Chapter 15 #3
The loading bay seemed to stretch for a mile, square garage shields shut tight. Good. If I could pull off what I had in mind, those things needed to stay locked.
We lay low as we passed through the door, pausing behind a concrete pillar to get a good look at what we were up against.
Dark vans were lined in a neat row, back doors standing open to give view of the inventory within. Tanks, cages, crates—almost every enclosure contained some level of movement, and looking at it all at once made it feel like a swarm. Lee’s breath stammered as he took it in.
A trio of ghouls crawled about in one van, chewing their own limbs ravenously.
Harpies trapped within individual tanks screeched and clawed uselessly at the glass with their talons, chains weighing their legs down.
A fully grown ahool beat its batlike wings within its too-small cage.
Further along, several alps shifted restlessly between different forms. And those were only the things that lay within my line of sight.
Even after being around almost every nightmare imaginable, I had never seen so many of these things crammed into one space like this. Not even the most daring outposts would keep this number of creatures alive at once in captivity.
It was time to make these fuckers regret it.
“We can’t wait for the lights anymore,” I murmured, brow furrowed in thought. “They’re gonna pull out of here and onto the road at any minute.”
“If we just charge in, it’s suicide,” Lee countered. “Painful, humiliating suicide.”
“Any bright ideas to avoid that?” I asked dryly.
Lee worked his jaw, looking from point to point in the room. He nodded to himself, like he was running through an entire hypothetical conversation in his mind before he even opened his mouth.
“Have you ever heard of the Chaos Gambit? In my line of work, I prefer to work with elegance, but sometimes a little noise is unavoidable—and it’s damn useful when you can control it.
” Lee gestured at two of the armored trucks in the bay that housed particularly vocal monsters—ghouls, writhing in their restraints.
“If we let loose a few of these nightmares, they’ll cause enough havoc to give us a fighting chance to enter the fray without being shot on sight.
Take them out one by one, instead of being singled out. ”
I blinked, piecing it together. He was onto something. The guards would be too concerned with restraining the monsters again to snipe us until we were already closing in, taking out the monsters and incapacitating them in turn.
“You might’ve actually made a decent hunter,” I said, pursing my lips. “In another life.”
“Was that a compliment?” Lee chuckled, raking me up and down. “I’m flattered, but between the two of you, Everett is more my type.”
I rolled my eyes, scoffing a soft laugh. “Not sure you’d both survive the battle of the egos.”
We peered back out at the rows of armored vehicles—drivers now being briefed near the door on the specific route each was to take.
The captive ghouls were ideal targets if we wanted to incite chaos, but they were halfway across the bay.
We’d have to break into the open to reach them.
Staying close to the wall—mindful of the guards milling in the next row of vehicles—I inspected the nearest van.
The rear doors were open, left vacant as though awaiting additional cargo to be delivered.
I muttered for Lee to cover me before edging close enough to catch sight of the creature contained inside.
The niamh—I recognized her silvery hair and porcelain skin immediately from the auction. Up close, she was as breathtaking as she was unsettling. Unlike the other vans that appeared packed to capacity, she was the sole occupant of this one, her cylindrical glass prison locked into place.
If she really was as powerful as the auctioneer had claimed, she could be just the key we needed, all on her own.
Her forehead rested against the glass, silky hair obscuring much of her face. She blinked heavily when she spotted me. “You again,” she sighed. “Come for the glory of killing me yourself, hunter?”
She didn’t sound at all frightened by the notion. Merely curious.
“How do you know I’m a hunter?” I asked.
“You are bathed in blood and have the wild look from a fresh kill.”
Glancing down at my ragged appearance, I cleared my throat. “Fair enough. But I’m not here to hurt you.”
Not yet, anyway.
When she continued to stare dispassionately, I took another step closer. “I was thinking you and I could help each other out. You can conjure forests and chaos, right? Would you like to get revenge on the ones who put you in there?”
Another slow blink. “I do not deserve the satisfaction of revenge. This is where I intend to wither. In here, I can hurt no one.”
You’ve got to be kidding me. Of all times to run into a noble monster.
“Then don’t do it for satisfaction. Do it because it’s right.”
She gave a little scoff. “Leave me be, hunter.”
Maybe I could provoke her into attacking. The bulletproof glass was thick, but it wasn’t impenetrable if I shot at the same spot at close range with the rifle. It would be a matter of setting off that savage, inhuman part of her before any guards got close enough to shoot me down.
But as my gaze dropped back to her face, I couldn’t muscle down an ache of sympathy. She didn’t look cruel. Right now, she just looked lonely, and something reminded me so much of Sylvia.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
The niamh straightened slowly, suspicion breaking the despondent look on her otherworldly face. She gave no answer, dodging my stare stubbornly.
“Come on, almost everything that talks has a name. Mine’s Jon.” I put my hand to the glass, offering a soft smile.
Lips pinched, she gradually tilted her head up. True curiosity flickered beneath her solemn expression. “I have no name,” she said with a surprising haughtiness, as though names were beneath her. “But he called me Róisín.” Her voice cracked around the word, like it was something sacred and secret.
“Róisín,” I breathed. Her shoulders swelled with a deep breath when I said it. She scrutinized my mouth as if trying to memorize the sound. “That’s beautiful. You know, you sort of remind me of a good friend.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Do not compare me to any human.”
“No. She’s a fairy, actually.”
Her eyebrows pulled together as she studied me more carefully. “You’re not a very good hunter.”
“Yeah, I’m getting that a lot lately,” I muttered.
“Whatever you’ve done before, maybe this is how you atone.
If you help us, you’d be saving countless innocent lives, including my friend’s.
I’m not ready to say goodbye to her yet—hopefully not for a long time.
” When her frown turned thoughtful, I pressed, “Whoever he was… Well, anyone who could come up with a name like Róisín had to be a worthwhile person, right?”
She swallowed, eyes shuttering. Twin tears, shimmering like opals, slid down her cheeks.
“More than that,” she whispered. “He was everything.”
I latched onto the emotion, doubling down and fixing her with an intense, beseeching stare. “What would he want you to do right now?”
She fell silent, seemingly lost to her own mind. For a moment, I feared she would ice me out and lose herself to a millennium of maddening memories.
“Will you free me in return?” Róisín asked at last.
My hesitation read loudly. She seemed to understand my purpose without words—knowing that I had no intention of leaving until every monster in this chamber was deceased.
“I’ll give you a fighting chance,” I said. It was more than I could give the rest of these creatures.
Her dark eyes drifted back up to find mine, and she gave me the smallest nod.
“Cover your head,” I warned, pointing the rifle at the top of the cylinder.
Then I unleashed a barrage of bullets until layer after layer of reinforced glass gave way and shattered.