by Holly Hook
"I've heard of a few," Brett says, but reluctantly.
I slow my pace as a city bus crawls past us. Best to look natural. The pale glow of dawn is creeping over the horizon and trams are starting to run, carrying people past us.
"You know, Cayden seems able to take care of himself," Brett says.
At last, I breathe out and face the twins. "He's not dead, but the cult could be planning to make him that way. I don't like that I can't sense him at all. Hiding places. Spill. The faster we get Cayden out of this jam, then the faster we can go to the victory site. Trust me, I don't like wandering around and wasting time, either."
"At last. We're on the same page about something." Brett looks to his sister, who snorts. Are they both laughing at me? But later.
"The hiding spots."
Brett shifts leg to leg. "They have a few apartments around they rent when they're here. Two upstairs ones and one basement apartment."
Finally. Something. "The cult would go to a place where no one would ask questions, right?"
"If they got away from the cops," Brett says. He grips a light pole and leans on it, making a show of telling me he's sick of walking.
Well, so am I. "Which apartment is the closest?"
Brett pulls out his phone. "Let me turn on the GPS."
GPS. The three of us have enhanced senses and we have to rely on technology. It's sobering and a reminder that the cult can really mess us up. But at least I'm getting Brett on board. Karina, I still don't know about. She's silent, sitting down on a random bench.
"Got it," Brett says. "One apartment is a mile from here, so if we run, we can get there in a few minutes. And this one is the basement apartment. Probably our best bet."
* * * * *
Brett's urge to get to the victory site--and I really hate that name--must be driving him to run behind me as we trek through dark alleys and stay in the shadows. I run at full speed, through concrete brick alleys and past garbage cans. Random cats and stay dogs scamper out of the way. Even an historic city like Rome has its not-so-pleasant parts, but no one tries to stop or mug us.
And all the while, Brett's GPS tells as where to go in a pleasant female voice. At last, it announces, "You have arrived at your destination."
The three of us stop in a corner alley. I look up at a nice-looking, red and white apartment building with five stories. The top stories probably have a great view of this part of the city. Somewhere, a bus hums as it passes the front of the building with what must be an electric, environmentally-friendly engine. We're standing just inside the alley now, having come around the back.
"I don't feel any bad vibes," I say, looking at Brett and Karina. "What about you? I don't know magic all that well."
Karina paces in a wide circle through the alley as if she's concentrating. "There could be dark spirits guarding the building on the inside. We won't know until we go in."
"Good point." Is she opening up? The angry witch from the basement is fading. Or maybe she just wants to be done with this and split from us horrible people. "We could do what they don't expect and walk through the front door?" I don't have Cayden here to discuss plans with. Even Everly would be welcome. She'd pour cold water on any stupid ideas. I can't believe I miss her attitude.
"That might be best," Brett says. "The cult will expect us to try going through a window if anything. And we don't even know if we're in the right place." Irritation creeps into his words.
Despite walking across the city and not eating since forever, my legs twitch. "Come on. I'll lead the way."
"You get attacked first," Brett says, following me to the front door.
The front door looks pleasant, covered in fresh white paint I can smell, and there are potted plants and vines just inside the windows. I enter the big apartment building and step into a lobby, which has everything from the plants to a few vending machines. My stomach rumbles as I cross the small room, which has no one behind the desk at this early hour, and head to a set of stairs instead of the elevator. The basement also smells of fresh paint and a few people sleeping downstairs, who carry that musty trace of sleep still. Someone runs a shower in the farthest reaches of the building.
"You could really hear some inappropriate business with these senses," Brett says.
"Stop it," Karina snaps.
At least he's making me feel better. "The neighbors have treated me back home."
Then Brett snorts. "Let's check and get out of here. Maybe if we can't find him here, we should just go ahead to--"
I whirl in the stairwell and press my finger to my mouth so hard I indent my lips. Brett glares at me and Karina presses up behind him, urging us both to hurry. The hatred is back in her eyes. Whether it's for us or Artemis's betrayal, I don't know. And that scares me.
Once we creep to the bottom of the steps, I listen. The basement apartments are just as lavish as the lobby, at least from the outside. Someone starts a frying pan and starts cooking some eggs. The sound overtakes everything else, so I sniff instead, hoping and not hoping that I catch a whiff of Cayden's nature scent. But it doesn't follow and I look at Brett and Karina, heat rushing into my cheeks. "I smell nothing. We might be in the wrong place."
"Not necessarily," Brett says. "Even I can do the magic that causes distractions."
"That's saying something," Karina says.
"Knock it off," I order, but at a whisper. The brick wall is back. Karina's still not going to be easy.
So I try to listen past the frying eggs and the shower. Creeping down the hall and along the maroon carpet, I pause at each door like a stalker. Three of the apartments turn out to be empty. But the one at the very end of the hall turns out to be eerily silent, as if there's a void on the other side. I don't even hear the walls settling like I just realize I've heard in every building I've entered since turning. So I turn to Brett and Karina, who seem to both be listening to our surroundings. "Nothing's here, but this last apartment is creeping me out. Listen."
Brett shuffles to the door and presses his ear against it. "Nothing. No one lives in there. We should just go." Then he lifts an eyebrow. "Something is wrong. I can't even hear the outside through this door and I should. It's like a black hole in there."
Brett's eyebrows rise as Karina crosses her arms and backs away. She's had enough of this and I fear she's about to take off on her own.
"Exactly," I say, heart pounding.
Almost with anger, he grips the door knob and turns it, meeting a lock. With a sigh, Brett turns harder and breaks it. He lets go of the knob.
And with a faint, ominous squeak, the door creeps open on its own.
"Yikes," I say, backing away. An awful feeling, like we're standing next to a heartless, empty void, makes every hair on my body rise. My skin tightens in response to the black pulses coming out. The apartment itself is physically dark inside, but I spot no normal furniture--just an open space without any carpet and a large design drawn on the floor. Melted candles stick to the concrete. The whole place begs me to run.
"And you said it was nothing?" I ask Brett.
"It sounded like nothing."
"An eerie nothing." This place feels even worse than the dark spirits guarding the Savage territory. It smells like the depths of a frigid cave, whatever that's supposed to smell like, and there's a board nailed onto the small window near the ceiling of the room. And as I stand there, the whole universe seems to turn into a ballroom of silence. I should hear the buses from here, but I don't.
"This place is well protected," Karina says with authority. "It's clear they don't want us to enter. Can we go?"
"The dark spirits might not know we're enemies," Brett says. "Keep those thoughts out of your head and maybe they won't attack us. If they think we're still in the cult, then they'll let us in. Maybe we can use them somehow. You with me?"
Karina furrows her brows. "You moron. They'll attack you."
Brett hikes up her shoulders and inches towards the open door. Every instinct tells me to run, but I remain
and watch the Hayde siblings do a silent debate with each other. "Would you like to go first?" he asks, wrists shaking.
Karina darts inside the apartment, leaving us behind. I detect hope in her gait like she believes one of the last parts of her old life will take her back. Like there's something she can still make sense of. Brett shakes his head at me like he can't believe her, and follows.
I'm left alone in the hallway. The awful feeling leaks out the door so badly I want to close it just to keep the other residents of this building safe. Brett and Karina shuffle around inside, opening doors and peeking into rooms, and at last I hear something that catches my attention: they're rattling chains.
I can't hold back anymore. Entering, I suck in a cold breath and wrap my arms around myself, trying to keep out the darkness. It still pulses under my skin as I step over the magical circle drawn on the floor. It's full of symbols that look like twisted monsters from a Lovecraftian novel and other alien zigzags, lines, and circles that make me shudder. I kick a melted candle, sending the blob across the room to hit the wall. Breaking the circle does nothing to alleviate the darkness.
"Well, your mate's not here. Can we go?" Brett emerges from a side room with Karina behind him. And he throws down a manacle to land beside the symbol.
I sniff but smell nothing. The cold metal has to be silver. It has that glint that sends fear through my gut. Behind Brett, more of the same fill a large closet. The cult has a stockpile of equipment here to restrain Wolves.
"Let me see that." I push past Brett and eye the equipment. Why would the cult have so many chains here? I haven't detected a Savage pack they'd have to defend themselves against in the city. Or Nobles, for that matter.
"I don't get it either," Brett says.
"Can we just go? I'm trying to hold these spirits off and they're not going to listen to me much longer," Karina says. Our gazes meet. More shock and sadness have filled her eyes. The spirits don't want her here any more than they do me, and she's just realized that. "Things will get worse if we stay here. I feel it. They're not even liking me." She takes a single step back to the door, shaking. Karina's about to run not just from this room, but from us.
"Brett," I say, hoping my tone carries all the meaning he needs.
Then I sniff, and a faint scent, separate from the cold void, wafts out of the closet.
Brett seizes Karina's arm and says nothing, standing aside to let me investigate. I step closer to the closet. It's a human scent, a mixture of burning leaves and what might be incense. A magic user's scent. Someone was here not too long ago, someone who quickly came into this room, grabbed some chains, and got out as if they didn't want to leave their scent here. The trace smell tells me that and I realize why Brett and Karina have missed it. I can barely smell it. In fact, whoever came in here might have worn gloves.
"One of the cult members came in here and grabbed some chains, maybe even less than an hour before we did," I say, stepping out of the room. "Why would they need them if they weren't holding Cayden hostage?" My heart races with the bad news. He's not here but they have him, and I have no idea what to do next or which lead we need to follow. Brett and I look at each other. To my shock, he frowns.
Then he returns to form. "Great. You're going to waste more time searching the city for him. Maybe they took him to the victory site and they're planning to do something to him while you're there. If I were them, I'd lure you there."
"Why?" I ask, throat going dry. A painful lump forms and I'm sure I won't be able to breathe. The cult knows my weakness. That us mates are together until the end.
"Because Romulus's presence is strong there," Brett says. "It's the place where he defeated his brother. They might want to goad you into letting them complete the rite that will let him possess you completely. And the best way to do that is by threatening your mate. He's no good to them dead right now."
The vision flashes back to me, of Remus's mate, and I fear Brett's right. "We need to go."
But upstairs, footsteps approach the steps and someone starts to descend them. A man. I don't know why my stomach turns and a bad taste rises in my mouth at first, but then the scent hits me and I understand. Rotten wood. A Savage Wolf. One's just entered the basement from above and he's heading straight towards us with those predatory, almost-silent footsteps. Somehow, I can hear that this is a well-built, tough man, maybe even a descendant of Romulus, and it's not his intent to let us out of here alive.
Chapter Eleven
"Someone's coming," Karina says, pulling against her brother's grasp.
I eye the board covering the tiny window near the ceiling. The darkness in the apartment and the lack of any drafts tells me there's no way out other than the hallway.
The Savage Wolf, no doubt an alpha judging from his horrible reek and strength, has made it halfway to the apartment. The animal stirs within me, begging me to fight as I linger in the doorway to the chain room. And then another idea creeps into my mind. He must work with the cult. He might know where Cayden is.
I throw off my jacket, preparing for a fight while Karina backs to the other side of the ritual room. Brett joins her, still holding her arm. I can't count on them to shift and help me--there's no way Brett or Karina will want to face what we've done to them--so I'm on my own unless they can twist the dark spirits to their bidding.
The man shoves the door open, which hits the wall with a bang.
He's as frightening as I feared. Dark-haired, with bushy eyebrows that make him look as if he's already partially shifted, he glares at me with eyes that have the tiniest hint of red in them. He's a Romulus descendant, all right, and the shine in his eyes and the way he bares his teeth tells me he's well on the way to going pure beast.
"Get back," I order.
"What are you doing in my building?" he asks with a heavy accent. So he's the manager. I fear for the normal tenants. Then terrifying details pop out at me. This man has scars on his forearm that match the ones in the circle on the floor. Though he's a Savage Wolf, and a powerful one, the cult must have used silver daggers to etch them into his flesh. Otherwise they would have completely healed. He's a slave of the cult. They've messed with people in other parts of the world.
"Where is my mate?" I ask. "Tell us and we'll leave. And what did the cult do to you? You were human once. You had to have been."
My last line gets to the guy. He furrows his eyebrows as a growl emerges from his throat. Then he grabs the door frame, shaking as if trying to control himself. The air thickens with anger as he bares his teeth. He wants to take out his rage on someone and it's going to be us. But pain sparkles in his eyes and I know he hates this, hates what he's become. The darkness in the room intensifies, swirling around us like a silent, invisible storm. I'm not the only one with a curse on me.
"You were normal not too long ago," I say. "A Savage bit you and then the cult did this to you. Work with us and we'll get them back."
"There's no helping Wolves like him," Brett says. His terror molds with my own.
"Get out!" the man shouts loud enough to collapse the walls. "Get out now!"
"You're blocking the door!" I have to act. Tossing my jacket on the floor, I prepare for the fight. If Brett's right, this man is better off dead than losing his whole being. I hope Brett and Karina can reduce this guy's curse, because if we can get him to talk, he could help us. I know it.
"You want to fight to the death?" the man asks, doing the same with his own jacket. He throws it down as the most savage growl I've heard, second to the Savage King, rips out of his throat. He spreads his arms, blocking the door and looking like the stereotypical movie werewolf. Fur's already sprouting on his arms, brownish black fur, and the rotting wood stench fills the room so much I'm about to gag.
It's a fight, then.
My sense of smell sharpens and pain explodes throughout my body. The dark room swirls. The animal's already taking over, urging me to clean this beast from the world.
Two seconds later, I stand on all fours, wiggl
ing out of my clothes and facing down a huge dark Wolf that takes up the entire doorway. The world snaps into sharper clarity. Now I smell the rotting wood smell seeping out of the walls of the room. I smell the Savage Wolf's vile saliva, which drips from his lower jaw to the floor. The red glow in his eyes promises a painful death. This is a creature that doesn't care about the cult's plan and wants to take out his pain and rage on anything that moves.
And he's also twice my size. I may be a Royal, but he's the Savage equivalent.
The huge Wolf takes a step towards me, sniffing and flaring his nostrils. Karina's terrified breaths fill the air. She won't be any help. But Brett mutters low words as me and the disgusting Wolf circle. I bare my teeth, growling and stepping over my jeans, but the horrible feeling of being small washes over me. I have to look up at this Wolf as his hackles rise, and I know I won't have the strength to overtake this Wolf. And he won't be able to resist killing me.
"Back up," Brett says to me.
I can't. I won't.
The dark Wolf leaps at me.
I roll out of the way as he lands inches from me, claws scraping the dark circle. Chalk flies, invading my nostrils, and I gag on the dust. The Savage Wolf doesn't stop. He charges me, butting me so hard I fly into the wall. Spots explode from the impact and I land at the edge of the room, blinking them away only to see the hulking shape close in.
I'm going to die. My heart races and I reach out to Cayden, hoping to hear his voice one last time, but I still can't sense him. It's all a void and I'm about to sink into death.
"Get up!" Karina shouts.
Her voice snaps me out of it and I push myself off the floor, charging the Savage. His eyes widen with shock just before we collide. He shuffles back as I climb onto his back, biting into the thick flesh between his shoulder blades. Blood leaks into my mouth, staining my face, but no guilt washes over me. He might be a victim, but he's still a Savage. An enemy of good. I dig my teeth in harder, drawing a yelp of pain from the monster.