“I don’t know all the details—Jonathan cut me out of his plans a while ago. He’d already been working with other supers before that. You know, disgruntled mercenary types. But the fae thing is new.”
“Care to speculate on their arrangement?”
“From what I could piece together, Orendiel heard about Jonathan’s work and approached him about partnering up. I think Orendiel made him some kind of deal—fae weapons and tech in exchange for a place on Jonathan’s team.”
That was a disturbing thought. One lone psycho could easily influence a contingent of aging hunters like Shears and Smokey Joe. But fae were notorious tricksters, and they weren’t easily swayed. If Orendiel had truly wanted a spot on the team—enough to approach Jonathan like that—then Jonathan must’ve been working on something major. Something that went far beyond kidnapping witches and torturing supernaturals.
Like weaponized devil’s traps, you idiot.
A chill ran down my spine as the pieces clicked into place. For all Jonathan’s mad scientist craziness, he’d already made some pretty disastrous discoveries. Discoveries that could bring the supernatural world to its knees.
And now the fae had their hands in it.
“We need to get everyone out of here,” I said. “And then I need to find the witches.”
Fiona sighed. “Even if we could figure out how to open the cages, what then?” Her shoulders sagged. “Look at them, Asher. They’ve been starved, beaten, tormented. Nobody in this room is walking out on their own two feet. Or four feet. Or wings, for that matter.”
Much as I hated to admit it, Fangs had a point.
“We need to heal them,” she went on, surveying the poor beasts. “At least, the ones who are still alive. If we can get their strength up, some of them might stand a chance.”
“Great. I don’t suppose you have a stash of psycho hunter antivenin on you?”
“No, but…” She tapped her lips, her brow furrowed in concentration. After a beat, her eyes lit up, and a slow smile spread across her lips. “I’ve got the next best thing.” Fiona pushed up her sleeve. “Vampire blood.”
“I’m listening.”
“There are four other vampires here. Once we stop the hawthorn poisoning, their bodies should start to regenerate. I can help speed up the process with some of my blood. Once they’re strong enough, they can help me with the others.”
“Vampire blood won’t work on shifters.”
“It might ontheseshifters.” She glanced around at the caged beasts, then sighed. “They’re hybrids.”
“So, shifter and…?”
“Vampire.”
My eyes widened. I didn’t even want toknowhow Jonathan had pulled off that fucked-up feat.
“Alright,” I said. “First things first. How do we get past the fae mojo?”
“That’s the thing—we can’t.” Her shoulders sagged again. “Not without the keycards.”
I shoved a hand through my hair, damn near ready to tear it out. “So we’re right back at square—Wait a minute. Keycards?”
She nodded. “The lead guards carry them. They look like—”
“This?” I pulled out the wallet I’d jacked from Smokey Joe and flashed the collection of black cards.
“Where did you get that?” she asked, but she was already reaching for my arm, tugging me toward the main chamber’s entrance. “Check the walls. There should be a panel.”
“I don’t see anything.”
“It’s spelled to look like the rock. You have to feel for it. It’s not as cool as the real rock around it.”
We each took a side and methodically worked our way across the walls. She found the panel a few minutes later, opening it to reveal a series of card readers and red LCD lights.
After a good bit of trial and error, we managed to find the right cards, swipe, and turn all the red lights green.
