“Thanks.” I quickly relayed the information. “Guns, not good. And big guns, so not good. We need to go in on the offensive. So what have we got?”

But at that moment, a noise behind us sounded and we turned at the shout of the guards. It was murky, with Chatter’s lights being our only illumination, but there, charging toward us, loped a creature at least twelve feet tall. He was truly a monster—bipedal, but with long, thin arms, and tentacles coming out from both sides of his torso.

His face was troll-like—lumpy and deformed. His mouth was circular, like a lamprey’s, and razor-sharp teeth ringed the opening. But his eyes were what struck the most fear into my heart—they were cunning, and alien. Whatever this was, it was no Wilding Fae or Elemental, but something ancient and wicked, from the early days of the world.

I pulled out my dagger, but self-preservation prevailed and I let the guards push in front of me to meet it. Ysandra moved to the side of the passage, where she could get a clear shot at it, and she held up her hand and began reciting an incantation. I clapped my hands over my ears, remembering only too well how powerful her magic was.

The creature closed in on us, totally unfazed by our numbers, and as it neared the first line of guards, Ysandra let loose with her spell. Everyone within earshot went down on their knees as her command ricocheted through the room, sending shock waves reverberating through the tunnel.

The monster skidded to a halt, looking confused, but it didn’t drop. I’d seen Ysandra stop an entire gang of werewolves with the same spell, but it barely slowed this thing. Less than ten seconds later, it picked up steam again and was headed our way. The guards waited, swords drawn, looking nervous but holding their ground.

Then, as it neared us, an alarm filled the air and a light suddenly flared from the sides of the walls, illuminating the corridor. The door in back of us swung open, and I knew immediately what was happening.

“Hit the deck! Dive!” I leaped to the side, and the others followed suit as a spray of gunfire spewed down the corridor. We went flying, out of the way. I landed on my knees, hard, slamming against the wall. My shoulder took a jolt that made me think at first I’d dislocated it, but self-preservation won out over pain, and I squeezed against the walls.

The bullets were aimed dead center down the hallway, at the troll-cum-fishman, and their ricochet was enough to knock down a small elephant, but it didn’t seem to do any good. The thing kept right on coming, and now it was focused on the guards from behind the door and not on us. It staggered forward, not hurt but thrown off balance by the glancing blows of the bullets that ricocheted right and left.

We were all in duck-and-cover mode, but I managed a glance over my shoulder before Check came flying over to shield me. What I saw was the guards tossing their guns and getting ready to fight it hand-to-hand.

“It’s a tredobyte!” one of them shouted.

As the creature barreled past me toward the door, a piercing siren lacerated the air, sending me reeling. I covered my ears as I pressed to the wall. Check leaned over me, acting like a human shield as we tried to avoid being trampled.

I leaned against the stone. Another noise sounded from behind us, and a massive jolt reverberated through the tunnel. I whirled to see the tredobyte go down and the day-runners swarm over it, pouring some sort of liquid on it. The liquid hissed against the creature’s flesh. It let out a solitary shriek and was still.

We stood, slowly, eyeing the yummanii. They seemed as shell-shocked as we did, and before they could assess who we were and react, I charged, leading the others as we swarmed, knocking them to the ground and disarming them. We stood back, Peyton, Ysandra, and I holding their guns, while my guards held the men and woman by their arms. The woman opened her mouth and Luna lunged forward, slapping her hand over the woman’s mouth.

“Gag her. She uses magic of some sort and we don’t want to chance her unleashing a spell.” She held the gun out of the woman’s reach. “Fuck! She bit me; somebody hurry up!”

As another of the guards gagged the woman, Luna shook her head, looking at it carefully. A drop of blood welled up, but it didn’t look too serious.

I turned to the tredobyte, examining the creature. It was huge, with reptilian scales like snakeskin covering its body. The tentacles were limp against the ground, and they looked like those of an octopus. I poked one with the butt of the gun and it flipped over, showing barbs that could so easily hook into the skin. I wasn’t sure if they contained venom, and I wasn’t about to find out. Bipedal, yes…but far from anything we’d seen before. Definitely not Wilding Fae, and not anything remotely like the Shadow Hunters.

“I have no clue what this thing is.” I looked up at Check. “But it’s all muscle…there’s no fat on him. He could probably mow down a tank. I don’t know what they used on him, but whatever it was, it worked and left a long gash in his side.” Gingerly, I used the barrel of the gun to push back the flesh of the open wound. Beneath the scaly surface, the muscle and bone were apparent. Blood flowed in a thick ooze, but it was dark and muddy in color and had already clotted, even though the wound was still fresh. The edges of the gash were corroded, and I suspected the liquid had been some sort of acid.

After a moment, I figured we’d learned all we could about this thing and stood up, turning to the guards. The yummanii they held captive struggled, but their mouths were gagged and hands bound by now, and they looked both defiant and afraid. I gazed at them, wondering what the hell to do. If we killed them outright, it would make me feel like a murderer. But could we let them live?

You have no choice, Cicely. Ulean’s voice was gentle around me, a gust of warm, embracing air.

Check stood there, looking at me. I knew what I had to do, even though I didn’t want to. They worked for Geoffrey and Leo; they weren’t about to switch sides. It meant death for a day-runner to sell out.

“Find out what you can and then…” I turned away. “Find out what you can, then do what you need to.”

Check slowly made his way to my side and touched my shoulder. “Your Highness, I know this isn’t easy for you, but you have to be the one to say the words.” He gave me such a look of sadness and understanding that I wanted to hug him, to reassure him that everything would be all right.

Steeling myself, I looked into his eyes. “Find out what you can and then…execute them.” The echo of what I’d just ordered rattled through me like bones rolling in a coffin.

He nodded, then motioned to his men, and they followed him to one side, dragging the day-runners with them. I didn’t want to watch; I didn’t want to be there, but since it had been me who had ordered the group to their death, I had no choice. I wasn’t a coward and—as Queen—no doubt, I’d have to do this again, someday. And…I’d killed. In self-defense, yes, but I’d taken life before. How could I flinch from standing vigil?

As Check and his men held the day-runners against the wall, questioning them, trying to find out what we could about Geoffrey, Leo, and this complex, it was obvious the yummanii weren’t going to cooperate. They kept silent, refusing to speak. The wounds on their necks were deeply scarred. All of them had been fed from at one point or another.

After a few minutes, Peyton looked at me. “We aren’t going to have any luck, and with those Klaxons going off, surely they’ll be waiting for a report upstairs. We have to get moving or they’ll be fully armed and ready for us.”

She made a good point. I motioned to Check. The look on the day-runners’ faces told me they knew what was coming; the men’s eyes went wide while the woman closed hers, steeling herself. My guards were quick and humane, and as their daggers expertly slashed their throats, the blood poured to the ground. Within ten seconds, they were all unconscious, and within another twenty, they’d bled out enough to die.

Somber, feeling my heart weigh heavy in a way it never before had, I turned back to the room in which they’d been hiding. Stepping over the creature on the floor, I led the way in, followed by Check, Grieve, Chatter, and the others.

The room was large enough to house our entire party, and we glanced around, keeping an eye on both the door to the passageway and the door leading to what was undoubtedly the hidden lair housing Geoffrey and Leo’s operation.

What had been down here before? After all, the pair had only recently been on the run. Or did someone else control this lair, only allowing the two of them to make use of it? With these questions racing through my mind, I joined the others in poking around.

A logbook sat on the table, listing alerts. It looked like the last one had been three days ago, and all that was noted was Enemy dispatched. Korbant. Whether Korbant was the name of the creature they’d killed or the person logging the incident was impossible to tell. The rest of the entries for December were just initialed with the words No threat.

The room was filled with display cases, which in turn were filled with weapons. Big-assed guns that had been modified to blow away something with the hide of an elephant. A few flamethrowers. And a few other weapons that were hard to identify. I didn’t want to muck with them just in case one backfired.

“What lies through that door?” I started to walk over to the inner door, but Check was in front of me in a flash. He gave me a look that stopped me cold. I backed away, letting him check it out. But at least there was something I could do.

Ulean, can you peek behind that door?

A moment, then another.

Cicely, I can only sense a maze of twisting passages, but I can go no farther. There are blocks against my kind. I can see just beyond the door, but then a magical barrier prevents me from moving forward. No doubt the vampires set it up—it has the feel of new magic. And Geoffrey knows you have me with you, so I imagine it’s his doing. I have no idea how you’re going to get through there before the vampires rise.

I looked over at Peyton. “What time is it? Do you know?”

She pulled out her phone, checking the time. “No cell service down here, but it’s past three thirty now. We don’t have a long time till the vamps wake up, do we?”

“Fuck, no. We have less than an hour. Come on; no matter what, we have to get through there.” I motioned to Check. “You want to go first, fine, but we have to go. Ysandra, any chance you and Luna can see if there are any magical traps on this door?”

Ysandra and Luna pushed to the front. After a moment, they both shook their heads. Ysandra said, “I don’t think so, but there’s so much magic beyond this door I can’t tell for certain.”

“We should close the outer door,” Grieve said. “And lock it again. If another one of those…tredobytes comes wandering in, we don’t need to be dealing with it as well.”

Two of the guards who were standing sentinel by the door moved to close and bar it. They turned back. “We’re ready when you are, Your Highness.”

“Then let’s go.” I braced myself, praying that whatever might be on the other side of that door wouldn’t turn us into toast.

Check moved into position in front of me, along with Teral, and then motioned to the nearest guard, who yanked open the door. For one moment we were facing clear hallway, empty, but the next, a rolling mist poured out from nowhere, and in it were a host of forms. Shadows, they weren’t physical and yet not illusion. As they swarmed us, something grappled my throat.

Choking, I reached out, trying to get ahold on the shade, but my hands plunged through the filmy mass. Gasping, I struggled, but my fingers kept slipping through the shadow.

Ysandra let out a long cry out in some ancient tongue, and a blast rocked us, knocking us all to our feet as a forked chain of lightning filled the area, leaping from one shadowy creature to the next. They lit up like luminescent fog, then quickly burst into ethereal flames and vanished.

As I sat up, rubbing my throat, Grieve hurried to my side. “Are you all right, my love?” He lifted me up, and I nodded, still sputtering a little from the chokehold.

“Is everyone okay? Luna—Peyton?” I turned to check on them, but the guards were already helping them up. Everybody seemed to be fine, if a little shaken. “We have to get moving; that set us back a few minutes. What the fuck were those things?”

“Some sort of magical trap,” Ysandra said. “They weren’t real spirits, but magical constructs, and once I realized that, I knew I could shatter them.” She dusted her hands on the legs of her catsuit. “Whatever created them is dangerous, though. That’s an advanced spell, and I have my fears about what may be on the other end of it. There must have been a way to deactivate it in the outer room, but without knowing what to expect, it would be hard to find the trigger.”

And with that lovely thought, we entered the hallway. I only hoped that less than forty-five minutes would be enough time to find Geoffrey and Leo before they found us.

Chapter 16

Forty-five minutes isn’t a long time, and it feels even less when you’re facing a maze. As we entered the hallway, I stopped short. Instead of running just left and right, or even straight ahead, there were numerous passages opening along the horizontal wall, each leading into the darkness.

There weren’t any signs, and the only light was diffused, from overhead recessed lamps. The shadows were deep and my stomach lurched again. How the hell were we going to find our way through to where Geoffrey and Leo were sleeping in the time we had left?

“What do you wish us to do, Your Majesty?” Check stood at attention, waiting along with the other guards.

I looked hopelessly over at Grieve, not knowing where to start. My love lowered his gaze, looking uncertain.

After a moment, Ysandra spoke up. “Cicely, I have a suggestion. We don’t want to split up, obviously—that would be dangerous. But I think…if Peyton turns into her werepuma self and tries to sniff out Rhiannon…”