44. Chapter 44

44

R ebecca turned against the closest vehicle, spun, and found herself staring at the line of imprisoned and illegally trafficked magicals all chained to each other and huddling together just a few yards away, where they’d been left by the guy responsible for driving them here and hauling them inside.

Within seconds, the cries emanating from inside the Old Joliet Prison begin to match the cadence, desperation, and rhythm of the new prisoners’ shouts, which had transformed from cries of despair and calls for mercy to something that dared to sound like hope.

“Help us!”

“We’re over here!”

“Let us out!”

“Free us!”

“Get us out of here before they come back…”

“Help! Please !”

Shit.

The prisoners thought this was a rescue attempt.

Rebecca’s heart twisted on itself when she realized what was happening—that there was nothing she could do for any of them right now. She hadn’t come here with a plan for freeing anyone, and the bare bones of a plan she had established before all hell broke loose was now entirely defunct.

She wasn’t getting inside that prison. Not tonight. She wasn’t rescuing anyone. The way things were headed, this was unlikely even to turn into a real battle.

She had to get out of here.

Now.

Ducking and dodging magical attacks and crackling blasts fired from augmented weaponry, she dove around the yard, trying to both stick to the shadows and avoid the sweeping searchlight in the guard tower. If she were spotted by that , there was very little hope of making it out of here alive without exposing herself entirely—to her current enemies and to Harkennr, because his forces would inevitably inform him of what they’d seen.

Plus, there was Maxwell to worry about now too. Again.

As soon as the shifter entered her mind, that same warming, tingling sensation that only arose whenever Maxwell was close prickled across Rebecca’s body like a powerful electric surge. The feeling brought her to an instant halt in the grass.

What the hell? That was supposed to be gone. She’d healed herself.

Then she saw him—the enormous gray wolf standing mere yards from the prison’s open front doors. He didn’t look injured, as far as she could tell, but he was already panting heavily, the wolf’s tongue rolling out of his mouth as he looked back and forth between the inside of the prison emitting terrified screams for rescue from Harkennr’s prisoners and the chained line of new victims sprawled across the dead grass of the yard, also crying out for salvation.

Oh, come on …

Maxwell wasn’t hesitating in the field because of them , was he?

Rebecca almost headed toward him. Even as a wolf, Maxwell looked a hell of a lot like he was ready to pounce inside to attempt an insane, suicidal, last-minute rescue operation by himself with no plan and no backup, and that wouldn’t have improved their situation.

“Hannigan!” she shouted. “We gotta move!”

The enormous panting gray wolf turned his huge, shaggy head toward her, silver eyes flashing in the darkness, and found her across the yard.

Neither of them had time for anything else before one of Harkennr’s bulky, muscular soldiers let out a warbling bellow of a battle cry before flinging himself on Maxwell and taking the enormous wolf straight to the ground.

Dammit, now this was a rescue mission, but only for one, and he shouldn’t even have been here in the first place.

Maxwell snarled and clawed and snapped his jaws at his attacker, who put up an astoundingly impressive fight against the wolf.

Rebecca took off toward them, ready to lend a hand.

She didn’t see the soldier charging toward her until he was right beside her in her periphery.

Then it was too late. He barreled right into her, throwing all his weight into her hip and the side of her ribcage before tackling her to the ground.

They fell in a tangle of limbs and clouds of kicked-up dirt while smoke poured from one of the nearby destroyed vehicles.

And Rebecca didn’t have a weapon .

Of course she didn’t. She hadn’t come out here with the intention of needing one. This was only supposed to have been for healing herself with her Bloodshadow magic and maybe doing a little reconnaissance if she’d found an opening, but this?

She was completely unprepared.

Her attacker’s fist connected with her face, and she snarled at the dull pain blooming through her head before she threw herself right back at him with a hiss. They tumbled together in the overwhelming chaos, and every time Rebecca managed to free herself from the guy’s hold, he somehow closed his other hand around her wrist or ankle or a fistful of her jacket to yank her back into the tussle.

When he’d thrown her on her back and loomed over her, his enormous yellow snarl glinting with something that might have been gold fillings in the darkness, Rebecca did the best she could without a plan or the free use of her Bloodshadow power.

She sent an orb of crackling red battle magic smashing into his face.

Her attacker roared as he sailed backward several feet through the air.

The intensity of her own blast at such close range sent Rebecca flying backward too, bumping across the deadened prison yard and scraping more than a few holes in her black jeans.

By the time she’d stopped sliding across the ground, she’d inhaled a lungful of dust and smoke choking the air all around her. She couldn’t see a thing.

Somewhere not too far away, Maxwell’s terrifying snarl cut through the surrounding chaos, immediately followed by a scream and then a concerning canine yelp.

Shit. For how unprepared this gang had been for a breach in the dark by only two unknown assailants, they were actually handling the confusion fairly well.

The same could not be said for Rebecca and Maxwell.

She tried to call out to him, choked on the smoke, then caught sight of her previous attacker barreling straight toward her out of another thick cloud from the burning vehicles. His face contorted in a sadistic, snarling grin as he raced toward her with a drawn sword in hand.

Who actually used swords anymore?

Rebecca didn’t have time to think of the best defense beyond not using her Bloodshadow magic. The guy was almost upon her, and for however strange it was to wield a sword right now, the weapon was undeniably sharp and could do more damage with one hit than Rebecca could afford.

Her hands fumbled desperately in the dirt and dry grass around her for anything she could use as a weapon; she couldn’t risk summoning her Bloodshadow spear. Then her fingers closed around something small and slightly rough that gave a little beneath the pressure of her grasp.

She clenched her fist around it, drew it toward her, and had a fraction of a second to recognize the hex doll that must have fallen out of her jacket pocket before her instincts took over.

Rebecca thrust the trinket out in front of her toward her oncoming attacker with a fucking sword in his hand, brandishing the hex doll as if the piece of stuffed burlap was a warrior’s shield.

She couldn’t have said why she did it, other than the fact that she’d seen it wielded against another only once. Plus, it was all she had at her fingertips.

She didn’t actually expect it to work.

But the second she flourished the hex doll in her attacker’s face, the snarling, yellow-toothed goon skidded to an immediate halt across the grass a mere two yards away, his equally yellow eyes wide and instantly glassy as he stared at the old-world artifact in her hand.

Before she could process what was happening, the doll strobed with multicolored light, painting glittering green symbols in the air that swirled in front of her, their light reflected in her attacker’s wide eyes.

Then the circle of old-world casting runes the Cruorcian behind the alley had been trying to manipulate burst into existence in front of the hex doll, and the stuffed canvas trinket in her hand started to vibrate.

A thick, noxious cloud of roiling black fumes sprayed from the hex doll’s head, building into shape and form in the air as it hurtled toward Rebecca’s sword-toting attacker.

It all happened so fast, she wasn't a hundred percent sure what was happening. But she did recognize all the dancing patterns of smoke and light forming another nasty, dreadful creature in the air in front of her would-be opponent.

It looked like a ghost of something drawn straight from nightmare, with the same hints of dancing light and swirling ethereal smoke as the noiseless clown that had tortured the human woman in the empty back parking lot days ago.

It wasn’t a clown this time. This time, the smoke took a form only Rebecca’s current adversary seemed to recognize.

The monster newly materialized out of the hex doll swarmed through the already smoke-thickened air toward the guy. His sword dropped uselessly into the grass with a muted clang, and he stood there, frozen in terror as the black creature made of light and smoke with glistening pincers the size of a bicycle clacked and snapped soundlessly in his face.

Only when the guy screamed and threw his arms up in front of his himself did the nightmare smoke converge on him to take him to the ground .

Rebecca didn’t stick around long enough to figure out what would happen to him. She really didn’t care.

With the hex doll gripped firmly in one hand, she scrambled to her feet, searched the chaos for Maxwell, and almost instantly found him in a physical struggle with some other enemy soldier swinging a club wrapped in barbed wire at the gray wolf’s snapping jaws.

Gritting her teeth, Rebecca stormed toward their battle and thrust the doll at Maxwell’s opponent and any other enemy stupid enough to get in her way.

The idiot fighting a shifter with a club noticed her arrival and spun toward her with a sneer. The second he caught sight of the hex doll, however, another burst of green light and the old-world casting circle covered in runes erupted in the air right before the doll. The same plume of noxious black cloud emerged and the next second morphed into an enormous, glinting butcher knife hovering midair in front of Mr. Battle Club.

His mouth dropped open, his eyes widened in terror, and his club thumped into the grass while he trembled and stuttered. It took him a second to finally back away from the giant kitchen implement so obviously made of nothing more than light and smoke.

Obvious to Rebecca, at least.

To the soldier, it was clearly very real.

The floating blade jerked toward him as if it meant to stab down from the sky and into his face. Without his weapon, Battle Club went stiff and rigid in terror, like someone had pumped him with an instant paralytic.

A vicious snarl cut through the air before the shaggy gray wolf leapt at his would-be attacker. When his enormous weight and power hit the soldier next, Maxwell took the guy to the ground and gutted him right there with two vicious snaps of his powerful jaws and a wrenching twist of that enormous wolf’s head.

Rebecca shot a bemused glance at the hex doll in her hand, the floating old-world casting circle now gone from the air in front of it.

Apparently, she was the proud new owner of a handy fear-generator. Or something. She’d have to figure out the specifics later.

With a disruptive snarl, Maxwell ripped his head away from his victim’s remains, his muzzle and the front of his thick gray pelt already matted with blood. His next low growl was aimed at Rebecca this time before the wolf turned back toward the open front doors of the prison.

Like he meant to pick up where he’d left off and head inside anyway for a suicidal rescue attempt.

Fuck that .

Before he could take off for the building, Rebecca leapt in front of him and brandished the hex doll at the giant wolf preparing to leap.

“Don’t even think about it,” she hissed, not wanting to catch anyone else’s attention in the yard if it wasn’t necessary.

She waited for some newly conjured fear to emerge from the hex doll for Maxwell, but even with the swirling green casting circle in the air and all those powerful old-world runes doing their magical thing in front of him, nothing seeped out of the trinket to prey on the shifter’s fears.

Absolutely nothing at all.

Huh, maybe she just had to be a wolf to see his fear.

“We have to go,” she snapped, her patience with him nearly gone. “I swear, if you step inside that building, I’m not coming in after you.”

The wolf backed away from her by several steps, growling and snarling, his fangs bared at Rebecca while a row of thick, bristling hackles rose along his spine and his silver eyes pulsed.

Was he about to attack her now?

If that had been Maxwell Hannigan’s plan all along, now would have been the perfect time for it. The rest of Shade would never know, and who wouldn’t believe their Head of Security when he brought back some made-up story about their new commander’s demise?

But then the wolf’s demeanor changed. He crouched even lower, let out a low whine before his silver eyes flickered up to meet Rebecca’s gaze, then he turned and bounded away from her toward the eastern side of the prison where Rebecca had cut her way through the fence.

She had to assume that was the same entrance through which Maxwell had followed her here.

With a frustrated hiss, she took off after him, heading around the side of the prison sheltered in almost complete darkness now while the rest of the yard flailed in perpetual chaos, the alarm wailed, and Harkennr’s forces couldn’t figure out what the hell had just happened.

A brilliant, blinding flash erupted in the corner of her vision.

The searchlight.

Shit, if it swept across this side of the yard and found her now, it would ruin all chances of escape.

She dove to the side to avoid the sweeping path of the light, waited for it to pass back in the other direction, then sprang to her feet and booked it around the side of the building toward the hole she’d sliced through the barbed-wire fence.

No one could see her here tonight, or Harkennr would know she’d been behind this scattered failure of an attempted attack from the start .

If that happened, he would come for her with a lot more than the two dozen soldiers set upon her in the last few minutes.

Rebecca ran as fast as her legs would carry her along the southern wall of the old prison, the cries of so many tortured magicals still ringing in her ears.

Then she reached the fence, where the small hole she’d cut for herself glinted as the chain links and barbed wire still wobbled from someone else passing through it seconds before.

There was no sign of Maxwell.

Once Rebecca reached the hole and slipped through to hurry across the surrounding darkness, all she could think of now was how fervently she hoped Maxwell hadn’t been closely following her all night.

That he hadn’t seen her use her Bloodshadow spear on the fence or her two victims inside the base’s perimeter, not to mention her rushed bit of self-healing to get that damn handprint off her wrist.

If he had seen her, though, even just a glimpse of what she could do, that meant everything was about to change.

It meant the shifter was out there right now, literally walking around with her life in his hands.

And without a doubt, Rebecca would rather die than let someone have that kind of control over her again.