Chapter 3 Maze
MAZE
About forty-five minutes after bringing Jessica’s body back to headquarters, I sat in the Valen Protection Agency’s media-slash-conference room.
A large white screen took up the wall in front of the room.
Three rows of seating sat against the back wall.
Each row had four reclining chairs. I sat in the third chair on the first row with Candra on my left and Nicky on my right.
Winter was connecting her magically modified laptop to the projector.
Winter wasn’t just my right-hand and logistics lead; she could infuse magic into technology and she was also a seer.
When Winter finished connecting everything, she studied us for a moment.
Sadness was etched across her face. She was stalling.
My techie sister had already seen Jessica’s memories.
By the harsh lines around her mouth and her drawn brows, Jessica’s last memories weren’t going to be easy to watch. I didn’t expect them to be.
“There are places where the memory skips time. I believe those are parts Jess didn’t want us to see. When you watch them play out, you’ll understand why.” Winter turned to the table where the projector sat and picked up the remote. Then she sat beside Candra and started the video.
The screen flicked to live, and we were inside Jessica’s head.
Rain blurred the city streets as Jessica ran.
Her lungs ached, every stride sharper than the last. Behind her, the corrupted shifter’s heavy, relentless footsteps closed in on her.
He’d been after her for three blocks after trying to kidnap her.
She had punched him in his face and kneed him in the balls before taking off down the street.
It didn’t take him long to catch up with her, even with her supernatural speed.
She didn’t know why the shifter wanted to take her, but she bet it was for the same reasons the witches had gone missing. And Jessica had asked a few too many questions and had gotten a little too close to discovering who took those witches.
She’d tracked the shifter into the city. At first, she’d thought he was part of the Steele Clan, but when she got close enough, she realized this shifter was not like the ones the Prime and Freya created. This shifter was soulless and evil.
She cut hard to the left, vaulted a dumpster, and landed rough, rolling a few feet.
The shifter started chanting. Dark magic rolled out of the shadows, staying low to the ground while crawling toward her.
Jess spun and dodged the first curse the beast threw at her, and answered with a blast of indigo light that sizzled in the rain and missed his face by an inch.
He was ready for that, though. His magic snapped, sending a net of shadow to wrap around Jessica’s chest and yank her off her feet before slamming her into the brick wall. Then everything went black.
I held my breath, not daring to look away from the screen. My heartbeat increased, threatening to overwhelm me and take control of my emotions. A second later, the memory feed stuttered back into focus.
Jessica came to on a gurney with her wrists and ankles strapped down.
An IV bled dark red into her veins. Or was it taking blood from her?
Her head was too fuzzy to tell. Plus, her head pounded, making it difficult to focus.
But she needed to power through and record as much info for her Valkyrie sisters.
The room looked like a lab with steel cabinets, glass walls, white tile, and air so clean it tasted like rubbing alcohol.
Figures moved at the edge of her sight, some human, some not.
One had the bulk and posture of a shifter, but the face was wrong.
It was too sharp, too angular, the eyes a shade of gold she’d only ever seen in one man.
The bastard who took her there. Wherever there was.
Jessica’s mind fought for calm. She reached for the comfort of her internal link to her sisters, but found nothing. Whoever was holding her captive had cut off her link to her sisters. She was alone, the silence in her head louder than any torture.
A voice cut through her panic. “She’s awake. Proceed.”
The world spun, snapped into perfect focus as a woman in a white coat with a needle already poised approached her.
“Blood draw. Then the baseline test,” she said, voice clinical, dead.
Jessica tried to conjure a hex, anything, but the magic wouldn’t come.
The woman jabbed the needle deep, twisted. Jessica’s scream died in her throat.
The memory fragmented, skipping like a glitch in a video feed. There were flashes of needles, knives, and machines that whined with electricity. Jessica’s captors asked questions she couldn’t answer, demanded names she didn’t have. They cut her anyway. Then the memory feed flashed to a dark cell.
Jessica pressed her torn shoulder to the bed she lay on, forcing herself to stay conscious. There were voices outside. They were arguing, but too muffled to make out what was said. She heard only phrases.
“The prototype failed.”
“Balder will not accept another loss.”
“Get the next one.”
Then, the scent of a predator reached her senses. A wolf, but more than a wolf. Its soul was corrupted like the shifter who kidnapped her. The creature filled the entrance of the corridor, primal, sharp enough to slice through the numbing fog.
“Please,” Jessica whispered, not to the thing, but to anyone left who could hear.
The shifter lunged.
Blackout. The memory collapsed.
Nicky let out a half snarl, half sob, and punched the arm of her chair. Candra’s fists flexed once, twice, then flattened again. I clenched my jaw until I tasted blood.
Winter, voice feather-light: “She blocked the worst of it.”
“Keep going,” I ordered. I wasn’t sure which of us needed it more. Maybe all of us did so we could find out where Balder was and end him.
Winter took a breath and pressed the remote to restart the feed.
When the memories reappeared on the screen, the colors were dimmer. Jessica’s mind flickered in and out. Sometimes we saw only the ceiling, sometimes nothing at all.
Once, for two seconds, we caught a glimpse of Balder. He smiled, cupped Jessica’s chin, and whispered in her ear: “Thank you for your gift.”
The scene flashed to Jessica waking on a table, surrounded by vials of her own blood. Balder oversaw the transfer, his gaze predatory and hungry. “You’re making history,” he said, stroking her hair like a parent to a beloved, disposable child. “You will not be forgotten.”
He ordered her sedated again. Jessica didn’t fight this time.
The final memory was of her escape. Jessica was weak, but she managed to trick a guard with a fragment of leftover magic that crawled through the underbelly of the lab. She made it as far as the forest behind the building. She tried to run, but her body failed, and the world spun one last time.
Then nothing.
Winter stopped the playback. The blue-black light faded, replaced by the cold fluorescence of the real world.
No one spoke.
I counted the seconds, letting the ache run its course.
Nicky was the first to break the silence. “He drained her dry, the bastard,” she muttered, knuckles still white on the armrest. “That’s what he does to everyone. Sucks the magic out, leaves them dead or… worse.”
Just as he did to our mother over two hundred years ago.
Candra nodded. “We saw him on the feed. It’s enough to move on him. Finally.”
I looked to Winter. “Did you see where the lab was? A location? Anything?”
She shook her head. “He blocked the location from her. I’d bet my soul he used a glamour overlay. The memories were spliced. She didn’t know which way was up, or how many days passed.”
For a second, I saw Jessica in my mind, but not as a fallen agent, but as my sister. We trained together and fought together. She’d never win a chess game against Candra or outfight Nicky again.
It was supposed to be my job to keep her safe.
I folded my hands, keeping the tremor at bay. “Now we know for sure Balder is behind the disappearances of the witches, and we know he’s making shifters. Rogue ones.”
“Like the one that killed her?” Nicky spat.
“Or worse,” Candra added. “He’s had centuries to perfect his methods. She wasn’t his first, and she won’t be his last.”
The ache tried to turn to rage, but I held it in check. There were moves left on the board, and I was damned if I let grief make the next one for me.
Winter spoke barely above a whisper. “He called her blood a ‘gift.’ Like she was a stepping stone to something else.”
“He’s always been obsessed with the Valkyrie bloodline,” Candra said. “Wants to synthesize a new breed. Make himself a god.”
I nodded, agreeing with that theory. After all, it was why he killed our mother and stole her magic. “And Jessica just gave us the proof.”
“Damn right, she did.” Candra jumped to her feet and began pacing just as Winter’s tablet dinged.
Winter glanced at the tablet and frowned. Then she met my gaze. “Talon and his brothers are here.”
Shit. I wasn’t ready to talk to him. Like that mattered when the Norns were involved. “Let’s go meet the Alpha and his inner circle.”