SPARKS FLY
You've got to be kidding me," I said, lying spread-eagled in the hall with only my ankle inside the room that kept me prisoner here. They really should have thought of that and tagged my neck or something. Judging by the looks the tall, annoyed werewolf guard was giving my ankle, he was thinking the same thing. And still staying out of reach, dang it all.
"Please confirm." His voice was low and terse. "Werewolf or not?"
He had a woman by the elbow. Her shoulders were hunched inward, her face terrified, eyes darting every which way avoiding mine. Her corkscrew-curly brown hair was wild and unbrushed, but her clothes seemed nice.
See, with werewolves, unless it's a full moon there's really no way to tell. Silver only affects them when they've wolfed out, and no one else can see their true nature like I can. And since the full moon had just passed, they had no way to confirm what she was until the next one. Somehow they thought I would do it for them.
I looked up into her yellow wolf eyes and felt nothing but compassion and pity. "Actually, you're way off."
"Oh?" the guard asked.
"Yup. She's not a werewolf, she's a chupacabra. Have you noticed a lot of missing goats lately?"
He growled his frustration. I bared my teeth back at him in a smile. "Tell Anne to come see me." It had been at least six hours. Or twelve. Or a hundred, for all I could tell, and I was ready to rip my hair out.
He turned, and the wolf woman finally made eye contact with me. "Hey," I said, "it's going to be okay. And if you see a faerie, any faerie, tell them IPCA has the Empty One."
"Ignore her," the guard said, pulling on the woman's elbow roughly.
"What's your deal? I mean, come on, why are you working with them?" I sat up, ankle still safely in the room. "Don't you get it? I can help you! Get me out of here and I'll take you with me."
His face turned a peculiar shade of red as he turned and loomed over me. "Help me? You've already helped me plenty. You know who bit me, who turned me into a monster? One of the werewolves that you set loose on the world, doing your little good deeds and 'rescuing' them from IPCA. I'm here because of you. Now get back in your room and rot, or so help me I will come back here with more than a Taser."
He stalked off down the hall and around the corner out of my sight, dragging the wolf woman in his wake.
"Well, that's just great," I muttered. "I make friends everywhere." While I had to admit that his situation did totally stink, and I could see why he would want someone to blame, I wasn't going to feel guilty about it. A) I didn't have time, and B) freeing all the Center's werewolves had freed Charlotte, my tutor, reuniting her with her family. I couldn't hold myself responsible for the actions of every paranormal I'd ever come into contact with one way or another.
Okay, maybe I could have done more to make sure they were all accounted for and had plans in place to control themselves at full moons. I banged my head back against my doorframe. Not my fault. Not my fault. Not my fault.
A voice from one of the other cells I couldn't see into drifted toward me. "Leibchen, are you still sad? I could help."
Yeah, because being trapped with no way to get out and save Lend and all IPCA against me wasn't bad enough, my block mate was the creeptastic uber-vamp stalker I partially drained on Halloween. He kept trying to start up a conversation, but even his voice set my teeth on edge. And then there was the matter of the part of his soul I was carting around inside myself.
But thinking about draining him made me wonder...if I could still feel nervous energy from him, and rushing chill from the fossegrim, and sparks from the sylph...I scooted back into my room, ignoring Uber-vamp. If I could concentrate the energy from souls enough to open gates between worlds, I should be able to do something else with it. Maybe.
It was worth a shot. I rolled up my pant leg, then closed my eyes, breathing deeply. Focusing inward, I tried to pick out the sense of the sylph's soul, the sparking, dry heat, the rush of wind. There! And there! Willing it to come together, I mentally directed it to my hand, and then to my pointer finger. It took a while, but eventually I could feel it building up, gathering there like a miniature storm. I opened my eyes and saw sparks dancing along the length of my finger beneath my skin. I squealed with happiness, and they scattered.
Bleep. After repeating the process, I finally had all the sylph energy more or less concentrated. "Here goes nothing," I muttered, then reached down, put my finger against the ankle tracker, and willed the sparks to leave.
And then screamed as currents of electricity shot back and forth between my finger and the ankle tracker. I shook all over but couldn't control my muscles enough to move my finger. Finally it stopped and I collapsed on the ground, my nose assailed by the smell of burned plastic and skin.
I moaned softly, biting my tongue against the pain in my ankle and willing myself not to scream. After what felt like forever I was able to sit up and survey the damage. Angry red marks were already bubbling into blisters around the ankle tracker, which, as far as I could tell from the warped surface and faint smoke still drifting up, was out of commission.
I braced for an alarm, but none went off. Which meant I probably had a few minutes tops before the computer system registered that my ankle tracker was down. I stood up and gasped over the pain screaming through my ankle.
Okay, electricity burns? NOT. FUN.
But I could hurt later. Right now I had to get out and save Lend.
I limped over, then hesitated at the doorway. I didn't think I could handle another shock, but there was no avoiding it. Taking a deep breath, I pushed my foot across the threshold into the hall.
Nothing.
"Thank you, you crazy sylph," I whispered, then hobbled hurriedly down the hall away from Uber-vamp's voice. I had never known this wing existed when I lived here, but Jack had brought me here to visit Vivian. Just after my entire life fell apart and just before he left me in the Faerie Paths to die. So I hadn't been paying the best attention, but I was pretty sure the door was at the end of this hall.
I paused. Vivian was still here, on the other end of the hall. I had trusted Raquel with her care, but now that Raquel was somehow out of power, I didn't want to leave Viv alone and asleep. But I didn't have time to grab her, and even if I did, I didn't think I could execute what was probably already an impossible escape while carrying her on my back.
I shook my head. I'd come back for her soon. She'd wanted me to get to Lend as fast as I could; she'd understand. I needed to get out of this hall. After that, my only hope was to run into a faerie. I hurried to the end of the Iron Wing and opened the door.
Where I found myself face-to-face with Anne-Whatever Whatever herself.
I pulled my hand back to punch her. "What are you-" she started, when her eyes went wide and she collapsed on the ground, revealing Tasey in the hands of a teen boy with blond curls, blue eyes, dimples, and the most impish smile I'd ever seen.
"Hey-oh, did you miss me?" Jack asked.