42. Chapter 42
42
R ebecca clung to the shadows, slinking toward the barbed-wire fence surrounding the Old Joliet Prison.
How fitting that Harkennr would choose such a place as his headquarters in this world—an old, defunct, abandoned prison rumored to be haunted by the spirits of human prisoners who’d died inside its walls. Maybe murdered, maybe not.
Now that she was here, this could go one of two ways for Rebecca.
Either she turned tonight into a game-changer for her life and her power, using her Bloodshadow magic to heal herself before she could finally dig her heels into leading Shade back on track, or she’d made one awful, deadly miscalculation, and the Old Joliet Prison would end up becoming her prison as well.
The first in a long line of prisons yet to hold her throughout her indefinite future—if she was wrong.
Priority number one tonight was siphoning enough energy from someone else’s life spark to heal her ravaged body and put herself back together again. Coming in at a close second was her personal objective of discovering whether or not Harkennr and his gang holed up within these tall, dank stone walls were affiliated in any way with the Azyyt Ra’al.
Plus, once she confirmed whether her new “friend” posed as much of a threat to her secrets as Rebecca suspected, she could then eliminate that threat to herself and to Shade, all in one go.
But only once she healed herself, and it had to be tonight.
Or she would fall in the process, fail, and forfeit all their lives right then and there.
So many things could still go wrong, especially in her weakened state.
She had to pull this off perfectly .
The closer she crept to the prison’s perimeter fence and the ineffectually dim light pooling beneath the occasional streetlamp that hadn’t been updated in decades, the stranger this place felt. The more wrong the energy permeating the old property became.
Scaring off humans with legends and story traditions of the spirits of trapped prisoners haunting the property was one thing.
Actually hearing those voices all crying out in agony and desperation, pleading for their lives and for mercy in a variety of tongues, screaming beneath the tortures inflicted upon them, was something altogether different.
Those voices in the night air did not belong to the lost, untethered spirits of the dead, no matter what race.
The owners of those voices were very physical, very real, and very much still alive.
Rebecca reached the perimeter fence on the building’s east side where the property was darkest, away from the south end now serving as the entrance to Harkennr’s outpost.
Until Rebecca had successfully healed herself, she couldn’t reveal her presence. No one could know she was here.
Once she had the poison out of her body and was free of both the homunculus’s touch and debilitating effects of consuming its not-spark, it didn’t matter who saw her. They’d be dead before they realized she was coming for them, anyway.
With a quick flick of her wrist and a burst of dim, dark-gray smoke, Rebecca tightened her grip around her Bloodshadow spear and tilted her weapon forward.
The blade made no sound as it sliced effortlessly through the metal wire and barbed spikes. One, two, three, four swift cuts, and she’d opened a hole large enough for her to slip inside the perimeter.
The second she did, an explosion of keening wails and elevated screams burst from inside the old prison’s walls.
Rebecca ran toward the building’s brick wall ahead of her, searching the darkness for signs of pursuit.
But the flashes of deep, sickly green, ominous purple, and crimson-red light strobing through the windows at various points along the building’s facade soothed her immediate concern that she’d already been seen.
Harkennr and his gang were here, all right, and they had their hands full, interrogating prisoners for intel first and then just for fun. They had no reason to suspect anyone would sneak in, and certainly not a single intruder all alone.
Which still gave Rebecca the element of surprise and a slight advantage .
Summoning the dark smoke of her deepest power around herself was the closest thing she could get in her current state to wearing tonight’s shadows, but it was enough. She slinked along the wall, ignoring the screams of terror and excruciating agony seeping in one endless stream through the prison’s hundreds of windows.
Those living magical prisoners definitely made for an unexpected complication, but she would get to them if she could.
They just weren’t her top priority. Not yet.
Reaching the end of the east wall, Rebecca pulled the coils of dark smoke tighter around herself and peeked out from behind the corner.
Harkennr’s posse had an average level of security for someone of his status and reputation. She imagined that was part of his attempts to fit in here in Chicago, flying under the radar to assess the temperature of the city before fully exposing his true self and the lasting intentions that had fueled him over the last several centuries.
Torturing magical prisoners in an abandoned human prison was just the start for this guy.
The property’s southern entrance gates within the thick barbed-wire fence clinked and clanked open, casting flickering lights across the dead brown grass of what had once been the prison yard. The rumbling roar of an idling engine ricocheted off so much surrounding stone and concrete and brick.
But the snarls and grunts and barked orders from the armed guards stationed outside the prison’s entrance still reached Rebecca’s ears while she assessed her odds.
Two guard towers, one on either side of the open gates through which that waiting utility vehicle now rolled, swaying side-to-side beneath its heavy load concealed in the rear.
Half a dozen armed guards on foot patrolling the prison yard.
Three more utility vehicles parked in a triangle, its point facing the front gates to create a secure chokepoint around the entrance, should the base fall under attack.
Two high-powered machine guns on swiveling mounts stationed farther toward the perimeter fence, one at the southeast corner and the other at the northeast.
Rebecca pressed herself too closely against the outer wall to accurately gain a visual on sharpshooters nested on the prison’s roof or possibly the other side of a higher-story window. With a defensive setup like this, manned and patrolled through all hours of the night as standard procedure, there would be sharpshooters stationed somewhere. She’d have to keep that in mind .
Harkennr was smart. She knew that much. He wouldn’t leave the security of his facility up to chance. Hopefully, he also still hadn’t discovered the true identity of Shade’s new commander, which kept Fate on Rebecca’s side just a little longer.
Long enough to tackle one urgent high-priority problem at a time.
The utility vehicle bumping and rocking across the prison yard finally stopped a dozen yards east of the other vehicles’ defensive formation. The driver left the engine idling on the dead grass before he hopped out of the vehicle and marched around it toward a canvas flap hanging over the vehicle’s rear.
Before Rebecca finished plotting out her course across no more than a fifth of the prison yard to get what she needed first, the newest vehicle’s driver jerked aside that canvas flap and instantly readied a high-powered semi-automatic rifle with both hands to aim it inside the vehicle.
A pulse of violet-infused light glowed brighter within the assault rifle’s mechanisms adding their own high-pitched whine to the grumbling roar of the idling engine, the screech of mechanized gates rolling shut again, and the ever-present screams of tortured magicals forced to endure excruciating torment in the name of Harkennr’s goals.
The timbre and pitch of that rifle’s whine powering up with the brightening glow within it was a new one Rebecca hadn’t heard before.
New weapons made things interesting. Harkennr specialized exclusively in capturing, imprisoning, and trafficking magicals—both between worlds and across each of them. If he’d decided to expand into trafficking new and improved iterations and prototypes of advanced magitek weaponry as well, that could make him a lot more dangerous for the magical world in Chicago.
Rebecca would have to get her hands on one of those new assault rifles eventually. Even from where she crouched around the corner of the building, it looked like a whole lot of power packed inside for a whole lot of fun.
But the new weapon wasn’t even the biggest surprise of the night.
The closest, loudest shrieks and wails of terror and blubbering pleas reached her, growing in volume and intensity. Rebecca squinted through the darkness at the driver’s glowing magitek rifle, which he jerked aside to motion for someone she couldn’t see to start moving.
One by one, a trail of bodies emerged from the rear of the vehicle.
Living bodies.
Beaten, bloodied, broken bodies, bound in chains reinforced by magical bindings and complex wards to ensure no one escaped, even by accident .
A new shipment of wrongly seized magicals brought in to reinvigorate Harkennr’s current inventory of subjects for his experiments and victims of his violent predilections.
Dammit, why did there have to be more innocents involved in this?
That only meant more complications, more ways for things to go wrong. As much as Rebecca didn’t want to admit it, it also meant more powerful forces tugging on her conscience, pulling her in several different directions now when one direction and one objective was all she could afford.
She had no doubt this was Harkennr’s work. Rebecca had known it intimately once upon a time, long ago, and would recognize it anywhere.
An elf’s memory fixed in detailed precision was unnaturally long.
A Bloodshadow Elf’s memory was damn near eternal.
The chained line of terrified prisoners wobbled on their feet, some collapsing to their knees before three more guards patrolling on foot approached the newest living shipment to haul and threaten and beat their prisoners back onto their feet. Then everyone was roughly corralled toward the prison’s entrance.
Rebecca gritted her teeth and focused on committing every line of these patrol guards’ faces to memory.
She didn’t have the strength to fight off all Harkennr’s soldiers at once, or even one at a time on her own. She hadn’t anticipated going toe to toe with every single guard posted in the prison yard.
But later, once she’d regained her full strength and sufficiently assessed exactly what kind of threat waited both around and within these prison walls, she would sure as hell be back. When she returned, it would be with a full assault force from within Shade’s ranks, and they would raze this base to the ground to get these prisoners out.
She would make sure of it.
For now, though, the sharp ache of her helplessness and ensuing regret was enough of a reminder to bring Rebecca back to the present. She didn’t want to leave these victims here any more than she wanted to let the homunculus poison consume her from the inside out. But until she healed herself, she wouldn’t be of any use to anyone.
The closest guard to her current hiding place held his position beside the northeastern corner of the triangular defensive formation. His utility’s vehicle’s engine was off, the keys most likely left in the ignition for faster and easier access.
Rebecca could hardly believe her luck when the troll with two of the most enormous, grotesquely protruding tusks she’d ever seen beneath a single glowing orange eye—its partner having been plucked out of its socket—leaned against the outside of his vehicle to light a cigarette.
How much more perfect could this get?
Maintaining her tight grip on the coils of Bloodshadow smoke almost concealing her completely, Rebecca crept across the dead grass toward the troll in uniform, his assault rifle dangling against his hip by its shoulder strap while he cupped a hand around the end of his cigarette and produced a flame at the tip of one finger.
Fine, a troll this skilled in pyromancy was rare, but his proficiency didn’t make him any less distracted.
Even if the air had emptied of the idling engines, the low growl of the scattered shouts and barked commands of the front gates’ security team, or the jagged, piercing wails and heart-rending pleas of Harkennr’s new victims mingling with the agonized screams of old victims inside the prison, Rebecca still wouldn’t have made a sound.
Her feet whispered across the withered husks of dead grass patches staggered across the yard, her gaze and every ounce of focus she could summon centered on that one unsuspecting troll taking a smoke break.
Her first target.
The first confirmed enemy combatant who would lay down his life to heal and fuel Rebecca’s.
She could almost taste his spark now—the brilliant essence of his life force, the sustaining energy animating his form that would soon clear the suffocating darkness inside of her, coiling tighter and tighter around her existence with every second.
Only life could combat death to sustain more life somewhere else.
She sincerely hoped that same life could also banish un-life as well.
Then she reached the utility truck’s rear, which fortunately didn’t carry any living cargo like the other. Rebecca pressed her back against the rear fender, making herself as small as possible.
The troll’s energy pulsed from right around the corner of the vehicle, his heartbeat strong and steady, if slightly fast. His long inhale for the first draw of his lit cigarette before he let it all out in a wave of acrid tobacco smoke washed over her.
That was what Rebecca needed.
The fact that this troll with a nicotine vice willingly served Harkennr in guarding such dark and deadly atrocities inside the Old Joliet Prison only made Rebecca feel that much better about what she was about to do. That much more vindicated .
When the crackling hiss of his next drag reached her, Rebecca opened her right hand—she still couldn’t feel her left—and summoned her Bloodshadow spear with a quick flick of her wrist.
Nothing happened.
Shit. No…
It couldn’t be too late, could it? Not already. Not now.
She should have had enough time left to still summon her own magic before it completely gave out. If she couldn’t conjure her spear, she couldn’t use what was left of her magic to restore the rest of it.
She wouldn’t be able to heal herself.
Fighting back a hiss, she stared intently at her hand this time, pressing her back flat against the rear of the vehicle, and tried again.
One more conjuring flick of her wrist, and only a smattering of pale silver sparks erupted from the center of her palm.
By the Blood, no. Not now …
This couldn’t be the end of her. It wouldn’t be. She wouldn’t let it.
Her racing heartbeat pounded in her ears, rushing through her senses, overpowering every other sound as she tried again and again to summon her spear. Her drumming pulse even drowned out another sentry guard’s incomprehensible shouting across the yard before the troll just on the other side of the vehicle barked back his reply.
Hurry. She had to hurry.
This was her only chance…
Another hissing, sizzling crackle as the troll sucked down one final lungful of tobacco smoke and nicotine.
Silver sparks flashed in Rebecca’s hand—once, twice, three times.
The troll’s cigarette plunked into the dry grass scattered across upturned dirt at his feet.
Another burst of silver sparks, and a powerfully surging wave of energy coursed through Rebecca all at once. The next upswing of renewed energy from the livening effects of Zida’s emergency vial bloomed in her core and spread outward.
Then there it was.
The swirling, mercurial silver orb was all Rebecca could summon, but it was there.
The troll stomped on his cigarette butt, smashing it back and forth into the ground with the toe of his boot before clearing his throat. Then his footsteps moved across the dry grass, heading steadily toward her .
With no time to consider how close she was cutting it, Rebecca flicked her wrist, and the swirling silver orb of her magic became the glinting, deadly-sharp blade of her Bloodshadow spear.
Half a second before the troll rounded the side of his vehicle and stumbled upon her hiding place.
They both froze, gaping at each other, but Rebecca recovered faster. Barely.
She thrust her spear toward him, but it was a one-handed attack delivered at an awkward angle by an elf who simply wasn’t at the top of her game.
The troll spun to the side against the vehicle’s rear fender, his one glowing orange eye widening when Rebecca’s spear tip sliced right through the metal frame of the truck as if the vehicle were made of butter.
Rebecca reached for the spear shaft with her left hand now too—out of habit and an attempt to reinforce her grip for one final launching attack. An inability to feel anything below the center of her left bicep, though, made a good grip impossible.
She didn’t have the time to realize her mistake before the troll’s fist flew toward her face.
Hissing, Rebecca ducked beneath his swinging blow, then kicked out against the side of his leg to send him stumbling off balance.
With a snarl, the troll only went halfway down, his bad knee slamming into the dirt. Then Rebecca was on him, throwing herself against him for a full-body tackle, trying to wrestle him to the ground with one hand still tightly clenched around her spear because she couldn’t afford the time it would cost her to summon it again only to fail the next time.
Fortunately for her, the cacophony of noise already filling the prison yard drowned out the sound of her quick, merciless scuffle with the troll guard.
He was surprisingly strong. With Rebecca in her weakened state, he was almost strong enough to bring her down and end her solo mission with his next attack.
The troll got in two quick punches to her gut that made her double over in the grass while he picked himself off the ground. Then he scrambled toward her to deliver a final blow.
After that, she knew, he would sound the alarm, and all of Harkennr’s gang stationed at the Old Joliet Prison would know there had been a breach.
If that happened, Rebecca would be entirely out of options.
The troll cocked back his blue-tinted fist, that single orange eye blazing with its own internal light, and time slowed.
It was now or never. Her only chance.
Rebecca’s limbs felt like they were about to give out at any second. Like she couldn’t lift her arms to shield herself or even to fight back. Like her legs wouldn’t respond to her commands and would give out beneath her, even when she demanded they move.
No.
She refused to go down like this. She still had too much to do. There was still too much at stake.
The troll bore down on her, and Rebecca swung upward with her right hand, trusting her Bloodshadow magic to do the rest because every other part of her right now was fading too quickly.
With a searing gasp, she stared into the troll’s glowing orange eye, which widened like it was about to pop out of his head.
Her attacker froze mere inches in front of her, his fist still cocked back almost behind his head.
Then his jaw dropped in shock, and the impossibly slow-moving moment sped back up the second he looked down to see the end of Rebecca’s spear protruding from the center of his chest.
Slowly, soundlessly, he sank to both knees in the grass, still gaping at the glinting silver spear made of power far beyond what any true metal could possibly wield.
Panting to catch her breath, Rebecca clung to her spear and let her most primal magic do the rest of the work for her.
She felt everything within the troll’s flesh. His sputtering heartbeat. The blood pulsing through his veins in quick, terrified bursts. The recent buzz of nicotine zapping at his neurons. The fear darkening it all while her Bloodshadow spear glowed and pulsed with its hungry dark-silver light.
If she’d been any slower, the scream bubbling up along the troll’s tongue would have alerted the entire base to her presence. But Rebecca was already hovering over him, already desperate for his spark of life, already fueled by ravenous hunger for his magic and the life force that sustained him.
Instead of a scream emanating from the troll’s gaping mouth while his single eye bulged in his head, a blinding golden-white light appeared at the back of his throat instead.
With the tip of her spear still buried in the center of his chest, Rebecca didn’t let go. She leaned forward, focused only now on that ball of golden-white light climbing up his throat, coming ever closer.
Her hunger intensified, burning through her.
The light of his spark appeared at the back of his open mouth, rolling over the top of his tongue on a soundless scream until she opened her mouth too now and inhaled.
The troll’s spark burst into glittering shards of light, coiling and twisting and merging with dark, smokey tendrils of mercurial silver as Rebecca Bloodshadow breathed him in. Every particle of light and powerful magic wove together, snaking through the air out of the troll’s gaping mouth and into hers.
Her impossibly long inhale continued until she'd drawn in every last thread of the troll’s spark. His entire essence—the fabric of who he was, who he had always been, and who he might yet have become—all of it drew into her open mouth and down her throat to pierce through and settle within every fiber of her being.
By the time she swallowed the last of it and jerked her spear out of his chest, the troll was already dead.
His body slumped onto the grass with a hollow thump.
Rebecca tilted her head back and closed her eyes.
Oh, By the Hakali Threads, was that good …
With her next deep inhale, a new surge of energy, vitality, life, magic—everything that had been seeping out of her over the last several days—came washing back into her in one hell of a rush.
She felt better than she ever had. She felt like she could—
Two quick, hacking coughs made her think twice about her rate of recovery.
She was better, sure. Just not all the way. She still had work to do.
But now, after one troll, she’d regained enough of herself to make the next kill a hell of a lot easier.
“Tulio!”
The snarled shout came from close by, on the other side of the utility vehicle in front of her.
Rebecca glanced down at the troll’s lifeless body and wrinkled her nose.
Tulio wouldn’t be answering anytime soon. Or ever.
And only partially restored for now, Rebecca was still a sitting duck.