Ro stepped up to the keypad at the large metal gate-like door and waited for Caleb’s instructions. As he did, I concentrated and, in my mind, went back to Danu’s creek, taking back the feeling of peace I felt there. Just as the door began to rise, I felt myself get back into the moment, packing everything else away in their temporary boxes. We quickly ducked under the door and Caleb miraculously closed it behind us.
Plastering ourselves to the wall for a second, Ro turned to look at me, his expression tense. “Stay close.” I nodded vehemently. There was no way I was getting more than a few inches away from him while we were in that place. When he turned away again, I could see his jaw move as he spoke into Caleb’s ear. Quickly he started to race across the large open warehouse space we were in. There were boxes stacked on pallets which were scattered around in some form of messy organization, offering cover if we needed it. Ro led us to another door at the back of the space, and I assumed this was the entrance to the actual belly of the beast. The keypad turned from red to green a split second after we arrived and carefully Ro pushed the door open, sticking his head through the first crack, checking for any of the guards. Deeming it clear, he slipped all the way in and I followed close behind. We raced to the end of a dimly lit hallway, waiting at the corner until Caleb and Ro deemed it safe to continue.
Caleb told us that he didn’t have the capability to know where the guards were: he just knew their routine from their keypad use. Still, the idea was to take the guard out without alarming the one upstairs. We just had to make sure we had the element of surprise and not the other way around. I tugged on the back of Ro’s black shirt and he turned to look at me over his shoulder, brow raised.
Knowing he hadn’t picked up any signing yet, I used my best body language to ask, “Anything?” The last thing I wanted to do was risk speaking aloud and my words be loud enough for the guards to hear.
Ro held up a finger, indicating there was a guard nearby. So, I hunched behind him and waited. It wasn’t long before a man came around the corner and before the tip of his shoes made it past the wall we were hiding behind, Ro had punched him, swung around to stand behind the older man and wrapped an arm under his throat, his other hand applying pressure to hold him tight, cutting off his air supply. In a matter of a few seconds, the man was slumped in Ro’s arms, out cold. Ro dragged him into an open office a few feet behind us, shutting the door and flipping the lock. Turning back, he took hold of my arm to steer me further down the hallway. I saw his jaw move as I was galloping to keep up. He was speaking to Caleb again. Caleb caught my eye briefly as he finished listening and gestured to an elevator at the end of the hall. I gazed up and, without us pushing the call button, the down arrow lit up. In just a matter of seconds, the doors slid open and we stepped inside. Again, as the doors shut, a floor button, 20, lit up on its own: or more likely, Caleb was working his computer magic. We were going to the top floor, where the executive offices were.
A few minutes passed as we climbed higher and higher until finally the car rocked to a slow stop and the doors opened, letting us disembark. Again, I allowed Ro to go ahead of me. We assumed there would be a guard somewhere nearby, if not a floor or two down, directed to protect the contract that we assumed was in Mer’s office. Taking directions from Caleb, we walked down a long hallway, full of various offices, assistants’ desks, all neat and tidy after a day’s work, and came to a corner office, with windowed walls. We could even see the windows to the outside skylight on the other end. It did have one solid wall though, which held a keypad locking system for the door we were about to enter. As the light on the panel turned from red to green, Ro gripped the door’s handle and pulled, only to find resistance. He tried again. It wouldn’t budge. Worried, he looked up at me and I could see panic in his face. We hadn’t planned on not gaining access to the space that likely held the one thing we came for. He said something to Caleb, looking down at the door like he could burn it down with his damning gaze, but it didn’t burn down. He suddenly went quiet and slowly turned to look at me. I frowned at him, waiting. Finally, he said to me, “Magic.”
Understanding, I looked at the door like it had indeed burst into flames. Was it protected by magic? I mean, I guess it made sense, being the nature of all of this, but still, I was thrown back. He stepped to the side as I slid in front of him, staring at the door with an embarrassingly blank stare. “What do I do?” I asked him as quietly as I could manage.
He relayed the question to Caleb, listened to his instructions, and relayed them to me. “He says to touch the door…. find it. Break…down. Like peeling it apart.” I got the gist but still, it would have been better if Caleb were there himself. Looking up at the seemingly average door in front of me, I raised my hands, fingers spread wide as I pressed them to the cool panel. I expected it to take a while, to find the magic, but I felt it right away, humming beneath my palms and fingertips. It was so strong, it tickled my skin there, making goosebumps rise on my arms.
Then it changed, going from a tickle to an electric charge. At first, it was like a small electric crackling you’d get for putting on a wool sweater straight from the drier, then it grew in intensity until soon it felt more as if I was sticking my finger into a light socket and holding it there. Breathing hard, I started to panic. I was losing the will to keep my hands where they were, the urge to snatch them away getting stronger.
“Focus, Maeleigh!” Dad’s voice was in my head. The shock was crazy. I’d never heard it before, but I felt the love in his voice and the depth of it – so different from Gearden’s, though I felt him near too. He must be using Gearden’s link to speak with me. I forgot about the pain for a second until a particularly strong zap went through me, making me clench my teeth to keep from screaming out.
“I don’t know how to break it,” I told him, hearing the panic in my voice, and also in my mind.
“You aren’t breaking the spell. You’re breaking the energy that makes the spell. Think of it like chemistry. Find a molecule and break it down.” He instructed.
I wanted to argue and call it off but something inside me told me I couldn’t. That if I didn’t do it now, I wouldn’t get a second chance and we’d never find the contract.
“Close your eyes. Clear your mind.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly as I closed my eyes and took myself to Danu’s creek. It was hard to keep myself in the moment there though. I felt myself stutter in and out of the other plane as the shocks continued to go through me. When I had a good hold on it, I allowed myself to take a moment, get my head in the game. After a few deep breathes, I readied myself to return to the door. Only something appeared in front of me. It was green with specks of orange, a ball of energy, much like my fire ball, but it had a pulse of electricity running through it every few seconds. Wide eyed, I reached up to gently touch it with one finger. The moment I was close enough, it zapped me, the sparks and lights growing brighter and more active. More – alive.
Finding that it didn’t hurt, I reached up again, welcoming the contact it made with a tendril of electricity and blue fire, wrapping around my finger. Slowly, I pulled my finger away, taking the tendril with me. It pulled away from the mass and slowly faded the further away I drew it from the ball, until, finally freed, it fizzled out.
“Break it down,” I reiterated, making sense of Dad’s and Caleb’s words. Reaching up with both hands this time, I allowed strings of magic to latch onto my fingers and slowly pulled my hands away, taking the individual strands with them. It was like watching a ball of yarn unravel, except when it was fully collapsed, it disappeared entirely. I watched as the last particles floated to the ground. The second they were erased from existence, I found myself back in front of the door with Ro standing behind me. Looking at him, still a little shocked, I wrapped my hand around the door handle and pushed down.
Relief flooded through me as it gave way and the door swung open. We both hesitated for a second, shocked to say the least, but in the next breath we rushed
inside, shutting the door behind us. Separately, we searched the room for a safe or locked drawer: anything that might hold something valuable. When we both came up empty, we met at the center of the room, frustrated. With clenched teeth, Ro spoke to Caleb again. “It’s not here.”
I turned away, racking my brain for ideas as to where it could be. The intel we had got told us it came from this building and we assumed it was in the office of the person who would have had possession of it for all this time. If it wasn’t here, then where? There was a basement garage, but no other mysterious levels in the building that Caleb could find.
I looked around at the typical office we stood in. A desk, a filing cabinet, some certificates hanging on the walls, mementos and awards on the bookshelf behind the desk. There was nothing special about this room. No papers left to be filed, no sticky notes or calendars around for reminders. Aside from looking official, it was empty.
I turned to Ro. “It’s not here. This…” I swept out a hand to encompass the whole room “… is a decoy.”
Ro looked around to see what I was seeing. No personal items whatsoever. He looked back at me and repeated to Caleb what I had just deduced. I again racked my brain, trying to think of where someone hid something so old, so valuable… so dangerous.
It hit me. “It’s with him. He has to have it with him!”
Ro stared at me cautiously. If he did indeed have the contract on his person, then that meant we were in the wrong place. The door having wards on it was just another way to trick someone into thinking there was something important inside. But then, it wouldn’t have needed to be so strong, if that was true. If it was just a ruse.
“Shit,” I cursed.
“What?” Ro asked, stepping closer.
“The magic on the door, it was too much for just a decoy. It was probably a security alert, too. I can’t explain it. He probably knows we’re here right now.” He took a second to process the information. I was having a hard time myself, but something was nagging at the back of my mind telling me that this guy wouldn’t just allow us to walk out of here after we’d broken into his office intending to steal his most precious possession. “Where are Gearden and the rest?”
Ro picked up the urgency in my voice because he too grew anxious, calling for Gearden through the communication unit. I could tell when he got a reply because he stilled. I didn’t like the expression on his face when he did, though. Something wasn’t right.
“Gearden’s comms are down.” Dread filled us both as we raced to the door.
With Ro taking the lead, we didn’t have to wait for the elevator this time. This told me that no one ever called it back down. Inside, with the elevator’s yellow light, I turned to Ro again. “Does he know where they are?”
He nodded. “Ground floor. They never made it to the elevator.”
What the hell was going on down there? I thought, willing the elevator to go faster as we cruised agonizingly slowly to where Gearden and the others were, hoping that whatever it was that kept them from coming up wasn’t dangerous.
Chapter Nineteen
Gearden
I swear to god, the bastards came out of thin air. The moment Ro told us he’d taken out the guard on the ground level, Caleb let us in the side door. Silently, as a pack we cleared the rest of the floor in a massive sweep, like a well-oiled machine, and made our way to the elevators. When we rounded the hallway that we’d just cleared, though, there were at least a dozen men waiting for us. Men in military garb, complete with knives and armor. Hunters. How they were involved in this, I couldn’t piece together but nevertheless, we reacted immediately. The hallway was too narrow to fight them all at once but we had an advantage over them, because of the way we were all bottlenecked, having been on the outside flowing into the main lobby. As one of those at the front of our group, I advanced with Dad, Bri and Danny, only to have someone yank me back. Whipping around, I expected to see another hunter, but found Ben, Maeleigh’s dad, there instead. I stared at him for a surprised beat, then tried to yank free of his hold on my shirt and arm, but the man was stronger than he looked, especially against my lycan strength. I had little choice but to be dragged to the back of crowd, out of the fray and into the empty lobby. The noise of grunts, fists connecting and the occasional crunch of bone echoed around my head as he spoke, bending down to capture and hold my angry gaze, his fingers digging into my shoulders now.
“Maeleigh needs you,” he growled.
Finally, he had my full attention and I stopped struggling. “What do you mean? Are there more up there? Did they find her?” I suddenly couldn’t seem to sort out my thoughts. The heat of the fight pumping into my cells as my soul went into overdrive with the idea of Maeleigh being in danger.
Before he could answer, something was thrown into us, knocking us both off our feet. We rolled as well-trained fighters do – even the old druid – but I tamped down that interesting piece of information as I focused on Maeleigh and avoided the hunter that Thorn was enjoying beating up.
“There was magic on the door to the office they broke into,” Ben explained rapidly. “He’ll be here. Any second, he’ll be here. And he’ll kill her.”
My wolf growled and snapped in my mind and I felt my eyes flash silver and then back to green. “Who?”
Ben hesitated, as if the idea even struck fear in him. “The traitor.”
I tilted my head as I looked at him in confusion, but then a second later, it hit me. The druid who had the contract. He was coming here and would be gunning for Maeleigh. Turning on my heel, he let me go as I bolted for the stairs, narrowly missing another body being slammed against the wall. It didn’t sit well with me, leaving my pack to fight without me, but I had to have confidence that they could protect each other. I took the stairs two at a time, knowing I had a long way to go; just hoping I wasn’t too late.
Chapter Twenty
Maeleigh
I watched as the numbers slowly ticked down on the small screen above the doors. The second it reached Level 10 though, the car jolted to a halt. Ro and I spread our arms out to steady ourselves while it came to a stop. We looked at one another with wide eyes. In an attempt to keep the car moving, Ro reached out to the side panel and pressed the G button, but as he did, the elevator doors slid open. Spooked, we jumped back, plastering ourselves to the walls as the doors opened all the way, showing another office space, this one full of computers and screens, with large tables for meetings and demonstrations. And a single person was standing dead center of our view, waiting. A man, dressed in a casual, expensive suit, the kind you’d see a mob boss wear on one of those shoot-em-up movies where the crime boss tries to look friendly but really comes off looking like spoiled brat. Gray slacks, white button-down shirt, top button undone, no tie, gold watch – probably a Rolex – and styled dark hair.
“It’s been a long time since someone has tried to steal from me,” came a new voice in my head. It took me by surprise even though I’d grown used to so many people taking liberties with my mind.
Ro stood beside me, glowering at the man who still stood a good twenty feet away. The elevator doors remained open – it could easily be presumed that this was because the elevator was malfunctioning, but I knew differently. This man, whoever he was, had stopped it and was still controlling it.
“Who are you?” I said out loud. He may speak in my head but I needed Ro to hear at least part of the conversation.
The man didn’t oblige and let Ro hear his side of the conversation like I had, but used his mind to tell me, “People call me Mer.” He didn’t look very irritated, considering we were trying to rob him, but the brushes of his mind as he communicated with me, told me that he wasn’t as cool as he seemed.
“Do you mind, Mer?” I asked, looking pointedly up and around the elevator where we still stood inside.
His lips curled up, and I finally got a glimpse of the evil that resided within him. He carried a sly, knowingness in just that one small expression. He thought he could hurt us a
nd judging from the power I had witnessed with the elevator, he could probably do it quickly.
“Why would I want to do that? We just started to get to know one another.” His voice sent a shiver down my spine and Ro drew closer.
It came to me then, the familiarity I felt when he spoke to me. I took a step forward, surprising Ro, who looked like he wanted to draw me back and stand in front of me at the same time. “That was your magic up there, wasn’t it? At the door?”
A look of pleasant surprise crossed his face and he smiled widely. I realized he was very proud of himself. “It was indeed.” Slowly, his smile faded as he studied me. “And it was you, such a little thing, who disabled it,” he stated, wonderingly. He took a step closer, as if subconsciously, and stopped. With another tilt of his head, he smiled again, this time holding up a finger. “What have you got to say for yourself, little druid?”
I snapped a hand out as Ro’s energy grew increasingly dangerous, gripping his forearm and staying any advance he might have been considering towards the man in front of us. If he knew magic, and after what I’d seen with the ward on the door and the elevator, I didn’t want Ro going after him half-cocked.
“That you’ve kept the fae imprisoned long enough,” I answered.
He smirked, not looking the least bit threatened, and spread his arms out wide. “Well, then, little druid, show me what you’re going to do about it."
The fact that he wasn’t taking me seriously as a threat meant I had an advantage. He’d hold back just because he didn’t think it warranted more, which gave me an edge. With a shrug, I stepped closer, planting my feet and ignoring Ro as he tried to talk me out of it. This was easy to do because I just didn’t look at him and he didn’t dare touch me; not when I was about to face off with the powerful druid in front of me.
The Kill: Book 3 in The Hunt Series Page 15