“Have your fun, Carl,” I heard Smith say, but his words were muffled by the emotions flaring in my mind.
Fury grew inside me along with the pain I felt at Adam’s murder. The feelings were so great, so intense, that for a moment I thought I might be able to break free of the elemental cuffs now and make Smith pay for what he’d done.
I fought my bonds and snarled as I turned to look back at Smith. He was gone.
“Aw.” The female Metamorph, Becky, moved toward me like a sleek cat. Her high-pitched little girl voice made me want to strangle her. “Did your human playtoy go bye-bye?”
The Drow curse words I let rip the air would have cut her to pieces if they had been knives.
“Tom is a brilliant male.” Becky smiled as she toyed with a heart charm bracelet on her slim wrist. “After tonight, not only will Metamorphs have a place on the council, but Tom will be elected by the council as chief.”
“Have you taken your delusional pill?” I said as I stared at her. “Because you’re not in any existing reality.”
“His plan is perfect.” She maintained her amused smile. “All he needed to know was the exact location before sundown because everyone is ready to play their part.”
For now I had to ignore what had happened to Adam and try to figure out what was going on so that I could stop the Metamorphs. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good. “Play what parts?” I asked.
Becky sat on one of the chairs near me and crossed her legs at her knees. “As each council member arrives at the entrance to the Paranorm Center, a Metamorph will be waiting to take his or her place. The only one who won’t be replaced will be the chief. She’s needed to conduct the meeting and to report our victory afterward, you see.”
Robocop Carl looked nervous. “Miss Becky—”
The female waved him off. “The council guards will also be replaced. Counsel Chief Leticia and the Dryads will never know the difference.”
Chills turned into goose bumps that prickled my skin. “Then what?” I asked very slowly.
She gave a delicate shrug. “The meeting will be held and votes will be cast as to whether to allow Metamorphs on the council. The meeting was already set to include determining whether or not Witches can be represented on the council. Allowing Metamorphs on will be like letting the Witches have a representative.” She gave a triumphant grin. “It’s a perfect plan.”
“Why do Metamorphs even care?” I asked. “Metamorphs have never been interested in or adhered to paranorm rules.”
I was already thinking she was one eraser short of a pencil, and that was made even more clear by the giddy expression on her face. “Respect!” She punctuated the word as she pointed at me, and I winced from the shrillness of her voice, which grated on me like gravel beneath the tires of my ’Vette. “And we want Trackers to back off. When the replacement council votes that we are not to be touched, nothing can stop us from taking over human lives.” She stroked her Ferragamo purse. “Like those of the wealthiest men in the city. We can mirror anyone and take over his life.”
“And kill the real human,” I said, disgust filling me. “Then not only are you leeches but you are murderers, too.”
Then my eyes widened and my jaw dropped. I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me earlier. Shock, incredulity over the whole situation—it didn’t matter. “You’re going to kill the real council members, aren’t you?” I said it with disbelief, yet with the realization that my conclusion was true.
“Took you that long to figure it out?” Becky laughed as she stood and looked at Robocop Carl. “Tom did say you could have your fun with her.”
Carl grinned at me in a way that made my stomach curdle.
It was then that I sensed the sun was going down.
And Robo-Carl was going down.
Becky would be taken care of, too.
Then it would be Smith’s turn.
As I sensed the sun disappearing and the city become immersed in the night, the cuffs fell away from my ankles and wrists. The clatter on the floor startled Carl, who aimed his Glock at me. Becky stumbled back in her high heels.
The sleeves of my blouse tightened slightly around my arms and at my shoulders as my body grew stronger and the muscles in my slender arms became more defined. I wished I had my leather fighting suit as I rose from my chair. I ripped the sleeves from my shirt so that my arms were bare and less constricted.
My body continued to transform into my Drow appearance as I jerked each sleeve off. Expressions of shock and panic were on their faces as my once fair skin turned into a faint shade of amethyst. The tangled hair I pushed away from my face was cobalt blue now instead of black. My incisors lengthened into petite fangs.
Every ache and pain from the beatings vanished as my body healed during the transformation.
Fury built within me, and now I fed it with my elements. The room began to shake, windowpanes rattling as the earth beneath the building started to buck. Kitchen cupboard doors slammed open and closed. Ceramic plates, bowls, mugs, flew off shelves and smashed to shards on the aged linoleum.
Drawers rolled in and out. One drawer filled with silverware spilled every knife, fork, and spoon onto the floor. They rattled and clattered in tune with the pots and pans secured above the stove.
A sack of flour landed with a thud outside the pantry and coated Becky and Carl in white.
Becky let out a scream and landed on her ass on the linoleum, which was now cracking from the force of the earthquake I had created.
Carl swung his gaze around the room as he stumbled against a counter and dropped to his knees. His eyes were wide and filled with shock as he swung the gun from the archway to me and back again. His hands were shaking as he tried to hold on to the Glock. “If—if you’re doing this you’d better stop it, bitch.”
The room continued to rock and Carl had to brace one of his hands on the floor. Becky screamed again and huddled in a corner, her palms braced to either side of her in an effort to keep from rolling across the bucking floor. Dark Elves are lithe, our footing perfect, and I easily kept on my feet.
Loud snaps from wood cracking came from the door frame. I directed my air elemental magic at the frame. I used my element to rip a sword-length shard of wood. At my command, my magic propelled the shaft straight at Carl.
His gun clattered to the floor as he flung his hands over his face.
The jagged point of the staff pierced his hands and buried itself in his head.
Becky screamed again, horror on her face.
I ignored Carl’s body as he collapsed onto the linoleum, and I ignored Becky’s continued screams. I released my control of the elements. The ground beneath the building settled and everything went still.
Keeping Becky within sight, I moved toward Adam. I dropped to my knees beside his body.
My heart felt like it had cracked like a wooden plank, then burned to cinders. If Dark Elves could cry, my face would have been flooded with tears. My eyes ached, and with everything I had I wished I could cry. I grasped Adam’s shoulder and moved him just enough so that I could see his precious face—with his sightless eyes. My hand shook as I reached for him and started to close his eyelids.
I went still. The smell of alyssum was so strong I almost gagged. The moldy odor of wet, ruined hay rushed over me, a smell given off by a dead Metamorph. This wasn’t Adam. This was a Metamorph who had taken on Adam’s appearance.
Confusion, then relief, made my head spin. My thoughts raced. If this wasn’t Adam, where was he? Had they killed him already? Please let Adam be okay.
“Nyx!” Olivia’s voice came from the doorway, and I jerked my head up to see my partner there. More relief touched me as I saw her. She looked fine, and this dead male beside me wasn’t Adam.
“Come on.” She cocked her head in the direction she had come from, and the kitchen light caressed her skin, which was like flawless brown silk. “We need to hurry. Something big is going down at the Paranorm Center.”
I registered four t
hings at once in a rapid flash.
Olivia was human and didn’t know about the Paranorm Center.
Olivia didn’t talk that way. She would normally have told me I looked like hell and to stop screwing around and get my ass down where I was needed.
Olivia was wearing a plain T-shirt. Just a plain black T-shirt. She never wore plain shirts. Ever. The shirts always had sayings like the one she’d had on this morning—
I sometimes go to my own little world, but that’s okay. They know me there.
And this female smelled like alyssum.
No way in all of the Underworlds was this Olivia.
I dove for the pile of silverware that had scattered across the floor. I grabbed a steak knife and rolled onto my back.
I flung the knife across the room. It flipped end over end and then buried itself in the fake Olivia’s heart.
CHAPTER
Becky’s screaming was like a shrill alarm clock in the background. I was tempted to shut her off, but she was nothing more than an ignorant pawn, who hadn’t tried to kill me, which meant I had to return the favor. Still, I kept her in my peripheral vision just in case.
I started toward the archway where the not-Olivia had crumpled to the floor. I automatically reached for one of my dragon-clawed daggers when I realized I was still in human clothes and wasn’t wearing my weapons belt. I ground my teeth. It wasn’t likely they’d had the courtesy to bring my handbag along with me, much less my leather fighting suit and weapons.
Rodán and the other Trackers needed to know what was going down, and I needed backup.
“Give me your handbag.” I held my hand in Becky’s direction. The flour-coated simpleton stopped screaming as she grabbed her purse from off the floor and clutched it to her. Idiot. Facing her possible demise and she was protecting her Ferragamo purse from me. She had only one of her matching heels on; the other was near Carl’s body.
With my hand still extended, I scowled at her. The floor started to rock again and Becky screamed and threw her handbag at me.
I caught it and she yelped as I jerked the purse open in a not-so-delicate manner. I dug through it, found her cell phone, then dropped the purse on the floor. Becky started to scramble toward it but stopped when she got a good look at my expression.
That’s right, lady. Don’t mess with a pissed-off blue-haired amethyst female Tracker.
A sense of urgency made my skin feel like ants were crawling over me. I flipped the phone open and called our Proctor, Rodán, who was also my mentor and former lover.
It didn’t take me long to explain everything to Rodán. He pinpointed my location by the cell phone signal and would send the Paranormal Task Force to clean up the mess and take care of Becky.
I would have called Adam, who was an NYPD detective, or Olivia, but both were human and couldn’t enter—or know about—the Paranorm Center. Chills prickled my arms. I didn’t even know if Adam was alive. Or Olivia for that matter. Had the Metamorphs gotten to my lover or my partner?
I pocketed the cell phone, scooped Carl’s gun up from the floor, then grabbed the elemental-magic-treated wrist and ankle cuffs. My eyes narrowed and my jaw set, I approached Becky.
“No!” Her high-pitched voice was a squeak. “Don’t hurt me!”
“Shut up.” I knelt in front of her, grabbed one of her wrists, and cuffed her to the handle on the door of the pantry. For good measure I cuffed her ankles, too. The PTF would be here in no time and take care of her.
I stepped over the dead doubles of Adam’s and Olivia’s bodies before rushing through the archway. Pictures had fallen off the walls, lamps had toppled from end tables, glass from broken picture frames had shattered on the carpet from my mini-earthquake.
From the looks of the place, the Metamorphs had taken over some human’s apartment. The front door of the small place was steps away. I tucked the handgun in my waistband and was out that door within seconds.
I jogged down a set of stairs and pushed my way through a pair of double doors. Cool winter air filled my lungs as I ran around the building until I reached a fairly busy street. Amsterdam, close to West Forty-second Street. Now I had to get to the Paranorm Center which was below the Alice in Wonderland unbirthday party sculptures in Central Park on the Upper East Side.
I pulled a glamour, making myself invisible to humans—who might freak at an amethyst woman with blue hair—and ran. As my bare feet met slush and snow, I wished desperately for my leather boots. Dark Elves generally don’t have a problem with cold, but having bare feet in polluted slush from melted snow was on the chilly side.
My air element helped push me faster than my already enhanced speed. I would have been a blur to humans if they could have seen me.
When I finally reached the unbirthday party sculptures, Angel was already there. She was walking the circumference of the sculpture counterclockwise, reciting the engraved nonsensical poem to open the door. “‘ ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.’” I had no idea what the poem was supposed to mean, but it would open the door beneath the toadstool.
Angel was a beautiful blond Doppler with corkscrew curls and was a squirrel in her animal form. She looked like a bubbly cheerleader but had graduated from Harvard and had been an intern with NASA.
“Have any other Trackers made it here?” I asked when I came to a full stop.
“Not that I know of.” Angel was now at the back of the sculpture, and the door beneath the toadstool began to open. She scanned me with her brilliant blue eyes. “You look amazingly healthy considering your clothing is bloody rags. Kind of like you’ve been engaged in some one-on-one with a leopard and he got in a few good licks.”
“We have to hurry.” I didn’t have time to go into anything but what we were here for. “If the information I was given is correct, they’ve already replaced the council members, and that leaves us with two tasks.”
“Find the real council members,” Angel said.
“And stop the charade going on now.” I glanced into the darkened park. “We’ll take care of this. Other Trackers will have to save the real council members.”
We started down the winding set of stone stairs. “How did the Metamorphs find out that the council meeting is really being held here and not at another location?” Angel asked.
“Long story.” Inside I groaned. The Metamorphs had tricked me by making me believe that was my Adam they’d had as their captive. I’d spilled it out of fear for him—but I’d also been sure I would have the opportunity to escape come sundown. And I would stop the Metamorphs.
The Paranorm Center was a throwback to the Otherworld most of us originated from, some centuries, if not thousands of years, ago. Everything reminded me of home in the belowground realm of the Dark Elves … so medieval.
Torches flared to life to light the way into the darkness as the door slid shut behind us. Dark Elves have incredible night vision and I didn’t have to watch my step as I took the twisting turns of the rock staircase, which went almost as deep into the earth as the Realm of the Drow was in Otherworld.
When we reached the bottom we were in the enormous main foyer, which had five separate archways. We paused and then each took a side of the archway that would lead us to the main area of Paranorm Center. The massive hallway was empty. Quiet. The council chamber doors were closed.
“Some sentries they are,” Angel said beneath her breath as we looked at the Dryads sleeping in their towering wooden columns. “Their sense of smell sucks or they would have identified the Metamorphs.”
“I’d bet my cat that the guards that are usually inside the council chambers are Metamorph replacements, too,” I said.
Angel rolled her eyes. “That’s no stretch. I’m not even sure you like that blue Persian.”
Very possible. Kali had shredded so many of my Victoria’s Secret panties that I’d probably take a turtle in trade for the snotty cat.
The council doors were thick and heavy enough to completely mute any sound or
voice inside. “I think they might consider backup security after this.”
I was wishing for one of my dragon-clawed daggers when Angel said, “You could use this.” When I turned my gaze to her, she carefully tossed a wicked-looking eighteen-inch-long dagger to me so that I caught it by the hilt.
With a quick nod of thanks, I slipped around the archway, wielding Angel’s dagger in my right hand.
“Halt.” A deep but musical bass of a voice sounded like thunder in the great hall and I came to a stop. “You are not allowed to wield any form of weapon here,” an ancient Dryad said from one of the thick columns. “You know this, Trackers.”
We didn’t have time to argue. “Who passed this way most recently?” I asked.
The Dryad narrowed her brow. “I do not answer to you, Tracker.”
“My apologies.” I wanted to scream with frustration. “All we can tell you is that Metamorphs have probably taken council members hostage and their doubles are inside the council chamber in their places.”
Dryad whispers echoed up and down the hallway at my words. The Dryads had no way of confirming this, because the Paranorm Council was paranoid about any of its discussions being overheard.
Who knew—the mystery of the chamber could be that it was actually a spa where council members all got foot massages and pedicures. No one could really say what went on behind those doors, and council members kept their meetings secret. All we heard out of them was an occasional ruling, a new law, or a modification of an existing paranorm law.
The Dryad nodded, the creak of wood accompanying her movements. Angel and I hurried to the enormous council chamber doors.
“Open,” bellowed the vibrating voice of the Dryad we had been speaking with.
The council chamber doors swung open.
Six male and female council members turned their heads to look at us.
I sucked in my breath. Now would have been a really good time to have employed a little stealth.
No thanks to the Dryad who had opened the doors to the chambers without giving us a chance to assess the situation. Dryads have no tact and no sense of battle strategy.
Chicks Kick Butt - Rachel Caine, Kerrie Hughes (ed) Page 18