Ivy, I thought, remembering her last look at me. And Jenks. They’d look for me. Bis, too. But if Bis could find me, he would have already, and as I watched the woman preparing an injection, I didn’t think anyone would find me in time. The memory of Bancroft screaming at the top of the FIB tower filled my thoughts, and I tried to breathe faster, willing the drug out of me.
A soft thump followed by men shouting jerked through me. My eyes widened as the ranging mystics flowed back into me without warning, frightened and bringing half-realized impressions.
Oh God, they were back, and I panted, so full of their fear that I . . . couldn’t . . . think . . . Dizzy, I tried to focus but the images they brought were confusing. What in hell were they doing back with me? I couldn’t help them.
Sensation was returning to my hands, and I curled my fingers under, the smooth feel of the chair grating across my nerves. A strap holding me pulled, and a mystic wondered why I didn’t move through the spaces in the strap and become free.
Slowly I walled them off, ignoring them until I could breathe again. My head rose when Ayer came in, his pace satisfied. I let go of my fist when he noticed it. “All set?” he said loudly, and Annie backed away from the machine, her eyes black in fear. “Glad to see you regaining your small motor skills, Morgan.” He turned to Annie. “Do we have the last of them contained yet?”
The man by the door stiffened. “Yes, sir. They’re being brought down right now.”
“Good. Good. Try to make it a good fight, Morgan. You last long enough, and we’ll have enough mystics to be out of Cincinnati tonight.”
They were going to take this madness on the road? “Just because I’m strapped down doesn’t mean I’m helpless,” I said, feeling . . . helpless.
Annie was at the machine, her shoulders hunched. Still smiling, Ayer swung the folding chair around and sat in it, the length of the table between us as he leaned back and put an ankle on his knee. A tingle of wild magic went through me, driven by a flash of fear as Annie went to the door to take the little box from the man standing there. Snaps left with him, leaving just the three of them—the three of them and that little box that held a world.
Annie hesitantly set it on the table, then dropped a mess of wires and little skin pads beside it. Shit, they were going to hook me up. Make me talk to the splinter. My heart thudded at the softly glowing lights on the containment device. It was identical to the one I’d seen at Junior’s, and Ayer gently touched it. “Please don’t do this,” I whispered, looking at the leads on the table. “She’s going to kill me.”
Kill! echoed the mystics, their feelings of loss taking on the tint of mistrust, and then a sudden, heady desire to crush everything that threatened them. My skin tingled with wild magic, unfocused and unusable.
“Demons beg?” Ayer said, pushing Annie aside to untangle the lines himself.
“Please!” I exclaimed as he attached the first pad to my temple, needlessly grabbing my chin to make me look at him. The zip strip kept me from tapping a line, but the thinnest thread of wild magic seeped through me, maddeningly present but too little to even lift a feather. My heart thudded as the last electrode was fastened to my wrist. Ayer watched, arms over his chest in mistrust at my sudden silence, and Annie gathered the cords and started to plug them to the machine itself.
“This is wrong,” I said, feeling no change as the connections were made one by one. There was probably a button to push or something. “I know the masters are a pain in the ass. I know they’re abusive and move on cronyism and backroom deals, but killing them to make the rest behave isn’t going to happen. You’re just going to piss them off and start a street war! The more vampires that die, the more undead there will be. You’re killing yourself!”
I wiggled, caught in the chair as the last wire was connected and Annie stood back, her eyes wide in indecision. The drug had worn off, but now I was caught by straps and Velcro. The man waited at the tower of machinery as if for a signal. A single wire went from it to the box on the table, and then to me. How could something so small hold something so powerful?
There is lot of space between space, a handful of mystics said, feeling my fear but not understanding how it could come from a box.
Again a soft thump shifted the air. Over the bed, the chandelier jingled. The man took his hand off the machine and put it on his pistol. My breath came fast, and I held it. Ivy? Jenks? Trent?
“Go see what that is,” Ayer said, and the man jogged out the door. Immediately Annie took his place at the bank of machinery. “We will be free of the masters,” Ayer said as he stood, moving to where he could watch both me and the door. “We will break the curse for good.”
“Do you even hear yourself?” I said as Annie flicked a switch at Ayer’s direction, and a warm feeling echoed between my ears. Within me, the mystics swirled, agitated but unfocused. “You’re killing them to make others afraid!” I looked at Annie, trying to play on her guilt. “You’re killing innocents!”
“The masters are not innocent!” Ayer shouted, his face reddening. “It’s not murder if they have no soul!” He strode to the bank of machines, and the woman backed up, scared. “Is it ready?” he barked.
“Yes, sir,” she said, and Ayer reached in front of her and flipped a second switch.
Energy washed into me, thousands of voices circling in madness. A harsh moaning grew until I realized it was me and I choked the noise off. My head pounded, and I tried to stand only to fall back, bound to the chair. Insane mystics poured into me, swamping the meek and frightened ones I’d grown accustomed to. They rolled my thoughts upside down, tumbling them like waves spinning a swimmer into the rocks.
Wild magic was a flash behind them, and I grasped it, shoving everything else away and using it to ground myself, building a bubble about me to numb the force, but it did no good.
“Sir, it’s pegged!” Annie shouted, and from somewhere outside myself, I felt my hands digging into the hard chair. “It’s going to kill her!”
“Leave it where it is! Shoot her if she gets free!” he said, and fear rolled about my mind, jumping from one mystic to the other like an electrical storm until fear was all I was. I hung my head, trying to find one tiny space where I could catch my breath. The insane splinter ate away at me, their wild magic sparking through me in painful pings. It demanded an outlet, demanded action. But I had no control, and it simply became harder to bear.