Chapter 32 Nova #2
Suspicion prickled. Annoyance, too. I didn't have time to argue about it, so I ignored the hand and dropped down alone, landing in a crouch.
The others followed one by one. Deslen shifted midair, landing in his jaguar form, dark fur glistening like wet ink.
He padded to my side and nudged his huge head beneath my hand.
Feeling petty, I resisted, but he nudged again and again until I finally slid my fingers through his fur.
All forgiven. Boy, am I turning into a pushover.
We moved down the carved, underground pathway in a silent formation, each step measured. Ears tuned. Breath slow.
A soft hum bled through the tunnel as a low, steady vibration began to pulse under our feet.
At the far end, a hazy green glow seeped from the left-hand corridor, casting the stone across it in an eerie tinge.
The closer we crept, the louder the room sounded—liquid bubbling, machines chirping, a wet churn like something alive being fed.
Just as I was about to turn the corner and head in, Conrad’s hand landed on my shoulder, his grip firm but careful. “Let me check it.”
Before I could answer, he vanished in a blur and reappeared an instant later. “Empty.”
We all walked into the room, still moving cautiously despite Conrad’s go ahead—because you never knew. My eyes grew wide as I looked at everything before me.
The lab sprawled out before us. Tubes twisted across the table like veins. A bead of bright green fluid floated through a clear line, burbling as it traveled into beakers, then vapor chambers, and finally emerging as a syrup-thick mixture that dripped into a vat at the end of the table.
So, this was where he birthed the substance.
My legs moved without permission, drawn to the grotesque beauty of the set-up. Each step followed the absurd path of the formula, from liquid to vapor to liquid again, like he was coaxing life from poison.
Pulling out my phone from my boots, I took pictures and sent them to Calix. I didn’t know what the fuck all this was, but he would have the best idea. This was definitely not in my wheel house.
Past the vat at the end of the table, a desk waited with a laptop and a large warped notebook.
I flipped the notebook open as the guys looked around the room.
Pages were packed with equations and jargon I couldn’t decode.
This was another Calix job, so I swiped the book and tucked it into the back of my pants.
Once this was over, I’d have my team confiscate everything, but I had a feeling this book needed to stay away from the wrong hands.
I didn’t sense movement behind me until the notebook was snatched clean from my waistband.
I spun, claws out, ready to take on whoever dared to take what I had fucking stolen, only to find Zeth looking at it with a critical eye.
He casually lobbed it over to Conrad, who caught it with ease. When did they start working together?
“Keep it for her,” Zeth said dryly. Before I could get a word in, he followed with “She forgets that sometimes she doesn't go home with clothes.”
Conrad slid it into a cargo pocket on his pants, giving me a conspiratorial wink. I wanted to smack both of them… mostly because they were right. If I shifted, that thing would’ve hit the floor and probably disappeared, which would just piss me off.
All our heads snapped to the entrance when a cry tore down the tunnel, raw and panicked, followed by a heavy smack. We could come back to the lab. What laid ahead of us might be even better.
We quickly moved out of the room and went further down the pathway, staying tight to the shadows until we reached another brightly lit entrance. Pulling my back to the dirt wall, I peeked around the corner, making sure I did so at a glacial pace.
A grey-haired man in a white lab coat was leaning over a metal table where a supe was secured with chains. The captive’s voice cracked as they begged. “P-please… don’t… I don’t want to be… l-like them…”
A roar exploded from a dark corner, and the chained down supe flinched, whimpering. Focusing on the captive, I realized he looked like the picture Ezra had sent me of Jeremy Delton. The kid's father was still alive… for now.
“Oh, don’t worry,” the old man cooed, smoothing his hair. “I’m going to make you better. Faster. Just like you wanted.” He called over his shoulder, “Nyx!”
A syringe floated toward him, green liquid swirling inside. Air mage. Of course.
Before he could inject the supe, another voice cut through the room, soft, velvety, and colder than metal left in snow.
“Doc. We’ve got company.”
Shit.
Holding my hand out to the guys, I signaled for them to stay put. Maybe I could buy us enough time to wait for the right moment to strike, but I had to know what I was dealing with first.
Stepping into the doorway with a feral grin, I lifted my hands toward him. “Doctor! I’ve been dying to get an appointment.”
He turned slowly, tucking the syringe into his coat pocket as he faced me like an old friend. “Nova Rossey! If I’d known, I might have made the place more… presentable.” He made a show of looking around before laughing hard.
He looked normal enough, but the magic clinging to him was wrong, twisted. His eyes glowed neon purple, and the corrupted air around him shivered.
“Nyx,” he purred, “welcome our guest.”
A cloaked figure slid out of the shadows. A slim hand lifted. Fingers flicked. The air tightened, sucked inward, forming a spear of compressed wind that shot toward me.
The magic was fast. Sharp. Clean. But Riot had trained me better.
I waited for a heartbeat, a single breath, letting it get dangerously close so she wouldn’t be able to redirect it, then I dropped and rolled. The spear sliced the air where my ribs had been.
By the time I rose, the mage was staring at me, the hood thrown back. Her cherry red hair spilled onto her shoulders, and her face was contorted with pure disgust.
“That should’ve obliterated you,” she hissed.
I licked my teeth and smiled, slow and wicked. “Yeah, well… I’m Syndicate. I’m not that easy to kill.”
Frustration rolling off her in hot waves, the air mage exhaled hard through her nose, a dragon ready to blow fire. It was the doctor who spoke first, his voice syrup-sweet and filled with delusion.
“You know it’s futile to try to stop us.”
He lifted his phone, eyes swirling with manic purpose. “Even if you kill us all today, I can send the corrected formula to him. He’ll make more doses. Thousands. When the time’s right… Boom!”
He dragged his tongue around his lips in one long, gross circle. My stomach clenched, not from fear, but from disgust. I’d lived with psychos. Been raised by psychos. But this guy? This guy made my skin want to crawl off my bones just to get away from the way he looked at me.
“Come with us,” he whispered.
Nyx, the air mage, jerked her head toward him, eyes wide, mouth half open in protest, but he ignored her. His attention was locked on me like I was the final piece to his fucked-up puzzle.
“We could use your strength,” he coaxed, stepping closer. “Join the winning side. Our master seeks a partner… someone worthy to stand with him. To carry his seed. To birth a superior race.”
My smile didn’t reach my eyes. “Is that what he’s doing? And who is he, exactly?”
A feverish gleam spread across his face as I stepped closer. “Why tell you,” he purred, “when we can take you to him? Much clearer when seen up close.”
He grabbed my arm and yanked me closer, which was exactly what I wanted.
I softened everything—my eyes, jaw, the tension in my shoulders—trying to make myself look harmless. Curious. “Is he like you?” I asked, my voice feather-soft.
His gaze swept over me, that oily magic that was and wasn’t his caressing my skin like a sticky hand, touching everything it could.
His pupils dilated, greedy and bright. “You’re already a perfect specimen,” he murmured, “but I can improve you. Strengthen your limbs. Enhance you beyond imagination.”
My hands slid up his cheeks and cupped his face, looking deep into those bright lavender eyes. “I hoped,” I said, sweet as poison, “for eyes like these.”
He laughed arrogantly. “Not everyone can have these. They were hand-picked for me.”
“Then…” I batted my eyes before letting my smile drop. “I suppose I’ll have these ones.”
My fingers elongated into claws mid-sentence, and I drove them straight into his eye and ripped it out.
His scream rippled through the lab as he shoved me backward. “YOU BITCH!” Blood streamed down his face. I blinked at my claws, one hooked around a bright purple eyeball.
Got one.
“Nyx! Kill her!” he screamed.
*“Boys,” I yelled, “let’s tear them to shreds.”
Conrad flashed into existence beside the doctor, his hand snapping around the man’s throat. Rage vibrated off him like static. “You laid your hands on her?! You die today.”
The air shifted for a split-second before a spear of compressed wind shot toward him, and instinct took over. I kicked his leg out, knocking him off balance. The look he gave me was one of disbelief, but when his arm began dripping blood instead of his heart, he let it go real quick.
“Nova!” Zeth appeared at my side, hauling me up by the arms.
Across the room, a blur of midnight fur and iridescent streaks slammed into Nyx, pinning her to the ground with a jaguar’s snarl.
The doctor crabwalked away on his hands, panting. “Let’s see how you face these.” Giggling, he slapped a red button on the wall.
Chains rattled onto the ground. That guttural growl from earlier echoed again—closer. Angrier.
“Tear them apart,” he shrieked. “Make them bleed!”
Something lurched out of the shadows, a twisted mass forced into a body it didn’t want.