Dabria
I gasp and fall back a step. “They killed them all? Our kind?”
“No, it doesn’t make sense,” he growls, pacing before me, his head working so fast I can’t even follow his thoughts.
With a roar he spins, and I race after him as he leaves the room and heads down the hallway. I see him checking if I’m still following as he pushes open a door at the end of the corridor and races down the steps, with me on his heels. A metal door is on the floor at the bottom of the staircase, and when we step through into what must be the basement, I have to cover my nose at the smells assaulting me.
“You aren’t used to it, you will be soon,” he promises.
Cells like the one we were kept in stand open down here and I look in each one, checking that no one is trapped inside until I get to one in the middle. It’s empty, the door closed, but something makes me turn the handle and swing it open. Stepping inside, I freeze as I smell myself in here and blood…is this where they kept me after Rachel?
“Little one?” Mishal calls from the doorway.
Stepping back, I walk into his chest and he wraps his arms around me, steering me from the room. We end up in an open room at the end, with computers in the middle, two broken glass cells on either side, and past that what looks like an operating room. I leave Mishal ripping through papers on the desk as I head there, something drawing me, calling me, until I stand at the foot of what looks like a dentist chair and the half-mauled corpse in it. If it wasn’t for the white coat, I might not recognise him. His face has been ripped off, and his chest and stomach ripped open and pulled free. Fuck, someone even cut off his cock. I spot it on one of the counters at the back.
“What was this place?” I ask, when I hear Mishal approach me from behind.
“I don’t know, little one, it doesn’t make sense,” he growls.
I turn to see him, his eyes bright with him and Nyre mixing together, his mind riddled. “Tell me,” I order, stepping closer. “Tell me, Mishal!” I yell.
“I told you upstairs what I smelled. Well, I smell all types of creatures down here. It looks like humans were experimenting on them and some of our kind broke them free. From the wreckage at the front door, I’m guessing that is where they got in. I’m betting they freed the women and killed the rest for their crimes but, little one, this shouldn’t be possible.” He starts to pace again. “Nothing like this should exist under the council’s watch….. It’s not even possible that they didn’t see this. I did wonder who was bold enough to take us all those years ago, I figured it was a rogue faction. I didn’t even question what they were doing with my blood..none of that matters now though. They must have if they sent a fallen to clean up, unless it’s gone rogue, but a changeling and a fallen?” He shakes his head as I try to follow his logic.
“What’s the problem with that?” I almost yell, sick of being in the dark.
“Changelings were wiped out, little one. My brother’s line, they were all killed in a culling, years and years ago by the council. It sent him into a depression, and he withdrew from the world, unable to interfere or exact revenge, so for a changeling to be here, the council must not know, which means the fallen is working with the changeling.”
“Wait, if your brother withdrew, how is a changeling here now?”
“I don’t know, maybe he made another? Blessed a human with his blood or maybe the council didn’t get them all? Either way, the council wouldn’t let them live if they knew, they think they are too dangerous.”
“So…you think the council knew about this?” I inquire slowly.
He stops pacing and turns to me, his face stricken. “I think they knew. I think they ordered it. They had to. They wouldn’t let this slip past their noses otherwise, but why? Why are they experimenting, where do the humans come into this?” He looks at me and his eyes widen. “They are trying to draw them out,” he whispers.
“Huh?” I ask dumbly.
“Like you, little one, they are trying to draw out latent bloodlines!” He yanks on his hair. “Why?”
Blowing out a breath, I look around at the devastation surrounding us. “What do we do? Go for the council? Confront them?”
“No, no, I can’t. My brothers and I made a pact over a millennium ago. We constructed the council to run impartial, to protect our kind from threats. The only way they agreed was if we didn’t interfere. My oldest brother, a warlock, made a blood pact. It’s a binding spell that protects the council from us and makes us unable to step foot on their soil or interfere with their laws and leadership unless invited.”
He yells out, kicking a chair and it flies through the nearest wall.
“Mishal!” I scream. “Look at me, you are older and smarter. Tell me what the plan is! You think the council did this, you think they are hurting humans and supes? They won’t stop, you have to know that, they have gone too far if it’s true. We need to stop them.”
“Yes, yes, fuck, I bet it was them who dug me up!” he roars. “All this time I thought it was humans who had stumbled upon my resting spot, or even hunters or witches, but it must be them, they knew of my resting spot, they all did—” He sucks in a breath.
“What?” I ask, concerned.
“If they came for me, they will go after my brothers. They must think we are a threat to their plan and want to get rid of us. We have to get to them first if it’s not too late.”
“Okay, so we find your brothers and take down the council?” I surmise, trying to follow along.
“Break the blood pact first, and for that we are going to need all seven of us in the place we made it.”
I nod and he turns to look around us with a shake of his head. “Let’s get out of here, little one.”
He laces our hands together, and my eyes catch on my cell as we head past it, but I force myself to look forward, to look at Mishal. We head back upstairs and almost past the room I first woke up in, but I tug him to a stop, standing outside the door. He looks back at me, already knowing, but I say it out loud anyway.
“I need to make sure she isn’t there,” I croak, my voice catching.
“We will go together.” He brings my hand to his lips and kisses it before we both turn and face the room.
Blowing out a breath, I step inside the room where the worst thing that ever happened to me occurred. I don’t see anyone or any bodies aside from the guard’s corpse, but I have to be sure. I have this nagging sensation that won’t go away until I know she hasn’t been left here to rot. I pass the cells on the end, my hand still in Mishal’s, and I freeze in front of the mine. Her blood is still on the floor, dried and old. How long has it been since she died? Time moves differently down below in the isolated cell, so I really don’t have a clue.
“Little one, I’m sorry,” he whispers, seeing it all in my head again.
His arms come around me, holding me together with his strength when all I want to do is drop to my knees and sob. “That blood is over three months old, little one, she will have been buried by now,” he promises.
“Okay.” I nod, happy at least she hasn’t just been left here to rot. “Okay,” I say again, sucking in air, trying to capture any of her scent, but he’s right, it’s old and barely there.