Before Ivy could react, I siphoned their vampire strength and punched them across the side of the face as hard as I could. Ivy went down, and they didn’t get up.
“That sounded like a nice swing!” Alistair praised. Ancestors, he acted like he was listening to a wrestling match.
“Sire, you’ve knocked him out!” Eddie gasped.
“Ivy will be fine,” I said. “Danny, drag Chancey back into the tunnel.”
I spoke into my earpiece. “Max, can you send help to the storm sewers? Ivy and Chancey both need medical attention.”
“Asa and Aries are on their way,” she replied.
I leaned down to pick Ivy up, then hoisted them over my shoulder. I hurried back over to the tunnel I’d created to get us in here, and I tossed Ivy inside.
Danny set Chancey down in the tunnel. Chancey made a ragged noise as he slowly came to.
He coughed a few times and rasped, “Thanks… for not leaving me behind… boss.” His head slumped to the side again as he faded out.
That comment should’ve fucked me up. But to be honest, I didn’t feel much of anything.
I used my magic to cover the hole so that Ivy couldn’t use it to reenter The Devil’s City, then I turned to the others. “New plan. Salvatore’s men are going to be looking for us through maintenance access points, so our best chance is to take the route they’d least expect. Pidge, can you use your Spirit magic to turn us invisible?”
“If everyone stays close, I should be able to hold the spell,” she said.
“What’s our route?” Marcus asked.
Ivy must’ve gone through the building layout with me a hundred times before we portaled to Chicago. The staircase down to the boiler room didn’t connect with the stairwell to the other parts of the hotel. To get to the staircase leading us upstairs, we had to ascend a level and cross the casino floor. It sucked that we'd lost our guide, but we didn’t have a lot of options right now.
“We’re going through the casino,” I replied. “I hope you all like card games and slot machines, because we’re about to gamble for that key.”
Danny laughed. “The house ain’t winning today. That’s something I’ll bet on.”
We were all betting our lives on it. Ava hadn’t turned this many people invisible all at once, and her magic could falter at any time, but it was a risk we had to take.
“Are you sure about this, Charlie?” Marcus asked. “Vamps have other senses. We could still be detected. They’ll smell us before they see us.”
“We’re out of time, and it’s a crowded place,” I replied. “Our best option is to blend in with the crowd and move with them to get to the other side of the casino. If Salvatore already knows we’re here, he’s going to find us, which means we don’t have time to debate on what to do. We just need to do it and get to the key.”
Nobody else questioned me. Warmth surrounded me as Ava’s invisibility magic enveloped us all.
“Looking good on our end,” Gavyn said through the comms. “We can’t see you on the cameras.”
“Everyone be quiet and stay close,” I warned. “If you wander too far outside Ava’s magical range, you’re on your own.”
Marcus and Eddie took the lead, and we moved as a unit up the stairs. We came out in a deserted hallway, which I could only assume was filled with all kinds of maintenance rooms for employees only.
“We’re approaching a door,” Marcus whispered under his breath, for my sake as well as for the comms team back at the Scarlet Grand.
I heard a door creak open, and then came voices behind it. We entered a large foyer that must’ve been the entrance to the building. There were a few people crossing through, and several others behind a registration desk.
“Still looking good,” Gavyn said. “Make your move… now.”
We hurried across the foyer, until the sound of voices grew even louder, along with the pings of slot machines. The air seemed to close in around us as we neared the casino entrance. The casino was crowded, and there were at least a few hundred people inside, but there was no other way to get to the stairwell we needed; the guest stairs didn’t go all the way to the top of the tower.
“Approaching the casino now,” Marcus whispered. “Hang on… I sense some sort of ward here.”
Marcus paused, and I could feel magic swirling around him. A slight buzzing sound whirred in my ears, until Marcus breathed a sigh of relief and it disappeared completely.
“That was it?” I asked. “You broke the ward?”
