the sky and the water below rushed by at a steady clip. There was no land in sight, but I swear I heard seagulls somewhere in the distance.
A tiny speedboat was driving up to the cruise ship, the six to eight man craft big enough for what it was, but dwarfed by the ship.
It wouldn’t be able to get close enough for us to get to it.
But maybe it didn’t have to.
Maybe it just had to be close enough for us to imagine ourselves onto it.
“Where is this?” I asked.
Carvi smiled. “Marco has a thing for water. He loves cruises. This looks like the one we took on the Mediterranean years ago.”
Something in his voice made me look at him. “Not just an old friend.”
“No,” he said even though it wasn’t a question. “I don’t take betrayal lightly. And today…” He drew a deep breath. “That man is one of the psychic types I have worked with. I have used him for many jobs and he… was supposed to be one of my people. Someone I could trust. I will not enjoy killing him, and at the same time, it will serve him right.”
I rubbed his arm and the tiny boat below paused.
I swear it was lookin’ at us.
I took Carvi’s hand and just like that, we were on the speedboat.
“Take us home, Kit,” Carvi said.
“Kit?” I asked as the boat roared to life.
“Nightrider?” Carvi said.
I shook my head and he pinched his nose. “I have so much to teach you.”
###
“It’s Annabeth,” I said into the phone as Carvi pulled his pants on.
“What!” Mender said. “I thought you swore it wasn’t her?”
“I did!” I said. “She’s in too much pain for her to have cut it out like that. But we traced the power back and the person who started it is in that lab, so unless it’s Quil or one of the people workin’ for Metro, it’s her.”
“How?” Mender asked.
“She must’ve cut out the vengeful part, but left the rest, because she wanted to keep him with her or something. I don’t really know, but…”
I shrugged.
Carvi pulled on his top, blew Monica a kiss and she waved from the floor, and smacked Ashely on the butt.
She snorted and slapped his hand.
He jerked his head at me and I nodded.
“One second, Mender,” I said. “We’ve got to get outta the club, so it’s gonna be noisy for a minute.”
We opened the door and the noise spilled over us.
We plowed through the crowds, Carvi cutting a swath through the even thicker crowds, and me following closely.
When we hit the street, it wasn’t much quieter.
Carvi grabbed me and slung me over his shoulder.
And ran up the street faster than I could’ve gone trying to run after him, but not really more than human fast.
We ran past a group in costume and someone shouted to call the police.
What? They thought I was being kidnapped?
“No, don’t worry. Not being kidnapped!” I yelled. “But thanks!”
I didn’t catch their looks because we were already in the parking garage.
Carvi put me down, opened the door, and we hopped in.
“What was that?” Mender asked.
“Oh, Carvi carried me to the car and someone said they were gonna call the cops,” I said. “I just yelled I was okay.”
I took a deep breath. “Anyway. We’re not sure how, except AB cut out the part of herself that must’ve wanted revenge, and that’s why we didn’t catch her.”
“Why leave the pain though?” Mender asked.
“Maybe she couldn’t cut all of it out without cuttin’ out him,” I said as Carvi pulled out of the space. “We’ll be back to campus soon,” I said. “But we’ll probably need a few more people there. Ma’am, if we try to get AB to take this thing back, I’m thinkin’ it’s gonna show up.”
“And you still don’t know how to fight it?”
“No, ma’am. We can’t fight it until it’s corporeal. All we can do is get AB to take it back, undo her spell, and go from there.”
“Will she?”
>
“Once she knows it’s her?” I asked. “Yeah. I may’ve been wrong about her being the one doin’ this, but I’m not wrong about her. She never wanted to hurt anyone. She’ll take it back.”
###
The streets were blissfully clear of more than normal night traffic by now and I sent up a prayer of thanks for that blessing.
Parties tonight were probably wrapping up since people had to work tomorrow.
“Once we get this thing, what about gathering the energy?” I asked as Carvi drove up on the grass and parked in front of the building the labs were in.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “We have to stop this thing, that’s for damn sure, and the sooner the better, and send me out to gather enough energy to pour into the men, which will then be used at the same time as the actual spell being broken. I’m not sure how to pull off that timing.”
“Go now,” I said. “Division and Demonbreun are packed with college bars, and all should be hoppin’. It’s not downtown, but it’s close, and it’s a younger crowd. Mender said we have the witches and ways to store it.”
I called Mender back, holding onto Carvi’s sleeve at the front of the building.
“Ma’am,” I said when she answered on the first ring.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“We’ve got to get Carvi out and gathering energy now,” I said. “If we don’t have that ready to go when we get AB to undo the spell, all of this is useless, the spell will be undone and those guys will just go off into the afterlife. What witches do you have here already that we can spare, or… wait, what things were they going to use to gather the energy?”
“Sounds like the one we found said he had a jar or something,” Mender said. “He said as long as there’s a conduit to gather energy, he can store a hell of a lot in there. I’m taking his word for it.”
“Where’s he?”
“At the lab.”
“Fantastic, so are we. Can we spare him? Do we have other witches?”
“We have the assassin, that I still don’t like, and Sierra. But they’re working on healing the men, and he’s the one with the power storing… er, ideas. I don’t get half this shit.”
“Send him down?” I said. “We’re here. We can send him off with Carvi to hit the college bars while the witches keep healing. That should give me enough time to talk to AB and do whatever therapy we have to to get her to take this thing back.”
“How much time does Carvi need?” Mender asked.
Carvi took the phone from me.
“Any more deaths?” he asked, hitting speaker.
“Not that we know of,” Mender said.
“Ariana can check on that while I gather energy,” Carvi said.
“I can?” I asked.
He met my eyes, glaring. “Yes. You can. Believe it, don’t argue.”
“Yes, s…”
I bit my tongue to keep the sir from slipping out.
He’d enjoy it too much.
Carvi grinned. “Ariana can check for guys in limbo by touching the other men there. And I can get energy from the partying college students. If there’s only the nineteen, let’s assume by now there’s twenty because I don’t think we slowed down this thing that much, then I’m going to need a hell of a lot of energy. We’re talking full on draining of orgy levels in a packed bar.”
“No!” Mender and I said at once.
“Nothing against anyone’s will, Carvi,” I said. “No usin’ your powers to induce anything. I know there’s lives on the line, but there’s never an excuse for rape.”
He blinked at me. “I meant with willing participants,” he said. “My powers will grease the wheels, but I can’t… okay, I could, I don’t, use them to make people do things they wouldn’t otherwise do. The orgies are always voluntary. I’m like alcohol. It can’t make you do something you wouldn’t have done anyway, just makes you less inhibited, or at extremes can make you helpless. I won’t be going after the so far gone they’re helpless.”
A man ran out the front door.
He was skinny and at least six and a half feet tall.
He had dark hair and eyes and pale white skin with sharp, pretty features.
Kinda looked like a stereotypical male witch, actually.
“I’m told I’m needed?” he said, jogging straight to us and holding up his phone. “Text.”
“Yes!” Carvi said with too much enthusiasm. “You ready for some depravity…?”
“Dirk,” he said. “No offense, but I’m not giving you my full name.”
“Smart man,” Carvi said. “Ariana, be careful. Don’t push AB too far.”
“I know her,” I said. “I get her. She’ll do this.”
“How do you know?” Mender asked.
“Because I would do it for Grant,” I said. “And this man, Thomas, is her Grant. She won’t care what happens to her; once she knows what she did, she’ll save him.”
“She cut that out of her for a reason.”
“Yes, but until it’s returned, she won’t remember why. And, well, once it’s back inside her, she’ll probably be a different person, but we can deal with it. And the woman I met, the part without that vengeance and rage, she’ll do this.”
“Are you sure enough to bet your life?” Carvi asked. “Because that’s what you’re doing.”
“Yes,” I said, meeting his eyes. “I can tell you, I saw into AB, I know her. We… we have a connection. She’ll do this.”
“Okay.”
###
“Hey,” I said, walking into the lab.
The place was buzzing with activity. There were two gurneys in each aisle and I was sure there were more guys piled in the other labs in the buildings.
They’d put the ones with their girls as the main suspects in this room.
Keepin’ ‘em together or something like that.
Maybe it was coincidence, but I doubted it.
AB looked up from where she was messing with something in an incubator along the backwall with the assassin and grinned.
“She’s growing skin!” AB said, inching by Edmund’s gurney. “Natalia is growing skin in here! It’s amazing.”
The assassin, Natalia, I guess, turned and tossed me a smile over her shoulder. “Hey,” she said. “Glad you’re still alive.”
I raised my eyebrows at her.
“Carvi is not the forgiving type,” she said as AB inched by Stewart’s gurney. “If you die, I think all of us are goners.”
“Incentive to keep you alive then,” AB said, skidding to a stop in front of me.
In my heels, I had a few inches on her, but without them, we would’ve been about the same height.
She looked so tiny.
And excited.
How could she have been the one to do this?
“She’s growing skin for Thomas,” she said, taking my hands and bouncing up and down before dropping them and running back. “And she has such unbelievable stories. I love her!”
I smiled.
She was no killer. I was right about her.
Soon as she knew it was her, she’d take it back.
“AB,” I said, “can we talk for a moment?”
“Sure,” she said. “Natalia, you got this?”
“Do you, girl,” she said, waving a hand before turning her attention back to the incubator.
I walked along the front of the lab, tryin’ not to look at the poor men, and into the back hall.
There were more gurneys back here, a few of the guys who were less injured. The ones who had just cut themselves or took too many pills.
The ones with the easiest damage to fix.
But Grant wasn’t out here.
How did I even approach this?
“When did you decide to get help? From your friend Paul, I mean?” I asked, leaning against the wall. “Most people say you have to hit rock bottom. Is that what happened to you?”
“Not really,” she said, squinting at me like she was trying to figure out a puzzle.
“I didn’t really hit rock bottom. I wasn’t any lower than I was seven years ago, that’s for damn sure. I just…”
She smiled, shaking her head. “I realized after he slept with that nurse that I was haunted. And I had never gotten over what happened between us. That I still was so angry at him for leaving me. And that I never got over that, or him.
“That’s why I was hanging around with him, not out of friendship, but because I wanted him back. And I wasn’t even sure if it was because I cared, or because I just wanted to fix the damage.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean, I have been in love before. I fell in love with my last boyfriend and we slowly fell out of love, but I never stopped caring, so when he found someone else last year, I was happy for him.
“We are friends and there are no hard feelings. I’m going to his wedding in May. That’s when you love someone. When you want what’s best for them. I love him and I am so happy he found someone who fits him and is going to stay in love with him romantically, when I couldn’t.”
She raised a hand and I turned to see Dr. Donahue coming out of the bathroom.
The doctor shot me a glare and walked into the lab.
What the quack was that woman’s problem?
“Anyway,” AB said, “I realized if I died tomorrow, I’d become a ghost, because I never dealt with this. Because I have this huge unresolved issue I’ve been dragging around for seven years. And then I had this moment of realization, where I said, ‘If I don’t want to be a ghost after I die, why am I okay with being one now?’”
I smiled back at her.
That sounded way too healthy for the kind of damage we were looking at.
“So that day, I called Paul, who has helped people like this before,” she said, “and asked him to help me. He said okay, and to write it all down before he came over. The next day, while I was writing, I got a call from Paul, saying Thomas went over to his place and was ranting for the past two hours about me, because of the stuff I’d been saying on Facebook. I called to talk to Thomas, to say I was sorry, and…”
She shook her head.
“And what?” I asked, probably too eagerly.
“He said we had nothing to talk about until I took the posts down and I said I was right then, and I did. I said I was working through things and he was never supposed to see those. And he said that was worse, because it was like I was talking behind his back.