Hearing Bane admit his motives out loud made me sick to my stomach. All of this—all the dead bodies, the violence, Danny’s coma—had been over a stupid dirt lot and personal vendetta.
My eyes zeroed in on the weapon in his hand. From a distance it appeared to be a typical semiautomatic. But closer, I realized it was a modified tranquilizer gun.
The next minute of my life passed in both fast-forward and slow motion at once.
Bane fell into a crouch. The gun swiveled toward Volos. A loud pop sounded. A red blur zoomed through the air. Volos jerked backward, his hand coming up to his throat. He slammed into the table, flipped backward over it, and landed with a loud crack that sounded suspiciously like skull against concrete.
I yelped and started forward, but from the corner of my eye I saw movement from Bane as he reached for a Mundane gun. Instinct drove me to tuck and roll. The gun barked. Searing pain in my right calf. My ribs slammed into the floor with blunt force. The momentum pushed me out of the line of fire and behind the overturned table.
Volos lay maybe eight feet away. His face was alarmingly pale and sweat plastered his shirt to his chest. His breaths came in shallow pants and the veins in his neck were pulsing rapidly.
I grabbed the salt flare from my ankle holster. Breathing heavily, I cursed myself for not bringing more Mundane firepower.
“Kate,” Volos rasped. I looked over in time to see a small pistol glide across the floor toward me. In a smooth movement, I grabbed it and swiveled upward to deliver two shots. Then I fell behind an overturned table. I quickly stashed the salt flare back in the ankle holster and checked the ammo in the pistol. Just a couple of bullets left. I sent one in Bane’s direction.
A satisfying yelp sounded from across the room. “Fucking bitch!”
Judging from the echoing sound of scrambling footsteps, he’d retreated back to the factory floor. Probably he’d want to find a nice hiding spot from which to watch the hunt once John turned.
Sucking down my fear, I surged up and ran full tilt toward the archway. My breath rasped in and out of my sandpaper lungs. My heart churned to keep the blood pumping through my taxed veins. With my back to the wall, I crouched down and went left—away from the large holes I’d seen earlier. I tried to get my adrenaline under control as I moved. Cool heads saved more lives than hot firearms.
There was no doubt in my mind that the tranq dart was filled with Gray Wolf. That meant I had only a few moments before Volos hulked out with a serious case of bloodlust.
From the corner of my ear, I heard a sound. Bane. Judging from the small whimper, I’d clipped him somewhere painful. But not painful enough. No amount of pain would be enough for that bastard now.
A wet noise, like gagging. “Kate,” John groaned thickly. “Run!”
Oh shit. Fear rippled across my skin.
Before I could react, though, Volos’s warning was followed by a low, guttural moan.
Lightning zinged through my limbs. My muscles yearned to run, but Bane still had a gun somewhere in the dark. The best I could do for the moment was take shelter behind a low, crumbling wall. Shit, Kate, think!
First things first—backup.
I pulled off the amulet and looked at the little bubble on the front. The iridescent, green liquid sparkled dully in the dark.
I hesitated. I’d gone without using magic for a decade, but now, because of my involvement in the MEA, I was knee-deep in it. What the hell had this case done to my convictions?
A growl echoed, closer now, making my spine crackle with fear. Volos wouldn’t stop until he consumed me, and even if I managed to escape him, Bane wanted my blood, too. I put a lot of faith in my wits and my gun, but I wasn’t a fucking idiot.
I cracked the vial and lifted it to my lips. All the while, I promised myself that if I survived that night, I’d go back to never touching the stuff again. The liquid tasted bitter on my tongue and the texture was effervescent like those rock candies kids loved. The amulet didn’t light up. No sirens sounded. No immediate sign at all that the bat signal even worked. Morales had said they were going to be on Bane’s tail that night. Obviously he’d given them the slip. Had they closed up for the night? Was anyone even monitoring the alert system? “Please work,” I whispered.
“Kate,” Bane taunted. The echoes made distances hard to determine, but I guessed he was probably about halfway through the room, hauled up behind the old crates. “Can’t you imagine the newspaper headline: ‘Cop Killed By Wizard Ex-Lover’? The reporters at the Babylon Register are going to cum all over themselves.” His giggle echoed through the space, making hairs stand on the back of my neck. “Better run before the potion does its work.”
He was referring to Volos, but the one I’d just ingested was working, too. Already the pain in my injured leg was less severe. My breathing calmed and I felt a kick of energy as the potion heightened my stamina.
Another bullet whizzed by. Too close. I scooted back along the wall to see if I could get a bead on Volos’s location. But where he’d been before, I saw nothing but tile floor and a pile of green sick.
I looked out across the factory floor and froze. A hulking shadow was moving away from me.
On one hand, I should have felt relieved that I was not his first target. On the other, I now had both a psychotic wizard and a werewolf between me and freedom.
My heart sprinted in my chest. Shit, shit, shit. I had to figure out how to get out of the place with the antipotion so I could save Danny.
Time to think. Obviously I had two choices. The first involved my waiting for the team to respond and hoping they arrived before Volos found me or I ran out of ammo.
Second option: I could try to lead Volos toward Bane and let the beast rid the Cauldron of a major criminal element.
Another option hit me like a bolt of lightning to the synapses.
I could finish the antipotion. Short of putting a bullet in John’s brain, finishing the cure was the only way to ensure we both made it out alive.
A feral roar came from within the labyrinth of garbage on the brew floor. I couldn’t pinpoint where he was exactly, but I had a bad feeling he knew exactly where I was. The blood trail from my calf wound alone would be like a beacon to his predatory instincts.
“It’s too bad it had to come to this, Katherine!” Bane yelled, his tone bordering on hysterical. Where the hell was he hiding that he felt confident enough to yell?
I rose into a crouch and started making my way toward the lab. If I could lock myself inside, maybe I could survive long enough to finish the antipotion. Or for backup to arrive.