In following his lead, I placed more trust than ever in his dynamic duo vow. He got me within five yards of the open bay doors on the east side of the warehouse, and I paid him in caramel brownie brittle, the last of my Choco-Loco stash.
Lowering into a crouch behind a bush, I observed the coven and reacquainted myself with the layout.
Wooden crates dotted the loading dock. Those were new. A practitioner with a clipboard used a random single box as a stool, but most were stacked three and four high. As far as I could tell, the guy was in charge of checking off names before ushering newbies into the waiting vans.
Done processing the last batch, he opened a bag of chips and settled in with his phone.
Must be nice to sit on your butt, snacking and scrolling while everyone else got their hands bloody.
About the time my thighs began quivering, a cold point jabbed the base of my skull.
A shocked exhale burst out of me, and I froze as hot breath fanned my neck and shoulders.
Fear pounded out a tempo in my chest, and I had a split second to curse Ambrose for not warning me.
You jerk. You coward. You liar, I thought at him. You said we were in this together.
A rough tongue swept up my nape, leaving a thick trail of drool behind to dry in the balmy night air.
“Midas.” I whipped my head toward him. “What are you doing here?”
With a doggy grin, he bounded off into the crowded parking lot like a puppy on a playdate.
The guy on the dock spotted him and stared, confused by his appearance or stunned at his gall, I don’t know. Midas lowered his front end until his elbows hit the pavement then shook his tail at them.
The message was clear: Catch me if you can.
Or maybe it was Kiss my grits.
Definitely one of the two.
Only a previously unknown inner wellspring of strength prevented me from recording it with my phone.
Oh, but I wanted to, so badly.
Why he came, I didn’t know. There was no time to ask him. But he saved Remy from exposing herself. He must have figured out we needed more help to cross the finish line than we realized.
Throwing back his head, Midas bayed at the moon, and the lazy practitioner scrambled for cover.
A scream brought backup running, but they scattered and squeaked like mice before a hunting cat.
Allowing Ambrose to guide me, I trailed him behind one of the waiting vans then snorted at the driver. He had locked himself in and sat with his nose mashed against the glass. The coven was scraping the bottom of the barrel for these guys.
Thanks for the distraction, Stud.
No one paid attention to me or my shadow as we crept up the cement stairs. As I got even with one of the crates, I noticed it held black backpacks, not unlike the ones we brought with us from HQ. Worry over what they contained tempted me to unzip one, but I had no time to be nosy.
Still, I appreciated the coven leaving stacks scattered across the dock. They made for excellent cover.
Slinking from shadow to shadow, I slipped unseen inside the warehouse then plastered my back against the wall until I got my bearings.
The concrete floor in the main space contained a yawning maw that stretched from corner to corner, a good thirty feet across. With a gulp, I realized the portal had grown since the last time I was here.
Sulfurous mist tickled my nose and threatened to make me sneeze as it oozed from the portal’s edges to lap at the ankles of the thirteen witchborn fae who stood watch over it with a chant on their lips.
I couldn’t see from this angle, but the goal was a staircase made of oxidized metal spiraling down, down, down until it vanished from sight. That was my way in. The only way in. I just had to get there in one piece.
Past thirteen witchborn fae.
With instant access to a bottomless archive teeming with monsters eager to be worn, to feel alive again.
Easy-peasy.
The portal guardians didn’t bat an eye at the commotion. They were content to let the others handle the ruckus. They must be linked in an active casting they couldn’t stop without aborting the spell. That might work in my favor, depending on its purpose and if they could hurl it at me when I breached their line.
A pointy finger jabbed me in the shoulder hard enough to bruise, and I jumped before I saw Remy, come down from her hiding place.
Ambrose and I really needed to have a talk about him alerting me to oncoming danger and the approach of friendlies. How else could I act suave and debonair in the face of danger?
“Your man sure knows how to make a distraction.” She settled in beside me. “Why’s he here?”
“No clue.” I trusted him to act in our best interests. “Maybe he knows something we don’t.”
Remy touched the strap of her backpack, and when she noticed me looking, she yanked it tighter.
“It almost fell off on the way over,” she explained. “How do we get past the portal guards?”
“Ambrose?” I jerked my chin toward them. “Take them down.”
The shadow, given permission, raced toward them with the bounding strides of a dog on a scent.
“Are you sure that’s wise?” Her fingers curled and released at her sides. “They’re casting.”
“Ambrose can handle them.” I didn’t get into the particulars. “He’ll incapacitate two or three, and then we’ll make a run for it.”
“Incapacitate?” She frowned. “You do know spells can go boom if you set them off ahead of schedule?”
Cold sweat blossomed on my forehead as I tried not to think too hard about what I had almost done.
“I do now.” I focused my attention inward to shoot him a message. “Dial it down a few notches, okay?”
The shadow radiated displeasure, but he slowed his assault until his strikes gained surgical precision.
Rather than take down a few guardians to make an opening, he skimmed from all of them.
Soon, the lot of them hit their knees, their lips moving in silence. Their power fluctuated in wide bands that brushed against my face like a hot, foul wind, but their spell didn’t break.
“That’s our cue.” I clasped hands with Remy, grateful when she reverted from her feral aspect. “Let’s go.”
We leapt into their circle, over their joined hands, and raced for the inset stairs. I held my breath as I took the first step. A painful cold stabbed me, but I eased into the archive without difficulty, grateful I couldn’t look down and see the howling faces of the damned I recalled from the photos on my phone.
Remy lagged behind me, and I loosened my grip to give her one final choice to stay or go.
Her fingers tightened at the last second, as I sank in past my shoulders, and she hurried in after me.
Ambrose slid into me, stuffing me with a sense of fullness that nauseated, but there was nothing for it.
Why I thought it would help, I don’t know, but I gulped a lungful of air before ducking my head under the surface of the archive. I held my breath until my chest burned, until I had no choice but to gulp oxygen.
Oxygen, if this denser matter qualified, sliced my nasal passages and froze the back of my throat until I tasted blood.
I can breathe, I reminded myself. I can breathe. I can breathe.
The archive just wasn’t making it easy.
“Oh,” I whimpered as I surveyed our surroundings. “Oh, my goddess.”
I had really, really, really hoped the vengeful souls only appeared on film.