Ghost at the Feast: The Nightwatch Book 3

by Cassidy, Debbie

  I grabbed my jacket off the back of the sofa. “Tris, get some rest without me. Emmett, take care of her.”

  We had the location for the Custodians, and man, was I looking forward to kicking some tainted ass.

  * * *

  We sat in the van on the opposite side of the road to the coordinates and stared at the sleek, modern building that took up the majority of the pavement.

  “It’s a pharmaceutical company,” Mai said for the third time.

  I turned in the front passenger seat to peer into the back of the van where Lark, Bres, and Jay were ensconced. Lark sat at the tiny workstation equipped with monitoring equipment, tapping away at his laptop, while Bres and Jay watched the dark street through the tinted windows at the back of the vehicle. This van had four cells. The other van had six, and we’d parked that a couple of streets away.

  Dawn was two hours away, and the world was still sleeping. Question was, were the Custodians tucked up in bed also? I didn’t know what the others had expected, but after the last location we’d scouted when looking for the Custodians, a sleek, in-your-face, smack-bang-in-the-middle-of-the-street building wasn’t one of them.

  It was obvious these Custodians had their fingers in lots of pies. Or … “Maybe the bracelet owner works here, you know, as part of his everyday life?”

  Lark tapped away on his laptop in the back of the van. “Yeah? Well, he’d have to be pretty dedicated to be at work at this time in the morning.”

  “He’s still here?” Mai asked.

  “Yep.”

  The tracking spell Lark had created was ingenious. It acted as a real-time trace, and right now, the owner of the bracelet was in that building.

  “We can’t wait till dawn,” Jay said. “This is a central district, and this place will be teeming with workers not soon after the sun comes up. We need to go in now.”

  “Just pulling up schematics,” Lark said. “Well, well …”

  “What is it?” Bres asked.

  “Two sets of schematics,” Lark said. “This building is old but was renovated five years ago when it was bought out by Cramer Solutions. I can’t find much information on them aside from the basics. Weird. It’s like they sprang up out of nowhere.”

  “This is definitely the spot we need then,” Bres said. “Can I see those schematics laid one on top of the other?”

  “There you go,” Lark said.

  Bres studied the screen and then reached out to trace a line across the monitor. “Here. This looks like an access point to a lower level that no longer exists according to the new building schematics. This is probably where they’re doing their real business.”

  “It’s a whole basement level,” Lark said.

  “Like the bunker,” Mai suggested.

  “How do we get in?” Jay asked. “We can’t exactly walk in through the front door.”

  “No, even if we could get through the front doors, it’ll trip security straight off. They probably have a night guard.”

  I scanned the building, my brain ticking away. “What about the roof. Do they have roof access?”

  “Can’t you just use your weaver ability to teleport us inside?” Bres asked Lark.

  Lark shot him a stern look. “Teleportation? Really? Have you got any idea how much power that takes? The only way to do it is via ports created by the head weaver and her team at headquarters, and no, I have no idea how they do it. It’s not something we’re taught at the Academy.”

  Lark did something on his laptop. “They do have roof access. Two by the looks of it. One on the east side and one on the west. Wait … the west side is an old access point. “

  “Which means they’ve probably sealed it up somehow …” I gnawed on my bottom lip. “Which means there’s less chance of there being security on it, tech or magical. If I can get up there and examine it, maybe we can find a way through it.” I caught Lark’s eye. “A weaver way?”

  He grinned. “Yeah, I think that could be arranged.”

  * * *

  Climbing a building—Academy training year two. How many times had I fallen? Too many to count, but it had been in a simulation. This was the real thing. Who’d have thought I’d be doing it for real.

  I mean, had this equipment even been tested? The feytech suction cups were straight out of the box, a sealed box, which gave me my answer. It was okay, they were designed to carry a lot of weight. I mean some feyblood were descended from trolls and ogres and … Yeah, they were doing good. No point stressing when you’re halfway up a ten-story building, Kat. You got this. The glass beneath me was dark, the rooms I passed on my climb empty. Almost there. Do not look down. Do not look down.

  Urgh, Lark’s grip on my neck tightened, momentarily cutting off my air supply.

  “Are we there yet?” he asked from his position on my back. His voice quivered. “Please say we’re almost there.”

  “We’re almost there,” I croaked out.

  “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

  “Nope. We’re almost there for real. Just … Yeah, loosen your grip on my neck a little, would ya?”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “No. I’m trying to breathe. Besides, you’re strapped onto me with a harness. The only way you’ll fall is if I do, and if you keep cutting off my air supply, I’ll probably lose consciousness, and that’s exactly what will happen.”

  His grip loosened a fraction. Sweet air. Just another couple of meters. Do not look down.

  I climbed onto the roof and fell forward. Braced on hands and knees, I kissed the ground.

  “Thank you.”

  “Release,” Lark said. “The release.”

  Oh, yeah. I undid the metal release on my chest that harnessed Lark to my back, and his weight vanished.

  I stood to find him looking over the edge of the roof. “Oh, God. Oh, God.”

  I grabbed his jacket and pulled him away from the barrier. “We made it.”

  “What if we can’t get it? What if we have to go back down the same way?”

  Yeah, I’d been trying not to think about that possibility. “It’ll be fine. We got this.”

  I patted my weapons belt and checked that the radio was still in its allocated pocket. We’d agreed that I’d be the one to contact the ground crew and that we’d maintain radio silence until we hit the stairwell. If they didn’t hear from us in forty-five minutes, then they’d assume the worst and move to plan B.

  Yeah, I was not a fan of plan B. If something were to go wrong, the others would call Orion for backup. It was unlikely we’d get any help from the fey. He’d made it clear that this was an off-the-books mission, and we were on our own, but it was worth a try. If Orion didn’t come through, then I’d made it clear they should leave. If Lark and I were caught, then the Custodians would be on high alert, and there was no way the others would be able to get past their defenses.

  Bres hadn’t looked too pleased about the abandon-ship plan, but this was the job. This was what we did.

  Lark stood, hand on his chest, as if willing his heart to slow down. “I’m sorry. But heights. I didn’t even realize until you started climbing.”

  “Let’s find this access and get inside. The others will be waiting at the north side fire exit.”

  We ran across the roof, keeping low to the ground, stealth-mode style, past skylights that stared up at the sky. A way in, maybe?

  “Don’t,” Lark said. “Those exits will be hooked to alarms.”

  ’Course they would.

  “That’s the new roof access,” Lark said as we passed a solid-looking red door.

  We ran past the door and toward the west side of the building.

  A brown rusted metal door came into view. It was sealed with thick strips of fresh metal and bolts.

  I slowed and came to a halt. “Is that it? Can you get us in?”

  Lark rubbed his hands together. “Piece of cake.”

  I stepped back as he began to work his mojo. The air tingled as he chanted, a
nd then the bolts vanished and the metal grips clattered to the ground.

  “Nice.”

  Lark gripped the door handle and pushed it down. Nothing happened.

  “Rusted shut. One moment.” He grunted, putting all his strength into it, and with a scrape, the handle twisted. “Oh, fuck, the door is jammed.” He yanked on it to no avail.

  “Let me.”

  He stepped aside. I grabbed the door and pulled. It opened with a reluctant and decidedly ominous creak.

  Enter if you dare, unsuspecting non-human.

  Musty air hit me in the face. Yeah, this passage hadn’t been used in a while. There was probably another door to get through before we could access the main building. Then we’d be at risk of being spotted by cameras.

  But Lark was on hand to cast a little mojo and make us invisible to the tech inside.

  Let’s hope the Custodians hadn’t installed any countermeasures.

  My Nightblood vision kicked into gear, making out a stairwell.

  “Shit, it’s pitch black,” Lark said.

  I grabbed his hand and placed it on the banister. “Put your other hand on my shoulder, I’ll lead you down.”

  “Or I could do an illumination weave.”

  “Save your mojo for the cloaking weave.”

  We descended into darkness. I’d been right about the door to the main building, but Lark made short work of that, and then we were in the fancy new building, sucking air-conditioned air into our lungs.

  The corridor was spacious, but the lights were in energy-saving mode, rendering it impossible to make out details. But there was a clinical feel to the place. Like a hospital.

  My skin prickled.

  “Cloaking activated,” Lark said in a robotic voice, and then giggled nervously.

  “Geek.”

  “Totally.”

  “Which way?”

  He pulled his phone from his pocket and flipped to the schematic he’d downloaded. “Follow me.”

  The place was dead. Not a soul in sight. Just the blinking cameras placed high on the wall at regular intervals. The corridor hit an intersection. An open-plan area to the left and private offices to the right.

  “This way.” Lark took a right.

  This corridor was narrower, not as many cameras. Interesting. We hit the fire escape a moment later, and then it was simply a matter of making our way down the ten flights of steps to the ground-floor fire exit.

  I unclipped the radio from my waist and hit the button. “On our way down. Over.”

  Hopefully, they’d get the message.

  Three more flights of stairs and we hit the ground floor. This exit would have an alarm on it, no doubt about it. It was after hours, after all.

  Lark pulled a rectangular silver object from his pack. “This should disable the alarm.”

  Another piece of feytech. “And why couldn’t we have used that on the roof access?”

  “I only have the one.” He shrugged sheepishly.

  He placed it onto the metal box set into the wall by the heavy fire exit doors. The box made a soft whirring sound and then clicked.

  “Done.” Lark lifted the silver rectangle away. “You can try the door now.”

  “You sure?” I’d never had to disable an alarm using one of those thingamajigs before, so skeptical minds needed to know.

  “Trust me.”

  I took a deep breath and pushed the release on the door. It swung open without a sound. Not that there’d be any alarms to alert us we’d been busted. The alarms would sound somewhere else in the building—the security room.

  No. Do not think it.

  We got this.

  Bres and Jay slipped into the stairwell with us, and the door closed softly behind them. Jay handed me a gun loaded with paralytic darts. I already had my live-round weapons.

  “Mai?” Lark asked.

  “We needed someone to stay behind,” Jay said.

  Bullshit. There was only one reason he’d have ordered her to stay back. He was worried she was too emotionally invested in this mission. Worried that if we didn’t find Kris in the same condition he’d left, then she’d lose it.

  He was right.

  Mai wasn’t acting like herself right now.

  Bres’s arm brushed mine as we huddled in the stairwell. “Half hour till dawn.”

  The office would probably start to come alive soon with staff and whatnot. “Lark?”

  But Lark had his eyes closed. Chest rising and falling rapidly.

  Bres cursed and shuddered. “What the fuck?”

  “He’s cloaking us,” Jay said.

  Lark opened his eyes and then shook his head as if to clear it. “Don’t know how long I can hold it. We need to get to the northeast side of the ground floor. The access to the basement level is via a small room. I’d say a storage room.”

  “Makes sense to hide it there,” Bres said.

  With the clock ticking, Lark led the way onto the ground floor. The lights here were brighter. We were at the back of the main foyer that housed a huge rectangular reception station. There was someone on duty, but thankfully he had his back to us, staring at a bunch of monitors. One of which was playing a movie. Keeping low, we ran quickly across the foyer and through another door into the north wing. We kept going, taking lefts and rights through a maze of corridors. Past closed doors housing offices and labs until Lark came to a standstill outside one of the doors.

  “Is this it?”

  “Yes.” He pushed open the door, and we piled into the tiny room beyond.

  The door closed, and we were surrounded by darkness.

  Soft light flared in front of me. A ball of light that hovered higher to light the room. Lark’s weaver mojo. Damn, this room was barely big enough for us all. Shelves lined the walls on either side, and boxes were stacked on each shelf. All neatly sealed.

  “What do you want to bet the boxes are a decoy?” Bres said to Jay.

  Jay shrugged. “Nothing because you’re probably right.”

  “There has to be a door in here somewhere.” I scanned the floor and the shelving on either side of me before venturing to the wall at the back of the room. An old photocopier with an out-of-order sign was pushed up against it. Maybe if I moved it?

  I grabbed and tugged.

  Nothing happened. It was stuck fast.

  Stuck.

  Ooh, clever. This was it. This wall was our way in. “The photocopier is stuck to the wall. Lark, can I have some light here.” The ball of light moved closer, illuminating a thin crack in the plaster. Not a crack, this was too uniform. It was a seam. “It’s here. We just need to find out how to open it.”

  Bres joined me by the photocopier. “It’s stuck, you say?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe it’s attached somehow to the mechanism that opens the wall?”

  “Not just a pretty face, are you?” I grinned up at him.

  Jay cleared his throat.

  Yeah, right, task at hand. I crouched and studied the buttons on the machine. Scan. Copy. Cartridge release.

  Release.

  Fuck it, worth a try.

  I pressed the button, and with a soft whirr and a click, the wall began to open.

  “Step back,” Jay said.

  I did as ordered, bringing my gun up and training it on the aperture as it grew wider. We had no idea what lurked beyond.

  The room bristled with tension, and then we were facing an amber-lit corridor.

  “Well, that was anticlimactic,” Bres said.

  He ventured forward.

  “Bres!” Jay made a grab for him, but Bres was already through the wall.

  He stood in the center of the corridor. “Clear of cameras. You’d think there’d be more security.”

  I joined him beyond the wall. “They probably don’t feel they need it. I mean, it’s a secure location hidden inside a high-security building. No one is meant to know it exists aside from a select few. They don’t expect anyone to get this far.”

 
The wall began to close, and Lark and Jay quickly joined us.

  “Fuck,” Jay said. “You need an access card to exit.”

  “Then we’ll have to make sure we get one.”

  “Oh, I doubt that will be happening any time soon.” A man appeared in the corridor up ahead. Tall, broad, silver-haired, and familiar.

  Four guards joined him, all toting guns trained on us.

  Chief Constable Brass of the Reverie PD smiled at me. “So nice of you to join us, Miss Justice.”

  The guards fired.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  My mouth tasted like I’d been chewing on cigars. Not that I’d ever done that, but if I had, I was certain this is exactly what my mouth would taste like.

  Blurgh.

  What the hell had I been doing? Why did my eyes feel so heavy? Oh, fuck! Captain Silver Fox and his guards!

  The guards had shot us. Drugged darts, no doubt, which meant I was captured. Fucking hated being captured.

  Time to jump up and ninja kick someone in the face.

  I wrenched my eyes open then winced against the bright, clinical light. The kind of light that made every enlarged pore stand up to be counted. Okay, just a minute to let the throbbing headache pass. A pair of concerned brown eyes looked down at me.

  “You’re okay,” he said.

  I tried to move, but my body was immobile. Not drugged but pinned down somehow. Fuck restraints, I was a Nightblood. Urgh. Okay, that failed. It was daytime. Shit. My smidge of demon blood gave me some supernatural strength during the day, but not enough to break through steel.

  Okay, no ninja kicking just yet. Stay cool. Stay calm. Assess the situation. Being a Captive 101.

  “Who the fuck are you?” My voice sounded all crappy and hoarse.

  “My name is Lincoln. I’ll be taking care of you during the procedure.”

  The procedure? Ominous much. “You know what? I think I’ll pass.”

  His smile was sad. “I’m afraid that isn’t an option.”

  He sounded genuinely sorry.

  “What are you going to do to me? Where are my friends?”

  “Your friends are alive. For now,” Brass said from behind Lincoln.