I would have to manipulate my body temperature using the magic that Kallan had taught me. He was proud of the progress I’d made so far. I had excelled at the basics and blew through all our training in record time, but he was surprised by my lack of knowledge about my fae side.
Being kept in the dark the way I’d been my whole life annoyed me. I hated being the last one to know anything. Sixx loved to learn, whereas I just needed to know what was going on. But it seemed fairly obvious that I barely knew the world I called mine. Kallan added tutoring to my lessons and even allowed me to go on missions with him. But I kept that from Sixx. I didn’t want her to worry or try to come on the missions with us. She was already putting herself on the line to find the people behind Dreamscape. Now, the drug felt like a drop in the ocean of the troubles my world faced.
As I straddled the motorcycle, I was glad it wasn’t my first time on one. I knew the fire demon it belonged to wouldn’t care if it was my first or hundredth ride; he would be pissed any way you sliced it. Snorting, I revved the engine. The beast between my legs roared as I took off after our car. Wherever Sixx went, I’d follow.
****
The brisk wind thundered past me as I kept pace with Sixx. She typically kept to the speed limit, but even in a rush, pushing her to go over by five mph was asking a lot. We headed deeper into the city, which made me wonder if she was headed home. But when she stopped in front of Nova, my hopes plummeted. What was she doing? Sixx parked half on the sidewalk, half on the road, which shocked the hell out of me.
“What the hell are you up to?” I muttered, pulling up behind the car. Sixx had already made it inside. “Sure, now you’re booking it, but when I wanted to get to Starbucks before they closed…” I grumbled as I knocked the kickstand down.
I rushed after her, but she stepped into the elevator, and the doors closed. I ran through the lobby and peered frantically as the numbers of each floor illuminated above me. I stood back, my leg shaking as I waited to see what floor it would stop on.
Sixth floor.
I called it back down, the elevator dinging cheerfully as it passed each floor on its descent to the lobby. My heart pounded hard and fast. Z thought this place was the epicenter of Dreamscape, and as I waited on the elevator, I started to piece together Sixx’s fragmented thoughts.
She knew there were labs here, and she kept saying tubes. What were they adding to the drug? She was either still under the influence of the drug, or she was onto something and was coming back to the scene of the crime.
What was I thinking? This was Sixx. She wouldn’t come without a plan, and she certainly wouldn’t have come without back-up. My leg continued to twitch as my muscles burned with the need to move. The elevator jolted to a stop. Allowing my magic to swell and consume me, I relied on the magic I knew best. It felt ancient and powerful in my hands. It felt right.
As my magic flowed over my arms, it reached out to another stream of magic. It pulled, wanting to connect elsewhere. There was another magic user here. Didn’t surprise me. Maybe the magic was similar to Kallan’s? But even Kallan’s magic didn’t call to mine like this. Shaking off the feeling, I crept through the lobby area that sat outside the sixth-floor elevator bank and peered at the massive reception desk that sat in an over-the-top office space.
“What…?” Sixx’s voice echoed through the empty floor.
“Sixx!” I ran, not worrying about whose attention I would catch. An open office door beckoned me forward and I rushed inside.
“What the hell?” I screamed, feeling the electric crackle of my magic swell.
Erebus, with his long, midnight blue-black hair stood there with Sixx, his features all sharpened and defined. His glamour was down. A pull to him exploded inside me, my body betraying me as desire for him filled the office. His gaze snapped to me.
“Fuck,” I muttered, trying to focus on Sixx, who was fighting against Erebus’s tight grip on her. She twisted and turned in his arms, looking very small and very human in his unearthly hold.
Why is she trying to break his hold when all I want to do is run to him?
“You? What are you doing with Sixx?” I accused. Why did I feel a sense of betrayal? He was only my boss. Erebus’s gaze sharpened, his ice-like eyes crystalizing on my face.
“Not everything is as it appears, stalta.”
“Let go of her!”
“I fear that might not be in my best interest, and above all else, I will do whatever I must to secure what I want.”
My head snapped back, confused. “You want Sixx?” Why the fuck did I ask that? Why does it hurt so much? I shouldn’t be mad at Sixx for something completely out of her control, but I couldn’t help the bitter taste in my mouth at the sight of Erebus holding her.
“This human? No, not like that, stalta.”
“What was the point of drugging her? Why did she…”
Shit. Had she come back here to try to get more Dreamscape? We didn’t know the effects of the drug after the first use. It was plausible that she had been jonesing for another hit and stumbled back here to get it. Sixx tried to pull away from Erebus again, to which he responded by looking down at her with disgust. He leaned down and whispered in her ear, looking at me the entire time. As soon as he began to speak, Sixx stopped fighting him, frozen in his hold.
Then, Erebus pushed her away from him, created a dark, swirling portal, and stepped through.
“Sixx!”
She didn’t hesitate. She darted toward me and glanced back to where Erebus disappeared. Once she was in my grasp, I grabbed her and pulled her behind me. My heart hadn’t stopped galloping since my magic flared. One bolt snapped out and sparked on Sixx.
“What’s going on?” she asked, looking lost and pale.
I patted her rumpled curls. “I think you’re going to have to tell me, Sixx.”
She looked around, still confused.
“I remember sleeping in the bed with Olezka, but then I got up because I had to pee really bad. Then I was starving. After that I don’t…” her lip quivered, “I don’t know how I got here.”
I lifted her chin and reached out with my magic to probe for injury. The instant it brushed against Sixx, a grimy feeling unlike I’d ever felt before slipped against me. I kept my expression carefully blank. I needed Kallan to help me unravel the magic placed on her since I didn’t trust myself not to make it worse.
What did Erebus do to her?
“That bad?” Sixx whispered, looking up at me.
“Nah, never. We’ve been through worse.”
For once, I wasn’t so sure that we had been.
Chapter 29
Ana’s lying skills often needed work, but this was as bad as it got. Even so, I didn’t want to question her about it. My head still felt like it had gone through a blender on high speed. Erebus didn’t have to grip me tightly; he was miles stronger than I could even dream about. I reached up to touch my head when another wave of dizziness hit me.
Come.
“Sixx? Where are you going?” Though she stood in front of me, Ana’s voice was muted in my mind.
What is she talking about? Aren’t I still with her? With a blink, I looked up and saw I was standing in front of the elevator.
How did I get here?
Ana rushed over to me.
“What’s happening to me?” I asked, panicked.
Ana shook her head and held onto my arm.
“I think I know,” she answered grimly. “Do you hear a voice that you feel compelled to listen to?” When I nodded, she continued, “I think we should let it take you where it wants you to go.”
“What? No way. We’re way out of our league here! We should wait for help.” I looked back at the office where I had been trapped with Erebus. Before he disappeared into the portal, he bent down to whisper a promise that we were far from through. While it was me he whispered to, the message seemed like it was intended mostly for Ana since he stared at her the whole time he said it. A lead weight settled in my stomach.
Ana grabbed my shoulders, trying to redirect my attention.
“Sixx, we could find out who’s behind this drug and what they’re infusing it with to make it so dangerous. Part of me thinks you already know, though. What were you talking about back at the house?”
I swallowed audibly as I remembered the bodies hooked up to the tubes attached to blood bags.
“The labs downstairs. I remember now.” I quickly told her about the last thing I remembered before blacking out – how I was in the bathroom when I heard Doug and Scott talking, but when they heard my phone go off, they overpowered me and knocked me out. I told her about the fragmented memories I had of being in a lab and the moment I realized they must have taken me to the abandoned labs that resided in the lower levels.
Ana got that gleam in her eyes that I knew from years of experience meant trouble.
“No, no, no, no, no! We should wait!”
She shook her head. “No time like the present! Did you notice if either Doug or Scott acted like a para?” Ana asked, sounding slightly thrilled like she was on the verge of a discovery.
“No…” I said uncertainly. “Why?” The more I thought about it, the more certain I became that Doug and Scott were the only ones involved. But what about the Dark mages that attacked Ana? Where did they fit in?
“That’s just strange, is all.”
“Why?”
“You have some type of spell or glamour on you,” Ana revealed, her lips pressed together.
Was that why I kept blacking out? Did she see the glamour on me before I left Olezka’s house? “You can’t get it off of me, can you?”
“I don’t want to accidentally hurt you by trying to untangle it. I think we should have Kallan do it since he has more experience with this type of thing, but before we leave, I want to take a peek downstairs first.”
“No.”
“Yes, Sixx. We’re here now, and they know we’re on to them. Especially since we caught Erebus here. This might be our only chance.” Ana’s eyes held a determined glimmer that told me she wouldn’t back down.
I chewed on my lip. Maybe if we just went down and took a quick peek, it would be fine. If there was danger, we could leave. “Maybe we should call Olezka,” I offered timidly. It would sure as hell make me feel a little safer.
“After the way I left, I have no doubt the brothers are already on their way,” Ana said with a sly smile.
“What did you do?” Even though I was terrified and shaken up, my humor sparked a little. Ana certainly knew how to make an entrance and an exit. Another hidden talent of hers. She had a flair for the dramatic even if she claimed she hated being the center of attention.
“Stole Roman’s baby. If anything, he’ll be coming after me to kill me.” Ana winked and pressed the down button on the elevator.
My dread swirled again. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea. Then again, I wanted to solve this more than anything. I had a vested interest now; I wanted to know who drugged me and why. Because as much as I wanted to push the urge away, there was an emptiness inside me now like something was missing. I felt violated. Something went terribly wrong inside me when I took Dreamscape.
The elevator doors slid open, and we stepped into the metal death box.
Sensing my apprehension, Ana smiled.
“Adventure time?”
****
The descent made my stomach clench, and my palms got clammy.
We took one floor down at a time, quickly scanning each floor before moving to the next. Now we were on the third sublevel. The first two were empty storage. As we traveled farther down, my tension intensified. In all the crime movies I’d seen, no one ever talked about the part when they found nothing. Even so, each time the doors slid open to reveal another darkened lab, I still tensed up.
I released a relieved breath as the darkness greeted us. “Another bust,” I said with a bit more enthusiasm than I should have.
“Don’t you hear that?” Ana asked, stepping out. I twisted my hands together, ready to leave, but my decision to stay was made when Ana disappeared around the corner. I stepped out of the elevator, and the doors closed softly behind me, taking the small bit of light it provided with it. I squinted and tried to peer around the darkened floor.
“Ana?”
As soon as I spoke, the overhead lights flashed on, blinding me. Throwing an arm up to cover my eyes, I waited for a second to allow my eyes to catch up to the change in lighting.
“Good; he said she would return. We need her with specimen V,” a familiar voice said.
I opened my eyes to see Scott moving forward to grab me, Doug standing just behind him. Alarmed by the sight of the muscled-up tech with the neck tattoo, I stumbled back a couple of steps and frantically searched for Ana. I needed to make sure she was safe. From his odd statement, it sounded like they were expecting me. I could play along, but not if my best friend was caught, too.
Scott grabbed my upper arm and tugged me along.
“What’s going on?” I tried to pull away, the instinct to escape strumming through my veins. Scott gave me a strange look.
“She’s lucid, boss.”
“Drug her again, then,” Doug answered dispassionately as he fiddled with a line of vials on a long lab table.
My vision tunneled at the sight of the liquid form of Dreamscape in the vials. Part of me wanted – needed – what he had in those tubes. My mouth watered at the idea, my blood singing. The other part of me, the sensible part that knew better, screamed not to take that drug again. But the emptiness inside me was yawning, expansive, taking over, needing the bliss I knew Dreamscape would provide.
Dreamscape could fix that. It would. Yes.
Scott dragged me toward the table that held a row of syringes filled with red liquid. From my body’s innate reaction, I knew it was Dreamscape.
“No,” I whispered, dragging my feet. Doug continued to work on his project, seemingly unaware or just not caring about the struggle unfolding near him. Scott was too strong for me to disarm, but I thought back to all my training sessions with Olezka. He had tried to teach me to fight fair, but luckily, Ana had given me a few lessons a long time ago. And they were all dirty, dirty tricks.
Giving up fighting, Scott tugged a little too hard and pulled me flush against his body. I moved quickly, lifting my knee to knock it into his junk with as much force as my weakened body could muster. Unfortunately, he must have anticipated my move because he moved quicker than I thought he would, easily shifting out of the way. I hit his thigh, which only enraged him. He tightened his hold on my arm. I winced and tried to pull away again.
“Boss, mind if I take her in, fully functional?”
“Do whatever it takes. I need Subject V excited. His blood is more potent that way.” Doug waved Scott away as if bored, not taking his black-spectacled eyes off the table before him.
Scott looked down at me with a menacing smile. “You’re gonna be begging for that drug now, little girl.”
Fudge. Fudge. Fudge.
Scott dragged me away from where Doug was working on compounding both an intravenous and a tablet form of Dreamscape. I had no doubt in my mind now that these two were behind it. Was Erebus funding them? Did he bolt because we were on to him? Scott pulled me along, roughly dragging me by the arm. We went down a short hallway lined with doors on either side, each one with a small window fitted near the top.
A tumult of hazy memories slammed into me. I recalled walking down this same hallway, escorted by Scott, as someone exited one of the rooms. Purely out of habit, I glanced into the room as I shuffled past and saw an un-glamoured para strapped to a metal table with a multitude of tubes snaking from its body.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Don’t you worry about that. Pretty sure you’ll stop being a thorn in everyone’s side here in a bit,” Scott answered smugly as he swung open a door and flung me inside.
I stumbled inside and twisted around, trying to slip out before he shut the door. He slammed it
shut and smiled at me.
“Bye, bye.”
My heart pounded as I slammed my hands against the door, calling Scott every vile name I could think of.
“Fate must love me,” an all too familiar voice cooed from behind me.
My pounding heart plummeted into my feet. “Oh, shit.”
“Hello, little human. It’s been a minute.”
I turned around slowly and came face-to-face with the bane of my existence. But unlike the others, he wasn’t strapped to a bed. My heart raced.
“Ooh, don’t get overly excited now. I have very little control. These fools have been draining me every day, and I’m starved. Plus, I still haven’t forgiven you for tasing my cock and leading these assholes to me.” Effie looked even more pale than usual, which I didn’t think was possible, with dark circles that resembled bruises under his eyes. He wore a pair of blue scrub pants, and he was shirtless. His arm near the crook of his elbow looked like he had multiple collapsed veins.
“What?”
Effie crowded me and pressed me against the wall in the blink of an eye. My heart felt as though it stopped in my chest, and I swallowed audibly. The oversized t-shirt I’d borrowed from Olezka to sleep in bunched around my hips, and my tiny pajama shorts suddenly felt way too short. I was just as wild-eyed as Effie.
“Don’t act so innocent, little one. Surely you remember tasing me.”
“I-”
“No excuses, little human. Now… where is your delectable friend? I know I smell her,” Effie purred, pressing his body against mine.
That was a very good question.
“If you take a couple of steps back, maybe I can look out the window. They don’t know that she’s here with me.”
Effie took a half step back, barely allowing me to slip past him. I stood in front of the door and peeked out the window, standing on my tiptoes. His cold body pressed against my back, and his hands squeezed my hips tightly. I tried to pull out of his grip, which only made him tighten his hold further.
The Sidekick Chronicles: Sixx and the Hellhound Page 19