Hexbound (The Dark Elite 2)

“As a matter of fact, I do.” After searching her pants pockets, Detroit popped another black pill into the hallway, letting the magic smoke illuminate the trip wires. Then she unzipped a long pocket along her knee and pulled out a child’s spinning top.

“Quick invention,” she said, “but I think it will work.” She crouched down and put the top on the floor, then gave it a twirl. It wobbled, but began to spin, whirring as it gathered speed and moved down the hallway toward the double doors.

And as it spun, it began to spindle both the magic smoke and the trip wires the smoke had revealed. In a few seconds, the hallway was clean, the top glowing with newly bundled magic.

“Seriously, I think that’s the coolest thing you’ve done so far.” Scout’s tone was reverent.

“Glad you like it,” Detroit said. She walked down and collected the top, then held it out to Scout. “I thought you could have it. You can unspindle the trip wires. Make them your own.”

With her eyes gleaming like it was Christmas morning, Scout accepted the gift.

“All right,” Jason said. “Now that the coast is relatively clear, let’s get this show on the road.” He stopped in front of the double doors and glanced back. “Everybody ready?”

When we nodded, he pushed them open. One by one, we tiptoed inside.

“Lily,” he whispered. “Lights.”

I pulled the power and sent it upward. Long rows of fluorescent lights above us stuttered to life.

We were in a hallway—the kind you might see in a hospital. Wide corridor, pale green walls, doors on the right and left . . . and a long trail of slime leading back toward other rooms.

“Stay here,” Jason said, then began to move forward, peeking through the rooms on the right-hand side of the corridor. When he reached the second door, he stopped.

“What is it?” Scout whispered.

He beckoned us forward, then walked inside. We followed him . . . and gaped.

Temperance had thought the sanctuary was a clinic. But this didn’t look like any clinic I’d ever seen. The center of the room was lined with counters topped by pieces of medical equipment. And the walls were covered by whiteboards. Some with lines and lines of formulas, others with writing—theories about vampires and immortality and magic.

And how to keep it forever.

We stopped and stared at the last board.

Photographs had been stuck there with magnets—photos of Reaper works in progress. The rats, from tiny nubbins to full-grown creatures. For a second, I felt a little sorry for them.

“We were right,” I said. “They were doing experiments, and vampires were their model.”

Hands on her hips, Scout gazed at the pictures. “What were they trying to do? Build some kind of forever-magic superbeings?”

“Maybe,” Jason said. “Or maybe just figure out if there was a source for the immortality.”

“Maybe it has something to do with the slime,” I suggested. “Maybe the slime served some kind of purpose. Like, I don’t know, some kind of immortality elixir or something.”

“That is totally rank,” Scout said, her face screwed into a look of disgust. “But I wouldn’t put it past them.”

“Temperance must not have known what these were,” Detroit said. “If she had, she’d have known this wasn’t a clinic.”

“I’m sure she did the best she could,” Scout said.

“We’ll let our guys figure out the details,” Jason said. “Scout, take pictures of the whiteboards so we can turn them over. Lily, as soon as she’s done, erase them. All of them. We’re not helping them preserve whatever ‘science’ they’ve done here.”

We followed his directions. Scout walked slowly around the room, snapping photos with her camera so we had proof of what the Reapers had been up to. I followed behind her. Each time she snapped a photo, I used my sleeve to wipe off the writing.

When the room was clean and Scout’s phone was tucked away again, we headed back into the hallway. The rest of the rooms on the mazelike floor were either research labs, or more like the medical facilities Temperance had described. There were needles, bandages, and monitors just like she’d said, but not for healing. For experimenting.

The whole place had an awful vibe. And then we rounded a corner . . . and walked right into the nest.

The rats had taken up an entire corridor, the walls and floor coated with slime. Dozens of them slept in a pile in one corner.

Home sweet home, I thought.

Detroit screamed.

Chaos erupted.

Jason immediately shifted, his giant silver wolf taking the attack. He pounced on the back of a rat, which began squealing and screeching and trying to throw him off.

I looked over at Michael, who stood in the middle of the room, eyes wide with fear. I pulled him away, then planted him beside the wall on the other end of the corridor. “Stay here, okay?”

He nodded, but pointed at Scout. “I think she needs help.”

Scout was throwing what looked like marbles at the rats. Each time they made impact, they sent a shock wave through the creatures—their skin wobbling in circular ripples just like on a slow-motion camera. Unfortunately, while the shock waves moved the rats back a few feet, they didn’t stop coming.

I looked around the room—and found the same problem all over. Everything we were doing was working, but only to a point.

“This isn’t doing much good,” Paul yelled, tossing one rat over his shoulder. “It’s not killing the rats!”

That was when the gears clicked into place. Scout’s spell might have worked before, but normal combat wasn’t going to do the trick. “That’s because they’re not really rats!” I yelled over the din of battle. “Scout, what takes out vampires?”

“The usual stuff!” she yelled back. “Fire, stakes, garlic, crosses, silver, and, you know, dismemberment.”

I decided to leave that one to Jason. “Remember they’re related to vampires!” I called out to everyone else. “So hit ’em where it hurts!”

I went with my best weapon. Firespell wasn’t exactly fire—it was Jamie who had that power—but it was as close as I was going to get. There was too much chaos to try an all-out burst of it—too high a chance that I’d hit an Adept. But Sebastian had said I could use it in pinpoint fashion. Might as well try that now.

I maneuvered around until I had a clear shot at one of them, then squeezed my hands into fists. I opened myself to the power, but instead of trying to throw it all back out again, I lifted a single hand, my fingers cupped, and visualized sending that single burst of magic into one of the creatures, the way Sebastian had taught me.