Changeling (35 page)

I licked my lips. “Somewhere nicer than Mallory’s Table?”

“Yep. Think you might say yes?”

“Just maybe.”

He drew me closer, and his mouth covered mine in a gentle kiss. Warm and yielding, promising without pushing. Heat burned in my chest. I memorized the curve of his lips and the subtle, sweet taste of him, the soft abrasion of his unshaven
skin on my cheeks. I wanted to savor every detail of our first kiss.

Just in case.

He finished by crushing me in a hug. I rested my chin on his shoulder. Past him, just inside of the porch door, King watched us. He’d abandoned Ortega’s shadow, and his expressionless face gave away nothing. I looked where I supposed his eyes were, and for a moment, I saw him. Saw a man behind the blank slate. A man who’d done terrible things in order to protect his family and the great weight resting on his shoulders.

King turned and disappeared into the shadow of the house. I pulled away from Noah. “We need to get King and Deuce and go,” I said.

“What about Simon and Gage?” Noah asked.

“I’ll take care of them.”

For the second
time today, I tested my ability to draw energy from living people. I found Gage in the War Room, sifting through a stack of files. He looked up when I entered, shifting from concern to curiosity as I stalked right up to him, clamped my hand down on his arm, and held tight.

Heat pulled out of his skin, absorbing through mine and curling into a ball of energy deep in my chest. He paled, stumbled. Tried to say my name. With a question on his lips and fear in his eyes, he passed out. I tried to catch him and break the fall, but only succeeded in getting tugged down to my knees by his weight.

His head lolled to one side, skin ashen and clammy. He had a strong pulse, though. He’d be cold and pissed when he woke up.

“Dahlia? What happened?”

Bingo. Simon darted into the room and dropped to his knees on the other side of Gage’s prone form. Dark smudges colored the skin beneath Simon’s eyes, stark as black eye shadow against the pallor of his face. The pull of his thin lips evidenced the strain he’d felt while separating Deuce from Marco. I hated to hurt him more.

“I’m sorry, Simon,” I said.

His eyebrows furrowed. “For what?”

I grabbed his wrist. Seconds later, he collapsed on top of Gage. The energy from Simon was somehow stronger than Gage’s, more powerful. It roiled and spun, heating my insides. It gave me strength and fueled my determination. I rolled Simon over so he wouldn’t wake up in a compromising (and uniquely embarrassing) position.

Noah came with blankets, and we covered them.

Deuce was still tied up in the courtyard; she glared as we approached. “About time, Dahlia,” she snapped.

“Shut up,” I said. She blinked. “Your sister is the pyro, right? She can control fire?”

“Yes.”

Good. Barring any more accelerant poisoning, I could absorb huge amounts of regular fire. “What about you, Deuce? You control earth?”

“Yes.”

“If I untie you, are you going to smash me into the ground?”

“No.”

She seemed sincere, but I’d have preferred Gage verifying my opinion. “Are you going to behave until we get to the warehouse? Play on our side, since we helped you out with your multiple-personality disorder?”

“As long as you don’t hurt my sister, you have my word. I don’t want to kill you, but I won’t let her die, either.”

A little bit of hurt was necessary in subduing Queen, I had no doubt. I could always settle it by knocking Deuce out, too. One less potential enemy to worry about. The only thing stopping me was Queen’s reaction if her sister appeared injured. Queen could take it out on one of her hostages.

“Then let’s go,” I said.

I parked a
block away from our destination, and we walked the rest of the way. My entire body thrummed with energy and anticipation, dread and terror. Noah walked next to me, his hand grasping mine in a death grip. Behind us, King led Deuce by the forearm, not seeming to care that his mannequin-like face made him stick out from the crowd. The street was pretty quiet, and we’d not seen another car in two blocks.

Yellow police tape still cordoned off the ruined warehouse and its narrow parking lot. The exterior walls remained intact, bricks blackened and cracked. The interior gaped like a monster’s maw, dark and wide and treacherous.
The site hadn’t been cleaned up. Debris lay scattered around the perimeter of the building. Chunks of scorched boards and cement, shattered glass and bent beams, all seasoned with the suffocating odors of burnt wood and metal.

The distant rumblings of a train broke the oppressive silence, chugging toward us along the tracks that ran behind the warehouse. It seemed so different now. Less angry, less dangerous.

We slipped beneath the police tape, making no sound as we crossed the parking lot. My eyes never stopped moving. Watching. The side entrance doors were busted down, allowing us easy access through the blackened frame, into a dim room. Overturned filing cabinets spilled burned paper and water-soaked folders across soiled industrial carpeting, which even two days later squished wetly beneath my feet.

I stopped to listen, but heard nothing. No subtle clues or hints. Noah squeezed my hand. I returned the gesture and released him, moving forward on my own. Sunlight sparkled beyond a doorless entryway, hinting at an open area ahead. I stepped over a fallen support beam. Froze.

Somewhere ahead, soft and far away, someone was crying. I maneuvered through the narrow hall, toward the shaft of light. At the end of the pathway, as suspected, the hall opened into the main warehouse.

Blue sky and sunlight glared down, illuminating the rubble-strewn main floor. Overturned metal shelving lay in twisted piles, half melted and misshapen. Heaps of ash sat quietly, undisturbed by the still air. Four central support pillars
stood like sentinels, reaching four stories into the sky and touching nothing. Visibility was bad, my view constantly marred by the wreckage.

Something pricked at the back of my mind. A small voice, whispering.

“Jimmy,” Noah said.

“I hear him, too,” I replied. The crying had stopped and even small noises resounded like a shotgun report. “Stay behind me.”

Each step forward was a deliberate action. I hated leaving the safety of the hallway for the open jungle of the warehouse. Attack could come from any direction. The air around me crackled, raising the short hairs on the back of my neck. A quick check over my shoulder revealed Noah as the source. He walked with eyes half-lidded, mouth twisted in concentration. Some sort of telekinetic shield, I guessed.

Good thinking.

A dozen or so yards through the maze of wreckage, the floor opened up. Uneven streaks in the floor’s ash coating indicated someone had manually shoved aside the trash and debris to create an open floor space roughly fifty feet in diameter, right in the middle of the central pillars, like a gladiator arena of yesteryear. We found the edge by the southernmost pillar. I held up my hands, keeping my companions back.

“She’s here,” Deuce said, keeping her voice low.

I nodded.

“Send out Deuce!” Queen shouted. Her voice boomed around the room, vibrating and echoing, making the source impossible to locate.

“Not until I see my friends,” I yelled right back, wincing at the result. The acoustics in there were insane.

Queen laughed. “Take a look around, Dahlia. You’ll see them.”

I inched forward and took a moment to examine the perimeter of the arena. Gazed over piles of wood and metal and cement blocks, charred and broken and strewn about. Nothing to indicate the presence of other people, but there were dozens of holes and breaks. Perfect hiding places.

“Holy shit,” Noah said. His hand rose into my peripheral vision, pointing up and to the left.

I followed his direction to the pillar farthest from our position. Ten feet from the ground, Jimmy was bound to the pillar, arms and legs secured by thick ropes. Mouth gagged, eyes open, he struggled against his bonds. Blood stained his sandy-brown hair and coated one side of his face.

Don’t trust her!
Jimmy shouted, his voice searing through my head. Noah inhaled sharply; he’d heard it, too.

The next pillar over, diagonal from our position, was a man I’d seen only in photographs. Aaron Scott, pale as death, hung limply, similarly secured with rope. He had no outward injuries I could see from a distance. He wasn’t conscious and could easily have been dead.

He’s alive, but he’s hurt,
Jimmy said.

“Can you talk back to him?” I asked Noah. He nodded. “Ask him about Teresa and Queen.”

Noah squinted. Concentrated. From somewhere in the wreckage below the pillar, the twin prongs of a taser sprung
upward and attached to Jimmy’s leg. He shrieked, shook, and went limp.

I grabbed Noah around the waist before he could blindly bolt out into the open area. “Don’t! It’s what she wants.”

“I’ll kill her for that,” he growled.

Deuce grunted. The ground began to rumble and groan.
Uh-oh.

I whirled, but was too slow to stop Deuce from bashing a chunk of cement block into the back of King’s head. He fell like a stone. Blood trickled from the fresh wound in his skull.

Noah raised his hand and splayed his fingers. The air seemed to condense and wave. It pushed forward like a living thing. The invisible force slammed Deuce in the chest and propelled her backward. She hit a wooden beam, cracked it in half, and lay still.

He crouched next to King. “He’s alive,” he said. “Dammit, I didn’t think—”

“Too late now,” I said, turning back to the arena’s entrance. A figure had emerged from the wreckage beneath Jimmy’s pillar. She wore a gray gown that contrasted with the fine purple strands of her hair and coloration of her face. She wobbled, took a step, and stumbled two more. Twenty feet away and moving closer.

Teresa.

I held my breath. She raised her head and our eyes met. Pain, relief, and determination sparkled there. Another step. She swayed. Fell. Shrieked in pain when she hit the ground on her wounded side. Panic squeezed my heart. I raced to
her, heedless of my very exposed position, and skidded to a slippery stop by her side.

Thick ash coated her arms and legs. I gently rolled her over. She blinked up at me, tears streaking her cheeks. Fresh blood stained the bandages on her chest, peeking through the smudges of gray ash. Her pained grimace twisted up into an agonized smile. And then to just a smile.

A warning hammered in my head.

Teresa’s grin became a leer. “Stupid girl,” she said in Queen’s distinct voice.

A glamour.

Shit.

From beneath the gown, she produced a handgun, pressed it against my abdomen, and fired.

Twenty-nine

Checkmate

W
hite-hot agony exploded in my stomach. Metallic heat filled my mouth. I smelled scorched cloth. Ozone. The world tilted, and then I was looking up at the sky. The overwhelming pain calmed to a faint numbness. I couldn’t feel my legs. Couldn’t sit up.

Oh God, this is it.

Energy crackled around me. Someone screamed. Female. A thud and then a second shout—my name this time.

Twin emeralds obscured the sky, so wide they should have fallen out. Plopped to the ground. The emeralds blinked, swimming in liquid. Warm skin touched my cheeks. Something wrapped around my hand.

Noah.

I tried to say his name. Acknowledge him. The sound gurgled in my throat, blocked by thick liquid. It trickled over my lips and down my chin.

“Please no.”

Two words made it through the roaring in my ears. I was going to die. Queen had won.

I squeezed the hand in mine, trying to communicate that it was okay. I wasn’t scared, just numb and tired. An electrical surge danced up my arm, through my chest. It tickled its way up my spine and set my brain on fire. A tidal wave of emotion poured over me, crushing in its purity.

Fear. Love. Hatred. Dread.

Hope. Above all, hope rose to the top like a buoy, guiding me toward it. Memory swirled around me in a white mist, waiting to be let in. Consumed. Shared. My heart hammered. So loud. Another heart pounded in the distance, soft and gentle. But close, and growing closer.

All at once I understood. I stopped fighting.

I fell into the mist.

I hurtled forward
like a shooting star. The pain ceased and all I knew was the fall. An overwhelming pull to another place. My heartbeat faded, going, going. The other pounded harder, louder. Beat in its place, strong and virile. Thrumming with life.

Power rippled around me. Enveloped me in its embrace. I settled in, finding an unoccupied spot in a small, dark corner. Content and safe there, I waited. Time seemed to stop.

Dahlia?

Noah’s voice, all around. Inside of me. Part of me. I had no mouth to speak with, no corporeal form at all. Not if what I thought happened had truly just happened.

I’m here.

I’m so sorry. I couldn’t let you die like that.

I felt his pain as he felt it, cloying and unruly and very unwanted. He loved me and hated me for the attachment. My heart soared—quite metaphorically, since I had no heart of my own now—and he shivered. Felt it right back.
Is Queen down?
I vaguely sensed our position, but could not see. I had no idea what was happening outside him.

She’s getting up and looks pissed.
“Shit!”

The last word was spoken aloud. We surged sideways. His panic became my panic. Gunshots pinged around us. We came to a rest. I offered whatever calm I could muster. He took it, used it. Our heartbeat continued to thrum, too fast. Much too fast.

Noah, when she runs out of bullets, she’ll use fire. Give me control. I can protect us with my power.

He never hesitated. I surged upward, my senses tingling to life. I smelled the tang of ash and of scorched metal. Saw the glare of sunlight. Heard the creak of wood. Felt the floor, cold and slick beneath my hands.