Chapter 29
29
T he ride to the Midway Plaisance felt endless. Alistair rode in the back of the truck, in cheetah form, along with Doris in tiger shape and Philip in snow leopard. Wanda drove with Holly perched in bird form on her shoulder, and Reinhold rode in the seat beside them.
At least there wasn’t much traffic so late at night. Even so, every time the truck slowed to make a turn, he could feel the seconds slipping away. Helplessness formed a knot in his chest. What if they were already too late? If Sam had bonded with Nagorski, they were stuck with him forever. A man who had probably murdered a prohee, not to mention one of Sullivan’s men.
Courts didn’t look kindly on dead federal agents. Whatever Johnston had done in life, his death would be a call to crack down on Towertown. Sullivan wouldn’t be happy about that either.
Fur and feathers, they were fucked.
His best hope was to talk Sam into leaving Chicago, with or without Vic. But Sam didn’t just abandon people, and if this saved his mother, he’d feel obligated to Nagorski.
Damn it.
Wanda parked the truck in front of the abandoned hotel. No light showed from within, and Alistair silently prayed he hadn’t guessed wrong. If he had, Sam could be almost anywhere, and they had no way to find him again.
“Reinhold, stay with the truck,” Wanda ordered.
“Are you sure? I can help,” he protested.
“If we need you, I’ll send Holly back,” she replied as the rest of them hopped down from the back of the truck. “Get ready to get out of here fast, just in case.”
“All right.” His scarred face wore an expression of worry. “Just be careful, all right?”
She took on lion form, and they all slipped into the shadows away from the road. Alistair’s claws clicked on the pavement, not being retractable, while all the rest moved in eerie silence despite their size. Holly flitted up to a dingy cornice above.
The front was boarded up, so they moved along the back, watching and scenting. As they drew close to a side door, a faint whiff of ink and vanilla came to Alistair’s nostrils.
He’d guessed right—Sam was here.
Doris let out a soft chuff as she too picked up the scent. She silently shifted into human form long enough to open the door, then back into tiger.
They spread out as soon as they were inside, careful not to clump together to make an easy target. Holly flew from perch to perch, pacing them. Alistair strained his every sense, listening for some footstep or voice, scenting for any guards or other threats, watching for the slightest movement.
The hotel around them remained eerily still. Once, scores of men, women and children had packed into its rooms, eager to see the great spectacle of the White City. Now all of that was long done and gone, the hotel become little more than a ghost, the Midway quiet and dark. A place of fading memories and slow obliteration.
As they passed through the first floor corridors, Sam’s scent grew stronger. As did Nagorski’s.
Then the smell of death.
Alistair’s hackles rose. He’d smelled too many dead bodies on the battlefield, some of them fresh, some of them disintegrating into the mud. This was something putrid, tinged with a strange odor like freezer-burned meat.
He quickened his steps. Someone was dead, and had been for a while. If he wasn’t fast enough, Sam might join them.
There—in the direction of the kitchen. Muffled voices.
Wanda no doubt wanted to use strategy, to sneak up and get the lay of the land before rushing in. But fuck strategy—Sam was in there, and Alistair was going to him right now.
He sped down the hall, claws clicking on tile, burst through the swinging doors?—
Only to be brought up short by the sound of a gunshot.
The pain was instantaneous, a wave of red-hot agony that burned through Sam’s midsection. His legs refused to work, and he tumbled to the floor. Something hot and wet ran across his skin and dripped down his side to pool beneath him.
For a moment, his mind scrambled for an explanation as to what had happened, why he couldn’t stand. But as Vic crouched beside him, letting the gun fall from his hand to the floor, Sam put two and two together.
“You shot me,” he managed to gasp out past the pain choking him.
Vic gripped his hand. “Stay with me, Sam. You’re going to be all right.” He took the final hex from his pocket and held it up. “Just bond with me, charge the hex, and we’ll use it to save you.”
This was madness. The pain faded somewhat as adrenaline flooded his veins, but he knew it wouldn’t last long. “Why?” he asked through numb lips.
Vic’s grip tightened. “Because if you won’t finish the job to save your mother, then at least you’ll do it to save yourself. Because I never could have done any of this without you. Because all the witches they assigned to me in the war died, and it hurt, and I won’t go through that again. I won’t.” He reached out and tenderly wiped the sweat from Sam’s brow. “You’re confused right now, but once we bond, you’ll realize this was all for the good. We’ll leave here together with the secret to immortality. We’ll travel the world, doing magic, creating hexes, and not even death will ever part us. The sun will never set on our White City.”
Sam’s breath came shallow and fast. He swallowed, but it did nothing to alleviate his dry throat.
“Do it,” Vic said. “Save yourself.”
From his angle, he could still see Bobby’s tormented form on the table. He was dying, and Sam was dying, and Mom was dying, and Sam could save only himself.
A life for a life.
“No,” he said. “I won’t do it.”
Alistair burst into a scene of horror.
The smell of death filled the air of the derelict kitchen, coming from a body laid out on a metal food preparation table. Sam sprawled nearby on the floor, his skin ashen. Blood soaked the right side of his shirt, its scent hot and metallic. A gun lay on the floor beside him.
And Victor Nagorski crouched over Sam, clutching his hand.
Alistair barreled into Nagorski, claws digging in as he dragged the man to the ground. Every instinct screamed at him to close his jaws on Nagorski’s throat, suffocate him like any other prey. Like he’d done to the German soldiers in the war, when the chance arose.
“I can save him!” Nagorski shouted.
The gun went spinning away, kicked by Philip who had rushed in after him. Back in human form, Philip knelt beside Sam, pressing his hands against the wound. Sam cried out in pain.
Wanda and Doris ran in. Wanda shifted into human form and spotted the body on the table. “Fur and feathers, is that Bobby?”
Alistair pinned Nagorski to the ground, teeth inches from his throat. He didn’t know what was going on, other than Sam had been shot, presumably by Nagorski.
Who claimed to be able to save him.
Alistair shifted and dropped back, to Sam’s side. Sam’s brown eyes found his, and he tried to lift a hand, before dropping it weakly back to his side.
“We need to get him to a hospital,” Philip said urgently.
“No! Listen to me.” Nagorski cautiously rose to his knees, a stalling hand out. Doris growled at him, and he froze. “I can save him with this hex. It just needs to be charged. So everyone leave and let me save his life!”
“Did you shoot him?” Alistair demanded. He found Sam’s hand; the fingers were disturbingly cold and clammy, the nails tinged with gray.
“This hex, combined with the distillate of Bobby’s body in quicksilver, will allow me to create the elixir of life and save him,” Nagorski said, ignoring the question. “But you need to leave, right now. I’ll bond with Sam and save him.”
“Get Reinhold out of the truck,” Wanda ordered Holly, who perched on a pot rack above. “He can charge the hex.”
“There’s more to it than that!” Nagorski said. “Only I know the entire formula and all the steps in the process to create the elixir. And no one else will be able to put it together again—I burned the laboratory to the ground, taking the knowledge with it.”
He focused on Sam. “You need me, Sam. I can heal you, but there won’t be enough elixir left to save your mother. A life for a life, remember? Only I can recreate it for her.”
Alistair went cold. Nagorski’s words sounded like the rantings of a madman. “I don’t give a damn about that. Holly, get Reinhold.”
“No,” Sam croaked.
Alistair bent over him, cupping his face in his hands. “It’s okay, Sam. We’ll heal you. Just relax.”
“No,” Sam repeated. “Bobby.”
Bobby—the corpse on the table. The corpse looking at them now with understanding. The corpse trying to raise its hand.
“Good God,” Wanda whispered.
Nagorski made an impatient gesture, as though there was nothing strange and terrible about a moving dead man. “He’s dying anyway, Sam! There’s not much time left—we have to get him into the boiler while he’s still alive. While his united body and soul can still transform the base substance of his life into something so much finer.”
Alistair shot a look at Holly, who remained frozen on her perch. “For fuck’s sake, get Reinhold! Now!”
“I won’t,” Sam gasped. His fingers weakly gripped Alistair’s. “I won’t be a part of this.”
Terror flooded Alistair’s veins. “Sam, please,” he whispered, bending over him, meeting his eyes. “I just want you to live.”
Sam closed his eyes. “Not at that price,” he said, voice barely a thread now. “It’s too high.” He licked bluish lips. “I love you.”
Fuck. “Hospital! Now!” Alistair barked, and started to slip his arms under Sam to lift him.
“Stop!” Nagorski snarled. “I won’t let you do this! I’ve worked too hard!”
He shifted into his animal form: an American badger, fur on end and teeth gleaming viciously. He lunged for Alistair’s leg?—
Wanda’s massive jaws closed around his neck. He screeched and kicked, trying to scratch her, but he was no match for a lioness more than ten times his weight. She shook her head once, snapping his neck, and dropped him to the floor in a bloody heap.
“Here.” Doris had taken back her human form, and now knelt beside Sam. While Philip continued to apply pressure on the wound, she lifted him easily in her strong arms.
Sam’s gaze sought out Bobby. “I’m sorry. I tried…”
The dead gray lips parted. “Thank you,” Bobby grated out.
Then Bobby Watts was still, and neither spoke nor moved again.