Phoenix Freed

by Elise Faber

  Alex’s plan involved taking the locations out simultaneously, or as closely together as possible, to catch the Dalshie flat-footed and unprepared. This would hopefully minimize losses to the Rengallan forces and make it easier to save any Forgotten and Rengalla within the Dalshie bases.

  There would be four groups of LexTals, senior Rengallan soldiers, and Forgotten, and each was tasked with three Dalshie positions, with Alex and the triplets providing transport for the groups and rescued prisoners.

  Then they would rendezvous and proceed to the final target: the Master’s stronghold.

  The mission had taken four days to plan and on the night of the operation, everyone gathered in the cafeteria. It was the only place large enough to house everyone teleporting out. Daughtry crossed over to her sister, her skin bathed in flecks of emerald and purple, and knew it looked like she was sporting a giant glittering unitard.

  “What are you doing?” Alex asked.

  Dee blinked, and the sparks dimmed. Her face screwed up. “Trying a technique I read about in the Oracle journal. I’m attempting to leave myself open to a vision.”

  “Why would you do that?” John snapped. “You can’t risk having a vision.”

  “Pish. I’m stronger than before, and I know how to manipulate the foresight. As long as I pick the correct key, I’m fine.” She shrugged. “Plus everyone here has shielded themselves. I shouldn’t have any erroneous visions.”

  “It’s too big a risk, Dee,” John said.

  “I’m not actively pulling visions,” Daughtry told them. “Rather, it’s more like I’m just open to the possibility of seeing something.” She sighed. “And it doesn’t really matter if I was anyway. You heard what happened with Dante. If a vision is powerful enough, it will break through whatever barriers I put in its way.”

  John glowered. “I don’t like it.”

  “And I love you for it,” Dee said, wrapping her arms around John’s middle for a quick hug before pulling back. “But in this, you’ve got to mind your own business.” She winked at Alex, who bit back a smile.

  Dante walked into the room. “Pack it up and move to your positions!”

  The four groups would teleport from different corners of the Colony. Her and John’s was the Northwest, along with Tyler, Cody, and Daughtry and an assortment of Forgotten.

  Monroe, Morgan, and Mason would each teleport a mixed group from the Northeast, Southwest, and Southeast, respectively.

  The shield would be disbanded for a fraction of a second to let the troops through, then snap back into position.

  That magical barrier and the lowest level of soldiers were the only things standing between the Dalshie and the Colony.

  The shield needed to hold. The remaining soldiers needed to be on alert.

  And the Rengalla in the field would need every last bit of luck and cunning if this plan was going to work.

  Fifty-Five

  The smell of rotting flesh burned her nostrils. It was always the same, no matter how often Daughtry was around the Dalshie.

  A part of her always rebelled from the darkness.

  Even though it lived in her.

  Calm.

  This was the trickiest part of the operation. She had trailed behind the soldiers, watching and waiting as they’d teleported in at once to the Dalshie targets. A flash and they’d teleported into three different bases, knives and guns drawn, magic primed then deployed. They’d destroyed their targets, in seconds, the element of surprise on their side.

  Now, it was time to spring the trap, so to speak.

  To hopefully catch the Master scrambling and take him out.

  From the street, the small house seemed almost sickeningly cheerful and bright.

  It was only beneath the falsely human veneer that true evil was revealed.

  Tunnels and cells. A gothic Victorian that sat above a truly gruesome horror.

  “Stay here,” Alex told John, Cody, and Daughtry before teleporting back to the previous location to bring Tyler and the three Forgotten soldiers to the house. The other groups were running behind, but would rendezvous there once their targets had been eliminated.

  Their job was to stay out of sight until they had a solid shot at the Master. And if things went bad . . .

  They would retreat. Live to fight another day.

  Alex had practiced her teleportation skills in the days prior, and aside from having to revive Dominic the first time—she’d had to thicken the barriers around the half-human, half-Rengallan soldiers’ minds to twice that of a pure Rengalla—her technique had been impeccable.

  Thankfully it had only taken the slightest nudge of Cody’s magic to bring Dominic around, and he’d just grinned when Alex apologized. “The leader is always the guinea pig,” he’d told her. “Perk of the position.”

  Today no one ended up unconscious, and they had already traveled to Canada and the Pacific coast, then over the Atlantic to a house in Ireland. Alex was the strongest teleporter and had taken the outlying targets in an effort to save the triplets’ magic for the battle. It helped that their group had been almost terrifyingly efficient. Between John, Cody, and Tyler she and Daughtry had barely needed to do anything before their Dalshie targets had been destroyed.

  Ashes had blown through the air, mixed with the dust of burning lumber and sheetrock.

  Part of the mission had been incredibly satisfying because they were eliminating a threat to the people she cared about. But it was also unnerving because the Dalshie they were destroying weren’t the brutal soldiers who’d terrified her.

  They were drones.

  Dalshie who’d been Rengalla not very long before. Baby Dalshie . . . who couldn’t be saved.

  There wasn’t a cure for Dark Magic. Once it was inside a person, it took over and destroyed everything.

  Except . . . that wasn’t one hundred percent true.

  She, Alex, and Tyler all had dark magic pumped into them, and they’d survived.

  What if they wasn’t giving these Dalshie a chance?

  What if they were murdering them?

  “Stop.” Cody’s voice was firm, almost harsh. “The reason you, Alex, and Tyler are different is because you’ve never crossed that final line.”

  That final line.

  It seemed so firm, so easy to detect. But Daughtry knew it wasn’t. She also knew she didn’t have time for this. Dee swallowed. “I know this house,” she said softly. “I grew up here.”

  Alex’s eyes flicked to the intricate gingerbread trim, the bronze seven in the address numbers hanging slightly askew. It could have been any cute, well-kept house in any neighborhood.

  “The Master lives here now.” She pointed down. “Or beneath it. Last I heard, this was where he’d chosen to live, for several years now.”

  “To spite Elisabeth. To literally take the rug from beneath her feet.”

  Alex nodded as she considered what Dee had told her. “Probably.” Her phone buzzed.

  The other squadrons were reporting in.

  Every target was destroyed.

  Except the small Victorian in front of them.

  “Let’s move.”

  Fifty-Six

  The magical booby traps were imperceptible, at least to Daughtry. Fortunately for their team, they had Alex and her sister was well versed in disarming them.

  “How do you know how to do that?” Daughtry whispered as Alex fed magic into an alarmed trip wire at the front door.

  “You learn a lot when you’re trapped in a room with nothing to do,” Alex said.

  Which was probably only half the story, just another way her sister was trying to protect her, but since this wasn’t the right time or place to push for details, Daughtry just nodded.

  “This,” Alex murmured, “is a particularly nasty trap. Had we not disarmed it, hardened bolts of black magic who fire at whoever had touched the handle.”

  Dee shrank back. “Holy shit.”

  Alex’s magic encased the knob, slipped inside the frame of the doo
r, and gradually ate away at the dark power.

  “What if the Master isn’t here?”

  “He will be,” Alex said as she worked. “He’ll have heard about the attacks on the other bases by now, know they were us. He knows I’ll come back here.”

  That was the reason this had been the last target. This was where she and Alex had been held prisoner over the years, in a dark claustrophobic cell in the underbelly of the basement.

  The lock clicked, and they stepped inside.

  Alex went first, trailed by John.

  Next came Dominic and the two Forgotten soldiers, Ryan and Chris, then Daughtry, Cody, and Tyler.

  It was quite a lineup.

  One Daughtry prayed would do the trick.

  Unfortunately, she’d been frantic the last time she’d been in the house—the location of her mother’s betrayal and her father’s death—but she did remember there being a staircase leading down into the basement located in the kitchen.

  “No,” Daughtry whispered when Alex had almost crossed the threshold. “Not that way.”

  Slipping past Dominic and ignoring Cody’s soft protest, Daughtry pushed open a door and led them into a study.

  Or the remains of one.

  The air was stale—as if the door hadn’t been opened in a long, long time—and the room within was in shambles.

  It had belonged to their father, Daughtry remembered. There was so much she wanted to stop and absorb. The faint scent of spice, the scattered leather-bound volumes on the shelves. Pens her father had held. Papers he’d written on.

  Her heart was beating insanely fast.

  She moved to stand beside Alex and gripped her sister’s hand hard.

  “It’s real,” Dee said. “I thought all of it was in my head—” She trailed her fingers across the edge of an overturned recliner. “It wasn’t.”

  “No.”

  “Okay.” Daughtry blew out a breath and used her free hand to push her bangs back. She crossed the room and bent over the fireplace, her lips moving as though she were counting.

  “We’ll go this way,” she said and pressed a brick.

  A huge gaping hole opened within the wall, the top few treads of a staircase just barely evident in the gloom.

  She took a step back.

  Tyler snorted and, aghast, Daughtry’s gaze whipped toward him.

  “A dark, silent staircase? Really?” He rolled his eyes. “Cliché much?”

  “Doesn’t mean it’s not creepy as hell,” she muttered, but, sucking it up, she carefully crossed to the opening, standing for a moment in the dim threshold to allow her eyes to adjust.

  “Come on,” Daughtry told the others as Alex joined her. “But quietly. I remember listening through the vents as a kid when our parents were practicing magic, or a LexTal trainee came over to discuss something critical with my dad. This passage encloses most of the perimeter of the basement.”

  “This is perfect.” Alex pointed at Dee. “But you should stay in the back where you’re protected—”

  A wall of black flames sprang up behind them, rendering the passage completely pitch black.

  Alex reached out and grabbed Dee’s arm. “Hang on.” She shifted then cursed fiercely.

  “What is it?”

  “We’re trapped.”

  Calling on her powers, Daughtry created a small flame, just enough to dimly light the space without blinding them with a sudden brightness. Alex threw some magic at the wall of fire . . . then they both promptly ducked when it ricocheted back at them with the speed of a bullet.

  “Cowgirl?” Cody’s mental voice was muffled, as though through a great distance.

  “We’re stuck,” she thought.

  “Find a way to get out.” His mind was frantic, the only reason she could attribute to the insanity of him suggesting such a thing.

  “I’m not leaving her,” she retorted. That was even if she could get out at all—which seemed unlikely. Plus, she couldn’t risk getting out then being unable to get back in.

  “Just try—fuck!”

  The red-hot blaze of his pain was intense, and she cried out. “Cody!”

  It took a moment for him to respond. “I’m okay. Don’t touch the flames.”

  “Don’t touch—” She shook her head. Who would willingly put their hand on a wall of black flames? The great big idiot.

  “Alex?” she murmured.

  Her sister shook her head. “I can’t teleport us out.”

  Daughtry lifted her chin. “Well, only one thing to do.” A shrug. “We go on.”

  “I—”

  “Make sure one of the triplets is nearby so you can teleport out as necessary,” she thought. “And set the charges. We’re going to proceed as planned.”

  “Daughtry,” he warned.

  “It may be the only thing that gets us out,” she thought. “The explosives should disrupt the magic for a split second. That’s all Alex will need to teleport.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Then don’t think. Just do it.”

  His sigh was obvious despite the raging magic between them. “Be careful.”

  “You too.”

  There wasn’t room for more words, not with the worry and fear consuming everything that passed along the bond.

  “So should we go down the scary-as-hell staircase?” Daughtry asked once Cody’s mind had drifted away..

  “Well, we’re not getting through that way.” Alex tossed her head in the direction of the black flames.

  The fire was eerie. Moving and writhing even as it didn’t make a single sound.

  “John touch it too?”

  Alex rolled her eyes. “Of course.”

  “Boys.”

  They exchanged a smile, and feeling just a little lighter, Daughtry started down the stairs. Alex slipped in front of her, cutting her off, and taking the lead. Instead of arguing, she murmured. “It splits off into a V at the bottom.”

  The corridor did split, however, the hallway to the right was blocked by another wall of flames.

  Dee’s breath caught. “He’s herding us.”

  Alex nodded and turned left.

  They were walking straight into a trap, both of them knew it. Just as both of them knew there wasn’t a damned thing they could do about it.

  Fifty-Seven

  Daughtry’s nape prickled more intensely with every step she took. Her instincts screamed at her to turn around, to walk back up the stairs and blast their way out somehow.

  Her brain told her to think.

  The walls were wooden frames with only a single layer of sheetrock and no insulation. Exposed wires were woven through the two by fours, and she could just make out a door—from a thin sliver of light—at the end of the hall.

  Unfortunately for them, the hidden corridor didn’t appear to be quite so hidden. They were the equivalent of rats stuck in a maze with the Master leading them to the mousetrap in the center.

  And Daughtry wouldn’t bet on it being a quick snap of their necks.

  The Master had plans for her. Plans Daughtry had now exposed her sister to.

  “There’s something I probably should have mentioned before,” Dee whispered as they walked. “I kept telling myself it wasn’t as important as everything you were doing, but my gut’s gnawing at me, and I—”

  A scream interrupted her.

  Daughtry lunged forward, but Alex seized her arm and yanked her to a halt. “No. Wait.”

  The second shriek was worse, echoing through the corridor and hurting Alex’s ears.

  Daughtry wriggled insistently, trying to get free. “He’s hurting—”

  “Shh. Wait,” Alex murmured. “Listen.”

  They froze, ears straining in that gloomy hallway. Alex’s small blue flame filled the space with flickering light.

  Then they heard it.

  A moan.

  Another screech, this time definitely one of pleasure.

  Daughtry stopped fighting, and Alex dropped her hand. “Are they . .
. um . . . bumping uglies?”

  Alex bit her lip to hold back a totally inappropriate laugh. “Really?”

  Dee scowled. “Well, it’s not lovemaking,” she said.

  Alex raised one brow. “Breeding plan, remember?”

  “Have any gotten pregnant?”

  “As far as I know?” She shook her head. “No. Though not for lack of trying. Luckily, it seems that the dark magic really does eliminate fertility.”

  Which was a good thing because she shuddered to think what a child born to a Dalshie would be like? A hideous, immoral being—

  It would be like Chucky on steroids.

  Daughtry scrubbed a hand across her face. “That may be one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever heard.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Anyway. I need to tell you—”

  The arms came out of nowhere. They burst through the walls and grabbed her shoulders.

  Daughtry writhed and fought, saw Alex do the same. But then her sister was gone, yanked through the sheetrock and out of sight. She stopped fighting, and a second later, she was in the next room, white dust coating her skin and stinging her eyes.

  “Thanks for joining the party, my dear girl.”

  The Master stood in all his hideous glory, black magic staining his skin, crimson eyes, cruel smile. It was all there. Behind him, a naked Dalshie couple lay frozen on the bed, mid-fuck and all the more disgusting for it.

  They were being supervised, like a pair of prized horses.

  Gross.

  Daughtry didn’t respond to the Master’s taunt. She didn’t have time because Alex was already moving. Her sister yanked free of the Dalshie gripping her shoulders and pulled out her knife from the holster on her thigh. In one quick movement, she lunged, stabbing the Dalshie who held Dee in the heart.

  Ash exploded into the space around them.

  Alex whirled, stabbed a Dalshie at her back.

  More ash.

  The female Dalshie on the bed screamed again, this time in frustration—though whether she was spurred by unfulfilled desire or displeasure that her mattress antics had been interrupted, Daughtry didn’t know.

  The Master watched Alex’s movements with growing satisfaction. Instead, he waited for the ash to settle then fixed his terrible red eyes on her sister and nodded. “I knew you held back when you were here,” he told Alex. “Magnus mentioned as much but . . .” He tapped his chin and stepped toward them. “All this time I thought you were useless, merely a pawn to draw out the Oracle.” He smiled, a parting of fetid lips. “You’d certainly convinced your mother of your ineptitude, at least. I should have known better than to trust her instincts.”