Chapter 24
rune
. . .
It was finally time to take revenge on the Whettlocks—specifically, Allison Whettlock.
I’d given my memory of Aura up to the door within Apex Penitentiary’s entrance, but it gave it back to me when I’d passed back through it to leave.
Remembering Aura was also remembering the woman who had once sat on my bed with Eleanor and I and had girls’ nights with us through year one.
I never once suspected that she was comforting me just so she could learn how to weaponize my pain later.
Allison had betrayed more than a peace treaty. She’d betrayed my trust and then sent a damned drude into my nightmares, forcing me to relive Darian of all people. He was the ex I’d told her about in year one when we were ‘friends.’ She’d told me I deserved better.
The difference was, I had graduated and became an agent for the Supernatural Council, and she was a human with stolen imp magic and supernatural blood on her hands.
The entire Whettlock family would be taken down today.
We had all teleported into the Human Council’s Headquarters first. The briefing had been a rapid-fire of information from both sides: coordinates, layouts, risk assessments, and last known sightings. The Human Council Lead’s expression had been tight, shame and anger flashing in her aura.
“The facility is unsanctioned,” she’d said. “It does not belong to the Human Council. We clearly ignored the signs for too long. We are at your disposal for this raid.”
She’d said everything she should’ve, but I no longer trusted humans.
We left HQ in waves of Drecken’s teleportation magic that took us across the Human Territory until the environment changed to a cold, sharp tundra.
My warlock mate insisted on staying with me, and I loved that he was going to be with our squad during this raid.
The facility sat in the far north of human lands, where the gray sky sagged with snow clouds, and the wind felt like tiny ice shards. There were scraggly trees and the suggestion of distant roads.
Our feet crunched softly as we spread out across the white expanse.
The magic specialists should’ve thought about making the suits camouflaged.
My breath fogged in front of me, curling up. The cold bit at the exposed skin of my face and fingertips, but my blood hummed hot with anticipation.
Ahead, the Whettlocks’ facility hunched into a low ridge like a metal parasite. It was half the size of the lab I’d escaped from but no less ugly. It was a rectangular sprawl of steel panels and glass slits, hunched behind layers of barbed fencing and security cameras.
Spies, enforcers, healers, and magical specialists were permitted to touch ground at the facility. The rest of the squads were dispatched to Fate Hollow to lend aid with the human attack.
Jesper walked at the front of our formation, white hair pulled back as his brown eyes stayed hard and focused.
Eight squads waited for his signal.
“Outer perimeter is blind on sector F,” Slater’s voice murmured in my ear over the comms. “Corin and I got their security grid in a bind. Cameras are looping, and their sensors are fucked.”
Corin’s voice followed. “External patrol has probably ninety seconds before they notice the gaps in their logs. After that, we can stall maybe two minutes tops before someone goes to physically check.”
Jesper nodded once, speaking for all of us. “Copy that. Squad A moving out.”
Snow crunched beneath our feet as we broke from cover and sprinted for the fence.
Kane and Sylver were already working with the other magical specialists to create a ward around the fence as they used invisibility charms to avoid detection. Paler blue and sea-green light bled from their fingertips, sliding along the facility’s outer ward line through the air.
“We’re weaving the containment ward now,” Kane murmured over the comms, his magic crackling over each word. “No one in; no one out. You have only thirty seconds to breach.”
We made it to the fence, and Jesper vaulted it first, landing silently on the other side. We all followed him, the newly laid ward line slicking over us as we entered. The human facility loomed ahead, but no alarms went off.
Slater and Corin had successfully fucked with their security.
“Inner patrol coming up on the north corner,” Lysa informed us calmly. “Four guards with rifles, and one with a tourmalyke injector bundle on his hip. They don’t know you’re here yet. Two squads are ready to enter for backup, but you won’t need it.”
Jesper lifted his hand in a silent signal, then cut it forward.
We moved.
The first human never saw us coming.
Tibby transformed into his phoenix form to fly above and shifted back to his normal form right above them. Phoenix flames wreathed his fists as he slammed into the guard with the injector pack, sending him sprawling.
April blurred past him, vampiric speed turning her into a streak of motion as she disarmed another and snapped his neck in one clean twist.
I slid across the ice-slick ground and hit the third one from the side. The ice burned my fingertips, but I ignored it.
He swung his rifle toward me too late, and my fingers brushed the exposed skin at his wrist. I pushed my venom into him, and he dropped, eyes rolling back as my fatal poison cascaded through his nervous system.
The fourth guard’s eyes widened, and he turned to run.
“Kill him,” Jesper ordered. “If they’re in this facility, they know what they’re doing. They’re all complicit.”
Dimitri was there, expression flat, snapping his neck with a flick of his wrists. The crunch of bone sounded obscenely loud in the cold air.
“Patrol neutralized,” Jesper reported back to HQ. “Proceeding to breach the facility itself.”
The door Slater had flagged on our wristband map was a side maintenance access, half-buried in a drift of snow. A heavy, reinforced slab, with a keypad and a rune-etched locking mechanism stolen from supernaturals.
“I’m on it,” Slater told us. “Snakey…”
The keypad sparked, flickered, then cycled through codes so fast it turned into a flurry of green lights. The rune-lock wavered as the symbols rearranged themselves. The lock thunked, and the heavy door slid inward a few inches, freezing on a layer of ice that had crept into the track.
“Doors open. You’ve got a three-minute window before the system recognizes that the door has been opened,” Slater explained.
“Allow me,” Kyle said dryly from behind us and shoved the door the rest of the way open with little effort.
Jesse caught the edge with both hands, keeping it from slamming into the interior wall. “Be fucking careful.”
“Sorry.” Kyle ducked his head like he was embarrassed.
Sterile air rushed out, reeking of cold metal, antiseptic, and sharp undertones of fear.
We funneled inside.
Immediately, the facility looked very human and very much the same as the one I’d been locked up in.
Long corridors were lined with glass observation windows and metal doors.
Bright overhead lights buzzed faintly with electricity.
The walls were painted bright white. Security cameras were perched in every corner.
“Primary squads split here,” Jesper ordered, voice tight.
“Enforcers need to focus on level one and two: control the fight and keep their attention topside. Spies and magical specialists, come with me to the sublevel. Torture experts and healers float where needed. Everyone else, you know your assignments.”
This was the part where the squads split.
The rest of the graduates and the new fourth-years assumed their roles and followed his orders. Squad A, our squad, and other spies and magical specialists followed him.
I stuck close to Jesper as we moved deeper, Dimitri, Zuko, and Koa at my back, Cassie and Bradley behind us. Kane, Drecken, and Sylver flanked our rear, their magic and tools already crackling, ready to suppress and counter anything the humans threw at us.
A sliding wall panel hissed open ahead, and a team of humans spilled out. Rifle fire flashed, spells popped, and the air filled with the metallic tang of projectiles and the eerie distortion of tech-augmented magic.
“Get down!” Jesper snapped.
Koa, Tibby, and Jesse’s phoenix flames surged up in front of us, forming a shield that sparked as bullets hit and melted before dripping onto the ground.
I slipped flat against the corridor wall and moved along it. A bullet whined past my ear, and Dimitri caught it before throwing it back and hitting a human square in the forehead.
Cassie’s and Bradley’s pheromones hit the air at the same time in a warm, dizzying wave that shoved confusion and desire into every human’s chest. Their aims faltered, eyes going glassy as they turned toward the demons, half against their will, attraction and panic warring behind their irises.
“Let’s not waste time with them.” Drecken sighed, snapping his fingers.
Every single human turned to nothing, their armor and equipment dropping to the floor with thuds.
“I forgot that we have a supercharged warlock with us,” Tibby muttered under his breath.
Drecken started walking, and Jesper moved with him.
We followed.
“Left corridor is cleared,” Lysa informed us. “Heads up: they’re panicking upstairs. I’m seeing security protocols going into action. The containment ward is holding, though.”
“Good,” I muttered, stepping over a human’s armor. “Let them panic.”
The architecture changed as we descended. Less glass, more concrete. The walls grew rougher, and the lighting turned harsher. It felt less like a hospital and more like a prison.
“Sublevel coming up,” Lysa directed. “You’re close to the holding block. I’m seeing live vital feeds on at least thirty-eight supernaturals. Mostly sedated. Tourmalyke saturation is dangerously high in some cells.”
Rage made my vision pulse red.
“Lysa, route all available squads to extraction priority,” Jesper ordered. “Everyone else shifts to evacuation and cover.”
“Copy that,” she said.
We turned another corner into the cell block.