Chapter 23

Darkness enclosed us, the raucous noise outside deadened. I squinted as my eyes adjusted to the faint light leaking up the stairwell. What time was it? It had to be after 9:15 by now.

"It's time for your cat's eye necklace," I whispered to Lienna.

She grasped the pendant. "Ori menti defendo."

Drawing in a deep breath, I pushed aside the foggy tiredness clinging to my thoughts. "I'm going to make us invisible."

She nodded tersely. I wasn't close enough to sense any minds in the underground office, so I dropped my invisibility warp-bomb on everyone in my vicinity. To my relief, Lienna faded into nothing, same as me. Woo, first try! And thanks to her anti-magic necklace, she didn't have a Vera-style freak-out over her sudden lack of body.

She glanced at herself. "Did it work?"

"Yep." I started downward, and she walked beside me, nervously adjusting her satchel on her shoulder. Our quick breaths were the only sound in the hollow stairwell. "So what's the plan?"

"We'll see if Quentin is here."

A solid first step. Maybe he'd bailed when Faustus had crashed the place.

"And if he is," she added, "we'll take him down—without triggering that alchemy trap."

"Aw, but that was so much fun."

I could scarcely see her face in the dim light, but I didn't miss her eye roll. Damn, I loved that exasperated expression of hers. I hadn't noticed the suppressed amusement at first, but it was easy to see now.

A strange sensation stole over me, like I was falling and rising at the same time. Maybe she had such an effect on me because she expected more from me than I did, and it made me want to claw my way out of the selfish habits of my past to become a person who wouldn't disappoint her.

That was a strange thing to think, especially for me.

Her eyebrows drew together, forming a tiny wrinkle in the center of her forehead. I realized we'd stopped moving, the closed door to the secret office a dozen steps below us.

"Kit," she whispered. "What's wrong?"

Wrong? Nothing was wrong. I just couldn't look away from her eyes for some reason. My pulse beat loudly in my ears, and warmth spread from the center of my chest toward my toes.

I reached out, and her eyes widened when my fingers brushed across her cheek. I drifted closer and she inched away. Her back bumped the wall. She caught my wrist as I slid my fingers across her jaw and into her hair.

"Kit," she began.

That breathless note in her voice. It was music. It was a siren call—and I was Odysseus, bewitched and helpless.

She was still holding my wrist, but she didn't stop me when I wrapped my hand around the back of her neck. Her breath caught as I pressed into her. My other hand was on her waist, tugging her closer. Vaguely, I realized my actions were ridiculously inappropriate for this time and this place, but I couldn't stop myself.

She exhaled in a rush, drawing herself up, lips parting to speak.

I leaned down. Whatever she'd been about to say, it no longer mattered. Her eyes had gone wide again, face flushed, fingers squeezing my wrist—but not pulling my hand away. Not resisting as I tilted her head back.

Our mouths met. A soft kiss, heavy with anticipation, like we'd both been waiting for this moment for years—except we'd only known each other for days.

What the hell was wrong with me?

The thought fizzled in my mind, but my lips were already moving against hers. Her mouth had fascinated me since that first stern scowl in the interrogation room, and now those soft lips parted for my tongue. Our kiss deepened, and as she arched in my arms, I pulled her hard against me, my hand sliding up her back.

With a sudden gasp, she tore her mouth away. "Kit!"

"Hmm?"

"Stop."

"Why?"

"Because this isn't real. This is Quentin's power."

I blinked slowly. My thoughts were sluggish, hazed with desire. Wrapped in my arms, Lienna stared up at me, her cheeks flushed and chest rising and falling with each breath.

I wanted to kiss her again. I needed to. I couldn't focus on anything else, except…

Quentin. His name was like a black hole in my head, sucking in all the heat and passion clouding my thoughts. I knew his abilities. I knew what he could do. I knew how he could make you feel things that weren't real.

Things like an overwhelming desire to kiss Lienna while we were supposed to be stopping him from opening that vault.

I lurched back from her with a curse. "I'm so sorry. I didn't realize—"

"It's fine." Her gaze skittered across everything except me. "Are you back to normal?"

"Not even close."

Her alarmed stare darted to mine.

"Knowing it's him doesn't make me immune," I growled. "But it helps me resist. Why didn't you say something before I kissed you?"

Her mouth opened soundlessly—and her flush deepened. "I was caught off guard, okay? I can't feel whatever he's doing." She tugged her cat's eye pendant straight. "He must be down there. Let's get this done."

I pulled my shredded concentration together. Not easy when Quentin's love rays were pounding into my brain and I had to fight the urge to pull Lienna against me and—

Arg. I hated his power. I really did.

As we rushed down the final steps, I reapplied the invisibility warp, then created an illusion of the door so that when Lienna opened it, Quentin would have no idea.

Light flooded the stairwell as she drew the door open on silent hinges. And there he was.

My former best friend. My new enemy.

Quentin, his blond hair mussed and blue eyes bright, leaned against Rigel's desk, casual as could be. Maggie crouched in front of the Celtic knot etched in the floor, which I'd scarcely noticed during our first visit—except it was no longer an etching. A square of hardwood was missing, revealing a steel door set in the floor.

"Almost done, my love," she cooed, her curly blue ponytail bobbing as she fumbled with four vials of different colored liquid. "It will be ours soon. Very soon."

"And then we'll be safe," he purred back, and a shiver ran over my skin. Adoration, longing, desire, attraction, and sweet, sappy infatuation rolled off him in waves, bombarding Maggie's brain.

And mine.

Quentin was laying it on thick, ensuring Maggie stayed loyal to him until that vault was open. We had to stop him—but it wasn't as simple as charging in there, invisible, and punching him in his smug jaw.

A shimmering, semi-transparent bronze barrier filled the doorway, preventing anyone from entering the office. Despite its insubstantial glow, I knew better than to try to step through the magic.

"An alchemic barrier," Lienna whispered. "I can break it—I think. But"—she dug into her satchel—"I'll need a few minutes to do it."

"We don't have a few minutes," I hissed back as Maggie poured one of the four potions into a small divot in the vault's door.

"Then distract them!"

Right. I could do that.

Ensuring I had a firm grip on the invisibility and door warps, I conjured up my clearest memory of Rigel and projected my former boss into the office. He appeared behind the desk, unseen by the two would-be thieves, then conspicuously cleared his throat.

Maggie's head jerked up, and her mouth fell open. Quentin whirled, a shocked gasp rushing into his lungs, and the bombardment of loveyness fuzzing my brain disappeared.

Rigel gazed impassively at the trespassers, perfectly poised with his hands clasped behind his back, clean-shaven with his dark hair slicked to his head, and clad in his charcoal pinstripe suit.

"What are you doing here, Quentin?" I made him say, his crisp English accent emphasizing the tone he always used that suggested everyone in his presence was beneath his notice. "You wouldn't be trying to access my vault, would you?"

"Impossible!" Quentin stammered, his eyes wide and nostrils flaring. "You're dead!"

"I'm a man of many talents," Rigel stated simply. "Rising from the dead being one. Resisting the powerful gift of my favorite young empath being another."

Maggie frowned. A wave of gooey devotion hit me as Quentin realized he'd let his love-bomb falter.

I took a moment to glance at Lienna. She'd pulled a large pad of paper from her satchel, as well as a geometry kit and a calculator—not a pocket-sized one, but the big fat graph-making kind I remembered from high school algebra.

Refocusing on the office, I had Rigel raise an eyebrow mockingly. "Impressive work as always, Quentin. Submersing this young woman so deeply in feelings of affection until she became convinced the emotions were real—a delightful manipulation."

Quentin's jaw clenched, his sharp gaze jumping from Rigel to Maggie and back. She held her second potion vial above the vault door, motionless as confusion pinched her face.

"Yes," Rigel went on in a murmur. "You're unusually adept at making pretty women feel as though they're living out their own version of The Notebook."

Quentin's mouth dropped open—then he burst out laughing. "You almost had me! I almost believed it!"

Uh-oh.

I stole another glance at Lienna—now drawing a circle on her paper with a protractor—then had Rigel cross his arms. "Is there a problem?"

Quentin turned away from the projection, facing the doorway. "Come on out, Kit. I know it's you. Rigel never watched movies. He wouldn't know The Notebook from Napoleon Dynamite."

Aw, crap.

I made Rigel shake a finger at Quentin's back. "Death has given me a lot of time to binge-watch Netflix. I just finished the first season of Riverdale. I think they filmed part of an episode in this building."

Ignoring his dead boss, Quentin knelt beside Maggie. He caressed her cheek. "It's okay, love. It's just Kit messing with us."

"Kit is here?" She looked around. "Kit?"

Keeping Lienna invisible, I let all other warps die. Rigel and the fake door vanished, revealing me standing on the other side of the barrier.

"I'm here, Maggie. I came to help you."

Her eyes narrowed. "You betrayed me to the MPD."

On the word "betrayed," she poured the second potion into the waiting divot. Two out of four.

"I was never going to let them get you, Maggie," I explained urgently. "I wouldn't hurt you—but Quentin is hurting you right now. He's tricking you so you'll open that vault for him."

Quentin placed his hands on her shoulders and smirked at me. He was channeling that feeling of devoted love into Maggie at max output. I could feel the shock waves of emotion buffeting me, and I had to muster every iota of selfish, cold-hearted assholishness I possessed to counter the fluttery desire to throw myself at the nearest person and profess my undying love—which was Lienna, who'd already endured one "sappy Kit" experience.

I'd be embarrassed later. If we survived this.

Maggie uncorked the third bottle.

"Quentin's an empath," I reminded her, desperation creeping into my voice. "You know that, Maggie. You know what he can do. The love you feel for him isn't real. He's faking it."

She poured potion number three into the vault door. "You can't fake this."

"That's right, babe," Quentin crooned, rubbing her shoulders. "Stop trying to taint our love, Kit. We know you're only here because you want the artifact for yourself."

His sneer mocked me. I couldn't reach him, never mind stop him.

I glanced down. Lienna had drawn a complex geometric design and was frantically populating it with runes.

"Maggie, please listen to me." Yeah, I was begging. "Even if you love him, this is wrong. What about your speech about the evils of greed?"

She pulled the last cork. "I know what I'm doing."

Before I could try again to stop her, she upended the vial over the vault door. The gold liquid filled the final divot, and all four potions began to glow. Purple smoke wafted upward, drifting through the office.

"Lienna!" I hissed out of the corner of my mouth.

"I'm almost done! Almost—"

With a thick puff of smoke, the glow extinguished. A handle had appeared in the center of the heavy steel door.

"Lienna!"

Quentin reached for the door, and out of desperation, I conjured a snake on top of the handle. Quentin couldn't stand snakes. It was literally his only weakness, the asshole.

He jerked his hand back from my hissing serpent, then laughed—though I didn't miss the terse edge to the sound. Ignoring Maggie's surprised gasp at the hallucination, he looked up at me.

"Nice try, Kit."

He stuck his hand through the vision and grasped the handle. He heaved, and with a pneumatic puff, the door swung open on a silent hinge.

"Here!" Lienna leaped to her feet and slapped her paper against the bronze barrier blocking the doorway. "Ori impero corrumpatur!"

Azure light blazed over her arcane drawing, and the barrier collapsed like a waterfall. The substance was still splashing over the floor as Lienna and I leaped across the threshold.

Maggie scrambled backward, but Quentin's face split into a cold grin. With one hand reaching for the vault, he pulled the other from under his jacket. A black pistol glinted as he pointed it straight at me.

Without the slightest hesitation, he pulled the trigger.

The ear-splitting impact of the gunshot and the diaphragm-locking impact of the bullet hit me simultaneously, and an instant later, Lienna tackled me around the waist.

I slammed into the floor, and the third impact in as many seconds sent a burst of agony into my chest as if a red-hot steel rod had been rammed straight through my ribs. My left hand clamped against the burning hole in my torso and warm wetness squished between my fingers.

Lienna pressed both hands on top of mine, pushing down to slow the gush of blood.

"Kit!" Maggie gasped. "You—Quentin, you shot him."

Smiling coldly, he took aim for my head.

"Quentin!" Maggie grabbed his sleeve. "Kit isn't—"

He tore his arm free—then smashed the butt of the gun into the side of her face. She crumpled with a high-pitched cry.

"Don't interfere!" His feverish stare snapped back to me. "And you two, don't move."

Keeping the gun trained on me and Lienna, he reached into the dark interior of the vault. When he withdrew his hand, he held a simple silver wand, its twelve-inch length etched with minuscule runes.

"Finally," he breathed, rising to his full height. "Blue Smoke wasn't just a plan to steal an artifact, you know. That was just the first part. Steal the artifact—then give it to me. And with my amplified power, we would have…" He glanced at me with a condescending sneer. "Ah, but that's way above your pay grade, Kit."

As much as I would've loved to make a cutting, witty retort, I couldn't get enough air to speak. Inhaling burned like hell, and the pain radiated across my body like a miniature nuclear bomb exploding inside my chest. Lienna pressed down on the bullet hole, unable to do anything else with that gun aimed at us.

"Tell you what, Kit," Quentin murmured. "I'll let you experience it before you die. Maybe the emotional overload will stop your heart." He raised the wand. "I've wondered, you know, if emotion can kill. Time to find out."

"Lienna!" I gasped soundlessly.

She shoved her hand into her satchel, fumbling for a weapon.

"Ori meam incendo mentem." The words rushed off Quentin's tongue. "Meam augeo potestatem, meum cor crescat!"

A faint shimmer ran across the wand. For one na?ve moment, I hoped the artifact had failed to activate.

Then my mind imploded.

Every emotion Quentin was experiencing hit me with impossible force, like an entire cargo ship of feelings cramming inside my skull—vindictive glee, burning triumph, and cold loathing for the weak, pathetic minds all around him that he could manipulate so easily.

Halfway through leaping toward him with an artifact from her satchel, Lienna collapsed, clutching her head. She was screaming. Maggie writhed on the floor, a shriek rising from her throat. I might've screamed too, if there'd been any air in my lungs.

Quentin watched them fall, laughing. An explosion of manic elation hit an instant later and a spasm shook my body, jarring the wound in my chest.

If there's one thing more powerful than emotion, it's pain.

My head cleared enough for conscious thought to pop back into gear. I dug my fingers into the bullet hole in my chest, and a fresh blade of agony pushed out the empath's supercharged emotions.

Lienna and Maggie gasped and shuddered on the floor. Quentin stood over them, laughing like a madman. I had to act, to do something, but I could barely breathe, let alone stand.

So, I did the only thing my emotion-logged, pain-hazed brain could think of. I created another snake.

The wand in Quentin's hand transformed into a thin, footlong silver serpent. It opened its tiny mouth, fangs extended, and hissed—the sound drowned out by Lienna's and Maggie's cries.

Quentin's fear slammed into me, followed by a wave of furious determination.

"Illusions!" he roared. "Hallucinations, Kit! Nothing you can do is real!"

"They're…" I gasped weakly. "… called… warps."

The silver snake spun around Quentin's wrist. With every ounce of concentration I possessed, I imagined its smooth, cool scales sliding over his skin. Imagined its thin, muscular body coiling around his forearm and constricting. I imagined the needle-like pierce of its fangs as it struck.

He screeched, panic exploding from him, and flung his arm out. The snake-wand flew across the office and clattered behind the sofa.

The emotional assault cut off like a pulled plug. I sagged against the floor, wheezing.

Quentin stared at his arm where the fake snake had bitten him, fear spilling out from his regular-strength empath abilities.

"No," he panted. "Impossible. You—"

He swung his gun toward me, and Lienna tackled him around the waist.

They slammed down and the pistol skidded across the floor. She drove her fist into his jaw, then tried to pin him, but he had at least fifty pounds of muscle on her. He threw Lienna off, lurched up, and kicked her in the stomach as she tried to roll away.

He lifted his foot to stomp on her head—and a blast of sound exploded in my ears.

Quentin staggered back. Two more gunshots tore through the room, and two more bloody holes appeared in his chest. He stumbled another step, hit the wall, and slid down, leaving a streak of blood across the paint.

Maggie knelt beside the desk, clutching his dropped gun in shaking hands. Her face was white as a ghost, but her jaw was clenched and her normally gentle eyes burned.

My vision doubled and blurred. I was gasping frantically but getting no air, and I realized vaguely that my lung had collapsed.

"Kit!"

Lienna leaned over me. Maggie appeared on my other side, tears in her eyes.

Their mouths moved, but I couldn't hear them over my desperate attempts to breathe. Their faces seemed to be descending into darkness. The room faded.

I slid into unconsciousness.