Chapter 23
“All right,” I say, voice coming out shaky. I rest my hand on the door. “In one minute, grab Trent and keep his hands behind his back. You might have to gag him or something too. I’m not sure what kind of magic tricks he’ll be able to pull before we…we…end him.”
Hasan taps his hand against the door in response. I roll my neck, close my eyes, and start counting. Thirty seconds later, I find the little latch on the door and muster up all the strength I have. My fingers spark with magic, and my heart starts to race.
“What are you doing?” Trent asks, and I can hear the fear in his voice. “I command you to stop!”
I push the latch down and shove my shoulder against the door. It opens easily and I stumble into the living room. Thomas has Trent’s arms pulled behind his back and Gilbert has a dagger to his throat.
“They’re not under your command,” I say, holding my right hand out in front of me. Fire rises from my fingertips. “They never were.”
“No!” Trent yells, thrashing against Tom. “You…you’re dead. This…this isn’t possible!”
“You really should have listened to me.” The flames rise higher. I bend my fingers in a bit and the fire bends with them, forming a fireball. “I told you how this was going to go down, and it wasn’t in your favor.”
Trent brings his head back, trying to hit Tom in the face. Gil brings his free hand up and hits Trent hard on his temple. Trent’s body goes slack, but Thomas doesn’t loosen his hold.
“Want me to throw him off the building?” Tom asks.
“As much as I’d love to watch him go flying down, we might need him.” I look at Jacques. “Did you see him do any sort of magic or have any sort of protective charms around?”
Jacques nods. “By the door.” I start to rush forward, but Jacques stops me. “No, Ace. Those are power stones. They’ll absorb your powers, and while it’s a temporary hinderance, you can’t spare any of your power right now.”
I nod and fall into step behind him, holding the fireball in my hand in case someone else comes through the door. There are two large gray stones on either side of the door. Magical electricity sparks between them.
“He booby-trapped the place?” I ask.
“Yes, and I don’t think this is the only one.” Jacques uses his foot to push one of the stones out of place, not reaching down to pick it up until the magical connection is cut. He looks up. “It’s definitely not.”
“Shit.” There’s a security camera in the corner above the door. I fling my hand forward, sending the fireball into the camera. “Well, they can’t see us now.”
“They might have before.”
“Rachel said there was only one guard, and I think he’s busy looking for me. Dammit, he’ll be checking the cameras.”
As soon as the words leave my lips, someone pounds on the door. “Move away from the door,” a deep male voice calls. I whirl around, looking for more cameras.
“There!” Jacques points across the room. I throw another fireball and miss. It hits the wall, sizzles, and burns out. I’m running out of fire power and I’m afraid every fireball I throw will be my last.
“Come on,” I mumble to myself, and hold out my hand, trying to conjure another fire. Jac takes my hand and pulls me down just in time. Bullets pepper the door, and bits of drywall rain down on us.
Jacques tries to cover me, and together, we crawl away from the door. Hasan dives forward and knocks over a large wooden table. I scramble to get behind it, reaching for Jac. My eyes are wide and if my heart beat any faster it would beat right out of my chest.
I’ve fought vampires and ghouls. I’ve been kidnapped and tortured. And yet being helpless on the floor while someone shoots at me is one of the most terrifying things I’ve experienced. The gunfire ceases and the guard kicks the door.
“The police will be here soon,” I tell the guys, stealing a glance at the door. We need to get farther away from it. “They’ll storm the place. We only have a few minutes to get Trent and the kids out of here.”
“I’ll throw him out the window,” Thomas says, hefting Trent’s body up in his arms.
“No,” I say, quickly shaking my head back and forth. “There’s got to be a lot of eyes on this place right now after all the gunshots. And we need him alive.”
“Okay,” Gil says.
I let out a small breath and nod, turning my gaze up to Hasan. “I need to get to those kids.”
“Go. We can handle one guard.”
“He has a gun,” I remind him as the door is kicked again. The wood starts to crack along the frame. “And don’t let Trent go. He knows magic and has charms and curses all over this place.”
Gil yanks one of the long, gauzy curtains down from the window next to the balcony doors. He rips a strip off and starts to bind Trent’s hands together. “We’ll get him tied up. Go. Let’s get out of here.”
Taking one last, lingering look at the faces of the men I love so much, I push up off the floor and make a run for the hidden door.
I shut it behind me and start going down the spiral staircase, pausing halfway and listening to see if anyone is in the office.
When I don’t hear anything, I rush through the office and throw open the heavy door.
“Fuck…which way?” I look up and down the hall. I need to find the stairs to get up to the top level. Deciding to head toward the elevator, I hold one hand out in front of me, trying to let my intuition guide me. I make it all the way down the hall, finding nothing but closed, unmarked doors.
The stairs have to be behind one of them, locked off in an attempt to hold all the children prisoner here.
And dammit, I don’t have the keys anymore after setting them down to pull the board off the window.
I stop in the middle of the hall and exhale, chest burning from the broken ribs, and look at each door.
“Which one of you takes me to freedom?” I whisper. Going with the one closest to me, I push my shoulders back, conjure a fireball, and throw it at the door. It blasts through and into a supply closet.
“Dammit!”
I push forward and get hit with a wave of dizziness. Stumbling, I catch myself against the wall, blinking rapidly to try and keep my vision from blacking out.
“Acelina,” a voice whispers in my ear, and I shoot up. I know that voice.
“Mom?” I turn, finding strength inside of me, and see the door at the end of the hall slowly creak open, revealing the stairs. My mouth falls open and I stare at the open door in disbelief.
Then I shake myself, needing to get it together. My hand slides off the wall and I start forward again, wincing with each step. By the time I get up the stairs, I’m winded, and I don’t get winded easily.
The door at the landing is locked too, but this time the ghost of my mother doesn’t open it.
I put my hands on my knees and lean forward, giving myself a few seconds, and then I raise my hand, bringing up another fireball.
This one hits with less power and doesn’t blow the door right off the hinges. I have to try again.
And again.
But third time’s a charm and the door smolders as it falls to the ground. I step over it, wafting smoke out of my face.
“Rachel,” I say quietly, using magic to carry my voice to her. “I’m here. The coast is clear for now.”
I stop, holding out my hands, ready for an attack. And then I see her, holding the hand of a little girl. She ushers the kids out of her room. They’re all so young and look so terrified.
“Go downstairs and don’t stop until you’re outside,” I tell her. “There’s a blue Prius and a police car parked out front. My friends are in them. They’ll help you. Go!”
Rachel picks up the little girl. “What about you, Ace?”
“I’ll be fine.” Fire rises up around my fingers. “But I can’t say the same about Trent. Now go, before the police get here. We’ll work out a story later, but for now…just go!”
She hugs the little girl to her chest and starts down the stairs. Once the last child is in the stairwell and out of the hall, I rush back to the door leading into Trent’s private living quarters. It’s been kicked in, but all is silent inside the living room.
“Ace?” Thomas calls.
“Yeah, it’s me.”
Thomas hurries out of the room and wraps his arms around me. I wince and he pulls away.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m sore all over,” I tell him with a frown. “But I’ll be fine. Is everyone else—”
“Yeah. We’re good. One security guard was no big deal. And the old guy was even easier.”
“Old guy? Oh, right, Charles.”
Thomas puts his arm around me and helps me walk into the living room. Trent is tied up, gagged, but awake. The guard and Charles are knocked out on the floor.
“This place will be swarming with police soon,” I tell the guys. “You need to take Trent and get out of here.”
“What about you?” Hasan asks.
“I’m going to stay and try to clean up the mess the best I can. The kids are on their way down to Nick and Gemma. I’m going to call Nick and come up with a story.”
“Do you have one?” Jacques asks, sounding a little skeptical.
“I’ll wing it,” I admit. “I’m thinking we’ll say I was following unsolved cases that were similar to my parents’ death and came across the missing persons reports and they led me to Trent.
When I got here, I found the children and Trent escaped.
” I look right into Trent’s eyes. “I’m the law now.
I’ll decide what to do with him later. You need to get out of here, though.
Fast. You have the charm?” I ask Hasan, who pulls his out and puts it around his neck.
Jacques takes the charm he brought for himself but no longer needs and puts it around Trent’s neck.
“It might help us get him out unnoticed,” he suggests.
“Good idea,” I say with a nod. “Do a two-minute sweep of this place and take or destroy anything powerful. Then go. Take the stairs and not the elevator. It might be chaotic down there; I really have no idea if there are a lot of people even in the building right now.”
“You’ll be okay?” Hasan asks, motioning to the guard on the ground.
“Yeah.” I pick up the gun from the floor and flick the safety on. “I think this will be Detective Bisset’s last bust.”