The Kat Dubois Chronicles: The Complete Series (Echo World Book 2)

by Lindsey Fairleigh

  I returned his stare. “How long since anyone’s talked to Mei?”

  Heru looked at his sister, who immediately pulled out a sleek cell phone and started tapping the screen. “You believe Ouroboros has captured her?” he asked, returning his attention to me.

  I nodded. “Dom saw them bring her in.” I relayed what he’d said about the electromagnetic field, then added, “If we tell Mari, she’ll flip out.” I shifted my legs so I was kneeling instead of sitting on the floor. My heart rate picked up, and I rubbed slightly sweaty palms on my jeans. “She’ll abandon her ‘save our people’ crusade in a heartbeat and tear that place apart to get to Mei.” I licked my lips and inhaled deeply. “If we tell her about this, she’ll have no reason not to share the location.”

  Heru crossed his arms over his chest. “But what incentive will she have to help us? What’s to stop her from simply going in there and breaking Mei out, and leaving us sitting on our thumbs?”

  “Nothing.” In all likelihood, I thought that was exactly what she would do. “But, her going in and breaking out Mei brings down all of the barriers. She’ll disable all security measures in the process. And this is the only way I can see that she might tell us the location.” I stared at each of them for a moment, settling on Heru’s intense, golden eyes. “Back on that roof, she agreed to help Dom. She was going to come to the hospital and release his ba. She was going to help us save him.” I had to believe that part hadn’t been a lie. “She’s not a bad person. Misguided, maybe, but not bad.”

  Heru rubbed his jaw with one hand.

  “We can’t wait to come up with something better,” I persisted. “The shadow Senate will know that we know by now, thanks to our little show on the roof. Don’t you think they’ll try to cover their tracks by destroying all of the evidence—including the people?” I took a deep breath and barreled onward. “There are kids there, too, Heru. Children who didn’t do anything wrong besides being unlucky enough to be homeless. They don’t deserve this.” My fingers gripped my jeans. “Besides, what’s the worst that can happen? She leaves chaos in her wake? Ouroboros will send in extra security once they realize she’s broken Mei out. You own companies that have satellites, don’t you? If we have to, can’t we just use them to monitor the whole Industrial District? Their own people will lead us right to the warehouse where they’re holding ours.”

  Lex stood gracefully and approached her husband. She placed her hand on Heru’s arm and looked up into his face. “She’s right. You can see that, can’t you?”

  Heru’s stare shifted from Lex to the mirror. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dom nod once. “Alright,” Heru said. He looked at me. “Make the call.”

  I glanced at the scratched-up phone lying discarded on the floor. Her text from the previous day was the only place I had her number, and thanks to my dip in the sound, the phone would never turn on again. I bit my lower lip. Banging my head against the wall would be about as effective as this whole plan, because none of us had her damn phone number.

  “Here,” Nik said, fishing his phone from his pocket. He tossed it to me.

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “Her number’s in there,” he said, pointing to the phone in my hand with his chin. “She gave me her card . . . you know, because I ‘agreed’ to work with her.”

  A slow grin spread across my face. “Maybe I don’t quite hate you.”

  Nik snorted. “Don’t get soft on me now.” His lips twisted into a sly smirk. “I’ll blush.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I stuck out my tongue. What can I say? I’m forever eighteen, with all the hormones and maturity that come with that oh-so-special age.

  A slight tremor ran through my hands as I searched Nik’s contacts for Mari’s name. He had an enormous phone book, filled mostly with entries using distinctly female names. I ignored that little tidbit—for the most part—and found Mari’s name. I pulled up her contact profile, tapped the call button, and brought the phone up to my ear.

  She answered during the second ring. “Hello, Nikolas.”

  I responded without thinking. “His full name is Nekure, not Nikolas, numb-nuts.”

  “Kat?” From the way Mari said my name, she sounded wary.

  “The one and only.”

  “You sound . . . chipper.”

  I sneered. “You know, I feel chipper.”

  “Really?”

  “I just can’t help but feel all tingly inside when I know something you don’t know.”

  “Kat,” Heru’s voice held a warning, his eyes a dark promise.

  I held up a finger, silencing him. I knew Mari better than him; I knew just how to play her like a concert pianist.

  “And what might that be?” Mari asked over the phone.

  “How about we trade—I’ll tell you what I know, if you tell me where the warehouse containing your secret, evil lab is?”

  “It’s not my lab,” she said blandly.

  “Semantics,” I said. “How about this—I’ll go first. You don’t have to tell me the location right away. You don’t even have to tell me over the phone. You can text it to me, for all I care. But just remember one thing—you already owe me a debt for Dom’s death. Now you’ll be doubly indebted to me, and I’m not feeling too happy about you right now. The next time I see you, my sword might just slip out of my scabbard and accidentally pierce your heart. And trust me when I say I will see you again.”

  Mari was quiet for a few seconds. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll bite. Share.”

  I looked straight into Heru’s eyes as I spoke. “Ouroboros has Mei, Mari. They have your mom.”

  Another few seconds of silence, just the sound of her breathing on the other side of the line. And then the line went dead.

  Got her.

  I lowered the phone, setting it on the floor by my knee.

  Heru stalked toward me and crouched down, bringing his face to my level. Damn, but it was hard to look into those glorious black-rimmed gold eyes when he was so close and so very pissed off. “You’re reckless,” he said, his voice cold and controlled. And terrifying.

  I leaned back a few inches. I couldn’t help it.

  “You’ve always been reckless,” he continued. “If that causes our people their lives . . .”

  Lex touched his shoulder with gentle fingertips, like doing so might help tame his rabid inner beast.

  The phone buzzed, and I risked a glance downward. One new message. From Mari.

  I opened it with a tap of my thumb. Straight-faced, I held the phone up for Heru to see. “If I’m not mistaken, that’s an address.” I suppressed a grin. “In SoDo.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  8:57 PM

  All bas have been released and returned to their respective bodies, security systems are disarmed, and personal are detained. Do what you want with this place . . . burn the whole damn warehouse to the ground if you want. I don’t care.

  8:58 PM

  Just don’t come looking for me. Don’t look for my mom. You won’t find us.

  8:58 PM

  This makes us even.

  Mari’s texts had come in quick succession while we were navigating the streets of SoDo. I’d smiled to myself after reading them. She’d always been reactionary. Once she cooled down and her more calculating, logical side took over, she would come to me, icy anger a frigid torch burning within her. Vengeance was a dish best served cold, in her case. And she made good chilled vengeance. The best, in fact.

  We kept our rescue party small—Heru, Lex, Aset, Neffe, Nik, and me. We were the only people outside of the shadow Senate fully aware of the situation. This core group was the trusted few, for now. Once the rescue mission was over and the warehouse lab was destroyed, we could start incorporating others into our circle—especially those we’d rescued—but for now, we were operating small, lips zipped. Loose lips and sinking ships, and all that . . .

  Once we knew where to attack, getting people and the kids out was easy enough—knocking out a
nything electronic is simple when you have nearly unlimited funds and resources, which Heru does. It’s good to be an ancient god of time—an ‘old one,’ as the more ancient of our kind were called. It helped that Mari had already swept through the place, disabling all of the alarm systems and security cameras and locking the few evening employees in holding cells that had apparently been empty.

  We arrived just minutes after her texts, unleashing a localized electromagnetic pulse generator that would wipe out everything for as long as it remained on, giving us enough time to get in, release all of the captured Nejerets and kids, and get out. We rushed the former captives out to the three buses we’d rented to transport them back to the Heru compound on Bainbridge. We weren’t sure what had been done to the kids. They didn’t appear to be roughed up, but some seemed ill, and others were out cold. Neffe and Aset were determined to use every cell of their scientific brains to figure out what Ouroboros had done to them.

  Not everyone could walk. Some of the Nejerets were unconscious, having slipped into regenerative comas as soon as Mari reunited their bas with their bodies. Those relative few were carried out, one by one, by Nik and Heru while Neffe, Aset, and Lex remained with those already loaded onto the buses, waiting to drive them to the ferry as soon as everyone was out. Reinforcements would arrive soon—Ouroboros had probably dispatched them as soon as Mari disabled all of the security systems—so we had to move as quickly as possible.

  I remained within the heart of the lightless laboratory, keeping watch on the new captives while Nik and Heru ushered the wounded out. I paced from one end of the large, sterile room to the other, following the line of glass viewing panes giving me a window into the cells. There were eight cells in this portion of the warehouse, each holding two or three people—seven scientists and nine security guards.

  “You can’t hold us in here!” one of the scientists shouted, pounding a fist against the thick, tempered glass of the third cell from the end. “We were just doing our jobs!”

  I rolled my eyes, blowing him a kiss as I passed the viewing window to his cell. He shared it with two other scientists—one male and one female. All three looked too pale, like they hadn’t seen the sun in weeks. Then again, this was Seattle. None of us had seen the sun in weeks.

  The rest of the room was filled with long, freestanding counters laden with high-tech and top-of-the-line equipment, all white or black or silver or glass. I didn’t know what any of it was for, beyond the microscopes, but it didn’t really matter. That was more Neffe’s thing.

  I watched Nik’s back as he carried the last unconscious Nejeret out of the lab. Heru had left just a moment earlier, meaning I had a moment alone with the Ouroboros personnel.

  Finally. This was why I’d volunteered to stand guard. This was what I’d been waiting for.

  I stopped at the far end of the lab and reached into my coat pocket, pulling out a vintage silver compact mirror. It had been my mom’s, and her mother’s before her. I opened the compact, revealing the mirror that wasn’t a mirror. DOMINIC L’ARAGNE was etched around the outer edge of the glass in tiny, precise letters, and his silvery visage stared out at me, eyes squinting. My fingers trembled under the force of my adrenaline. I was starving for vengeance.

  “Can you see?” I asked Dom, voice tight with the excitement of a potential righteous kill. “Or is it too dark?” There were no lights on in the warehouse, thanks to the steadily pulsing electromagnetic field generator we’d set up in the center of the cavernous building, but it wasn’t too dim for keen Nejeret eyesight to see clearly enough.

  “I cannot see much,” Dom said, “but I do not require sight to identify the one who tore out my soul.”

  “Those people aren’t even human!” the loudmouthed asshat scientist yelled. “They’re not protected by any human rights laws!”

  I quirked an eyebrow and started toward the third holding cell, picking up on Dom’s meaning. He didn’t need to see the guy who’d helped tear out his soul, because he could hear him, loud and clear. My bloodlust spiked, and my heartbeat quickened.

  “We’re well within our rights to do whatever the hell we want with them!”

  “This one?” I asked Dom, stopping in front of the viewing window.

  Dom nodded once. “His is a voice I shall never forget.”

  “Alright.” I closed the compact and tucked Dom back into my pocket, then fixed my eyes on the irate scientist within. I cocked my head to the side, eyes scouring the lines of his face, memorizing his features. Fury lit my blood on fire when I looked at him.

  His eyes searched what had to be absolute darkness from his perspective, looking for me.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Dr. Bergman,” he said, puffing up under his lab coat.

  “Got a first name?”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “Eric.”

  I flashed him a humorless grin, not that he could see it. “Well, Dr. Eric Bergman, today’s your lucky day. I’m going to let you out of that cell. You, and only you.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  “I need someone to send a message to your bosses. You’re the most outspoken, so . . .” I nodded to the door, then remembered that he couldn’t see the motion. “Step on over to the door.” When he didn’t move, I added, “You want to get out of there, don’t you? Isn’t that what you’ve been going on about for the past ten minutes?”

  After a few more seconds, he moved to the door. I unlocked it, and he took a cautious step out into the lab. A moment later, he lunged to the side, attempting to make a run for it.

  I grabbed the back collar of his lab coat and he jerked to a stop, falling back onto his ass. With my free hand, I pulled the door to the holding cell shut, then focused all of my attention on Dr. Dumbass.

  “You, Dr. Eric Bergman, made a very big mistake,” I said, taking hold of his thick mop of hair and pulling him up to a kneeling position.

  He sucked in halting breaths. “I—I’m sorry. Your message—I’ll pass it on. J—just tell me what it is.”

  I let out a bitter laugh, reaching into my back pocket with my free hand to retrieve a Sharpie. I pulled the cap off with my teeth and spit it to the side. “My brother’s name is Dominic l’Aragne. He’s one of the non-humans you so blithely experimented on.” I leaned forward until my face was mere inches from his. I was breathing hard, impassioned by my rage. “I’m telling you this so you’ll understand that what happens next is a result of your own actions. You made a choice. You chose wrong. You tore out my brother’s soul, tortured him, and now he’s dead.” I glared at the man—the human—in disgust. He didn’t deserve his soul. “It’s time for the reckoning.”

  I pulled back a few inches and brought the Sharpie to his forehead, where I started to write out a single word in big, bold letters.

  B—

  His sweat blurred the lines of my letters, permanent ink and all, but it didn’t matter. I was finally getting a grip on my sheut’s innate power. I was finally starting to understand it.

  U—

  Where my magic was concerned, intent was paramount, and conviction was key. There was nothing shoddy or shaky about my intent or my conviction now. The hunger for revenge was all-consuming. Dom’s death would be answered for.

  R—

  I didn’t even care that he was human, or that killing him would destroy his soul. That his would be the first life I truly ended, body and soul. He deserved an eternity of agony, but I’d settle for a few minutes instead. I wanted this man to burn with the fires of a thousand hells.

  And burn he did.

  As I finished writing the word “BURN” on his forehead, the ink started to sizzle.

  Dr. Eric Bergman whimpered . . . then gasped . . . then screamed. The black letters pulsated, brilliant orange glowing around the edges. A moment later, actual flames burst out of his forehead. They engulfed his entire head, spreading down his body and up my arm. I gritted my teeth as my skin burned, blistered, and melted right along
with his.

  I threw him backwards before the flames could travel past my elbow. I didn’t want to singe my hair, after all. My skin would heal in a matter of days, but my hair would take years to grow back.

  Dr. Eric Bergman was still screaming when the lights came back on. Someone must’ve turned off the EMP generator. It was time to go. Bergman writhed on the ground, rolling and flopping around. I had no doubt that the pain was unbearable, that it had already driven him mad. And yet, there was no way it even came close to the hours and hours of pain and torture this man and his team had inflicted on Dom. Pity wasn’t even a fleeting thought. This was justice.

  Holding my arm away from my body, I walked to the nearest sink and turned on the water, moving my arm back and forth and twisting it around until all of the flames were out. Once I was fire-free, I strode away from the burning man still writhing on the floor.

  Nik stood silhouetted in the doorway at the far end of the lab, shoulder leaned against the doorframe, watching.

  I paused, just for a moment. I hadn’t known he was there.

  A moment later, I turned my head and looked at the scientists and security guards still in their cells. “I’m holding your bosses just as responsible as Dr. Bergman there,” I told them. Every single one of them stood at their viewing windows, varying degrees of horror painted across their faces as they watched their colleague burn. “Feel free to let them know.” I started to walk away. “And tell them I’m coming for them.”

  “But—”

  I stopped at the last cell’s viewing window.

  Two of the cell’s occupants slunk back into the shadows, but a lone female security guard stood her ground. “Who are you?” she asked.

  “Me? I’m Kat Dubois.” I turned away from her and continued on toward the doorway. Toward Nik. The ghost of a smile touched my lips. “I’m the Ink Witch.”

  Chapter Thirty

  “You’re sure you can handle running this place while I’m gone?” I asked Kimi. It was evening, and the shop was closed.