Chapter 5
Squatting, Hugh peered closely at the two poor guards’ headless bodies. “I see no incontrovertible evidence of fae involvement.”
The breach site looked exactly how Max and Edie had described it.
Wall One now boasted a gaping, ragged hole.
An equally ragged but functional bridge crossed the wide moat that encircled the wall.
Together, the hole and bridge had allowed the zombies to leave their underground compound and find prey among the Containment Zone residents.
Their first victims: those two elderly-looking guards in uniform.
Gwen was doing her best not to lose the contents of her stomach in response to the sight before her. It wasn’t easy.
“I understand that, but the fae caused this carnage. You have to believe me.” Gwen swallowed convulsively. “And if you can’t, believe Max and Edie instead.”
Hugh’s mouth opened as if to debate her declaration, but after he glanced at her face, his lips pressed shut once more.
Great. She obviously looked just as awful as she felt.
It wasn’t just the nausea either. An unfamiliar sort of hum kept growing in her skull and buzzing through her veins until she thought the racket might deafen her. She could barely hear the trolls’ defense of Max and Edie’s conclusions through all the gods-awful noise.
She staggered but didn’t fall. Had no idea why not. It didn’t matter.
Am I about to pass out? she dimly wondered, then realized the truth.
This hum actually wasn’t entirely unfamiliar.
Just unwelcome and exquisitely painful. Lightning surged through her veins, exactly like last night, expanding with exponential speed and force.
Her mouth gaped in a soundless scream, because she couldn’t contain the pressure.
Her physical form, the fleshly vessel containing all that terrible power, would rupture if she couldn’t release the—
Blackness.
When she returned to her present reality, the Power had left her once more.
She tasted iron. The warm wetness on her chin, her cheeks, her neck, was rapidly chilling in the winter air.
Each too-fast heartbeat rang in her skull like a gong, and the waves of pain roiled her stomach until she couldn’t… she couldn’t…
Someone’s warm, careful grip helped her scramble to her hands and knees. Even so, she barely made it in time.
Over and over, she retched into the brittle brown grass beneath her as the visions she’d just experienced unspooled in her memory. The horror played out behind her scrunched-closed eyelids as she gagged and sobbed helplessly.
Somehow, her braid wasn’t in the way, she vaguely noted.
Somehow, she had a firm, hot chest pressed along her spine and a strong, startlingly warm arm wrapped diagonally across her torso to support her.
Somehow, someone was issuing quiet, firm instructions about water and coats and clean, dry cloths and witches’ charms.
She couldn’t concentrate on any of that. Not through the apocalypse.
“Hundreds massacred in a single blast,” she managed to gasp between bouts of violent sickness. “Vast burning pyres—”
“Gwen, shhh.” Hugh’s voice in her ear was low and quiet. “You don’t need to tell us this right—”
“—of Supernatural and Enhanced human bodies,” she barreled on, because he was wrong. She did need to tell them now, because they needed to act now to prevent what she’d just unwillingly witnessed. “Entire species wiped out. No one left to mourn. Soon. It’s coming soon.”
Hugh fell silent, but his support didn’t waver.
The next bit would require complete sentences, because he needed to understand, needed to believe her. So she held very still, and after a few seconds of deep breathing—in through the nose, out through the mouth—the nausea mercifully began to ease.
“I saw a classified battlefield briefing between a common human general and a fae commander.” Her voice was hoarse, but she spoke slowly. Clearly. “At one point, they referred to a longtime secret pact. They were…” She could hardly bear to say it. “They were laughing at the slaughter.”
As the general had laughed, he’d kicked the lifeless, ravaged body of a werewolf not even old enough to shift fully. But sharing that horrific act wouldn’t help anyone.
“Hugh…” The heat of his body sapped her remaining strength.
She sagged in his hold and let her throbbing head hang limply.
“You have to believe me. Splinter groups within the fae and the human government deliberately caused this tragedy, and you can’t report what happened to the Council yet.
You can’t. Not until we’ve erased all the evidence of Supernatural involvement and know who to trust.”
If he went through official channels right now, details from the scene would inevitably leak, either the demons or fae would be publicly blamed for the bloodshed, and he’d doom millions—entire species—to extinction.
Their small group needed time to identify the fae and human conspirators. Time to figure out how to stymie those conspirators’ plans and bring them to justice without collateral damage.
Time he could deny everyone by his insistence on following the rules.
His slow inhalation pressed his chest against her back. He held her in silence for a long moment before responding.
“I believe you.” His voice was low, his statement unequivocal. “I won’t contact the Council until I’m sure we’ve removed all evidence of Supernatural involvement in the breach.”
Tears of profound, abject relief overflowed her aching eyes and dripped to the ground.
She hadn’t failed millions of innocent victims-to-be. Hadn’t failed her friends and neighbors. Hadn’t failed herself again.
Maybe Max hadn’t been a fool to send her on this mission after all.
Hugh’s free hand was braced on the ground, his arm tensed and supporting them both. Grateful, she leaned her temple against his firm biceps and let her eyelids slip shut.
“You’ve done your job, Gwen.” Gently, with the help of a stricken-looking Lorrie, Hugh eased her onto a blanket spread over the frozen ground. “Now it’s time for me to do mine.”
—
Someone—someone who almost definitely had small, charming horns atop his pompadoured head—had apparently assigned Lorrie as Gwen’s guardian.
The now-cheerful troll had plunked herself down on Gwen’s blanket an hour ago, wet wipes and breath mints in hand, helped clean up all evidence of nosebleeds and nausea, then draped more blankets atop Gwen and urged her to rest. Then she’d consumed an entire whole-roasted snapper stuffed with lemon, garlic, and dill, which had simply… materialized at some point.
Trolls, man. They had tricks up their sleeve. Also beef Wellingtons.
“I’ll be here beside you the whole time,” Lorrie had reassured her, as if Gwen wanted the group’s resources wasted on babysitting her rather than tackling the breach site. “Sleep, Gwennie.”
She genuinely had no other option. Her debilitating vision and subsequent illness had left her utterly drained. And since Sabrina needed to save her energy for today’s tasks, Gwen didn’t intend to ask her witch friend for help this time.
In between involuntary catnaps, she watched Hugh quietly make his way around the breach site and use his phone to document it.
Because, as he’d told them, “We’re tampering with the site to prevent a knee-jerk declaration of war against Supernaturals.
When we’re able to share the entire truth with trusted officials, though, we’ll need evidence of what we actually saw here.
Once I’m done, I’ll send the photos to a secure site for safekeeping and clear my phone. ”
Although Gwen appreciated his commitment to truth and thoroughness, his adherence to correct procedure meant they hadn’t yet searched inside Wall One for more fake signs of demonic guilt before Sabrina’s arrival. A fact that didn’t appear to impress the witch.
Despite the dark circles under her coffee-brown eyes, Sabrina’s long ponytail was as sleek as ever, the knife strapped to her thigh gleamed, and she wasted no time before getting started.
After her brief check-in with Gwen and the trolls and a round of curt introductions with Hugh, she immediately knelt beside the guards and used her magic to heal the burn marks on their bodies and the faint rings of bruises circling their wrists and ankles.
As she worked, Hugh strode over to the quilt. His dark gaze scanned the blanket burrito currently encasing Gwen and lingered on her face.
“You’re fighting to stay awake.” His tone was neutral, the set of his mouth displeased. “Do you not trust Lorrie’s ability to protect you?”
“Hey!” Lorrie objected, through a mouthful of gougère. “I’m basically a super-sexy killing machine, bro!”
Gwen raised her head slightly, frowning back at Hugh. “Of course I trust Lorrie.”
“Then please rest while you still can.” He squatted down beside the blanket, his tight black pants straining in a very distracting way over his firm thighs. “Assuming you also trust the rest of us to do what’s necessary?”
“Of course I do. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have signed up to fight zombies at their side”—she waved a limp hand toward Lorraine, then returned her attention to Hugh—“or willingly put on a Guy Fieri costume and rolled up to your apartment at oh-dark-hundred this morning.”
His frown eased. “Good.”
“Good,” Gwen echoed, and their eyes met and held.
Lorrie popped her last gougère, studying the two of them with avid interest.
“I, uh…” Hugh gently smoothed a stray hair back from Gwen’s forehead, then cleared his throat and hastily stood.
“I imagine documenting the compound and its grounds will take a while, especially since Kip and I need to avoid the cameras. Removing any evidence of Supernatural involvement will slow us down too.” His pompadour ruffled slightly in the brisk breeze. “You have time for a real nap.”
“I’ll keep watching over you, Gwennie-my-sweet.” Lorrie swallowed the last gougère. “And speaking of watching out: When you’re inside the compound, don’t forget to check for any stray zombies that didn’t get the we’re-leaving-now memo, mini-Councilor-bro.”
At that, Gwen sat bolt upright. Why the hells hadn’t she thought of that?
“There’s no need to worry,” Hugh hastily told them. “Kip will be with me, and we’ll watch each other’s backs. I’m not letting him bring any food, so he won’t be distracted.”
Kip’s indignant cry drifted over from the wall. “Fuck you too, dude!”
“Probably for the best.” Gwen did her best to radiate unconflicted, I-totally-believe-you-won’t-get-your-brains-slurped vibes. “Just…be careful, okay? Both of you. Please.”
“We will.” Hugh’s sigh puffed out in a little cloud, and he visibly braced himself. “All right, then. Once more unto the very literal breach. Time to tamper with more evidence, despite the various laws, regulations, and ethical guidelines forbidding that exact course of action.”
He was clearly unhappy about his task—and to be fair, a politician who genuinely cared about ethics constituted a near-miraculous anomaly. Under most circumstances, his commitment to honesty would only help his constituents.
Not in these circumstances, though. And at his age, he should already know that rules and justice didn’t always demand the same actions or work toward the same outcome.
Between her thumb and forefinger, Lorrie played a tiny imaginary violin for him.
“I know removing evidence bothers you.” Against Gwen’s express wishes, her drooping eyelids drifted shut, although she managed to finish speaking. “But you’re working to save millions of innocents, Hugh. Try to remember that.”
The blankets atop her shifted, as if someone was straightening them and tucking them a bit tighter around her. She couldn’t seem to open her eyes to find out for sure.
“I will,” Hugh said, and she was asleep before the quiet shush of his receding footsteps faded into the wind.