The Better Part of Darkness (27 page)

The landing was empty. I moved down the hall to check the first closed door. No sooner had I reached for the doorknob than I was thrown forward into the door. Pain flowed through my face as it smacked the wall. The Nitro-gun dropped from my hand.

Before I could recover, I was moved again by an invisible force, this time flying backward and straight through the drywall, between the studs, scraping bloody trails down my arms and shoulders and seriously bruising my hips, and then through another wall.

The breath got knocked out of me again when I landed in a cloudy heap of dust and debris inside a room.

Something had pulled me through.

Correction. Two somethings. So much for there only being one Abaddon down here. As the dust settled, my vision cleared. Two Abaddon females stood in front of me, one with long, straight black hair, thigh-high leather boots, and a tight black mini dress, and the other whose black hair was pulled into a bun so tight it pulled on the corners of her eyes. But her taste in clothes, black slacks and a white T-shirt, was far more subdued.

I pushed to my feet, using my hands to brush off my jeans. “So which one of you bitches grabbed my kid?”

Bunhead smirked. “That would be me,” she said in a thick accent that reminded me of Romanian or Russian.

“Good to know,” I said, right before punching the other one in the jaw, catching her off guard. She went down hard as I went to draw the second Nitro-gun from the back of my jeans.

Bunhead smirked again and raised her hands, shoving me back into the wall without even touching me, without giving me a chance to grab my gun. An invisible hand closed around my throat. I couldn’t even gasp for air. Pressure built in my head and face. Legs and arms flailing, I fumbled for my human firearm on my hip, relief washing over me as my hand slid around the cool metal handle.

My finger flipped the safety on my gun. I let off four rounds into her stomach. She flew back, but I knew it would be temporary. Bullets did not kill beings from Charbydon. Released from her vicious hold, I dragged in large drafts of precious air, my lungs burning.

I was hit from behind by Mini. She flipped me over with a thought and then blasted my mind with horrors.

A scream tore from my bruised throat. Searing heat engulfed my brain as I grabbed my head with both hands. Nightmares ripped through my mind and stole my breath. Flashes of death, torture, blood. Me. Emma. The fear on her face. The hurt.
No! No! No!
My mind was being torn apart by them. Tears closed my throat. So real. It felt so real.

But the shock wore off and the sickening images began to bring out my sense of justice.

God, this was low, even for an Abaddon bitch.

She was trying to incapacitate me with horrors of my daughter. Big-ass mistake.

The anger of it allowed me to fight back. I remembered my power. I was Abaddon, too. What she could do, theoretically I could do.

I sat up, eye to eye with her, and grabbed her face, sending my anger, and with it my power, through my arm and into my hand. I gave her a nightmare all Charbydons feared. Cold. Snow. She was trapped in it. Ice crept up her legs, freezing and cracking flesh, so cold it burned her. I poured it into her. All that I had. And up it went until it covered her face and chilled my own hand.

I let go.

Jesus.

I scrambled back. My back hit the wall, and my breathing was labored and loud in the sudden quiet.

She was frozen solid.

Abaddons could give nightmares that left the mind wounded beyond repair, but as far as I knew they couldn’t make them
real
. I blinked and glanced down at the hand that had caused such unbelievable damage,
my
hand, right before Bunhead lifted me off the floor and sent me flying into the window.

Shit.

Two seconds later, the flesh peeled from the bone of my elbow as glass met skin. Then I was falling, a brief feeling of weightlessness before I slammed into the soft dirt below.

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.