Devilish Game (Shadow Guild: The Rebel 4)

“I’ve got a truth serum,” Eve said.

“I’ll wake him up.” Quinn grabbed a half-empty cup of water from the table behind him. A red lipstick stain marred the rim. He dumped the water over the guy’s head.

The man sputtered and sat up, gasping. As soon as he saw us, he growled and lunged. “Intruders!”

The ropes pulled taut, but he was moving so fast, he upended the chair, tilting forward. Quinn grabbed the back of the chair and yanked it into place. “Chill out, mate.”

The man growled and spit, heaving against the bindings.

He was going nuts.

I slapped him across the face, briefly shocking him into silence. Quinn gripped his head and tilted it back. His mouth gaped like a fish’s, shock flashing in his eyes.

Quickly, Eve uncorked the vial of truth serum and dumped it into his mouth before he could process what was going on. He sputtered, but most of it appeared to go down his throat.

Quinn leaned close and spoke in a menacing tone against his ear. “Calm down, or I’ll gut you like a Ton Ton and climb in for warmth.”

I grimaced. “What the hell was that, Quinn?”

He shrugged and smiled. “Been watching a bit of Star Wars.”

“Well it’s effective,” Mac said. “That would get me to shut up.”

The prisoner hissed at us, his eyes flashing with rage. “Those potions don’t work on me.”

Eve frowned. “Who are you?”

“No one you need to know.”

“Tell me your name.” Her voice hardened.

“Told you, those potions don’t work on me.”

“Damn it.” She turned to us. “He’s right. It’s not working.”

“The goddess protects me,” he said. “She’ll always protect me.”

“Maybe.” I nodded, crossing my arms over my chest. “But I bet she can’t protect you from the Devil himself.”

14

Carrow

Ten minutes later, I dragged our captive down the streets of Guild City. Mac and Eve helped me, each of us taking turns with the wagon we’d gotten from Quinn. Normally it was used to haul kegs. Now it was used to carry our captive. Seraphia had disappeared back to the library, and none of us spoke about the weird episode with the plants.

Behind us, the wagon rumbled over the cobblestones, the body of our captive unconscious inside. In London, you could never get away with something like this. In Guild City, it was a lot easier. We were still trying to avoid the police, but there were far fewer of them, and they didn’t really do patrols like human police did.

“Why did your potion bombs work on him but not the truth serum?” I asked Eve, who’d just taken her turn pulling the wagon full of crazy.

She shrugged. “I’ve heard you can develop an immunity to truth serum if you train. Or he might be protected, like he said.”

“It has to be a cult,” Mac said. “I mean, look at the robe. They all wore them. And he did sound crazy as a jaybird on Sunday.”

I had to agree. I hoped Grey could help us get to the bottom of it with his ability to compel people to speak. If he couldn’t, we were almost right back where we started, albeit now with some baggage.

We passed a restaurant with a patio, and the diners leaned out into the sidewalk to inspect the contents of our wagon.

“Just a little performance art,” I said.