The room tilted briefly. Fatigue and hunger were catching up to me faster than I liked. When this was over, I was so taking a vacation. I needed to get out of this damned city for a while. My entire life I’d never been farther than twenty miles away. I’d never seen the ocean; I wanted to see the ocean. That settled it—once this was over, road trip to the coast.
I almost believed it would happen.
After another moment’s rest, I left my bag on the ground floor and began my long ascent.
On the fourth-floor landing, I paused and listened. Not because I heard anything amiss but because I heard nothing at all. During my other two visits, I’d heard the distant hum and scuffle of gremlin activity moments after entering the factory. Thousands of the small creatures lived here; silence was next to impossible. But the factory felt hollow, empty.
I retrieved my borrowed gun and checked the ammo clip. Regular rounds—Felix had probably expected trouble from me. Gun by my side, I pressed my ear to the landing door. Tried the handle. It moved without hesitation, squealing sharply as old metal moved for the first time in years. From the layers of grime on its surface, I couldn’t imagine the gremlins used it.
It opened into a narrow corridor. The dim shaft of light from the stairwell did nothing to illuminate its interior. It carried the faint, familiar alcohol odor of gremlin urine, with no signs of gremlin activity. I let the door squeak shut, then went up to the top floor.
Faced with a familiar door, I paused, every sense on alert. No one was waiting for me. I heard no movement from behind the door. Something was very wrong. Had someone come after the gremlins without my knowledge? Had they vacated on their own whims, without any thought to the deal I’d made with them? The latter was less likely, given their literal tendencies.
Did I shout the proper greeting? Try the door first? Everything about it felt wrong, but if I turned and left, I might never get the information I wanted.
I was doing everything a Hunter was told not to do: entering an unknown situation alone, without proper weapons, and without backup en route. Not much I could do about the circumstances, with all my allies either hospitalized or against me. Circumstances that hadn’t much changed since my resurrection four days ago.
I retrieved the cell phone and turned it on. It was just something Kismet had said, something she seemed to imply during our last conversation. I hit Redial.
Something musical rang out on the other side of the steel door.
I turned and bolted back down the stairs. Sixth floor, fifth floor. On the fourth-floor landing, the door swung open. I sidestepped but wasn’t fast enough to miss the plank of wood that swung at my head. Vivid lights exploded behind my eyes, and then darkness.
Chapter Fourteen
6:08 A.M.
“Shit, she’s already waking up.”
“Dose her, then.”
“And here I thought I hit her too hard.”
The voices swirled through a haze of pain. I pushed against the brain fog, trying to swim out of the darkness shrouding my mind. I was lying on something hard and cold and uncomfortable. Something sharp pricked my shoulder. My hands instinctively reached out for anything familiar and solid … only they didn’t move right.
Metal dug into my wrists. More around my ankles. Old fear as sharp as flint and chilling as frost settled into my stomach. Squeezed my heart and set it pounding impossibly loud.
Trapped. Bound. In the dark.
The bindings on my wrists and ankles held. I couldn’t get up, couldn’t see, didn’t know where I was.
“What the hell’s wrong with her?”
I knew the voice, but I didn’t care. I was on a hardwood floor, not a sweat-soaked mattress, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t naked, and I wasn’t in the closet at the old train station, but I didn’t fucking care. Nothing mattered except getting loose.
“Let me go!” I hit a wall with my right shoulder, aware of shuffling feet and whispering clothing. I felt them nearby, closing in. My stomach turned inside out. Bile scorched the back of my throat. I tried to use the wall as leverage to sit up but had lost all sense of balance.
“Stone, calm down!”
Tears dampened the fabric across my eyes. Unspent sobs hitched my breath in my lungs and closed my throat. I gasped and choked, repeating my plea for release. The blindfold was removed, and I blinked against the sudden light. Snapped my teeth at the hand still close to my face.
“Christ,” the hand’s owner said. “Is she nuts?”
“Get these damned things off me,” I snarled, yanking my wrists and ankles apart. Metal sliced flesh. Blood slicked my skin. The brain fog remained, settling in a little deeper. I couldn’t seem to think, just react.
“Ty, unlock the cuffs.”
“Kis—”
“Do it. Stone, we’re going to uncuff you, but you need to calm down.”
Something in Kismet’s voice cut through my haze of terror. I stopped thrashing and closed my eyes, coiled like a spring, certain of attack. I felt hands on my ankles, and then the cuffs were gone. The warmth of a body moved closer to mine; it took every ounce of self-control I possessed to keep still. The instant the cuffs were off my wrists, I lurched forward. Scurried along the wall until I felt nothing but empty air around me.
“Settle down,” Kismet ordered.
I pressed against the wall, eyes still shut, just trying to calm my racing heart and stop the unwanted tears. Adrenaline shook my hands and pumped blood through my throbbing wrists and ankles. My head still felt swimmy, like I’d just downed four beers. No one came near me. No one spoke.
“She gonna be okay?”
“I think so, Milo,” Kismet said. “Stone?”
I looked up, letting my vision bring the room into focus. Empty office, glass-plate window that overlooked one of the production lines. Three people with me, familiar faces matched to familiar voices—Kismet, Tybalt, and Milo, the third and youngest member of her Triad. I glared at all of them.
“Don’t
Kismet crouched in front of me, still two lengths away. “I’m sorry.” Genuine concern sparkled in her green eyes, barely overtaking annoyance. At least, I thought so. My swimmy head could be misinterpreting.
“What did you dose me with?” I asked, surprised by the slight slur to my words.
“Sodium pentothal. Although if your concussion recovery is any indication, it’ll be out of your system pretty fast.”
Good. I despised the loose-lipped feeling of being drugged. “How’s Felix?”
“Angry.”
“And sporting a wicked black eye,” Milo added with a funny hitch in his voice. And cold fury boiling behind his eyes.
I looked past him at Tybalt, who gazed at me like a predator sizing up a meal. Waiting for me to attempt an escape. Well, he’d have to wait a bit for that. Brain fuzzies were bad for concentration. Not to mention balance.
“We need to have a chat, Stone,” Kismet said.
“No, we don’t.”
She blinked. Had I really said that out loud? People called sodium pentothal a truth serum, and that was sure as hell what she was getting from me. I needed to do a lot of things, but sitting down for a Hunter/Handler chat
