When she looked around and didn’t see an exit, Deidre’s stomach took another sharp lurch. “What are we doing down here?”
“You’ll see,” Shauna whispered as she walked quickly across the cement floor to a metal storage rack filled with all kinds of useless stuff. Broken appliances, boxes of old toys, tools.
“Help me move this.” Shauna stood at one side of the shelving unit and pushed but hardly moved the rack an inch.
Looked like the whole thing weighed a couple hundred pounds. Deidre placed both hands on the cold metal and felt an icy burn in her palms. She let go quickly and shook her fingers to dispel the tingling sensation.
“Hey,” Shauna complained. “A little help, here?”
“Right.” Frowning, Deidre laid her hands on the metal again and felt that same pulse of something . . . different. This time she ignored it though and pushed at the shelving unit. It swept across the cement floor as if it were on wheels.
Shauna flashed her another grin, then tugged at a length of rope that had been hidden behind the shelving. With a whisper of sound, a panel slid open and Shauna stepped through into shadows. “Follow me.”
Deidre’s hands were still tingling. She clenched her fingers into fists. “Where are we going?”
“Almost there,” Shauna said.
Not really an answer.
Deidre didn’t like any of this, but she was in too far to go back. Besides, the scheduled execution was going to happen unless they got those women out of the internment center. She followed her friend and tried not to panic when the panel behind her closed, sealing her into the dark.
Ahead, another panel slid open and Shauna stepped through, swallowed by a deeper darkness on the other side. A cold knot formed in the center of Deidre’s chest. Weird, but she had the distinct impression she shouldn’t take another step. It was as if every cell in her body was screaming go back. She scrubbed both hands over her face, and noticed the tingling in her hands was nearly gone now. This whole night was getting weirder and weirder.
But her being creeped out wasn’t reason enough to leave. Not when five women were due to die in a few hours. They needed someone to rescue them. Telling herself it was all just nerves, she followed gamely after Shauna. Every step was tentative though, as if she expected to fall down a rabbit hole and disappear forever.
Shaking her head, she ignored that screaming warning voice inside her head and stepped through the second panel behind her friend. Instantly, she walked straight into a cold, damp rock wall, stubbed her toe and said softly, “We can’t have a light?”
No answer.
That sense of foreboding grew but the second door had closed behind her, just like the first, and there was no way to go but forward. God, she hated this. She couldn’t see a damn thing. Shauna wasn’t talking and what was that noise? Were there rats down here? Oh, she really hated rats.
“Shauna? Where are you?” Her voice was a frantic whisper that went unanswered. Holding one hand against the wall on her right, she crept ahead, wondering where the hell her friend had gone. Then she rounded a corner and was blinded by a sudden brilliant stab of light.
One hand over her eyes, she yelped, “Shauna!”
“What the hell is she doing here?”
“Oh my God. Is that who I think it is?”
More voices joined in, at least five or six of them, all shouting questions. She lowered her arm and blinked warily at the people staring at her. When her vision was clear again, she saw that the light wasn’t as bright as it seemed in comparison to the inky darkness behind her. But that wasn’t important. What was important was the people looking at her as if she had three heads, two of them breathing fire.
The armed people staring at her, she corrected silently. They were all carrying guns and those guns were trained on Deidre.
Had she somehow crossed over into an alternate dimension or something? Breathing fast, she tried to get her bearings. Then Deidre scanned the faces, found Shauna’s and asked, “What’s going on?”
Before her friend could answer, another woman shouted, “I can’t believe you brought the president’s daughter here. What the hell were you thinking?”
“Jesus, we’re all toast now,” someone else commented just loud enough to be heard.
“She’s gonna get us all killed.”
Everyone there was arguing, shouting at each other, but their weapons stayed trained on their target. The gun barrels looked damned serious so if this was some kind of weird joke, Deidre wasn’t getting it.
Which meant that she had been betrayed.
Her gaze fixed on Shauna. Her friend stared back, chin lifted, defiance glittering in her dark eyes.
Great. Perfect. She’d been handed over to some terrorist group and her friend didn’t even have the decency to feel badly about it.
“Shauna—” Deidre said, raising her voice to be heard over the others. “What’s this all about?”
“Yeah, Shauna,” another voice asked, tone mocking. “What the fuck are you up to? Bringing her here? Right before a raid?”
“Shut up, Tomas,” Shauna said.
“Don’t tell her my name,” he countered, eyes wild.
“I don’t care who you are,” Deidre shouted.
“Your mother would,” he snapped. “So she can have us all burned at the stake.”
Insult and fury mingled inside her chest, dispensing the cold fear and trepidation that had been nestled there. “My mother is doing everything she can to protect witches.”
Laughter met that statement and Deidre’s anger pumped even hotter. But bottom line, she didn’t give a damn what these people thought. She sent a sharp look at Shauna. “I just want to know what’s going on.”
Shauna picked up a semiautomatic weapon from a nearby shelf and briskly checked the loads before slinging the strap over one shoulder. When she was finished, she held the gun to her like a teddy bear and shrugged. “Sorry, Dee. I was told to get you here.”
“Told?” she countered, scanning the furious faces surrounding her. “By who?”
“By me.”
A deep, dark voice cut through the tumult of frantic conversation. There was power in the voice. Enough so that the room quieted as two men walked in.
One was tall, with cool blue eyes and long blond hair pulled into a ponytail. She hardly noticed him. But the other man, she couldn’t take her eyes off of him. He was even taller than the blond. Black hair cut military short, he wore unrelieved black and carried enough weapons strapped to him to start a war and win it single-handedly. But it wasn’t the blank expression on his face that worried her. It was his eyes. Pale gray, they locked on her and Deidre watched them swirl, shifting color and emotion. Like . . . magic. She knew those eyes.
She’d seen them on the night of the last raid.
When he had killed a man to save her life.
“Congratulations,” he said quietly, pale eyes fixed on her, deep voice booming into the silence. “You’ve just joined the WLF.”
Panic reared up and gathered inside her throat. Deidre’s gaze swept the others, whose expressions ran from proud to downright threatening. Shauna stepped forward then and said, “I couldn’t tell you, Dee.”
“Well, you should have,” she snapped, feeling the last of her control begin to unravel. She knew the WLF. Everyone did. They were on every most-wanted list in the country. Shaking her head, she said, “No, I won’t do this.”
“No choice, babe,” the leader said, folding his arms across a massive chest. “You’ve seen us. So you’re in.”
“I don’t belong here. I thought,” she said with a glare for Shauna, “that I was going to an RFW meeting.”
He laughed and she fumed.
“Rights for Witches is a ‘write your congressman’ organization. Witch Liberation Front is more
the blow-shit-up-and-demand-change sort of group.”
The others laughed in appreciation, but Deidre didn’t see a damn thing funny. “Yeah? And how’s that workin’ for you?”
Probably not smart to argue with armed wackos but she couldn’t seem to shut up. “Every time you guys kill some civilian it only makes the people that much more determined to exterminate you and witches along with you.”
“They don’t need an excuse,” one of the other men in the group said. “They’re on a damn holy mission and the only thing they pay attention to is gunfire.”
“Try selling that to yourself if you have to,” Deidre shot back, “but it won’t convince me. You can call yourselves whatever you want. It doesn’t change anything. I know what you are. You’re terrorists. And I won’t help you.”
“This is nuts,” someone argued. “She’s the president’s daughter, Finn.”
Finn. She turned her head to face the dark-haired man. His features were sharp, his eyes now a flat, cool gray as he watched her. His name struck a chord somewhere in her memory, but damned if Deidre could figure out why. She didn’t know him. Had seen him only once before. The recurring dreams of him and those mesmerizing eyes certainly didn’t count. So why . . .
“What better way to keep us from execution than to have Sterling’s girl in our group?” A half smile curved his mouth.
She felt as if she’d been slapped. She was insurance, plain and simple. Well, why not? All of her life, Deidre had been used by people. As a child, when her father died, Dee watched as her mother went into politics. Dee had been the appendage that looked good for the cameras. The brave, beautiful daughter, soldiering on without the guidance of a father, holding fast to the hand of her strong, brilliant mother. Growing up, Deidre had never had a friend who wasn’t secretly trying to get to her mother through Deidre. As an adult, every guy she’d dated turned out to be using her to get close to her mother—hoping for a position in her cabinet or some other high-up government job. Even the RFW had recruited her because, as the president’s daughter, she made an impact statement. Now, a terrorist group wanted her for the same reason.
Her stomach churned and her eyes stung briefly as she turned her gaze on Shauna. “Why?”
Still holding her semiautomatic weapon close to her chest, Shauna stepped toward her. “Wish there’d been another way, Dee. I really do. But I’m a witch.”
Deidre took a shocked breath and held it. She’d had no idea.
Shauna was still talking. “Me and the others like me? We don’t have a choice. There are bounties on our heads. If I so much as do a locator spell to find my keys, I could be burned at the stake. So forgive me for doing whatever I have to do to protect myself.”
Okay, she could understand Shauna’s motivation. Being a witch was dangerous. But bottom line, Dee had been used again. By someone she’d trusted as a friend. “You could have told me.”
Shauna shook her head. “Couldn’t risk it. If you had turned me in, I might have broken under torture and then”—she waved a hand at the people behind her—“that would have put all of them and more at risk.”
“Get your gear,” Finn said quietly into the sudden stillness.
Deidre looked at him and felt the power of his gaze burrow inside her where it set up shop and started a buzzing reaction that raced through her like a swarm of killer bees. She didn’t like it. Didn’t want to feel an attraction to an admitted terrorist. And hell, he was as good as kidnapping her, wasn’t he? Dragging her into his own private army?
“I won’t help,” she said.
“Not your call,” he countered, then crossed the room to her side. He took hold of her upper arm and a blast wave of heat shot down her arm to dazzle at her fingertips.
He seemed unaffected by it though as he tugged her along in his wake. “Let’s get this party started.”
Chapter 3
The tunnels were narrow, and the ceiling was low enough that both Finn and Joe had to hunch over to prevent knocking themselves out. The rock walls on either side of the passageway were damp and mildewed with age. November in DC was damn cold and these tunnels, carved out of the rock below the city, seemed to radiate that cold outward. The rebels’ breath puffed in front of their faces in tiny clouds.
Candles were tucked in ledges sporadically along the wall, and a few flaming torches threw what little light there was to be had. And Joe’s flashlight beam danced from side to side as he guided the group following Finn through the labyrinth.
Finn didn’t need the light. Hell, most of the group wouldn’t need it, he thought, keeping a tight grip on Deidre’s upper arm. The WLF had used these tunnels for months now and each member of his small group knew the way through the mazelike structure. But Deidre was another story. He felt tension coming off of her in waves.
He also felt the heat burning between them. But this was business. Payback. Call it a kiss to karma. He would do what they had to do to make things right. But after that, they would go their separate ways.
He could smell her fear.
That was good. Her fear would engender the change in her. But he needed more than her fear. He needed her sharp. Ready to fight. He needed . . . Well, he expected he needed too much from her.
Deidre Sterling, though she didn’t realize it, was his witch and her powers were quickening. He felt it. The hum of magic just beneath her skin. She felt it too—he knew it. She just didn’t know what it was yet.
She would soon.
He would explain everything to her. Eventually. First, though, he had to force her power to awaken and to do that, she had to be in danger. Which was why she was here on this raid.
While his mind worked at a furious pace, he kept his gaze fixed on the winding path ahead. As an Eternal, an immortal, his eyesight was profoundly better than a human’s. He didn’t need the flashlight beam bouncing around the rock walls to guide him any more than he needed the guttering candles. Besides, he thought with a silent chuckle, if he did need light all he’d have to do was call on the flames that lay within him and he could light up this place in a blink.
“I never knew these tunnels were down here,” Deidre murmured and stumbled on an outcropping of rock. She righted herself before he had to help.
“No one knows about them,” Shauna said from behind him. “Except Finn. He knew they were here. Showed us around a few months ago and we’ve been using them to strike our targets secretively ever since.”
“And how did the Great and Powerful Finn know about them?” Deidre muttered.
Finn smiled to himself. Good to know she wasn’t cowed. She’d need that flash and spirit before they were finished.
“Does it matter?” Joe asked, in a tone that clearly indicated he didn’t need or want an answer.
Finn nodded approvingly. He would answer Deidre’s questions. When he chose to and he wouldn’t be doing it in front of an audience. Even though he had led this small tactical squad for months, none of them knew him for what he really was. And he planned to keep it that way.
Deidre tried again to tug her arm free, but Finn only tightened his hold. He wondered if the buzz of magic and heat pouring back and forth between their bodies was getting to her as it was to him. He’d find out soon enough.
“It smells old down here.”
He laughed at that. After all, he was as old as time. What was he supposed to smell like?
“No one knows for sure how old they are,” Joe told her, “but the tunnels predate the Civil War at least. Parts of them were used as a chain in the Underground Railroad.”
She absorbed that information and kept quiet for a few seconds so that the only sound in the tunnel was the scuffing of their feet against the rock.
“Where are we going?” Deidre asked suddenly.
“To an old jailhouse. It’s been decommissioned, stands empty most of
the time.” Joe’s voice echoed slightly. “There will only be a few guards because they’re trying to keep the women’s location a secret. It’s close to the site of tomorrow’s public execution.”
“Yeah,” someone behind them sneered. “Want the witches to be fresh for their TV debut. Nothing worse than burning a witch alive on television and having her look tired from that long trip down from prison.”
Fury erupted inside Finn at the thought. Down through the centuries he had been witness to the persecution of women of power. He’d saved those he could and mourned the loss of the others. Humanity hadn’t changed. Hadn’t evolved. They were still willing to kill what they didn’t understand. Still eager to wipe out what they feared.
Idiots. All of them. They had no idea the witchcraft they sought to stamp out could save them in the end. He wondered if that knowledge would make a difference. Would they embrace the craft and the women who practiced it? Would witches finally be honored and accepted for the gifts they carried?
He doubted it. He had witnessed too many struggles for power.
Voices washed over him as his crew muttered back and forth in whispered bursts. Finn scowled and thought about telling them all to shut up. But he knew that tension had to be blown off somehow. They were only human, after all. And they were gearing up for a major fight.
He slowed, lifted one hand and then stopped. Turning to Joe, he said, “We’re below the old jailhouse now, so, the rest of you, keep it down. We’ll wait here for a while, give them all time to settle in up there, relax their guard a bit. Then we’ll hit the jail, grab the witches and disappear into the tunnels again.”
The small group eased down to sit on the damp rock, cradling their guns, mentally preparing for what was coming. Finn watched them all and felt another small stirring of respect for these few humans.
Visions of Chains Page 2