Chapter 20

Chapter 20

D evil dust had been a thorn in the Crown's side for years, and its quick popularity was making it almost impossible to keep in check. As a club drug, it was innocent enough. A little mixed in a drink, and you were euphoric, alert. Able to dance and fuck all night, and perfectly content to do either.

A little more? Pain no longer bothered you, exhaustion no longer seemed to slow you down. You were untouchable, a veritable god.

And a touch too much?

Fey had seen firsthand what the aggression from too much devil dust could do. Months ago, a group of Demons had gotten their hands on some, using it to help fuel an attack on one of the aristocratic Witch families in the third octant. It had been a bloodbath. And when they'd torn through the family, leaving no one behind, the Demons had turned on each other. Two had survived the night.

Like so many things, devil dust was fine in small doses, but oh so dangerous in the wrong hands and the wrong amounts.

"This is the place," Joy said, pointing out the building to them. She'd come the night before, after Dameon had delivered the address, to stake out the location and prepare for tonight.

The real issue with devil dust was it was impossible to stop it from flowing into the city, impossible to stop it from circulating among the population. It was relatively easy to make and even easier to sell. There was a lively, growing market for it, and the Queen was terrified about large doses of it ending up in the wrong hands.

Like Prey for the Crown , Fey thought. The group was, historically, non-violent. They wanted change, not bloody revolution. But the idea of so many Shifters, even the non-predators, ingesting enough of the drug to make them as deadly and bloodthirsty as those Demons had been? Yeah, that was scary enough to keep Fey up at night.

So, when Dameon had located a manufacturer right here in the city, when he had found an entire building's worth of devil dust?

That was something that demanded their attention.

Willow stared down at the warehouse below them. They were stationed on an adjacent rooftop, and from here they had a clear view of the single-story building below. And the guards that patrolled the perimeter.

The other side of the building faced a drop-off into the Western River. It was an almost certainly fatal drop, and even at this distance, Fey could hear the sounds of the river churning from where it hugged the edges of the Demon district.

"It doesn't look much like a drug den to me," Willow said. "It looks like a shoe factory."

Lilith snorted. "What does a drug den look like, little sister?" she asked in a mocking voice.

Willow shrugged. "I don't know. More… shabby? Dirty? Maybe some rave music and strobe lights?"

Joy giggled, but Lilith rolled her eyes.

"I'll be sure to tell Dameon the drug den wasn't sufficiently shabby enough for you. Maybe the next one he sends us to destroy will be better, huh?"

"How many guards?" Fey asked, and Joy frowned down from their vantage point to confirm.

"Three. Two patrols, one on the door. All Demons."

"See, sister?" Lilith cooed. "How many shoe factories have armed Demons patrolling them at night?"

Willow just shrugged. "Maybe the really expensive ones. Like, designer shoes." She chewed on her lip for a moment. "I've never fought a Demon before."

"They're easy," Joy assured her. "They're the weakest of all the Factions, furthest from the Goddess. Some of them can summon up a little elemental power, but it's nothing compared to what we can do."

Willow was shaking her head. "I heard they were like… all-powerful. Like… ‘pull your skeleton right out of your body' powerful."

"Those are just fairytales. " Lilith rolled her eyes. "Scary stories to keep Witches up at night. If they were ever really that powerful, they sure as shit aren't anymore, especially the ones here in the city."

"All the powerful Demons live in the eighth octant," Joy explained. "Far away from here. And even then, I doubt they're even close to as powerful as the stories say they are. Trust me, little sis. This will be easy."

"Okay. Okay." Willow took a deep breath and smiled. "So… what's the plan?"

It was her first assignation with them all. And, as expected, Joy was in the mood to show off.

"Do you have eyes on the closest patrol?" Joy asked, glancing at Fey. The corner of her mouth curved into a smile.

Fey nodded. The Demon was slowly making his way around the building toward them and would be nearly directly below them in a few seconds.

Joy turned to Willow with a sparkling smile. "Ready to see our Fey in action?" she asked.

Willow's eyes widened, and Fey took a deep breath, closing her eyes and letting herself sink into her power. Relaxing her body, she let herself become a vessel.

Water . It was the element of life. The element of healing. But every creation from the Goddess has its shadow, its mirrored counterpart, and since life could never exist without water, it was, in its absence, just as easily an element of death.

The air was cold around them, the first touch of winter. But more importantly, the night was wet. It had rained earlier, and the air was heavy with it.

Water and air. Fey breathed them in, her power rejoicing under her skin .

The Demon was coming. His steps echoed in the dark alley below them. Twenty feet away. Fifteen. Ten.

Eyes closed, entirely focused, Fey could almost see him. She could hear his steps, his heartbeat, his breath. He took a deep inhale, filling his lungs with the cold night air.

Throat first , Fey thought. It was a trick she'd learned early on. Take out the throat, and they can't call for help. Can't scream while she takes them out, piece by piece.

Perfectly still, eyes closed, Fey commanded the water in the Demon's body to freeze.

Willow watched, wide-eyed, as the Demon below them stopped. He made a noise like he was choking, reaching his hands up to his throat. But he didn't scream, didn't yell to raise the alarm as he scratched at the outside of his throat, fingernails raking rivets into his skin, drawing lines of blood.

"Our bodies are over 60% water," Fey whispered, eyes still closed as she concentrated. The Demon's throat was fully frozen now, but she wasn't done. The ice spread down his larynx, creeping into the soft tissue of his lungs. "Did you know that, little sister?"

Willow swallowed audibly.

Fey could feel him suffocating, could hear him thrashing against the ground. The ice continued to spread. It filled the tiny spaces in his lungs, turning the tissue into ice. It coated his heart, slowing the frantic beating and spreading to the inner chambers. It spread up his arteries, creeping into his brain, through veins and capillaries.

The ice had started to creep into his fingertips when his heart gave one final, feeble jolt and stopped. The Demon's body slumped to the ground, curled around himself, ice crystals forming delicate patterns on his lips.

When Fey finally opened her eyes and looked at Willow, she wasn't surprised by the horror she saw in her sister's face. Not surprised, but maybe a little disappointed. Hurt. But this was the truth of what she was. This was the truth of her power.

"I didn't know Water Witches could do that," Willow said, softly.

"They can't," Lilith answered. "At least, no one's ever heard of it before. "

"Our Fey is one of a kind," Joy crooned, her voice full of pride.

Willow considered this. Considered Fey, and the half-frozen body in the alley. Then she smiled.

"That's so fucking cool," she said finally.

The ache in Fey's chest lessened, and she grinned.

"It's harder the further away I am," Fey explained. "Easiest if I can touch them. And it's much easier to freeze than boil. Trust me I've tried."

Willow's eyes were wide. "You've boiled someone from the inside?"

"No," Fey corrected. "I said I've tried . I could, maybe, if I had any control over Fire, but…" She shrugged. "Air helps with freezing. And unless it's been raining, there's no way I can do it from a distance."

"Come on, let's get down there. We need to drag him out of sight before anyone sees him," Lilith said.

Joy hopped down from the roof, using air to float gracefully to the ground. She hooked her arms under the Demon and pulled him into the alley, depositing him unceremoniously behind a trash can.

"One down, two to go," purred Lilith.

They moved, four specters of death creeping through the night.

Lilith took the next Demon.

He passed right by them, unaware of what lurked in the shadows, the danger that was watching and waiting. When she slit his throat, he barely made a sound before crumbling to the ground. Willow dragged his body back into the alley with the other guard.

Joy took down the Demon guarding the door, her power pulling the air from her lungs before she even knew there was anyone there. She died silently, suffocating at their feet as they moved past her and through the doors.

There was no alarm when they entered the warehouse, no sudden shriek of a siren. It was quiet inside.

Lilith summoned a sphere of Fire, holding it out in front of her to give them enough light to see the building.

It was… incredibly unremarkable .

"Isn't this supposed to be some big drug stash?" Willow asked, her voice barely a whisper.

Fey nodded, frowning. Willow had been right earlier—this didn't feel like a criminal enterprise. The one-story building was just a single, enormous room full of wooden crates. Unremarkable, innocent-looking crates.

It really could have been a shoe factory, Fey thought, looking around. It looked like a storage facility.

Lilith shrugged her backpack to the ground, nodding to Joy to open it. Inside were stacks of plastic explosives, long white bars that just needed a spark to ignite. Lilith held her ball of Fire away from the bag, careful not to get too close to it.

It was a simple assignation. Take out the building and its contents, and leave. A few charges of plastic explosive set in the right places around the building, and boom —no more devil dust.

Fey didn't hear the Shifter approach until it was too late.

"Don't you fucking move," a voice snarled in her ear. His breath was hot and putrid. He held a knife to her throat, but his hand shook hard enough that the metal blade nicked at her skin.

"You tell your friends to drop their weapons, drop whatever it is they are holding, and I'll make sure you all get out of this alive," he told her.

It was an effort for Fey not to laugh.

"Sister?" she called out, ignoring him entirely. Her eyes met Willow's in the dark. "A little help, please?"

The knife at her throat glowed red hot, and the Shifter yelped in shock, dropping the blade before the metal had even started to melt. Fey dropped to the ground and rolled to the side as Willow struck, hitting the Shifter like an avalanche. She was a ball of knives and fists and fury. The Shifter screamed as she hit him, and they crashed noisily into a stack of wooden crates.

The male was dead before he hit the ground, but the momentum of Willow's attack shook the boxes. " Shit, " Willow hissed. She leaped away from the dead Shifter, but it was too late. The stack tilted and swayed, and several crates tumbled to the ground with a crash .

The sound echoed through the building, and Fey winced .

"Oh great, just fucking great." Lilith snapped. "So much for the element of fucking surprise."

Willow frowned at the mess on the warehouse floor, cringing. "Oops," she said.

"Oops?" Lilith mocked. Then she turned, scowling at Joy. "And what was that, Joy? Who was that? You said three Demon guards. It was your job to case this place. You didn't say anything about Shifters!"

Joy knelt next to the dead body, frowning. "I don't think he's a guard," she said, softly. She touched his face. "I don't know who he is."

Fey looked down at the body and couldn't help but agree with her assessment. He was a thin, spindly thing, barely more than a kid. A civilian. He didn't look anything like the predators they'd encountered outside.

He looked like… like prey.

That was it. He was a prey Shifter.

So, what was he doing here?

Lilith shook her head angrily. "I guess it doesn't matter who he was now, does it?"

Several of the crates that had hit the ground had broken open, spilling pieces of wood and glass shards over the floor. Something wet trickled from a box, spilling onto the ground, mixing with the grime on the warehouse floor.

Fey reached down and plucked a small glass bottle from where it had rolled from a crate to rest at her feet, holding it up. The liquid inside was golden, and it sparkled in the light like it was full of tiny, shimmering stars.

"Devil dust?" Joy asked, head tilted as she stared at the bottle in Fey's hands.

"I guess," Fey said. It was mesmerizing. Inviting. "I didn't expect it to be so…"

"Pretty?" Willow finished for her.

"There must be gallons of the stuff here," Fey said, gesturing to the crates that filled the building. "No wonder the Crown wanted this place leveled—there's enough drug here to dose the entire realm."

"Not for long," Lilith snorted. "Come on, help me place the rest of this. We need to get out of here. We've made enough noise to wake the dead, and I don't want to be blamed if another dumbass civilian gets themselves killed trying to investigate."

Lilith tossed a bundle of explosives toward Joy, and she caught it easily. Fey gave the golden liquid one last look before tossing it on the ground.

It took just a few minutes to place the rest of the explosives under Joy's careful supervision. There's an art to explosives, to leveling a building while limiting damage to the surrounding area. It wouldn't do to set the block alight, wouldn't do for the Queen's Blades to level part of the city. This mission was simple and surgical: Take down the building and everything in it but leave as little damage to the neighborhood as possible.

By the time the explosives were set and they were on their way back to the palace, the building burning behind them, the mesmerizing golden liquid was a distant memory.