Chapter 20
Teddy
“Sir, they said the Head of Nexus is on the way—”
“Stop talking.”
“But, sir, Gwen—”
“Is the least of your worries if you don’t stop,” Kellan said. “Unless, of course, you’d like to take our dear Damir’s place?”
The Nexus lackey quickly snapped his mouth closed, glancing across at his compatriot on the other side of the rusty metal door.
Teddy kept his head low where he sat strapped to a metal chair in the center of the dim room.
The air was damp and earthy in this underground facility, making every breath feel heavy in his chest. There was also the sharp and primal stench of cursed magic in the air.
It made his hair stand on end and his instincts scream at him to run.
There was no escape, however. Not for him, and not for the strange, cursed animals lining the walls around him in sterile glass enclosures, agitated and butting against their confines. Jellyfish in bioluminescent colors swam in circles while reptiles and snakes hissed.
The space was a mad scientist’s lair.
Artifacts and machinery Teddy couldn’t identify filled the area, papers and books strewn over every available surface.
On the wall were projected photos of what looked like past failures.
A mixture of dead people and dead animals interspersed with molecular and engineering drawings and insane notations.
It was a carousel of horrors.
What was most disturbing wasn’t the images of cruelty and insanity though, it was the mechanism that looked menacingly similar to the one they had found in the facility, only much more refined, which hung above his head.
Instead of a cylinder to put a body inside, this one had metal arms outstretched, with enough space to cradle a skull when it was lowered.
Teddy couldn’t help but feel afraid.
He was just grateful that Wren wasn’t there.
Was he okay? He had to be. He felt his heart would know if he weren’t. It would simply stop beating.
Teddy had been half out of it as they’d approached him to remove the conduit from his hands. He’d felt life return to him only to be placed in worse hands as he opened his eyes to see Kellan.
He’d known immediately that something was wrong.
Kellan had looked gleeful. And possessive.
It had sent a shiver up Teddy’s spine and caused him to reach into his pocket.
His numb fingers could hardly close around the packet, but he got a handful of seeds and dropped them just before he was hoisted onto a stretcher.
He hadn’t even got a chance to give them to Wren. Didn’t know if he ever would again.
His paranoia was only justified when they’d loaded him into a separate vehicle to the others.
They traveled a short distance before dragging him back out again into a wooded area.
He’d left a trail of seeds as they’d hauled him along before Kellan had opened up a set of doors hidden by a small mound.
It had looked like an old bomb shelter.
As he was dragged through, he assumed it probably was, or at least that it had some military significance that had been phased out long ago with the development of more magic-based systems.
He’d been taken through a maze of corridors into a room and shoved into a chair, manacled down as the conduit he’d ripped from the larger machine was taken and plugged into the machine above his head.
“Stop playing pretend, Damir. I know you’re awake,” Kellan said. Teddy clenched his jaw and raised his head to meet Kellan’s impassive gaze. He smiled without feeling. “Welcome home.”
“This isn’t my home.”
“But we’re like family, wouldn’t you say? Isn’t home wherever your family is?” Kellan asked, eyes glimmering.
“You’re not my family either!”
Kellan tutted. “He really has been a terrible influence on you, hasn’t he?”
“You shouldn’t have hurt him. You knew that if you touched him all fucking bets were off. I’m done playing your games,” Teddy growled.
“Are you?” Kellan asked. “I think you have time for just one more.”
He walked over to the freakshow menagerie he had created on the wall, the poor creatures growing wilder as he approached like they knew what might be coming. Spiders jumped at the glass and snakes hissed and rattled their tails.
Kellan paid them no attention, reaching for something on a side table before pausing with his hand hovering over black leather. He pulled it back, taking a moment and spinning his ring once around his finger, then he turned to the cages and opened one.
“Sir!” the man at the door said. “The gloves.”
Kellan ignored the caution, reaching in and grabbing something. He turned with barely disguised glee on his face. When he opened his hand, a scorpion was revealed, with zigzag markings in neon green, its tail oversized and heavy.
The scorpion remained calm in his grasp.
“How, sir?” the man asked in awe. “They’ve never done that before.”
“They’re easy creatures if you know how to handle them,” Kellan said, the scorpion poised as he walked casually to the lackey. The man cringed, turning his face away as Kellan held it close to him. “They simply sense fear.”
The scorpion struck in an instant as if on command, its tail piercing the man’s cheek and making him scream. He dropped to the floor a second later and the convulsions took over. He writhed, a labyrinth of veins lighting up under the skin across his face from the puncture mark.
Raw, acidic magic filled the air and the man scratched the floor bloody, chest arching unnaturally as the machine above Teddy’s head began to whir as if reacting.
Kellan stepped back and observed the reaction as one would an everyday event, until the man jerked and stopped moving altogether, eyes wide open in death, foam dripping from his mouth as his head lolled to the side.
Dead.
Teddy felt sick to his stomach.
The other lackey was trying to keep his composure, probably hoping Kellan’s ire wouldn’t fall on him next. Teddy understood the feeling all too well, the wish to be invisible, the desire to kill the thing inside him that Kellan seemed to want to hunt so he would leave him alone.
Teddy pulled at his bonds when Kellan stepped toward the man. This nameless person had helped Kellan abduct him, was a part of this nefarious operation, yet Teddy could not sit back and watch Kellan prey on another.
“Aren’t you here for me?” he called.
Kellan looked at Teddy and smiled. “You’re not going anywhere. Why rush?”
“Why needlessly kill those who are loyal to you?”
“Kill?” Kellan asked, genuinely confused. “You think I’m murdering them?”
“You just did! Right in front of my eyes!” Teddy spat, still straining against the restraints.
“I offered him survival.”
“How is that survival?” he demanded. “Whatever that was, it was…unnatural.”
“If he’d been strong enough, he could have handled the change.”
“Is this really about some survival of the fittest bullshit?” Teddy asked incredulously.
Kellan nodded to the other minion, who quickly dragged the body from the room and shut the door behind him.
Kellan held the scorpion up to his eye, dangerously close, to examine it before walking over and bringing it to Teddy’s face now. Teddy couldn’t move his head back thanks to the metal rest behind it, jaw flexing with the tension he was exerting.
Kellan watched him squirm with a smile.
“He came to me begging to be better. They all did. They feel limited in their potential and I’m offering them a way to unlock a higher existence that Nexus would deny them.”
“Magic isn’t something you can mess with. Their body provides the amount of magic it can handle.” Teddy shook his head. “You’re subverting the natural order of things.”
“I think we both know that’s not true,” Kellan said. “You’ve seen the fruits of my labor. Your precious little bird is proof of that.”
Teddy yanked forward this time, careless of the danger. “Don’t talk about him. Don’t put his name in your fucking mouth.”
Kellan smirked and pulled back, walking back to the cage and setting the scorpion down.
“I didn’t expect it to be such a success.
It’s hard to get your hands on a cursebreaker and not have everyone know about it.
Numbered and few as you are, Nexus are pretty protective of their investments.
Casters, however, are easy. I could pluck the ripest fruit from the tree and no one would bat an eye. In fact, they only offered me more.”
“The Worthinghams,” Teddy guessed.
“They were quite disappointed to have such a common son. They were willing to finance quite a lot in regard to my research.”
Teddy snorted. “Even while he was trashing their country club under the influence of your drug?”
“That was quite vexing, I will admit. They really should have kept a tighter leash on him like I asked.” Kellan strolled around the room. “And you and Saint were like annoying little dogs with a bone, of course.”
“We were getting too close, so you set up the warehouse to stop us.”
Kellan laughed. “Close?”
Teddy stiffened hearing it, the soundtrack to his worst nightmares being played on surround sound.
“Damir, you played into my hands beautifully.”
“What are you talking about?”
Kellan came around the back of him to whisper into his ear. “You think I didn’t let you find all those clues? That every step you took wasn’t perfectly calculated to get you exactly where I wanted you?”
Teddy turned his head, searching his laughing eyes in horror.
“I told you,” Kellan said, straightening. “Grabbing a cursebreaker is hard. People notice.”
Teddy began to shake. “And you think they won’t notice when I don’t turn up at the hospital?”
“Didn’t you know? You’re in critical condition from direct contact with such a strange device. It’ll be tragic when we have to give them news of your passing.” He pouted in sympathy.
“With no body? They’re not going to believe you.”
“Oh, they’ll have one,” Kellan said. “When we’re done.”
He moved to the computer the device above was connected to and began typing. Teddy strained at his manacles uselessly, making his wrists and ankles bleed.