“I don’t give a flying fuck,” Curran said. “If they decide to cause a problem, I’ll cull them down until they stop being a problem.”
Okay then. “How did you find me?”
“I found Nick first,” Curran said.
Oh boy. “Please don’t tell me you opened up the crusader’s stomach to see if he had something stupid in him, too.”
“I didn’t have to. He told me where you were.” Curran waved his hand at the grimy office. “This was Hugh’s backup plan. If he didn’t get his way, you would end up in Mishmar. I went back to the Keep and asked for volunteers to come with me. We had to move fast. Christopher showed up with your hair and said he could track you with it.”
“You brought Jim.” I smiled.
Curran rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t planning on it. Then Jim and I snarled at each other for half an hour, and Raphael and Mahon decided that this time they could stay behind. I had Jim and Christopher. Derek wanted to come, but he wasn’t at one hundred percent, so I wouldn’t take him. Robert and Thomas volunteered. Andrea, too.”
Oh, you bloody idiot. She shouldn’t have come. I’d give her shit for it when we got out. I glanced at Robert. “Why?”
He sighed. “Because I understand. If my mate were gone, I would find him. No matter what it took. He would do the same for me. Where one of us goes, the other follows.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“You’re welcome.”
“With the two of them, we had enough, but we needed a medmage. Doolittle couldn’t go, but he asked for volunteers.” Curran nodded at Nasrin.
The medmage shrugged. “I go where I’m needed.”
“Then I had to make fucking arrangements to make sure the Pack didn’t fall apart while we were gone. The Council pitched a fit. We didn’t set out until the next morning.”
The way he said that didn’t bode well for the Council. “They didn’t want you to go.”
“Somebody got excited and told me that I couldn’t go since it wasn’t in the best interests of the Pack,” Curran said.
Figured. No matter how well I served the Pack, my life wasn’t worth risking Curran or the other alphas. It should’ve hurt, but I was used to it by now.
“They were panicked,” Robert said.
“What did you do?” I asked Curran.
He shrugged. “I reminded them that I was the one who decided things.”
“It took us two days to get here,” Robert said. “There is a really fast ley line coming back from here that starts around St. Louis, but there’s almost nothing going northwest.”
“The roads are shit,” Curran said. “We didn’t exactly know where Mishmar was in the first place, and when we finally got here it took another day to find a way in. But the real issue was that we couldn’t move during tech. Christopher suspended your hair in some solution and we used it as a compass, but it only worked while the magic was up. I had to sit on my hands and wait half of the time. We’ve been wandering through the damn place for days.”
Poor Christopher. I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth, but not there. I cannot go there again. But he did. He came to Mishmar for me. If we got out of here alive, I would find a way to repay him.
“Did Christopher tell you to bring the saws?”
Curran nodded. “He said there were prison cells . . .”
Curran raised his head. Robert turned toward the doorway.
A rhythmic staccato of shots was coming from somewhere down the hallway. Ten to one, it was Andrea.
Thomas stuck his head into the doorway. “We have to move.”
• • •
WE RAN THROUGH the narrow hallway. Well, I wasn’t really running. I was dragging myself forward.
Curran leaned toward me. “Are you going to be a hardass about this?”
“What do you think?” We were already down by one, because Ghastek couldn’t walk and Jim decided to carry him. I wouldn’t tie up Curran’s hands by making him carry me, too.
“If you say you got it, you got it. But if you fall down, I’ll pick you up.”
“Deal.”
Falling didn’t seem like such a bad idea now.
The narrow hallway kept going, its plain brown walls punctuated by doorways that opened into offices filled with filthy shattered furniture. The two wererats led the way, both in half-form, lean, shaggy, and fast. Nasrin followed, then Curran and I, Jim with Ghastek, and Christopher and Andrea bringing up the rear. Behind us, the vampires dashed through Mishmar. I could feel their minds. There were close to twenty now, six directly behind us and the rest above and on the sides. It felt like they were moving through the walls.
Thomas, the larger of the two wererats, made a sharp turn. I followed just in time to see him jump through a jagged hole in the floor. I ran after him and looked through the hole. A nine-foot drop. Sure, why not. I climbed into the hole. Ow. I stumbled. Okay, this wasn’t a good idea. Curran dropped down after me.
“Got it, baby?” he asked quietly.
“Piece of cake.”
Nasrin was already jumping through another hole a few feet to the right. I checked the height. More like twenty-five feet this time and too narrow for me and Curran to go through at once. “I’ll take that help.”
Curran jumped in and landed down below. “Go.”
I dropped into the hole. He caught me and lowered me to the floor. “Good?”
“Good.”
“Necro in the hole,” Jim called from above. I looked up in time to see Ghastek falling out of the ceiling. Curran caught him.
“This is ridiculous,” Ghastek said.
Jim jumped down. Curran handed Ghastek off and we were on our way. The room we were in now was wide and stretched for hundreds of feet. It resembled a hotel lobby: tall gray columns of natural stone, textured ceiling, steps with some glossy black finish, dusty elaborate chandeliers that had somehow survived the disaster . . .
The magic rolled over us like a viscous invisible wave.
Black stalks spiraled out of the ground.
Curran and I moved at the same time. He scooped me up just as I jumped in his arms and then he sprinted across the room like a bat out of hell. When a magic wave hits and something weird pops out of the ground, you don’t wait to find out what it is. You put some distance between you and whatever the hell that thing is.
Behind us, Andrea barked. “Run, Christopher!”
All around us the stalks split, their offshoots widening into triangular leaves.