“A rather handy trick, no? It is surprising the number of spells that can be tailored to manual activation. I find that money is a rather effective motivator, in that regard. Apologies, Daniel, for the inconvenience,” Romano called across the room. “Are you in need of medical assistance?”
A negative grunt was all Sebastian heard, implying Daniel was caught in the same spell as the rest of them. Sebastian wondered why the magic that had frozen everything in the room but Romano had not been blocked by his wards—maybe they were too generic or didn’t have enough power behind them like they would have if he’d been a wizard? Lily’s personal ward, the bracelet that angel had enchanted for her, might have given the freeze spell a run for its money, but Sebastian and Mallory were well and truly caught. What the heck was he supposed to do now? Even if Mallory’s iron hair stick could “cut” through this spell, she couldn’t reach it. Sebastian couldn’t even talk his way out of their fix.
He was helpless.
“Now, Mr. Whoever-you-are,” Romano said, stepping toward Sebastian and holding up the thumb drive. “I am very curious to see what is so special about this little trinket. A virus, perhaps, set to infiltrate my security system? But if that were the case, you would hardly need to take the drive back, unless you were that paranoid about covering your tracks.” As he spoke, Romano watched Sebastian’s face intently, perhaps waiting for any flicker that would betray the truth. “No,” he mused after a moment spent studying Sebastian’s immobile features. “Not an invasive virus. A program set to steal information, then?”
Sebastian didn’t know what Romano saw in him that gave it away, but a triumphant smile spread across the man’s face, sending an involuntary shiver down Sebastian’s spine.
Turning his attention away for a moment, Romano pushed a black button on the surface of the desk. “Thomas, send a team up to my office, if you please. No, no emergency. Our visitors are simply not who they claimed to be, and I wish Ivan to question them and discover what sort of scheme they intended. Oh, and bring the suppressors with you. I know Ivan enjoys it when they struggle and scream, but until we know what these two are capable of, I’d prefer to keep them properly docile. Yes. Thank you.”
Icy fear coursed through Sebastian, and he wanted to rage and fight against the magic imprisoning him. But he concentrated on breathing calmly instead, somehow knowing that if he lost it and started hyperventilating in this state, he would pass out.
“Well, my men will be here shortly. I must admit, you have provided ample entertainment for the evening. I wonder how you knew enough of Mr. Blackwood to steal his name, and how you lured Ms. Jian out of his employ—unless your partner is someone else entirely and you managed to get your hands on a top-notch seeming? You are not a wizard, I’m sure of it. A rogue initiate, perhaps?” Romano laid the thumb drive down on his desk and approached Sebastian, peering closely at his face, and then at his hands. “Ah, here is a family ward. How curious, perhaps I was wrong. Or perhaps you stole it. Let us see, then, if you have anything of interest in your pockets.”
Such invasion of Sebastian’s privacy might have been enough to make him lose his tenuous control, if he weren’t suddenly distracted by something behind Romano.
Bold as brass and sly as a marauding magpie, Sir Kipling had jumped up on the man’s desk and was pawing under the lip, obviously searching for whatever button or lever had activated the freezing spell. There was an alarmed series of grunts from the direction of the door, but Romano only had time to glance toward his guard in confusion before Sir Kipling found the button and pushed it home.
Intelligent and prepared Romano most certainly was, but nobody expects Sir Kipling.
Sebastian was ready for it. His straining muscles launched him forward as soon as the spell vanished, and he bowled Romano over while managing to land a solid punch on the man’s ribs before they both went tumbling to the floor. With Mallory’s training fresh in his mind, Sebastian did his best to tuck and roll like she’d showed him. He wouldn’t win a “most graceful fall of the year” award, and his ribs screamed bloody murder as he curled and twisted, but his move did at least get him out of the way of Sir Kipling’s line of fire while Romano was still flailing on the floor. With an ear-splitting yowl, the cat leapt off the desk and arced down toward Romano like a hissing, spitting meteor.
Leaving Romano to regret his life decisions on his own, Sebastian stifled a groan and pulled himself up on the desk, where he started looking for the thumb drive. But his search was distracted by the sight of Mallory taking on the hulking Daniel with her bare hands—she hadn’t even bothered to grab her lethally pointed hair sticks to use as weapons. He’d known Mallory was dangerous, but seeing her in action was another matter entirely. Sebastian couldn’t help but stare for a moment in awe. She moved like a striking snake, darting in and out of the bigger man’s guard with the deadly accuracy and speed of an instinctive killer. Even as Sebastian watched, she struck a blow to the big man’s thigh that collapsed his leg beneath him, and only a quick roll to the side saved him from the vicious kick Mallory aimed at his head. The guard used a chair as cover to ward off Mallory’s next attack as he scrambled to his feet, and then they were circling again, now with Daniel favoring his right leg. Despite Mallory’s skill, the man was no pushover. His movements were efficient and precise, not wild or desperate as he slowly gave up ground.
Suddenly Mallory lunged forward, aiming a crushing uppercut to his ribs through an apparent hole in his guard. But at the last second the guard pivoted away and struck with a lightning-fast jab. The blow only glanced off Mallory’s shoulder—her reactions were so quick she was already angling her body away as he pivoted—yet even that clip sent her reeling, the power behind it greater than her body mass could absorb. Caught up in the moment, Sebastian sucked in a sharp breath and felt his fingers grip the edge of the desk even tighter. But Mallory moved with the grace of a dancer, spinning her body and redirecting the energy of the hit into a pirouette that put her right back where she needed to be. Her rock-solid fist collided with Daniel’s face right as he tried to press his advantage and lunge toward her. The audible crunch of the big man’s nose breaking snapped Sebastian out of his trance. As Daniel’s eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed on the floor, Sebastian snatched up the thumb drive from its place by the computer and shoved it in his pocket, then sprinted for the door just a few steps behind Mallory.
Just as they reached it a group of four men in matching suits rounded the corner at the end of the hall. Everyone seemed to freeze again for a heartbeat as the men spotted them, and there was a collective intake of breath. Then shouts echoed down the hall and the guards bolted toward their boss’s office, several of them reaching inside their jackets no doubt for concealed weapons.
Mallory reacted first, wrenching the double doors closed as Sebastian jerked his fingers back just in time to avoid having them crushed. She scrambled for the lock and it clicked into place mere seconds before multiple bodies collided with the doors from the other side, making them shudder with the impact.
“Come on. That won’t hold them long,” she said, then grabbed Sebastian’s arm, dragging him back toward Romano’s desk.
As they rounded the large antique, Sebastian saw Romano was still on the floor. His back was pressed against the wall and he cradled one hand in his lap while he applied pressure to the muscle between his thumb and forefinger that seeped bright red blood. There were dozens of scratches on his hands and across his face, their scarlet lengths beading with more blood. Sir Kipling crouched in front of the man with his tail thrashing back and forth in a rhythmic pattern as he growled nastily and occasionally hissed whenever Romano dared to move. Sebastian imagined Sir Kipling would have done far more damage had Romano’s clothing not covered most of his body. As it was, the businessman’s no-doubt obscenely expensive suit was a lost cause. He might have felt sorry for the man if he hadn’t been so busy trying to get his breath back without making his ribs hurt even worse.
&
nbsp; Mallory nudged their victim with her foot. “You. Is there another exit to this room?”
The man looked up at Mallory with a grim expression and tight jaw, and he made no move to speak. Sebastian had to give him credit: he was not panicking as many would have been after being attacked by a ferocious cat-shaped buzzsaw. There was a little more white than normal around the man’s irises, but that didn’t stop him from glaring up at them with hate-filled eyes, obviously having no intention of helping them escape.
Unfortunately for him, Mallory was not the kind of person who took “no” for an answer.
Without breaking her expression of deadly calm, Mallory sank into a crouch. Somehow, one of her hair sticks was suddenly in her hand—Sebastian hadn’t even seen her grab it. How it had come to be there wouldn’t matter to Romano, of course, since the only thing he was likely to be thinking about was the feel of its point pressed lightly against the corner of his left eye.
“I will ask you twice more. If you don’t answer me the first time, I will skewer your eye and rip it out of your head. If you don’t answer me the second time, I will drive this exceptionally fine steel spike through your eye socket and into your brain.” Mallory’s tone was as cold-blooded as her words were shocking. She paused to let them sink in, and Sebastian noticed there was quite a bit more white around Romano’s irises than before.
“Now,” she began again in an almost bored voice, completely ignoring the shouts and banging coming from the locked double doors, “is there another exit to this room?”
Romano’s eyes flicked to the far-left wall—probably an involuntary movement, because he looked back immediately and pressed his lips together.
Mallory shrugged. “Have it your way—”
“Wait!” Sebastian grabbed her arm. “There’s no need to go all psycho. Kip’s really good at finding and opening doors, we should let him go sniff it out. You stay here and watch Mr. Stink Eye.” Sebastian turned to the cat. “Kip, over there on that wall, can you look for a way out?”
As Mallory stood and took up a stance just out of Romano’s reach, Sir Kipling aimed one last hiss at his prey, then galloped over to the wall. He started nosing along its length, squeezing behind furniture whenever it got in the way.
Sebastian, who had followed the cat, glanced nervously over his shoulder toward where the shouts and banging had subsided to an urgent murmur of voices. What were they up to? Debating the wisdom of shooting the lock? Calling the police? Looking for a battering ram?
“Could you hurry it up, Kip? We’re on borrowed time here.”
An insistent meow answered him, and he turned back to find Sir Kipling sitting up on his hind legs, his front paws resting on a section of blank, uninteresting stucco. Sebastian put his hands on the wall above the cat, feeling for something—anything. He expanded his search in a big circle all around the cat and even up the wall above his head height. But there was nothing there.
“A little help, Kip? Is there a door hidden? A secret lever or something?”
Sir Kipling dropped down on all four paws and yowled at him, his tail thrashing back and forth in feline agitation.
“I’m sorry I don’t speak Cat like Lily does, okay? Can’t you just point with your paw?”
A gunshot rang out and Sebastian ducked reflexively. He whirled to look at the door, but didn’t see a bullet hole—the lock must have been more sturdy than expected. The second shot, however, was accompanied by a crack of wood, and Sebastian saw splinters appear around their side of the lock.
Before he could think of what to do, Sir Kipling had dashed off across the room. The cat skidded to a stop behind Mallory, crouched, then leapt five feet straight up to latch onto her shoulder. To her credit, Mallory didn’t scream—Sebastian knew from experience that Kip’s claws were longer and sharper than the average cat’s—but she did hunch her shoulders in surprise and widen her feet in a little side step for balance as the cat reared up, put his paws on her head, and grabbed her remaining hair stick between his teeth. With an almighty tug he pulled it free, but lost his balance in the process and spilled backwards off her back. Before Sebastian could even shout in surprise, the cat had executed a tidy flip and landed gracefully on his feet. He galloped back over and skidded to a stop by Sebastian, where he dropped the hair stick. For a moment, Sebastian just stared at it, confused.
Iron stabby thing.
Hidden door.
Illusion spell.
The splintering, tearing crash of something huge hitting the doors—and the doors not winning—was like a kickstart to his brain. Paying no heed to the shouts, yells, and sound of running feet, Sebastian scooped up the hair stick, and in one smooth motion he slashed at the wall as if the stick were a sword that could cut away the magic hiding their escape. The slender piece of iron bent as he struck his target, scraping across the stucco reluctantly as if Sebastian were dragging it through tar. Then there was a pop, something he felt more than heard, and a small steel door appeared in front of him.
There was no doorknob, however, only a dark keypad.
A gun boomed behind him and something hit the wall not a foot to his left—he felt the spray from bits of stucco. He dropped to the floor, shielding his head with his arms as he yelled, “KIP! OPEN THE DOOR!”
The cat’s response was barely audible above the bedlam, but even so Sebastian was glad it was directed at the steel door and not him, because it threatened the kind of imminent and painful violence that he wouldn’t wish on even his worst enemy—okay, maybe Richard, but no one else. Naturally, the door obeyed the cat’s demand and obediently swung wide to invite them in. Sebastian scrambled to his feet, scooping up the bent hair stick in the process. He grabbed the steel door and pulled it with him as he backed hurriedly into the narrow corridor behind it. It was only then that he noticed the dull, tingling burn in his fingers that were wrapped around the wrought iron hair stick. Not having time to worry about the implications, he simply tucked it into an inside pocket of his tux jacket, then assessed his next move. Now that he had some cover from Crazy Guy with the Gun, he needed to peek out and look for Mallory.
She wasn’t hard to find. Sebastian just zeroed in on the loudest, most violent action in the room and—what do you know—there she was. Three guards surrounded her, towering over her by at least a head each. Sebastian’s eyes flicked around the room and found the fourth man kneeling protectively over his employer with his gun drawn. By the time Sebastian’s eyes had moved back to Mallory, two of her three attackers were on the floor, one screaming with his leg bent the wrong way at the knee and the other holding his crotch—Sebastian hoped that one was Ivan, because surely no one deserved it more than him. The last attacker, seeming smarter than the first two, hurriedly backed up to give the fourth man currently guarding Romano a clear shot at Mallory.
“Watch out!” Sebastian yelled at almost the same time the gun discharged. Mallory dropped, and for half a breath Sebastian’s lungs froze in horror. But instead of collapsing in a heap, she rolled sideways and came up against the desk as her eyes searched him out. He could see that her position gave her some cover from the first shooter, but left her vulnerable to the last guard, who was already drawing his sidearm.
“Kip, hit the lights,” Sebastian snapped, pointing to the wall by the splintered double doors—one of which hung by a single hinge. The cat took off at a sprint, and in the seconds it took him to cross the room, Sebastian leaned out of the corridor, grabbed an expensive-looking vase from the table by the steel door, and lobbed it at the man aiming for Mallory. It flew true, hitting him in the head and shattering in a shower of porcelain shards, unsurprisingly making him lose his aim.
Then the lights went out.
Shouts, groans, and the agonized gasping of the man whose leg Mallory had broken covered any other noises in the room, and so Sebastian jumped when he suddenly felt Mallory squeeze past him and into the narrow space. He sensed Sir Kipling’s lithe form brush his ankles not a moment later, and then he pulled the steel
door shut as quickly—and quietly—as he could. It sealed with a satisfying click, muffling the noises in the room beyond to the point that Sebastian finally noticed the ringing in his ears from the earlier gunshots.
“You alright?” Sebastian asked, trying to calm his racing heart.
A penlight clicked on in front of him, illuminating Mallory’s grim face, one side of which was being baptized by a slow drip of crimson. “Come on,” she said, but as she tried to turn, Sebastian caught her shoulder.
“Wait, you’re bleeding!”
“Graze. Minimal damage. Come on, Romano’s men are going to be right behind us.” Her curt tone brooked no argument, and this time Sebastian didn’t try to stop her as she turned in the tight space and headed down the secret passageway at a brisk pace. Sir Kipling broke into a trot and caught up with her, then squeezed past her legs to take the lead. Sebastian rotated the band on his Ring of Cacophony, silencing his movements, then hurried to bring up the rear. He’d bit the bullet and demonstrated the ring’s capabilities to Mallory while they were on their stakeout, so they could take it into account in their planning. He would have preferred to keep the knowledge to himself, but he’d decided he couldn’t afford to be cagey—not with what was at stake.
The passageway had multiple branches and turns, and they passed several doorways that had been blocked up. Mallory seemed to know what direction she wanted to head in, and whenever she hesitated in the face of two paths, Sir Kipling pointed the way with his fluffy tail raised like a flag. The maze of passages was impressively ridiculous in its scope. Perhaps the original builder of the house had possessed a particular dislike of seeing servants walking around and had wanted them to be able to scurry like little mice from room to room. Whatever the reason, Sebastian was grateful for the builder’s obsession and Romano’s foresight, even if it did take them several heart-pounding minutes to find the stairs that led them down and down until he was sure they were below even the basement level. He’d expected to hear shouts and the pounding of feet behind them, but there was no pursuit. Maybe Romano was smart enough not to send his hulking security staff into such narrow quarters after he’d seen what Mallory was capable of. Sebastian himself could barely walk abreast without his shoulders scraping the wall on either side.
Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus Identity Page 17