The landing knocked the breath from my lungs. Pain shot through my back as the second Nitro-gun in my waistband shoved deep into my kidney. White dots danced in my vision. I moaned, forcing down a queasy swallow. Minuscule particles of glass, wood, and dirt floated from the second floor. I coughed and a sharp sting of pain burned through my side. Lifting my head, I saw a sliver of glass pierced through my left side. My head was too heavy to hold. I let it fall back into the dirt. I fumbled around with my hand, trying to find the sliver. Thank God it wasn’t near my organs. But it was enough to stop me cold.
Bunhead would be coming down the steps. I had to get this out and move.
Shouts and gunfire echoed from somewhere far off.
Gasping and trying to stay lucid, I wrapped my hand around the sliver and pulled, screaming. The glass digging into my palm was nothing compared to the excruciating pain that seared my flesh and turned my stomach. The end of the sliver came out with a sucking sound, the faint slurp of flesh and blood making bile rise to my throat. I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I turned and vomited, letting the sliver fall into the dirt as a warm rush of blood oozed from the entry and exit wounds.
Charlie? Carreg’s voice swept through my mind all harsh and commanding. You need to get—
I’m a little busy right now, I said in my mind, rolling back to stare at the ceiling. The sound of the shouts and fighting suddenly seemed so far away.
Listen to me.
I didn’t. Instead, I rolled to my uninjured side, onto my stomach, and then pushed up using my hands and knees. Fuck. I hurt.
Where are you? I asked him. You should be here. Oh no, wait. Let me guess. It wasn’t to your benefit to be here.
I felt his huff and frustration more than heard it. I met with Mynogan. Get everyone out of there now, Charlie. You don’t have much time.
I pulled one foot from underneath me and used my hands braced on my knee to stand. Not without Emma.
Emma is already gone.
Glass crunched under feet. I lifted my head to see Bunhead sauntering toward me, victory gleaming in her black eyes. Carreg’s words settled in my empty stomach.
Emma was gone. I was too late.
My nostrils flared. Failure and rage stung my eyes and sent a new batch of adrenaline surging through my system. With an angry scream I rushed her, tackled her, and we both went flying to the ground. I recovered before she did, sitting on top of her stomach and wrapping both hands around her throat.
“Where is she?!” I shouted, the pain forgotten in favor of desperate frustration and wrath. “Where is my daughter?!”
Amusement made her dark eyes glitter. I eased my hold on her throat so she could speak. Her lips curled. “Get off me, you stinking human.”
I pulled the gun from the back of my waistband and rested the nozzle between her startled eyes. The familiar zing of the building nitro charge sounded in dead silence. I cocked an eyebrow. “Where is she?”
“Fuck you.”
Coldness settled over me. I shoved the gun into her mouth. “I’m going to ask one more time. Where’s Emma?”
She flipped me the bird, waving it in front of my face.
I pulled the trigger.
Her face froze in a mask of hard, horrified ice.
I rolled off of her and stumbled to my feet, eyes going in and out of focus. Everything inside of me was racing too fast—blood, heart, lungs, thoughts, emotions … I had to slow down, had to concentrate. I rested my palms on my knees and let my head fall, eyes closed and counting until some semblance of calm entered me.
We weren’t quick enough. Someone had called for help, and Emma was gone.
But the Bleeding Souls were still here.
I was without the help of Aaron and Bryn’s magic to destroy them, so I looked around the ground level until I found a water valve. There were two large ones on either side of the back wall. Glass and dirt ground into my palms as I turned the heavy wheels to release the water and flood the chamber. Then I made my way down the cavern and up the ramp to the boiler room. It was empty and quiet. My apprehension heightened. My legs trembled badly, and dirt scratched my eyes as they moved.
I had to pull myself up the steel steps, my hands a mess now. My hips ached and began to stiffen. My shoulders, elbow, and arms were drenched in blood. And my side, oh God, my side … I held my hand over the wound, but it didn’t help to stop the flow of blood. Weakness stole over me as I opened the door to the main floor and then rested against the wall, using it to help me stay on my feet as I went toward the lobby.
Heal. I commanded over and over again, knowing I had done it once. Knowing I had it in me. But I was so weak and dizzy. Depleted. There was nothing left. I wondered what Aaron would say. Probably something like You fucked up big time, Charlie. No, that would be more like Rex.
I made it to the lobby, falling to my knees at the unbelievable scene before me. “No,” the word whispered out of my cracked lips. I squeezed my eyes closed, hoping it was all a hallucination, but when I opened them again, nothing had changed.
They were all there. Rex. Hank. Zara. Aaron and Bryn. On the floor, lying entangled. “No, no, no …” I crawled to Bryn and pulled her onto her back. Her eyes were wide open. And opaque.
Ash.
“Bryn.” My voice broke as I shook her gently. “Wake up.” I knew I shouldn’t have let her come! What was I thinking? My throat closed. I rested my head against her shoulder for a long moment. “Please, wake up …”
No one was waking. No groaning or moving.
I tipped back onto my ass, too weak to move, too shocked to cry. Somehow they’d been exposed to ash. Confusion and exhaustion made my eyelids heavy. How could this have happened?
I pressed my bloody palm over my nose. It had to be airborne. I glanced down and my hand trailed a line in a faint shimmering powder. It dusted everything. Oh, God. I crawled, holding my breath until I was in the foyer and couldn’t hold it any longer.
Carreg! You have to come. They… I need your help.
No answer. I’d probably pissed him off with my comment earlier. I had to get the car, get them to the hospital. Grabbing the front doorknob, I pulled myself up and then stepped out into the night.
Bright, white light flared. I shielded my eyes.
“Put your hands behind your head and get on the ground!” a voice called through a bullhorn.
What the—
My arms were too heavy to lift behind my head, but I raised my hands and saw through squinted eyelids the flashing red and blue. It looked like the entire precinct had mobilized. Thank God. I stumbled down the two front steps. “I’m Detective Charlie Madigan,” I shouted, my voice slurring from pain, exhaustion, shock … “We need medics and—”
Guns clicked. A red dot caught my vision and splayed over my heart.
“Don’t move. Get on the ground now!”
“But I’m an officer, I—”
“Ma’am, you’re under arrest for three known counts of murder. Now get down on the ground or we will use force.”
I blinked in slow motion. The red and blue lights blended together. Murder? Ah, yes. The jinn who’d attacked Auggie. A sharp, ironic laugh spurted through my lips. I swayed on my feet. Guess Otorius had gotten out of the closet and gone over the chief’s head to have me arrested. No surprise after what I’d done to him.
Just wait until they saw the damage inside. I laughed again and then my knees gave out …
I hit the ground as blissful darkness surrounded me.
I was lost.
Dreams and images and bursts of semiconsciousness ricocheted through my fuzzy mind. Mynogan and Mott stood before me under the full moon picking pieces of my flesh like children doling out marbles. I couldn’t move. My knees sank into the soft earth and my hands lay limp at my sides. I burned everywhere as they pulled me apart.
One piece for me. One piece for you.
Then, images of the fight flashed through my mind. My friends and my sister on the floor. Falling from the window. The glass in my side, a side that ached relentlessly.
The ash.
Voices drifted like echoes, bounding off walls and hovering above me just out of range. I tried to listen, but as my consciousness finally returned, I prayed to fall back into sleep. The pain had a stranglehold over every inch of my body.
The voices became clearer. I cracked my eyes open. I was in a white room, lying on a bed and covered with a white blanket. An IV dripped steadily into a line attached to my vein. Whatever pain medicine I’d been given was wearing off at a startling rate.
A massive form in blue regalia began to take shape. “Chief?” I moaned. Speaking even hurt.
The form turned to me and leaned down. It was the chief, and the anger and concern on his face had caused a deep red blush to appear under his dark skin. “Charlie.”
“Where am I?”
He glanced over his shoulder, his look fierce, like a grizzly giving a big-ass warning. “You’re in the med hold.”
The med hold was a cell in our precinct reserved for wounded criminals. It was outfitted with everything needed to see to the survival of a felon until they could be extradited or transferred to the hospital, depending on their condition.
I didn’t understand. I frowned. Pain shot through my head. I tried to sit up, but couldn’t even make it an inch off the pillow. My wrists were strapped to the bed.
“Relax, Detective.”
“What time is it?”
“About ten-thirty.”
“Emma.” I let my head sink into the pillow. “They have Emma.”
The chief frowned and leaned closer. “Who?”
“Mynogan.”
A voice erupted into laughter behind the chief. He straightened as Otorius stepped next to the bed. Satisfaction dripped from every pore. “She’s obviously delusional,” he said, giving me a menacing smirk. His right arm was in a sling, the wrist covered in thick bandages.
I struggled to sit up again. The heart monitor began to beep faster. A nurse on the other side pushed me back to the mattress. “You need to be still, Detective,” she said.
She leapt back when I kicked at her. I ignored the pain and pushed my stiff body to a sitting position, braced by my palms on the mattress. The effort made me pant, but Otorius was in my crosshairs, and I wished I’d killed him when I had the chance. “You lying sonofabitch,” I ground out and then turned to the chief, wishing my voice would work properly and not come out so slow and slurred. “He’s lying. They took her. Mynogan took her.”
“Do you have any evidence, Charlie?” the chief asked, ignoring the laugh from Otorius.
But I couldn’t ignore it. “How’s your hand, Otorius?”
He lunged for the bed, his face blood-red and seething with anger, but the chief held him back. “You bitch!” He lifted his arm. “I lost my hand! You little fucking whore!”
“That’s enough!” the chief commanded.
My arms shook, too weak to support my weight. I fell back to the bed. Trying to think clearly amid the heavy clouds in my mind was like trying to run up a cliff backward. “Will,” I forced out, “they took her from Will. Killed him. Go to his apartment. You’ll see.” The chief glanced over his shoulder and nodded to an officer standing guard. “A Revenant took over his body. The others. Bryn, Hank … Are they alive?”
“Charlie,” the chief asked more gently than before. “What are you talking about?” I could tell by the softening of his hard expression that the more I tried to explain the more ridiculous it all sounded.
“Didn’t you find them? In the spa. All of them, drugged.”
“We didn’t find anyone except for the victims.”
I frowned. No, that didn’t make sense. They were there. I’d seen them. If only my head would clear! Sluggish, I shook my head and swallowed. “No … Where are they?”
“It may be the pain meds talking,” Doctor Berk said, coming to stand at the foot of the bed.
“It’s not the fucking meds!” Bright rainbow stars of pain flashed behind my eyelids. I jerked against the restraints, grabbing at the chief’s wrist. My vision swam so badly, his features blended to a lump of flesh. “Please help me. I’m not lying.” The chief was like a father to me. And he’d betrayed me. He’d allowed me to be Titus Mott’s lab rat. “How could you, how could you agree to do that to me? You and Titus …”
He gave me a gentle pat on my hand and a reassuring squeeze. “We’ll talk about that later, Charlie. You need to rest now.”
“She will stand trial as soon as we can set a date,” Otorius said tightly.
“The only place she’s going is to the hospital as soon as I can arrange it. You never should have brought her here like some criminal.”
“She is a criminal!”
“And I say she’s not. Not until my investigation is complete.” The chief stepped toward the Abaddon representative, standing toe-to-toe with him. “Let me get one thing straight, this is my detective and my precinct. I don’t take orders from you. We do this by the book. You get me?”
“If we did this by the book, she would have been brought in days ago, before more of my countrymen died, and I lost my hand!”
The chief’s voice was low and deadly. “And I didn’t have a warrant a few days ago.”
The room grew silent, and I imagined the chief was using his infamous stare down. I smiled slightly as I heard a low curse and the door open. “You have no idea who or what you’re dealing with,” Otorius said in a serious, even tone. “There’s more than one monster in this city.” The door closed.
“I need a moment alone,” the chief said tiredly, his steps growing louder as he approached the bed. A chair scraped across the floor as two sets of footsteps, Doc Berk’s and the nurse’s, faded away behind the click of the door.
My heavy eyelids opened again as he sat down and regarded me with a mixture of annoyance and caring. He shook his head. “You’ve got this entire department into one hell of a mess.” I opened my mouth, but he cut me off. “I know, I know. It wasn’t you, right? Doesn’t matter, Charlie. We’re under a microscope right now.” He sat back, letting out a huge sigh. “Did you have to go and massacre eight Charbydons and an Elysian mage?” He rubbed his face. “This isn’t like you.”
“He was a black mage,” I mumbled and then took a deep breath. “Go to Mynogan’s bath house, and you’ll see. It’s grown there. Then it goes to the Lion’s Den. Tennin, he has a bunch of it. You’ll see. You’ll find the ash. We need those flowers for an antidote or all of them … they won’t wake up.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Mynogan is running for city council, Charlie. And Grigori Tennin …”
“Is a murderer and a drug dealer,” I slurred, growing tired. I closed my eyes. “You scared of him?”
“Hell, no, I ain’t scared of him. Goddammit,” he sighed. “Look, I’ll check into it. And if Hank and the others have gone off the radar like you say … well, the fuck if I know, but we’ll figure something out.”
“Just get me out of here, Chief.”
He eyed me for a hard second. “Can’t do that. You don’t think I’m under the gun? I’m already up shit’s creek for pulling strings at Deer Isle because of your asinine bargain with Tennin. If you go free now, it’ll be the end of my career, and I sure as shit won’t be able to help you then.”
“I don’t care about your damn job right now,” I spat.
The chief walked to the door and stopped. “You’re the biggest piece of trouble I’ve ever known, Madigan.”
“Yeah, I know,” I whispered on a faint breath.
When he was gone, I relaxed back into the thin mattress, body limp and out of breath. I needed to heal, but my wounds were much worse this time around, and all I wanted was to slip back into unconsciousness. My body and mind begged me to. Maybe just a little nap.
No!
God, no. I couldn’t. There wasn’t time.
I let my eyelids close and remembered my conversation with Aaron. Be calm. Both Charbydons and Elysians had the power to heal. It was inside of me somewhere. The dark power and the light. I realized at that moment, I’d relied mostly on the dark, had used every ounce in me. But the Elysian power, I’d barely tapped. And I knew just how to do it.
Emma.
All I had to do was imagine her in my mind and she was there. Drawing on our bond, I freed my emotions, all the warmth and love. Her smile lit the darkest part of my soul. The sound of her laughter filled me with joy and peace. And her love for me was absolute, and so damn humbling. I’d sacrifice the world and more for her.
And she was my pathway to the light.
Only the good, I commanded as thoughts of her kidnapping came into my mind. My Emma. Strong-willed, passionate, kind. Pride swelled my chest, mingling with all the wonderful emotions she brought out in me.
The goodness unlocked something and behind my closed lids a light grew, and the Elysian power released, flooding into my own light and the light that my child created inside of me. I realized then, as my fingers and toes tingled and my body hummed, that the darkness had nearly overtaken me. I had relied upon it so much in my anger and desperation that it had grown and adapted to me while this power had not been given much of a chance.
Well, now it had. And I held on to it, letting it course through my veins, every sinew and muscle, every cell and bone, welcoming it and fusing it with my human side and the dark side.
It was like a giant helping of morphine. For a moment everything—my side, the bruises, cuts, and stiff muscles—became pain free, but it didn’t last long. Once it ebbed, I was left with some serious aches and pains, but not enough to keep me from getting my ass out of there and finding Emma.
“Will you help me sit up?” I asked the nurse sitting by the bed reading a novel. From her tired look, I wondered how long I’d been healing myself. It hadn’t seemed that long.
“Sure.” She set the book down and raised the bed.
Relieved, I scanned the room, noting the two doors, one to a small bathroom and the other—my path to freedom. As she fluffed the pillow for me, I pulled on the restraints around my wrists. “Is there anything you can do about these?”
She gave me a sad look. “Sorry.”
“What if I have to use the bathroom?”
“One of the guards will come in and stand outside the bathroom door while you go.”
“Fine by me. I have to go.”
“Let me check your side first,” she said, coming around the bed to inspect the bandage around my torso. “No bleeding. How do you feel?”
“Trust me, good enough to go to the bathroom.”
After patting me on the leg, she went to the door to tell the officer that I had to pee. Way to put it bluntly.
Trying to formulate a plan in that short amount of time was impossible. But one, I did have to pee, and two, I desperately wanted out of those restraints. And three, if I was able to stand on my own two feet, then I knew I could make it out of there somehow.
One of the officers came in and unlocked the restraints. He lent the nurse a hand in helping me to my feet. Chills flew up my legs and thighs as my bare feet hit the cold tile, but I didn’t mind. It woke my body. Those first few steps were wobbly and painful, but as I shuffled toward the bathroom door, my strength slowly returned. Some clothes would be nice, I thought.
“Will you tie me tighter?” I asked the nurse, turning my back to her and away from the guard. I didn’t need to flash my ass at him or anyone else during my escape. She tied the four sets of strings into double knots. It would leave gaps between ties, but it was better than nothing.
After doing my business, I washed my hands and face and then gripped the sides of the sink, staring at my reflection in the small mirror and ignoring the cuts and bruises on my face. I was so gaunt, I barely recognized the wild-haired woman staring back at me. Come on, Charlie. Think!
I had no weapons, and I sure as hell wasn’t strong enough to overpower anyone. I’d have to rely on my powers, which were nearly as weak as my body.
Once I came out of the bathroom, I asked the nurse for something to eat and was rewarded, after being helped back into the bed and waiting a good twenty minutes, with a tray of generic meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and carrots. It looked suspiciously like a Banquet TV dinner. At least I was permitted to eat on my own, further delaying their reattaching the restraints. I ate slowly, all the while willing myself to continue the healing process and trying to figure out how to escape.
I was on my last bite of processed meat when the door opened and Titus Mott hurried inside, looking almost as bad as I did. I set the tray aside, feeling satisfaction roll through me at his busted lip and black eye. His brown hair was in more disarray than usual and his lab coat was smudged with blood, probably his own. A fine crack split the left lens of his eyeglasses.
“That’s the problem with guys like Mynogan,” I said, easing back into the pillow. “They always turn around and bite you in the ass.” Translation: it sucks to be betrayed, doesn’t it, you asshole?
“Charlie,” he began in a defeated tone. I mean, really, what excuse could he possibly give for what he’d done to me? Yeah, he’d saved my life, but injecting me with off-world DNA? I might be extremely grateful to him for being alive, but I didn’t have to like him for it. He stayed a few feet away from the bed as though I’d hurt him if he got too close. Smart man.
He went to speak but I cut him off. “Where’s Emma?”
“At Mott Tech with the rest of your friends.” His gaze dropped to the floor, but he spoke quickly as though he was running out of time. “Charlie, I didn’t know. I had no idea Cass was using one of my labs to process Sangurne N’ashu. If I had, I would have stopped him immediately. I’ll do whatever you need me to, to find him and make him stand charges. And I’ll put all my resources to finding a cure for ash’s effects.” The miserable expression on his face didn’t elicit a single ounce of sympathy from me.
His hand slipped into his pocket. A tingle wove along my spine, and I tensed. Something was up. “I’m to take you to the lab,” he said.
Before the nurse realized what he meant, he pulled a stun gun and fired. The tag hit her in the right shoulder, her mouth open in a scream that never quite made it out. Paralyzed, she hit the ground hard.
My mouth dropped open. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I told you. Taking you to the lab. Your daughter is not the only one threatened, you know.” A spark of anger lit his eyes.
Finally, he gets a backbone, I thought. He stepped forward, hands trembling so badly, I was afraid he’d accidentally shoot himself or me. I jerked the gun from his grasp and swung my legs over the bed.
I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. “Amanda,” I surmised, knowing how much Titus cared for his niece. If he had a weak spot, that was it, and Mynogan had used it just as he’d used Emma to get to me. He answered with a slight nod. I checked the chamber of the gun. Three tags left out of six, which meant … “You took out the guards?”
He slipped around me and opened the door, sticking his head into the hallway. “I have a car parked out back. We should go before someone else comes.”
“I need weapons.” I peeked out to see the hallway was empty for now.
Titus whirled on me, his face no longer apologetic. “I won’t risk it, Charlie. If I don’t get you back to the lab in” —he glanced at his watch—“forty minutes, my niece will be dead.”
I was so mad, I wanted to pound him into the tile floor, but I knew exactly what it was like to have a loved one’s life at risk. And the last thing I wanted for Amanda was to be late.
I led the way into the hallway. I knew Station One inside and out. We were on the basement level, which meant it stayed relatively quiet. There were extra holding cells, file rooms, the weapons depot, and supply closets. We should be able to make it to the back stairs and then out into the parking deck at the back of the building.
But just as we began our journey up the back stairs, a door opened and footsteps sounded above us.