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Caleb says nothing, pressing toward the rear of the room. He has one mission, one way out. They can’t wait any longer.
“Do you have the stake ready?” Caleb rasps. “We’re only going to have one chance at this.”
She lifts her shirt once more. “Yeah, I still have it. I know what’s at stake.” She cringes at the irony of the word. “I know what we have to do.”
Cora slips past them and moves from the first room into the second. She gasps.
Caleb darts in and stops short as he takes in the contorted bodies. Many have been burned, partially incinerated. Two piles fill one corner: wings without bodies and bodies without wings.
Caleb presses a hand to his mouth and bites back a gag. The stench of burned flesh sears his nose. “He’s a monster.”
Cora says nothing. Tears glitter on Maddy’s cheeks.
A scream echoes, emanating from the end of the corridor before them. A stuttering voice begs to be freed. Whimpering and crying meets their ears.
“He’s experimenting on supernaturals now,” Caleb rasps, horrified.
Maddy grimaces, and the muscles work in her cheeks. “He already worked his way through the shifters. You saw how contorted and messed up some of them were.”
Cora sighs. “Some of them were stronger than I’ve ever seen before.”
Caleb curses and darts toward the corridor. When he reaches the edge, he glances back. “You don’t have to come.”
Cora jerks her chin toward him. “Shut up.”
Maddy sadly shakes her head as she studies the bodies in the corner. “You know we do. I’m not letting you do this alone, Caleb.” She turns to him. “I love you too much to let you save the world on your own.”
Cora shrugs. “Ditto.”
Emotions swell in Caleb’s chest, but he doesn’t say anything else. He can’t. It’s now or never.
One step becomes ten, and he’s at the end of the corridor with Maddy and Cora close behind. Caleb sticks his head into the room where Orion’s bent over a supernatural strapped into a bed in the middle of a large testing area. The cot looks like something from a middle of the century sanitarium, the kind of thing used in shock therapy. Large metal monoliths surround the bed, and it reminds Caleb fleetingly of reading about human sacrifices in the middle of Stonehenge.
Sensors scream and display flash information all around. Malcolm set this up for him. He must have. Malcolm deserves everything he’s got coming to him, too.
“I’ve been waiting for you.” Orion straightens, but he doesn’t turn around. “I expected you much sooner.”
The trio doesn’t answer as the mutilated and unrecognizable creature on the bed whimpers.
“If you’d been here sooner, maybe all those winged creatures would still be alive.” He turns slowly then and sneers at them. “I had to entertain myself somehow.”
Caleb draws a rush of magic, and it fills his body, fueled by anger and vengeance. He points toward Orion, ready to send a stream of energy sailing toward the evil leader. His necklace warms against his chest.
He squeezes his eyes closed…
And nothing happens.
Again, Caleb tries. His pendant burns his skin.
Still nothing.
Maddy mutters something under her breath, and she leans toward him, too. “Nothing’s happening.”
Cora steps into the room, but she freezes and her eyes bulge. “Can’t, can’t.”
Orion chuckles, the sound evil. “Do you really believe I would be here, testing magical creatures without some kind of protection in place?”
“Dampeners,” Cora rasps. “He’s. Using. Dampeners.” She cries out as though she’s being crushed. “Get out. Get out.”
