Chapter 33 Nova
NOVA
I lowered Nick’s head to the floor as if he were made of glass, my hands refusing to let go until the very last second. Slowly, I rose to my feet, keeping the glacial pace to make sure my fury didn't get out of hand, thanks to the new cavern of hate that had unlocked inside me.
Cold fury filled my limbs. My breath came steadily and strong. I was locked in the kind of stillness that only existed right before something terrible happened.
The others must have felt it too because they stepped back without a word.
Every muscle in my body loosened, ready to strike, as my gaze locked onto the doctor. He trembled beneath Deslen’s jaguar form. A computer cord bound his wrists, cutting into his skin.
“You’re going to pay for that,” I whispered menacingly.
My finger twitched as I weighed my options.
Rip out his tongue, shift, then tear him open, one slice at a time, making it so his silence drew him mad?
Or take out all of this aggression, all this need for pain and vengeance, on his body, then slice him into pieces and hang them in the woods as a warning?
Answers first, Nova, my mind tutted.
Fine. I’ll do it the right way.
I jerked my chin toward the stretcher, never taking my eyes off the doctor. “Get him on it. Strap him down.”
Zeth and Conrad moved in an instant, their sharp, clipped motions betraying the barely leashed violence burning under their skin. They wanted blood as badly as I did.
I could hear them letting Jeremy loose, telling him how to get out. Jeremy thanked them, then a set of running steps echoed down the passageway until it was silent again.
In seconds, the doctor was on the stretcher, thrashing uselessly as my mates cinched the restraints tight enough to bruise bone.
Once they backed away, I grabbed the straps and yanked them even tighter under the guise of checking their work. What I really wanted was for him to feel me taking away the last millimeter of freedom he had left.
“You know how this goes,” I murmured as I leaned over him, my body pressing him further into the table. “The warnings. The pain. The lessons. Rinse and repeat until you get what you want, right?”
My hand slid up his throat. I squeezed lightly, using just enough force to steal a breath. His left eye flicked toward me, wide and frantic.
“But unlike the others I’ve interrogated,” I whispered, my tongue running over my elongated fang, “you’re not making it out alive.”
“You know nothing,” he snapped, his breath hitching as he tried to build up a mental wall of resistance. “He’ll come, and when you’re begging for death by my hands, you’ll see the error of your judgment.”
I rolled my eyes hard enough to see stars. “Really? That’s the line you’re using?”
My fingers closed around his collar and pressed down hard enough for his mouth to open and close, gasping for air. “Every time you idiots mention him, I grow bored. If he’s sending you as scouts, then he’s already losing.”
His whole face started to shake as he truly realized that he wasn’t going to live past this night. I squeezed harder, savoring the panic building under my palm.
“I don’t give a damn about your shadow puppet master.” My voice dropped to a growl. “He’s sending pawns. Pawns who keep dying at our feet.”
His eyes bulged as he rasped, “Pawns….”
A hollowed acceptance settled in his gaze as he nodded. “Yes… we’re all pawns in his game. You and your siblings… you’re the final pieces. His summit. His endgame. And once he’s on top…”
A deranged smile split his lips.
“…revolution begins.”
He was just as crazy as that fairy girl upstairs. I wasn't going to get anything out of him, not in the way I wanted, so at least I still had this lab and that book.
I ran my claws down, scoring the side of his face. His screams matched the excited thumps in my chest. His blood splattered on the table and floor, and I finally found a small amount of release from that well of anger.
“I’ll destroy your little lab here and take all your notes so we can make sure this never happens again.”
This time, he laughed. Blood bubbled out of his mouth as his one crazy eye looked to the ceiling. “You can do that. I’ve already sent it to him. He has all my notes, including the step-by-step procedure, and he will make them perfect. He will finish what I started.”
He became lost in manic giggles as my mind raced. How did he send those files? His computer was in the other room.
I looked around, my eyes catching on the corner where he had scooted. On the ground was a black square object, his phone. As I was staring over there, it lit up and beeped. He must’ve sent it via his phone. Fuck!
That rage inside of me decided this was the moment. All I saw was red, and I didn’t hesitate.
I drove my hand straight into his chest, shattering bones with a wet crack. His scream ripped through the room, raw, guttural, desperate. Good.
Twisting my fingers, I snapped his ribs one by one like brittle twigs, carving a brutal path to the hot, slick muscle of his heart. It beat against my palm, steady, arrogant, and I squeezed.
His breath hitched, a choked silence replacing his defiance. In that silence, I finally saw it. Real fear.
“I won’t be the last,” he whispered, his one eye glazed. “More will come. Morte doesn’t let us go… not until everything burns, and we begin again.”
Of course. He wasn’t just unhinged. A mindless worshipper kneeling to his false god was useless to me.
I ripped my hand free, and he sucked in air again, choking on relief. I ignored him entirely, scanning the room for something better. Something fitting to be his end.
My gaze locked on a briefcase by the dead air mage.
“Conrad,” I said, smiling down at the doctor as I pointed to it, “bring me that.”
He vanished and reappeared in the span of a single exhale. The case was already open, the four vials of neon green toxin inside gleaming like wicked little stars.
The doctor laughed when he saw them, a broken, giddy sound. “Go on,” he taunted. “Bet you don’t know what it does to human bodies.”
His joy scraped against my nerves, but I swallowed the urge to tear his throat out. I forced a smirk instead, the kind that made monsters nervous.
“Oh, I know exactly what it does.”
I plunged the needle into his arm and pushed the poison in, watching his eyes widen, locked on the glowing liquid disappearing under his skin. His pulse hammered under my fingers, frantic.
“I wanted to test a theory,” I murmured. “Thought you might… help me with that. Be an experiment for the cause.”
Terror flickered, sweet and sharp. Leaning down, I dragged my blood-soaked fingers across his cheek, making him shiver as I left behind a streak of crimson.
“You stole those magic eyes,” I whispered. “And that got me thinking.”
I picked up the second syringe and slowly slid it into another vein.
He tried to jerk away. “You’re not supposed—”
Another tremble, then his mouth screwed shut as I roughly shoved the needle around.
With a smile, I grabbed the third syringe and slammed it into his forearm hard enough to draw fresh blood. “That’s the experiment.”
By the time I held up the fourth one, his whole body was trembling, sweat mixing with blood on his terrified face. I tapped the syringe just inches from his eyes, letting the green glow reflect back at him.
“You see,” I said softly, almost tenderly, “the dosage is different for you. You’re not a supe. Your body doesn't run off magic.” I carved a circle around his remaining eye. “But you did steal those magical eyes.”
I pressed the needle to his skin—slow, deliberate.
“Let’s see how long your stolen power can last.”
I slammed the fourth syringe into his arm, burying the needle to the hilt.
“Let’s see if your precious little virus is a starving dog,” I purred in his face. “Will it claw its way straight to the only magic you have on you? I wonder how fast it will eat away at that.”
The reaction was instant.
His remaining eye snapped wide open, the bright purple flaring in panic, before his whole body seized, his tendons standing out like steel cords beneath his skin.
The green neon light tore through his veins, making them bulge as it searched for something to hold onto, something to devour.
Ignoring his useless human genetics, the veins leading up to his face lit up, flaring as the substance sensed the magic.
His last precious eye.
It ballooned grotesquely, swelling against the socket like it was going to burst. Veins spiderwebbed neon green, then crimson, finally turning black. The skin around it blistered, rotted, and caved in.
He writhed hard enough to rattle the stretcher, shrieking as half his face liquefied beneath the skin. Flesh sloughed off in wet chunks, sliding down his cheek in strips. The smell of burnt ozone and rot hit the air.
And, gods, it was beautiful.
Watching the magic he’d stolen get devoured, watching the horror close in on his one good eye… it was a justice I could practically taste.
The virus quickly finished its feast. His eye imploded with a wet pop. His screaming cut off mid-breath. The twitching in his body slowed, then finally stopped entirely.
His death, exactly as I had promised.
Exhaling slowly, I let the warm, dark satisfaction melt through my chest. One less monster. One less threat. The cherry on the top was that bastard died in agony, his own creation eating him alive. It was poetic.
Gazing at the carnage that laid before me, I tapped my watch, sending out the signal to the men I had waiting. On my phone, I typed out a longer message to the one in charge. Collect anything valuable or dangerous, then call the Devils for clean-up.
With that done, I pivoted sharply and strode back to Nick’s side.
Some color had returned to his cheeks. I dropped to my knees beside him, my heart tightening as I grabbed for him.