by E G Bateman
Lexi felt irked by the move and deliberately looked away. “We’re dressing for a wedding, then.”
Edward moved coffee mugs into the sink. “I am, you’re not.”
“Excuse me?” She raised her eyebrows.
“While Caleb’s distracted by the wedding, you need to get to the bar and find out what’s going on there. Jess, you go with them. Caleb’s already got the rest of that block, which includes the storage warehouse at the back. I’d guess whatever’s going on started there.”
“Good call.” She nodded her agreement and could see why this man was the pack leader.
“Dolores, you’ll be safe here—” the shifter started.
“I’m coming to the wedding. I’d like to get a look at this Caleb Linden.” She stood, headed to the family room, and returned seconds later dressed for a wedding.
Within five minutes, the two friends were in Jess’s car and on the way to Palm Springs.
Scott leaned forward between the seats. “Did you learn anything more about the runes?”
Jess flicked her gaze to him in the rearview mirror. “The coven sells them at a farmer’s market, along with other Wicca and witchcraft paraphernalia. She gave those particular ones to Daisy when she first moved into the store. Apparently, the flower shop is on a site that was owned or rented by a palm reader in the thirties—Princess Zoraida. She already had a good reputation when she arrived from doing a couple years at the World’s Fair in New York, but when she moved into the store, her ‘connection to the other side’ became much stronger.” She took her hands off the wheel to make air quotes, and he wriggled uncomfortably in the back.
“Scott, can you text Dick to see if he remembers this Princess Palm-Reader?”
“Zoraida,” the other woman corrected.
“Yes, that. He’ll get it when he wakes up. It shouldn’t be long,” she confirmed with a nod.
“I’ll park near the entrance to the storage place.” Jess glanced at Lexi, who nodded again.
They stood in front of the gate and studied the Closed for remodel sign.
“I thought these places were supposed to be accessible twenty-four seven?” Lexi raised her leg to kick the gate.
“Wait.” Scott muttered a few words, and the barrier glowed. “Don’t touch it. There’s a protection spell on it. The rest of the fence looks okay.” He walked along it and waggled a finger between the metal bars. The posts bent as though he’d hit them with a truck.
Jess clapped him on the shoulder and whistled. “Magneto!”
They jogged across the parking lot to the building’s entrance.
With one last furtive look around them, they stepped inside. No one sat at the reception desk. Jess headed toward a set of double doors in a hallway behind the desk that led farther into the building. She pulled on the handles but they were locked and she scowled at the security pad beside the door. Lexi, who had come up beside her, glanced around and noticed there were several such doors.
The shifter turned to Scott. “Can you do your thing?” She wiggled her fingers.
“We need to be careful about using magic in here. Caleb’s probably left a few surprises for intruders. Magic could set them off.”
“We could take a door each and kick it in,” Jess suggested.
Lexi shook her head. “We’re not splitting up, not until we know what’s going on in here.” She looked at a map on the wall beside the door that showed the layout of the facility. Removing a shuriken from her pocket, she popped it onto the front of her leather vest. It stayed there, thanks to the magnet in the lining of the vest
A door down the hall opened.
They froze.
A man walked toward them but he didn’t seem particularly concerned about them. He wore a dirty shirt that had at some point been white, a lanyard, and a My Name’s Clyde, I’m happy to serve you badge from a local pizzeria.
As he approached, Scott stepped into his path and he stopped.
“Hi, we’re looking for a staff member. Can you—”
The newcomer walked around him without acknowledging him or even focusing on him, turned to the double doors, swiped the card, and walked through. Jess slipped her foot into the crack before it could close.
They followed My-Name’s-Clyde-I’m-happy-to-serve-you down the hallway and past roller shutters on either side to another set of double doors. When he opened them, Lexi drew the shuriken, used it to slice through the sleepwalking man’s lanyard, and caught the pass with her other hand as it fell. He turned unexpectedly, and the shuriken bit into his neck.
“Oops!” She stepped back to give herself clear fighting space, but he made no sound. He trailed blood as he continued to walk down the hallway. She popped the shuriken onto her vest and turned to the others to show them she had the lanyard. They stared beyond her with shock on their faces. When she spun again, her jaw dropped.
“What the fuck?” she whispered and drew her katana.
The hallway ended abruptly ahead of them at what, according to the map, would have been a junction with hallways leading forward, left, and right, each lined with storage units.
The roller-shuttered doors of the units were still present on one side of the hallway, but everything ahead of them was gone. The units and the rest of the facility had been replaced by a huge pit about two hundred feet across and God only knew how deep. It curved in sections toward the southeast and a mechanical grumbling came from its depths.
Scott appeared at her shoulder. “That’s moving toward where the flower shop would be, isn’t it?”
Lexi nodded. She looked to her left and where Clyde, with blood dribbling freely down his dirty shirt, descended a ladder at the end of the hallway and vanished from sight.
Her eyes narrowed in focus, she peered across the chasm and located many such ladders between levels descending into the pit. She counted them. “This is insane. I see at least ten stories.” As she stared in disbelief, the workers at the bottom smoothed the dirt into curved sections like spirals.
People traveled up and down ladders as though asleep. They wore work clothes, uniforms, and pajamas, and a woman in a wedding dress stumbled along in one high-heeled shoe as she dragged a length of wood.
“There! It’s Daisy.” Jess pointed across the chasm. Lexi tried to identify her but there were too many people. Having never seen her, she couldn’t guess which one was the flower-seller.
“You see those curves? It’s kind of a shell pattern. What is it?” she tilted her head in various different angles as she tried to make it out.
Scott peered at it, his expression focused. “It’s a nautilus shell. We need to get out of here.”
“Just a second.” She stepped to the top of the ladder. Clyde, who was on the next level down, walked toward the top of the next ladder. The sudden movement of dark shapes against the dirt walls alerted her to the presence of something she really didn’t want to see again, and she stepped back.
Several demons with their many eyes and arms scuttled along the wall toward the man and descended upon him.
It must have been the smell of blood. Sorry, Clyde.
She retreated out of the sight of the slaughter. “You’re right. We need to go.”
They turned quickly but found their retreat blocked by three demons that had crept up behind them. The closest was a few feet away from Jess. Scott jerked his arm toward it with a word. The beast glowed for a moment, then scuttled sideways onto a unit door between them and the exit and moved toward them. It used its legs and two arms to hold it securely in place and held four more arms and their talons poised to strike.
Scott shook. “It’s shielded against magic.”
“I bet the door isn’t.” Lexi drew her finger down the unhealing scar and the door burst and catapulted the creature out and over the pit, and it plummeted.
The other demons crept closer but seemed more hesitant now.
A low growl issued from Jess, who had shifted.
“Don’t bite them, they’re poisonous,
” she warned the woman.
The shifter moved forward and back several times, and Lexi realized she was distracting them.
Scott extended his open hand to her. She passed him the katana and he vanished.
When he reappeared behind the second of the remaining demons, he positioned himself to strike but saw too late that its black eyes also continued to the back of its head. The creature’s six arms—which had been poised to strike forward—flicked toward him.
At the same moment, he disappeared again and appeared between the two demons with his back to one of them.
He delivered a mighty slash immediately to behead the creature and reappeared beside Lexi seconds before its body burst into slime.
The remaining demon had flipped its talons toward where he had stood a moment before.
Before it could right itself, she threw a shuriken into one of its eyes, and the creature uttered a high-pitched squeal.
She realized there was no hope of blinding it, though. “This thing must have fifty eyes. Screw this.”
Jess darted forward, and she used the distraction provided by the shifter to plunge her wakizashi into its brain, then danced away to avoid its flailing talons. It fell and curled. She stepped forward to retrieve the blade and shuriken, but Scott held her back. A second later, it burst. She snatched her blade by the handle as it began to fall into the ooze. After a horrified moment in which she stared at the shuriken covered by the goop, she sighed and put her hands into the mess to retrieve it.
They stood in silence to regroup and something scuttled closer. The demon’s squeal had drawn attention.
“Move.” Lexi pushed Scott and Jess toward the entrance and ran behind them, looking over her shoulder every two seconds the whole way.
The sorcerer smacked the green buttons to release the doors but the scuttling sounds of the demons in pursuit grew louder.
Chapter Eighteen
As Edward and Dolores approached the club, they were almost run off the driveway by a bus full of wedding guests coming in the opposite direction.
She clutched the door when he swerved to avoid them. “I hope we haven’t missed the wedding.”
They turned onto a side road leading to the parking lot and delivery entrance at the back of the building.
The woman withdrew a gift-wrapped box from her purse.
His eyes bulged. “A wedding gift? You like to be prepared.”
“I was a Girl Scout.” She rearranged the glittery bow.
Edward’s brow creased. “In Fae?”
“In Wisconsin.” Dolores released her seatbelt as the car drew to a halt.
They climbed out of the car and started to walk toward the entrance. He looked across to the playground, shouted, “Oh, my God!” and bolted.
When she caught up, he was crouched over two young children. They had been playing with nerf guns and the ground was littered with foam projectiles.
“Are they…” She didn’t dare say it.
“No, they’re only asleep but I can’t wake them.” He felt hurriedly for a pulse.
Dolores put her hand on his shoulder. “I guess he’s keeping them out of the way. Leave them. They’re probably safer asleep.”
Edward stood and strode away from the children.
They passed through the kitchen, and no one batted an eyelid at their presence.
“The security in this place is shocking,” she observed. “I mean, I’m not complaining or anything.”
He approached a cook. “Excuse me, we seem to be—”
The man looked straight through him as he stirred a bowl.
She peered into the bowl. It was empty. “Caleb has enthralled them all.”
The shifter looked more closely at the staff. “You’re right.” He studied a young man with a cheese grater. The cheese was long gone and he now grated his hand and seemed to have done so for some time. Edward winced and looked away.
“That’s horrific.” Dolores spun away.
He shook his head. “Do you have any fae magic that can make him stop?”
“Yes, I do.” She looked around, found a rolling pin, and cracked the man on the back of the head. He fell into an ungainly heap.
Edward crouched to check the man’s vitals. “If you ever feel inclined to work fae magic on me, don’t bother.”
“You wanted him to stop and he stopped.” Dolores passed him a tea towel.
He bound the mangled hand, his expression both angry and a little confused. “Why would Caleb do this?”
“I don’t think he’d do it intentionally. There’s no point. I think he’s merely stretched too thin. He’s trying to control too much. It’s easier for him if he simply puts them into a loop.”
The shifter looked around the kitchen. “Well, I’m relieved to find he has limits.”
They stood next to a cart with a wedding cake on it. Written in icing was Chester and Jeanette.
“I don’t understand it. All this over a strip of land. He’s hijacked someone else’s wedding to force Kate and Tommy to marry so he can gain access to the bar? Why? Why didn’t he simply walk in there and brainwash her months ago? We’re missing something.”
Dolores found a white apron and tied it around her waist, then gave the gift to him. “I need to get to work. You find Kate and see if we can get her out of here.” She picked up a tray of champagne glasses and headed through a swinging door to the party.
Edward gave her thirty seconds before he followed her through the door. He walked along a hallway that opened into a large ballroom. A man stood on the stage in the corner of the room and held a microphone, and although his lips were moving, no sound came from his mouth. He’d probably been singing for hours. The shifter continued to the next room, which had been set up for the ceremony. People were seated in the chairs and simply stared ahead. He worked his way around to the foyer and headed up the stairs, then crept along the hallway and listened at doors as he passed. About halfway along the hall, he heard crying from a room near the end. He knocked quietly and walked in.
Kate was seated in her wedding dress with mascara running down her face.
“Kate?” He didn’t know if she might be in the hypnotic cycle too.
“Edward!” She stared at him. “Are you…normal?”
“Not if you ask my ex-wife.”
She bounded up and wrapped her arms around him. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have left. Tommy told me Caleb would massacre my family if I didn’t come and get married. I didn’t know what else to do. But I got here and I don’t know these people. There’s something wrong with them. I think this has something to do with the bar, because last night—”
“Okay, calm down. I’m here to get you out. Less talking, more moving.” He ushered her toward the door.
Edward opened the bedroom door a crack and peeked out.
He whispered, “Surely there are back stairs in a place this size. They must be at the other end of the hall. We need to move quickly.”
They hurried down the hallway and reached an open landing leading to the stairs to the foyer. Edward saw the fire exit sign at the other end.
“We’ll have to move quickly to that exit.”
He took her hand, looked her in the eye, and nodded once. She nodded in response.
They stepped out and prepared to move when the band struck up. Both of them startled, paused, and gazed down the steps. The guests stood at the bottom and stared at them with huge, empty smiles and weariness behind their eyes. The Palm Springs pack were gathered—about thirty men and women and all unsmiling. He looked at the fire exit and considered their chances of sprinting to it when he felt a hand on his shoulder and turned.
“Stanley, good to see you.” Edward noted that the man appeared to have stepped out of a room behind them. “I was worried I’d missed the main event. I’ve come to give the bride away on behalf of her mother.” He offered his hand to Stan, who merely stared at it.
“That’s awfully kind of you, Edward.”
He jum
ped at the new voice. Caleb stood on the other side of Kate, sweating profusely. There was no room he could have hidden in. He had appeared as though from thin air.
The mental weight of the man immediately seemed to thrust down on him. He was confident that he wouldn’t be able to pick any thoughts from his head, but he knew that was the least of his worries.
“Now that you’re here, let’s get started.” The man’s smile was cold.
They descended the stairs. Kate held onto him tightly and he felt her shaking.
The moment they reached the bottom of the staircase, several of Stan’s pack launched at Edward. He managed a couple of good swings before they surrounded him. It took several men to hold his arms back and force him to his knees.
“Now, let’s see what you’re hiding.” Caleb placed his hand on the shifter’s head.
As the man strained, Edward saw Dolores in his peripheral vision. He dared not turn toward her.
Caleb removed his hand, having been unable to access the shifter’s thoughts. “Unfortunate. No matter. I can still manipulate you and through you, your pack as well as Kate. As soon as Kate is under my control, I can get what I want from her.”
“Not likely,” the woman retorted before Stanley smacked her across the mouth.
Edward growled. Caleb looked at Kate and smiled, and the shifter took the chance to glance at Dolores. He could see she wanted to help him but knew that would destroy any chance of stopping their quarry in the long run.
“This might hurt a little.” His captor placed his hand on his head again.
The shifter looked directly at him. “Don’t mind me. You do what you’ve got to do.” He wasn’t speaking to him, though. Dolores stepped into the crowd.
Edward closed his eyes and released Jess and Kate from the pack, which was his right as alpha.
It’s up to you now, Jess.
Chapter Nineteen
The three teammates didn’t stop running. Jess didn’t shift into human form until they were on the other side of the fence at the car. They scrambled into the little vehicle.