Chapter 27 #3
Ember took over the lead, with the pixies scouting out fae doors with her. Eli and Warwick were right behind, seeking enemies. I couldn’t rid myself of the edginess as my boots nipped at their heels, screaming at me to move faster. Time was running out.
For forty-five minutes, we made our way through the tunnels, dodging fae doors and edging closer to the heart of the city, when Eli stopped dead in his tracks.
His head cocked to the side, listening, his nose flaring.
Even with my fae senses, it took me a moment to hear boots hitting concrete, the smell of cigarettes and cheap cologne in the air.
Dark Dwellers could smell and hear prey miles away.
Slipping closer, my heart beating in my chest, I spotted seven guards loaded down with guns standing like robots at a tunnel entrance.
They had walkie-talkies on their hips and bandoliers draped across their chest. Probably every bullet they wore I had helped make in prison.
Would one of those be my demise? It was comparable to digging your own grave.
Eli’s eyes flashed red, his fingers shifting into claws. He glanced over at Warwick, and they nodded at each other as Warwick drew a long, serrated blade from his sheath. Gunfire would draw attention and echo down the corridors. We didn’t want to let them know we were here.
I didn’t even see the Dark Dweller move, his body almost blending in with the shadows as Warwick crept closer. The two of them didn’t give the rest of us time to fight alongside them. We only heard the sounds of throats slashing, gagging screams, and bodies dropping.
The seven guards went down, either guts pooling out along with their still-beating hearts or heads rolling over the ground.
“Bazdmeg.” Fuck. My hand still on the blade I was about to yank out, I blinked at the two guys splattered with blood, to the dead guards still gaping in the throes of death. “Good thing my dick is big, or I’d have a serious complex right now.”
Warwick snorted, wiping off the remnants of blood on his face with his shoulder.
“After this long, that still gets me hot.” Ember winked at Eli, going up on her toes and kissing him, blood still on his mouth.
“So, it runs in the family, huh?” Brexley smirked, her heated gaze on Warwick. They pulled me in on their link, making my dick hard.
“Fuck no.” I shook my head, pushing between them, snapping the connection. “Keep it in your pants, Farkas. Physically and mentally,” I growled, stepping over the dead bodies and picking up more ammo and guns.
“Second that.” Ash adjusted himself, grabbing a case of bullets off a dead guard.
The group traveled quietly up the passage, the tunnel growing wider and bigger as we went, sounds traveling to us from a distance, before we turned a corner. The path led to a massive underground bunker.
“Holy shit,” I muttered, slipping behind a wall and peering into the large space. Holy shit didn’t cover it. The size alone was more than I expected down here, but what was in it almost dropped my jaw to the ground.
Tucked behind the cement barrier, I observed the scene ahead, my lungs tightening with the deep awareness we were in over our heads.
Most of us understood what Istvan was capable of, the grandiose narcissistic ideals he had of himself and what he could do.
The further he fell into the inflation of his own self-importance, the higher and crazier his plans would be, except he made them come true.
The expanse of the underground chamber widened my eyes, noticing the newer built area that housed a handful of tanks, trucks, and trains, which idled as smoke billowed from the train’s smokestack, ready to head out.
He didn’t have his men going to the train station; he had built one to come directly to him.
Hundreds and hundreds of men and a handful of women of diverse ages and types were spread over the space doing various jobs, dressed in the same gray military uniforms Tracker wore.
Each had a patch on their shoulder, which reminded me a lot of the HDF symbol the women had to sew on in prison, except these had FHF.
“First Human Forces,” Caden muttered next to me, his hard gaze forward. “I have seen it before. I found drawings of it in my father’s office when I returned.”
Markos’s stamp.
Whether known or unknown to Ivanenko, Markos had already taken over Ukraine.
His brand was on everything in this room.
Istvan marrying Olena made this an easy transition, pushing the old ruler into the background as Istvan and his wife took over.
He had the future leader of this land growing inside his bride.
Ivanenko was probably smart enough to understand that if he wanted to live, he needed to play along.
The hiss of the trains filled the vast space like they were getting impatient waiting. Soldiers loaded two trains with huge wooden crates while another group filled their trains with weapons and soldiers.
“I guarantee he has the pills in those.” Brexley pointed to the boxes they loaded in, looking to Caden and Lukas, who nodded in agreement as if they had seen them firsthand as well.
It only confirmed what we already feared—Istvan had this place completely operational, and probably for longer than we had calculated.
He had been planning this takeover for a long time.
“Doesn’t anybody learn from history?” Ember frowned. “Dr. Rapava’s attempt at making a special race didn’t fare well for him or his experiments.”
“I don’t know, Brycin,” Eli replied. “Over twenty years later, and we’re still trying to hunt down the rest of Zoey’s freak offspring. They’ve learned to hide and adapt better than we imagined.”
“Zoey’s freak offspring?” Brexley tipped her head. “Who’s Zoey?”
“She’s a seer Rapava used to create a special breed of monster fae. They were stronger, smarter, and almost impossible to kill. We’ve been hunting them for years and still haven’t been able to track them down.”
“My father has read and studied everything Rapava did.” Caden’s teeth gritted. “He noted his successes and failures and made improvements on them.”
“Nothing compared to what the Stone of Fáil did,” Ember muttered, and I could tell there was a long, painful story connected to that, but she didn’t expand on it.
“What you’re saying is these things are already out there?” Brexley’s mouth pinched, motioning to the soldiers.
“They are far worse,” Eli replied. “Exceptionally smart. They aren’t mindless at all.”
“Let’s hope those groups don’t meet up someday.” Ash blew out a heavy exhale.
A tall, lean, blond man strode out, pulling our attention.
His uniform was tailored and darker, showing his higher rank among the other soldiers here.
Medals and patches lined his arms. His arrogance dominated the space, his chin high.
A twisted pleasure illuminated his eyes as he looked upon the mindless drones moving efficiently around him.
Brexley sucked in sharply.
“Captain Kobak,” Caden grunted. He had a white-knuckle grip on his gun, anger and hate echoing off him like a radio station.
“Calm down, junior.” Warwick’s low voice weeded through us, directed at Caden, clearly sensing Caden’s emotions through their connection.
“Who is he?” Ash asked.
“My first HDF teacher,” Caden snarled through his teeth.
“Let’s say he enjoyed pushing the limits, putting the weakest student with the strongest and forcing us to beat them until they were in a coma.
He was taken out of that position when a kid died because of it.
” He glanced at Brexley, her lips pinning together in a shared moment.
It wasn’t until I saw Birdie secretly reach out to him, her hand touching his lower back, that his shoulders eased down, a breath exhaling from his lungs.
“He’s found his perfect role now.” Kek lifted her lip, her eyes darkening. “Just the kind I like to show who’s the bitch.”
“He was there at the marketplace that night.” Brexley turned to me. “He was picking up the captured fae for Istvan’s labs.”
I was already in the market, stealing supplies, when Brexley came tearing through, the HDF soldiers after her. I never got to see him. My mind flickered to the memory of that day, our escape, Maddox still alive, fighting next to me.
“Brexley. Look.” Caden’s voice was low, teeming with alarm, his attention going to a short, balding man waddling out to Kobak, a clipboard in his hand.
A growl vibrated from Warwick, his shoulders rolling forward, vile rage pointed at the fat man.
“Dr. Karl,” Brexley sneered.
“Where he is, my father will be near.” Caden’s demeanor altered at the mention of his father, his gaze focusing down to a point on Dr. Karl.
Our eyes tracked him as he handed papers to Kobak, then turned back, heading for a door across from us. He typed in numbers, pressing his thumb to a keypad before the door opened, shutting quickly behind him.
“We need to get in there,” Brexley stated. “That’s where the labs will be.”
Our plan had been to split up. One group, Brexley, Warwick, me, Ash, Lukas, and Caden, were to locate and destroy the labs.
The other team, Ember, Eli, Killian, Rosie, Wesley, Kek, and Birdie, were on guard, setting bombs everywhere they could, waiting for us to return before we blew this entire place like a volcano.
It was a very loose plan. Everything could go wrong, and most likely would.
A train whistled with the pills, pulling out, heading for its destination, spreading the fae essence further and wider. Being near the river, there was no doubt that Istvan was also distributing the pills through cargo ships.
Not only was he getting richer, but his power was spreading like a cancer.
“Lars doesn’t even know the extent of this place.” Ember licked at her lips. “How far Markos has gone.” She peered over at us. “This is a direct threat to Unified Nations. This place has to come down.”