Kedrax flew in over the panels and the guards’ heads. They were too busy dealing with Oberon and all his metal to notice. The clock ticked. She knew that every second they wasted was a second less McManus had. He might already be dead. But somehow she didn’t think so.
I can still feel him.
Kedrax looked at her. So can I.
“Fuck this,” she said, and turned for the stairs. “We don’t have time.”
Cody grabbed her gently by the upper arm. “Wait for Oberon.”
“He’ll catch up.” She wrenched her arm away.
“Oberon hurry,” she heard Cody say as she took the stairs two at a time.
Heads with surprised expressions rose from paperwork as she strode through the VCU headquarters. Most of them she’d never seen before. Apparently, VCU had restocked with green recruits and burned out veterans
“Where’s Marcus Hilden?” she asked the first fresh-faced VCU agent who stepped into her path.
“Sorry, visitors aren’t allowed.” He glanced at a closed office door with AGENT NEIL ROBERTS written in gold lettering, then down the corridor.
“I’m not a visitor,” she said, pushing past just as Oberon and Cody came in behind her.
The young agent reached out and grabbed her arm. “I said you can’t go in there.”
Oberon was on him in a second, lifting him off the ground by the scruff of his shirt.
“Hands off, buddy,” he growled.
She nodded. Not that she needed his help. The way she was feeling right now, she could crush this guy like a cockroach with just a thought. Thaumaturgic energy coursed thought her body, crackling off her fingertips.
The office door opened and Neil Roberts appeared. “What the hell is going on here?”
“I need to speak to Gayla and Marcus Hilden immediately.”
He crossed his arms and smiled that vicious, vindictive smile she’d come to know so well. “Do you, now?”
She had just the thing to wipe the grin off his face. Energy tickled around her body and Kedrax growled in her head as her eyes began to burn. Agent Roberts frowned uncertainly and narrowed his eyes.
She felt the same power overload as at the O’Shea complex after Lucinda’s death. This time she’d harness it instead of letting it control her. This time she’d be smarter.
“Detective McManus and Astrid Hilden have been kidnapped,” Cody explained. “Marcus may know who has them and where they are.” She could feel him trying to defuse the volatile situation with his incubus ability.
“That’s unfortunate for Detective McManus,” Roberts said as his eyes flicked to Oberon. “But I’m afraid I can’t allow you to see the prisoners.” The bastard was using it to score points.
“Can’t or won’t?” the ursian said.
Roberts’s smile deepened and he raised one arrogant eyebrow.
Enough.
Bianca lifted her hand where the energy built. Roberts’s smile slipped. She flicked out her hand, letting a ball of energy fly toward him. He ducked, putting his hands over his head as the frosted wall into his office shattered in a deafening rain of tempered glass, sending chunks of the granular fragments down on him.
The entire office stopped and dozens of eyes turned on her in jaw-dropping surprise. Even Oberon and Cody froze.
“Do I have your attention now?” she asked in a controlled tone.
Roberts dropped his arms slowly, his petrified expression giving her some small satisfaction. “You can’t do this, you don’t have the right.”
She threw another ball of energy into another glass wall with the same explosive result. He ducked again, even lower this time.
“Okay, okay,” he said, holding his hands up in surrender. “You can see them.”
Roberts nodded to one of his men, who raced off down the hall and swiped a solid door with a card.
“This is your fault,” Roberts spat at Oberon.
“Hey.” Bianca could hear the amusement in her boss’s voice. “I’m only here to make sure she doesn’t kill you.”
As the three of them followed the agent through the open door, Oberon leaned in. “Fuck me, Sin, when did you go get all badass?”
She smiled to herself for a split second and then dropped it. She couldn’t let her guard or concentration drop. McManus’s life depended on it.
Marcus Hilden sat on one of the three metal chairs at the metal desk in the stark interrogation room. He rose to his feet as she entered and his eyes immediately went to Kedrax, perched on her shoulder. “Good Goddess,” he whispered, and dropped back into his seat.
“No use hiding anymore,” the little dragon said.
Bianca placed her hands on the desk and leaned in. “Where are they?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “We’ve been searching for them for weeks.”
She straightened and took a step back. “But they’ve only just gone missing.”
Now it was Marcus’s turned to look confused. “Who?”
“Astrid and McManus,” she replied.
His face turned a pale shade of gray. “Oh no, you’ve lost her.”
“Don’t say anything, Marcus,” Gayla Hilden said from the door, her hands restrained in front by handcuffs as they moved her into the room.
“They’ve lost her,” he answered in a small voice. “She’s gone.”
Gayla’s composure slipped and she dropped onto the metal chair next to her son-in-law. “What have you done?”
Bianca leaned forward. “Tell me where your people would’ve taken her. And if they live, it will go better for you.”
“My people?” Gayla said. “But they aren’t my people.”
Something’s wrong. Bianca suddenly felt like she’d missed an important piece of the puzzle. A sick feeling rose in her stomach.
“Don’t you see what you’ve done?” Gayla asked in a scared little voice.
Things started to fall into place like dominoes in her head. The way Astrid quickly recovered from the drug fog once they got out of the house. The way Astrid asked her to stay. And the way Astrid guided Mary into the front of the car.
She had her throat cut from behind.
The blood drained from her face and her scalp tightened. She sank into the chair opposite the Domina.
“It’s Astrid. It’s always been Astrid.” Gayla reached out and clasped her hand in desperation. “We’ve tried to stop her, but she always managed to get by us. She killed Tiffany. She killed her own daughter.”
48
Darkness Awakens
McManus opened his eyes, or at least tried to. His head felt heavy and his face ached. The taste of blood filled his mouth and several of his ribs felt like they could be broken. The darkness pressed in, compounding his disorientation as he tried to gain a sense of where they held him. The aching pull on his shoulders stiffened as he attempted to move again. He realized he was tied up on some cold floor, and he could hear chanting somewhere nearby.
Be still, Sagen’s voice said in his head. Don’t let them know you are awake yet.
He didn’t need to see to know where he was. Beside the presence of the dragon, the mix of sulfur and decay told him this was Sagen’s cavern.
How many are there?
Too many.
Can’t you destroy them or something?
No. Sagen’s reply was definite and final.
It suddenly all came back to him, making him dizzy.
He’d been halfway through dialing Corey O’Shea’s number when he heard a strangled cry to his right and found Astrid leaning over the backseat, holding a curved knife to Mary’s throat.
“Thank you, Detective McManus, for helping me escape,” Astrid said in a cold voice. “Now pull over the car or I’ll kill her.”
When he pulled the car over, she sliced the blade deep and Mary’s blood flow
ed. She’d killed the girl anyway.
Astrid Hilden had done it all. How could he have been so stupid? A groan passed between his lips before he could bite it off.
“He’s awake,” a deep male voice said.
The chanting broke off.
“About time.” Astrid’s voice no longer carried any trace fear or insecurity. “Remove the blindfold.”
“I don’t know why you blindfolded him in the first place. He was already out cold,” another woman said.
So, at least one man and two women.
“You have no appreciation for theatrics, Ursula,” Astrid said. “You never did.”
Ursula? Where had he heard that name before?
The tightness loosened and dropped from his eyes, but he still had trouble opening them. Finally, he was able to crack one eyelid a little.
Two burly men stood nearby. Obviously muscle for hire. As soon as he saw the woman he assumed was Ursula, he knew where he’d seen her before.
“You killed you sister,” he croaked. “How could you leave her little girl orphaned like that?”
“That’s your fault.” She looked down at him sourly. “It was supposed to be Amy when she turned sixteen, but you forced our hand and we had to act sooner. Besides, Lucinda found us, so one sister was a good as another.”
Pain stabbed through his eye as an inhuman scream cut the air. But the pain wasn’t his. It was Sagen. They had bound the dragon in silver chains that crackled with ice blue energy. Astrid pulled the sword imbued with the same energy from Sagen’s eye. The pain seared through to the back of McManus’s skull as the black blood oozed from the dragon’s now empty socket.
Silver tears slipped from Sagen’s remaining eye, and Ursula captured them in a large glass vessel. Astrid drew back the sword and plunged it deep in Sagen’s side. McManus’s cry mingled with the creature’s as pain stabbed under his ribs.
He gasped, trying to drag oxygen back into his burning lungs while his heart struggled to keep beating. McManus felt his own tears wetting his cheeks as he watched the dragon’s remaining eye turn to him in pain. Again Astrid plunged the sword into the dragon, this time lower. The pain seared McManus’s stomach.
She handed the sword to Ursula.
“And you killed your own daughter?” McManus said to Astrid.
Ursula nodded to one of the guards, who delivered a heavy blow to his gut with the definite crunch of a rib snapping. “You dare to address the Alto?”
He laughed through the pain, which was difficult given his lack of air.
Astrid’s humorless smile never reached her cold eyes. “My child fulfilled the sole purpose for which I gave birth to her. It was always her destiny to be sacrificed to the Dark Lords. We have all made such sacrifices.”
He looked at the faces of all the witches, burning them into his brain so he’d know who to kill once he got free. A dark-skinned man would be related to the girl who was killed in the voodoo shop. The others he could only guess.
Broken ribs screamed as he craned to see, but he ignored the pain. “They’ve all killed their blood for this. Why?”
An infant cried, and a soothing voice crooned softly as one of the witches picked up a tiny newborn from a baby carrier by the pool.
“To return the rightful rulers to us. The world has grown overcrowded and chaotic, and the Dark Lords will bring back order.” Astrid’s maniacal grin deepened.
She’s totally and completely off her freaking rocker.
“The dragon’s almost ready,” Ursula said.
“Excellent,” Astrid replied. “Prepare the vessels.”
As the others moved away, Astrid looked down on him. “I’ll really have to thank Bianca Sin, before I kill her. I couldn’t believe my luck when she turned up to rescue me. I mean the plan I had for my escape would probably have worked, but she gave me something even more precious. You. A dragon warrior, the perfect way to into Lord Sagen’s lair.”
“Eat shit and die,” McManus ground out through gritted teeth. Not very original, but pain and his need for a fix were not exactly conducive to clever comebacks.
The witch ignored his attempted insult and smiled that evil smile he was really starting to hate. “Of course, that meant I had to sacrifice that odiously loyal Mary earlier than I’d planned. Her essence was to be a feast for the masters when they arrived. But since I have you, it was a price worth paying.”
Ursula returned dressed in a hooded white robe and carrying a swath of crimson fabric across her arms. Astrid’s crazed violet eyes never left his face as the other woman held it up behind her.
“There is an added bonus to you being here,” she said, slipping her arms into the robe. “When the dragon breathes his last in the presence of a dragon warrior, it must trigger the release of the dragon spark. He could have died holding onto it if not for you. And now I’ll make it mine.” Her eyes darkened and she took a step toward him.
“It’s time, Alto,” one of the other witches said.
She glared at him, then spun to storm back to the pool. She looked every bit her mother’s daughter in that moment. He lifted himself to his feet to get a better look.
They all extended small glass vials over the pool.
“Water of my blood,” they intoned.
Then Astrid picked up the glass container Ursula had used to collect Sagen’s tears. “Water of the dragon.”
As Astrid poured the contents into the pond, the crystal clear water turned a milky swirling silver. Ursula picked up the sword and followed her mistress to the dragon’s side. The blade was now blacker than the blackest obsidian, as if the dark dragon’s blood had imbued the very metal itself. Astrid took the weapon, her manic gleam returning as she moved to the dragon’s side and placed the tip carefully against the hide, then thrust.
McManus’s chest seemed to explode as Lord Sagen’s scream filled his mind and the cavern with a white-hot pain.
49
Enemy Mine
The VCU agents took Gayla and Marcus from the room, and Bianca leaned back in the chair.
“How could I have gotten it so wrong?” she said. McManus was missing and Mary dead because of her. Because she helped Astrid.
“All of us did.” Oberon put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m going to talk to Roberts, see if we can mobilize to find her.”
Suddenly, the dragon screamed and passed out, falling from her shoulder.
“Kedrax,” she cried, catching him before he hit the floor and drawing his unconscious little body to her chest. Though his heart beat strongly, it was a little too fast.
“Is he okay?” Cody asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied in a near panic as she laid him down on the interview table.
The dragon’s eyes opened slowly and he roused from his side, lifting his head to look at her with molten gold eyes. “Lord Sagen’s in a lot of pain and McManus is there with him.”
Her heart stopped beating. “Is he alive?”
“Yes,” the dragon, said climbing unsteadily to his feet. “For now.”
He lives. Her heart started again and she sighed and closed her eyes as relief flooded through her. “Lord Sagen!” she called.
Yes, witch. Sagen’s voice filled her head. I’m here.
Kedrax’s talons dug into her forearm on the table, though not hard enough to hurt. He’d heard the voice too.
“Can you bring us to you?” she asked.
No. Sagen was silent for a moment. I’m too weak.
She closed her eyes and used her mind. How’s McManus?
He’s alive but in bad shape.
Is it Astrid? Are they there?
Yes, they used my own arrogant complacency against me, the dragon said. I didn’t see the ruse until it was too late. They sent a man with a gun to kill me . . .
“A handgun couldn’t harm a Great Drago
n,” Kedrax said.
Precisely. The man was the weapon. The moment I bit into him, I felt the poison enter my system. So, when the witch turned up, I was helpless to stop them. They’re preparing to open the . . .
Sagen went quiet. She could sense the pain he was in.
The little dragon trembled, out of fear or anger, she couldn’t tell. In her case, it was definitely anger. She had to stop Astrid. She had to stop them all.
“What if I meet you partway? If I can get to the caverns below the subway? Will you have enough strength then?” she asked.
Maybe. They still have to prepare before they are ready to complete the ritual. But hurry.
“I’ll get there as fast as I can,” she said, as Kedrax climbed on her shoulder.
Cody stood silently through the entire exchange, but as she picked up her keys, he placed his hand over hers and gently pried them from her shaking fingers. “I’ll drive.”
The packed subway station buzzed with people crowding the platform. A train screeched to a halt and several sets of doors opened in perfect synchronization. Commuters swapped in and out of the cars, providing little actual relief to the press of bodies. Cody used his mojo to guide people out of the way and open a path to the tunnel at the far end. Just as Bianca reached the edge of the platform where the tunnel yawned ominously before her, Sagen’s presence entered her head and the now familiar blinding white light overwhelmed her.
Whatever she expected to find when she got there, this wasn’t it. Nothing could’ve prepared her for the sight of Sagen’s massive body secured to the stone floor with large magic-imbued silver chains. His wings were tattered beyond flight, black dragon’s blood oozing from dozens of wounds, and his hide so pale it was almost colorless. He lay half in darkness, looking beaten, both physically and emotionally.
Kedrax shifted on her shoulder as she glanced around for Cody, but it was only the two of them.
I couldn’t bring your friend, Sagen said in her mind. I only have enough energy for defensive spells.
Two men stood near a mound of rags with their backs to her. She hit them with a quick knockout spell before they could turn and catch her. They both froze to the spot. No one would notice unless they looked too closely. She could hear chanting voices, but the dragon’s body hid them from sight.
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