Chapter 48
Chapter
Forty-Eight
Elijah
T he next morning I woke up as the sunlight came through the broken windows and the sound of my stomach growling. Kainda stayed fast asleep as I crawled out of the sleeping bag. I snagged the last of my fresh clothes before crossing the chilly warehouse. A quick trip to the bathroom was in order, and then I’d figure out if there was any food left in this place. After I did my business and washed my hands, I went back into the main room. Kainda had sat up and rested her head on her knees. Her long red hair a riotous mess around her.
“Morning.”
She looked up at me and tried to give me a smile, but it failed miserably. “I’ll find my phone and call Hida. She should be able to open up a portal, so we can get back to headquarters.”
“What about the car at the base of the mountain?” I asked as I found some beef jerky and granola bars on the table where the food had been served over the last week.
A yawn cracked her jaw as she stretched before rising to her feet. Her naked body on full display, but now wasn’t the time. “Don’t worry about it. Mom took it with her. She doesn’t have portal magic.”
“So just Hida can cast a portal?”
She grabbed her clothes and began pulling them on. “No, some witches can cast portals. Evin can cast portals. And then there is Hida and whatever the fuck kind of being she is.”
I sat down at one of the tables and ripped into a granola bar. “I wonder why not all witches can cast portals.”
“Magic isn’t all powerful. Witches have limits and specialized talents. It would be impossible for a single witch to possess all of them.” She said before disappearing into the bathroom for a minute.
When she came back out, she joined me at the table to eat. We ate in silence for several minutes before she went back to the sleeping bag and retrieved her cell phone. I finished off my bottle of water before gathering our stuff. She held the phone to her ear and placed the call to Hida.
“Hey, can you cast us a portal, so we can come home?”
Hida was either yelling or Kainda had the volume on her phone turned all the way up because I could hear the other side of the conversation. “Elijah is human, and it’s not safe for him to travel via portal.”
“Listen, yah old bat, I know all about portal sickness, but it’s one quick trip. It’s highly unlikely that one trip through a portal would do anything more than make him queasy. If we travel back any other way it’ll take days and I really just want to be in my own bed tonight. Besides, we both know there is something supernatural about him; we have no way to say for sure the portal would affect him anyway.”
I stopped what I was doing and watched her. But a second later the air felt heavy, and then a portal opened on the other side of the room. Kainda disconnected the call and stuffed her phone back into her pocket. She came over to me and grabbed her stuff. “Don’t worry, E. It’s not as dangerous as Hida made it seem. I wouldn’t let anything bad happen to you.”
“I trust you.”
Hida’s head popped through the open portal. “Would you two get a move on, I can’t hold this thing open all damned day.”
“We’re coming!” Kainda shouted before taking my hand.
In seconds, we stood in front of the portal. She gave my hand a squeeze before tugging me through with her. My stomach lurched and my head spun. I could only compare this to a carnival ride from hell. My ears popped and my eyes watered. I vowed never to do this again. It was over as fast as it started as we stepped out the other side.
I let go of Kainda’s hand and fell to the floor, fighting not to puke all over the industrial tiled floor. She knelt down next to me and slowly rubbed circles on my back. “Slow, deep breaths in through your nose, out through your mouth. It’ll pass soon.”
“Never again.” I groaned.
“Damn, Kainda, you seriously made your human boyfriend walk through a portal?” Evin said as she walked through the room.
My demon hunter flipped her the bird before helping me back up onto my feet. “Come on. We’ll go up to my suit and get settled, then I’ll show you around.”
“Where the hell are we?”
“Hell isn’t real!” Evin shouted from the other room.
Kainda and Hida both rolled their eyes as Kainda and I began climbing the metal stairs like you’d see in a factory or warehouse. Looking around, I realized this building had most likely once been a warehouse. Very industrial looking with high ceilings, tiled floors, metal ceiling, and brick walls. There were even exposed pipes and air ducts.
“Our headquarters is hidden magically in the middle of a state park near the Canadian border.” Hida said as she followed us upstairs.
That seemed to track with everything I knew about them so far, but it didn’t really answer my question. “What state are we in?”
“Does it really matter?” She took some getting used to, and I still hadn’t managed that in the week or so since meeting her.
I shook my head. “I guess not. But it’d be nice if you trusted me.”
“Don’t take it personally, but I don’t really trust anyone that I haven’t known for at least a decade.”
Kainda chuckled. “She’s not kidding, either. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to her. My apartment is on the third floor.”
We made the rest of the trip in silence, and Kainda placed her hand on one of the doors. Her magic glowed brightly for a moment and symbols lit up on the surface before the knob turned, and it clicked as the lock released. She opened the door and we stepped inside. Hida remained in the hallway, giving us a brief wave before shutting the door.
Looking around, this room seemed to suit Kainda. Dark green walls complimented the exposed brick. Black curtains framed the small windows high on the walls. The floors a dark hardwood and a black rug covered the floor under and around her bed. At least a queen-sized bed, but I’d put money on it as a king. The rest of her furniture was a black, stained wood. Everything proved neat and orderly, which surprised me a little.
She dropped her bags on a dark green leather chair on the other side of her room. “Door on the left is the closet. The door on the right is the bathroom. There is a door at the back of the closet, don’t touch it. I’ve got it sealed by my magic and if you touch it, it’ll give you a little zap.”
“What’s in there that you needed to magically seal it?”
She looked at me like I was stupid. “It’s my weapons stash. Evin has sticky fingers sometimes, so I started locking my good stuff up. Give me a day or two, and I’ll adjust the spell that way you don’t accidentally get shocked.”
“Okay. I’m going to take a shower.”
With a nod of her head, she turned away from me and started digging through her bags. I stepped into her bathroom, and it was a classic black and white room, just as neat and clean as her bedroom. Dropping my bag by the sink, I stripped out of my clothes and turned the water on in the shower stall. As soon as the water was hot, I stepped beneath the spray and thanked God for good water pressure. This shower, a million times better than the one from our hidden out.
As much as I wanted to linger beneath the heavenly spray, I washed quickly before cutting the water. We had a lot left to do. I needed to call my parents and let them know I was safe. We needed to figure out how to handle any fall out from my escape from the hospital. And we had to prepare for Delmira’s memorial service. I didn’t look forward to dealing with the hospital and my family. It’s not that I didn’t love my family, but our relationship had been strained since my rescue.
Once dressed, I came back out to find Kainda sitting on her bed in clean clothes. “Come on, I’ll show you around the complex.”
She took my hand and pulled me into the hallway. “The rest of the rooms on this floor are apartments for the team. Not all of them are occupied at the moment. The team isn’t as big as it once was.”
We went down the stairs to the next level, and she continued to point things out. “The second level is made up of apartments, one of the armories, the library, and the old infirmary.”
She opened one of the doors and lead me inside. “This is the library. Our surveillance system can be viewed and controlled from here.”
The room was huge and didn’t look like it could fit inside the warehouse. Shelves lined nearly all the walls. Books filled those shelves, alongside of artifacts and magical tools. A large conference table sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by comfortable looking leather chairs on wheels. On one wall mounted rows of monitors currently turned off. Underneath them, a desk with a standard computer set up. A microphone and control panel also waited there. The other wall not covered in shelves looked like a wire cage.
Kainda walked over to it and pressed a button, and sections of the wire cage swung outward, leaving openings to walk into the small room that had been revealed. The sections also had metal shelves mounted to them also filled with weapons. Inside, the room had even more weapons. Not all of them immediately recognizable, and I had to assume they were magical in nature or designed to take something out that I could only imagine in a nightmare.
I walked around looking at everything before going back out into the library. This was where I wanted to be. I could look around in here for hours and never get bored. But Kainda had inched back toward the door that lead out into the hallway. When I noticed a section of the floor was a metal grate, and it opened to a set of spiral metal stairs going beneath the floor. “Where’s this go?”
“Oh, that goes to Evin’s potion lab. Trust me, you don’t want to go down there. It’s full of magic and dangerous potions. Let’s go downstairs and get some coffee.”
I followed her back out and we went downstairs. It opened into a large room that she called the common room. Mismatched couches and chairs sat around the large room, facing a huge entertainment center with a massive television mounted on the wall. A false ceiling of rafters gave the room the illusion of not being cavernous. Doors and entryways branched off from this space.
Kainda pointed to each one as we came to it. “Storage closet, half bath, pantry, stairwell to the sublevels, entry hall, two more apartments, and the kitchen slash dining area.”
The kitchen just behind the common room, separated only by a large dining table surrounded by chairs and benches. It was the biggest kitchen I’d ever seen in my life. Most of her team had gathered there, fixing food and sipping mugs of coffee. Several people I recognized from the battle sat around the dining table. Some of them looked a little worse for ware.
Hida gestured to them. “These guys weren’t able to make the trip back home for various reasons. They’re staying here until they’re well enough to go home. I set them up in some of the vacant apartments upstairs.”
One of the women at the table rose to her feet, stepping forward to Kainda. I recognized her as the Valkyrie that had flown off. “My name is Brielle, I’m an Amazon warrior.”
“Um, nice to meet you.” Kainda said, looking a little uncomfortable with the intense way the Amazon watched her.
“I’d like to ask a favor of you. I’d like to join your organization as a hunter.” She stood straighter as she made the request, her arms going behind her back.
Kainda looked a little shocked at that. “Oh, um, alright. If that’s what you want, then I don’t see why not. Are you sure about this? I thought Amazon’s never left New Aziz City except for battles.”
“That is true and for religious reasons, but I’m not like most Amazons. I wish to remain here as long as you’ll have me. And I pledge to you to earn my keep and to have your backs in battle.”
I looked over at the table and noticed Devanna among them, as well as another woman that rose. Before my eyes, her appearance changed from a young brunette to an elderly, blue haired woman with glasses. What the hell? She came over as the Amazon moved off to reclaim her seat.
“My name is Serena. I’m an outcast siren and I too would like to request permission to join you.”
“Alright.” Kainda looked over at the table before raising her voice just a bit. “Anyone else wants to stay and join the team?”
Devanna spoke up, not bothering to look at Kainda as she inspected her nails. “I’m staying, but I had no intention of asking for permission.”
Kainda looked seconds away from strangling the cougar shift. Evin laughed, “I like this bitch.”
Wrapping my arm around Kainda, I pulled her toward the coffee pot that had just finished brewing. “Don’t let her get to you. She’s doing it on purpose to get a reaction from you.”
“I’m so going to kick her ass in the sparring ring.”
“Doubtful.” The cougar shifter called from the table before taking a sip of her drink.
I sighed as Kainda screeched something about damned shifter hearing. She poured us both mugs of coffee before taking me to the sublevels to show me around. The rest of the tour was uneventful. I was a little shocked by how large the place was, and that was only the inside. After we came back up to the ground level, she showed me the outside. Which included a firing range, an obstacle course, a storage building, a pond where they liked to swim, a fire pit surrounded by chairs and a grill, and a door that led underground.
Kainda opened it, reached in to turn on the light, and lead me inside. We went down a set of wooden stairs to a small room with three cells. On one of the walls hung a series of picture frames with small, golden plaques beneath them. When I looked closer, the plaques had the people's names and the dates of their birth and death. A memorial to their fallen teammates. The last picture on the wall was Theron’s.
She came over to the wall and reached up to touch his picture. Using her sleeve, she wiped away a thin layer of dust as she spoke. “We finally got the demon, dad. She’s back in Gehenna, where she belongs. I’m so sorry it took me this long. And I hate to tell you this, though you probably already know. Delmira is gone. She sacrificed herself to trap Uttu. We’ll be hanging her picture next to yours in the next few days.”
Tears had slowly started to fall, and her voice had gotten shakier the more she spoke. I pulled her into my side and gently wiped away the tears. She spoke for a little while longer, and all I could do was hold her. I pressed soft kisses to the top of her head and ran my hand up and down her arm. When she finished, she kissed her fingertips and pressed it to her dad’s photographed cheek.
“I know it’s not even lunchtime, but I really just want to go to bed.” She said as we climbed the stairs out of the last stop on our tour.
Clicking off the light switch, I pulled the door shut. “Whatever you want. When we get up we’ll call my parents.”