by Eli Constant
Liam, he’s got her. Liam! I yell in my head and I slam on my brakes as I almost miss Briar Rd. I turn, like a bat out of hell, to race forward. He has to be coming this way with her. He has to. I’ll ruin my only other vehicle if I have to. I’ll slam into him and stop him. I’ll do whatever I have to.
God, how could I ever consider using her as bait? Why didn’t I have Liam speed up and scare Sherwin off?
I drive and I drive, but I see nothing. My headlights are on the brightest setting. Yet, there is still nothing.
He has to have come this way. There’s no other way in or out.
As soon as I think about the absence of another exit, my entire body goes cold, like icy hands have run the length of it. There is another road. Through the closed-down lumber yard, the gates of which has stood open for god knows how long.
That’s where he must have gone.
And that road leads miles away and then it’s only a few minutes to the highway.
And we’ve let him take Mei.
God, we’ve let him take Mei.
Liam, how could you let him? God, how could I let him? You said you were fast enough.
Tori, I…
But Liam’s voice trails off. He has no excuse. There is no excuse.
We’ve failed.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
And now, I do call Terrance.
I don’t care if he’s probably had a long day with his wife and kids. I don’t care that he’s probably in bed sleeping and I’m going to wake him up, for the second time this week. I don’t care. I just want to find Mei and I want her to be safe.
Terrance doesn’t answer, so I leave a frantic message. “Terrance, it’s Tori. He’s got Mei, Terrance. The bastard has Mei. He took her, Terrance. Doctor Sherwin took her.” I take a deep, steadying breath that I hope will calm my voice. “And I’m going after him. So if you get this message, you might want to come help me so I don’t get killed.”
When I hang up, I call Kyle. “Hey, Tori, I’m back at your place, but you’re not—”
“I’m with Liam. Do you know that case I’ve been helping Terrance with?”
“The one involving the body in the lake. Yeah. What about it?”
“The fucking killer just took Mei.”
Silence greets my words.
“Did you hear me, Kyle?”
“Yeah, I heard you.” There’s a marriage of fear and anger in his voice. “I’m coming.”
“There isn’t time to wait for you, Kyle.”
“I’m not letting you do this without me.”
“There. Is. Not. Time.” I force the words out, make him understand that I can’t just sit here waiting for my beau to arrive whilst my best friend is being dragged away in a murderer’s Mercedes. “He’s going to kill her, Kyle. That psycho doctor is going to kill her.”
“Do you know where they’re going?” Kyle understands, but he’s also not giving up. Not easily.
“His,” I search for another word, but lair is the only thing that comes to mind and that sounds so villain cheesy, “lair is underneath his house, but he already has a body there and it didn’t look like a place where he could do the work on the women.”
“He’s a doctor…” Kyle’s voice trails off. “What about his practice?”
His practice, I think. All the equipment he’d need. Operating tables, surgical wire, probably even a bone drill. “Jesus, that has to be it, Kyle. That has to be it. Doctor Sherwin… we have to look up the address.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“We’ll be there sooner.”
“Tori, be careful. Plea—”
I hang up before he can get the ‘please’ out. I hang up before we can say ‘I love you’. I hang up before I can think about dying at the hands of a psychopathic doctor.
I nearly scream as Liam opens the passenger door and slides in.
I do scream when the passenger rear door opens and Mordecai fucking Jones seats himself in the back.
“What the hell is he doing here?” I stutter. I’ve been sitting on the side of Briar road, going crazy and making calls and hoping we’d be in time, before Sherwin hurt Mei.
“I have asked Mr. Jones to join us.” Liam said, with a note of finality that made it clear that I wasn’t to argue. I do though, of course I do.
“Kyle’s already meeting us, we have plenty of help.” In my mind though, I wonder if it will be enough, even with the addition of Mr. Mordecai Jones, the once Dwarf King.
“I am here at the behest of the God Stones,” Mordecai says, shifting his body in the backseat and buckling. “I do not answer to fairies.”
“Yet you come willingly when fairy arrives and you even touched a fairy to move across the land quickly.”
I can see Mordecai’s face, by the interior ceiling light of the car, go crimson. “You will not speak of that, fairy.” He says the words harshly.
Liam turns to me, an amused look on his face. “Dwarfs think it’s beneath them to work with fairies. Even now, when their kingdoms have all but crumbled.”
“Do not mock me. I am the keeper of the God Stones and you have no kingdom. Banished and rejected.” Mordecai is unbuckling, and I shift into drive quickly, jolting the car forward.
“No, we don’t have time for this pissing contest. My best friend, my best friend in the entire fucking world, is in the hands of a serial killer. You two can fight later, to the death if you like. I wouldn’t give a flying fuck at this point.” I drive faster, whipping around a curve in the road like I have a death wish. I see the old lumber yard ahead and I turn into the gates. There are fresh tire marks on the ground, ruining the snow that has been untouched and pristine here.
The headlights illuminate my path. Every few miles, I reach for Mei with my weak power, but I do not have enough energy yet. I feel broken, small, useless. What good is being the damn Blood Queen if I can’t even use the status and magic to save my best friend?
I try at first to obey the speed limit once we hit the highway. It doesn’t last long and I pray there are no cops on the road when I sneak up to fifteen miles over, my patience wearing thin. It’s nearly an hour’s drive to Georgetown and from there we have to find Sherwin’s practice.
“Liam, get out my phone and search the internet for the address of his office.” I realize as I say it that the phone is tucked into my butt pocket. On the right side at least so its within Liam’s easy reach.
“Where is it?”
I hesitate, but then decide the address is more important than Liam momentarily touching my ass. “It’s in my back pocket, right side.”
I’m glad that I’m driving and I can’t look away from the road, and the arc of light on the dark pavement, to see Liam’s expression. He says nothing though, so that’s a relief, as he moves his hand behind my back and slides it down to find the pocket of my jeans. It takes him a few moments to wiggle the phone out and I lean forward a bit, trying to give him a little more room to work.
The glow of the phone’s backlight in my peripheral vision tells me that Liam has it on and is searching.
“1450 Bodega Drive.”
“Great, now hit the little blue arrow that will start the navigation.”
“Done.”
I glance at Mordecai in the back seat. He’s looking down at something that is glowing, almost like the phone’s screen, but that’s not it. It only takes me a second to put two and two together. He’s holding a God Stone.
“She’s still alive.” The once Dwarf King says after a moment.
“How do you know?” I say, panic warring with optimism in my voice. Once again, I push with my power, reaching for Mei. And, once again, it falters and dies before I can even taste the barest hint of her blood.
Mordecai lifts the stone a fraction and bobs his head slightly toward it.
“Can it tell you more? Where are they now? Are they already at his practice? They can’t be that far ahead of us. Maybe fifteen minutes at most.” I slam my palms against the steer
ing wheel when Mordecai doesn’t answer me immediately.
His eyes widen a fraction, but he doesn’t comment. I know the absence of commentary is due to his compassion. He feels for me, for my fear. That, more than anything he could have done, causes sincere ‘like’ towards the dwarf to grow within me.
I grip the steering wheel, take a deep breath, and I ask him again. “Please, Mordecai. Can the stone tell you anything else?”
“No,” he shakes his head solemnly, “they could, if I had the capacity to understand. She is alive though. You must cling to that hope.”
“You’re going to want to take the next exit.” Liam breaks in, pointing to the green and white sign mounted over the highway.
Not bothering with a turn signal and barely giving my mirrors a cursory glance, I speed onto the ramp and down into the less developed outskirts of Georgetown.
“How much further, Liam?” I knew it couldn’t be in this area, with its ramshackle houses, less-than-subtle ‘massage’ houses and liquor stores on every corner.
“Ten minutes. Take a right on Turner Street.” The phone rings in Liam’s hands as he finishes speaking and it startles him enough that he drops the phone on the ground. It takes him almost too long to retrieve it. My phone’s only set to ring a few times before the answering service kicks in. He hits the green ‘answer’ button as he’s lifting the cell off the floorboards. “Kyle, are you on your way?”
“Put him on speaker.” I reach across the space between us and point at the little icon. My fingers aren’t quite long enough to hit the button myself.
Liam taps the tiny speaker symbol with his index finger and Kyle’s voice comes to life, mid-sentence “—I’m still thirty minutes away, Liam. You have to hold her off until I get there. I can feel how weak she is. Jesus, she’s so weak that it’s hurting my chest thinking about it. Is that normal?”
“Yes. The connection works both ways. If you were hurt and weak, she’d feel that too, nearly as if it were her own pain.”
“God, you can’t let her barrel into that office. You have to force her to wait until I get there.”
Kyle obviously doesn’t know he’s on speaker, even though I feel like I spoke plenty loud enough for him to hear. Maybe not. Whatever. I’m not waiting around for him to show up. Every moment that passes is one moment closer to Mei dying. “No one is stopping me from going in to help Mei, Kyle.”
“Dammit, Liam. You had me on speaker?”
“The lady requested,” Liam answers, apology scant in his words.
“Victoria, you can’t go in and face a fucking serial killer. Not in your condition. Babe, I feel how drained you are. You couldn’t call on the blood magic if your life depended on it. And it could. You could get in there and die because you were stupid and didn’t wait for me.” Kyle loves me. He’s worried about me. I know all this. I know he’s not just being some macho asshole. But it still pisses me off.
“I’m not going to take any chances, Kyle. Not with Mei’s life.” I pause, not knowing how to soften my next words. I needed to say goodbye, just in case, but I also knew that there would be something final in the words, something that didn’t just have to do with my possibly dying. It would have to do with… us changing. Our relationship. The dynamic. “Kyle, I love you, but please understand that I’ve known Mei all my life. She is like my sister. And I will not wait and give this guy a chance to kill her, not when I might be able to stop him.”
“You could die, Tori.”
“Yeah, I could, but I also have Liam here. And Mordecai. I’m not alone.”
“But it’s my job to protect you, Tori.”
“Yeah,” I say again, “it’s your predestined job and I’m your preternatural girlfriend. And none of that matters right now, because Mei is about to die. So you get here as fast as you can and, hopefully, I’ll still be alive when you arrive.” I pull the phone out of Liam’s hand and I hit the end button. The navigation is rerouting because we’ve missed a turn. “Dammit,” I near-yell; the sound bounces off the windshield and rockets around the car. I see Mordecai’s eyes judging me in the mirror.
I take the next left. This route is three minutes longer.
Three minutes longer.
What if I’m too late?
Liam tries to take the phone back from me so he can navigate again, but I hold the cool plastic rectangle with metal fingers. He realizes quickly that he would have to break my hand to get it away.
I’m a demon going down the road, grateful for every light that stays green or yellow long enough for me to race across the intersection it controls. When the phone shows me that I’m approaching a little checker flag, my heart jolts up and down like Thumper’s foot in Bambi.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
I’m pulling into the parking lot.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
I don’t see the white Mercedes, not at first.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
I drive around to the small private lot at the back of the building. And there it is.
My heart stops thumping all together. It’s a useless weight in my chest, anchoring me to the car seat as I pull to a stop and shift into park. I suddenly feel like I cannot move. I cannot get out of this vehicle and walk into the possibility that Mei is already dead.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Mordecai is the first to open his door. “She’s still alive, Victoria.”
Those are the words I need to hear to get moving. She’s still alive. There’s still hope. I can still stop him from killing her.
I throw the car door open so violently that it bounces on the hinges and nearly comes back to pin me against the car frame. Liam follows suit, but with more finesse. I don’t even close my door, I just start running.
The back entrance is locked. Of course it is. I wouldn’t expect anything less. It’s glass though, almost from top to bottom, and I ram my shoulder into it over and over until I know I will be bruised black and blue tomorrow.
Liam’s hand on my back keeps me from hitting the door again. “Move away.” His voice is heady with power and his body has begun to take on the glow of his fae self. He moves like a wisp, threading through the air, his sword coming to life. It takes one blow, running the length of the glass, for the entire door to shatter into a thousand shards. They blink in the glow of the parking lot light above us. They blink like stars showing us the way to Mei.
Tiptoeing over the glass carefully—because I am not in my normal winter boots, but instead the little velvet flats I wear in the house when my feet are chilly—I strain to hear anything that is going on in the building.
There’s nothing for the first twenty feet or so. We pass quiet offices and dark patient rooms.
No noise. Nothing. Where are they?
Finally, after what seems like an eternity, we approach a door from which a soft glowing is pushing from beneath it. There is a thrumming sound and I realize, once I press my ear to the door, that it is classical music. Violins and delicate flutes weaving their way through the air.
“They have to be in there,” I whisper. Both Liam and Mordecai are behind me, waiting more patiently than I ever could have in this situation.
“I will go first.” It’s Mordecai’s voice.
“Mordecai, I should—” Liam begins to argue, but the once Dwarf King holds up a hand to stop him.
“The stone brought me here for a reason. It has work to do.” Without another word, Mordecai pushes past Liam and I move aside automatically. When his hand reaches for the door knob, I hold my breath.
This door is not locked. Apparently Doctor Sherwin thought the outer door was enough defense to keep his dark deeds from the world.
The sound of music thickens in the air once the door soundlessly opens. We are faced with a stairwell going down, something I did not expect. Why would a doctor’s office have a basement? The path is dimly-lit going down, but there’s generous light at the bottom which floods upwards.
“We’ll be right behind you.” I murmur. Without th
inking, I touch Mordecai’s shoulder.
He turns to me, his foot already on the first riser down, and it looks as if he is trying to smile. It’s not a look that suits him. “This is my fate, Blood Queen. Just as yours will be decided in the balance of dark and light.”
And then he is turned away from me, walking down the stairs. And I, for my part, am frozen as I feel the soft tingle of power come to life in my fingertips. The fingers that touched Mordecai.
The sensation does not last, but I tell myself it is a good sign. The exhaustion is wearing off. My weakened power is growing stronger again. I only wish I was recovered now, so that I could draw on the powers, the powers that I still do not fully understand or command, to help me kill Doctor Sherwin.
Because I do want to kill him. It’s not an accidental loss of control that’s leading me down that path. No. My need for his death is my own. It belongs to plain old powerless Victoria Cage.
I hear tires screeching to a stop outside the building and I wonder who it will be.
Will it be Terrance with the power of the badge behind him?
Or will it be Kyle, the berserker come to protect me?
I’d take either one at the moment, I think as I take my first steps down the stairs. Both would be even better.
What am I? Liam quips in my head. Mincemeat?
I don’t respond. I know Liam is more than capable of holding his own in a fight. He’ll probably even keep me alive. But I’m still… human… enough to want my boyfriend when I’m scared. And I’m still human enough to believe in the power of human law. A fairy, although powerful, is still part of the world that I’m only beginning to understand.
Mordecai is at the bottom of the stairs. Liam and I are only halfway.
The sound of feet shuffling through the building above is too loud and I worry that Doctor Sherwin will realize that someone is here, that he’ll speed up whatever he’s doing or that he’ll somehow escape through another exit. It makes me want to rush forward, an ill-advised move when you’re facing down with a serial killer.