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“We haven’t yet determined which of those vampires have committed crimes and which have not,” Preta raised his chin.
Hudson tried again, “The OIB—”
“Just be glad your coven maintains its freedom,” Preta turned his back on us, heading for the front door. “You are to await further instructions.”
“We demand better treatment for the vampires you’ve imprisoned,” Jax said, stepping forward shoulder-to-shoulder with his twin. “We’ve heard you’re holding them in total darkness and that they’ve been mistreated.”
Preta faced us. “Very well, I will ensure they are kept comfortable until we determine their status. Now go back to the Roost.”
Excitement jolted through me at the thought of finally being able to return home. Demetri frowned but followed Preta. The rest of the lower-level directors went with them.
Soon, the twins and I were left outside with Nimue, Rye, Fox, and more than a dozen OIB agents. I glanced toward either side of the building and was glad to see they had the whole place surrounded, though I didn’t put it past La Cora and Cyrene to have teleporters under their thumb to get them out of there.
“Why do I feel like this isn’t over yet?” I asked.
“Because we didn’t actually accomplish anything?” Hudson ground out. “They’re keeping vampires locked up with no clear way out, Ty is still on the loose—”
“But we freed Mel’s mother’s spirit,” Jax pointed out.
“And for the first time in history, the threshold shrank instead of expanding,” Nimue added.
The three of us whirled on her, but just then, Nico and Lan came back outside.
“They’re locked up,” Lan announced. “They’re not going anywhere.”
“OIB agents are posted alongside DHA ones,” Nico added.
That was good to hear. I felt a little more reassured that maybe this would work out after all. Maybe the two of them really would have to face the consequences of their actions. Maybe they really would be brought to justice.
“So, no chance of jailbreak.” Fox rubbed his hands together gleefully. “We’ve waited over a decade to see those two brought low.”
“What was that about a ‘new threshold’?” I asked.
“You don’t know?” Rye asked.
“I teleported us straight out of there and onto our safehouse doorstep,” Jax explained.
Lan’s eyes lit up. “So you didn’t see…”
“Go home to the Roost,” Nimue suggested. “There are a few surprises waiting for you.”
Chapter Sixteen
Hudson
It was well into the late morning by the time we turned onto West Blvd and caught our first glimpse at the containment wall.
“How badly do you want to go back to the Roost right now?” I asked Mel.
“Bad. But not as much as I want to see what the hell they’re talking about,” she said.
Nico changed the directions on the AV’s display. I glanced over at Mel, thinking of what we’d accomplished inside the infernal realm. She’d been amazingly tough, brave, and bolder than I would’ve liked.
I would never tell her, but by becoming a vampire, she rounded out our coven even better from a tactical standpoint. Over the years working for the DHA and the OIB as a vampire, I’d come to recognize my vampire powers as an asset, rather than a liability… other than the difficulty managing my bloodlust. But the appetite suppressants took care of that little problem, and we shouldn’t need any more unless we drank too much from the bloodbags. Now that all four of us were vampires, and all four of us had the suppressants in our systems, drinking from each other shouldn’t cleanse us of the drug, which was as much magic as chemistry. Our coven had been upgraded, and not a moment too soon.
The AV rolled to a stop in the shadow of the containment wall. The crisp, still morning air made it feel like the world was waiting for us to discover what might be on the other side of that wall. We took the stairs up two at a time.
At the top, I pushed my way right up against the parapet to see the sun beaming down on the earth below. On the other side of the wall, miles of singed, blackened earth stood silent and still. In the distance, I caught sight of a long line of black, unobscured by anything taller than an old, dilapidated airplane in the foreground.
