by Krista Walsh
Vera followed a step behind him. Tears filled her eyes as she looked around and ran her fingers gently over the light switch. By the naturalness of the motion, he guessed this had once been her bedroom, and he wondered what it had looked like when she’d been in possession of it. Likely a little less orange. He wished he could take her into his arms until her grief passed, but he’d been called here for a job. Personal concerns would have to wait.
“Nothing easy?” Gabe asked, picking up on the significance of Daphne’s last words.
The sorceress forced out a breath through pursed lips. “Have either of you heard anything about something called Project Oracle?”
“Not that I know of,” Gabe said, as Vera shook her head.
Daphne and Zach exchanged a glance, and Gabe noted the faint glimmer of disappointment in the sorceress’s eyes. “I knew it was too much to hope for,” she said.
“What is it?” he asked.
“We think it’s connected to the changes occurring at Mayzell Industries,” Zach said, his voice rough and growling, though Gabe didn’t take it personally.
“Mayzell?” Vera asked, jolted out of her silence. “The lab equipment manufacturer?”
Zach nodded, and Gabe frowned. “Didn’t I just read that they shut down their New Haven plant a week ago or so? Twelve hundred people out of a job, just like that?”
“You did indeed,” Daphne said. She crossed her arms and leaned her shoulder against the door jamb. “From what I understand, all the employees received a generous severance package that kept them from panicking — or from rioting — and Mayes and Wenzell disappeared into the sunset.”
“What does that have to do with Project Oracle? Or Molly being abducted?” Gabe asked.
He turned his attention to the bed, checking under the covers and under the frame for any clue the girl or her abductors might have left behind. Aside from the heap of clothes he guessed had avoided the laundry, all he found were a few smears of dirt on the carpet. It was an odd place to find it, but less so if Ara was right about someone rifting into the room. Someone willing to trespass would hardly consider removing their shoes first. He ran his finger over the stain and was surprised when it came up damp.
“Has it rained here in the last couple of days?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” Daphne said. “Why?”
Gabe shrugged. “It could be nothing.”
He straightened up and moved to the closet.
Zach uncrossed his arms and curled his hands into fists at his sides as Daphne waved at him to answer Gabe’s original question. “A little over two months ago, a Topan demon named Karl came to my place to recruit me into some business deal with Mayzell. I turned him down, so he assigned a string of minions to keep watch over me. Eventually they got tired of waiting, and tried to take me by force.” A low growl escaped his throat. “By luck, Daphne and Molly were there and we fought them off, but they came back.”
Daphne shuddered. “A mishmash of demons I wouldn’t have imagined would ever work together. Ghurgzics, Colcexes, Kozkors — no one was left out.”
Zach snarled. “And Lozak.”
At the name, Gabe whipped around to check on Vera, who had gone so pale, he worried she might faint. But she grabbed on to the wall to keep herself steady. “Lozak?”
The daemelus stiffened. “You know him?”
Gabe eyed him, wondering if he was going to explode. “The bastard definitely knows how to make an impression.”
Vera’s throat bobbed with a hard swallow, but she squared her shoulders. “He took a very special item from me.” Her gaze dropped. “I suppose you could say I handed it over, but I don’t see what choice I had. It was either that or have my entire life dismantled and destroyed. Since then, we’ve been trying our best to track him down, but without success.” She raised her gaze to meet Zach’s. “If you have any idea where to find him, I’d appreciate the opportunity to settle our business.”
“It wouldn’t be the Book of Universes by chance, would it?” Daphne asked.
Vera took a step backward, and Gabe could see her legs trembling. He moved toward her, ready to steady her if she needed it.
“How could you know that?” she asked, her voice little more than a whisper.
“You have a fan club,” Daphne said. “Apparently they had some great things to say about you helping to cause the end of the world.”
“You’ve met with the Collegiate?” Vera asked. Gabe was amazed she was still standing. Those tall, gaunt women with their square hats and endless eyes had been nothing but trouble since they’d walked into their lives, regardless of how often they claimed to be out to protect the otherworld. It had been shocking enough to discover the Collegiate existed, and now they had this entanglement to contend with. How many other “coincidences” were they going to discover standing here in Vera’s childhood home?
“It’s a long story,” Zach said. His narrowed eyes glared at Vera as though she’d just released a cloud of noxious gas into the room. Gabe didn’t know what those women had said about her, but he guessed it hadn’t been kind. They hadn’t exactly left things off on an amicable note.
But then Vera’s gaze found his, and his mood lightened at the look of determination in her gray eyes. This was the best lead they’d had in weeks. Of course finding Molly was important — even if he didn’t know her personally, only a monster would let her be taken by demons without doing something to help — but now they could also hopefully reclaim Vera’s book.
“We can talk about that more later, okay?” Daphne said, her attention jumping between Zach and Vera before landing on Gabe. “So, have you found anything, Gorgon?”
“Gorgon-Fae, if you please,” Gabe said, pressing his hand to his chest in mock offense. Then he dropped his hand by his side and took another turn around the room. “There’s nothing obvious here that I can — hold on. What’s this?”
His gaze fell on something dark tucked beneath Molly’s desk. Dropping to his hands and knees, he stretched out his arm until his shoulder popped so he could scrape the object closer. Once it came into the light, he made out a shard of wood.
“Sorry to get your hopes up,” he said. “It’s probably just a piece of the desk or something.”
“Let me see,” Daphne said. She didn’t give him time to hand it over, instead grabbing it out of his hand. “Oh, shit.”
“What?” Gabe asked.
“Zach, look,” she said, holding it up for him. He came into the room and took it from her, the shard seeming to shrink in his massive fingers. “They must have taken it, and obviously her, too. Maybe they think they can use her somehow?”
Gabe wouldn’t have thought the daemelus could go pale, but the man’s skin grayed before darkening with anger.
“Sorry,” Gabe said. “What is it they’ve taken, exactly?”
“An orb,” Daphne explained, her hand pressed against her chest as she rubbed her collar. “The Stygian Orb. Have you heard of it?”
“You guys are making me feel like I’m completely out of the otherworldly loop,” Gabe said.
“It’s a binding device,” said Vera, sounding each syllable carefully, as though afraid she wouldn’t be able to get the words out otherwise.
Daphne quirked an eyebrow. “You know about this thing?”
Vera’s gray eyes turned on her. “I used to have an entire book collection on otherworldly artifacts. This one was created centuries ago to transport demons into confinement, or to punish them for crimes against the treaties, am I correct?”
“That’s the way I understand it,” Daphne said. “We found it on one of the demons who came after Zach. For some reason, Mayzell Industries wants it, as well as our fearless daemelus.”
Vera rested her hand against her diaphragm. “As well as my book.”
“Orb.” Gabe rounded his lips, feeling every edge of the word. “There’s something about that word, isn’t there? Nothing good ever comes from an orb.”
Zach half-raised his
fist, appearing ready to slam it into the wall, then restrained himself. His dark eyes had taken on a reddish hue, and the skin on the backs of his hands had thickened into red scales that were spreading up his arms.
Gabe stepped away, braced for the daemelus to lash out his frustration on the nearest face.
“I knew I shouldn’t have let her keep it. They must have guessed this is where it was — or that she could tell them who had it — and now they have both her and the sphere. I’m going to snap those bastards’ necks when I get my hands on them.”
“To do that, we need to figure out where they are,” Daphne said, her voice calm and measured.
Zach lowered his hands, and the scales appeared to recede. Gabe released a breath, the muscles in his neck easing.
“Shouldn’t that be easy?” he asked. “These are businessmen we’re talking about. Even if they sold the main New Haven branch of the company, they wouldn’t just up and disappear. They wouldn’t be able to give up the income.”
“They may as well have,” said Zach. “They’re moving the company out of New Haven. Somewhere along the coast.”
“We have part of the blueprint for the new factory, and I’ve dug through every file and county clerk document I can think of,” Daphne said. “Trust me, we’ve been on this for weeks. We haven’t been able to find anything.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m about to give up,” Zach said. “I’m going back to the closed factory. Maybe someone was stupid enough to leave something valuable behind. Something that can tell us where we’re going.”
“I’ll go with you,” Daphne said.
“So can we.” Vera stepped forward.
Gabe shook his head. “We should stay here. I’ll keep searching the room. This definitely feels like it could be teleportation magic, and I might be able to tap into it and trace where the path went.”
“These sons of bitches better hope they’re not home when we get there,” Zach said. The scales on his arms had subsided, replaced by a faint white glow that was so pure and brilliant it hurt Gabe’s eyes through his sunglasses. “If they’ve touched one hair on her head, I will show no mercy.”
5
Molly guided her fingers over her watch face, grieving the missing hour hand and the cracked frame. She’d smashed it when she’d landed against the stone floor, and she was really starting to appreciate its loss. In the silence of the room, without any other way to tell how much time had passed, each second in this musty, reeking pit seemed to last ten minutes. She might as well have been here for days instead of the hours she guessed at. The lack of time to ground her only made her situation that much more terrifying. More uncertain.
Her butt hurt. The cold stone and damp air had worked their way into her muscles and joints, and no matter how often she stood up to walk around, she couldn’t warm up. She’d finally settled herself down in the driest corner she could find, but now the cold was eating through her jeans.
She clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering. Someone could be standing guard outside the door for all she knew, and she didn’t want to give away any sign of her discomfort.
It wasn’t only the physical unease that was eating at her, though. Left with nothing but her thoughts, she’d been forced to debate the wisdom of her decision. What had she gained by keeping the orb a secret? Sure, Steve was safe, but maybe there could have been a way to get it from him without putting him in danger. It was an orb that stripped people of their magic, after all, and since the demon had destroyed the protective box, transporting it would likely have affected one of her kidnappers. Then she could have used that advantage to try to escape.
Or they might have just taken the orb, leaving her alone, and she could have gone to Zach and explained. She knew Zach would want her to keep herself safe.
Instead, she’d gone and allowed stubbornness to make her decision, determined to prove she was strong enough for the challenge.
But was she?
Did real heroes get distracted by wet floors and nasty smells? She was sure Zach would have gone full daemelus on their asses already and fought his way out. And Daphne would have summoned some spell to turn them into dust. They would have focused on using their strengths to get them out of trouble.
Molly had allowed herself to be taken by surprise.
She was nothing but a human girl with a desire to be like the otherworldly beings around her. And that could only get her killed.
Resting her forehead on the tops of her knees, she exhaled slowly, trying her best not to give in to the tears threatening to choke her.
Maybe there was still a way to get out of here. She could tell them where the orb was and give in. She wouldn’t put it past them to kill her anyway, though. And if she couldn’t come up with a way to get the orb from Steve safely, they might kill him as well. And maybe the rest of his family, too, because why the hell not.
She could tell them Zach had the orb, or Daphne, but then she’d be sending them against her friends without being able to warn them that someone was coming. What if they caught Zach alone? Even with his full daemelus strength, they could overwhelm him with enough force. There was also the matter of not knowing where he was right now. If they couldn’t track him down, would she be any better at guessing?
With that thought, her earlier courage returned, warming her limbs and filling her core until she had too much energy to sit still. She rose to her feet and paced the square of her cell. There were no windows in the room that she could feel, so she wasn’t sure where the draft was coming from. The walls were smooth, the stone so worn it almost felt like glass, with the exception of some occasional gouges that she had the uneasy suspicion were left by previous tenants.
The atmosphere hanging in the air was one of torment, an emotion so intense it lingered long after the cause was gone, strong enough to coat the back of her throat.
The squeal of rusted hinges pierced the silence around Molly, followed by a heavy slam and the echoing thud of footsteps approaching.
It was enough to make her wonder if they’d found a way to read her thoughts, that just as she’d mustered her courage, they’d come to speak with her.
She balled her hands into fists and faced the cell door as it swung open with more shrieks and screams.
“How are you feeling about things now?” the slimy, smooth man asked.
“Pretty much the same,” she said, noting only the faintest tremor in her voice. That was progress. “Might as well shut me back in here to stew a little longer.”
The man chuckled. “Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary. If you let meat stew too long, it loses all its flavor. Better to beat in the spices early, I say. Molly, may I introduce you to Kesh?”
A fresh stink rose on the air as something dragged across the stone toward her. Molly stepped away from the sound, but not fast enough to avoid the hand that closed around her upper arm.
The smell kicked in before the pain, a heady odor of burning flesh and cotton. The scream began deep in Molly’s lungs and shot from her mouth without giving her a chance to hold it back. She tried to wrench away, but the hand refused to let go, and she dropped to her knees. The hand around her arm stuck with her, holding her tighter, until she was certain the very bone of her upper arm was going to be charred through.
“Kesh is just here to…warm you up,” the man said, with a hint of laughter in his voice. “Rega will be along later to begin the next stage — skinning the fat. If you’re still up for it, of course. It would take just a few words on your part to make all of this stop.”
The hand finally released Molly’s left arm only to squeeze her shoulder. She pressed her lips together, but still the scream burst through. She brought her friends’ voices to mind, their comforting touches and supportive presence, and held on to that as the heat seared deeper into her flesh. She couldn’t let them down. Whatever these bastards were doing to her, it was only the start. It was nothing compared to what they’d do to the rest of the world if they got what they wer
e looking for. Although she had no idea what their plan might be, she knew it must be true.
If she could prevent anyone else from suffering like she was, how could she give in to what they wanted?
Another scream tore from within her as Kesh moved his hand to her back. This time, she couldn’t even try to escape it, not having the strength to jerk away from the pain. Consciousness wavered in Molly’s mind, her thoughts turning fuzzy, her limbs feeling detached from the rest of her body, as though her arms and legs were both thirty feet long, too far to care about them. The faint release came as a sweet relief, and she floated away from the pain.
They didn’t allow her to float far. Before long, another presence stirred the air around her, this one reeking of oil and sweat. Her shirtsleeve over her burned arm was ripped away and something cool rested against the searing pain of Molly’s shoulder. For a moment she thought they were treating her, offering solace to avoid losing her too soon.
But the comfort soon turned to new pain as the edge of a blade hooked under her cooked flesh and began to peel it away.
Molly tried to yank her arm away, to free herself from the hold of this demon, but the blade just cut deeper. She screamed, then turned her head away and retched onto the floor, begging her mind to take her away from the agony.
How long did it last? Did it even matter? She felt as though her entire body had been thrown into the flames to cook. It didn’t matter if she kept her secret to the end, they would just get rid of her and move on to someone else. Someone like Zach, who they believed would know where the orb was hiding.
Except he didn’t. Molly had never told him she’d given it to Steve. That secret would die along with her.
The knowledge allowed a small smile to tease her lips, a passing moment of smugness that dulled the burn in her arm.
Down the corridor, the door swung open and shut once more.
“Hold,” the smooth voice said.
All hands removed themselves from Molly, and she slumped to the floor, relishing the feel of the cold stone against her cheek and the burn in her shoulder, despite the painful pressure. She wanted to roll onto her back and let it soothe the burns there, but was wary of drawing attention to herself.