Chapter 28
Quinn
Lance looked so resolute, his violet eyes both bright and hard, that my stomach flipped over. His words reverberated through my head. There’s something Quinn should do first.
“What?” I asked. “Anything you need, just ask.” It was bad enough having to watch them go out there ready to do battle on my behalf where I’d have no way of helping them or even knowing what they were going through. If I could make their fight easier, I’d do it in an instant. But the dragon shifter didn’t look exactly happy about whatever he was going to say.
A little twitch ran through his stance, making me even more sure that he was uneasy about his suggestion. But he flicked his tongue over his lips and put on a smile that was only a little forced.
“We know the big baddies are supposed to be coming to get you. We know how much sorcery they have that they could use on us. When their beasties are compelled by them, it’s harder for you to hook them with your own magic. So… I think you should give us some kind of command. With sorcery. That’ll go against anything they might want us to do.”
I stared at him, losing my breath in shock. “You want me to use my sorcery on you?”
He held my gaze, still tense but not backing down. “It wouldn’t be to control us. You could tell us to do something we’d have been doing anyway. It’d just be like a shield to stop their magic from getting in. Or at least make it harder.”
Torrent sucked in a breath. “Lance does have a point. It wouldn’t be perfect protection against them affecting us, but it could buy us enough time to get out of the way or take other precautions before their magic took hold.”
Crag glanced at the others and then at me, his expression somber but unworried. “That makes sense to me.”
Sure, it made sense the way the dragon shifter had put it. But nausea had coiled in my gut at the thought of aiming any of my power at these men again. Even if it was technically for their own good, what if the gambit misfired? What if I gave them an order that they’d end up needing to go against to protect themselves—or me?
“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “It seems pretty risky. I’m still getting the hang of how the magic works at all. We don’t know exactly what you’ll encounter out there or what tactics you might need to use. I don’t want to force you into a situation where you can’t defend yourself because of what I told you.”
Rollick set his hand on my shoulder, tentative despite the intimacy we’d shared just an hour ago. “I’m sure we could come up with wording that allowed a lot of flexibility while still being a command in essence. If you want to be extra careful, you could skip me. I’ll be inside the building with you beyond their reach anyway, but if something goes wrong, I’d be able to act quickly enough.”
Even with that compromise, my stomach kept roiling. But a lot of that was my own guilt over using my power on these men against their will before. They were asking me now—they could use my protection. How could I say no?
I dragged in a breath. “All right. But we have to be really careful about what exactly I order you to do. Let’s not rush this.”
We spent the next half hour hashing out various wordings, debating some and discarding others immediately, tweaking the ones that seemed like the best bet, until I was finally satisfied. I’d been doing most of the vetoing, but my men hadn’t shown any impatience. If anything, Lance still looked like he kind of wished he’d never suggested this strategy in the first place.
Still, he stepped in front of me first, his jaw tight. “You should put all the power you can into it. Each of us, one at a time. That’ll give us the most possible defense.”
He was probably right. I readied myself, reaching toward the now-familiar sizzle of energy rippling through my chest. It didn’t take much coaxing to expand it and urge it up my throat. I fixed all my attention on Lance and the precise phrase we’d chosen.
Several syllables in the sorcery language tumbled out first as I focused on my intent, but with the men I was so close to, I was able to channel the energy into English words as well, just like in my earlier orders. “While I’m inside the building where we’ve laid our trap, you will prevent shadowkind beings from entering that building using tactics based on your best judgment, and refuse any orders given to you by the behemoth or the leviathan.”
The command was open-ended enough that only a twinge of worry remained in my chest. I repeated it with Torrent and then turned to Crag, who needed a slightly different version with his separate duties. “You will keep watch for the behemoth and the leviathan approaching the building where we’ve laid our trap as long as you feel it’s wise to do so, and you will refuse any orders given to you by those two beings.”
“There,” Rollick said, brushing his hands together. “That’s settled. If it comes to sorcery against sorcery, I know who I’d place my bets on. Now get going without any more dawdling, the three of you.”
Each of my men offered me one last swift embrace and then faded into the shadows. I paced the room, knowing they were racing across the city toward the factory while we waited. It wouldn’t do us any good if I arrived before they were ready and faced an attack before we had all the pieces in place.
It felt like I’d been waiting forever when Rollick said, “That’s enough time. Come on—let’s get the car.”
Nothing stirred in the underground garage as we walked to his sedan. I sank into the passenger seat with my crossbow on my lap and the ammo pouches on my belt clinking faintly. Dread wound all through my body.
“What if it doesn’t work? What if we haven’t done enough?” I really didn’t know how much else we could have done, but that didn’t guarantee success.
“Then we’ll lick our wounds and come back stronger,” Rollick said with his usual confident air. I didn’t sense any deep concern or fear from him, so maybe he really was that sure of us. As he started the engine, he glanced over at me. “You’ve come a long way, and you already had one of the strongest wills I’ve ever encountered when I first met you. You’re going to get through this.”
His words from our bedroom interlude rose up like a ghost. If I didn’t get through it, it’d only be because he’d fallen too.
Oh God, please let it not come to that.
The demon had carefully planned our route ahead of time. We wanted to be sure the villainous duo’s spies saw me arriving, but we knew they most likely had orders to try to slaughter me before I could make it to the building when they did. He’d picked a car with tinted windows so I couldn’t be identified from outside, and he parked right outside the door.
There, Rollick flicked through the shadows to emerge next to me the instant I stepped out of the car. In the few seconds it took for him to usher me across the sidewalk to the factory door like a bodyguard, I ran my fingers through my hair to toss it so it caught the late-afternoon sunlight to make sure my arrival was marked in the brief time I was visible.
My other men had noticed multiple minions keeping watch over the front door. They’d clearly spotted me as I’d hoped—and sprung into action even faster than expected. Just as I pushed open the door, a barrage of shadowy forms blinked into being in mid-pounce.
Rollick shoved me into the front hall and whipped around with a growl. Bodies thumped and whimpers of pain sounded behind me. As I spun toward the doorway, he slammed the door shut, only a few wisps of smoky essence wavering through the air before dissipating. He swiped his hands together. “Those beasties won’t be making it past the barriers. The few that survived can go off to notify their masters now.”
I exhaled shakily. So far so good.
Rollick locked the door for good measure, and we hurried past the factory’s old office rooms to the big space farther back where we’d constructed our trap.
The room had once been forty feet long by thirty feet across with a ceiling some fifteen feet high. It’d shrunk quite a bit since Rollick’s workers had built the additions called for in my designs.
Stark white lights blazed over us from various small but bright fixtures on the lowered ceiling, ensuring that any beings that made it this far inside wouldn’t have shadows to hide in. The floor was the same scuffed linoleum it’d been before, marks showing where tables and conveyer belts had once been set up, but smooth gray walls surrounded us. You could barely make out the outlines of the slots that would pop out when the blades hidden behind them and the ceiling shot forward.
When the trap went off, any shadowkind within this space would find itself speared by a barrage of mechanized blades, each of them constructed out of melded silver and iron. Rollick had confirmed that they would do enough damage for even the most powerful being to quickly bleed out, if not die on impact.
Now we just needed to get at least one of our foes, ideally both, in here.
The place had the lingering new construction smell of sawdust and mechanical grease. It tickled my nose as I walked all the way to the back of the trap room with Rollick still trailing behind me.
Under more searing lights, there was a little booth built into the new walls there with a window where I could watch over the space like a foreman might have decades ago when the factory was still in regular use. A control panel with a large, red button was mounted right beside the door where I could smack it easily the second I needed to.
At the other end of the booth, a narrow passage led to the factory’s original back door. The door was locked with a deadbolt and reinforced with so much silver and iron even Rollick wouldn’t be able to exit that way unless I opened it for him.
I sank into the office chair set up in the booth and rested my crossbow on my lap. Rollick scanned our surroundings with a satisfied air. “Everything appears to be in order. Now it’s time for the great camp-out. Aren’t you lucky you have me for company to stop you from getting bored?”
He shot me a smirk, but I knew he was only teasing. I stretched out my legs. “I don’t think we should get too distracted. Let’s hope the creeps don’t leave us waiting too long.” If need be, there was a sleeping bag and some non-perishable food stashed in the booth’s built-in cupboard, but I’d rather not have to resort to using them. Especially for multiple nights.
But who knew how cautious the villainous duo would be?
It’d only been about twenty minutes when the ping of Rollick’s phone had me jerking upright with a jolt of adrenaline. He glanced at the screen, and his smile flattened. “More minions incoming. The poor bastards. Well, any of them who wanted to be in this fight of their own accord will get what they deserve.”
The men outside were supposed to be dealing with the lackeys, and any lesser creatures wouldn’t be able to make their way into the building to begin with. But we had no idea how many higher shadowkind would come. I stood up, rechecking the bolts in my crossbow, and moved to the main room where the lights were brightest. My heart thumped erratically in my chest, and suddenly I regretted my wish for the battle to come to us sooner rather than later.
The duo had obviously sent more powerful minions to try to drag me out of my protected space than my other men could handle all at once. But not many of even the higher shadowkind could handle the protections easily, even if they managed to slip inside through the shadows we couldn’t totally eliminate beyond the main room. The first being that wavered into sight by the wall lurched at me with a clumsiness that showed how the metals embedded in the building had drained its strength.
A startled squeak broke from my throat, but I whipped up my crossbow and squeezed the trigger before its knobby fingers closed around me. The bolt hit the thing square in the throat. It flinched backward, and I shot it again in the middle of the forehead. That was enough for it to crumple, gushing essence.
There was a thump behind me at the same moment. I jerked around to see Rollick punching the head right off another two-legged being that’d leapt at my back. He crushed its ribs under his heel for good measure and then stalked over to pummel the other creature’s skull into the floor.
“Can’t risk them getting up again,” he said, his voice cool but taut.
He’d barely finished speaking when two more beings materialized, leaping from the slots on the walls on either side of us. We each spun toward one, backs to each other in an instinctive protective pose.
The harpy-like woman who charged at me looked steadier on her feet than the first beings to make it through—a little stronger, a little less affected by the building’s protections. But I was ready now, my nerves humming with determination and adrenaline, my reflexes honed. I shot her in the head and kicked her away from me as she stumbled.
As I yanked more bolts from the pouch at my hip to reload, Rollick gave the being he’d faced one last slash and sprang past me to ensure the harpy was gone from this world. He glanced over his shoulder at me, a gleam lighting in his eyes. “Not so hard. But it’s a good thing you kept me with you to have your back.”
The corner of my mouth twitched upward. Sometimes it was fun to take his ego down a peg, but not when I agreed with him so much. “Yeah, it is.”
He smiled back at me, and for that moment, everything seemed okay.
Three more beings came at us, streaks of shadowy bodies racing across the floor and rising into physical form for their final lunge, and we tackled them with the same efficient teamwork. The swift pounding of my pulse steadied me rather than unnerving me now.
When we had a lull, I grabbed a drink of water from the bottle in the booth and then returned to wander carefully through the main space. I was on high alert now, my gaze twitching toward the slightest sound or movement, my finger hooked around the trigger. Rollick left his phone on the floor by the wall and prowled around the edge of the room in his demon form, his hooves rapping against the linoleum and his tail lashing.
My flow of adrenaline had ebbed when five monstrous forms rushed at us from different ends of the room.
I whirled around, shooting at one being and then another. In motion, it was hard for me to aim as well. I caught one in the shoulder, another in the side of the chest, the third in the gut. They staggered, one slumping to its knees, but the other two kept hurtling toward me.
Rollick’s phone started to ping. He couldn’t do anything about that or my oncoming attackers while he tore through one and then another of the beings at his end of the room.
I fumbled for more bolts while sorcerous energy crackled through me. Words I didn’t know burst from my throat and smacked into the barrier of existing magic in the beings’ heads. My power didn’t quite crack it on the first try—and I didn’t have time for a second before they were on me.
The one that looked like a skinny, patchy polar bear swung a massive paw at me, and I managed to dodge. I scrambled away, shoving one and another bolt into the crossbow. The third being I’d shot was heaving back onto its feet. Were they slowing down a little with the continued exposure to the silver and iron?
When I opened my mouth to attempt another sorcerous shout, the bear-ish one flung itself at me. I shot it in the underside of its jaw just as its claws raked across my arm. It collapsed on top of me, which might actually have worked in my favor, since it shielded me from its companions.
As I squirmed out from under it, the sounds of ripping flesh reached my ears. Rollick was carving his way through the rest of them, having an easier time of it with those I’d already wounded. I looked at the smoking remains scattered across the floor, shuddered, and clapped my hand to the talon marks on my upper arm.
Rollick was at my side in an instant. He couldn’t seal the wounds with his breath like Lance, but he’d come otherwise prepared. He snapped back into human form for long enough to pull a roll of gauze from his pocket and wrap it tightly around my arm.
“Can you still handle the bow all right?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, the pain a distant throbbing compared to the renewed roar of tension and anticipation filling my head. “What was the text you got?”
Rollick swore and dashed to the device. He flicked through to the messages. “At least one of the head honchos on the move this way. Crag felt he’d better pull in to the entrance now.”
“Okay.” One was enough. Even taking down one half of the duo would diminish their power significantly. Then tackling the other wouldn’t be so bad.
The thought had barely crossed my mind when the floor shook beneath my feet. There was a creaking sound followed by a drawn-out screech as if the building itself were being wrenched apart.
My pulse stuttered. My gaze shot to Rollick, who stepped closer to me, looming into his demon form again. He flexed his clawed fingers.
I felt it. The immense, ponderous presence that’d intruded on the sorcerer village in Utah and ravaged their bodies. Every nerve in my body twanged with alarm. But before I’d even seen it, a low groan of a voice reverberated across the walls.
It spoke in words I knew and yet didn’t—and Rollick clapped one hand to his head. He reeled, his face contorting as if he were in pain.
“What’s the matter?” I blurted out, but then understanding hit me like a smack of frigid water.
The being that’d come was using its sorcery on him, and the magic was starting to work.
If Rollick couldn’t fight it off, I was as good as dead.