by Nikki Dean
"Come on, do it for the kid," Matt teased. "Dice doesn't belong in a dorm room."
"Which is why I'll tell him to stay here with you. But that doesn't mean I'm moving into the haunted office building, too. I like hot showers, and the dorm food is pretty good."
"Hell yeah, it is," Alec piped up. He and Damon had taken a break and come out, too, leaving Everett behind to babysit the would-be burglars. Alec followed Nico over to a battered door and leaned into it, popping it off its hinges.
"You must really hate doors, don't you?" Mallory quipped. "You couldn't have just broken the lock or something so that it doesn't look like we've been here?"
"Brought more hinges," he replied. "And a drill."
"Huh." Mildly impressed, she watched as Damon unlocked the door, then attached the new hinges and remounted it to the wall. "Okay then."
Matt grinned and swatted her ass. "Let's go tour our new place."
"I thought we said it would look bad if I suddenly disappeared from the dorm," she muttered as she picked her way through the debris that littered the building's entry. It opened into a lobby of sorts, and it probably used to be nice.
Probably.
Like a hundred years ago.
Tall ceilings opened up to a railed second story, and large windows allowed dappled light to struggle in through the grime and moss that had grown over the glass that remained inside its pane. Several windows had been broken, and various tree limbs grew inside the building itself. Alec and Matt turned on their flashlights.
"Ugh. Did you have to?" Mallory muttered. Drooping sheetrock, exposed studs and sagging boards were all that was left of the walls. "And you want to live here, Matt?"
"Think of it as a fixer-upper," he replied cheerfully.
"Or a burn-it-downer," she shot back. "Seriously, it looks like it's about to fall apart. There's no way I'm going up on that second floor. It would probably come crashing down and kill us all."
"Just wait. It gets better," he promised.
"Nico, if I didn't know better I'd assume you guys were bringing me out here to murder me. This is worse than the basement under Kinsolving."
They all looked at her and grinned.
"There's a basement here, too?" she guessed. "Hopefully one a little less abysmal than everything I've seen so far?"
Nico grabbed her hand and pulled her down the hallway. Mallory sent a reassuring hum through her web, warning all of the spiders, rats and other creepy crawlies that they were coming and to stay out of the way.
The others followed, Damon in the rear. They'd only gone a little way when his strangled shout pulled them up short.
"What the fuck?!" he exclaimed as he jumped back, his flashlight pointed at the floor. Something moved through the rubble at his feet. "Mallory!"
A snake was coiled at his feet. Mallory sucked in her breath, immediately entranced.
"She's beautiful," Mallory murmured, shaking off Nico's hand to go back. Damon glared.
"She's about to bite me," he shot back. "Can you please do something about this?"
Mal crouched on the floor beside the snake, fascinated by the reddish-copper scales that lit up against the filthy floor. Dice growled at it and it coiled even tighter, its black eyes focused on the jaguar instead of Damon.
"At least he agrees," Damon muttered. "Smart cat."
Mallory reached for the snake on her web and soothed it, telling it without words that it was safe. It relaxed enough that she was able to pick it up, and it coiled around her arm. "See, it's not so bad," she crooned as it climbed up toward her face. Its split tongue darted in and out, tasting her scent before it dipped down, looking for a hiding place.
Mallory pulled the neckline of her sweatshirt out and the snake rapidly disappeared down it.
"What the fuck?" Damon muttered. All four guys stared at her in silence.
"She's scared. She just needs someplace to hide where no one will step on her, and it'll be fine. You won't even know she's there."
"There's a three-foot-long snake in your shirt," Alec couldn't help but say. "Seriously. I've never seen anything like that."
"Better than the three-inch-long snake in Damon's pants," Mallory replied with a wink. She turned back to Nico and Matt as Alec laughed.
"Come on, unless you want to pick up any more friends along the way," Matt said. "It's just down here." He held another door open and pointed his flashlight down a set of stairs.
Mallory followed Nico down the stairs, through another hallway and into yet another room. Total darkness assailed her senses and she felt someone's hand brush against her ass.
Matt's, she realized, following his light on her web. All four of them were in the room with her, but she couldn't make out much else.
"Cover your eyes," Nico said just before Mal heard a click that sounded like a breaker being flipped. Damon hit the lights and stark LEDs flickered on.
"Wow." The basement was big, bigger than she was expecting for a building this size. It had only looked like it had enough room for three, maybe four suites, but the basement stretched out before her. "Is this your boys-only clubhouse, or something?"
It looked like it.
A pool table had been set up on one side of the massive space, and a foosball table sat beside it. A dartboard was mounted to the wall, and holes littered the sheetrock around it. A chessboard was sitting on the end of a long dining table. It looked like it was frozen in time as a layer of dust covered the pieces that were still mid-play.
A galley kitchen lined one wall, unfinished cabinets complete with a cheap-looking countertop. The refrigerator hummed happily in its corner, and Mal saw that the cooktop used gas.
Several doors lined the back of the room, on the far side of a large sectional couch and several bean bag chairs. They'd clearly seen better days, as something had chewed a hole in the fabric and Styrofoam balls were scattered across the floor.
Matt jogged across the large room and opened the three doors, flicking on lights as he went. "This one's a bathroom, and these two are bedrooms. Well, really it's just one big conference room, but it has a folding divider in the middle that can turn it into two. We stashed a few beds in here a while back."
"Why?" she asked, turning around slowly, trying to take it all in. "Why do you guys have a huge basement set up to live in, in the bottom of an abandoned office building in the woods? This is really fucking weird, Matt."
She looked at Nico, who shrugged. "We used to crash here a lot between missions. We were assigned together for the most part, so at least two of us were off at the same time. Sometimes all five of us. Finding housing was expensive, so we all just lived here. Why not, right?"
"But now you live in the dorms, and Matt has his own place, and Everett... still lives here?" she guessed. Maybe he's just a really shitty housekeeper, on top of having really shitty people skills.
"Nah, Ev has his own place," Matt replied. "Doesn't like to feel crowded."
"And you think we should live here, together, for the foreseeable future?" The doubt in her voice must have finally filtered through.
"Just until we know the dorm is safe."
"Are you guys seriously going along with this? Because I think you've lost your minds. Nico fixed my doors, and we already have some of Pohler's guys to tell us what's going on. I mean, I was all for getting you someplace safe, Matt, but this sounds crazy. Someone would definitely notice that we live in the woods."
"Would they, though?" Nico sounded skeptical. "You can match my speed magic now, so it wouldn't be hard for you to make it to classes and back. Speed is really convenient for a lot of things."
"So why not get a nice two-bedroom on the other side of the city?" she groused. "I'm pretty sure future documentaries will be filmed here about the college girl and her dumbass boyfriend who get sacrificed to demons in the woods, all because they wanted to skip a few months’ rent. If they even find our bodies, that is."
"Eh, our demon would scare all of the others away," Matt replied. He sat dow
n onto the ancient couch and a cloud of dust erupted around him.
"Our demon? What, he likes to drop by and check out the movie channels?" Mallory scoffed.
A moment of tension flashed across their connections, almost too fast to catch. Which was weird, because it didn't really feel like her web usually did.
"Who else knows about this place?" she demanded.
"Uhh, Mal? Is that supposed to happen?" Alec asked. He was staring at her leg.
She looked down to see the snake hanging out of the bottom of her sweatshirt, its head bobbing across her thigh as it searched for a way down. Mallory scooped her up and set her gently on the floor, where she slithered off.
"Hey! No pets inside!" Alec protested.
Damon rolled his eyes and pulled a chair out from beneath the dining table. "You are a pet," he muttered.
Dice leaped up onto the long table and padded down its length without giving Damon even a glance. He only stopped at the chess board, sniffing it.
"Someone explain to me why this is a good idea?" Mallory groaned. "Because I hate moving and I have no idea how I copied your magic, Nico. I don't want to be traipsing through the woods every day, especially with the amaroq around here."
"Here?" Damon asked. "You can tell where it is? Like right now?"
"Not here, here right now. I've sensed it out in the woods, though. Right before Matt told me about feeding information to Fitzam's office last month."
Chapter 8
"You can track it and you didn't tell us?" Damon burst out, shooting forward in his chair. His angry glare pinned first Matt, then Nico. "Did you two know about this?"
"It's really not a big deal," Mallory said with a sigh. "Seriously. I can't track it yet. I just thought I sensed it, or something like it, out here in the woods one evening. The more important thing is that I somehow used Nico's magic and have no idea how. It would make all of this much easier to deal with."
"Well, what happened when you did it? What were you doing?" Alec asked. He pulled out a chair beside Damon and sat, ignoring the dust that coated it.
They all jumped as a crash echoed through the loud room. Chess pieces rolled in every direction and Dice lay down on the table where they had been set up. The board teetered on the edge of the table and he casually swiped at it, finishing the job.
"Cats. Always gotta be assholes." Damon shook his head.
Mallory went to the kitchen and began opening cabinets. Everything was empty, or very nearly. Only a few stray paper towels and rags were beneath the sink, along with one bottle of spray cleaner that had little more than an inch of liquid in the bottom.
"I was hanging out with Nico when Matt called us from his room. Then we were both in there before I really knew it. I remember running, but it felt like it was all normal."
"Naked. She ran in naked," Matt interrupted. "Just saying."
"So by hanging out, you mean fucking?" Damon guessed.
Mallory's cheeks flushed. Damon jumped with a scowl and rubbed his shoulder as Nico sat beside her. Matt got up and wandered over too, taking the seat at the end.
"Don't do that," Damon muttered.
"Then stop trying to make her uncomfortable," Nico shot back. "The point is the magic, not whether or not we were having sex."
"Hey, she's the one that keeps talking about my dick," Damon retorted. "Which isn't three inches, by the way."
Alec leaned back in his chair and held up two fingers with a grin. Mallory had to look away before she laughed out loud.
"Yes, Damon, we were having sex. So I was naked, and I ran into the room with Matt without thinking about it when I heard him waking up. Do you really need to hear more about that part, or are you familiar enough with the basics of human anatomy that you can figure it out on your own?"
Alec raised his hand. "I could stand to hear more. I mean, there are a lot of possible variations in sex, so I need more details to get a good picture. Just envisioning the scene, you know?"
"You're a pervert. Nico, your friends."
"Hey, I'm his friend too," Matt reminded her. "Which I'll never, ever mention again," he finished, catching her glare. "God, Nico, your friends are horndogs."
“So you were having sex, and then you just used his powers? What does sex have to do with anything?” Damon asked.
Nico grinned. “If you have to ask, you’ve been doing it wrong.”
“Magic doesn’t exactly spread by injection, dumbass. It’s not an STD.”
Mal rolled her eyes, along with Alec and Matt. "So what's the plan here? We bring all of our stuff here, or just leave Matt's at his place in case someone's watching it? We already know people are watching my dorm room, and there would be questions if I started sleeping in any of your rooms. I need my uniforms and books, but no one can see me disappear. So I guess I'll run out like Nico does, so fast that no one sees me leave?"
"Can you do that?" Damon asked sharply. "You've only used his magic once."
"I don't know. I didn't even know when I did it."
"Try connecting with me again," Nico suggested. Alec snickered. "Not like that, dumbass. She can connect to me on her web so much that she physically links us together. She can feel sensory input, hear me talking, things like that. Apparently that transfers to her magic, too."
Alec and Damon stared. "Sensory input?"
Mallory blushed. Oh, god dammit, of course they're going to focus on that part. Thanks, Nico.
"Yep. We tried it out. Mal, show them so they understand."
"No."
He sighed. "Go in the other room and connect with me on your web. I'll talk to them about something that you can't hear, and we'll see if you can figure it out."
I mean, it's not a bad idea, and we haven't tried that yet. That he knows of. There was that time I listened to them while I was in the shower, but I never told them about that. "Fine."
They all waited while she went into the bedroom area and closed the door behind her. It was a large conference room with enough space for five queen-sized mattresses on the floor. "Do all guys go out of their way to live like Neanderthals when a woman isn't around?" she grumbled.
Closing her eyes with a sigh, she reached for the four bright lights on her web, focusing on both Matt and Nico. She slipped into their minds.
"…me guess, you figured it out while you were fucking," Alec was saying.
Mal sighed. He's got such a one-track mind.
Nico ignored him. Damon glanced over Nico's shoulder, toward the closed door that Mal stood behind. It was way too far for her to hear them.
"She can seriously hear everything we're saying right now?" Damon asked. His voice was heavy with skepticism. "How long can she do this? And how far is her reach?"
Mallory felt Nico shrug. "No idea. We haven't tried it like this before."
"Just other ways, huh?" Alec said. Matt reached across and hit his arm. Alec didn't seem to notice.
"Shut up, Alec. This is important. We need to figure out something to that would prove she can hear us, and you having your mind in the gutter isn't exactly new. You realize what this means if she can do this any time she wants, right? You guys need to set up some boundaries."
Boundaries? Why? Maybe I shouldn't tell him that I can do this, but I don't want to lie to them. What's Damon hiding? Or what does he want Nico to hide?
"It's all good. I trust her."
Damon gaped at him. "We can't trust anyone that much. If you tell her, so help me I'm telling Everett and I won't be responsible for whatever he does."
Is he fucking threatening Nico? What does Everett have to do with anything? Anger began to build, threatening her connection with Nico and Matt.
"Why don't we stop fucking talking about stupid shit while we know she's trying to listen in?" Matt suggested. "You're being all dramatic like you want Mallory to think something's going on, Damon. Let's just figure out a code word to make her tell us if she can actually hear us."
"Fine. Applayas," Alec said. "She has to say applayas if she can
hear us."
"Applayas? Like the chocolate candy?" Damon asked doubtfully. "That's stupid."
"Exactly. Which means she won't say it on accident."
"Whatever. I don't care. This is fucked up. You'll never get any privacy at all if she can do this."
"I trust her. You should, too. Mallory, you can come back in," Nico said. He didn't alter his tone at all, but he didn't need to.
She took a deep breath in the other room, forcing herself to unclench her fists and tuck her hands beneath her armpits.
"Mal, come back in," Nico called a little louder.
She ground her teeth together. "Nico trusts me, Nico trusts me. That's all that matters. I don't care that Damon is a giant dickweed, because Nico and Matt are all that matter."
She heard footsteps cross the floor outside her door and Nico knocked on it before pushing it open. "Hey, babe, you okay? We'd like to have to come back in now."
"Why's Damon such an asshole?" she hissed before she thought better of it. "What's he trying to make you hide from me?"
Nico blinked. "Uh, I don't know? He's always been like that."
Her eyes narrowed.
"I guess you heard all of that, then, huh?"
She stormed past him, stalking across the room. Dice jumped off the table and circled around to her side, the fur on his scruff raising.
"Appl-fucking-ayas you conceited, self-centered, judgmental asshole," she spat, splaying her hands onto the table. "What the fuck is your problem with me?"
Alec's eyes went round and his mouth formed a silent "oh" as he leaned back in his chair. His gaze darted back and forth between Damon and Mallory, his eyes twinkling with delight.
"I don't have a problem with you," Damon replied. "I take it you heard our entire conversation?"
"Yep. And before you say one word, I was invited to listen to that, which you knew when you started talking shit. So what, you think it's okay as long as you don't have to look at me when you do it? Don't have to ask me to my face if I listen in on Nico's private conversations, or Matt's?"
"You can do it with Matt, too?" Damon asked.
"I don't know, I haven't fucking tried. Not the point. The point is that you don't want Nico to be with me, and I want to know why."